“Hold the cup still,” Renate instructed. She placed the pentacle-spoon across the top and dripped thirteen drops of absinthe through its silver lattice. She stoppered the absinthe vial and withdrew another vial of water, adding a couple more drops into the silver cup and clouding the drink.
Renate cradled the oculus in her hands for a moment, then held it out over the bowl.
“Pour it over the orb,” Renate said. Cady removed the pentacle-spoon and carefully poured most of the small amount of liquid over the orb as Renate began to chant. The globe went from translucent to a milky white glow. Renate lifted the bowl to her lips and drank the remaining liquid. She dried the orb with its velvet bag, then handed it to Nicki.
“As soon as you can, when you’re in Karl’s shop, take out the oculus,” Renate instructed. “I will go into a trance here in the carriage, so I can see through the device. Move it slowly, and if you think something’s important, bring the oculus as close to it as you can without touching it.” She looked from Nicki to Cady. “That’s very important. Don’t touch anything unless I give you the signal. Karl is a powerful witch. The same wardings that keep me out might protect his most valuable treasures.”
“So how do we steal things, if they’re warded?” Nicki asked, matter-of-factly.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Renate replied.
Nicki and Cady got out of the carriage. The driver’s assistant followed like a loyal servant, if a very well-armed servant. They stopped at the door to the duplex where Jasinski had his shop.
“Mr. Kovach chose me for the trip because I speak Polish,” the driver’s assistant said. “I’m Tomasz. I can handle the introduction to the landlady, and fend off questions while you ladies do what you need to do.”
Nicki grinned. “I think you’ll work out perfectly, Tomasz.”
Tomasz knocked at the door to the landlady’s side of the duplex. A worn-looking woman answered, wearing a faded dress, her gray hair tied up in a scarf. Tomasz offered a polite greeting in Polish, and made what Nicki guessed was a request to access Karl’s shop. After what sounded like a heated back-and-forth, Tomasz presented the note from Mrs. Kozinski, and the landlady read it over, then nodded grudgingly and produced a key, which she tucked into Tomasz’s hand, followed by a stern warning. Then she shut the door and Tomasz returned to where Nicki and Cady were standing.
“What was all that about?” Cady asked.
“Just convincing the landlady that we weren’t with the police, and we didn’t want to cause trouble,” Tomasz replied. “She’s worried about Jasinski, and even more worried about who is going to pay for his shop and apartment rental if he doesn’t show up soon.”
“If you’ve got the key, let’s get going,” Nicki said. “I don’t like standing around where people can see.”
Tomasz led the way to the shop door and slid the iron key into the lock. Karl Jasinski’s shop had a small storefront with a grimy window and a sign that read ‘Fortunes told, problems solved’ in both English and Polish.
Inside, the small shop smelled of dust and stale air. In the front room, Jasinski sold candles of all colors, amulets of the saints, and bunches of dried herbs. Bottles of powders and vials of elixirs sat on shelves, gathering dust. In the back of the shop was a table covered with a cheap red cloth where Jasinski must have done his readings for clients. A tarot deck lay to one side. Adorning the walls were paintings of crowns, a large tree, a single eye, and an elaborately decorated egg. Blown eggs of every size, covered with symbols, filled one glass case.
“Why all the eggs?” Nicki asked, bending to peer into the case.
“They’re
pisanka
,” Tomasz replied. “Traditional Polish art. Also, powerful magical symbols, but most people just think they’re pretty.”
Nicki withdrew the oculus from its bag and cradled it in her hand. Slowly, she made a full circle, holding the orb out in front of her to give Renate as good a view as possible.
Cady moved in the opposite direction, peering through the glass cases, squinting at the writing on the labels for the vials and powders, and eyeing the papers that had been left on the counter.
“I can’t make out anything from the books,” Cady said, staring at a shelf containing close to a dozen old volumes. “They’re all in Polish.”
“
The Way of the Left Hand
,” Tomasz translated one title. “
Path of Mists
.” He paled and crossed himself. “Holy Mother protect us. This man was not just a fortune-teller. He was
koldun
.”
“What does that mean?” Nicki asked. She moved to see better, bringing the oculus closer, and the orb glowed a golden yellow as she held it up to each of the books.
“
Koldun
have bad magic,” Tomasz said, and his accent grew a little thicker with the telling. “They set curses, cause bad luck. Spoil things. Bad people.”
“
Koldun
sounds like a Russian word,” Nicki mused, having given the orb a look at the books, moving on when the golden light faded.
“Fine,” Tomasz said nervously. “
Czarodziej.
Russian, Polish—bad news is bad news. For a Pole, he had a lot of Russian books. Do you think they’re important?”
“Renate seemed to think so. What topics do they cover?” Cady asked.
“Mostly burial customs, from what I can make out,” Tomasz replied.
“Thomasz, why don’t you take the books out to the carriage and then come right back?” Nicki suggested.
Cady was down on her hands and knees, examining papers on the floor. “Hey Nicki—come over here!” Nicki followed the sound of her voice and found Cady teasing out some fallen papers from beneath the desk.
“Renate told us not to touch anything,” Nicki warned.
Cady quirked an eyebrow. “That’s rich, coming from you.” She waved at the papers scattered across the floor. “If we can walk on them, they shouldn’t kill us to touch them.”
Nicki brought the oculus closer so that Renate could see the papers. Some were in English, others in Polish. About half of the papers were typewritten, and the others were filled with cramped, Cyrillic letters. The oculus began to glow again.
“Renate thinks you’ve found something,” Nicki said. “Go ahead and gather those up. We need to move along.”
Nicki moved past the desk to a shelf cluttered with objects, both practical and arcane. Candles and crystals, and a carved pointing stick that looked suspiciously like old bone—the jumble of objects looked like Jasinski had dumped out his valise, and maybe his pockets for good measure.
She muttered to herself as she tried to angle the oculus for a good view. When the orb began to glow once more, Nicki cursed under her breath in French.
“How am I supposed to know which one is important?” she asked the orb. Annoyed, she swept all of the knick-knacks into a cloth sack.
Tomasz had returned, and he was studying a cluster of family photographs. “See, he wasn’t all bad,” Nicki quipped. “He had a family.”
Tomasz leaned forward for a better look, then took a step back as he drew in his breath sharply, cursing in Polish. “They’re dead! All of them. Damn him! These are death photographs.”
“Maybe he’s just sentimental,” Cady replied, making a pile of the spilled papers. “My aunt had pictures like that made when my cousin died.” She shuddered. “Horrible custom, but it matters to some people.”
Nicki had made a full circle around the shop’s main room. The oculus had glowed golden on at least a dozen objects, but for the most part remained dull, even when Nicki ran it past the conjuring items Jasinski had obviously used when he gave readings for clients. She swept back the curtain that separated the front room of the shop from the small, cramped back office. A narrow, twisting set of steps led up to what she guessed was Jasinski’s rented room above the shop. The late afternoon light was fading, but still sufficient to reveal most of the room’s content. A desk took up most of the space. More papers and ledgers were piled on every flat surface.
“I’m going upstairs,” Nicki called out, gathering her skirts with one hand while she held the oculus aloft with the other. The stairway was not much wider than her shoulders, and it turned twice before it got to the top, making the treads narrow and dangerous. Curiosity led her onwards; that and the hunch that whatever Jasinski prized, he would not keep it in such a public space as his shop.
“Nicki? Wait up!” she heard Cady call from behind her, but she kept climbing, drawn forward by the tingle of intuition.
The air grew stale as she climbed, with remnants of old cooking odors and cheap cigarettes. The room above Jasinski’s shop was barely adequate. Faded chintz curtains screened the single, dirty window. Half-empty bottles of vodka and gin lined one windowsill. An ashtray filled with stubs sat on a scarred, cheap coffee table next to a threadbare chair and equally hard-used footstool. On the other side of the room, a metal-frame single bed was covered with a worn, stained quilt.
Nicki looked around with a mixture of pity and barely-contained curiosity. It was obvious that Jasinski had not been home for quite a while, as evidenced by the half-eaten, moldering remnants of food left on a plate.
“Nicki?” Cady’s voice called again reaching the top of the steps as Nicki moved farther into the room for a better look. Books were stacked everywhere and Nicki took a step toward the rumpled bed, peering at the piles stacked on the floor beside it. A flannel nightshirt was thrown over the piles, and the unmade bed covers spilled across the bedframe, but as Nicki got closer, she realized the mess hid a square trunk.
Nicki grabbed a broomstick from the corner and used the handle to lift the bedclothes away from the books. As she did so, a small, leather-bound book and a drawstring pouch fell to the floor. When the pouch landed, a few carved stones spilled to the floor. The oculus glowed brightly and Nicki carefully scooped up the pouch, stones, and book and slid them into her bag.
“What are you doing?” Cady said, reaching the upstairs landing. “Make sure you use the orb!”
“We’ll be fine,” Nicki replied absently. She poked at the nightshirt until it fell to the far side of the bed, and then jabbed at the books, sweeping them out of their piles until she could make out the trunk.
“Now that’s interesting,” she murmured. She set the broom aside and pulled one of her long hatpins from her hair, sliding the oculus into her pouch without noticing that it had taken on a distinctly red glow.
Nicki knelt next to the trunk. The box was covered in smooth black leather, with a solid brass lock. Nicki reached for the lock, and drew back, feeling a quiver of hesitation. Drawing a deep breath and steeling her nerve, she poked the hatpin into the lock and began to feel for the mechanism.
“Nicki!” Cady pushed into the room behind her as Nicki fiddled with the hair pin, jiggering it left and right until she heard a
click
.
The lid flew back, slamming against the metal bed frame so loudly it sounded as if someone had hammered on a pan with a wooden mallet. As Nicki desperately scrambled backward, a miasma of cold, fetid air began to billow from the trunk. The oculus in Nicki’s bag flared, glowing so brightly that a red light shone through the cloth, casting the small room in hellish shades.
Nicki screamed and threw one book after another at the specter, which was taking shape from the grave-cold fog. She got her feet under her, and dug out her derringer, squeezing off a shot to no effect.
“Cady! Get out of here. We’ve got trouble!”
As more of the fog poured from the trunk, the shape became more solid, growing in nightmarish proportions. Its narrow, elongated head was covered with matted, tangled hair, like a corpse pulled from the water. Red pinpoints of light glared where eyes should have been, and its jaw hinged like a snake, revealing sharp, serrated teeth.
Cady headed down the steps without being told twice. “Come on!” she urged. Nicki was backing toward the stairs, trying not to fall over the mess Jasinski had left behind, but the specter was growing fast, keeping its blood-red eyes fixed on its prey.
She was almost to the doorway when the revenant struck. Moving fast as a storm wind, the black-mist figure reached for Nicki with clawed hands that looked solid enough to grasp and tear. Nicki squealed and reached into her pouch, pulling out the oculus and thrusting it forward.
Blinding green light flared from the orb, lighting up the room like the headlight of a locomotive. The ghostly shape pulled back, giving Nicki the chance she needed to bolt down the stairs.
Cady was just a few steps down from her. “Nicki, what’s going on—”
“Run!” Nicki shouted, clamoring down the steps with her skirts gathered in one hand, and her bag clutched in the other. She could feel freezing cold air stirring behind her, and the tomb-rot stench of the revenant was enough to make her gorge rise.
Nicki had no idea what Cady sensed or saw, but she flew down the steps, taking them as quickly as she dared. Cady made it to the bottom and was with Tomasz. Nicki, afraid to look over her shoulder, made the first turn in the stairway without missing a step, but on the second turn, her foot slipped, carrying her down the last three steps in a tumble of skirts and limbs.
The specter was right behind her; the back of Nicki’s neck prickled, and every sense screamed a warning. Ghastly, insubstantial hands tore at the hem of her skirt. Nicki couldn’t get to her feet fast enough. She rolled as soon as she hit the floor, trying to get out of the way.
Cady and Tomasz opened fire, but the bullets went right through the billowing darkness to lodge in the walls.
Tomasz shoved his gun into his belt and grabbed Nicki by one arm and began to drag her toward the door, pushing Cady ahead of him with the other hand. Nicki scrabbled to her feet and ran.
Nicki, Cady, and Tomasz spilled out of the doorway and onto the sidewalk, running for their lives. Two figures stepped up to block their path: Renate Thalberg and a black-clad man dressed in a priest’s cassock, with dark hair and a dark beard. The carriage driver, one of Kovach’s guards, stood beside them, a sawed-off shotgun leveled at the monster.
“Stay back!” the priest shouted.