Angel's Ink

by Jocelynn Drake

  “Simon, this is ridiculous. You’ve let me live in peace for years now. I haven’t caused any problems, haven’t been using any significant magic beyond a little self-defense,” I argued as I took a step back from him. “What happened to the live and let live attitude of the past several years? I’m not causing you any problems.”

  “But that’s just it. You are. Your very existence is a big problem for us.”

  “How? I haven’t done anything!” I shouted. He couldn’t possibly know about my mess regarding Tera, and even that fell under the realm of TAPSS and not the warlocks—not that some simple bureaucracy would stop them. In all honesty, I expected both sides to want a piece of my hide if either found out exactly what I had managed to do. Immortality tended to sound appealing when you were approaching the end of your life.

  “You represent a blot on our perfect record. All of our students have either finished their studies and gone on to become skilled warlocks, or they have perished in the attempt. And yet here you stand, neither a warlock nor dead.”

  I was beginning to see Simon’s dilemma. He was getting grief from the warlock community because my reputation was growing among my own group as a respected potion stirrer and tattoo artist. If I had rolled up into a little ball of failure and lived the rest of my short life in the gutter, then we wouldn’t be having this argument. Failure on my part was just as good as my death. My success was making Simon look bad. He should have found a way to kill me much sooner.

  “A blot? I’ve been called worse,” I said.

  Simon pointed his wand at me, an evil grin growing on his face. “Not ever again.”

  Clenching my teeth, I slammed the sides of my hands together with my palms flat out, facing him. I focused my energy on creating a single steel barrier in front of me. Even then, my feet still slid nearly a foot backward across the pavement under the force of the spell that hammered into my protective barrier. My strength wavered and my protective barrier cracked under the force of Simon’s attack, but it held.

  “You’re only putting off the inevitable,” Simon taunted.

  “Death may be inevitable, but not today.” I tried to sound confident, considering that I had already had a meeting with the grim reaper that day. Of course, that didn’t mean Simon couldn’t put me in a whole lot of pain, making it impossible for me to find a way to fix the Tera situation.

  Whispering a couple of words under my breath, I twisted my own barrier so that it bounced Simon’s spell back at him. Unfortunately, the old warlock was crafty, cutting off his own spell and dodging the remaining energy by falling against the brick side of Sparks’s old shop.

  My head throbbed and muscles twitched throughout my body from the excess energy running through me. It had been a long time since I had last dealt with this much magic. I was sorely out of practice and in deep trouble if I didn’t do something about Simon soon. The gun I had pulled on the grim reaper was starting to look really attractive, even if it would only serve as an irritant for Simon. Any kind of distraction would serve. Unfortunately, I had left the gun at the parlor.

  Shaking out my hands as I dropped them back down to my sides, as if I was lowering them toward a pair of guns, I sidestepped away from Simon and moved out into the empty street so that we had room to wage the war that had been brewing for more years than I cared to count. I had been only seven years old when I had started to exhibit an inclination toward magic. Simon had swept into my family’s normal suburban home, completely overwhelming my poor parents, demanding that I be taken by him to be trained properly to be a warlock. He was doing what was best for all parties. If I was left on my own, unchecked, I would only become a danger to myself and those around me, while at the same time, I would become frustrated by missing out on my own potential. He conned them with pretty promises of grandeur, while leaving out the cold, compassionless life that I would lead as a fledgling warlock. No loving parents. No companionship from older brother or younger sister.

  But then, he had been shocked in the end. I’d been a true natural when it came to weaving spells—magic flowed easily through me, like air through my lungs, and I could wrap it around my hands and command it to do my bidding without their complicated words and hand gestures. It was a part of me, and it infuriated Simon in ways that pleased me. In truth, I left Simon not only because I found his pompous rhetoric insulting, but I was also bored. I was reaching the end of what he could teach me, but he was unwilling to admit it. I knew that if I hadn’t left soon, he would have killed me for my trouble.

  So now I stood in the middle of the street, an outcast of the Ivory Towers, and he could kill me quite legally, not raising a single eyebrow. But I preferred it that way—I didn’t want to be a part of their cult. I didn’t want to be a part of anything that looked down on this world and saw it as something to step on. Sure, life was dirty and crowded and more than a little messy, but it was worth the effort and just too amusing to miss out on.

  “Come play with me, Simon,” I mocked.

  Reaching out with my right hand, I closed it as if I was wrapping my fingers around his throat. I dragged his slumped body away from where it was resting against the building until he was standing in the middle of the street with me. With a little push, I released him so that he was forced to backpedal a couple of steps to regain his balance before I took a daring chance and closed my eyes. Digging deeper into the magic that surrounded me, I felt a pulse of fresh life fill my limbs and circle my heart as the rest of the world dimmed around me. The energy sharpened in my mind into daggers and flew through the air with only the slightest nudge from me. I knew that I’d hit my mark when I heard a distinct “Ugh” not far from me. Not all of the daggers had hit where I’d wanted them to, but only one of them needed to pierce him.

  I cracked my eyes open and a grin slipped across my face as his thin hand pressed against his right shoulder. Blood seeped through his slender fingers and his narrow face twisted with rage. There had been a hole in his defenses. I wouldn’t be able to manipulate that same hole again nor any similar to it, but it was enough for me to have wounded him once like that. I wanted to see him bleed. I needed to prove to myself and any others who might be watching from some distant crack in a window blind that this bastard was still human despite his best efforts to distance himself from his birth race.

  “Surprised?” I asked.

  “Not as much as you will be,” he snarled in response as he tucked his wand down his left sleeve. Odd—a wand always represented more powerful, more precise spells. What could he possibly prefer to wield with his hands over the use of a wand?

  Releasing his shoulder, he raised both of his hands above his head before quickly lowering them. A burst of power shot out from him, but instead of hitting me, it surged toward the buildings running up and down the street on either side of us. Windows exploded, shooting glass inward toward the occupants watching the events unfolding in the middle of the street. Screams of pain and fear filled the air around us as innocent people were injured by the flying shards of glass.

  “Stop it! They’ve got nothing to do with this!” I shouted, taking a few angry steps toward him with my hands in fists at my sides.

  Simon’s smile returned, carving across his face like a violent slash cut through flesh. His left arm lifted from his side and at the same time screaming penetrated the quiet along with a child’s sobbing. I looked over to his left to see a woman hovering in the air in a broken-out window. Her legs frantically kicked at the air as she clawed at her throat. A child struggled in an older woman’s arms nearby, reaching for the choking woman as she cried.

  “Stop!” I shouted. I didn’t think. I just acted, weaving a countercurse to remove the spell that Simon was using to kill the woman. As the woman fell to the ground with a heavy thud, I saw Simon out of the corner of my eye turn around in a circle, his cloak cutting about him in a wide swath before he threw the ball of energy at me. I tried to shift my powers to summon up another barrier to deflect the energy, but I was too slow.
Simon’s attack pushed right through and punched me in the gut, doubling me over. My face slammed into the dirty concrete at Simon’s feet a half second before the rest of my body followed. The warlock’s cackle rose above the excruciating pain swimming through my frame before grinding into my bones. It felt as if Simon had released within my body large worms that burned and wriggled their way through my organs and were now eating into the marrow of my bones.

  I screamed, forcing my body to straighten as I lifted my head to look at Simon, standing over me. The warlock rested his fists on his hips as he stared down at me, a smile breaking over his face again. It was only through the overwhelming need to rip that smile from his smug face that I found the energy to move again. My eyes rolled up into the back of my head as I turned all of the energy swirling around me into wards. Pain sizzled through my frame as I sent energy surging through my body, seeking out and destroying the worms. I felt hollowed out, my organs reduced to little more than Swiss cheese, but I was still breathing.

  “Your concern for them has always made you such an easy target,” Simon said. “They’re stupid, worthless bags of flesh.”

  “It’s where we all start. Where you started,” I replied through clenched teeth as I tried to push past the pain.

  “I rose above that dirty start. You were supposed to as well, but obviously you’ve got some unfortunate failings. The council should have killed you years ago so you wouldn’t have a chance to spread your weakness to others. I will correct that oversight now.”

  Simon had taken me by surprise, which meant this bastard probably had a little more stored up his sleeve. He had let me walk away years ago because he hadn’t been sure that he could beat me. But he had continued to study magic, while I’d allowed my skills to stagnate. Simon came to me now because he was sure that he could take me out.

  The nice thing was, there was one approach I could rely on that would always take a warlock by surprise: the direct one. Heaving myself back to my feet with a giant shove, I ignored my shaky legs and closed the distance between us. As he raised his hand, shock crossing his face, I slammed my fist into his nose. His head snapped back, causing him to stumble a couple of steps away from me as he covered his face.

  “I’ve had enough of your shit. I didn’t come here to deal with you,” I said as I delivered another punch to his face followed by one to his gut that had him sucking in a harsh breath. “I came here to take care of other matters. I don’t care about you, the rest of your useless crowd, or what you want because I don’t want any part of it.”

  “That’s too bad,” Simon said, leaning close while wiping his bleeding nose with the back of a shaking hand. “Because we need to be rid of you.”

  I should have taken a step away. I should have turned my back and run. I should have learned my lesson years ago and started walking with an actual weapon at all times, but I thought I was skilled enough to keep myself safe with only magic.

  Simon lunged a half step forward and slammed his fist against my breastbone; the impact was followed by a quick surge of power from whatever spell he had been weaving while I attacked him physically. It felt as if his fist kept going through my body until long, gnarly fingers wrapped around my soul. I gasped, my whole body going as stiff as a board as my hands latched onto his narrow shoulders for support. I had never read of this spell before, but Simon had discovered a way to not only grab my soul, but I could feel the bastard starting to pull it from my body.

  Energy swirled around Simon and cut through me, entering my chest. Forcing my mind to move past the pain, I focused on the patterns I could see within the power rolling off the warlock. I had studied a great number of spells with Simon in this way. Many warlocks used the excuse of casting spells on their apprentices as a way of teaching them. If we managed to survive the encounter, then we were deemed worthy of continuing to study. The spell that was digging into my soul was similar to others that Simon had thrown at me in my younger years. It was familiar enough that I was able to unravel its secrets.

  Raising my head so that my narrowed eyes met Simon’s triumphant look, I balled my right hand into a fist and slammed it into his chest in the same way he had with me. I shoved the energy through his body until the echo of my hand came across a wispy feeling deep within his body. It wasn’t as neat and tidy as his spell. In fact, it was downright ugly and sloppy, but it would get the job done.

  “No!” he screamed as I wrapped my fingers tightly around his soul, locking us together. He knew that if he pulled on my soul in hopes of killing me, I would do the same with him.

  The dark chuckle that escaped from me seemed to dance around the empty street. “It seems that we’ve hit a stalemate.”

  “You’re not walking away from here!”

  “Try to kill me and you know that I’m going to happily take you with me,” I warned. “Besides, right now, I’ve got death on my side.” Well, inasmuch as the fact that the grim reaper required me to undo a mess I’d made. Regardless, it was enough to unnerve Simon so that he loosened his grip the slightest bit, allowing me, with a fresh surge of power, to tighten my grip not only on his soul, but on my own soul as well.

  We were stuck. If I pulled away now, Simon would come at me with yet another and then another spell until he succeeded in killing me. He would keep coming, destroying everything in his path, everything in my life, until he finally wore me down. I knew Simon—he was ruthless when it came to getting what he wanted. Hatred bubbled within me as I glared at the warlock. I was ready for this to be over.

  With a feral scream, I pulled my hand away from Simon’s chest. My fingers ripped through his soul as I tried to pull it from his body. The spell I had tried to weave to match his was faulty and I couldn’t keep his soul together. The warlock moved at the same time, tearing something inside me. Simon’s scream matched my own as his fingers ripped through my soul, shredding it. There was no time to stop it or fight it. The energy surged out of us in a rush, like air surging forth to fill a vacuum. We were blown apart, thrown to opposite ends of the street. As the spell left my body, I could feel that a part of my soul was now missing. I had thought I had a strong enough hold on it that I could force him out, but I was wrong.

  There was no time to think about it. I was weak, possibly dying from internal injuries. My insides were battered, bruised, and bleeding from the fight. I could barely raise my head from where I was lying in the middle of the street. A cough scraped along my throat as I tried to suck in a breath. The street was splattered with my blood. I needed to escape if I was going to have any chance at living for another day. More important, I needed to escape with the little wisp of energy that was tightly clasped in my right hand.

  Simon lay in the street several yards down from me, groaning in pain. He was injured, but still dangerous. It would have been nice if one of the bystanders had come forward and chopped his head off, but everyone knew from experience that a conscious warlock was a deadly warlock. They wouldn’t take the chance.

  With any luck, Simon would use what little strength he had left to take himself back to the Ivory Towers. He needed to heal. He wasn’t dying. Not yet, and I was in no shape to finish the fucker off.

  Taking advantage of his injuries, I closed my eyes and focused all of my energy on the back room of the tattoo parlor. I didn’t like leaving the people here alone with Simon, but I was no good to them in my current state. In a flash, I was back at Asylum, lying in a huddled heap on the white wooden floor. My breathing labored, I lay limp, curled in a loose ball on the floor, staring at my clenched right hand. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel the energy writhing there. I had a piece of Simon’s soul and I was going to find a way to put it to good use. Preferably before he found a use for the chunk of my soul in his possession.

  Chapter 10

  “Gage?” Trixie called in a concerned voice from the main room of the tattoo parlor. There had been no masking the heavy thud created when my body hit the wooden floor of the shop or the grunt of pain that escaped me
. Her heels clicked across the floor as she rose from a chair and approached the back room, which, luckily, still had its door shut. I didn’t want her seeing me like this.

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” I shouted back in a strained voice, struggling to sound as normal as possible despite the fact that I was curled up in the fetal position on the dusty floor, my body wracked with pain. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been convincing enough because the door swung open as I was pushing into a sitting position.

  “Oh shit! What happened?” Trixie rushed toward me, her hand outstretched to help me.

  “Don’t touch me. I’m fine.” I didn’t mean to snap at her, but I was holding on to the fragment of the powerful warlock’s soul, I was missing a bit of my own, and I didn’t trust Simon not to have potentially booby-trapped me as I made my escape. There was a chance that she could get hurt if she tried to help. My only option was to escape down to my private workshop in the basement and check over things.

  “What happened?” she demanded a second time, still hovering close.

  “Had a little run-in.” I pushed to my feet, squelching the groan that was rising from my chest. It felt as if all of my organs were leaking blood and my head had a marching band stomping my brain. Death was starting to sound attractive. It had to be less painful. “I’ll be fine. Could you go back out to the parlor and keep an eye on things for me for a little while longer? I need to get cleaned up and then I’ll be out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I wanted to smile to reassure her. I even tried, but my brain couldn’t locate the muscles in my face that made me smile. It just kind of flipped me the bird and went back to screaming at the marching band.