Mike didn’t care how oppressively hot he looked in the cloak and cowl, but it was necessary. Just in case.
He stood outside of Mikael’s apartment door, feeling along the doorframe. The wards accepted him, and the locks clicked open, all except one. Mike pulled out his Sharpie and drew a rune of unlocking, the most powerful one he knew, and the lock turned its bolt.
He smudged the rune so it looked like a black mark on the door, and stepped inside, the cloak around him.
Nothing battered him, as he expected. He kept his head down, stepping into the foyer of the apartment. He made a motion, calling forth a spell that would illuminate all the wards in the area. And there were plenty, some he knew, some he didn’t, but the cloak he wore would protect him from the worst that they could do.
He kept the hood up and went into the kitchen area. Dishes were in the drying rack, the kitchen was clean. In fact, he put his hand on the counter top and there was a very thin sheen of dust there. Not very long, maybe a month. He checked the cabinets. They were bare of food. The refrigerator was empty, but the freezer still had some things in it.
He’s coming back, Mike thought, as he shut the door to the freezer. He traversed into the library area. No books were on tables, chairs, or scattered about like his library; everything was neat and orderly. Mike spelled for whatever books Mikael had touched most recently, and none showed bright enough.
Out of the library, back into the kitchen, the living room. The ever pervasive dust covered everything, which was picked up otherwise and clean.
He went back to the freezer, opening the door, staring at the frozen meats and orange juice concentrate there. “You’re coming back, right?”
But why were the cupboards bare?
Why did everything else look like he wasn’t coming back?
He went last to the bedroom. Again, untouched, bed made, but clothes gone from the closets. His suitcase was gone, too.
Mike pulled back the cowl. He went to the bathroom, looked in there, and scribbled on the mirror with his Sharpie, words in Enochian that Mikael would be able to read. No more of these unknown disappearances. Stay or go. Keep the ring. He ended the note with a symbol, his own symbol, of a scythe.
Betrayed again. He put the cowl over his head and headed out, he knew not where.