Incarnate (A Spellmason Chronicle) (12 page)

“To see those I care for happy,” I said. “And for myself? Peace.”

Alexandra

O
n one of the quiet winding streets hidden off in the far West Village, the building before Caleb and me was exactly the sort of home I imagined a cosmopolitan wizard might live in. Part low-rise fortress and part spired castle, the odd little town house looked far older than the buildings to either side of it.

“This must be the place,” I said. “It looks like a Gothic version of the Weasley house.”

“Yes, very understated,” Caleb said. “About what I’d expect from a long-lived magical clan like the O’Sheas.”

“So do we just knock?” I asked.

“I don’t think that’s a wise move,” Caleb said. “This
is
the warlock that was trying to trap you, after all. Warren’s the only guy I know who wears more rings than Liberace, and since he’s been sneaking around after you, I think that allows us to give the sneaky approach a chance ourselves.”

Climbing the steps, I examined the heavy oak frame that ran around the frosted-glass panel at the center of the door. Runic script wove its way all around the frame.

“I’m going to guess this is bad,” I said, tracing one of the symbols, making sure not to actually touch it. “There are different styles of runes, but these aren’t overly familiar to me. This one here, though, looks like the symbol for fire that my great-great-grandfather used in his notes.” I moved to another section. “And this looks like one for
mal
and health. I don’t want to explode in flame.”

“Okay, so no front-door approach, then,” Caleb said.

“Hold on,” I said, considering our options. “We don’t need to actually
use
the door.” I pointed to the masonry surrounding the entrance to the town house. “The stonework around it is pretty hefty, but I think I can manipulate it.”

Caleb wagged a finger at me. “I thought that messing with the lower floors of a building was a no-no.”

“Usually, yes,” I said. “But this door is set into an archway. Given that specific architectural design feature, a lot of the load-bearing is taken up by the keystone at the top, which then flows down into either side of the arch. That makes it a lot easier for me to concentrate on where to focus my effort and energy to keep the support where it should be, to know what I can and can’t shift around. I
should
be able to open up a gap for us along the side of the door where there’s no hinge hardware.”

Caleb backed down the steps. “You won’t mind if I just watch that from afar,” he said, not stopping until he was across the sidewalk and out into the center of the quiet street. “No offense.”

“Some taken,” I said, then shrugged. “But understandable.”

I pulled out my notebook, quickly going through some of the power focus sections that I hadn’t quite mastered yet. After a few minutes of brushing up, I slid the notebook back into my coat pocket and let out a long slow breath while quietly letting loose one of my family’s words of power. My hands worked through the accompanying gestures as my concentration flowed into the stone of the archway.

I searched for any sense of weakness in the craftsmanship. Near the top of the arch I lashed out my power, tugging at the stone there. A block at the top left side of the door pulled out from the door’s framing, and as it came free, I added the ones below it to my efforts, attempting to remove them as one column.

The second they were clear, the heavy pressure of the archway and the building it supported became painfully evident as the invisible sensation of a giant finger suddenly pressed down on my brain. The force startled me enough that I staggered back, feeling like my skull might pop open at any second, barely able to keep control of the wobbling column of stone at my command.

“You okay?” Caleb called from out in the safety of the street.

“Get up here,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “And get inside . . .
now
!”

Caleb ran up the stairs, but hesitated before the gap leading into the building.

“I’ll get us in,” I assured him. “Then it’s up to you to keep us alive.”

Without a word, Caleb slid into the narrow space and disappeared into the building.

Stepping carefully around the stone column in my control, I pressed myself into the opening and followed after him. The immediate interior of the town house was dark, but before I worried about my eyes adjusting to it, I still had work to do. I reached out my power, pulling the column of stone back into place behind me, and restored the archway.

As the stones settled once more against one another, I nearly wept for joy as the crushing pressure in my brain subsided, leaving only a dull headache in its place.

“Remind me to start carrying aspirin,” I said, turning around to look for Caleb.

Caleb held his finger up to his lips, shushing me.

Silently, I waited as my eyes adjusted to the darkness so I could fully assess the main floor of the town house. From inside, the rooms of the town house looked far more spacious than the outside of the building suggested and the furnishings were a bit more modest and plain than I expected.

“You
sure
this is the place?” I asked in a low whisper. “I mean, it looks so . . . mundane.”

“So it would seem,” Caleb said, scanning the hallway. “What did you think? That there would be a broomstick stand by the front door or something? A sacrificial altar where the dining room table is?”

“Kinda,” I said, then stopped myself. “Actually, I don’t know what I thought to expect. I’m pretty sure, however, that the IKEA catalog wasn’t it.”

Caleb poked his head into a few of the archways off the main hall. “I’m guessing his inner sanctum is probably somewhere on the upper levels,” he said, then drank a vial he pulled from his jacket. He tapped his shoes to the floor, but they made no noise whatsoever. He gave me a thumbs-up and headed soundlessly for the stairs.

I followed after, attempting to make as little noise as I could, a little pissed he hadn’t offered me at least a swig of what he was having. In a home as silent as this, my every move sounded to me like I was a lumbering giant, but since Caleb didn’t turn to shush me again, I kept on trying to do my stealthy best to keep my stair creaking to a minimum.

Once upstairs, the two of us went down its main hall, only to find bedrooms and a plain office devoid of people and any sense of taste. We stopped at the end of the hall where it dead-ended in front of a large wall-spanning mural that consisted of fornicating unicorns.

“Any guesses on the name of
this
masterpiece?” I asked with a shudder, unable to look away from it. “I’m going with
Pornicorn Bacchanal
.”

“I forfeit my guess,” Caleb said, looking anywhere but at the mural. “I’m trying not to throw up and leave any evidence behind.” He looked back down the hall we had just come down. “I thought for sure there’d be something up here.”

“Let’s give the rooms one more go-over,” I said, heading off to the one on the right side of the hall. Checking each carefully, I made sure no secret stairs were hidden in the backs of closets, perhaps leading up to an attic space. When nothing appeared in any of my three rooms, I returned to the main hall, where Caleb had already finished and had against his desire started looking over the bawdy unicorns in the mural.

“Any luck on your side?” I asked.

He gave a weak shake of his head.

“Creepy as this building looks on the outside, maybe you’ve got the wrong address . . . ?” I suggested, heading back to the stairs down to the main floor. When I realized Caleb wasn’t following, I stopped and turned.

“Caleb!” I whisper-shouted. Even with no one home here, I still found myself reluctant to call out in the middle of the evening in a stranger’s home.

“I . . . I can’t help it,” Caleb said, still staring at the mural. “It’s like . . . Tolkien porn. It’s—”

“Distracting,”
I finished, walking back to him as an idea hit me. “I know. And the thing is, it’s
meant
to be.”

I stepped past Caleb to examine the mural closer. About an inch away from its surface, I felt something: a hint of magic radiating from the artwork. Raising my left hand to run over the canvas, I was surprised to find my fingers
missing
.

Startled, I staggered back from the mural, and my hand suddenly reappeared at the end of my arm. I eased it forward once more, and my arm slowly disappeared into the mural itself. Continuing forward with the rest of my body, I stepped toward and
through
the mural as a tingling sensation washed over me and I found myself at the bottom of an ascending staircase.

I turned back around, making out a Caleb-shaped shadow on the other side of the wall. I reached back through the mural, grabbed his arm, and pulled him through.

“Whoa,” he said, stumbling into the bottom of the stairwell with me. “You should totally get one of these for your guildhall.”

“I’ll stick with my secret-door bookcase, thanks,” I said, starting up the stairs. “I like something with a little heft to it.”

“Suit yourself,” Caleb said. “I just thought it was a cool effect.”

I started to respond, but as I hit the top of the stairs, I lost track of my thoughts and let out a low whistle. “Now, this is more of what I imagined,” I said.

A large window looked up and out into the night sky, the moon full and bright as it shone down into the large open space up here. The room was neatly arranged into an eclectic mix of furniture and items, which gave it an almost museum quality due to the wide span of history that the collection clearly represented. Trunks upon trunks lined the walls to either side of the space.

Caleb bounded up the last few steps and stopped at my side, taking the room in.

“I’ve long suspected that the O’Sheas were a bit of a magical hoarding family,” Caleb said. “This just clinches it.”

“Oh?”

He nodded, stepping into the center of the space, marveling. “I freelanced for them a bunch of times, but they never let me see
this
. They never admitted to owning even a tenth of the stuff represented here.” Caleb shook his head. “Warren’s a dick.”

He chuckled at his own statement, which I found odd until I realized it wasn’t Caleb’s laughter.

I couldn’t pinpoint where the voice was coming from, and by the time I did, it was too late. A lone figure materialized from the shadows at the back of the room. The ominous tone of the laughter had me fishing for the store of small stones I kept in most of my coat pockets these days, hoping I could get off a few shots before the figure could close the distance. I began incanting the spell to drive them with significant stopping force at our attacker, but jumped as the massive trunks on either side of the room exploded open.

Thick coils of heavy chain shot out from the massive holes, and I dropped my spell to dive out of the way of the incoming assault. Despite my attempt at evasion, the chains corrected their course after me all too quickly, wrapping around my ankles and bringing me to the floor.

Caleb went for the inside of his coat, no doubt reaching for one of his alchemical mixes, but the chains attacking him went for his hands, knocking their contents away and sending a fistful of vials sailing off across the room.

I fought to stand despite my bindings, forcing myself up onto my hands and knees, but two more chains wrapped around my hands and dragged me to a hanging position. The last of the chain snaked around my body over and over in a near-solid coil before finally stopping.

Clearly, breaking and entering was something I needed to brush up on, although I couldn’t feel too bad about my effort because Caleb—despite his more nefarious past—was just as screwed, mummified in his own set of iron restraints.

“Man, I
really
hope getting caught like this is part of your master plan,” I hissed to him through my tight, heavy bonds.

Caleb ignored me, focusing his gaze instead on the man coming toward us.

Wild black hair stuck up in every direction, in stark contrast with the orderly trimmed beard the man wore. Both of the man’s hands were covered in a variety of rings, which, given his old jeans and T-shirt, made him look more like an unemployed musician than a sorcerer supreme.

He stopped five feet from me, amusement on his face.

“
You’re
not who I was expecting,” he said, a bit of wonder in his words.

“Sorry to disappoint,” I managed to get out between shallow breaths. “You’re not the first witch or warlock to hunt me. You are, however, the lucky one.”

“Lucky?” he asked. “How?”

“Not everyone gets me delivered to their doorstep,” I said, mustering up as much bravado as I could. “But I’ll warn you . . . the others failed in their quests to keep me captured, so the odds aren’t looking in your favor.”

“Be that as it may,” he said, looking me over, “you are a welcome surprise, I must say.”

I felt the early stages of panic kicking in, which sucked because if I started hyperventilating, I’d end up passing out from the hundred pounds of chain wrapped around me.

“Easy, Warren,” Caleb said, and the man finally looked over to him, recognition filling his face. “Let’s not do anything hasty.”