Contractbound

"G, I guess this coagulated blood needs to be made into something else before someone can use its power; just like the ring," he said, feeling nothing from the ball. He added, "There is only one ball. Only one ritual then."

Valentine thought for a while. He had two choices: the Deity of Lies and Attraction, or the Deity of Secrets. He had seen some of the powers of both deities during his mission involving Mevrouw Cornelia and made his own guesses.

The former had enabled her to control him and Mr. Bakker. He wasn"t sure whether it only worked on the opposite gender or not, but the effect of the control wasn"t something trivial. She could make Mr. Bakker kill his own family, and not resist being mutilated alive. It was a sinister ability. It had also enabled her to control a gust of wind. It was a useful offensive and defensive ability.

He saw the latter"s ability when Graham"s divination failed. Judging by the name, he guessed that the Deity had given her the ability to interfere with Divination. He didn"t know more about the ability because it was too mysterious, just as the name.

"The first Deity grants useful abilities, but controlling people should be your business, G. I"ll make a contract with the Deity of Secrets." he made up his mind.

"We"ll switch. You can go buy the remaining materials," he said.

He put back the scrolls and the ball of blood inside the drawer and locked it. He then went over to his bedroom and lied down in the bed, his eyes closed. Not long after, he had gone to sleep.

Only seconds after Valentine went to sleep, Graham woke up. He got up from the bed and stood in front of the wardrobe. He wanted to get changed. He undressed and put on a white shirt and a pair of striped pants. He couldn"t wear his favorite coat because it was still wet from being washed. He wore a brown sweater over his shirt. He also put on a pair of brown loafers.

He left his room and went down to the street. He would go to a hardware store to buy yellow candles and the oil if he could find it there as well. It was still three in the afternoon; he had a lot of time.

The hardware store was located on Grotemarktstraat. It would take him around one hour of walking, but since he had time, he decided to save money. He walked casually while looking around. More people were seen walking in the street than hours ago. It was a nice day for walking, so Graham could understand.

At the intersection at the end of Tuinstraat, Graham stumbled upon someone he recognized. It was Luuk van der Meer, the medical student from next door. He approached his young neighbor and greeted him,

"Hi, Luuk!"

The young man in a grey cardigan looked back to find the source of the voice.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo Mr. Detective," he said shortly. He looked as tired as usual, with black circles around his eyes.

"Did you not sleep well?" Graham asked curiously.

"No. I"m always up all night doing campus work. It"s never-ending," he complained.

"Where are you heading to?" he asked. They were walking in the same direction.

"I"m going to Grotemarktstraat," he said. His whole person carried a gloomy aura, so even answering a basic question like that, he sounded rather unfriendly.

"What a coincidence. Me too." Graham replied, not minding his neighbor"s lack of enthusiasm.

They didn"t have a lot of chances to interact with each other because they were usually busy with their own businesses. That was why Graham wanted to use this opportunity to know his neighbor better. However, he didn"t really know what to talk about.

"Today is such a nice day for a walk," he said while smiling awkwardly.

"Yes, it is," Luuk said shortly, killing the conversation.

They walked together in awkward silence for a while. The two men walked side by side leisurely. After a while, the silence almost became unbearable, so Graham racked his brain for a conversation topic. However, Luuk spoke first before Graham could think of anything.

"So, how is it to be a detective?" Luuk finally asked, sounding a little curious.

"It is never boring--" he paused, remembering his stakeout mission, "maybe sometimes it"s boring. But mostly it is interesting. You get to meet different kinds of clients."

Luuk was listening seriously as if he was in a lecture.

"Sometimes it can be pretty dangerous. You need to always have your guard up."

"What kind of danger?" he asked, genuinely looking interested in the topic.

"Sometimes a simple mission like finding a missing person can get you into a fight," Graham said, remembering his previous commission, "And an affair investigation might turn into a murder case."

Graham then thought of Naomi Bakker. He felt sorry for her and her two children. They had to die tragically.

"But we don"t usually investigate murders. It"s the Police"s job," he added, after a short pause.

"How do the Police treat private detectives?"

"Some of them don"t like us. Some private detectives sometimes mess up crime scenes unknowingly. The Police also often get a call about suspicious people stalking the callers. They turn out to be private investigators hired by someone."

Luuk nodded. He was imagining the situation.

"But a lot of them treat us kindly. We, in a way, are their informants. When a commission we are handling turns out to be a serious crime, like murder, we usually hand it over to the Police."

"So what kinds of cases do you handle?" Luuk asked.

"Simple cases, like missing cats or affairs, or even frauds. But many a time clients who don"t want to or cannot go to the Police for whatever reason will go to us instead. Usually, that is a more serious case." Graham explained to Luuk from his experience as a private detective.

"Hmm..." he said. He seemed to have understood Graham"s explanation and went into thinking.

"Why are you interested?" Graham asked in turn.

"Nothing. It just sounded fun. Maybe I will be a forensic doctor in the future." he said with genuine interest.

The talked more for a while before finally, they arrived at their destinations: Grotemarktstraat.

"I"m going to the hardware store. Are you going there too?" Graham asked politely.

"No, I"m going somewhere else. See you later," said Luuk while waving his hand.

Graham bid his goodbye with Luuk and they went separate ways. Graham walked to a hardware store called Oscar. It was a famous hardware store chain across the republic.

It was a big store with a lot of aisles. Quite a few people were there at the time. It was bright inside, with a lot of banners hanging from the ceiling. They had discounts for certain items; Graham hoped what he needed would be on sale.

Graham went around for a while, looking for where the candles and oil were. It took him long enough to find all that he needed, and he was lucky the oil was also available in the store. He had wanted to use his boosted logical thinking skill to find them faster, but he didn"t have the theoretical framework to make a deduction. He just didn"t go shopping enough.

After he got everything, he went to the cashier to pay. The cashier looked at the price sticker on each item and totaled them.

"Your totals are thirty-eight stuivers, Sir." the female cashier said while smiling.

Graham had checked the price before, but he was still shocked by the total. It was almost two guilders.

"Why are these things so expensive?" he complained.

"I didn"t set the price, Sir." the cashier shrugged indifferently, but still trying to be polite.

Graham took out two guilder bills from his wallet and gave them to the cashier. The cashier gave him two stuiver bills as the change. The cashier put his items inside a paper bag and handed it to Graham.

"Thank you. Come again!" the cashier said as Graham left.

"Val, now I know why Paim wanted us to pay her. These ritual items are very expensive," he muttered.

Graham left the store and stopped by a food stall to buy dinner. He got himself a beef sandwich with extra cheese. He ate his food quickly while walking home. He arrived home at six thirteen and went straight to the bathroom.

In the bathroom, he took off the contact lenses and breathed in relief. He then took a shower, washing away the sweat from his body. After he was done showering, he put on a simple white t-shirt and a pair of elastic pants. He then sat in his office chair after turning on the light.

"Val, we still have a lot of time. Let me do some divination."

He took out some pieces of paper and wrote on one of them.

"Valentine"s ritual will bring danger to his life."

He burned the paper and it was only burned halfway.

"Your ritual won"t be life-threatening, Val. Next question."

He wrote on another piece of paper.

"Valentine"s ritual will be painful to him."

He burned the paper following the usual procedure and watched it burn. The flame consumed the whole paper slowly.

"Hmm..." Graham thought, interpreting his divination result, "So the ritual will be painful, but the degree of pain won"t be that high."

Graham wrote another thing on another piece of paper.

"Will I get a visitor tomorrow?"

He lit the paper on fire. It burned slowly halfway and stopped. After a while, it continued burning itself entirely. Graham rested his chin on his hand, thinking.

"Does it mean no and yes? So no visitors halfway through the day and I might get a visitor later? That"s probably it." he said with doubt at first and then became confident.

Graham wanted to test his theory so he wrote on two pieces of paper.

"I will have no visitor in the morning."

"I will get a visitor in the afternoon."

He burned the paper one after the other and both pieces of paper burned entirely, indicating positive answers.

"So divination results can also be like that," he concluded.

He cleaned up the ashes from divination and put his lighter away. It was still not one after midnight yet so he decided to kill some time by reading a novel. It was an old-looking book with a picture of a single eye on the cover.

Graham was engrossed in the novel that he didn"t notice the time. It was almost one when he checked the clock on the wall, so he put down his book. He turned off the light and went to bed to switch with Valentine.

Graham closed his eyes and slept. Shortly after, Valentine opened his eyes and got up.

"G, wake up," said Valentine. He woke up Graham"s consciousness just in case.

It was time for the ritual, so he prepared everything he needed, including the copper for the seal. He took out some copper wire that was lying around on the shelf. He was going to use the table in his bedroom for the ritual.

First, he sprinkled Frankincense oil around the room and more around the table. A pleasant balsamic, slightly spicy aroma entered his nose and helped him focus. He then opened the scroll of the Deity of Secrets and laid it down on the flat table. He then placed the four yellow candles on each corner of the scroll; each pointing to the four cardinal directions.

After he had finished setting up the candles, he slit his left palm to let blood flow. When he was about to do that, he noticed that Graham"s scar from his previous ritual had been gone. The sharp, hot blade pierced through his skin, cutting it open. Valentine felt pain but he didn"t react. Blood poured down on the sigil under his hand.

He redrew the sigil using his blood, starting from the outline of the acorn-shaped crown. It took him a lot of blood to finish drawing the crown because his blood kept getting sucked in by the sigil. After he was done with the outline, he drew the two circles in the middle with a giant upside-down cross at the bottom. He had lost a lot of blood when he finished redrawing the whole sigil. His slit palm healed rapidly as soon as he finished the sigil. He placed the ball of coagulated blood sealed in copper in the middle of the sigil.

The next part was lighting the yellow candles. He did so in the order from the North, East, South, and lastly West. Once all the candles were lit, the light in his room went out and everything became dark. Only the light from the flames illuminated the room. Valentine then started the summoning chant.

"Thee I invoke, the One born from Fire,"

"Thou art the master of Things Hidden,"

"Thou art the master of Anti-Divination,"

"Thee, that didst see through Veils,"

"Thee, that didst make the Waters rough with Storms"

"Come thou forth, and accept my offering,"

"And grant me your power, worthy of thy name!"

As soon as Valentine finished chanting, the room went into total darkness; not even the candle lights were present. After a while, flame burst out from the sigil, consuming the ball of blood and spreading around Valentine.

He suddenly felt pain in his eyes. It was the feeling of hot iron fork stabbing his eyeb.a.l.l.s, plucking them out. Valentine gritted his teeth in pain. It took a while before he felt his eyeb.a.l.l.s were gone. He touched his closed pupils, but he still could feel his eyeb.a.l.l.s there.

The next round of pain came. He felt two ice-cold b.a.l.l.s being inserted into his "empty" eye sockets. He felt his blood frozen when it touched the b.a.l.l.s. He was in great pain, but he bore it.

After the pain in his eyes, now he felt like something was sawing his skull open.

"Argh!! b.l.o.o.d.y f.u.c.king h.e.l.l!" he cursed in agony.

The feeling of the teeth of the saw cutting his flesh apart was excruciating. It felt like forever before the sawing motion ended. Then, something burning stabbed his brain and "took" it away. He then felt it being replaced with a freezing blob of ma.s.s. He couldn"t feel his head because of the cold.

After it was over, the light in the room went back, and the pain was all gone. Valentine breathed in relief. He then put out the flame of the candle one by one in reverse order.

After all the candles were put out, he rolled the scroll and sealed it with copper wire. Once the seal was in place, the scroll burst into flames and the ashes entered Valentine through his nostrils.

He waited for a while to make sure everything was alright. The room was quiet, with only the very faint sound of tick-tock from the wall clock. Once he was sure the ritual was over, he took a gla.s.s of water from the kitchen and gulped it down quickly. He controlled his breathing and felt the change in his body.

"G, I think I did it," said Valentine calmly, his bright yellow eyes glimmered in the dark kitchen. Looking at them made someone feel exposed. Valentine smiled in satisfaction.

On Sunday, September 1, 1968 EH, Valentine Hymes had become a Contractbound.