Gambit: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  Chapter 7

  “Where did you get the money for these?” Ersatz asks, studying the two vials of blood, one thick and blackish, the other a thin brown, on my worktable.

  “I manage the finances around here. What do you care, as long as you’ve got mice to eat and furniture to sleep on?”

  “I care because it’s blood. Very powerful blood. I’ve asked you to stay away from blood magic.”

  “Why?”

  He gives himself a shake, stretches his wings. “Because it’s dangerous. And highly addictive. And because right now, you’re in no shape to be casting spells of this nature.”

  “I feel fine,” I lie. “I’m almost there on the scrying spell. I just needed a little boost.”

  “Playing darts with nuclear warheads isn’t a little boost. It’s a cataclysm waiting to happen. One who trifles with the blood of demons ought not expect rainbows and butterflies and family reunions.”

  “I knew you were going to react like this. All you ever do is tell me I can’t. I can’t do this, I can’t do that. I can’t be friends with this person. I can’t cast that spell. Well I’m sick of it. I’m sick of you not trusting me to make my own decisions. I’m doing this. Tonight. So if you’re not going to help me, get out of my face.”

  Ersatz stares at me. His eye twitches. “Very well. Then I’ll take my leave. Goodnight.” He trots out of the bedroom, climbs the living room wall, and nudges the window open a crack. He looks back and shakes his head at me, then takes flight from the sill, vanishing into the night on leathery wings.

  Bunch of killjoys, my friends. They think I’m weak. They doubt my ability. I’ve been casting spells since I was eight years old, using every scrap of fuel I could find, from the skeleton of an othersider deer to the roadkill corpse of a crow from a kingdom far, far away. Ersatz has often remarked, in his own way, that I’ve got a knack for accomplishing a lot with a little. With these two vials of blood at my disposal, everything I’ve done until now feels like child’s play. The big leagues are calling me up to bat.

  I reach for the vial of imp’s blood, then reconsider. Durlan said it was capricious. The demon’s blood must be more consistent. I’ll only need a little to get a feel for whether that’s true.

  The demon’s blood vial is on the smaller side, made of clear plastic with a snap-on cap. When I stand it up vertically, the blood oozes with the stubborn thickness of blackstrap molasses. I wonder if the blood has begun to dry out because of an air leak somewhere.

  As soon as I pop off the cap, the room fills with a stench like raw sewage beneath a hint of lavender. I set the cap aside and try to catch my breath, but the smell hangs in the air and cloys at my chest. I hold my palm flat and tilt the vial until a fat bead drips out. The cap snaps back on, and I set the vial aside. My hands press together, and the blood forms a smear across my palms.

  Both spellbooks are open to their respective pages. I utter the incantation and close my eyes with my hands outstretched. When the blood begins to burn off, it doesn’t dissipate the way dust usually does. First it begins to bubble and blister. Then the blisters erupt in miniature volcanic explosions. The fragments of those explosions flare and fade to ash.

  That’s when I realize I’ve forgotten to rip a scrap of paper from the back page of the Book of Mysteries to use as a focus. I fumble the book over, smearing blood across the back cover. The spell is already on its way, and in my haste I tear out an entire page, thinking it’s the last one. It isn’t, though. It’s a spell page, complete with arcane symbols hand-inked in thick, neat lines.

  Funneling arcane energy through the page in front of me, I think of my father and try to awaken the magical security camera over his head. The blood blisters on my hands begin to boil. My palms are hot and uncomfortable. I hear a series of tiny popping sounds, though I can’t exactly feel them.

  The page takes flame. My bedroom spins. Spots expand and burst across my field of vision. I dig deep, scraping the dregs of my emotional reservoir, the emptiness of which I can now feel with disheartening clarity.

  Quim and Ersatz were right. I should never have tried this again so soon. There’s no turning back now, though, so I dig deeper.

  Pain shoots through my body. Not physical pain, but the pain of loss and loneliness and despair. Those same shapes I saw last night begin to reappear; blurs of objects, images of rooms, sights and sounds indistinguishable amidst the maelstrom in my head. I can’t discern whether it’s my own pain I’m feeling, or someone else’s. Bones crack, muscles strain, and every part of me tenses up. My spine stands rigid despite my efforts to relax my posture.

  A hole opens in the darkness, rays of blinding light ripping through. I’ve found the camera. I’m looking into forever; a gateway to somewhere, only I’m not overcome with the serenity I’d expected. The view vibrates with an intensity like the back of my head pressed against a massage chair. Unease fills me. I shouldn’t be here. I’m in the wrong place.

  The hole in the darkness stretches to its limits. Sounds of suffering echo from beyond, hollow and woeful. Rays of light snap like whipping tentacles and blacken into trails of rotting gloom. Legs skitter; metal scrapes; reason comes unhinged.

  The spell ends in another shockwave, throwing me back against my chair.

  I’m back in my apartment, a pile of ash and scraps of unburned parchment in my lap. My hands are not smooth and clean, but sticky and rough and lined with a sanguine crust. When I limp into the bathroom to wash my hands, my whole body feels arthritic, as if a giant has been using me for a salt shaker. I sway on my feet as pink water splashes the white porcelain.

  A loud wooden smacking sound comes from the kitchen. One of the cabinet doors bouncing to rest. Is Ersatz back already? I wonder. I feel terrible, both physically and about the way I treated him. No more scrying spells for a while. I’ve learned my lesson. He’s probably hungry. I should prepare his dinner.

  Head ringing, hands numb, legs trembling, I shuffle into the kitchen/dining/living room, my ‘open concept’ triumvirate. The refrigerator door swings open so hard it crushes a handle-shaped dent in the plaster. A jar of grape jelly hops the rail and shatters on the linoleum. Then the entire plastic railing snaps off the fridge door, spilling a full shelf of glass jars and bottles. I squint, trying to locate Ersatz amid the rainbow bomb blasts of condiments coloring the floor.

  The back window is still cracked open. Ersatz hasn’t come home yet.

  That’s when things get really freaky. Three upper cabinets in a row fling open and bang the ones next to them. The ceiling lights flicker. My toaster slides across the counter and topples into the sink, hanging from the electrical outlet by its power cord. The toast button slides to the ON position and clicks into place. The faucet turns on.

  This all happens within the span of a few seconds. I can only stand there dumbfounded, blinking in disbelief. The haze in my mind refuses to clear. Even if I could think straight, I don’t have the slightest clue what I should do. Blue lightning arcs across the stainless-steel toaster as the faucet bathes it; golden sparks shower from the outlet. With a voltaic blitzing sound, the apartment goes dark.

  Running water is the only sound. Streetlamps throw slits of yellow light through the window blinds. It occurs to me that I should either find a flashlight or cast a light spell, but the closest source of magical fuel is in my bedroom, and I couldn’t tell you where to find the closest double-A battery, let alone a flashlight to put it in. My cell phone screen could work, except I left that on my worktable.

  Feeling my way through the dark, I fall back to my bedroom in a state of bewilderment. A chorus of clattering wood and breaking glass follows me to my worktable, where I bump my knee on the chair and curse under my breath. I grab my phone and turn on the screen. It’s barely bright enough to guide me to the shelf of labeled residue vials above the worktable.

  I select a vial of nymph dust and dump a small pile onto my palm. I follow this with a pinch of pixie. Fae residue is excellent for illumination spe
lls.

  After setting my phone aside, I rub this basic mixture into my palms and cast a simple illumination spell. The lamp on my nightstand will make as good a torch as any, so I touch the light bulb and turn away as brilliant light bursts forth from it. I unplug the lamp and wrap the cord around the base, then hoist my makeshift torch and go to the doorway.

  Shadows creep, converting every corner to a monster’s hiding place. There’s leftover residue on my hands, so I use it to cast a detection spell as I enter the big room. Faint blue paths crisscross the walls where Ersatz has walked, dragging his scaled belly and gription fingers across the plaster.

  A ghostly form burns with blue energy as it drifts across the kitchen from sink to counter to oven, lighting burners and slamming doors, battering small appliances and upending chairs. Its body is hunched and twisted, and I can just make out the field of spines jutting from its shoulders. Angry eyes peer out from a gruesome horned face, ablaze with dark intent.

  Two of the burners on the range are lit, orange flames with blue roots. One of the cabinet doors is hanging off its hinges, another cracked and splintered down the center. Entire stacks of plates and dozens of glasses lay shattered across the floor and countertop.

  Not sure what else to do, I hold my lamp-torch high and speak into the darkness. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

  The thing recoils from the light but appears otherwise unaffected. It slams a fist into the plaster, leaving a dent beside the fridge handle. Then it careens across the apartment, knocking things off tables and shelves along the way. It stops at the rear wall and paces, shedding magical energy as it moves.

  I’d better tidy up the kitchen while the creature is away. There’s a minefield of broken stoneware between me and the faucet, so I slip on the pair of shoes I keep in the entry closet. I grab a broom from the same closet and smack the faucet handle to shut off the water. After tiptoeing through the debris, I lift the toaster out of the sink and unplug it from the wall. While I’m at it, I unplug the coffee maker, microwave, and blender before turning off the two lit burners.

  The lights don’t come back on. Not that I thought they would, but being alone in a dark apartment with an angry spirit awakens the vainest of hopes. There’s no breaker panel in here that I know of, so the outage is probably affecting other units in the building.

  Without Ersatz around to offer his customary sage advice, I’ll have to fix this problem myself. I’m somewhat of a stranger to ghosts and restless spirits, yet I’m well aware that the best way to deal with one is a spell of banishment. I need to send this thing back to wherever I accidentally summoned it from, and preferably before the neighbors come knocking.

  Chapter 8

  Back in my bedroom, I shut the door and set the lamp on my worktable. The illumination spell is fading, so I replenish it and begin flipping through my spellbook in search of a good banishing ritual. Breaking the laws of nature becomes an exercise in complexity when you’re sending a spirit from one realm with its own set of laws to another realm with a completely different set. That’s the extent of the explanation I can offer on the subject. Alas, I am but a simple wizard. I don’t write the spells. I just cast them.

  When I’ve found my notes on the subject of banishment, I powder my hands with nephilim-feather residue and giant’s bone dust. This spell will exile any spirit it comes in contact with, though it’s limited to one spirit per physical host body. If I were exorcising demons, for example, it would chase out the demons without banishing the person’s soul. If the living soul was the only thing the spell found, though, it would be a different story.

  I recite the lengthy incantation I’ve written down, complete with mystical hand movements. The process takes almost ten minutes. Power builds in my arms, a piston-like pressure coiling between my elbows and the heels of my palms. If I can’t get my hands on the spirit, there’s always the option of discharging the spell in a concentrated blast to hit him from range.

  Just as I intone the spell’s final words, someone knocks on my front door. Damn neighbors couldn’t have waited two more minutes? I stand up, debating whether I should answer the door or ignore it. The next knock is less polite, a low-pitched thudding that sounds like a fist.

  I guess I’m answering the door. As long as I don’t lose control and release the spell like a five-year-old kid wetting the bed, I’ll be fine. The spirit is now dashing back and forth across the apartment’s rear wall, ramming itself into the plaster. Thankfully the brick behind the plaster is holding up better than any surface in the kitchen did.

  I approach the front door with caution. The banishment spell is still inside me, a pair of swollen water balloons in my forearms. I lean into the door and ask aloud, “Who is it?”

  An adult male voice says, “I’d like to speak with Mr. Cadigan, please.”

  There’s no peephole in the door, so I step into the kitchen and lift the window blinds to peer at my visitor from the side. I’m not on a first-name basis with any of my neighbors, but I know—or I thought I knew—what most of them looked like. This guy does not look like my neighbors.

  He’s youngish, about my age, though shorter and stockier. He is clean-cut and closely shaven, with short dark hair and a sharp jawline, dressed in black cargo pants and a bulky brown leather jacket. He waits with his hands clasped behind his back, as if prepared to deliver a sales pitch.

  I hate door-to-door salesmen. They’re the junk mail of human beings. It’s closing in on ten o’clock at night and I’ve never heard of a salesman doing his rounds this late. Maybe he’s a neighbor after all. Whoever he is, he’s not an othersider; no part of him glows blue under my still-active detection spell.

  After making sure the security chain is in place, I crack open the door and peer out at him. “How can I help you?”

  “Are you Cade Cadigan?” asks the young man.

  “If I’m being honest, I’d rather not be.”

  His expression softens into a smile. He plunges a foot into the door, snapping the chain and striking me in the forehead. I stagger into the entry wall, caving it in with my elbows and shoulder blades. My assailant steps over the threshold and withdraws a pair of handcuffs from his coat as he reaches out for me.

  “No no no. Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.”

  He grunts. “Yeah. I’ve heard that one before.”

  “No. You don’t underst—”

  He grabs my wrist.

  I try to hold the banishment spell inside. Honestly, I do.

  When it explodes from my palm and surges through him in a blast of sacred light, he cries out, one final burst of breath cut short by the departure of his soul from his body. Through the filtered awareness of my detection spell, the young man’s essence tears away from him, a shadow withering from its anchor. The helpless soul swirls away, swallowed into the nothing.

  The young man’s body collapses into me and slumps over, handcuffs clattering to the floor. I catch him under the arms and lower him to the hardwood, then drag him aside so I can close the front door. His jacket falls open, revealing a Glock 19 in the shoulder holster nestled beneath his left arm. If nothing else, the guy’s got good taste in personal firearms.

  I can only stand over him, looking down in stunned silence. I killed him. I killed him. My panic abates long enough to afford me a moment of clarity. The handcuffs. The gun. The face, wholly unfamiliar. He was trying to arrest me. Was he a cop? What kind of cop shows up alone at someone’s house and kicks in the door?

  I split the blinds and peer out the window again. Maybe he wasn’t alone. If he’s got a team waiting outside, they’re slow on the draw. No flurry of movement, no incoming SWAT team. The only thing out of the ordinary is the big white hearse parked across the street.

  How am I going to explain this? I wonder, turning back to the body. I’ve cast this spell to favorable effect twice before. On both occasions, it was for the purpose of banishing demons who’d been plaguing the mortal realm. I’ve never used it to banish a human soul
. I’m not even sure I knew it could do that.

  At the back of the apartment, the angry spirit—the one my banishment spell was intended for—is growing more agitated. It drifts over the couch toward my bedroom, tearing a slash through the upholstery. My detection spell dies just as the spirit passes through the doorway, making it vanish from my sight.

  I need my spellbook and another dose of residue if I’m going to cast the banishment ritual again, but the idea of entering the bedroom just lost its last ounce of appeal. Approaching the angry spirit hasn’t worked out for me so far, and I don’t see my odds improving now that it’s invisible. What I really need is Ersatz. He, of course, is nowhere to be seen.

  Things in my room begin to crash and spill and break. My alarm clock flies through the doorway and shatters against the brick wall. The lighting shifts as the lamp topples off my worktable and crashes to the floor.

  When I hear those vials breaking—vials of my hard-earned residue, painstakingly harvested, smuggled, dried, and processed—I lose all fear of confronting this menace who has single-handedly ruined my life in a matter of minutes. I’m marching toward the bedroom door, praying a few smudges of giant’s powder are left somewhere on my hands, when a voice stops me in my tracks.

  “Hold it. Don’t take another step.” Ersatz is perched on the open rear window sill, speaking in his most fatherly warning tone. He appraises the room. “What’ve you done? I leave for five minutes and the whole place is in shambles.”

  “It isn’t my fault.”

  He shoots me a level look. “Whose fault is it, then?”

  “Let me get back to you on that.”

  “I seem to remember a young man eager to escape the perceived shackles of my guidance and wisdom. A man all too willing to accept responsibility for his mistakes.”