Crime Spells

“How?”

Boukai held up the goblet. “Look at this, and we’ll see.”

Eddie turned back to face him. “Why are you doing this?”

Boukai straightened. “Because Kim Lu stole something from me, something very dear. And because he took that, I will take everything from him.” He held out the goblet. “And you’re going to help me. Now concentrate.”

Eddie held his gaze for a moment. Looking at Boukai’s eyes was like looking at rocks. Finally he sighed and lowered his line of sight. The goblet beckoned at him. He concentrated on the goblet’s rim. Lightning flashed outside. The light flickered against the golden cup but didn’t fade. Eddie’s eyebrows rose. The light kept growing. And growing.

Until finally it became so bright and white and the pain replaced everything else.

“Eddie?”

The pain was gone.

“Can you See?” Boukai asked.

Eddie opened his eyes. He was flat on his back on the floor. From the feel of things, lying in his own puddle of rainwater. He squinted as the fluorescents in the ceiling cut at his eyes. And suddenly he was looking at the stars. He snapped his eyes open. Ceiling. Squinted.

Stars.

“Wow.”

“I will take that as yes,” Boukai said. “Can you stand?”

Eddie shrugged and sat up. His head swam a little. He put a hand to the side and waited a moment. It passed. Taking Peeve’s hand, he stood.

“What’s it like?” Peeve asked. Eddie gave him a look. “Sorry.”

“We need to find out what you’ve learned,” Boukai said. “He will be here soon.”

“Why aren’t we ru

“We ca

The goblet existed in four dimensions. That was the only way Eddie could express it to himself. He saw the goblet in Boukai’s hand, radiant gold against the soft brown of his skin and the deeper black of his coat. But he also saw the ones next to it, on either side, that shifted out of his sight if he tried to look directly at it. “It’s like it’s shaking,” he said.

“That is because this chalice exists in all realms,” Boukai said, looking down at it himself. “You see this one and the two nearest it. When you bring it together with its mate,” he brought his hand overtop the goblet, coverings its mouth, “you can open the way to another place.”

“That’s neat and all,” Peeve said, looking out the window again, “but if we can’t get away from the faker or whatever you called it, what are we going to do?” Eddie looked at Peeve and then at Boukai.

“That’s a fair question.”

Boukai smiled. “We shall take it from him.”

Peeve stared. Eddie stared. Boukai laughed.

“First I need to see what Eddie has learned,” he said. He held up his flask again. “See again.”

Eddie looked at the flask and squinted. The letters appeared before his eyes again… but this time with more meaning. He read them. He could read them. He looked at Boukai. “How did you do that?”

The black man smiled and bowed. “I am not untrained myself,” he said.

Peeves looked at them. “What’s going on?”

“I can read the words,” Eddie said. He looked again at the flask-through the fabric of Boukai’s pocket this time-and read them again. “Who is Mariel?”

Boukai’s face hardened. “She is dead.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and held his breath for a long moment. Eddie waited. Finally the black man exhaled and opened his eyes.

“When Kim arrives, he will have the other chalice.” He held up the one in his hand. “It is important he not join them.” He held the goblet out to Peeve. “You must hide this somewhere out of sight, but somewhere you can reach it when we need it.”

“Where I can reach it?” Peeve asked.

“We?” Eddie asked.

“When Kim comes, he will have the fakir. We must be able to overpower him and get the chalice away from him. If we can, we must get the rings from him as well. They control the fakir. It is through them that he binds it to his will.”

“The thing that ate Gong. The cloud.” Eddie traded glances with Peeve. “You want me to fight that.”

Boukai smiled, a predatory smile a wolf might have worn. “No. I want you to manage Kim. I will handle the fakir.” And then he laughed, a great and terrible laugh, and shrugged out of his coat. He threw the overcoat on the countertop and stopped laughing as suddenly as he’d begun.

“Hide the chalice,” he said. Then he spun to face the door. “He is here.”

Peeve scooped up the goblet and ran behind the counter. Eddie moved halfway down the counter, out of direct line of the door. “What do I do?”

“You must See,” Boukai said, unbuttoning his shirt halfway. His sleeves were already rolled up, revealing blue-ink tattoos covering both his forearms. When Eddie squinted, the tattoos shimmered as the goblet had. “I will fight his magic. You must fight the man.”

The plateglass window exploded.

Eddie looked out into the storm and screamed.

In Kim’s study the fakir had been a cloud, a hazy harbinger of death and dread. To his new Sight it was much more. It was a wraith. A demon. A creature of mist and malice with wings and talons and great gaping teeth. It wove its way through the window even as the door opened and Kim stepped through, the other goblet clutched in his hand.

“You!” he shouted, when he saw Boukai.

Boukai smiled and gestured. The tattoos on his arms flowed forward, dark and shiny tendrils to duel the fakir. Where they touched, arc-white sparks danced. Sounds crackled inside Eddie’s head, and he realized he was standing still. What the hell do I do know?

“Get out of here!” Peeve shouted. He popped up from behind the counter with a pump-action shotgun leveled. Eddie swore and dove to the side. The gun’s explosion was just as loud as the sound of the demons fighting, but this sound shook his chest and echoed through the small shop. Eddie twisted his head to see the shot, expecting to see Kim’s bloody body slumped to the floor.

He was still standing, arms outstretched, watching the fakir duel whatever Boukai had summoned.

Peeve ratcheted the slide and fired again. This time Eddie was looking that way, and he Saw what happened. The buckshot blazed into the fakir’s center and sparkled like fireworks for a brief instant before it disappeared to wherever Gong had gone.

“Son of a bitch,” Eddie whispered.

“You ca

The fakir circled the black man like a hound on the hunt. Boukai kept his eyes on it, his arms raised. Eddie tried to focus on whatever was growing out of his arms but they moved too fast. Like the goblet, they were there and they weren’t. What if the fakir was like that? He looked at it, but it still appeared hazy.

Kim lunged two steps forward. The fakir advanced, crackling with energy, struck the tendrils along their length. Eddie was forced to look away. The light was so bright it hurt his eyes, but when he looked down he saw it cast no shadow. Just as at Kim’s place.

“Eddie!” Boukai cried.

Eddie looked. The fakir was high off the ground, with just enough of itself lowered to guard Kim from Peeve’s gunfire. As he watched, Peeve ratcheted and fired again, but this shot went the same way as the rest. He squinted, and looked. The goblet was inside Kim’s coat, tucked there as he used both hands with the fakir.

There was a crack, and Boukai fell. The fakir flickered at him, caressing his head and shoulders, but the tattoo tendrils were still there and held it at bay. Eddie’s brow furrowed in amazement as Boukai himself seemed to shimmer and bounce between realities, but he steadied back to one person. Eddie ground his teeth and looked around for something, anything. It was obvious Boukai was losing. He had to do something. He looked around him, around the store, trying.