by T. G. Ayer
I flipped the book open and began scanning all the right-hand pages while Natasha did all the left-hand ones. Soon we’d searched most of the book and had come up empty.
Literally.
The page we were looking at, one a few sheets before the end of the grimoire, was blank.
“Odd for a grimoire to have blank pages,” said Natasha.
I scanned the page, shifting closer, then further away, in case the words had been written with a kind of ink that could only be discerned in a different light. But I didn’t see a change in the bareness of the page.
Instead, I saw scratches.
The entire page was covered with what appeared to be random scratches. From what I could see, it didn’t seem like writing or words that I could immediately identify.
I frowned and stared at the page, rubbing the cut on my thumb with my finger when Natasha asked, “Don’t tell me you managed to get hurt again.” She glared at my damaged thumb.
“I cut myself on the pages of this damned book,” I said and then slowly added, “and then a drop of blood landed on it, and it took me to the lightning bird.”
We both looked at each other in shock and said, “It’s the blood.”
Chapter 38
The next instant, Natasha handed me a small dagger—manifesting it as if from nowhere—and I used it to cut my palm, this time the injury-free hand. I willed the blood to well up as fast as possible, and then when a large drop had pooled on my palm, I tipped my hand and dropped the red liquid onto the first word on the page.
With a soft hiss, the blood ran along the scratches, filling the tiny grooves slowly, to reveal pages filled with now-red words.
At first, I didn’t understand what was written there and when I looked up at Natasha and asked, “What does it say?” all she did was jerk her chin back at the book.
When I looked down, I saw the bloody letters shimmer and shift, reforming slowly, and I found I was able to understand the words now, as if my blood had attuned me to their meaning.
I scanned the contract and found it was extremely thorough, binding the impundulu to the witch until such time as the witch passes it on, or either one of them dies. The not-so-good part of the contract was the addendum stating a lightning bird without his master was left to his own devices.
And it seemed that my nemesis was definitely one of those.
I read further and looked up, surprised. “Here’s a section on methods of breaking the contract.”
“Really?” Natasha asked, peering over my shoulder. “That’s odd. I wouldn’t have thought that would be smart, leaving it there where anyone could see it. Why would they detail the methods if the whole intent of the contract was to maintain control over the bird?”
I shrugged. “Maybe this was only for the witch’s education?”
Natasha nodded. “Makes sense. It did need your blood in order to reveal the words of the contract. Maybe the warlock can’t see this?”
“I’m beginning to think that’s correct. He’s bound by the book, and bound to the power of the old master, but he’s not entirely in control. He can do spells, lay curses, use his power, but he can’t become more powerful or gain his freedom.”
“Then what was the point of getting to you?” asked Drake. I almost flinched. He’d been so silent, I’d almost forgotten he was there.
Natasha grunted. “I wonder if he feels that having the ability to astral travel would help him.”
I shook my head, confused. “So it may not have been someone who just didn’t like me who sent me my little scary friend?” This was odd considering Darius’s assumption. But perhaps that was all it had been. An assumption.
And perhaps I should read the results of the DNA testing.
I focused on reading further, making a mental note to check the letter when I didn’t have Natasha—and a very silent Drake—hovering over my shoulder.
As I turned the page, I caught sight of a drawing of a box—the sides covered in strange lettering—with a keyhole on the top of the lid. A second drawing showed the lid open and something red and oblong-shaped within the box.
As I looked closer, the page shimmered and the object pulsed, as though I were watching a video. The longer I looked at it, the clearer the image became. I gasped when it hit me what I was looking at.
“It’s his heart.”
“What?” asked both Natasha and Drake.
“It’s his heart. His heart is the key.” I pointed at the page. “Can you see the box?”
The both peered closer then shook their heads. “Nope.”
I sighed. “Okay, maybe only I can see the page because of the magic nonsense. No offense, Natasha.”
“None taken,” she replied serenely.
Taking a deep breath, I said, “Okay. He has to cut out his own heart and offer it when he commits himself to the witch, a sign of supplication, and a means of retaining full control of the creature. It leans more toward the benefit of the witch rather than the bird. And essentially the owner of the box owns the bird.”
“Sounds a lot like slavery to me,” Drake mumbled.
“Actually, it sounds worse.” I read the words written beneath the live drawing. “It says here that the only way for the bird to be free is to eat its own heart. But that in itself is a death sentence.”
“Not necessarily,” said Natasha. “The impundulu is a vampire, it’s dead already. Although…if it ingests its own heart, the magic of the spell could ensure he gets his life back.”
“That’s not what it implies here.” I stabbed the page.
“Perhaps the wording is a failsafe to ensure that the impundulu won’t know the truth. If he truly understands how the magic of creatures like him works, then he will have interpreted it correctly.”
“But instead he is frantic ‘cos he thinks he’s lost his chance to live again.”
Natasha nodded.
“Yeah, live again as in whatever life is for a vampiric bird.”
I chewed on the inside of my mouth, considering another possibility. “What if the impundulu can’t get into the room?”
“What room?” asked Drake.
“The one I appeared in when the book took me. The place seemed old, filled with books, musty. So perhaps no one had been there for a while.” Then I froze.
How had I missed it?
The box was the key.
Chapter 39
“That’s it!” I said, pumping my fist in the air, a grin blooming on my lips.
“That’s what?” asked Drake, his brow furrowing as he stared at me.
“That box. I saw it in the room. It was on a mantlepiece with books stacked on top of it.”
“So the box is in this room, to which the warlock has no access. But I still don’t get what his connection is to you?”
“Maybe he needs me because I travel in the ether? Maybe he wanted me to help him access the room?”
Natasha was nodding slowly. “The room won’t allow him access because he isn’t truly the master of the book.”
I sat back and took a breath. “So am I supposed to find the box and give him his heart?”
“He could just want to get it back into his own possession, so if the book changes hands, then he won’t necessarily go to the next master.”
“Could be all he wants is his freedom?”
“Can we quit with the bleeding-heart bullshit?” Drake snapped, bringing me to my senses.
“Drake is right. The warlock has done way more than he should have if he just meant to get me to free his heart.”
“Yeah. His actions show a deep hatred for you.”
“Okay so maybe he has no clue about the book, and is doing this to me out of…? What? Vengeance?”
“It’s possible. You have put a bunch of bad guys away.”
“That would imply I put his master away.”
The room went silent.
“Could I have been the one to kill the witch?” I said, wondering how that would have been possible for me to have
done so without knowing it.
And then my eyes widened.
“What?” Natasha and Drake asked in unison.
I raised an eyebrow. “You two should hook up. You both seem to like speaking in unison.”
Natasha glared at me while Drake simply closed his mouth.
“Right,” I said slowly, grabbing my phone and checking my old files. “So, about a year and a half ago, I had one case that was a little out of the ordinary. I had to find a young woman, about twenty-four, pretty, innocent-looking. Her family needed help looking for her as she’d been missing for about two months. They seemed nice enough, and I took the case. It took me a couple of days to find her, and when I entered the room where she was held prisoner, I realized she wasn’t the pretty innocent that she looked to her family. The cell walls and floors were covered in magical runes and spells, but something had been neutralizing her magic.
“But the woman was a little off her rocker. Maybe being in prison had made her stir crazy or something, but even though I’d saved her, she was intent on attacking me. I didn’t do much other than defend myself and then jump her to her family. They got a little bit of a surprise to see us land in their living room and then to have her snarling and scratching at me, yelling out spells in a strange language. Turned out they’d adopted her out of an orphanage somewhere in Siberia and were terrified that if they didn’t make a concerted effort to find her, she’d return and make their lives hell.”
“Yeah. I remember that case. You hightailed it and came home all scratched up. Steph asked if you’d been in a fight with a giant cat.”
I nodded. “I recall it clearly now. We did a little digging after that and found out she was a powerful witch masquerading as a little girl in order to hide from her coven. But nothing we found indicated she was this powerful.” I sighed and felt all my energy dissipate. “I was pretty furious for a while. Ungrateful woman.”
“Ungrateful bitch,” offered the gargoyle.
“Ungrateful witch, you mean,” I said, receiving an amused snort in response. I snorted too, and added, “Plus, she’d taken a good bit of my flesh and blood with her.”
Natasha stiffened. “What?”
I looked over at her. “She scratched me pretty deeply. I had to get it seen by a healer. Couple of deep rips up my arm.”
I pointed at my forearm and then stiffened. “That’s how he put the spell on me. He found my blood under her fingernails.”
Natasha nodded. “She probably went straight for him.”
“So how did she end up dead? She’d have to be dead for the book to have been transferred to a different owner, right?” Drake asked.
I nodded. “It makes sense. She goes to him. Maybe they fight, and she ends up dead. And now he thinks he can’t ever get free.”
“And it’s all your fault.”
I huffed. “Of course, it is.” Why would it not surprise me to find out this warlock wanted me dead, when even the people close to me didn’t turn a hair when it came to betrayal. Then I stiffened and stared at the good witch. “What about the blood?” I asked, my voice soft.
Natasha frowned. “Mel, you have to be specific, we’re dealing with a lot of blood right now.”
I kept staring at her. “The blood we scried with. Remember? Storm’s blood.”
Drake’s shocked outcry of, “Storm’s blood? You did magic with a fucking god’s blood?” went ignored.
“Holy Mother Goddess.” Natasha’s words were so soft I almost didn’t hear her. She stared around her, confused. “I don’t understand.”
Drake was pacing, clearly needing to expend some of his fury, while Natasha turned in place, arms curved around her waist.
“Maybe it wasn’t his blood.” Drake’s voice broke into my veil of shock.
“Of course, it was his blood. I drew it from him myself.”
“No, I don’t mean that. Maybe the—”
Natasha cut him off, her eyes wide. “Maybe the scrying spell worked because it followed your blood here to New Orleans because the warlock had used your blood to cast the spell.”
I shook my head, opened my mouth then closed it. “I got nothing.”
Drake’s lip curled into a self-satisfied smirk and Natasha heaved a sigh of relief. “So, Storm didn’t have anything to do with the haunting after all.”
I exhaled slowly. I’d suspected Storm, and I’d been wrong, and strangely enough, I felt relieved, despite everything else he’d done.
The weight of the envelope in my pocket seemed to be ten times lighter now.
“So…what do we do now?” asked Drake. “I mean, we have to put a stop to this haunting bullshit at least.”
I grinned. “That’s at the top of my list for sure.”
Natasha’s face was dark. “I suspect you’re going to have to kill him to end the spell.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, horrified that that would be the only way out. “I usually knock out my opponents, not kill them. Not unless they were trying to kill me.”
“This one’s trying to kill you, Mel,” both Natasha and Drake said in unison.
“Aww, you two. You’re so damn cute the way you keep—”
“Shut up, Mel,” Natasha and Drake snapped, their words again spoken together. They glared at me and then at each other, before falling silent.
“Ok. What’s the plan?” I leaned over and continued to read. Moments later, I reached a description that would have had me falling off my chair, had I been sitting on one. “We get him to eat his heart, and then he’s mortal again, and then we call the big guns in to take him away?”
“Big guns?”
I shrugged. “The Elite can take over from there.”
“And the spell? Won’t it still be in effect?” asked Drake.
Natasha smiled. “I think as long as we can capture him, we’ll be able to undo the spell with blood and hair from his own body. What’s good for the goose…”
“Excellent,” I said, feeling my spirits rise a little. “Let’s do this.”
“Do we have a Plan B?” asked Drake as I got to my feet and clapped my hands together, enthused now that the end seemed in sight.
I snorted. “There’s no Plan B, Drake.”
“That’s just great."
Chapter 40
We hadn’t yet come up with a concrete plan to find the lightning bird. Drake had returned Natasha so she could work on possible spells, while I continued to scan the book for more clues.
I hadn’t gotten far when I received a text from Carter.
Body found in NOLA. Sending details. Be there. We need this one solved no matter the cost.
I made a face and got to my feet as I scanned the details in my email.
“Drake?”
“Yeah?” He responded from his mattress where he’d been busy on his laptop. I wasn’t sure what he was doing but considering he was back home, I had no doubt it was inventory or expense spreadsheets.
“We have a new body.”
He boosted to his feet and hurried after me, grabbing this rucksack on the way. “I’m driving. No jumping.”
“Why?” I asked, wondering—not for the first time—why Drake had been avoiding jumps. The only time he’d been okay to do it was when he’d had to fetch Natasha.
Strange.
“Wait. Let me project first. Get the lay of the land. Carter implied I had permission to do whatever it took to get this case solved.”
Drake grunted and settled against the kitchen counter, rucksack still on his shoulder.
I studied the location Carter had given me and paused. The address sounded familiar, and I dug into the back pocket of my jeans for Lorin’s note. Sure enough, one of the addresses belonged to the crime scene I was about to head off to. Lorin had been afraid when she’d given me these addresses, and I hoped I’d be able to thank her. Maybe when it was all done, I’d drop by at the shop and express my gratitude in person.
I stuffed the note back into my pocket and focused. I used Carter’s
directions to guide myself to the scene.
Forensics techs and cops milled around, and I could make out Asher’s tall form toward the edge of the cordoned-off patch of soil. It looked like it had once been a plantation field, but had been recently dug up. Or at the very least, tilled.
I shifted closer to the tent which demarcated the latest murder victim’s body. I moved past the forensics people who were swabbing and taking fingernail scrapings, walking around carefully in blue-booteed feet.
As the techs worked, I leaned closer to study the victim’s face and body. My eyes flitted away from the gory damages done to the poor girl’s body, instead focusing on what could lead me to the lightning bird.
I’d almost decided I was done and was shifting away when the light caught on something within the girl’s hair. A single red strand among the matted, blood-streaked blonde.
I looked up and studied the area around me, waiting for the right moment when both the forensic techs turned away to bag their finds. I jumped in, solidified, grabbed the hair and used it to jump straight to where the red-head currently lay, her dead eyes staring motionless up at the sky.
A small part of me registered that my timing could not have been worse. Asher had chosen the moment I’d solidified to look over at the body and had stared straight at me, spine stiff.
I’d jumped only a second later, though Asher hadn’t appeared to be racing to catch me. In fact, he hadn’t reacted even to warn his team that I was there.
Now, I stared at the corpse of the redhead, having reappeared on the other side of the hill where Asher stood. Worse, I was still in Asher’s line of sight. I saw his head whip around as if he knew where I was appearing a millisecond before I materialized.
At my feet was more tumbled soil, and from within the soil emerged three fingers, as if someone had been buried beneath the ground and was attempting to claw their way out of their grave.
Ignoring the fingers for now—as they surely belonged to another victim still within the soil—I crouched down and studied the redhead, then straightened and waved to Asher. He was already heading my way.