SPELL TO UNBIND, A

by Laurie, Victoria

  “It’ll be safe enough with me,” he said.

  I let out a mirthless chuckle. “You mean, just like it was safe with you before your twin waltzed into your trinket room and stole it? That kind of safe, Flayer?”

  Finn continued to study me silently. I watched him closely for any sign of a sudden move, but his expression was blank and his body perfectly still. I couldn’t read what he was thinking, and that made me nervous as hell.

  Still, I held onto the sword and allowed its power to run through me, giving me courage. I’d faced down a freaking cruellion with this weapon. I could sure as hell face down Petra’s lieutenant.

  Couldn’t I?

  Abruptly Finn dropped the hand holding the ball of energy. I braced, tightened my grip on the hilt, and readied myself for the blow … but it never came.

  “Fine,” he said as we stood there in the cold of the room, no longer allies.

  I blinked. “What do you mean, ‘fine’?”

  “Fine, Esmé, have it your way. I’ll allow you to destroy it.”

  I narrowed my eyes. I smelled a trap.

  Finn began to reach inside his coat again and I changed my stance, bringing the sword up to stand like a baseball player at bat. “I’m warning you, Lieutenant,” I growled.

  “I know,” he said, continuing to pull at his jacket.

  I remembered the crystal he’d repurposed into a sucker punch, and it infuriated me that he’d try that trick twice and think I wouldn’t be ready. “

  Finn withdrew the succubaen and held it up, wiggling it at me. “Ready?”

  I pressed my lips together and ground my jaw. I was going to kill this fucker for sure if he messed with me.

  Finn bent forward like a softball pitcher and tossed the cruet toward me. It flew high toward the ceiling, and I was caught between aiming Lunatrabem at it or at Finn, because I knew he was about to blast me the second I swung at the succubaen.

  So I let the cruet fall and kept my eyes on Finn. It could crash to the ground for all I cared. I could destroy it after I’d dealt with him.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the succubaen descend, closer and closer to the floor. In my hand, Lunatrabem began to hum, and the white moonglow coming off it filled the room with power.

  “Hit it!” Finn yelled.

  But I didn’t take my eyes off him. Instead, I waited to hear the succubaen crash. The second it did, I’d charge Finn.

  My attention was so focused on him that it caught me by surprise when he stared in shock at the floor. As if he’d just seen something he couldn’t believe.

  And then I realized that I hadn’t heard the sound of glass striking tile. The cruet must have fallen to the ground by now, right?

  Why hadn’t I heard it?

  Taking a chance, I allowed my gaze to dart to where the succubaen should have been and saw it suspended in midair, just resting there as if it had landed in the palm of an invisible hand.

  And then it was like the atmosphere itself, curled invisible fingertips over the small glass cruet, hiding it altogether.

  I looked up at Finn, thinking he was doing it, but he was staring at the spot where the succubaen had disappeared in surprise too. A moment later, he seemed to put the pieces together, because in an instant he gathered a ball of energy and yelled at me, “Esmé, duck!”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. I dropped low, twirled in a tight circle, spinning away from the spot, while still holding Lunatrabem aloft. Finn unleashed his ball of power, and a silent shockwave hit the spot where I’d just been standing.

  There was a cry of pain, and something was thrown through the double doors into the hallway beyond.

  Before I could fully take in everything, Finn was in motion, running to the doors and barreling through them. I sprang forward, right behind him.

  In the hallway we searched the floor but saw nothing. A tingling feeling of doom entered my mind as I surveyed the corridor. I had an idea about what’d just happened, but I didn’t yet want to admit how stupid I’d been.

  And because I knew I’d been duped, I took another risk. Finn was in front of me, moving forward slowly, holding another blue ball of essence, ready to unleash it.

  But with no target to aim at, I knew he was likely to miss. Changing hands with Lunatrabem, I reached into my jacket and pulled out my monocle, covering it with my hand the best I could, and allowing only a peephole to see through.

  I then held it up, looked through it, and saw the unmistakable green outline of a ballpoint pen that hovered in midair by an unseen form about fifteen feet in front of us, hugging the wall and lurching forward.

  “To the right!” I shouted.

  Finn glanced at me over his shoulder, and I tightened my grip on the monocle, pointing to where I’d seen the green smoke. “There!” I urged.

  Finn moved so fast, it was hard to capture it all. The blue ball of essence shot forward and struck the wall exactly where I’d been pointing.

  There was another grunt of pain and the sound of a body being thrown against the opposite wall.

  Finn and I charged forward, following the sounds. We got about ten feet when an explosion sent us hurtling back, landing together in a heap on the floor.

  I held onto Lunatrabem, but only barely.

  Finn had unfortunately taken the brunt of the blow. He lay on the ground, clearly stunned but trying to shake it off. I scrambled to my feet, knowing that I couldn’t wait for him, and stumbled forward, raising my hand to look through the monocle again and seeing that whisp of green smoke turn the corner at the juncture.

  I put on a burst of speed. I couldn’t let the succubaen leave the morgue. Rounding the corner, however, I saw the door to the back entrance open, seemingly by itself. “Sequoya!” I shouted.

  The door slammed shut.

  “Goddamn bitch!” I hissed.

  I ran at the door at top speed. Behind me I heard footsteps but didn’t slow down. Right before slamming my shoulder into the door, I moved Lunatrabem to my side to keep it out of the way.

  I hit the door and bounced off, my shoulder burning from the pain of taking the full force of the blow. With a shaking hand, I tried the handle. It’d been locked by magic because the knob was still warm and wouldn’t even wiggle when I tried to twist it.

  Thinking fast I backed up a foot or two, raised Lunatrabem, and brought it down on the door handle, slicing through it and the steel door like a knife through paper. The handle dropped to my feet with a clatter, and I kicked the door open.

  “Esmé!” Finn shouted. He was a few steps behind me, but I wasn’t slowing down.

  The rage of being made a fool of was almost more than I could stand. That whole conversation in the conference room when Sequoya told me Elric wasn’t happy with my offering was a ruse to get me to cough up something even more valuable that she could then keep for herself—and I’d fallen for it. I’d offered her one of the most precious trinkets I had: my ballpoint pen. She’d never passed it on to Elric, using it instead to follow me to Grigori’s and very likely stealing the succubaen from my palm while I lay unconscious. Had Finn not invoked the comeback spell, she never would’ve needed to steal it back from us.

  And, Sequoya had no doubt loaned out the pen to whomever blew up Bree’s apartment and Finn’s condo. I knew she wasn’t capable of that kind of destruction, but it didn’t mean that I still wasn’t going to kill her over it. The fury welling up inside me was almost blinding. I was going to cut down Sequoya like the tree she was named after.

  Stumbling out into the parking lot, ready for battle, I stopped abruptly when I saw the souls gathered there.

  “Ezzy!” Dex cried out.

  I stared at him as if I barely recognized the man who’d been my loyal second for all these years.

  Dex was in horrible shape. His face was bludgeoned and bruised, one of his orbital sockets looked broken, which caused his left eye to swell completely shut. Blood dribbled out of his obviously broken nose, and his jaw was a mass of purple, bloody b
ruises.

  His lower lip was fat and bleeding, and he was hunched in a way that told me his ribs were fractured, and possibly his right arm.

  Battered, bruised and broken, he still managed to hold my gaze with his one good eye.

  “Dex?” I whispered, belatedly seeing the two goons on either side of him, holding him up.

  I recognized both of them, and I felt sick to my stomach. On Dex’s right was Gorch, the bruiser who’d taken on Gideon and me in this very parking lot two days previous, and the Amazon warrior who’d been there as well.

  Finn’s footfalls rushed up behind me and stopped just as abruptly. “What the fuck?” he exclaimed.

  I began to look over my shoulder to confront him when Dex again called out, “Ezzy!”

  My gaze flew to him and saw that he was motioning toward his right. When my eyes traveled there, I think my heart stopped. Muzzled, leashed, and struggling for all she was worth was Ember. Holding tight to that leash was Sipowicz, the young muscled-up little shit who’d come to the parking garage to tell Finn that Petra wanted to see him.

  Ember tugged hard on her leash, trying to get to me. She whined and barked with the effort and Sipowicz yanked hard on her leash, choking her as he pulled her back.

  Seeing my beloved pup muzzled and restrained like that turned my blood to ice but that was immediately dispelled by a rage even hotter than before. I gripped Lunatrabem tightly, ready to murder every single enemy in this parking lot to save Ember and Dex. Taking a step toward Ember I was stopped in my tracks when right in front of me emerged Sequoya, her lip bloody but a triumphant look in her eyes.

  I blinked in surprise at her sudden appearance, and she seemed to realize that she’d become visible again too, because she looked down at herself, then clicked the silver pen in her hand in near panic. But she remained visible.

  Preparing to end her I said, “Like I told you, you treasonous bitch, it wears off in an hour and you can’t use it more than once a day.”

  Sequoya reacted by casually clipping the pen to her jacket before producing a dagger with lightning speed. Her expression turning to a smug smile, she cooed “Hello, love. Shall we have a bit of sport for the pen?”

  I raised Lunatrabem high when a sharp voice rang out from the shadows. “Don’t even think about it, Thief!”

  Sliding my gaze slightly to the right I saw the owner of that familiar voice step out of the shadows.

  “Clepsydra,” Finn said behind me. He sounded almost relieved.

  But I knew there was no reason to feel hopeful—our number was up.

  “Flayer,” she purred, walking into the light of the streetlamp illuminating the parking lot. Strapped to her back was the Bow of Anubis—the very weapon that Elric had stripped her of a thousand years ago.

  From her wrist dangled a rope, and Clepsydra pulled violently on it, yanking another form out of the shadows.

  Into the light stumbled Tic. He looked feverish and weak. The wound at his chest just below his collar bone was weeping through a dirty bandage, and tears streamed down his face from pain or fear—it was hard to tell which.

  His hands were tied together by the rope, and Clepsydra reeled him in like a prized fish.

  Sequoya backed away from me and walked to Clepsydra’s side, cuddling up next to her, she kissed her lovingly on the neck, then placed the succubaen neatly in Clepsydra’s outstretched palm.

  “Petra will kill her for this,” Finn said softly.

  “Petra will be the first to die,” I told him. “Right after us, that is.”

  I could see her plan so clearly. Obviously she’d recruited Bree to spy on Tic and she’d heard from Bree that Marco had played cards with Grigori Rasputin. She’d then put a tail on Rasputin, following him to the bookstore. Knowing that Finn had an unmentored twin brother he was highly protective of, she’d killed the bookstore owner, triggering a police investigation which had sent Gideon to interview Grigori. Clepsydra had then used Bree to recruit Grigori’s girlfriend, Rachel, with the promise of saving her sister’s life once the egg and the succubaen were recovered. No doubt it was Clepsydra who’d told Bree to promise this to Rachel, which explained why Gert had seen Rachel crying in the bar. I thought it likely that Clepsydra had told Rachel to suggest that Grigori mentor Gideon, triggering Gideon to present Grigori with the succubaen, which of course Clepsydra knew about.

  And then, with a naive and trusting Rachel’s help, Clepsydra had entered Grigori’s home on the night of the dinner party and murdered them all. But even after torturing the Russian mystic and his guests Clepsydra had been unable to locate the egg or the succubaen. And I knew that because the chantress had then sent Sequoya to use my pen to follow me, thinking I might lead them directly to either prize. As I lay unconscious on the floor at Grigori’s house three days ago, I’d unwittingly given up the succubaen, and I knew Clepsydra didn’t yet have the egg because if she did, Petra and Elric would already be dead.

  Once she’d secured the succubaen, Clepsydra had launched another part of her plan by killing Bree and abducting Marco in order to redirect Finn away from Petra’s court. The lieutenant was the only mystic who could protect Petra from the chantress. With Finn distracted and out of the way, Clepsydra was free to organize her mutiny, recruiting Sipowicz, Gorch, and the Amazon and carry on the search for the egg.

  But she was hampered by the fact that Finn had invoked his comeback spell, causing the succubaen to disappear again. So Clepsydra had kept Sequoya on our tail, and I had no doubt Elric’s assistant had spied on us when we were outside Gideon’s house and she’d followed us here, obviously guessing that I knew where the succubaen was.

  The rest of Clepsydra’s evil plan was to recover the succubaen, ambush and murder us then do the same to Petra using an arrow from the Bow of Anubis which was well suited to the task as the arrows themselves were magically infused to literally find the heart of their targets. And when she allowed her arrows to fly, Clepsydra would be far out of spellcasting range, avoiding the risk that Petra might see her coming and invoke the chantress’s binding spell which would kill her instantly.

  Adding a new and opportunistic angle to Clepsydra’s plan was Lunatrabem, which was why Dex and Ember were here. The chantress thought she could threaten them to control me, and once Petra had been dealt with, Clepsydra could force me to wield the sword against Elric, distracting him while she unleashed her deadly arrow from afar. But if I refused to cooperate, Clepsydra could kill me and force Marco to engage Elric with Lunatrabem in my stead.

  Once Elric had been killed, she’d be freed her from her binding spell and then nothing and no one could stop the chantress as she used the succubaen to acquire every other trinket and weapon she desired, including the phoenix and Grigori’s elusive egg.

  As I stood there in the parking lot what I didn’t know was if Grigori—in his tortured state—had confessed to Clepsydra what he’d read in the rare book he’d purchased, that the phoenix was an ember-colored hunting dog. Namely, my ember-colored hunting dog. With Ember leashed and muzzled here in the parking lot, I had to assume there was a strong possibility that he had.

  One glance at Finn told me he’d put much of Clepsydra’s plan together too because his expression was murderous fury.

  He stepped forward several steps to the right and in front of me, gathering a large ball of energy, preparing for battle.

  As he came forward toward her, Clepsydra’s expression turned gleeful. Dropping the rope before stepping on it to make sure Tic didn’t sneak off, she produced an arrow from the quiver strapped to her back, nocking it expertly in her bow.

  “Oh, Flayer,” Clepsydra said with an amused smile. “You never disappoint.”

  No sooner had she gotten that sentence out of her mouth than Finn unleashed his ball of essence. I thought for sure the chantress had met her doom, but in that same instant Clepsydra took aim and let the arrow fly. It met Finn’s bundled essence at the midway point and the impact of the two caused a violent explosion that knocked
me back several paces.

  When I’d gained my footing again, I saw that Finn was no longer standing. Instead, he was on his knees, the arrow sticking out of the center of his chest and blood pouring down his shirt.

  “No!” I screamed, rushing to his side. I tried to hold him up as he began to wilt to the ground, but Finn’s complexion quickly drained of color and he crumpled to the pavement. There his eyes closed, blood dribbling from his mouth and with a gurgled sigh he breathed his last.

  Panicked, I looked up, seeking help but my gaze landed on Clepsydra, who’d nocked another arrow and was pointing it directly at me.

  I got to my feet drawing Lunatrabem up and close to my chest. Clepsydra could unleash her arrow but I knew it was no match for one of Merlin’s swords and the blade was wide enough to protect most of my vulnerable heart.

  In reaction to my protective stance, the chantress grinned and it infuriated me that she was so tickled by the carnage she was unleashing. Swiveling her aim she pointed the arrow again at Finn, waiting.

  But Finn didn’t move and the seconds ticked by while everyone watched the dead lieutenant closely.

  After nearly a minute, Clepsydra pivoted her aim once more, this time pointing it at Dex but keeping me locked in her gaze. “Move away from the lieutenant,” she commanded.

  I did as I was told, keeping the sword over my heart and my gaze trained on her.

  “Check for his pin,” she said to Sequoya.

  Sequoya skipped happily to Finn and my lip curled into a snarl. I mentally vowed to hurt her before I too breathed my last. The mystic squatted down and pulled on Finn’s shoulder, looking for the lieutenant’s pin that I knew he no longer had because it was currently in my jacket pocket where I’d tucked it after pinching it easily out of Gideon’s pocket with him none the wiser.

  Staring down at Sequoya as she rifled through all of Finn’s pockets, I began to suspect I knew what magical powers that pin actually had.

  At last Sequoya stood, kicked Finn’s body and announced, “He’s not wearing it.”

  Clepsydra smiled in triumph and Sequoya skipped back to her side, gazing adoringly up at her. “Now what,” she asked.