By the look on her face, I knew that she didn’t believe a single word I had uttered to her, but thankfully, she backed out of the room and closed the door behind her. With my fist still wrapped around Simon’s soul, I kicked aside my bag and pulled open the trapdoor in the floor with my free hand. Stumbling down the warped stairs, I immediately headed to the closest workbench where I yanked open the glass cabinets. Bottles clashed as I scrabbled for an empty vial with a cork. When I finally hit upon an ampoule and stopper, I closed my eyes and focused all my energy on the bit of wispy soul that was writhing in my hand. I forced it to slither into the glass ampoule and quickly lodged the stopper in. A couple of whispered words placed a charm on the glass, holding the soul in place while cloaking it from any prying eyes. Turning back to the cabinet, I wrapped a length of worn leather around the top of the glass container before tying the ends together. It was only when the glass container was hanging around my neck, the cold glass pressed against my skin, that I sank to the dirt floor and breathed a shaky sigh of relief. This shred of Simon’s soul would never leave my side, a bit of valuable leverage that could come in handy in an important moment. I’d find a good use for it. Simon certainly hadn’t.
Breathing heavily, I leaned against the front of the wooden workbench, my hands flat in the dirt floor as the pain flooded my mind. When I returned to the parlor, my only focus had been on getting Simon’s soul to a secure location before something happened that caused me to lose my newfound toy. Now, as I sat in the dirt in the nearly pitch-black room, all the pain came back with a new vengeance. The worms that had penetrated my body and bored holes through my bones represented a new spell. I hadn’t been expecting that from the old warlock and hadn’t been able to protect myself from it. I had a feeling it was only the beginning of what I faced when it came to Simon, particularly now that I had a bit of his soul.
Of course, he also had a bit of mine. Terrifying, but at least we were somewhat evenly screwed on that front. What had my attention was that he had chosen to attack me after several years of complete silence. He’d said he needed to be rid of me now, as if my presence in the warlock community had some kind of impact when I knew it had no bearing on anything whatsoever. I was a tattoo artist and a potion stirrer. We were beneath the notice of the warlocks and the witches who wove elaborate spells up in their Ivory Towers, changing the lives of helpless humans and other unknowing creatures lurking on the earth. I had suddenly become an important thorn in Simon’s side and I needed to know why he was so desperate to have me plucked out before he found something interesting to do with the fragment of my soul he held.
Above me, Trixie’s footsteps returned to the back room, but they remained in front of the cabinet containing potion ingredients. Based on the lack of other footsteps, I didn’t think a customer had arrived in the shop, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t remain seated in the dirt like a useless lump for much longer. I had to pull myself together and fucking locate Sparks. It was bad enough that Simon had picked this exact moment to reenter my busy life, but right now, I had to place my priorities on the grim reaper and his request for Tera’s soul.
Which gave me pause. If he couldn’t have Tera’s, would he accept most but not all now that Simon possessed a fragment? A derisive snort escaped me before I could push it back. The grim reaper was going to take my soul regardless of its condition, and not even Simon and his pack of warlock flunkies would be able to stop him. In three days, if Tera wasn’t mortal, my soul belonged to the reaper—not Simon. That at least seemed slightly comforting, but not much.
I was shaken from my grim thoughts by the sound of Trixie’s footsteps descending the wooden stairs. “Gage?” she called into the darkness. I hadn’t bothered to grab the pull-chain light when I came down the stairs, relying on the light from the opening in the ceiling and my own memory of the room.
Pushing off the workbench, I lurched violently to my feet and rushed across the room. “Stop! Don’t come down any farther!” I ran until I hit the opposite wall with the flats of my palms, my body resisting every movement. The energy from the pentagram painted on the wall surged through my arms, jarring me even more awake. The spell that I had set down in the basement protected against the entrance of anyone other than me. The items in my private room were too dangerous.
“I made you something for the pain. It’ll help you heal faster,” she replied, not moving from the third stair from the top. Glancing up, I could see her cupping a white bowl in both hands.
My shoulders slumped under a combination of guilt and fatigue. She was trying to help, but she was going to get herself killed hanging around me. “Give me a second,” I said in a low voice after a few moments. I closed my eyes and blocked out her presence while I focused on the aggressive energy that was hovering inches from her, waiting to strike. I had reached the pentagram just in time, putting the defense system in a state of hesitant and angry alert but not attack. Tracing my fingers blindly over the lines of the pentagram and other lines of protection drawn on the wall, the energy slowly dispersed until there was nothing left that would attack Trixie should she enter my domain.
Pushing off the wall, I stumbled a little into the center of the room until I reached the chain and gave it a hard yank. Harsh yellow light flooded the dark room, leaving me squinting as I tried to focus on the beautiful blond creature approaching me with a frown pulling down her full lips. It wasn’t until she was standing in my private domain that I realized the antiglamour spell I had cast extended down here—to my pleasure. Had I really kissed those lips earlier today? Was there any chance of kissing them again?
“You’re a mess,” Trixie announced, still standing on the stairs.
No. No chance really. I plopped down in the middle of the room, grateful to be off my feet again and relaxing as I tried to will the pain in my bones to ease. “Thanks. You can come down now.”
“What happened?”
“A visit from an old friend.”
“Old friend?” she scoffed. She descended the stairs, her eyes sweeping over the room while her beautiful lips parted in surprise. I had no doubt both she and Bronx were aware that the room was down here, but I didn’t think this was what she’d been expecting. I had enough supplies in these cabinets to keep three tattoo parlors in business and still maintain some illegal business on the side.
But it was more than the cabinets filled with ingredients that lined the walls. It was the symbols painted on the wall that protected both me and the room. It was the dirt floor instead of the typical concrete that had been dug out when I bought the place. There was no hiding that there was more to me than just a potion-stirring tattoo artist who liked to color outside the lines of the legal from time to time. But I didn’t think she was going to be willing to utter the word.
“What did you make?” I asked when she stood silent and still as a statue at the bottom of the stairs, staring at anything but me.
“Painkiller,” she choked out. “It will help ease your aches. I would have made something that helped you to heal, but I wasn’t sure what was wrong.”
I held out my left hand toward her, as it was the steadiest, forcing her to walk farther into the room. Her heels shifted in the dirt, but she stepped forward and handed me the white ceramic bowl. I paused, staring at the weak-looking tea that still had leaves floating in the steaming water. It smelled horrible, so I wasn’t surprised when it tasted even worse. It was all I could do not to spit the first sip back into the bowl.
“What is it? It tastes like piss.”
“Sorry. We’re out of sugar. Drink as much as you can. It’ll help.”
“Thanks,” I said, forcing down another mouthful. Small leaves wedged themselves between my teeth, leaving me to run my tongue over them as I wished I had something I could drink to get rid of the taste. Unfortunately, it was too early for a beer, and we kept the whiskey in a drawer upstairs. So far away.
Pushing back to my feet with a grunt, I walked over to another workbench. The mixture Trixie
had made was already sweeping through my body, easing pain and removing the fuzz from my brain so I could concentrate. Once she left, I could cast a quick healing spell to mend the worst of my internal injuries. Setting the bowl on the workbench, I shuffled through some papers before coming up with an old, battered map of the city. It wasn’t completely accurate any longer, but it showed a majority of the roads. Name changes didn’t matter. I just needed a general vicinity in which to locate Sparks.
“Gage, what’s going on?”
“I’m trying to find someone. He wasn’t where I expected him to be, and now I’ve got to do a little digging. Has anyone come into the parlor yet? Had any problems since I left?”
“No, everything is fine, but you’re changing the subject.”
“I think it’s better that I do.”
“I don’t think so. Gage, look around this place.” I looked over my shoulder at Trixie as her voice gained in volume and found her motioning at the cabinets and the symbols painted on the far wall. A series of different types and styles of crystals hung on leather straps before me. “This room isn’t about mixing potions and drawing tattoos for our clients. You don’t use this room when someone walks in the door upstairs. What is this about?”
“Walk away now, Trix,” I warned in a low voice.
“I can’t! What are you doing down here?”
Slamming my fists against the wooden workbench hard enough so that jars clanked and rattled, I twisted around to glare at her. “What do you think this is about, Trixie?”
“You’re not a potion stirrer.”
“Of course I am. I’m a damn good one. Hell, I’m one of the best and you know it, but that’s not the word that you’re looking for, is it?”
“No! Potion stirrers don’t use symbols like that!” she argued, pointing at the pentagram painted on the wall. “They don’t use crystals or suddenly appear from out of nowhere looking like shit.”
Shoving away from the workbench, I stalked over to where she was standing, in the middle of the room with her arms wrapped around her waist as if to protect herself. I stood so close that our noses nearly touched, my narrowed eyes meeting hers. “‘Warlock,’” I said in a low whisper. “I think that’s the word you’re struggling with.”
“What?” she gasped.
I leaned in so that my lips brushed hers. “Warlock. I was trained to be a warlock.”
“I—I don’t understand. Warlocks are . . . I mean, I thought that once you started training to be a warlock—”
“You can’t escape,” I finished. “In general, that’s the truth. They grabbed me when I was barely seven years old and I got sucked into the same system that has terrorized hundreds of children over the centuries as they were warped into learning how to use magic and look down on the rest of the world as if they were gods.”
Trixie raised both of her hands to cup my face, sympathy filling her wide green eyes so that they nearly spilled over with tears. “But you did escape.”
“I was better than they expected.” I tried to be cavalier about the mess that had been my childhood. “I was better than they expected and that’s what kept me alive. When I was about sixteen, I wanted out. I never bought into their type of mentality. They’re not gods, reigning over us. They don’t deserve to make life-and-death decisions for the creatures who inhabit this world. They don’t deserve anything more than the right to study magic and bask in the beauty that is the power that surrounds us.”
“How did you get out?”
“I told my mentor one day that I was walking away.”
“I can’t imagine that it went over well.”
“He’s still struggling with the idea.” I chuckled harshly as I stepped out of her soft touch, giving us both a little more breathing room. The anger that had initially sprung to life when she’d pushed me to tell her what I was poured from my frame, leaving me feeling tired and a little light headed.
“What do you mean?”
“Simon, my warlock mentor, he’s the one who attacked me today. I was forced to fight him when I was a teenager, and in the end he fled, giving me the chance to escape. When I got back to the real world, I hooked up with a man who taught me how to tattoo. I think he sensed my natural gift for magic because he taught me everything he knew around stirring and inking.”
“But a warlock . . .” she whispered again. We all knew the warlocks and the witches as one thing—evil, domineering bastards who killed on a whim and destroyed lives simply because they could. A warlock wasn’t supposed to be standing in a dirt-floor basement with an elf, joking about how the world was fucked up.
“I was trained to use magic. I can’t help that. It comes naturally to me. After I escaped from Simon, I was hauled up before the council. They decided that they would let me live if I agreed to not use magic in any capacity other than self-defense.” Trixie arched one thin eyebrow at me as she let her eyes travel over the room once again. I smiled at her, barely resisting the urge to pull her into my arms. “Let’s just say that I’ve learned to stretch the definition of what ‘self-defense’ means over the years. I’ve kept my head down, and the guardians generally leave me alone. I mix potions and tattoo people. That’s enough for me.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, of course.” The answer came without a moment of hesitation, but there was something in Trixie’s stare that had me wanting to swallow the words back again.
“I’ve always wondered, Gage. I’ve never seen anyone stir a potion like you. You come up with combinations that would never occur to me and that shouldn’t happen. And then there’s always been something more. Magic is a part of you, isn’t it? You can feel it, hear it speaking to you—I don’t think those warlocks can honestly feel that.”
I smiled at her and let the comment slip by us both. Only the elves and other nature-based creatures could feel magic. They could hear it like a song that emanates from the earth and they used magic that danced along with the same song. Only an elf would understand my unique ability to use and feel magic—something that was incredibly strange and relatively unheard of among humans. Now wasn’t the time to dig into that can of worms. It was enough that she knew I had been trained as a warlock and had more than a little magical ability.
That was why TAPSS was on my ass all the time, terrified that I was going to catch the attention of the Ivory Towers. They knew of my background and knew that if the warlocks decided to come down on the potion stirrers, they would use me as an excuse. But I wasn’t about to let them take my shop from me. I believed in what I did. Everyone needed an edge these days, and that’s what I offered. Hell, I was even giving the grim reaper problems now. The warlocks didn’t know what kind of trouble they were in for.
“What I do, the tattoos and the potions, it’s enough. I don’t want to be a warlock. I don’t want to rule the world,” I said with a laugh. “I’m content ruling this shop with an iron fist.”
“Yeah, you’re a real dictator.”
Smiling, I leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “Thanks for understanding.”
“Does Bronx know?”
I gave a little snort. “I’ve found it safer to live with the understanding that Bronx knows everything. I haven’t said anything since hiring him, but then there have been a lot of times when I’ve not needed to tell Bronx things.”
“You’re probably right.” She sighed as one corner of her mouth quirked into a smile. “I guess I should head back up to the shop and keep an eye on things.”
“Thanks. I need to track someone down today.”
Trixie laid a hand against my cheek, keeping my eyes locked on hers when I would have looked away. Concern was etched across her lovely face. “Does this have to do with the warlocks?”
“No, I got myself in another kind of mess and I need to see my tattooing mentor, if I can find the wily old bastard. That’s where I was headed when I encountered Simon. I’m still trying to figure out what bug got up his ass.”
“Do you need help wi
th anything?”
“Keep an eye on the shop and forget everything I told you,” I said.
“Told me what?” she asked with a coy smile.
“I’m serious, Trixie. It’s safer for everyone if no one knows about my past. I don’t want the warlocks to ever try to use you as leverage because you know something, anything, about my past. Just forget, please.”
“You know I can’t.”
“Try.”
She stared at me, the happiness seeping out of her face. “All right.” Turning around, she headed back toward the stairs.
“One last thing, Trixie,” I said, stopping her before she could reach the top stair. “Don’t ever come down here without me being down here first. I’ve got too many protective spells in here. I don’t want you to get killed. If I’m not here to unravel the spells, there would be nothing I could do to save you.”
“I won’t, I promise,” she murmured and then finished climbing the stairs.
For several seconds I stared at the last spot where I’d seen her, a chill running through me as I thought about Trixie descending into my secret domain without me there to protect her. I didn’t know her powers, didn’t know her skill with magical spells, but the protective spells in the basement were vicious and ugly in order to protect myself and the rest of the world from what was down here. I didn’t want to risk her. I couldn’t risk her.
Chapter 11
Grabbing the worn map from the workbench, I paused and looked over my selection of crystals before selecting a clear scrying one hanging on a leather thong. Taking one last sip of Trixie’s tea, I took the two items into the middle of the room and collapsed on the dirt floor with a soft “Umph.” My body ached, but the worst of the pain was easing, as if a warm wave was washing through me, pulling the pain out into the sea of my subconscious. I was grateful for the tea, despite its repulsive taste, since, not wanting to waste any time, I wouldn’t have bothered to do anything about the pain. Now I could work with a clear head.
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