SPELL TO UNBIND, A

by Laurie, Victoria

  Elric considered me for a long, long time, and all the while the clicks echoing from his finger pummeled Gideon unmercifully.

  But then the mystic’s finger dropped, and the clicking abruptly stopped. Kincaid slithered down the wall to the floor and was so still that I feared he might already be dead.

  “You have thirty-nine hours, Esmé. I want that egg.”

  With that, Elric disappeared from sight. Blinking, I looked about the small yard, but there was absolutely no sign of him, which made me shudder. For all I knew he could be anywhere, waiting and watching, and he’d probably used my pen to abracadabra himself from view. The bastard.

  Moving over to Kincaid, I rolled him onto his back and checked his pulse. It was faint but present. Still, he did not look good, and as if to emphasize that point, his nose began to bleed.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” I swore. I didn’t know what to do. Kincaid was in bad, bad shape. He was covered in sweat head to toe, both his ears were bleeding, along with his nose, and his breathing was ragged and shallow. I felt his forehead and he was blazing hot, as if he had a very high fever. What’s more, the skin under his fingernails was beginning to turn blue.

  If I didn’t find a way to help him, he’d die right here on this porch. Grabbing my cell, I called Dex.

  “Ezzy,” he said.

  “Dex!” I was so relieved he’d picked up the call. “I need you. Now. And I need any emergency healing trinkets you have on you.”

  There was a pause, then, “Where?”

  I gave him Grigori’s address.

  “I’m on my way.”

  “How long?”

  “Half-hour. Maybe less.”

  I looked at Kincaid, unsure if he even had that much time to spare. “Make it less.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Day 3

  Dex arrived with a screech of tires. He took one look at Kincaid and whistled. “What’d you do to him?”

  “It wasn’t me,” I said, motioning for Dex to help me get Kincaid to the car.

  “Who?” he asked, moving quickly to Kincaid’s side.

  “Elric.”

  Dex sucked in air through his teeth before he bent down, took out a bronze charm in the shape of a serpent winding its way up a staff, and placed it inside Kincaid’s shirt. “He’s lucky to be alive then.”

  “If we don’t get him home and convince Ember to help him, he won’t be so lucky,” I said, moving around to Kincaid’s feet while Dex hoisted the detective’s torso up off the wood floor of the porch.

  Dex eyed me skeptically as we made our way down the steps, but he didn’t say what I knew he was thinking, and that was that Ember had only ever healed me and Dex. Well, she’d also healed the Flayer, but Dex didn’t know that. That’s what’d given me the idea, in fact.

  Still, even if I begged her, she might not feel inclined to heal Kincaid, and given her reaction to him earlier, I had a bad feeling about how it might go, but I had to try.

  Together we moved down the path and through the gate, toward Dex’s car. Along the way I glanced up and down the street nervously, unsure if Elric was still nearby.

  After opening the door to the backseat, I got in first, pulling Kincaid’s feet lengthwise as Dex pushed his torso into the car. Once he was fully sprawled out on the backseat, I used the two seatbelts to strap him in, then checked the charm Dex had laid against Kincaid’s heart. It was warm to the touch. I also checked Kincaid’s pulse, and it had definitely improved.

  “Thank the gods you had this thing on you,” I said.

  Dex nodded. “I keep it with me anytime I’m far away from Ember.”

  The charm was a moderately good healing trinket, a strong level-four-and-a-half. What it lacked in power it more than made up for in longevity. We’d had the thing for over two decades, and we’d used it on occasion when we needed help staying alive long enough to get back to Ember.

  The charm had been a level-six when I’d first lifted it off the mystic who’d owned it previously, and its power had diminished only a degree and a half, which said a lot about how powerful it might’ve been when it was first conjured.

  Once I was sure Kincaid wasn’t going to die on the way back to the warehouse, I joined Dex up front. It was while I was buckling myself in that I felt the bulge of the book I’d pinched from Grigori’s bedroom.

  Taking out the book, I held it in my hands for a moment simply staring at it.

  “New trinket?” Dex asked, pulling away from the curb.

  “I found this hidden in Grigori’s bedroom.”

  Dex took one hand off the steering wheel to lay it on the book, his gaze far off. “Not getting much in the way of trinket vibes from it, Ezzy. Sorry.”

  I nodded. I already knew it didn’t possess any strong magical qualities, but Grigori had definitely prized it. “He paid four grand for it,” I told Dex. When he eyed me in surprise, I held up the receipt. “He got it from a rare book dealer here in town.”

  “Wait, he paid for it? Why’d he do that when he could’ve pinched it on his own?”

  “I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is that he didn’t want to risk calling attention to himself.”

  Dex nodded. “Which means there’s something in there not worth taking the risk for.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” I said, thumbing through the pages. “It’s written in Old Gaelic, so I can’t make any sense of it, which is why—” I stopped speaking abruptly.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dex glance at me again. “Which is why, what?”

  My hands began to shake while I held the book, staring at a page dead center in the text with a colorful drawing. I felt sick to my stomach and panicked all at the same time.

  “Ezzy?” Dex asked when I didn’t answer him and simply kept staring at the page. “Ezzy, what is it?”

  I turned the book so that he could see the drawing. He glanced at the road ahead, then back to the book, and then he braked so hard that I shot forward and nearly banged my head on the dash.

  Dex seemed startled by his reaction and turned to look back at Kincaid. I did too, and we were both relieved to find him still strapped in tightly against the back seat with a bit more color in his cheeks.

  Dex let his foot off the brake, but he moved us to the curb and parked, then he motioned with his fingers for me to give him the book. I did, and he gazed at the drawing for a long, long moment before he looked up at me. “Shit,” he whispered.

  “It’s what I think it is, isn’t it?” I asked him, my voice quavering. “Even though we can’t read the words, that’s Ember, right?”

  The drawing was elaborate and detailed. It depicted a red dog with a lean body and long legs, proudly sitting in the middle of a ball of flame as the spectral image of a phoenix rose up behind the dog.

  “Yeah,” Dex said, his voice grave. “Yeah.”

  I stared out the windshield, not knowing what to do. I wondered who else might’ve seen this book either before or while it was in Grigori’s possession. Was he the only one who’d connected the dots? Was that why he was here in Alexandria, which, given Elric’s power and political reach, was one of the most dangerous places in the world for the old mystic?

  In the pit of my stomach, I knew that it was. Grigori had been hunting for the phoenix, and he’d discovered an old text that told him exactly what to look for.

  “What do we do?” I asked so softly, I didn’t know if Dex had heard me.

  My partner handed me back the book, wiped his face with his hand, and pulled away from the curb again. “We translate it, then we burn it,” he said.

  “You speak a little Gaelic, right? Could you parse out some of this?”

  Dex frowned and adopted a brogue. “I speak a wee bit of it, lass, but not enough to make any sense of that. It’s Old Gaelic. You’ll be wanting someone more familiar with the old way of speaking.”

  “And it’d have to be someone we could trust,” I added.

  Dex turned to me. “Don’t say—”r />
  “Ursula,” I said, beating him to it.

  “No,” Dex said, turning his eyes back to the road and gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turned white.

  I sighed dramatically. “Then who? Who, Dex, can we both trust enough not to use what’s in this book against us, and who’s capable of translating it?”

  “There’s got to be someone else,” he insisted.

  “I’m all ears,” I told him.

  “Someone unbound, maybe.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Someone unbound. Let’s just put an ad on Facebook and see who responds, shall we? And I’m sure no one in the mystic world will be at all curious why we’re so interested in a translator of Old Gaelic text.

  “Ezz,” Dex said.

  “I’m sure it won’t take long, after all. A few weeks or so to sort through the hordes of people who’ll surely respond.”

  It was Dex’s turn to sigh heavily. “You done?”

  “Are you?”

  Dex nodded and offered me a crooked smile. “Yeah. All right. I’ll take the book to her. But you know what she’ll want in return.”

  “I do. And I’m sorry, but this is too important. We need to know what the book says. And then we need to know everything about the shop that sold it. And then we need to wipe the memory of anyone who has seen the pages. And that includes Ursula, so make sure that’s a part of the bargain.”

  “I will, I will,” he said. Then he glanced at me again. “Could you at least pretend to be a little jealous?”

  In spite of the panic currently gripping my heart, I managed to smile genuinely at my second. Laying a hand on his shoulder, I said, “Don’t you dare fall in love this time, you hear?”

  Dex laughed. “You know I will. But only for a day or two.”

  Ursula would absolutely demand a quid pro quo, and we both knew what she’d demand of him. Ursula’s addiction was passion, and she was crazy about Dex. She pined for him something fierce. Were I not in the picture, I often wondered if the two of them would’ve paired up.

  Ursula was significantly older than the two of us—we both thought she was at least four hundred and fifty years old. And even though she was a gorgeous, platinum-blond Brigitte Bardot look-alike, her powers weren’t especially powerful for a mystic her age. Around her neck she wore a golden locket, given to her by a former lover who’d been so sated by Ursula’s “attentions” that he’d given it to her freely. Everyone knew that the locket was Ursula’s secret for longevity.

  And, to my knowledge, no thief had ever tried to lift it off her because she was such a valuable resource for thieves like us. She knew a great deal about a great deal, she spoke and read at least a hundred languages—both old and new—and she could fashion a love potion so powerful that slipped into the drink of an unsuspecting mystic, someone like me could easily sway the poor fool to part with a prized possession.

  By going to her for help, I knew that poor Dex would have to give in to one of Ursula’s love potions, which would render him nearly useless to me for at least a day or two. But it was both a risk I needed to take and a resource I was willing to exploit in this time of crisis, because I knew that Ursula could definitely translate the text, and to spend an evening (or two) with Dex, she’d be willing to submit to an amnesia spell, ensuring that she’d never remember what she’d translated from the book.

  And even though Dex was putting on a good front, I knew damned well that getting a little sumpin’ sumpin’ from Ursula was hardly a hardship. He’d be wined, dined, and well-ridden, then sent home with nary a scratch.

  I was about to say as much to him when a new and terrible thought entered my mind. I looked again at the book and felt another shiver of fear.

  “Ezzy?” Dex asked. He’d obviously noticed my sudden distress.

  “What if …”

  “What if what?”

  “What if whomever killed Grigori wasn’t after the egg. What if they were after the book?”

  Dex’s lips settled into a firm frown. “That would be trouble. Real trouble.”

  I took a breath and turned back to the page in the book with the illustration of Ember. Impulsively I pulled at the page, intent on shredding it into teeny, tiny pieces before we got home, where I would promptly set the pieces on fire.

  But the page didn’t tear or rip out from the spine, and hard as I tried, I couldn’t so much as wrinkle it. “What the hell?” I demanded.

  “Give it here,” Dex said, pulling up to a red light. I handed him the book and he tugged on the page, but it held firm. A look of surprise flashed across his face before he yanked harder. The page resisted. Dex clutched the entire page in his fist and gripped the spine hard and tried to pull them apart, but even though all the muscles in his neck and arms bulged, the book remained solidly whole.

  A honk from behind alerted us that the light had turned green. Dex handed me back the book and hit the gas. We bulleted forward, and I glanced again in the back seat to make sure Kincaid was still secure. “Easy,” I said softly, aware that my partner was furious that something as fragile as a piece of paper—and an ancient one at that—could stand up against his brute strength.

  I saw him glance at the back seat too. “Sorry. We’re almost home. I’ll give it another go when we get there.”

  We arrived at the warehouse, and I went ahead to unlock the door while Dex got Kincaid out of the car. Gideon was still out of it, but Dex had him mostly upright and half-dragged, half-carried him across the threshold. I led the way to the couch and helped Dex ease the detective down onto the cushions.

  Checking his pulse and the temperature of his skin, I was relieved to find that his pulse was at least steady, but he was still hot to the touch.

  “Can the trinket cure him?” I asked Dex while pointing to the serpent and staff charm laying on Gideon’s chest.

  Dex shrugged. “It might. But it’d take a month. Maybe longer.”

  “That is time I do not have,” I growled. “Ember!” I called, and she appeared from the stairwell, carrying the blanket she liked to be covered up with at night. Tail wagging furiously, she came to me and shoved her head into my legs before turning in a half-circle to lean against me, still holding the blanket firmly in her mouth.

  I wrapped her in a hug, then pointed to Kincaid. “He needs you.”

  Ember dropped the blanket, and her tail stopped wagging. She turned away from facing Kincaid to curl against me again.

  “Ember, please,” I begged. “I need him.”

  But the pup was having none of it. She steadfastly refused to get up on the couch next to Kincaid. And even when I sat down next to him and patted the cushion, she refused to come close.

  “Ouch,” Dex said. “She’s being a picky Sheila, eh?”

  I frowned. “I was afraid of this.”

  Meanwhile Ember was already gathering up her blanket and trotting over to the love seat opposite the couch to curl up with a sigh and eye us moodily.

  I rubbed my brow, trying to think of a way to convince her to lend her magical energy to Kincaid. All I needed was for her to lie next to him, and her energy would naturally flow into him, healing him much faster than the bronze trinket. And then an idea struck me, and I felt my shoulders sag, because I knew it was probably the only plan that would work.

  But Dex couldn’t be in on it, which meant he couldn’t be here.

  I offered him the book. “Take this to Ursula and have her translate it. Then do whatever you have to do to destroy it.”

  “The whole book?”

  “Yes.”

  Dex was about to take the book from me when I had another thought and pulled it back. “Hang on,” I said. Holding the book between my palms, I whispered, “Treasure trove of hidden secrets, return to me should fingers poach it.”

  Dex eyed me skeptically. “A comeback spell? Really, Esmé?”

  I shrugged. “If it falls into the wrong hands, they might realize it’s not a trinket per se, and forget to deactivate any comebacks.”
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br />   “I’ll make sure to keep my eye on it just in case,” Dex said drolly, holding out his hand for the book.

  I gave it to him and then had yet another thought. “Say, Dex,” I said, reaching behind my neck to undo the clasp for the charm that Gideon had given me.

  “Say, Esmé,” he replied, mimicking me.

  I handed him the trinket. “What’re your thoughts?”

  “It’s not really my style,” he said with a grin.

  “Come on, tell me what its power is.”

  Dex bounced the charm in his hand, his brow furrowed as he studied it. He then looked up at me and said, “Whoa.”

  “Whoa? What’s whoa?”

  “Ezzy, when I’m holding this and looking at you, I feel nothing. Not even a hint of attraction.”

  I smiled. “That’s what I though—”

  “You could be a lump of sludge,” Dex said, waving his hand in a circle at me. “A hairy goat. A warty toad for all I care.”

  “Got it,” I said stiffly.

  Looking me up and down and back again, he said, “It’s like you’re a big beefy ogre. I feel nothing for you, Ezzy. Nothing.”

  I snatched the charm out of his hand. “Noted, Dex, thank you.”

  Dex blinked and shook his head. “And now I’m back to fancying you.”

  I rolled my eyes and put the charm back on. “Poor boy,” I said, grinning.

  “Where’d you pinch it from?”

  “I didn’t, it’s Kincaid’s mentor’s gift.”

  Dex crossed his muscled arms and cocked an eyebrow at me. “Okay, out with it. Who’re you fancyin’?”

  I felt heat sear my cheeks. “What, me? No one.”

  Dex slid his gaze to the couch. “No one, eh?”

  I puffed out an exasperated sigh. “Oh, come on, Dex. He does nothing for me.”

  The cocked eyebrow remained.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Proteges gift only what will best serve their mentors in the moment. You know that. How’s a repelling trinket going to serve you right now?”

  “Duh,” I said. “It’s like you’ve just met me. The whole reason I applied for the job at SPL was to finally have the chance to rid myself of the binding curse. This charm is obviously going to allow me to roam freely without the fear of being swept off my feet and dumped again while I work off my contract with Elric.”