Contractbound

"Val, we still need to experiment with your anti-divination power. We can try switching back and forth for now. But I"ll do some divination first."

Graham took out some candles from his drawer. The votive candles had now been much shorter than before; the wax had melted a lot. He arranged the candles in the formation and turned off the office light. After the room was dark, he lit the candles one by one following the usual procedure. He then repeated a question in his heart.

"What medium should we use for anti-divination?"

The room got darker and darker until the candle lights were the only thing he could see there. Graham concentrated hard until an image surfaced on the flames. It was an image of red liquid. After a while, the image gradually disappeared.

"Blood! You can use your blood as a medium, Val. Maybe just drop your blood somewhere hidden."

After it was done, he put out the fire but left the candles there. The still needed them for the experiment later. Graham turned the light back on and took out a piece of paper and wrote a statement there. He wanted to use divination to make sure.

"It is safe to use blood as a medium."

He burned the paper and the flame very slowly spread but it stopped after burning only a tiny piece of the paper. It indicated a negative response.

"Hmm..." Graham was thinking, "So it is very not safe to use blood. But why did my other divination told us to use blood? Maybe my question was not specific enough?"

Graham took out another piece of paper and wrote, "It is safe to use Valentine"s blood as a medium for anti-divination."

He burned the paper again and this time, the flame spread very quickly and destroyed the whole paper.

"So it is indeed safe to use our-- your blood as a medium, Val. I guess leaving blood randomly is dangerous because there are abilities that can curse us using our blood? Using it for anti-divination probably is safe because the blood would also have the property of anti-divination?" Graham made a lot of guesses.

After he was done with his guesswork, he got up and went to his bedroom. He then lied down in his bed. He could always sleep easily in beds. Moments later, he had fallen asleep. Valentine woke up not long after and got up.

"G, wake up." Valentine woke Graham"s consciousness up.

He then went to the center of his whole apartment room, which was the corner of his office intersecting with the kitchen and bedroom. He chose the spot to make sure every corner of his room would be under the area of effect.

He slit his left palm a little and let his blood pool in. Once it was enough, he started chanting.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Secrets, offer this blood as a medium"

The surrounding area became quiet. The blood on Valentine"s palm let out a mysterious mist that spread to the surrounding area.

"For I declare this place under the Shroud of Secrecy hereafter!"

He dropped his blood on the floor and it left a visible stain. However, since it was his own room he didn"t have to worry about anyone cleaning his bloodstain. When he wanted to use his ability somewhere else, he had to make sure his blood medium was well hidden.

After he was done with his first preparation, he took an unused blue pen from the shelf and got ready to use his power again. He slit his palm and let the blood acc.u.mulate. After that, he started chanting again.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Secrets, offer this blood as a medium"

The surrounding area became quiet again, the same as before. The blood on Valentine"s palm let out a mysterious mist that spread to the surrounding area.

"For I declare this item under the Shroud of Secrecy hereafter!"

He then dropped the blood on the pen carefully, making sure it only dropped there and nowhere else. Once the ritual was over, he felt a slight headache.

"G, I"m nearing my limit for today, said while ma.s.saging his temples.

Valentine waited for a while for the blood on the pen to dry. He looked at his slit palm and the injury was rapidly healing. After the blood dried out, he took the pen and put it inside his pocket.

Valentine went out of his room and down to the street. He turned to the nearest alley and hid the pen somewhere random. He then tossed one penning coin next to the pen and went back home.

"G, now we switch again," Valentine said.

He lied down in bed and after some time, he finally fell asleep. Graham woke up seconds later and he woke up Valentine"s consciousness. After that, he got up from the bed and went to sit in his office chair. He saw what Valentine had done so he knew what he needed to divine.

Graham turned off the light and lit the candles. He concentrated and repeated the questions in his heart.

"Where does Graham Hymes live?"

He looked into the flames and waited for a reaction. After waiting for a while, no image came out, and suddenly, the flames went out. His divination had failed.

"Alright. It failed, Val. On to the next one."

He repeated the same procedures with the candles. Now, he changed the question.

"Where is my unused blue pen?"

After repeating the question, no image appeared after a while, and again, the flames went out. It failed again. He got a slight headache. Graham was also nearing his limit for the day.

"So you can put anti-divination on an item. That"s good to know. Now on to the last experiment." he said while ma.s.saging his temples.

He repeated the procedure again and watched the flames intently. He said a question over and over in his heart.

"Where is my one penning coin that Valentine threw away?"

The surrounding area became dark and quiet. After a while, an image surfaced on the flames. It was that of a secluded alley. The image then zoomed in and he could see his one penning coin and other stuff nearby. However, the pen was not in the image.

Graham let the ritual finish and put out the flames. The headache became more intense after his divination. He ma.s.saged his temples again and then concluded the results of his experiment.

"So, shrouding an area in anti-divination makes the whole area unable to be divined. If it is on an item, only the item cannot be divined; the surrounding area is not influenced. However, even if we divine the whole area, the item will still be out of the divination. Interesting power you"ve got there, Val."

After he was done with the experiment, he cleaned up his messy office desk. He put away the candles and swept away the ashes. He then got changed to a simple t-shirt and a pair of elastic shorts and lied down in bed.

"Val, let"s review what we had learned today," he said while lying down comfortably.

"First and foremost, your power is pretty versatile. It could disrupt enemies" chanting if used correctly. And your anti-divination is very important in our line of work."

"Do you remember the two police officers who came here? They were Contractbounds, right? I bet within the Police there are Contractbounds with divination power."

He lied down quietly for a while, enjoying the peaceful night.

"Next. We got ourselves a collaborator. It was quite surprising that our next-door neighbor turned out to be a Contractbounds. His power can be very useful in some situations. I hope he will be available when we need him."

Graham smiled in satisfaction. After a while, his expression turned serious.

"So, from Luuk, we learned that Contractbounds who fail to appease their Deities will get a punishment. It is something to note. There is also that mysterious professor of his. He can erase people"s memories of him; that"s a dangerous power."

"And lastly, about our limit. It seems that ten is the limit for new Contractbounds. But I have noticed that my headache wasn"t as bad as before when I was nearing my limit. Maybe we can increase it by practicing our power, Val."

"I want to divine what will happen tomorrow, Val. But I"m almost at my limit and I"m already comfortable. I"ll do it tomorrow first thing in the morning."

He was getting sleepier and sleepier. Not long after, Graham had fallen asleep.

...

It was 3:33 in the morning. Valentine suddenly opened his eyes. He was awakened from his sleep. He activated his eye power and looked around because he felt something was not right. His bedroom was still the same. It was dark, but he could see well. Nothing was different from it. He put on a pair of pants and went to his office. He wore his leather jacket and stuffed his commando knife under it.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Valentine raised his alert; it was too early in the morning for visitors. He opened the door a little and through the gap, he could see that it was only Luuk van der Meer. Luuk looked restless; the black circles around his eyes were even more defined.

"What do you want at this hour?" Valentine asked, feeling suspicious. He looked around and heightened his alert. Everything looked normal, but Valentine still felt that something was amiss.

"There was someone suspicious entering this building," Luuk said seriously. He seemed rather worried. His face was pale and his tired eyes reflected nervousness.

"Maybe it was just one of the tenants?" Valentine asked, making sure.

"No, it wasn"t. That person felt very dangerous. He didn"t even seem human." Luuk said with fright.

"Where did you see him? How did you see him?" Valentine asked inquisitively.

"I was about to go out for my usual night activity when suddenly someone entered through the main door. I hid and observed the person for a while but he emitted a very dangerous aura," he explained.

"Did you see where he was heading to?"

"No, because I came back here. We need to check it out." Luuk urged him. He seemed to be really concerned about the suspicious ent.i.ty.

"That"s not my problem," said Valentine shortly. The whole situation seemed suspicious, so he didn"t want to put himself in danger. He closed the door on Luuk.

Once the door was closed, Luuk banged on the door loudly like a madman.

"OPEN THE DOOR!!" the Luuk outside was yelling, but his voice was much deeper and hoa.r.s.er than the original"s voice.

He kept banging until there was a crack on the door. Through the crack, Valentine could see someone was peeping. It was a fiery red eye that was full of hatred. Seeing the eye made one"s blood boil.

After seeing the eye, Valentine suddenly fell down. His surroundings became dark, even with his night vision he couldn"t see anything. It felt like he was in a very large dark cave where he couldn"t tell which direction was which. He just kept falling and falling and falling into the abyss. It was endless.

He tried to slow down his fall by spreading his arms and legs, but he still kept falling. It felt suffocating. The cold air that hit his skin felt like sharp pieces of gla.s.s, tearing his skin apart. He felt like his blood vessels could burst at any moment from the pressure.

After falling for what felt like hours, he finally reached the ground, hard. His whole body splattered on the hard rock surface. His head was in pieces; his eyes and his brain were no longer intact. His bones were crushed. He couldn"t see anything but he could feel every inch of his body destroyed.

But he was still alive, and pain coursed through his every vein. He should have been dead, but he was alive to feel every organ of his body crushed; every blood vessel ruptured. He wanted to scream in agony, but he couldn"t. His tongue was mangled.

Suddenly, he woke up. Cold sweat ran through his body. He was only dreaming! It felt very real; even the pain felt very real. It was a very twisted dream. He had never had that kind of dream before. He got up from the bed and went to the kitchen. He took a gla.s.s of water to quench his thirst.

Valentine gulped down the water quickly. It felt cold and refreshing. After drinking, he went back to his bedroom. But when he was about to step out of the kitchen, he was suddenly underwater.

He held his breath and tried to swim up, but the water was dark. Valentine didn"t know which way was up and which way would lead to his demise. Everything was silent, only the sound of the water inside his ear ca.n.a.ls could be heard. He was swimming and swimming, but he reached nowhere. It felt like hours. He was unable to hold his breath anymore, but there was no way he could breathe. The longer he was there, the weaker he got. He was kicking in desperation, but it only dragged him further down. He drowned deeper and deeper into the depth.

Finally, he could not hold his breath any longer; ice-cold water filled his lungs and blood vessels burst in his body and behind his eyes. His eardrums burst and the pain was like a thousand hot needles had stabbed him. He couldn"t keep breathing, for it was excruciating, but he was desperate for air. Water filled his throat as he tried to breathe, and agonizing pain burned his throat, like swallowing a hot iron whole. He was kicking and flailing, but no one could save him.

As Valentine was drawing his last breath, he was jolted awake. Cold sweat ran down his spine. Valentine punched himself hard to make sure he was really awake. Pain spread from the impact: he was not dreaming. He got up from the bed and looked around. He remembered that Graham had experienced something similar. He saw a brown piece of paper lying on the spot where he was sleeping. He picked it up and read the content.

"The Deity has requisitioned the uncovering of great secrets."

Valentine remembered Graham"s words and quickly went over to the trash can. Shortly after, the paper lit itself on fire and burned into ashes. The ashes dropped right into the trash can.

After that was all done, Valentine lied back down in bed. The clock on the wall showed 3:35. He went back to sleep and had a pleasant dream.