Page 39 of Unbound

I take a step towards it, my feet like lead. Every inch closer I get, the more the sense of dread increases. I put my hand on my belly; my gut is on fire now, my muscles contracting in a painful squeeze. I should stop. I should leave. I definitely shouldn’t touch that damn thing. All my instincts tell me not to, that I don’t need to, that it’s not worth bothering with. Why am I wasting my time on a stupid cabinet like this anyway? I should just leave it be. Yeah. It’s nothing I’d be interested in. I take a step back, and the pain in my stomach immediately eases.

Oh fuck, I think. This is the work of witches—powerful ones. I grit my teeth and push forward, ignoring the pain, ignoring every message that tries to tell me to leave this room. I hate spells, I hate having my head messed with, and I hate not being in control of myself. Screw this. Whatever is inside that ordinary-looking cabinet is clearly not fucking ordinary. If Vincenzo went to this much effort to keep people away from it, then I need to see it.

Each step is torture, like fighting my way through a hurricane. Go back, it’s nothing, my mind whispers. Go back or you’ll suffer, another voice tells me. Go back or you’ll burn in hell …

That last one almost gets me, but I refuse to back down. Refuse to give up. I battle my way towards it, lay my hand on the dusty metal surface. It feels hot to the touch, so hot my skin should be marked, or even melting, but when I snatch it away and look at my palm, nothing suggests pain or injury. It’s not even red. It’s all a fucking illusion.

I growl, enraged now, and physically lift the cabinet up from its spot. I hoist it over my head, and with a roar, I throw it across the room. It crashes against the wall, mangles slightly, and the whole thing lands on its side.

Straightaway, the nausea disappears, and the buzz of interference fades from my brain. It’s like the background noise is suddenly turned off, and I’m me again. “Fucking witches …” I snarl, as I stride towards the wreckage of the cabinet. Whatever spell was protecting it has now been well and truly broken.

The thought crosses my mind that Minnie could have been involved in this. She’s been Vincenzo’s pet witch for decades, despite her obvious hatred of him, and her relief when he died. Was she responsible for this? I’ve always trusted Minnie, but maybe that makes me a fool.

No. I calm myself. I’m overreacting because I’ve been mind fucked, and because Rosa is with Minnie right now. No, Minnie is one of the good guys. She’s proved it over and over. She knew I was looking for these dungeons, and I’m pretty sure she’d have spoken up if she’d known about them, if she’d been down here casting. Though it’s always possible the spell is attached to the cabinet or its contents rather than the chamber, so it could have been done anywhere. Fuck knows. This is why I hate magic.

“Boss,” Aidan shouts through. “All good?”

“All good. I just had a minor disagreement with an inanimate object.”

He wanders in, looks at the destruction. “Seems like you won. I’m going to take Roberto up top if that’s okay with you? He’s already feeling better from a few sips of blood. I don’t think he’ll be any trouble, but I’ll have a guard put on him.”

I nod. “Do that. Let’s not take any chances. We underestimated Yvonne and she turned up on my fucking doorstep.”

He grimaces at that. She’s pissed him off big time, first by knowing more than he did about the hostages he was looking for, then by escaping. He nods and disappears. Right, I think, let’s see what all the fucking fuss was about and what was so precious in that cabinet that it needed a spell strong enough to ward off an Old World vamp.

Ironically, the drawers weren’t even locked. I guess Vincenzo relied on the power of the ward more than he did some flimsy mechanism that any vamp could bust open in seconds. They’ve fallen partly open after their close encounter with the wall, papers spilling out onto the ground. I use my boot to kick stuff around and see that some of it is more of the same junk I found in the desk—letters, documents, files of legal stuff. No idea if any of it is important or not. There’s no porn at least. I crouch down, sift through it. Tip the remaining files out and check them. None of it seems to merit the trouble he’s gone to.

I’m starting to think there’s nothing here to find. Maybe this was just one of Vincenzo’s quirks, one of his pointless power plays. Or maybe his paranoia kicked in and led him to believe that this trivial paper trail of crap was worth all the effort that went into that protection spell.

But then I see it from the corner of my eye. It’s a buff-colored envelope, half hidden beneath a stack of newspapers left over from God knows when. Like the file cabinet, it looks ordinary, unimportant, but something tells me it is not. I’ve learned to listen to my instincts over the years, and I stare at that padded envelope like I’m trying to read its mind.

“Stop being an asshole,” I say out loud. “It’s a fucking package. Go look inside it.”

I lean down, pick it up. It shows some age, some cracks; the paste it was once sealed with has dried up completely. I slide my finger along the edge and open it up. Huh. Nothing much happens. No celestial angels appear, no satanic choir sings, no unicorns dance around the room. So far, so dull.

I look inside. See a leather binder, the kind that’s used to keep precious papers safe. I take it over to the desk, tip it out. The envelope might not be ancient, but this is; I can tell with one glance. There’s a certain artistry to the way things were made back in the olden days—and by that, I mean the 1600s. The leather is still a vibrant shade of deep red, the lettering still a vivid gold. Real gold, I suspect, painted with gilt. It sits there on the desk, practically singing with age, with skill, with craftsmanship. A beautiful object. The writing is in a language I don’t understand but looks like some version of Latin. Even older than me.

Still. Vincenzo was ancient, the oldest vampire alive. It’s not a surprise that he held onto a few artifacts from back in the day. Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s special in any way. When you’ve lived through history, seen it up close, things like this hold no magic. I don’t need to walk through a museum to imagine the past; I can just walk through my own mind. It’s a handsome object, but nothing more.

I open it up, the smell of the leather still rich, and look inside. Papers, as I suspected. Very, very old ones. There’s a weird buzz in my head as I stare at the first sheet, at those words I don’t quite understand. At the signatures that have been written in what has to be blood. What the fuck am I looking at now?

I reach out, touch the page. Run my fingertips over the rust-red words.

The world goes black, and I hit the deck.

Chapter 17

Rosa

“Something isn’t right,” I say to Minnie. We’re in the back seat of a big black SUV on our way to the airport. I’d have been happy jumping a cab, but Luca insists I use a chauffeur service. As bossy boyfriend traits go, this one is not without its perks.

“With what?” she asks, fascinated by the contents of the mini fridge built into the back of the vehicle. She pulls out a bottle, stares at it. Voss water, apparently the most interesting water in the known universe.

“With Luca. He sounded okay, and then he left, and then … I think something bad is happening. Or is going to happen. I don’t know which.”

My hand flies to my amulet, and it is freezing cold to the touch. Minnie glances at it, raises her eyebrows. “It’s silver again. That thing should come with an instruction manual.”

She taps on the glass panel that separates us from the driver, and he switches on the intercom. “Yes, ma’am?”