SPELL TO UNBIND, A

by Laurie, Victoria

  Grigori’s house was typical in style, with parking at the side of the house rather than the front, and an iron gate at the walkway leading to the front door. There was no car in the drive, and the gate was closed and probably locked.

  Parking across the street and down a few houses from his, I got out of the car and reached into my jacket for my gold coin, only to discover it missing. And then I remembered with horror that I’d forgotten all about it when I was arguing with Tic, and it was either still lying in the grass at the park or in someone else’s pocket.

  Growling low and muttering some choice expletives, I sent a text to Dex to ask him to invoke the comeback spell on the coin, then made sure no one was around and approached the gate leading to Grigori’s house.

  Once there, I pulled out a handy little gadget that resembled a corkscrew. Holding it in my hand, I pushed a little of my essence into it before inserting it into the lock. There was a rush of warmth along my fingertips, and the lock clicked open—and that gave me pause.

  The lock had required very little energy from my handy trinket to open. It should’ve left my entire arm burning. Maybe my entire right side, and it should’ve taken at least three tries … which could only mean that the lock hadn’t been secured by magical means.

  Feeling the first tinges of frustration, because no way would Grigori Rasputin have forgotten to secure his own gate against intruders like me, I slipped through the entry anyway and headed up the walk, almost certain I was being set up after all.

  Still, I’d need to see it through before I could hunt down Tic and beat the crap out of him. It was just like him to play me like this, only I was in a game for my life and no way could I afford to waste time on a hassle like this.

  Tamping down my anger, I eased my way carefully along the edge of the home, avoiding the windows. I didn’t know if anyone was inside, and it was best not to take any chances. Moving beyond the front door and over to the back of the property, I quickly discovered the portal window that Tic had described. What was odd was that there was indeed a foul odor coming from inside. “Huh,” I whispered. Tic had lied about who the house belonged too, obviously, but he’d given me a truthful detail that would’ve required him scoping out the residence. I wondered why?

  Reaching again into my jacket pocket, I took out a trinket crafted by Henrik Wigström, the merlin. It was an absolutely beautiful thing, made of a thin round piece of nearly perfectly clear crystal, encased in a ring of gold studded with topaz.

  It resembled a monocle, and it essentially was, but with a twist. By looking through it I was able to literally see any enchantments that might be present. Holding it up to my right eye, I looked through it to the window and saw nothing obstructing the view.

  “Yep,” I growled. “Wild goose chase.” There were no spells or curses across the open window. It was unarmed, so to speak. It was also open a crack, meaning, it was likely unarmed from a mortal perspective too. No interior alarm was going to sound if a window wasn’t securely shut.

  I very nearly gave up and left the property. I was so mad at being played that I wanted to find Tic as soon as possible and exact my revenge. The only reason I was still alive after my interview with Elric was because I’d had inside info on the whereabouts of Grigori’s egg, and I’d come across that information from Tic himself when he’d bragged to me that he knew where Grigori Rasputin was currently hiding.

  Still, I’d come this far, and this house was large enough, and in a neighborhood exclusive enough to be worth a considerable fortune. Maybe there was some peace offering inside that Elric might desire. It wasn’t likely to spare my life, but maybe it’d make Elric a bit more merciful when he brought down the deathblow.

  Creeping close to the window, I peered inside. The smell hit me like a hammer. It was as foul a smell as anything I’d ever whiffed, and it set off my gag reflex. With effort, I managed to keep it together without losing my breakfast and held my breath while opening the window to crawl inside.

  Once in the lavatory, I waited and listened for any signs or sounds of someone moving about inside. But there was only silence.

  Covering my nose and mouth with my left hand, I crept forward a few steps, pausing in the doorway to peer out into the main hall.

  The house was a tasteful mix of colors and textures. Lots of greens and yellows, with antique rugs, vintage furniture, and portraits of Southern ladies from a bygone era adorning the walls.

  It looked nothing like an old Russian mystic’s place … more like something that belonged to a Southern grandmother of means.

  After listening and watching from the lavatory doorway for a few moments, I moved into the hallway, placing my feet very carefully so as not to have them make a sound. And that’s when I realized that the God-awful stench wafting in the air inside the lavatory wasn’t actually coming from the lavatory, but from somewhere else in the house.

  Immediately every single hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up on end. A force permeated the home that had nothing to do with the noxious smell. A bad energy slithered in and around the environment, staining the very air of the place and letting me know that something seriously wicked this way had come.

  For several seconds I stood there, frozen and unsure what to do. I sensed that no one was in the home, but I was also fairly positive that whoever had been here was an evildoer of unspeakable things. His or her essence clung to the very air like a dank cologne and it made me shiver.

  Alarmed and unnerved, I turned my head to look back toward the window I’d come through; should I stay and investigate or get my ass out of this place before whatever had been here came back?

  The decision came down to one thing: Whatever had been here had enough power to leave an imprint on the atmosphere, and that told me that someone from my world had in fact been here. Whether that someone was Grigori Rasputin or someone else was what I didn’t yet know.

  If it did belong to the mystic, then I needed to do a thorough search, and I needed to do it quickly.

  Keeping my nose and mouth covered, I stepped away from the wall and proceeded slowly and cautiously toward the source of the smell. I had to find out what was causing it before I searched the rest of the house.

  Passing the staircase, I turned my head with each step, ready to bolt or produce an enchanted weapon in an instant. I had a few tricks up my magical sleeve, but nothing that would necessarily stop a mystic significantly more powerful than me. All my defenses would buy me only a little time.

  Still, it was better than nothing, and I moved steadily toward the overpowering odor, at last identifying that it was coming from the dining room, which was off the central hallway just past the main stairway.

  When I arrived at the door to the dining area, I came up short and had to clamp both hands over my mouth to keep that gag reflex from kicking in again.

  Apparently I’d interrupted a dinner party. Seated at the table was a fat man with bushy brown hair, full beard, and eyebrows so big and thick that they all but obscured his eyes. None of that detracted from the fact that his head was lolled back at an odd angle and his mouth hung open as if frozen in midscream.

  He wore a blood-spattered dinner jacket made of the finest silk, completely ruined now. His hands were frozen in a fierce grip, clinging to the armrests of the dining chair, and there was an indentation around the cuff of his blazer—as if his wrists had been secured there by invisible rope. The bottom of his trousers wore a similar indentation, and I couldn’t help but notice as I took in the scene that his calves were pressed tightly to the legs of the chair.

  Something had bound him there as sure as iron chains, and it was easy to see that he would’ve needed to be restrained while he was being eviscerated and his entrails placed on the fine china plate in front of him.

  “Holy mother of God,” I whispered, fighting hard to choke back the bile at the back of my throat. I’d seen some truly nightmarish things in my life, but this … this was an unimaginable horror made all the worse by the
fact that the fat man had not been alone.

  Also at the ghoulish dinner party was a woman with long, wavy blond hair, spattered with her own blood and a similar entrée in front of her. She too appeared bound by invisible rope, and her mouth was also as wide as her eyes, forever frozen in abject agony. To her right was another man, and to his right another woman, each one with the same expression and gruesome serving in front of them.

  A terrible shudder racked my whole body and I shut my eyes against the scene, but what wouldn’t leave me was the thought that they likely hadn’t been murdered all at once; any killer capable of such a macabre scene would’ve intended to maximize the fear and agony, and he would’ve worked his way around the table, slicing open one after the other.

  I morbidly wondered if Grigori had been the first or last in the queue, and decided he’d likely been the last. The killer would’ve wanted him to see what was happening to his friends before delivering the fatal wound.

  Tears sprang to my eyes in the face of such suffering. How long had it taken these four to die? It hadn’t been quick, that’s for sure, but it had been unbearable given the frozen scream on each of their faces.

  Turning my back to them, I fled to the bathroom, barely making it in time to give up my breakfast. Cold sweat snaked its way down my spine and droplets formed at my temple, and yet, I felt colder than I could ever remember. I shuddered, shivered, and trembled, unable to get any part of myself to cooperate and hold still because the scene from the dining room kept flashing over and over in my mind’s eye like a loop from a horror movie.

  Soon I was breathing erratically. I couldn’t seem to get enough air into my lungs. Moving over to the window, I shoved it up as high as it would go and hung my head out, gulping for air. I desperately wanted to run away from this house as fast as I could and never look back, but if I did—if I left this place without discovering the Fabergé egg—then I was as dead as anyone in that dining room. And my death wasn’t likely to be nearly so pleasant.

  “Shit!” I hissed. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  Reluctantly I pulled my head back inside and sat on the floor for a moment, trying to work up the courage to get up and go back into that hallway to begin the search. It took a bit of time, but at last I felt I could stand and not have my legs give out from underneath me.

  I no longer doubted that this was the home of a mystic. It might not be Grigori Rasputin at the head of that table, but I had no doubt that whoever he was, he’d been murdered by magical means. A spell had bound his hands and feet; I could feel the trace of it still lingering even all these hours later. Plus, there was no fiber evidence of tape or rope on the cuffs of his jacket or trousers, and the fine silk he wore was unmarred where he’d been bound. Rope would’ve cut or frayed the fabric as he’d struggled.

  No, a mystic had done that to him, and if that actually was Rasputin in there, then he’d been overpowered by someone significantly more talented than he. Which was an unsettling thought.

  Now I also knew why his house was essentially wide open to thieves. Grigori wouldn’t have locked it up tight if he’d been at home entertaining.

  I had no idea how long the four had been dead, but I suspected from the god-awful stench that they’d been murdered sometime in the past two to three days.

  I wondered if the murderer had already taken the egg, and I could only hope that it might still be here somewhere in the house. Regardless, I couldn’t leave without checking.

  On shaky legs, I hedged back into the hallway and avoided looking directly down the length of it toward the dining room. Taking a deep breath I pulled out the monocle from my pocket, beginning my scan of the area.

  The monocle is a little something I lifted off a fairly powerful mystic about a quarter-century ago in Bangladesh. I’d trailed him relentlessly for almost two years, waiting and watching from the shadows until I finally got the chance to take it from him, and for the next year I’d had to remain on the run, fearing for my life, until I’d heard he’d been assassinated by one of Elric’s henchmen.

  That’d been one lucky day for me. It was the moment I knew I could finally stop living in fear and settle down to focus on a plan to get hired by SPL Inc.

  The monocle had quickly become one of my most prized possessions, and if Elric knew I had it, he’d take it from me without a moment’s hesitation. If I even thought to resist his effort to take it, he’d no doubt kill me on the spot. The monocle was that valuable.

  While there were other trinkets out there that might have similar magical properties, nothing could compare to how perfectly adapted the monocle was for the purpose of seeing what couldn’t otherwise be seen or even often felt. It gave me an unequaled advantage that couldn’t be thwarted by any magical means meant to obscure it.

  In short, looking through the monocle allowed the possessor to clearly distinguish magical energy. Through it, I could gaze at any object and see the faint green glow pulsing around it, which clearly indicated that it housed an enchantment. The more powerful the enchantment, the brighter the green of the light surrounding it.

  The aura emanating from Ember was so green that it was turquoise. No other object I’d ever seen using the monocle—including a certain ring on Elric’s left hand—had even come close to the intensity of her brilliant, beautiful light.

  Without a doubt, she’s the most enchanted thing in the world.

  It’s why I guard the monocle so diligently. I can’t risk having anyone look through it and see Ember in her true magical form. And I would throw the monocle down a deep, deep hole and cover it with cement so that no one could ever discover its powers, but I couldn’t have made a play for Elric’s team without it, and it’d proved itself an absolutely invaluable tool for me over the years. I’d gained both a reputation as an excellent thief and some very, very powerful trinkets to sell on the mystic black market.

  So I kept the monocle under wraps at all times except during expeditions like this, where I was pressed for time, and, more important, when I needed to avoid any magical traps.

  Looking through it, I was now convinced that I was in the home of a great mystic because such a collection would never belong to anyone of average rank.

  Flashes of green abounded in the spacious home. Most of them were of a soft pulsing light, meaning that the various trinkets he’d had on hand weren’t especially powerful, and were likely only there as decoys but there was an interesting piece on the mantle in the shape of a small green glass cruet with a swirl of white on the base and a golden stopper. To the naked eye the cruet looked a bit blurry, meaning that it had once been hidden from view by a concealing spell. That was super common in homes where mystics had things to hide.

  I looked at the cruet through the monocle again and saw only a hint of green smoke coming from around the stopper. “Hmmm,” I whispered. The hint of green smoke wasn’t any stronger than any of the other objects I could detect in the room, but the fact that Grigori had tried to conceal it either made it a good decoy or something that he’d actually wanted to keep hidden.

  The concealing spell had all but worn off so there was no way to know how powerful it’d been when he’d been alive.

  I walked over to the mantle to have a closer look, picking it up to inspect it. The cruet itself could’ve been vintage, but it wasn’t anything you wouldn’t spot at any neighborhood flea market.

  I was tempted to pull the stopper but decided to have a look around first, lest there be a powerful punch loaded in the trinket ready to knock me on my ass.

  As I set it down, however, I wondered at the likelihood that the egg was held inside. Some magical trinkets can give off a distortion of appearance—I have a pocket in my leather jacket that can mask any object I manage to tuck into it, no matter how bulky, but I still doubted the cruet’s ability to hide a Fabergé egg. I decided to ignore it for the time being and began an earnest search, using the monocle to guide me to all the spots in the house, which, by their green light, called my attention.

 
The one place I knew I didn’t need to search was the dining room. If the egg had been within ten feet of anyone in that room, they’d still be alive. That was the magic of the egg. It was that powerful.

  I figured if it was somewhere in the house, I’d find it. Heading up the stairs to the third floor, I started in the small guest bedroom and searched every corner and crevice, looking through the monocle as I went.

  There was no sign of the egg on the third floor, and not much in the way of magical trinkets either. The second floor held a bit more promise, and I discovered a key on Grigori’s dresser that hummed with green energy. Not having a clue what it was for, I pocketed it—I am a thief after all—and silently vowed to hand it over to Dex to see what he could tease out of it.

  As I was pocketing the key, the doorbell rang. The sound—a hard bong that reverberated off the walls—was enough to freeze me in place.

  Holding my breath, I waited, ears straining to hear anything that might indicate entrance into the house. But nothing else came to either my ears or eyes. Relaxing a fraction, I took note of the angle of the sunlight peeking through the windows. I’d been in the house about an hour and a half. It was time to wrap it up and go.

  Making my way back down to the main floor, I scanned each room quickly but methodically, until only the parlor and the kitchen were left. Drawn to the mantle and that glowing smoke wafting around the cruet, I did something seriously stupid. I lifted the stopper and peered inside.

  For a moment the world spun, and I heard someone, with a melodic voice, call out something. It sounded like a name, but it was so faint and so foreign that I couldn’t quite catch it. “What?” I whispered, only now aware that I was so dizzy that I had to sit down. Rather than being alarmed, my focus was on the voice once again calling out a name. “Invi—” And then I saw her. The face of the hateful mystic who’d bound me. It was a face I’d never forget, seared into my memory.

  “You!” I shouted, but it came like a hoarse whisper. She smiled wickedly before turning to walk away.