“I’d love to cook for you, and she’s more than welcome.”
Raum gestured over his shoulder to the door. “Ready to go?”
“Yup. I can carry her, if you like.” Ezra followed Raum to the door and into the hall, shutting the door to his room.
“I don’t mind, she weighs next to nothing.”
Ezra found it impossible to keep the huge smile off his face as he walked beside Raum to the parking lot.
Raum
The library wasquiet when they arrived—the hour was typically busy with classes so there were few people around, mostly staff members like the librarians haunting the stacks.
Raum led the way into the Special Collections room, greeting the guard and helping Ezra get his visitor pass on his shirt while he juggled holding Lilith. The door to the room closed behind them, the large area quieter than the main part of the library by a wide margin. It was quiet enough their footsteps echoed.
“Harlan and Chase coming today as well?” Raum asked as they reached the tables outside his office. Raum unlocked the door and flicked on the lights, setting his bag on his chair and heading back out to the tables where their research awaited them, untouched in the night.
“I’m not sure,” Ezra said, pulling out his phone and scrolling through his messages. “Nope, looks like we’re on our own for the day. Major Grendel has them helping with the search for Simmons. They might be getting close to finding him if they pulled in my escort.”
“I’m surprised the man’s still in the wind, honestly.” Raum said, sitting in the same chair he took the day before, while Ezra got Lilith’s little food and water station set up by the door of Raum’s office along the wall. “If he wasn’t such a monster forgetting his teammates killed I’d be impressed with his ability to evade arrest.”
“I wish I could help but I haven’t the first idea how to assist in a manhunt,” Ezra admitted, coming to the table and taking the seat next to Raum without skipping a beat. “I’m helpful if they need an artifact contained or a curse broken. I typically don’t work with people at all unless they’ve been hexed or cursed. A manhunt is new to me.”
Raum eyed Ezra, curious. “What’s a typical case for you? An average day as a curse-breaker.”
Ezra read through the titles of the stack of books in the center of the table as he answered Raum’s question. “Usually I get called in by local authorities if someone has been killed by an artifact or curse, or injured. Sometimes a family will hire me if they’ve got an heirloom causing trouble or they’ve inherited a haunted object, things like that. The police or average governmental agency typically hires me to lift a spell from a person or place, break a curse, or break the object if they’ve got it in hand already. Once in a while, I need to go hunt down the object if they don’t have it already or know where or what it is. Sometimes a curse doesn’t hit immediately, and someone will succumb hours or days after coming into contact with an artifact. That happens a lot with those urban explorers going into condemned or abandoned buildings, the ones who film their adventures and put them online. I get to retrace their steps and find the source of the magic.”
Raum was impressed. Ezra was living an interesting life, for sure. “What’s an interesting case? Aside from this one, I mean.”
Ezra sat back in his chair, expression pensive as he thought about Raum’s question. “An interesting case, let me think.” He paused, then grimaced a bit before shaking his head and chuckling. “There was the case of the cursed dog collar.”
“The what?”
“Just what it sounds like. A long time ago, a gem dealer had a prized beagle and they made the dog a collar with some spells in it for protection and obedience. Don’t pee in the house, no barking, don’t leave the property unless on a leash, no reproducing, basic things like that. The dog wore the collar for years. Eventually the dog passes away, and so does the gem dealer. The collar was made from leather and covered in gems. It sat forgotten for years in a dusty drawer, its magic structures eroding and warping. It wasn’t thrown away, and there was no one to fix the decaying spells. Guess what happened instead.”
Raum winced, dreading the answer but saying it anyway. “Someone thought it was jewelry and started wearing it.”
Ezra cracked a smile and nodded. “Mundane nephew inherited the estate and thought the collar was a bracelet. He was wearing it around the property and kept getting shocked every time he talked, used the bathroom, or tried to get frisky with his wife. It was old, made back in the days of less compassionate pet ownership—once it was on, it could only be taken off by the owner. Who was dead.”
Raum couldn’t help the groan that escaped. “No.”
The image of some foolish mundane human getting zapped by a collar every few moments just for existing was both hilarious and sad. He felt even worse for the long-gone dog.
“Yup.” Ezra chuckled. “I got a frantic call from the wife about the collar that same day he put it on. Took me a while to get there. Had to fly in and then drive; got there the next day at noon. He went over twenty-four hours getting electrocuted for everything. He was pissing outside in the garden by the time I got there. Took me about a minute to dissolve the spells and get the collar off. Smelled like wet dog and piss. I don’t know what the nephew was thinking when he put it on. There was a dog tag still on it, too.”
Raum lost it, laughing. Ezra was grinning from ear to ear.
“Please tell me you got paid well for that.”
Ezra nodded. “Got my usual fee paid in full, and I got paid to go through the rest of the estate property, looking for anything else that might be spelled or cursed. Spent more time traveling to the job than I did doing the job. Got paid well for that trip, and I washed my hands a lot, too.”
Ezra
Making Raum laugh felt great.He was so attractive when he laughed too, eyes twinkling, laugh lines around his eyes. His laugh was deep and infectious and it made Ezra smile hearing it.
“It’s nice to know your job isn’t all doom and gloom all the time.” Raum said, smiling. “You get to have fun while working too. That’s great.”
“Do you have fun while working?” Ezra asked, the stack of books forgotten. He was curious, and Raum was easy to talk to.
