Boris snarled at me, as if to suggest I wasn’t the boss of him.
Finn held up his hands again. “Sorry,” he said to me, “but he doesn’t work that way. You’re gonna have to lower your weapon first.”
I stood stubbornly still; my sword still raised just to show Boris that he wasn’t the boss of me either.
“Guys,” Finn said, turning sideways so he could pivot his head back and forth between us. “Seriously. We don’t have time for this. You’re both gonna have to back down.”
With a heavy sigh, I lowered the sword three inches. Boris rose from his crouched position ever so slightly. I lowered my sword another inch. He rose another inch, and it went on that way for a good thirty seconds, until we were both standing straight but still tensed and ready for action.
“That’s better,” Finn said. And then he moved toward me, wearing a charming smile that made my insides feel squishy. My breath caught at his nearness, but then he turned his back to me and opened the door to the treasure room again. “Boris,” he said gently. “Dinner’s ready. If the door to my bedroom gets breeched, take out anyone who tries to enter.”
The bearena ambled forward and brushed his muzzle against Finn’s chest for a few moments before heading into the treasure room. A few seconds later, we heard the sounds of teeth grinding on bone.
Finn then turned to me and held up a bejeweled, golden trinket in the shape of a pocket watch that made my eyes water it was so lovely.
“For you,” he said.
My heartbeat ticked up but then I grew suspicious. “Why?”
“You saved my life back there. Twice. I figure I owe you.”
I held out my free hand and Finn lowered the watch into my palm, curling my fingers around it with his own. “It requires a simple dose of essence to be activated.”
“What does it do?”
“It slows everything around you down,” he said. “But careful how you use it. If you employ it at the wrong time, it could slow things down you’d rather have sped up.”
I looked at his serious gaze and understood what he meant. In a moment between life and death, dying slowly wasn’t a good way to go.
“Ready?” Finn asked me.
Pulling my hand out of his grasp, I said, “I’m still mad at you.”
“I know.”
Pocketing the gift, I stepped forward before redirecting myself to turn in a circle and thrust Lunatrabem upward, stopping just short of Finn’s throat.
The bastard didn’t even flinch.
Still, I narrowed my eyes and glared hard at him. “You ever lock me in a room with a deadly beast again, and I will find a way to make you pay, Lieutenant.”
The corners of Finn’s mouth quirked in a hint of a grin. “I have no doubt you will, Esmé, but how about we worry about that after we deal with the problem at hand, eh?”
I stepped back, sheathed Lunatrabem, and waved him toward the stairs. “After you.”
I followed Finn down the stairs, which proved difficult because he moved fast and there were a lot of stairs.
At last we reached the bottom of the staircase, which deposited us into a long, dark room where Boris obviously spent most of his time. There was a huge rubber tire lying in the middle of the room with big claw marks on it, another hanging from the ceiling like a swing, and a giant rubber ball next to what was likely the gnawed-on remains of a bison’s leg, not to mention a big king-size mattress on a low platform where the bearena slept.
“I turned angrily to Finn. You keep him down here in the dark all day and night?” This setup was my worst fear for Ember.
“He prefers it,” Finn said easily. “Bearenas are nocturnal and they abhor sunlight.”
And then something else occurred to me. “If Boris guards your treasures, how did Gideon get past him?”
Finn looked chagrin. “Boris has a soft spot for Gid. Drives me nuts, but the two used to play catch together down here.”
“Used to?”
“Gideon doesn’t come around much anymore, unless he wants to steal a trinket or two.”
Tension had crept back into Finn’s voice as he spoke about the trouble between them, letting me know I was beginning to tread on thin ice if I continued to pursue the subject at hand.
Lest he leave me down here in this dungeon-esque space, I decided to switch back to the bearena. “Where did Boris come from?”
“He was a gift from Petra,” Finn said, leading the way across the room.
“She’s quite generous.” I couldn’t quite keep the sneer out of my voice.
“She is when it suits her,” he said, and I remembered that Petra was currently trying to kill us. Or maybe just me, but she was also certainly intent on bringing in Finn, and probably not for coffee.
When we reached the end of Boris’ lair, Finn pulled on the big metal latch of another door and deferred to me to go through first again. All I had to do was cock an eyebrow and he chuckled. “Right,” he said. “Forgot. Okay, this way, your highness.”
I rolled my eyes and followed him through the door. We came out from Boris’ lair into a tunnel I recognized. “This is how we came in,” I said, noting the door that led to the lobby and the elevator of his building to the left of us.
“It is,” Finn said.
I eyed him warily. “You nervous about me knowing the secret back entrance to your bachelor pad?”
“Not nearly as nervous as you’d be encountering Boris if I wasn’t around.”
It was my turn to chuckle.
With that we set off, and I had time to think about the two explosions back upstairs in Finn’s condo. Pointing to the ceiling, I asked, “How bad was the damage, do you think?”
“Bad enough that it’s going to take me a long time to rebuild,” he said, irritation evident in his speech.
“Why though?” I asked as we walked side by side.
“Why though, what?”
“Why target you?”
He eyed me curiously. “What makes you think I was the target?”
“Um … other than it being your home? Gee, I wonder.”
“It could’ve just as easily been you the mystic was after.”
“Me?” I asked incredulously. “What makes you think this renegade was after me?”
“Well, it is the second time you’ve been hit by this guy, right?”
“True, but the first time we know for sure he was after Tic.”
“Do we?” Finn asked. “Maybe he was after something he believed Marco had and maybe now he thinks that you have it, because, after all, you definitely have something else of supreme value in hand right now.”
I tried to cover the fear that the mystic might know about Ember by reaching over my shoulder to tap Lunatrabem’s hilt. “You mean this.”
“Yep. But you and Marco would be the only ones who could wield it which still makes it worth abducting you.”
I scoffed. “If I’m one of the only mystics that can wield it, then in my hands it’d be useless to whoever’s after it. I’m not fighting anybody else’s battles for them. I’m only gonna fight my own.”
I walked a few more feet in silence before I realized that Finn was no longer at my side. Turning to eye him over my shoulder, I asked, “What?”
His expression was deadly serious. “Trust me in this, Esmé: Anyone can be made to do anything if the cost of not doing that thing is too high.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that your enemies could easily exploit your vulnerabilities to use you to meet their own selfish and evil needs.”
“What if I have no vulnerabilities,” I said, trying to bluff my way through a sticky conversation.
“Oh, you have them. Everyone does. For you, it’s probably your second, what’s his name … Dusty?”
I gave him a half-lidded look. He damned well knew my second’s name. “Dex.”
“Yeah. Him. He’s got an obvious weak spot for you, and that could be exploited for as long as he’s alive. Which, i
f I were your enemy, I’d make sure was a very long time.”
Finn didn’t even realize the half of it. Dex could absolutely be used against me, and if anyone ever realized what Ember meant to me, there isn’t anything in this world I wouldn’t do to protect her.
As I stared at Finn, however, I felt the tension grow between us, and it left me feeling exposed and vulnerable. “Are you my enemy, Finn?”
He shrugged. “I work for Petra. You work for Elric. Which means that I’m not your friend, and you’d be wise to remember that.”
As hard as that was to hear, I knew it was a truth I definitely needed to be reminded of. Finn wasn’t my friend; in fact, as long as he was Petra’s lieutenant, he was far closer to being my actual enemy.
The two moments of intimacy between us aside, in this one endeavor, we were reluctant allies at best, and we’d be that only for as long as it took to discover where Tic and the egg were. The second Tic was found and the egg was claimed, all bets were off.
I looked Finn the Flayer over with a different eye as he stood a few feet away. He wasn’t his brother, and I needed to see him for the powerful, deadly mystic he was if I was to survive the next twenty-four hours. “I’ll remember,” I said, turning my back to him to carry on with the walk.
Chapter Nineteen
Day 4
We reached Finn’s car about twenty minutes later. When we emerged from the tunnel back above ground, the sounds of half a dozen sirens echoed through the streets.
After getting into the Escalade and pulling away from the curb, Finn wound his way carefully north toward the sound of the sirens, and I understood that he wanted to see the extent of the damage for himself.
We came upon an alley that allowed us to peek through the buildings surrounding Finn’s condo and look directly at the penthouse.
Or what was left of it. The section of the penthouse where his bedroom had been was an open, gaping hole. It was a miracle we’d even survived.
“Son of a bitch,” Finn muttered, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.
I could appreciate his fury. If anyone caused that kind of damage to the warehouse, I wouldn’t stop until I’d tracked them down and exacted some deadly revenge.
Bree’s apartment had suffered far worse than Finn’s condo, but then, Bree’s apartment had been in an old building and her floor definitely hadn’t been reinforced.
“Who’s capable of causing that?” I asked.
Finn kept his gaze on his building. “Besides your boss?”
I rolled my eyes. “And yours?”
“Any one of the remaining Seven for sure,” he said. “And maybe a few of their lieutenants or advisors.”
“Could you do that?” I asked.
Finn inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. But it’d take just about everything I have.”
I nodded. The energy needed to gather enough power to cause that kind of wreckage—while impressive—was also extremely draining.
“It’s probably why he hit us only twice and stopped,” Finn continued. “No juice left for a third strike.”
“How did this mystic even know we were in your condo?”
Finn turned to me. “How did you know when your targets were or weren’t home?”
I grinned. “I have mad skills.”
Finn grunted. “Any reasonably good thief does.”
I looked again toward the building. “So you think our mysterious mystic is a thief?”
“Given how stealthy he’s been—hitting Grigori when he least expected it, then getting to Marco at Bree’s, and now attacking my place. Yeah, I’d say this guy’s spent some time thieving, for sure.”
Finn’s attention was momentarily diverted to something to the right of his building. “Shit,” he muttered.
I looked and saw a black SUV making its way down the street, headed in our direction. Finn pressed on the gas and zipped deeper into the alley.
“Did they see us?” I asked, knowing that the SUV likely belonged to Petra’s crew.
“We’ll find out in a second,” Finn said.
At the first opportunity to turn right, he did, and looped back around the block, zigzagging his way through traffic and steadily increasing his speed.
“What’re you doing?” I asked when he took another right that would lead us directly back the way we’d come.
“Circling back.”
“Why?”
Finn didn’t answer. Turning right yet again, he cut the lights, and increased his speed even more. By now we were flying along the same alley we’d come down to inspect his building.
Ahead of us, a set of taillights illuminated the gloom. Finn took his foot off the accelerator and, to my relief, we began to slow down.
“One of yours?” I asked, nodding to the car far ahead.
“Looks like it.”
“So Petra’s still on the hunt for you.”
“Don’t kid yourself, lady. She’s still on the hunt for you. At this point, I’m just an errant employee, needing a reprimand.”
“What’ll she do to you if she catches you?”
Finn glanced sideways at me. “She’ll force me to kill you in front of her, and then she’ll send me to bed without any supper.”
I felt the blood drain from my face when I realized he was only half-kidding. Tapping the scabbard of Lunatrabem, I said, “Even though I carry the sword? She’d still be willing to kill me even though I’m now the appointed guardian of her son?”
Finn turned his gaze toward the taillights up ahead again. “Better to kill you than allow you and the sword to fall into the wrong hands, Esmé.”
“That’s comforting.”
He shrugged. “So let’s avoid that scenario, shall we?”
“That probably includes not following behind your gal’s henchmen,” I said, waving toward the car ahead.
“Yep,” he said, and to my immense relief, he took yet another right, and we began to move perpendicular to Petra’s patrol.
For several minutes, all either of us did was check the Escalade’s mirrors for any sign of a tail, but nothing suspicious showed up in the rearview.
“Now where?” I asked as we were once again headed north.
“I’m following a hunch.”
I wanted to ask what hunch, but Finn didn’t seem like someone who wanted to make a lot of small talk, and I could respect that. We rode in silence for about fifteen minutes before the area began to look familiar and I understood exactly where he was going.
“What do you expect to find at Grigori’s?” I asked when we were just a few blocks away.
“Answers,” he said cryptically.
I rolled my eyes again but left it alone. I’d figure it out once we got there.
When we rolled down the street, my breath caught. “It’s gone,” I whispered.
Finn stopped several houses away from where Grigori’s house had once stood. In its place was a burnt-out hollow husk of charred wood and scattered debris.
“Would your guys have done this?” I asked.
“No,” Finn said, and then he surprised me by asking, “Would Elric?”
I shook my head. “No. There’d be no reason that I could think of why he’d destroy the place.”
“Not even if he couldn’t find the egg?” Finn pressed.
“Trust me, he has other trinkets. I mean, yeah, he’d love to add Grigori’s egg to his collection, but I doubt he’d succumb to frustration just because it wasn’t readily available to him.”
Finn nodded. “You’re right. This isn’t Elric’s style.”
“But it is the style of the mystic who keeps blowing up places we’ve been to.”
“You mean places you’ve been to.”
I nodded toward the ruined structure. “For someone who claims not to have been here, you seemed to know exactly how to get to the place.”
“I’ve driven by,” Finn claimed. “That’s all.”
“Why?” I asked curiously.
&nb
sp; “Just checking up on my little brother,” he said.
“And when did you drive by?” I asked, sensing there was something else Finn wasn’t telling me.
He sighed. “The day you and Gideon discovered Grigori’s dinner party, I may have swung past this place.”
I sucked in a breath. “What time were you here?”
“Right around noon. I watched Gideon ring the doorbell and wait for somebody to answer. When no one did, he left.”
“Hold on, so you knew that Grigori Rasputin was in town?”
“No. I only knew that some drunken old mystic was willing to mentor my brother. I planned to shut it down on the day of the ceremony, but Grigori got himself killed before I had a chance to identify him.”
“What I don’t get is why you’d block every attempt your brother made to get himself mentored. Don’t you know how dangerous it could be to him over the long term? Untrained magic is dangerous to both the mystic and the public at large.”
Finn tapped the steering wheel. “It’d be even more dangerous to have him enter our community, Esmé. Besides, knowing how determined he was, I’d offered to mentor Gideon myself. That way I could’ve kept him both reined in and safe.”
“Then why weren’t you? Mentoring him, I mean.”
Finn turned, glaring eyes to me. “Because you beat me to it.”
I recalled our conversation in the tunnel leading away from Boris’ lair; about how I could be manipulated if the wrong person gained control over someone I loved. I doubted there was a power-hungry mystic out there who wouldn’t see the opportunity to mess with the novice and possibly naive twin brother of Petra’s lieutenant.
Just to show him I wasn’t intimidated, I rolled my eyes and got us back on topic. Waving to the burnt-out wreckage of Grigori’s former home, I said, “Whatever this mysterious mystic was looking for, they either found it and burned the place down so that nobody could figure out what they’d been looking for, or they didn’t find it and got frustrated.”
Finn pulled up to the opposite side of the street and parked. Leaving the motor running, he stepped out of the SUV and began to walk toward the wreckage, which was spooky and dark with only the light from a streetlight a few meters away.
SPELL TO UNBIND, A Page 29