Contractbound

"So it really has to be you, Val," muttered Graham.

Luuk saw the divination image but he didn"t recognize the sigil, so he didn"t know what it meant. He only felt that the feeling he got while looking at the mysterious mist was familiar.

Graham didn"t stop his divination there. He didn"t like not knowing all the variables before jumping into action. He focused his mind on the flame again and asked another question.

"What effect does Shroud of Secrecy have on the Contractbound powered mirror?"

The lighter flame burned brightly and it gradually formed an image. It was the room with the mortuary cabinets, but something was different. There was a figure standing in the middle of the room and it was covered in the same mysterious yellowish mist. In the mirror, the figure was not reflected and the mist was nonexistent. The image disappeared little by little after that as if consumed by the flame.

"So the mirror power is some kind of real-time divination, that is why anti-divination is effective," Graham concluded. "I should have done it earlier. That shows how important it is to ask the right questions during divination..." he then said in regret.

"Should I unlock the door now?" asked Luuk. He had tried to open the door before but it was naturally unlocked.

"Wait a minute. Please keep watch," said Graham urgingly. He wasn"t worried that Luuk would see what he tried to do because he probably could persuade him to forget it later.

Graham then sat on the floor with his back against the stone wall. He took out a sleeping pill from his pocket and swallowed it quickly. The hardwood floor and the stone wall felt cold in his body, although he was wearing multiple layers of clothing. Moments later, he started feeling sleepy and his mind began to drift away. He had fallen asleep.

Luuk saw his partner falling asleep and felt baffled. He really didn"t think it was the right time to be sleeping.

Just within seconds after Graham fell asleep, Valentine woke up in his body and got up from the floor. He got to work right away, leaving Luuk perplexed.

Valentine took out a lock pick from his pocket and started picking the lock of the door. It didn"t take him long to unlock the door with his skills. He opened the door and felt a cold breeze escaping the room.

The room was exactly the same as what he had seen through Graham"s divination, with the difference being only the lighting because the image appeared from fire. Right next to the door, there was a giant mirror that could reflex the whole mortuary cabinets opposite it. The mirror was actually a pretty common one that could be found easily in public toilets, but the Contractbound behind it made the mirror special.

There were thirty-six individual body freezers stacked into four rows at the other end of the big room. The numbers started from the top left and went in order to the right, with number ten starting from the far left side again. What he needed was inside drawers number thirteen in the second row and twenty-seven in the far right of the third row, according to divination.

Valentine didn"t move a step from the doorway to avoid being spotted by the mirror. He stood there, took out his knife, and slit his palm. He let the blood pool and chanted.

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

A mysterious yellowish mist slowly came out of the blood on his hand.

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

He dropped the blood under the giant mirror just outside the doorway and for a second everything in the room felt forgotten. The feeling quickly went away and the blood dried up on the floor.

"It"s done." he turned to face Luuk and said shortly.

Luuk understood what the divination image meant now after seeing Valentine doing the ritual. The mist was the one he had seen before when Valentine did the same ritual after defeating Marieke Odekirk.

The two men entered the room carefully, still on guard in case something happened, and Luuk closed the door behind him. They approached the cabinets and Valentine opened number thirteen first. The metal drawer handle felt freezing to touch and it was rather heavy. He had to put in some power to pull it without making a lot of noise.

Slide...

A quiet sound of sliding metal resounded in the room. In front of them was now a dead body covered in a mort cloth. Valentine lifted the white sheet and saw the dead body under it. It was a man that looked rather old. His deathly pale skin had frost on it. Valentine couldn"t identify whether the man was the preacher or the grave keeper, and he really didn"t have the time to search for the man"s ident.i.ty.

"Can you steal the man"s whole mouth including the tongue?" he asked Luuk seriously. It would be easier if Luuk could do it, otherwise, he had to saw the man"s mouth off.

"I should be able to since he"s already dead," said Luuk rather confidently.

Luuk got closer to the corpse and imagined the part that he wanted to steal in his mind. He then started chanting.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare the dead man"s whole mouth mine!"

His right hand made a swiping motion and a mouth appeared there. The dead body, on the other hand, now had a big hole in his face where the mouth had been. Valentine took out a paper bag from his pocket and Luuk put the mouth in the bag. He then covered the dead body with the white sheet again and pushed the drawer shut.

Click...

The drawer made a sound once it was completely closed.

They then walked over to the other end of the cabinets and Valentine pulled open drawer number twenty-seven with all his strength very carefully.

Slide...

It still made a quiet noise despite Valentine"s best effort at being stealthy.

There was also a body covered with a mort cloth. He lifted it and saw the dead man under it. This man was much older than the previous one, with his hair completely grey, but either one could still be the preacher or the grave keeper. He gestured at Luuk and the latter nodded.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare the dead man"s whole mouth mine!"

He made a swiping motion with his right hand and a wrinkled pale mouth appeared there. He then put the mouth inside Valentine"s paper bag together with the previous one. Valentine was not worried about getting them mixed up because he could always have Graham divine which was which later. He stuffed the paper bag with two mouths inside under his leather jacket.

He covered the man"s body, whose mouth was now missing, with the white sheet and closed the drawer carefully.

Click...

The drawer made a sound when it was completely shut.

"Are we done here?" asked Luuk to Valentine looking for confirmation.

"Yes. Let"s leave now."

The duo left the room without forgetting to close the door behind them. Back in the corridor, they heightened their senses to the max in case someone was secretly approaching them. Although Graham"s divination had indicated that it was safe, as long as they couldn"t see direct results, they wouldn"t completely lower their guard.

They walked down the corridor heading back to the storage room whence they came while avoiding being reflected by any of the mirrors there. It was easier for Valentine to crawl under those magical mirrors because of his athleticism.

Once they arrived at the location of the long horizontal mirror, Valentine crossed over easily using the holes that Luuk had made in the wall. It dumbfounded Luuk since just before, it had taken the same man forever to scale the wall.

They arrived back at the storage room without any obstacle. They entered the dark, messy room and closed the door behind them. The trap door was still in the same condition as when they left it, and there were no other footprints except theirs, so no one had followed them there. Valentine and Luuk climbed down the rusty metal ladder back to the dark tunnel, but this time it was not a problem because they both had night vision. The tunnel felt much warmer than the freezing morgue, and more comfortable despite the darkness. And on top of that, there were no mirrors there.

"You don"t need your lighter anymore?" asked Luuk while they were walking in the dark ancient tunnel. His tone hid no suspicion at all, only curiosity.

"Not anymore. I"m used to the dark now," answered Valentine unconcernedly.

Luuk didn"t buy the answer right away, but he didn"t press the topic any further. The two men walked down the rest of the tunnel in silence, with only the sounds of their footsteps accompanying them.

They walked up the stairs carefully at the end of the stone tunnel and saw the dark night sky once more. They waited for a while before exiting to make sure that there were no cemetery guards waiting outside to ambush them.

Valentine and Luuk got out of the grave and watched their surroundings intently. There seemed to be no cemetery guards nearby, so they quickly went to the other side of the grave and pushed it with all their strength.

Shriieeek...

The grave being pushed made a noise in the quiet night, but it wasn"t too loud. It shouldn"t be enough to attract the cemetery guards who should be far away judging from the lack of dancing flashlights around them.

Valentine and Luuk proceeded to walk back to the sewer entrance to meet up with Jacco.

...

Inside a bright room with a lot of mirrors, a man and a woman were sitting and chatting while occasionally looked into the mirrors. The man had blonde hair and a youthful face. His blue eyes shone like mirrors. The woman had her hair dyed in purple and her green eyes looked ferocious like those of a wild beast. The man was sitting leisurely on a sofa while the woman was leaning back in a chair.

The room was not large, but it was not small either. There were a total of twenty mirrors on one side of the wall with different sizes and shapes. There was even a mirror that was very big placed at the bottom. Yet, they strangely didn"t reflect what was happening in the room but rather, they were like windows peeking at other parts of the building.

"This is my first graveyard shift with you, Wit. How does your power actually work?" asked the woman with a strong voice.

"Which power? I have a lot," said the man who was called Wit braggingly.

"The power you"ll use to protect yourself from me if you don"t stop messing around," said the woman with a straight face, but her tone showed a hint of joking.

"You"re not serious, right, Paars? Because if you were, I still have my way of escaping," he winked at her.

"Well, try me," she said shortly, then added, "Seriously. Tell me about these mirrors."

"These are my babies. I can see anything the mirrors see. Not even a mouse can escape from my sight!" he said proudly.

"I know that. Explain to me how they work!" asked the woman called Paars impatiently.

"Okay okay. Each mirror is connected to me through blood. I can basically turn a pair of mirrors into a one-way mirror. There are a distance limit and a number limit, though. Right now I can only make twenty of them."

"So you can monitor the whole building just from this room? No wonder you"re basically on a permanent graveyard shift," she said with slight amazement.

"That"s the curse of power, isn"t it? But thanks to this power, I"ve caught some thieves stupid enough to break in," he said casually while observing the mirrors.

"Yeah, but it is also a blessing. I don"t have to walk the corridor of this freezing place to patrol," she said gladly.

"Have you seen anything out of the ordinary through these mirrors with those beastly eyes of yours?" he asked in a serious tone.

"No, nothing. It will be a slow night tonight," she said shortly.

There hadn"t been any movement captured by the mirrors, and there was no abnormality either. The morgue that night was safe.