SPELL TO UNBIND, A

by Laurie, Victoria

  I pulled open the door to a set of stairs and I carried Ember down, hugging her still form tightly until I reached the basement level.

  “Illuminate,” I said at the bottom of the stairs. Three crystal cathedrals glowed with soft yellow light and lit the space enough to allow me to see where I was going.

  I walked with Ember forward to a fireplace set in the middle of the room. Dex and I had built it. At the time, I’d wondered if it was worth all the labor, but now I was grateful for the effort.

  Getting down on my knees in front of the brick, I placed Ember in the center of the hearth, then removed the book from my waistband and placed it just behind her. I didn’t know if my plan to rid the earth of its presence would work, or if it was even necessary at this point, but I had to try.

  I sat back on my heels, bending forward until my forehead touched the cold stone floor, and sobbed tears of fear and denial and longing and regret.

  Finally, the thought of Dex in the back of the Escalade pulled me from the depths of my sorrow, and slowly I got to my feet, bending low once more to gently stroke Ember’s muzzle before heading back upstairs.

  Getting Dex out of the SUV proved just as difficult as getting him in, but with the use of the wheelbarrow we’d used to shuffle bricks into the warehouse to build the fireplace, I was able to move him into the living room and eventually maneuver him onto the couch. He was almost totally out of it, which was probably a good thing.

  Next I headed into the trinket room and sorted through the various treasures there, coming up with three trinkets that, combined with the serpent and staff trinket, would take away a lot of the pain Dex might be in and help him feel more comfortable while his wounds healed.

  After activating all three additional charms, I laid them on his chest, and within the few minutes it took to fish out a blanket and pillow for him, I saw that the look of discomfort that’d etched itself onto his features had relaxed, and he was now sleeping soundly.

  I turned then to stare toward the back door leading to the garage. I knew I was taking a chance by not helping Finn but I couldn’t risk having him witness what was about to happen to Ember.

  With a heavy heart I turned my back on the door and headed down the stairs again. Ember’s body was still lying where I’d left her, and I sat on the floor akimbo to stare at her unmoving form. Soon a small wisp of smoke rose from the hole where the arrow had pierced her heart.

  More tears leaked down my cheeks.

  A moment later, my beautiful, beloved companion burst into flames.

  The heat was so intense, I had to get up and take a few steps back, and it proved to be the remedy for ridding the world of the clue that would’ve identified her. The edges of the book turned black before the whole text also went up in flames.

  I waited until the fire had died down and there was nothing left of her but ash and cinder, then I went back upstairs and into the garage once again to where Finn lay dead in the back of his Escalade.

  I opened the golden box and placed the egg in Finn’s cold hand. Immediately it grew warm and I stepped back, waiting and watching for it to work its magic.

  For several moments nothing happened. I reached out and felt the egg. It was still warm and I began to worry that perhaps the lore about the egg being able to bring someone back within twenty-four hours was wrong, and I’d inadvertently left this last task for too long but then Finn’s body twitched and a second or two later, he gasped for air.

  Letting out a sigh of relief I crawled into the Escalade next to him and stroked his hair. Something tender welled up within me then but I was too emotionally fragile to examine it, so I pulled my hand back and waited for Finn to move again.

  “Hey, there,” I said when he stirred. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

  Taking the egg from him, I tucked it into its box, then pocketed the treasure before helping Finn as gently as I could into what I hoped was a more comfortable position, laying him on his back and moving a pillow that I’d brought with me under his head.

  “Where am I?” he muttered, as if the effort to speak was exhausting.

  “Someplace safe,” I told him. “But I’m going to move you to an even safer location where you can rest up for a couple of days and fully recover, okay?”

  Finn muttered something unintelligible. I took that for an okay.

  After getting back into the driver’s seat, I used the navigation system once more to plot my course.

  We arrived at Gideon’s tidy suburban home a mere twenty minutes later. I helped Finn out of the car, which was much easier now that he was alive again, and he took one look at where we were and said, “No fucking way.”

  “Fucking way, pal.”

  “Esmé, I can’t stay here.”

  “Your brother’s at the lake. I told him to stay there for a couple of days. He’ll never know you were here.”

  Still, Finn resisted when I tried to get him to walk to the back door with me. “It’s either here or the mean streets of downtown D.C.,” I snapped impatiently.

  “I can’t stay with you?”

  “No,” I said firmly. That was absolutely out of the question.

  He sighed and allowed me to half-carry, half-guide him inside.

  After getting him settled on the couch, I said, “I’ll be right back.”

  A moment later, I reappeared with Lunatrabem. Leaning the sheathed sword against the stone fireplace, I said, “I need you to store this with Boris in your trinket room for a while.”

  Finn’s features crinkled in surprise. “You’re giving me the sword?”

  “I am definitively not giving you the sword, Flayer. It’s my sword and remains my sword until I die or give it willingly to Tic, which I’ll likely never do because he’s … Tic. But I need to store it someplace safe for now.”

  “And you think I’m someplace safe?”

  “Oh, you’re definitely trouble. But, at present, you’re the only kind of trouble that’s not actively trying to kill me.”

  Finn smiled, and I felt that unmistakable chemistry between us crackle to life. “You’re safe with me, Esmé.”

  “I’d better go,” I said before things turned to wearing less clothing and making poorer choices.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said, “as soon as I clear things up with Petra.”

  “You do that,” I said, turning to go.

  “What happened to Marco?” he asked, stopping me. “Is he dead?”

  I sighed and didn’t turn back around to face him because I couldn’t. I’d given Marco the pen, and he’d disappeared into the unknown. He’d been wounded and weak, but I had no doubt he’d survived and would find someplace safe to recover too.

  “Besides me, Flayer, Marco’s the only one who made it out of that parking lot alive.”

  There was a moment of silence between us as Finn took that in. “Your second?” he pressed.

  “Is recovering from an arrow to the back. I used your pin for the deed, you know the one you gave your brother and which you didn’t tell me had lifesaving powers.”

  “You’re a thief, why would I tell you that?”

  “Good point.”

  I took another step toward the door, and he asked, “What about your dog?”

  I stiffened, pausing once again. Then I simply shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

  When Finn didn’t say anything either, I began to make my way to the door again.

  “Esmé?” he said when I put my hand on the door handle.

  I paused for a third time, waiting.

  “I’m sorry. She was a sweet pup.”

  With that, I fled the house.

  Later I sat in front of the fireplace, staring at the pile of ash, a cup of lukewarm coffee in my hands. I’d barely taken more than a few sips, and I was so tired that I felt like the walking dead, but I had to stay awake.

  Just as my lids were becoming too heavy to keep open, the ash in the fireplace stirred.

  Immediately I set the coffee asi
de and leaned toward the hearth. “Please,” I whispered. “Please, please, Ember. Come back to me.”

  The ash stirred again, as if my voice had caused a bit of excitement. Hope broke open the darkness of my despair, and fresh tears slid down my cheeks. From the ash there was a tiny squeak, and eagerly I leaned forward a little more, but I didn’t reach inside the hearth. I had to be patient. She had to choose.

  At last the ash parted, and a tiny, copper-colored newborn pup wormed her way out of the blackened cinders. A happy sob escaped my lips, and I quickly tamped it down, trying not to make another sound, but it was so hard.

  Before my eyes, the newborn magically grew in size and matured until she resembled a puppy about five weeks old. Opening emerald green eyes, she blinked at me and wagged her tail.

  I held my breath, my hands clasped together in silent pleading.

  And then, on wobbly limbs, she trotted happily forward and leapt off the lip of the fireplace into my welcoming arms. “Oh, my baby,” I whispered, covering her in kisses. “You came back to me. You came back!”

  “Ezzy?” I heard Dex call from the top of the stairs. “Is it Ember? Is she born again?”

  Ember let out one tiny, perfect bark, and I laughed and buried my face in her fur. “She is, Dex. She’s back.”

  “Did she choose you?”

  “She did!” I shouted, overjoyed.

  “Thank the gods,” he said.

  I’d learned from the mystic who’d cursed me that, as the phoenix, Ember could choose to be reborn—or not—but she could also choose the shape she wanted to live her next life in, and who to spend that next life with. If she’d emerged from the ash and had ignored me, I would’ve had to set her free to find her way to a new companion, and that, quite literally, would’ve killed me.

  The fact that she’d leapt into my arms and was now covering me with wet sloppy kisses told me in no uncertain terms that we were once again paired for as long as we both should live.

  Carrying her upstairs, I placed her on the floor at Dex’s feet. She sat down clumsily as she stared up at him. “Hello, luv,” he said to her, his one good eye leaking a tear.

  She got up and moved over to his leg, rubbing against him and letting out a little whine. He looked at me, unsure. “I don’t want to pick her up,” he said. “She’s so tiny. I might drain her.”

  I looked from Ember to him and said, “Let her be the judge, Dex.”

  Still, he hesitated, settling for gingerly crouching down, which I could tell caused him significant pain. The healing trinkets I’d given him had helped to mend him a bit, but he still had a long way to go. “Hello, little one,” he said, smiling from ear to ear, and giving her a good rub. “It’s been a very long time since your mum had to raise a puppy,” he said before looking up at me and adding, “Hasn’t it, Ezzy?”

  Ember had been killed only once before: ninety-three years earlier, my father had brought to our home—in a part of Bolshevik-controlled Ukraine—a beautiful red dog who’d been terribly wounded, as if she’d been in a horrific battle. Her fur was singed, her skin was slashed, two of her legs were broken, and pain radiated in waves through her trembling form.

  My uncle, a doctor, had been called upon, and he’d looked her over, telling us there was nothing that could be done to save her. Still, I wouldn’t allow my uncle to shoot her, as he’d suggested, and insisted on holding her through the night, praying that she somehow would survive. Close to dawn, the dog had died in my arms.

  And even after she’d stopped breathing and had turned cold in my arms, I’d continued to hold her, rocking her back and forth, forlorn and inconsolable at her loss for reasons I couldn’t explain.

  In the morning, Dad had lifted her from my arms and taken us both outside, laying her on a blanket under the shade of an oak tree. He’d then gone to the shed and brought back a shovel, telling me that we’d dig her grave together. We both took turns at the task, and I realized later that my father had wisely seen that it was important for me to participate in the ritual of her funeral.

  Just when we’d finished digging the hole and were about to wrap her in the blanket and ease her into the earth, Ember had burst into flames. We’d both been so shocked by it, jumping back so as not to get burned. Later, when my uncle came over, Dad had told him all about it, but he kept telling us it wasn’t possible.

  My father had left me to fill the hole back in. There was nothing left of Ember but cinder and ash, and he told me I could scoop in those remains as I filled in the hole.

  I did as he’d instructed, but I hadn’t touched her ashes. Something had told me not to. And for the rest of that afternoon, I’d sat under that tree in front of those blackened cinders, waiting for something but I couldn’t say what.

  An hour before dinner, the ashes had stirred, and a few moments later a tiny puppy had emerged. I’d yelled for my father and uncle, who’d come running, and we watched in utter amazement as Ember in the form of a newborn pup had wormed her way out of the ash. As we stared in stunned silence, the pup had matured a few weeks in just a few moments, and then she’d trotted straight over to me and barked up happily. I’d swept her into my arms twirling us in circles, filled with a joy that made me want to dance on air.

  I’d stopped twirling when I nearly bumped into an old woman who’d stepped out from the shadows. Haggard, bloody, and obviously gravely wounded, she’d limped into our yard and stared at the scene, taking it all in as if she knew exactly what’d happened.

  Seeing her wounded, my uncle had rushed toward her to help. She’d raised her hand and he’d made a terrible sound, then dropped to the ground, dead.

  When his brother fell, my father had also rushed forward, only to die right on top of my uncle.

  Stunned and frightened beyond description, I stood there trembling, holding my new puppy and waiting for the woman to kill me too. But she hadn’t.

  Instead, she’d stepped forward eagerly, reaching for the puppy in my arms, but Ember had growled and barked at her, and the mystic had immediately abandoned the effort to take her from me. It was then that she’d regarded me with a loathing that was hard to quantify. She began speaking something that sounded like a nursery rhyme, but at the end of it, my whole body became warm and tingly.

  She’d then said these words to me: “The phoenix belongs to you now, child. She will turn you immortal if you wish, but she herself can perish like any mortal. If she should die in your care, see that she reaches a hearth, and allow her to make her choices. Her first choice will be to be born into this world again, or not. Her second choice will be the shape to live in while she walks or flies among us. And her third choice will be to pick the companion to bond her life with. She may choose you again, or she may not, so steps must be taken to protect and care for her, lest she fall into the wrong hands.”

  With that, the hateful hag had disappeared back into the shadows, never to be seen or heard from again.

  Shaking off the memory I stared down at Ember sitting at Dex’s feet, and smiled genuinely for the first time in days. I also felt a well of gratitude tighten in my chest. It was the honor of my life to know the phoenix had chosen me twice now.

  “Raising a pup will be fun,” I said, giggling when Ember tried to climb up on Dex’s lap to lick his face.

  He finally relented and picked her up with his one good arm. “Do we have anything for her to eat?”

  I sighed, glanced at the clock, and said, “I have a delivery to make and then I’ll bring her back a burger. We can get some puppy chow in the morning.”

  Dex looked at me with a furrowed brow. “I should come with you, Ezzy.”

  I shook my head. “Not a chance, pal. Stay here. Guard Ember. If I don’t come back, run.”

  I drove Finn’s Escalade over to SPL Inc., parked at the curb, got a special package out of the back and approached the building. It was well past 11 pm, but I knew there’d be people inside.

  After pressing the buzzer and announcing myself, the door clicked open, and I
walked into the spacious lobby. The guard on duty, a sharply dressed woman with long red hair widened her eyes at the sight of me, but didn’t hesitate to point me to the elevators. “Mr. Ostergaard is waiting for you on the eighteenth floor.”

  I nodded and moved to the elevator. The doors opened as I approached. I stepped inside and saw that the button for the eighteenth floor was already lit.

  Leaning against the wall, I closed my eyes and gathered my courage, which would’ve been easy if I’d had Lunatrabem with me, but no way would I ever enter SPL headquarters with that sword in hand.

  The bell above the doors binged, and they opened to reveal the man himself, standing casually in an empty foyer wearing an unreadable expression.

  I stepped out of the elevator and greeted him with a nod.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said.

  “I have.”

  “You killed my assistant,” he said next.

  “I did.”

  He took a deep breath, assessing both me and my responses. “Lunatrabem?”

  “No longer in my care.”

  Elric laced his fingers together in front of him. “That is … unfortunate.”

  “It is. But I brought you back a consolation prize.” With that I stepped back into the elevator and grabbed the Bow of Anubis and its quiver of arrows, bringing both into view and setting them against the wall.

  The faintest trace of a smile flashed across Elric’s lips. “The succubaen?” he asked next.

  “Another casualty,” I said. Using Lunatrabem, I’d smashed it into pieces before leaving the morgue’s parking lot.

  Elric nodded knowingly. He’d no doubt discovered the shattered pieces when he’d gone to retrieve Sequoya’s body.

  “Do you have the egg?”

  “You know I do.”

  “True,” he said.

  Reaching into my pocket, I took out the golden box, carefully handing it to Elric. “I believe it has one life left.”