“You took him off the suspect list?” I asked.
“He had an airtight alibi. He was playing a Russian card game in D.C. at the time of the murder. Half a dozen people swore he was there.”
“How did you know he was a mystic?” I asked next.
Gideon simply stared at me for a moment before answering. “He took one look at me and called me ‘Flayer’. Scared the shit out of him, I think. I knew then that he was a mystic, because only one of our kind would’ve known my brother’s nickname.” With a sneer toward Finn he added, “It took me an hour to convince him I’m nothing like my brother.”
“Ah,” I said, understanding that Grigori must’ve thought he hit paydirt when he discovered Petra’s lieutenant had an unmentored twin. “Don’t tell me, let me guess; when he discovered you’d never been mentored, he offered to take you under his wing right then and there.”
“He did,” Gideon said.
I nodded and looked knowingly at Finn. His mood seemed set on simmering anger.
“So what did Grigori tell you about the guy at the bookstore?” I asked next.
“He said that he knew the owner only casually, and that they’d shared a love of rare books. He said he’d been to the shop only once to check it out, and he’d purchased a book for which he showed me the receipt. He also said he’d only been trying to be neighborly when he popped over for a visit.”
I felt another jolt of alarm. Gideon had probably seen the book that I’d taken from Grigori’s place and didn’t have any idea how vulnerable the contents made me.
“When was the bookseller murdered?” I asked next.
“About a month ago.”
“Ever figure out why he was murdered?” Finn asked.
Gideon glared at him, as if the question were a challenge to his detective skills. “No.”
“I do,” I said.
The brothers eyed me expectantly.
“The succubaen’s last clue before Petra’s thief stole it must’ve led Grigori here to that bookstore. There must’ve been something in the shop that would lead to the next clue to find the phoenix.”
“The receipt,” Gideon said, referring to the one I’d found at the back of the book. “Grigori bought a book from the shop.”
I nodded. I felt I could talk about the book because it was safely in Dex’s hands, about to be destroyed.
“Throw in the fact that Grigori must’ve known that Petra’s thief was the one that stole the succubaen and he had more than enough reason to come here, poke around and leave no witnesses,” I said with a pointed look at Gideon.
“You think he murdered the bookstore owner?” he asked.
“I’d bet my warehouse on it. Who better than a mystic to create an airtight alibi for murder?”
Gideon’s expression became troubled. I could tell he was reconciling the fact that he’d thought Grigori was his friend and a good guy as far as mystics go, only to realize he’d been played by a murderer.
“That still begs the question of who, besides Gideon, knew Grigori was even in town,” Finn said.
And that’s when I put two other clues together. “Besides Marco, his girlfriend, Bree, knew.”
“Why is that important?” Finn asked me.
“Dex spoke to Gert this morning—” I paused to look at Finn, “You know Gert, right?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Right. Anyway, Dex said that Gert had just heard about Marco going missing and that Bree had been killed in an explosion. Gert told him that a few days ago, Bree had been in Gert’s bar with a mystic she didn’t recognize. Some blonde who was putting on airs.”
“How does that link back to Grigori?” Finn asked me.
“Gert knows every mystic in this town and nearly every mystic who comes to visit. The only mystic she wouldn’t recognize is someone who’d never been here. Someone of low rank. Someone who’d probably been in hiding with her lover. And no one puts on airs more than an American expat from Europe.”
“Rachel McQueen,” Gideon said, putting it together.
I nodded. “I think that Bree and Rachel were working together. They had to be. Grigori never would’ve allowed anyone into his home—including a caterer if they weren’t thoroughly vetted first. Rachel had to have been in on plotting Grigori’s murder. I’ll bet you my warehouse again that she let in the murderer posing as the caterer. Grigori probably never entered the kitchen to check on dinner. Rachel would’ve done that and announced everything going smoothly when they all sat down together.”
“She was in on her own murder?” Gideon asked skeptically.
I shook my head. “She never dreamed she’d be murdered. Which is why her sister was also there. I think Rachel was hoping to benefit from Grigori’s tortured confession of where he had hidden the egg. I think she’d been promised that one of the uses of the egg, once it was found, would go to her sister.”
“So Bree was the mystic who bound and murdered the four?” Gideon pressed.
Again I shook my head. “No. Bree wasn’t even remotely skilled enough for something like that. She and Rachel would’ve been working for someone who was though. And that mystic also left no witnesses behind.”
“You’re saying that someone trying to get to the egg and the succubaen recruited Bree and Rachel.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“What does any of this matter, though?” Gideon asked. “So what if this unknown mystic is trying to get the phoenix. I say, let him have it. The world might be safer when every mystic on the planet isn’t hunting and killing for it.”
Finn and I both chuckled in a gallows humor sort of way. “You’re not getting it, Gid,” Finn said. “Whoever gains the phoenix becomes the most powerful mystic in the world. And throw in Lunatrabem—”
“Luna what?” Gideon asked.
I tapped the hilt of the sword over my shoulder. “Tic is a direct descendant of King Arthur and Guinevere. This was Guinevere’s sword. The second-most-powerful sword ever created, next to Excalibur, which is still missing and likely never to be discovered again.”
“We think that Marco was abducted because someone knew that he was a direct descendent of the realm, and that he knew where to find Lunatrabem,” Finn said.
“How’d you get it?” Gideon asked me again.
“I pulled it out of a junkpile.”
“Wasn’t Guinevere’s sword also sunk into stone?”
“It was,” I said, allowing Gideon to draw his own conclusions.
“Petra and I hid Guinevere’s headstone in our junkyard,” Finn explained. “A couple of times we tried burying it at the base of a twenty-five-foot pile of discarded trinkets, but it always rose to the top, exposing the hilt to the sun, so we left it where it was.
“Then a little while ago some of my coworkers got the stupid idea to come after us, so I directed Esmé to hide at the junkyard. I joined her after I dealt with the reconnaissance patrol and watched her pull Lunatrabem out of the headstone like a knife from butter.”
Gideon’s eyes widened, and he looked at me with surprise. “What does that make you now? Part of Petra’s crew?”
“No,” I said firmly.
“Maybe,” Finn said.
I glared at him. I would never, ever work for Petra. Besides, she’d definitely kill me before offering me a job.
“But if you have the sword, why is finding the phoenix such a big deal?”
“They won’t stop at just getting their hands on the phoenix, bro. Once they have it, they’ll be able to use it with the succubaen to obtain all the world’s most powerful weapons, including Lunatrabem. All they have to do is desire a weapon or a trinket and the cruet will show them step by step how to steal it. Eventually, they’ll acquire Lunatrabem, Excalibur, the Trident, Skofnung, the Bow of Anubis, the Bolt of Zeus—”
Gideon put up his hands. “Okay, okay, I get it. They’ll get the mystic world’s most deadly weapons. What good would that do one guy against the armies of the Seven?”
/> I smirked. It was amazing how naive Gideon Kincaid was. I said, “If you were in one of the armies of the Seven and a new mystic came onto the scene, possessing not just the phoenix but every supremely powerful weapon ever magically created, who would you follow? Petra? Elric? Hideyo? Radcliff? Vostov? Mostafa? Vala? Or would you pledge allegiance to the newly minted immortal? The mystic who couldn’t be killed and had all the fun new toys.”
Gideon worked his jaw for a bit, thinking that over. “I’d follow the immortal with the toys.”
“Exactly,” Finn said. “And if you stuck to your pledge for one of the other Seven, you’d face off against a growing army gobbling up troops from all across the globe.”
“This guy’s power would grow exponentially in a New York minute,” I said.
“It’d be war like no other,” Finn added. “And you, in handing over the succubaen, were the spark that lit the fuse, Gid.”
The color drained from Gideon’s face. “Holy shit,” he said, and he looked like he might be sick. In fact, he took a step back and stumbled. I reached out, but Finn was quicker. He caught his brother, waited until his twin was steady again and said, “Take Trish and the kid to the lake house. Don’t move until I tell you it’s safe. If you don’t hear from me or Esmé, assume the worst has happened and go into hiding. Change your looks, change your hair, do whatever you have to do to not look like me and stay alive. Oh, and Gideon, never, ever, ever look for a mentor again.”
We left Gideon standing in his driveway, pale and sweaty. I felt bad for him, in spite of all the trouble he’d caused. He’d had no idea what offering his mentor a simple gift would set in motion, and his own twin had kept him in the dark about the dangers lurking in his trinket room.
In my opinion it was far more Finn’s fault than Gideon’s, but assigning blame wasn’t going to get us anywhere. We had to find a new lead that would take us to the cruet. But where to look? What could possibly point us in that new direction?
As Finn drove us away from Gideon's house, I fiddled absently with the charm that Gideon had given me. It was warm under my fingertips, no doubt activated by Finn’s nearness, and it was soothing to feel it pulsing with energy. I’d have to figure out a way to deactivate Finn’s comeback spell, even though it wasn’t likely to work on the charm now that the trinket had been a part of the mentoring ceremony. Mentor’s gifts were protected from that kind of trickery. It didn’t matter that Gideon had stolen the charm before giving it to me. By right and by law it was mine but that didn’t mean I trusted Finn not to snatch it back sometime in the future.
As Finn turned left out of Gideon’s subdivision, a sudden thought bulleted into my brain. “Oh, my god!” I whispered, sitting up straight.
“What?” Finn asked, his gaze immediately traveling to his rearview and side mirrors.
“I know where to find the cruet!”
He cut his gaze to me. “Where?”
Chapter Twenty
Day 4
A couple of hours before dawn we pulled into the empty parking lot, circled the building, and parked on the far side at the back door.
From here I could easily see my warehouse, all aglow, just a half mile or so away.
I’d called Dex on the way and told him where we were going. He’d sounded both surprised and worried. He’d then told me to be careful, stay safe, and that as soon as he was finished digging a hole to toss Grigori’s book into and cover it with concrete, he’d be off with Ember. I was relieved he was taking measures to hide the text. Above all, he couldn’t be caught with both it and Ember as he fled town.
“You’re sure about this?” Finn asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
I turned to see him staring moodily at the building in front of us. “Not in the slightest.”
“I don’t like it. Feels like a trap.”
“Probably is.”
He sighed again. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
We got out of the Escalade and moved quietly but quickly to the back door. Finn tried the handle—of course it was locked. He began to gather a ball of energy, probably to blast it opened, so I laid a hand on his wrist. “Allow me.”
He stepped back and I dropped to one knee, pulling out my trusty lockpick. I worked at the door for all of twenty seconds when I heard a click, and the latch gave way.
We moved inside, and I was surprised to find the place lit. Pointing to the overhead light, I whispered, “Is there somebody here?”
He shrugged. Pulling out his coin purse, he held it in front of him, whispered the words to activate it, and a ball of smoke rose from the trinket and shot off down the hallway in front of us.
We waited for a minute or two in silence, both of us straining to hear any sounds that might indicate we weren’t alone in the building, but only the steady sound of the ventilation system came back to us.
The puff of smoke returned in a hurry, stopped in front of Finn, and began to unfold a mini model of the building we were in. It displayed an incredible amount of detail, and my thieving mind was already working on a plan to steal the coin purse from Finn.
What can I say? My true nature sometimes gets the best of me.
“No one’s here,” Finn said softly.
I nodded.
Even though we both agreed that it appeared we were alone, no way were we about to take a chance by talking at regular volume.
Finn motioned for us to move forward, and we began to make our way down the hallway. At a juncture, I led us to the right, remembering the way from just two days before, which was hard to believe since so much had happened between then and now.
When we came to a set of double doors, I paused to peek through the window just to make sure there was no movement about. There wasn’t.
Finn pushed the doors open and we strode in.
I went right to the back wall and pulled open a drawer. A naked dead woman, bald, with features frozen in a silent scream stared up at me with cloudy, sightless eyes.
I shut the drawer quickly and pulled open another one. It was even less pleasant.
“Yikes,” Finn said over my shoulder, wearing a look of repulsion. “That is nasty.”
I shut the drawer. “Probably a car accident. At least he went quick.”
“How do you know it was a he?”
“I don’t. But I’m not gonna pull the drawer back open to check, okay?”
Finn grunted and moved to the right to pull open a drawer himself. Frowning down at the occupant, he said, “I guess this one was in the car too.”
I slammed that drawer closed. “Will you please focus?”
Finn smirked. “The unbound die ugly.”
I glared at him impatiently. “Grigori has to be in one of these drawers …” Taking a chance, I pulled open a drawer at shoulder height, and Grigori Rasputin rolled out. “Bingo!”
Finn came over to stand next to me. He was taller, so he could better see the body on the slab. “Wow.”
“I know. His death wasn’t so pretty either, right?”
“No. It wasn’t. But that’s not what I was referring to.”
“What were you referring to?”
Finn reached up and moved Grigori’s arm. It dropped down to swing in front of my face. I pushed it back up and noticed that Finn had stepped back and was admiring the cruet that had knocked me on my ass in Grigori’s living room a few days earlier. “You were right,” he said.
I gave in to a grin. “When you activated the comeback spell, I wondered if it would come back to you or Grigori, because he became the rightful owner of it when your brother gave it to him.”
Finn nodded. “Clever.”
He opened his jacket and began to pocket the cruet when I grabbed his arm to stop him. “What’re you doing?”
Finn’s eyes narrowed as he looked at my hand on his arm.
I didn’t let go. No way in hell was I allowing him to walk out with that thing.
“I’m taking back what’s mine,” he said evenly.
I release
d his arm and stood back, taking up a defensive stance, purposely blocking the exit out of the morgue. “No.”
Finn pushed the cruet into his inside pocket and regarded me like I was some minor inconvenience he had no desire to trifle with. “I beg to differ, Thief. No way am I going to hand over the key to finding the phoenix to one of Elric’s minions.”
I reached up and unsheathed Lunatrabem. “Well that’s a shame, because you’re definitely not walking out of here with it, Flayer.” I’d fight to the death for that thing. If he used it and survived, he’d know that Ember was the phoenix, and I’d be as good as dead anyway.
Finn stood tall and held out his palm. A ball of blue energy formed. “Who’s gonna stop me, Esmé?”
“I don’t want it for myself,” I said, realizing how quickly this could get out of hand. “I want to destroy it.”
Finn regarded me for a long, long moment. “You think I’ll use it.”
“Yes,” I said.
“If I was gonna to use it, I would’ve done that already.”
“It’s more powerful now, and you know it. Grigori has probably charged it to a level seven or eight by now. All you’d have to do is come back from the dead once and you’d know exactly where to find the phoenix. And something tells me you’ve got a trinket or two in that hidden room of yours that could easily handle pulling you back from death.”
The ball of blue light in Finn’s palm grew two sizes larger. “I told you I’m not going to use it.”
I lifted Lunatrabem, holding it with both hands out in front of me, knowing we were likely moments away from killing each other over a stupid trinket. But I absolutely couldn’t back down and allow the succubaen to continue to exist in the world. It was one more thing threatening everything I held dear. “No one’s going to use it, Flayer. No one. And if you think it through, you’ll agree. As long as that thing exists, the threat to both Petra’s and Elric’s courts exist.”
SPELL TO UNBIND, A Page 31