Spellbreaker

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  If things ever do get bad, we’ll steal away, you, Emmeline, and I. Ride up to the Thames, maybe even the St. Katharine Docks, and take a discreet boat out to the channel. How’s your French?

  She froze.

  “Elsie? What’s—”

  “He’s going to the docks. Of course.” She spun toward him. “Bacchus, I think I know where Ogden is going.” It was strange that he should have told her, and in such detail, yet there’d been a certain look on his face as he said it. He’d been in earnest. He’d considered an eventual escape and planned it in advance. “We have to stop him! With all these opuses . . . he’s powerful, and if he flees . . .”

  Bacchus’s face darkened. He considered only a moment. “We have to tell the police.”

  This time, Elsie agreed with him. She loved Ogden, but . . . “Yes, tell them. If they leave now . . .” But would a carriage be fast enough to catch up? How much of a head start did Ogden have?

  Bacchus rubbed his jaw. “How well can you ride?”

  Elsie paused. “I . . . I know how to stay on the saddle, at least.”

  “Good enough. The police will take the main roads; we’ll ride the back routes.” He offered her his hand.

  She took it.

  There were many docks that lined the River Thames, but if Elsie knew how Ogden thought—and despite the secrets he’d kept, she thought she did—he’d aim for a smaller, more discreet boat.

  She could be completely wrong. And if she was, the outcome would be the same as if she’d taken Bacchus up on his offer of food and rest. But if she was right, that would change things. Yet she couldn’t think of what she’d possibly say to him when, if, she saw him again. Her chest hurt at the mere thought.

  The ride was hard. Elsie had traveled on horseback before, but she’d never taken lessons. The Duke of Kent’s thoroughbreds were lean and amazingly fast, which Elsie might have marveled at were she riding for pleasure at a slow, serene pace.

  As it was, she clutched the reins with white knuckles, her skirt flapping immodestly behind her, because there was no way in hell she was riding this thing sidesaddle. Fortunately, holding on for dear life was the only thing really required of her; the animal was well trained and followed Bacchus’s mount unquestioningly, its nose nearly touching the first’s whipping tail.

  The beasts were tired by the time they neared the pier. Bacchus slowed, and Elsie quickly adjusted herself for as much modesty as she could manage, though it was hardly one’s first concern when chasing a traitorous murderer. Her heart panged again at the thought. Ogden . . . She never would have guessed it to be him.

  Even now, she struggled to believe it.

  A gaping loneliness yawned inside her, but she couldn’t dwell on that now.

  They trotted by a hospital, and the large warehouses of the pier came into sight, each six stories high and built of sturdy yellow brick. She noted two dockworkers by a gaslight up ahead.

  “I don’t see him.” She was breathless and sore, despite the horse being the one who’d done all the running.

  “It’s a big place,” Bacchus whispered, pulling back on his reins and turning his animal about, scanning the area.

  Though the ground seemed a little too far away, Elsie dismounted, floundering but managing to stay on her feet. Her thighs instantly burned in protest, but she ignored the discomfort, removing her shoes and starting for one of the docks. Bacchus called after her, but she ignored him. She may not have been an experienced horsewoman, but she did know how to slink about unnoticed.

  The docks were long and cool underfoot. She strode beneath the eaves of the warehouses, passing dark windows and locked doors. She dared to jog, her legs protesting. Holding her shoes in both hands to keep them from knocking together, she peered about the next corner. There was only one boat tied up here, a small one with its sails up. The area was fairly well lit, but shadows clustered around the blocky warehouses. She heard the subtle movement of water and her own pulse in her ears.

  Turning the corner, Elsie jogged again, trying to hear beyond herself, wishing she had sharper eyes to see through the shadows. There was another dockworker across the way; he didn’t seem to notice her. Footsteps followed, but she didn’t bother to check them—the stride, the heaviness, that was Bacchus, with a slight limp likely due to the lightning that had grazed his leg. The knowledge that he was close gave her courage.

  She reached a wooden bridge connecting two of the docks and started across it. Perhaps it was an angel tilting her head or merely a stroke of luck, for she spied movement in the shadows on the dock opposite her, across the water. She’d spent so many years with Cuthbert Ogden, days and nights, rain and sunshine, that despite the darkness and the distance, she recognized him.

  “There!” she hissed, and pointed. The shadow vanished into one of the warehouses. Panicked, she spied around for a boat or raft that could carry her over—by the time she paddled her way there, he’d be long gone!

  The bridge shifted as Bacchus stepped onto it. He dropped to his knees and reached down into the water. Elsie caught the edge of a shimmer.

  A bridge of ice crackled across the river to the very place she had pointed.

  “Oh, you wonderful, brilliant man,” she whispered, hurriedly replacing her shoes. Bacchus dropped onto the makeshift bridge first, found his footing, then helped her. The ice was rougher than it was slick, but Elsie dared not sprint. Still, she moved as fast as she could, keeping her arms out to maintain balance.

  They reached the other dock, Elsie managing to heft herself up before Bacchus could offer her a hand. Her pulse thundered through her limbs. She took off immediately in the direction Ogden’s shadow had gone, and Bacchus followed without complaint. Bless him. Sentimentality aside, after seeing what he did in the duke’s dining room, Elsie was grateful to have him with her.

  She wondered as she wrenched open an unlocked door—perhaps a lock-picked one—if she should call out to Ogden. She’d spent nine years in his household. She didn’t understand him, now that she knew the truth, but this was the same man who’d consoled her when she was sad, who’d put money away into her savings account, who’d teased her at dinnertime. Would the sound of her voice be enough to make him pause, or would he flee all the faster?

  The only lights in the warehouse came from the glow of gaslights through the windows. The air smelled slightly of mold, and as Elsie dashed down a long hallway, her footsteps almost in rhythm with Bacchus’s, she noted stacks of linen, or perhaps cotton, bundled and ready to ship.

  They paused at an intersection. The faintest sound of footsteps echoed in another hall.

  “This way,” Bacchus murmured, taking her hand and pulling her to the left. Despite the limp, he was fast and surprisingly nimble as he ran; Elsie sprinted on her toes to keep up. They were getting close now. They were the pursuers, while Ogden was trying to find a path to flee or somewhere to hide. That would slow him down. It would—

  She sensed it only a moment before they reached it. “Bacchus, stop!” She yanked back on his hand, but his momentum was too great. Their fingers pulled apart, sending Elsie sprawling onto her backside. Meanwhile, Bacchus nearly flew out of his boots when his shoes, of their own volition, slowed down significantly.

  “What on earth?” He waved his arms to keep balance.

  Elsie’s chest heaved with heavy breaths. That spell could have broken his leg.

  “Let me find it.” She hurried forward on her hands and knees, sniffing for the earthy spell. Not here, but . . . up and to the left?

  She found the temporal spell on a support beam against the wall. She’d never seen one set like a trap before—

  As she unraveled the spells, her stomach sank. “Opuses. Bacchus, he’s using opus spells.” Yet more damning evidence against him.

  Bacchus stumbled forward when the magic released him. “Perhaps you should go first.”

  She nodded, fearful to run, but too anxious for caution. They didn’t get far before she felt a crackle in the air, just l
ike with Nash’s lightning staff. Turning the corner, she saw a bead of lightning shoot out from the right edge of the ceiling.

  “Go under it.” She hugged the wall. Avoidance would be quicker than asking for a boost so she could reach the rune. The lightning zipped through the air again, causing her hair to stand on end, but it didn’t hit her.

  Bacchus followed without question.

  She heard a door slam ahead and took off running, only to smash into the wall to her left.

  “Damn it, Ogden!” she blurted as the wind sputtering up from the floor pinned her in place. Air swirled around her like she was in the eye of a cyclone. Bacchus used the exact same spell to push the wind in a different direction, allowing Elsie to push past the trap. He followed.

  “I don’t suppose,” she managed between breaths, “that you can do that in reverse? Suck him toward us?”

  “No.”

  Elsie made out the outline of a door up ahead. She searched for runes but saw none—

  “Stop!” she shouted, digging in her heels. Bacchus ran into her, nearly bumping her into a wooden crate against the wall. Elsie had just recognized the symbol glimmering atop it.

  “A mobile spell. This would have crushed us.” She crouched and pulled the rune apart, then pushed past the bin unscathed. She cursed. “We have to find another path. He’s getting away!”

  Her toe hit something metal on the ground—a crowbar. Elsie considered it for only a moment before snatching it up. She couldn’t cast spells, but she could certainly swing this.

  “It will be easier once we’re outside.” Bacchus moved past her and grabbed the door handle, opening it just as Elsie spied the slightest glimmer of a spell.

  The ground shifted upward like a giant mouth, knocking Elsie into the crate. Cement, stone, and wood contorted and surged up and around Bacchus—a giant version of the spell he’d once laid for her at the duke’s estate. The one that had seized her shoe.

  But this one swallowed him clear up to his neck.

  “Bacchus!” she cried, finding her feet and rushing toward him. He might as well have been trapped in a mountain! She ran her hands over its uneven bumps, searching for the rune.

  Bacchus grunted, trying to move, but he was pinned completely, his limbs immobile within his close-fitting prison. “Bloody . . . ,” he began, but didn’t finish whatever foul thing sat on his tongue. “He’s getting away!”

  Elsie spied the slimmest glimmer in a crack. Her skeleton seemed to puddle inside her. “I found it, but it’s on the other side of the rock. Your side.” She tried to push her fingers through, cutting them as she did, but she couldn’t chip the cement. Stepping back, she wedged the crowbar in. It chipped away at the cement a little more, but it wasn’t hard enough to break the stone. Elsie put her weight on it, but it seemed the crowbar would break before the concrete mound did. Panicked breaths tore up and down her throat. “Maybe I-I can find something else. A hammer—”

  “Elsie, leave me. Go.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll get you out—”

  “You’ll lose him!” he barked. “Go!”

  “Can’t you melt it?” Desperation squeezed her voice out an octave higher than usual.

  Bacchus shook his head, though he was barely able to do so. “This is stone. Do you know what the liquid version of stone is? And it’s too large to shift to gas. I’ll kill myself and you.”

  Her breaths became rapid. “Can you try to change just a little of it? If I can get through—”

  “Go, Elsie, before it’s too late!”

  “I don’t leave people!” she snapped, hands fisted against the bespelled mound. She panted, seeing red, feeling as cold as Bacchus’s aspected ice.

  Bacchus hesitated only a moment. “No, you don’t.”

  Swallowing, she glanced up at him.

  “Elsie.” His voice was firm yet somehow melodious, his Bajan accent slipping through. In the moonlight streaming from the open door, his eyes glowed. “You’re the one who can stop him. Who can get past his spells. He might listen to you. You need to go now, or you’ll lose his trail, and this will all be for nothing. I believe in you.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll know you’ll come back.” His eyes were intent, bright as emeralds. “Elsie, please. Go.”

  She held his gaze for a heartbeat, cradling her injured fingers against her breast. He was right. She needed to go. But she could only undo spells, not create them. She was armed, somewhat, and after what had happened with Nash . . . she might be able to get past Ogden’s spells if she focused. But what if she couldn’t? She’d die, and Bacchus would be trapped here until a worker found him . . .

  Her own possible demise flashed across her mind. Was she ready to die to stop Ogden?

  It was what Robin Hood would do.

  She started for the door. Paused. Glanced back to Bacchus.

  She rushed toward him and, stepping onto one of the crags of his cement cage, lifted her face to his and kissed him on the cheek. His half beard was rough and startling against her jaw. Her nerves sparked, but it was done.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and without a second glance, she bolted out the door and across the dock.

  Her employer might be able to slow her down, but in doing so, he left a clear path.

  Follow the runes, find Ogden.

  CHAPTER 24

  There was something oddly familiar about the spells she chased, but Elsie couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  She disarmed an enormous weed that shot up through cracks in the concrete, grown with a temporal spell. Removed, albeit with shaking hands, a rational spell on a warehouse wall that created the illusion of a giant spider. Leapt over a gap a physical spell had created in the boards of the bridge. Disenchanted another that had fused several boards together to create a wall.

  There were no dockworkers or security seeking out the cause of the noise, which worried her. Was St. Katharine’s so empty at night, or had Ogden already . . . eliminated them?

  Before she followed the trail into the next warehouse, an owl swooped down at her at a strange angle from the direction of the river, and Elsie shrieked despite her need to be undetected. She wouldn’t be able to remove the spiritual spell driving the animal to attack her, so she bolted for the door and slammed it shut behind her, crowbar squeezed in her clammy right hand. The bird’s talons scraped against the door half a second later.

  She raced through the warehouse, following runes scattered with a flare of insanity, some placed on the ceiling, others the floor or random places on the wall, even when the location was a poor choice for the spell. Through it all, that strange sense of familiarity nagged at her, but she didn’t have time to think about what it meant. Or the fact that she’d kissed Bacchus Kelsey while he was in a compromised position. Good heavens, what had she been thinking? At least it had only been on the cheek.

  At least she wouldn’t have to face him again if one of Ogden’s spells caught up with her. Or if she caught up with the man himself and their reunion went awry. You have to risk it, she reminded herself, searching, listening, feeling, and smelling for opus spells. If she caught up to him and came out the victor . . . it would be all right. It would allow her to right her wrongs, to an extent. God knew she had to try.

  She pulled apart a density alteration spell hovering midair, slightly to the left, which made the air too thick to walk through. It was the eighteenth spell she’d encountered.

  Her wrists and arms itched as though bitten by a hundred mosquitoes when she pushed open the door at the other end of the warehouse. The burn of gaslight stung her eyes. The moon reflected off the nearly still river water.

  And illuminated Ogden as he crouched at the edge of the dock, untying a small fisherman’s boat. A sheaf of mismatched papers—opus spells—stuck out from the collar of his paint-stained shirt.

  “Ogden, stop,” she pleaded, raising one hand as though in surrender while stashing the crowbar behind her back with the other. She strode toward him,
focused. Casting an opus spell required verbal activation, so at least she’d have warning. “Let’s talk about this.”

  Ogden pulled the sheaf from his shirt, and Elsie paused as though he’d brandished a gun. He’d need only to whisper, Excitant, and those spells would come flying for her. “No closer,” he warned. His voice came out hoarse, and his hands shook as they held the papers. Why? Was he afraid? Ill?

  “You’re sick.” Elsie dared to take another step forward. Ogden wasn’t young, but he was in good health. Yet maybe this run had overtaxed his heart. “Ogden. Cuthbert. Please. Let me take you to a hospital.”

  He stood suddenly, eyeing her. She thought she felt something in the air, something like snow—

  She didn’t want to stop him, now did she? Ogden was just going fishing. She had so much work to do at home. What was she doing here? Emmeline must be worried—

  “Stop!” she screamed, hands flying to her head. The crowbar fell to the dock behind her. She was the least experienced with rational spells, but she sensed the quiver of one in the air between them. It dug into her thoughts, planting new ones.

  I’m such a mess! I need a bath. Time to go home—

  She clawed at the space before her until she found it. She’d have no luck were the thing planted on her head, but Ogden had not yet touched her. She pulled off one thread, then another. It was complex. A master spell.

  Emmeline must be so worried! I must return at once!

  “Ogden!” she screamed, clawing off another knot.

  Go home. Go home.

  No, come with me.

  The sudden shift in the demands threw Elsie off balance. Now Ogden held out his hand to her, like he’d suddenly changed his mind. Like he wanted a companion. With his other hand he worked on untying the boat, opus spells shoved into his trouser pocket.