But he didn’t because his eyes had drifted closed again. I But he didn’t because his eyes had drifted closed again. I let him rest and turned my attention to the charmed disk.
The spel s in it were inert now that the glamour and soul had been separated from the magic, but somewhere in the tangle of residual magic, there had to be a hint of what spel infected my friends. If I could find the spel , I’d be that much closer to finding the counterspel . And hopeful y to finding the witch behind the spel as wel .
I copied the runes from the disk onto a blank sheet of paper, making sure to leave each one incomplete in case it could be invoked without knowing what it was or did. I had to dig out a magnifying glass to make sure I copied them al correctly—the disk’s design was intricate. And there had been over thirty of those ravens. Someone had way too much time on their hands.
Once I’d copied not only the runes but also the design they made on the disk, I flipped the disk over and broke the seal of wax. The wax covered a thin strip of paper, and I unfolded it, glancing over the heavy block-printed letters.
The paper contained two words. A name. Mine.
Well, now there’s no question as to whether the attacks are targeted.
I dug through the trunk at the edge of my bed until I found a smal enchanted box that one of my teachers gave me when
I
graduated
academy.
Like
the ABMU’s
magicaldampening evidence bags, the box locked magic safely away inside itself. It was one of my spel casting instructors who’d given me the box, and I think she assumed I would eventual y botch a charm so badly that it would have to be contained. I’d never used it before, but now I dumped the disk, paper, and wax inside and flipped the latch. The prickly tingle of dark magic that had been nibbling at my senses for the last hour cut off and I sighed from the sudden relief.
PC, who’d curled up beside Falin on the bed, lifted his head to see why I was making so much noise. He must have judged my activities uninteresting because after a have judged my activities uninteresting because after a single glance, he laid his head on Falin’s calf and closed his eyes again. I shook my head and settled in front of my computer.
Out of the sixteen runes from the disk, I thought that one looked similar to the rune for health—though it would have to be an archaic form of the rune—and that another looked like something I’d seen in academy, but couldn’t quite remember. The other fourteen were complete mysteries.
Pul ing up a search browser, I dove into the task of solving those mysteries.
Several hours later, I’d gained a serious crick in my back and learned that the rune I thought looked like health was, in fact, very similar to an archaic version of the rune, though the older version also meant life. Is that the spell that animates the constructs? I’d added the idea to my list of notes on the case—a very short list.
I pushed away from my laptop and stretched. I’d gone through a pot of coffee since I’d started scouring the Net, but my gritty eyes were blurring with exhaustion. I’d even switched gears at one point and searched maps for the kelpie’s “thundering gate.” After al , I had multiple directions from which to attack this case. Finding the kil er would lead me to a counterspel for my friends and it would fulfil my obligation to Malik.
I searched the Net as wel as studied several maps as I looked for the gate. The major interstates passing through Nekros had stylized gates, though they were just decoration, the recent beautification project downtown had added green space, some of which was gated, and even some “art” that looked more like gates than anything else, but none of those were near the river and thus they were not good candidates. Most of the warehouse district had chain-link fence blocking off the river, as did many of the link fence blocking off the river, as did many of the residential areas, but I couldn’t see why they’d be considered “thundering.”
With my muscles cramping and my butt asleep from too many hours in a chair, I final y switched off the computer and gave the research a rest. Time for a little legwork. But first, lunch.
Falin woke as I ransacked my fridge.
“What else did she say?” he mumbled, stil half asleep.
Then his eyes popped open. He glanced at where the afternoon sun stretched across the floor and groaned. “I fel asleep? You should have woken me.”
I shrugged and pul ed a cardboard container of Chinese takeout from the top shelf of the fridge. What day had I ordered it? I didn’t think it was more than a week ago.
“I got some stuff done,” I said, though what I’d actual y done was establish where I wouldn’t find useful information.
Falin joined me at the fridge, his movements smoother and clearly less painful than before he’d fal en asleep. He glanced over the limited contents before plucking the carton of Chinese from my hands.
“Hey!”
He chucked the carton back on the top shelf and shut the fridge door. “I’l buy lunch,” he said. Then cut off my protest with, “I need to stop by my office to grab Nori’s case files.