Grimoire of the Lamb Read Free Page A

the goods.”
    I began to pull the grimoire closer to me, and that’s when everything went pear-shaped. Without a single telltale warning in his facial expression, Elkhashab’s left arm snaked forward and he
punched
me. Not hard enough to break my nose or anything—it was more of a jab than a determined attempt to destroy my face—but it was enough to make me rock backward and take my hand off the grimoire. That was all he wanted. He grabbed the book and bolted for the door, figuring that if he couldn’t buy it, he’d simply steal it.
    He plainly did not know much about my magic. Before he was out the door, I began to construct a binding between the leather of the cover and the wool carpet I kept as a doormat. Since both were of natural materials, once I energized the binding the book would fly out of his hands and I’d be laughing at him.
    It didn’t work out that way.
    I energized the binding and the book tried to escape, but he held on with one hand and made a gesture with the other like flicking water from his fingers, and the binding
broke
.
    I was so shocked that he was halfway across Ash Avenue before I could think to try again. But now he had the grimoire held close to his chest, and my line of sight was ruined. I watched him scramble into a rental car across the street and thought a different binding would serve me well. Though pure synthetics shut me down, nature is present in even some of our mostrefined products: I bound the rubber of his tires to the bitumen in the asphalt concrete as I strode forward to reclaim my property. South of University Drive, Ash Avenue doesn’t have a lot of traffic, so I didn’t need to worry much about getting plowed into the pavement.
    He started the car and shoved it into gear. When it didn’t move, he rolled down the window and looked at the front tire. I activated my faerie specs—a charm that allows me to see in the magical spectrum—to see what he would do. I wanted to know how he destroyed my bindings.
    His aura was strange. Next to his skin, he was limned in white, like any magic user, but beyond that it was muddy, as if somebody’s kid had decided to mix all the finger paints together to see what magical hue would result. Tiny flashes and hints of color winked here and there, but mostly it was monkey-shit brown.
    Elkhashab flicked his fingers at the front tire with the same motion he’d used before, and I saw what appeared to be a spout of water gush forth and blanket my bindings. It was odd, undisciplined magic; bindings have definite structure and appear as Celtic knotwork, and even the magic of other systems, like Wicca or Vodoun, have an orderly look to them as they execute. His magic looked like a particularly splody ejaculation.
    He tried to accelerate, but the back tire held him fast. The bindings on the front tire had already melted—or perhaps dissolved—away. He flicked his fingers toward the rear, the bizarre miniature flood gushed forth in my magical sight, and my binding ceased to exist.
    Elkhashab stomped on the gas and squealed away with the
Grimoire of the Lamb
. I let him go because I was fighting ignorance as much as the man himself. His magic was a little frightening. The tattoos that bound me to the earth and allowed me to draw on its power were bindings as well. Could he toss some of his magic spooge at me and unbind me from the earth? I needed to find out, but not by trial and error. The error could well be fatal. Instead, I’d see what Hal had turned up and shift myself to Egypt before Elkhashab could fly out there. When he got home, eager to sacrifice a lamb and start some evil shit, he’d find me waiting for him.
    He’d also be extremely paranoid. If I were Elkhashab, there would be no way I’d ever believe that someone like me would simply let him go. And he’d be right.
    I called Hal on my cell phone. “Hal, have you got anything on that Egyptian character yet?”
    “You haven’t even given me two hours, Atticus,” Hal