Page 7 of Enslaved By Magic

His uncle leaned in, pulled the box closer and began to examine it carefully. He turned it and tilted it, finally looking at the hinges before he nodded. “Yep, got something that will work out in the shop.”

After dinner, when he’d convinced his aunt he couldn’t possibly eat another bite, the men retired to the outbuilding to work on breaking the lock. It took a surprisingly long time, and Luke was beginning to think he’d wasted his money on a chunk of metal he’d never be able to get into. Uncle Esra, though, was a determined man and not one to give up easily. He kept going until finally, with a loud crack, the metal split.

“Ah! Finally. Knew we’d get it eventually,” Esra said, sounding pleased. He pulled the drill free and put it aside and then moved out of the way. “Go on, it’s your box. Take a look,” he said, waving Luke in.

After doing most of the work, Luke thought his uncle had become invested in the mysterious contents too, but since he seemed content to just watch, Luke went ahead and flipped the lid open. Inside, cushioned in blue velvet, was a bottle. The inlaid metal was tarnished, and the stones were crusted over with the grime of years, despite the protective case. At first Luke was disappointed, but as he lifted it from the velvet, he realized he had something special.

“I think those stones are real,” he said in an awestruck voice. The size of them, the cut—if they were real, they’d be worth more than everything else he’d bought at the sale combined, easily. Maybe they were fake; modern lab-made stones were almost indistinguishable from the real thing, but the bottle looked too old for that.

His uncle reached for it. “Let me see that,” he said as he lifted it from Luke’s hands and carried it over to the bright shop light. He produced an old rag from a drawer and began to rub hard at the metal. After nearly a minute, bright silver began to shine through the black of age and he grunted. “Silver there. Don’t know about the stones,” he said as he narrowed his eyes and inspected it. “Hmm.”

“What?” Luke asked, leaning in eagerly.

“The style looks Turkish. Reminds me of some things my parents brought over when they immigrated. My father was a glassmaker before they came here. Afterward, he found other work, but I remember my mother being very proud of some of the pieces he’d made until they eventually had to sell them. This has a similar look to it,” Esra said thoughtfully. He held on to the bottle a little longer, turning it carefully this way and that before surrendering it to Luke.

“Be careful when you clean it up, but I’d say it was worth whatever you paid for the trip and then some,” he said.

Luke nodded, all his attention on his prize. “Can I borrow that?” Holding his hand out for the rag, he took it and began to scrub at the tarnished metal, freeing the elegant silver lines with agonizing slowness. It was a waste of time. He had things at home that would do it faster and with a lot less work. Finally, he sighed and returned the bottle to its box when he realized he would be at it all night if he continued that way.

He made his excuses to the family and headed to the car as quickly as he could without being rude. He was so distracted with a need to get home and clean up the bottle that he only just remembered the late rent money as he was backing out of the driveway and had to run back inside and give it to his uncle, thanking him again for his patience. On his way out, his aunt pressed a bag of leftovers into his hands, and that delayed him another couple of minutes.

He felt antsy and rushed as he jumped in the car and drove home. He really didn’t understand the sudden urgency, but he felt like he needed to get the bottle cleaned up immediately. He knew he wouldn’t be sleeping or doing anything else until he could hold it in his hands and look at it in all its glory. Luckily, this wasn’t the first antique in desperate need of cleaning he’d brought home, and he had a whole box full of supplies that would take care of the tarnish and the stones.

Except it wasn’t as easy as he expected. All the fancy solutions that normally cleared up the metal in under a minute—just didn’t work on the bottle. The gems remained dull and sticky with grime, and the glass remained streaked too. The only thing that actually worked was relentless scrubbing with a soft rag and a toothbrush. An hour passed before he saw much of a difference, and many more were gone before he’d made enough progress to make a better guess at what he had.

His uncle was right, there was a Turkish flair to the beautiful colored glass, and the thin lines of silver spoke of a skilled craftsman. The gems, as far as he could tell, were real, and not just semi-precious. He was sure he was looking at sapphires and rubies, making the bottle priceless. Honestly, he couldn’t begin to put a value on it. If he sold it, it would have to be at auction, though he did worry the estate heirs might try to pull some legal shenanigans to get the bottle back if they found out.

He stopped, frowning with confusion. If he sold it? Was he really considering keeping something like this? He loved art and beautiful things, but his tiny one-bedroom home with its thrift store furniture was no place for an antique treasure. And the sale of it could possibly finance another degree and support him while he studied—so why did the idea of letting it out of his sight make him feel so panicky?

He hesitated, staring accusingly at the glass. “Don’t get comfortable, you’re not going to be here long,” he informed it firmly. He’d chalked up his habit of talking to himself and whatever object he was working on at the moment to living alone, and it no longer bothered him—but it didn’t exactly feel like he was talking to an inanimate thing this time. He had a creeping sensation going up his spine that felt like someone was watching and listening, but when he turned, no one was there.

The estate with its creepy murals and weird history was messing with his head, he decided finally. That didn’t stop him from turning to sit with his back against the wall as he returned to work on the cleaning. He pushed through another hour of scrubbing, despite the increasing ache in his shoulders and hands. It was all worth it when he dropped the brush after clearing the last stone of gunk.

He held the bottle up to the light and let loose with a long low whistle. The glass wasn’t one color but a hundred, all swirling seamlessly between the lines of silver. Even the gems, as beautiful as they were, couldn’t match the luster of the bottle itself. He’d never held something so beautiful in his life and, once again, there was that longing to keep it for himself.

He frowned, looked closer and then grabbed the rag to touch up a spot he’d missed. A little streak of black, easily wiped away, but it was as though that small gesture set things in motion, and everything began to happen at once.

There was a wrenching feeling in his mid-section, like someone had hooked him by the spine and was dragging him forward, except he wasn’t actually moving. Pressure seemed to be building in the room and his ears started to hurt. He stretched his jaw, trying to pop them but it didn’t help. The panic was rising as he wondered what the hell was going on, but through it all, he kept his grip on the bottle.

Only when he saw his shaking hands did he set it down out of fear he might drop it and shatter the valuable glass. The moment it was out of his hands the weird, jarring sensations stopped. There was no chance to feel relief, because the bottle began to glow with an odd pulsing light. He stared at it, confused, any number of possible explanations racing through his mind, but when the lid popped off and a viscous-looking smoke began to ooze out, he completely lost the ability to reason what was happening.

The thick mist rolled down the side of the bottle and made a puddle of fog to surround it. It slowly expanded until he had to jump back to avoid its touch. He couldn’t imagine what it was made of or why it was acting so distinctly un-smoke-like. It seemed impossible the small bottle could have contained so much of whatever it was, and it continued to empty for what seemed to be ages while he watched.

When the last curling bit of fog had crept out of the hole, it began to change, pulling close and forming a shape. Stories of demons from his childhood came to mind and didn’t help the level of terror he was feeling as he watched it grow and lengthen into a vaguely human shape that slowly developed features.

He hadn’t made a sound since it had begun, simply staring, eyes growing wider as his brain tried desperately to explain what was happening. At first his silence had been from shock, but then as the smoke began to mold itself into a recognizable form, he was afraid if he made any noise at all he’d start screaming—and finally it was because his brain couldn’t comprehend what happened. His eyes rolled back in his head and he hit the ground with a crash.

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