SPELL TO UNBIND, A Page 4

  Five minutes turned into thirty, which would’ve normally made me crazy, but I realized at the end that I’d needed them. Getting out of bed at last, I left Ember to continue sleeping there and padded to the bathroom for a shower and an assessment.

  Gazing into the mirror while the water heated, I smiled in relief. I’d had a quick glimpse of myself in one of the mirrors at SPL and I had looked rough.

  But this morning, I appeared fine. Even the tangles in my long, black hair had seemed to smooth out. Turning my face from side to side I could see none of the telltale bruises put there by dragons and fiends the day before. My pale skin was clear and smooth. I blinked at my reflection, studying my image for a moment. It’d been a while since I’d taken a long hard look at myself, and this morning it seemed appropriate.

  My light green eyes shown with purpose and determination—which was a good sign, and the set of my jaw in my heart-shaped face was firm. The only thing that didn’t look determined and ready for battle was my nose, which is my best feature.

  My father told me I had my mother’s nose. I took his word for it as she died in childbirth and there’d been no pictures or portraits of her in our home. But I could imagine she was there, present with me in the thin, delicate shape of my nose, which took otherwise common features and turned them into something more memorable and pleasing.

  Satisfied with both my mindset and my now unmarred appearance, I hopped into the shower and was ready for battle just twenty minutes later.

  Clad in black leggings, a white V-neck t-shirt, calf-length leather boots, and a matching leather jacket, I moved out of the bedroom, making my way onto the catwalk that overlooked the large open warehouse, which was home sweet home for me and Dex.

  I’d acquired the place two years earlier when I’d first come to the Eastern Seaboard. Before then I’d been in Europe, slowly gaining the skills and tools I’d needed to make a play for Elric’s team.

  The warehouse was in a section of Alexandria, Virginia known as Old Town North, not on the water of the Potomac River, but not far away either. Ember and I go running along the river most days, and it’s especially lovely each spring when the cherry blossoms are in bloom. Listed in the low seven figures, I’d won the three-story five-thousand square-foot warehouse in a game of chance from a chronic gambler and lowlife mystic.

  I hadn’t cast a single spell to get my hands on the deed either. Still, there’d been considerable work needed to bring the place into a livable state, and that had cost me a quarter-million and change. Lucky me, I had a high FICO score and a bank willing to lend out a lot of cash on a property valued at six times the mortgage amount. Unlucky me, I hadn’t had any income coming in the previous two years, and I was down to my last couple thousand. I was either going to get Elric his egg and secure myself some gainful employment, or die trying (literally).

  Peeking over the railing, I saw Dex at the ground-floor level, shimmying up a twenty-five-foot rope using only his arms.

  He was bare-chested and glossy with sweat, muscles bulging with every pull, his six-pack abs rippling with definition.

  Were I a woman free of the shadow of the spell I’d been cursed with, I’d have met him at the top of the rope and ridden him all the way down.

  But for almost the entire time we’ve been together (save one glorious and memorable night), Dex has done absolutely nothing to stir my home fires, as it were.

  He and I have been together for a couple of decades now. We’d met during the Mystic Games on a tropical oasis that’s as magical a place as any on Earth.

  The games are held each year on an island in the South Pacific called Celeo, which can’t be found on any map. It’s rumored that Amelia Earhart crash-landed there and was eaten by one of the island’s many monsters. (A rumor I wholeheartedly believe.)

  For six days at the height of winter, forty of the world’s most athletic, skilled, and perhaps suicidal mystics come to Celeo to compete against one another and the native flora and fauna. Most entrants don’t make it to the end, but the top ten competitors (assuming there’re ten left; sometimes there aren’t) come away with sizable cash prizes and some potential name recognition.

  I’d entered the games for the money and to prove myself as a skilled mystic. Like most sporting events, the top contestants are always sponsored, and the reason for my entering at all, beyond the cash, was to get noticed by one of the sponsors—specifically, by Elric Ostergaard. His mystics almost always won, but the year I entered, all three members of his team were killed. The death toll on Elric’s team included a mystic known only as Maverick—an absolute legend given his performance at previous games. In the last event of the games, Maverick had been stung by a wicked scorpion six feet tall and eighteen feet long, with a stinger as thick as my arm.

  As it happened, I’d killed that very scorpion, but I’d had some help in the form of another contestant named Dexter Valerius.

  The way it went down was, after killing Maverick, the scorpion had come at me, and I’d fended it off—rather well, I might add—until its mate had come at me from behind. Now normally in a competition like the games, that would’ve been lights out for me because nobody there is gonna have your back given the cutthroat vibe of the competitors, but I was saved when Dex launched himself from an overhang above us to drive a stake right through the head of the scorpion on my flank. It was a move that completely confused me because Dex had had the clear advantage of gaining the overhead where the scorpions couldn’t reach him. All he’d had to do was fend off any other mystics trying to take that spot, and he would’ve won the event. He’d taken a huge risk and saved my ass, and in the process, he’d put himself in mortal jeopardy because, once it’d seen what Dex had done to its mate, the bigger arachnid had suddenly stopped its assault on me to go after him.

  The second I was freed from the attentions of the larger scorpion, I could’ve simply scrambled up the rock to the now-vacant ledge and waited to see what happened between the two, but that’s not what I did. Instead, I returned the favor when Dex was pinned by the scorpion, and killed it with the same stake he’d used on its mate. And because I’d killed the bigger of the two, I’d come out the victor, earning myself some major points once the results were in.

  At the end of the games, I’d come in a very respectable sixth place and Dex had come in seventh. During the award’s ceremony, we’d caught the other’s eye, and that’s when the real magic happened—well, at least for me.

  You see, on the island of Celeo, although regular spells themselves do work, no mystic’s binding curse will hold. In other words, for the first time in about seven decades, and for the six days of the games, I’d been completely free from the curse that bound me. It was the most liberating sensation I’d ever felt. For once I was completely in charge of my own reactions to a member of the opposite sex, and the afternoon that Dex had saved my life I’d felt my first real attraction to another man. That night we’d made love, and it’d been glorious—so natural, so sweet, so filled with possibility.

  Afterward, in the dark as we lay together, I can remember so distinctly not feeling that desperate empty fear that always took hold in the pit of my stomach at the beginning of every love affair—that sinking feeling that soon I’d be untethered and reeling from the loss of someone I was desperate to hold onto. It hadn’t been there to fill me with doubt, to throw me off balance, and push me to cling to him in needy, desperate ways.

  As dawn blossomed on the horizon and we prepared to leave the island, he’d kissed me, and I’d felt … happy. Something so simple, so normal, but for me, something supremely rare.

  I hadn’t known how I’d react to Dex once we boarded the ship to leave the island, allowing our binding curses to take root again, but after he invited me to join him on a trip back to his native Australia—or Oz, as he refers to it—I’d been surprised to find myself saying yes. At the time, I’d reasoned that I’d need a good second once I got closer to applying for a post at SPL, and Dex had already proved himse
lf to be a skillful and reliable backup in tight situations, so getting to know him a little better was probably a good thing.

  And then the moment my curse had taken hold again, I’d known he was in fact a good guy, because when I looked at him, I felt no attraction whatsoever. My binding curse is particularly cruel that way—I’m attracted to the worst of men and totally romantically uninterested in men who’re of good heart.

  In fact, the higher the moral character of a man, the more likely I am to be repulsed by him.

  With Dex my reaction to the notion of being intimate with him makes my stomach turn. It’s awful, because more than anything I want a thousand more nights like the one we had on that island decades before. If not for the curse, he’d be my one and only.

  Still, even though I’m not physically attracted to him, I do enjoy his company very much. And deep down I know him to be a truly good friend. At least he’s good to me. He knows the curse I’m bound by, and still he’s unflinchingly loyal to me. All this time I’ve known he’s wanted more, but he never asks for what I can’t give him, which makes me fiercely loyal to him in return.

  But beyond even all that, Dex is earnest, smart, funny, and even thoughtful. These aren’t qualities you normally find in a mystic. The life calls for a certain edge to one’s personality, but Dex seems to float above the typical stereotype.

  He’s not especially skilled or even very good at using his magical essence, but what he lacks in talent, he more than makes up for in other ways. His ability to take the hit of a spell is one of them. I’ve seen Dex get hit with a solid punch from a powerful bundle of energy cast by a deadly mystic that would normally leave a guy unconscious, paralyzed, or even dead, and get up to walk it off like it was nothing more than a pesky shove to the shoulder.

  Physically he’s insanely strong and one of the fittest men on Earth. I’ve witnessed him lift the front end of a car before. I’ve seen him pick up a refrigerator, push over an eighteen-foot-tall tree, and run a mile in under five minutes.

  I’ve also seen him wrestle an alligator, fend off sharks, and punch a dragon in the nose. He’s physically formidable and courageous in every sense.

  He has other skills that I admire too; as in, he might not be good at casting a spell, but he’s a genius for sussing out how a trinket might work. Some of the prizes I bring home are loaded with obvious magic layered on top of more powerful magic. Dex almost always discovers their secrets. That alone is a highly prized skill. If we can’t figure out how to make the trinket work for us, then they’re as good as junk.

  And it’s something I remind myself about every time he brings home yet another yellow object.

  My second’s binding curse was done to him out of spite by an irresponsible, drunken douchebag of a mystic aptly nicknamed Weasel, who picked a fight with Dex in a bar and had his ass handed to him in three quick punches—by a mere mortal.

  After losing face to my friend, Weasel cursed Dex with a ridiculous but surprisingly strong binding curse that he left activated—meaning he gets no downtime from it, and which makes it impossible for Dex to resist his attraction to the color yellow. The poor man can’t walk by anything painted or dyed any shade of yellow without making an attempt to acquire it. It’s why I now do all of the thieving; more than once I’ve sent Dex out on a job and he’s come back not with the intended prize, but rather with a yellow vase, paperweight, or bowl that soon proved to hold no magical value at all.

  In fact, in all the years we’ve known each other, the only time I’ve ever seen him dressed in a color other than yellow was at the Mystic Games. He’d worn lots of bright blue, red, and aqua back then, and he’d been stunning in those colors.

  The true shame is that yellow is a terrible color on Dex. His skin tone is all wrong for it, but that never stops him from adorning himself from head to toe in the color.

  And it’s everywhere in our warehouse too, from the throw pillows on our loveseat and couches, to the salt and pepper shakers, coffee maker, Dex’s office chair, area rugs, Ember’s dog bed—you name it; if it comes in yellow, he’s made a play to try to decorate our home base with it.

  Anyway, I can put up with the color thing as long as it keeps him protected from most death curses. That’s what good binding spells do. They offer at least some protection against other spells. The more powerful the binding spell, the more difficult it is to kill or harm a mystic by unleashing a deathly curse or mass of energy.

  It’s how I knew my binding spell was incredibly powerful. Through the years I’ve faced down several notoriously deadly mystics who’d thought to dismiss and dispel me with a few whispered words or lobbed essence only to be shocked when I’d barely flinched.

  Of course, it’s also how I now knew that Elric was even more powerful than I’d originally given him credit for. I hadn’t even detected that he’d launched a death curse at me until I was being crushed to death.

  “You’re up?” I heard Dex call, and I realized I’d been staring off into space, lost in thought.

  I smiled. “I am.”

  Dex, wearing bright yellow shorts and matching shoes and socks, gripped the rope with his legs, arched his back, and got himself some momentum to swing over to the railing of the catwalk. With a nimble leap, he made it to the railing and climbed over to me. “You should get back to bed and curl up with Ember for a while longer,” he said. “I felt a lot of broken bones before putting you to bed last night.”

  I smirked. “You’ll look for any excuse to feel me up.”

  Dex rolled his eyes playfully, but then he focused a pointed look at me like I should make a U-turn and head right back to bed.

  I gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “I’m fine.”

  He arched a skeptical eyebrow.

  I matched his expression, and we stood there with arching brows for a few beats.

  “I guess there’s no stopping you then,” he finally said.

  “No. I gotta get to Tic.”

  Dex frowned. “I hate that little prick.”

  That made me chuckle. “I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual.”

  “Tic” was the nickname given to one of my regular informants. His nickname stems from his binding curse, which, when recited verbatim, activates a small tic somewhere on his body. Left unchecked—i.e., without the countercurse being cast—the tic eventually spreads to the rest of his body and ultimately sends him into convulsions. The curse has the very real power to kill him within about twenty-four hours.

  “I thought you believed the little bug was lying when he bragged to you that he knew where Grigori was hiding,” Dex said.

  “It’s hard to tell with Tic. He could’ve been lying or he could’ve been trying to save himself from a flinch-filled afternoon.”

  Dex grunted and crossed his arms. “What’s going to happen when you find out the little shit made up the whole thing?”

  “I’m going to hand Ember over to you and tell you to hit the bricks, bud.”

  “Seems harsh.”

  “Elric won’t stop at killing just me if he thinks I’ve conned him.”

  Dex swept a hand through his hair and blew out a sigh. “I know you were a bit desperate in your interview with him yesterday, Ezzy, but you’re taking a helluva chance with this whole Tic angle.”

  “I’ve been taking chances my whole life, D.”

  He considered me solemnly. “But the stakes were never this high, were they, luv?”

  I shrugged. “I knew what I was getting into when I applied for the job.”

  Dex didn’t have a counterargument to that, but I could tell he didn’t like any part of my current plan—which, admittedly, wasn’t all that great. Still, this was the corner I’d painted myself into, so I had no choice but to keep pushing forward.

  “Will you run Ember for me?” I asked as the silence between Dex and me began to feel awkward. “She’ll want some exercise soon.”

  “You can run with her later. Right now, I’m coming with you.”

  “No, y
ou’re not.”

  “Esmé, I’m bloomin’ well going.”

  “Dex,” I said on a heavy sigh. We’d discussed—at length—my initiation into SPL, and how important it was to show Elric that I was the right person for the job, and not my insanely physically powerful second. While I knew that Dex would never intentionally show me up, I also knew that Elric preferred men over women when employing thieves. I couldn’t afford to have Dex tag along with me on this first crucial mission and risk having Elric jump to the conclusion that Dex was the better fit for his organization than me. If Elric had spies reporting back to him about my progress, and no doubt he did, those spies might report back that Dex was with me every step of the way. That feedback could influence Elric into thinking Dex was the real leader of our team, and provoke him to extend the position to Dex rather than to me. If Elric offered Dex the job, there was no way Dex could turn him down … and live. Elric Ostergaard wasn’t someone to whom you said, “Golly gee, thanks for the offer and all, but Imma pass.”

  So even though I knew Dex’s heart was in the right place, I still couldn’t give in to the impulse to bring him with me. “This isn’t a job for us,” I said gently. “This is a job for me. I’ve got to prove myself to Elric, and I have to do it alone, and I know that you know that.”

  Dex scowled. “You can’t trust Tic, Ezzy. He’s as likely to send you into a trap as he is to lie to you about Grigori’s whereabouts. Just let me be your lookout. If I have to stay hidden, I will.”

  I reached for his arm and gave it a squeeze. “I’m so sorry, Dex, but no.” I waited for him to process that before I added, “Trust me when I tell you that I’ll definitely need your help once I get my hands on the egg. I’ll need to know how many more times it can heal before it becomes a dud, and only you’ll be able to tell me that.”

  A trinket as powerful as Grigori’s egg had a limited shelf life. It was rumored that the egg could be used magically only twelve times before it crumbles into bits of eggshell and becomes useless. “There’s no telling how many lives Grigori has already used up with it,” I said when Dex didn’t reply.