“I agree, but we haven’t been able to find a thing from these sites that would identify the killer. We don’t know who he is and we are only guessing that his goal is to free Lilith. And he’s been killing kids as he works his way north,” I listed, anger increasing in my voice with every word. To say I was frustrated would be an understatement. It felt like I was wasting time chasing after a guy I couldn’t anticipate while another killer was running loose in Low Town . . .
“Oh fuck,” I gasped as the thought finally clicked into place. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I flew to my feet, my hands clenched in my hair as my brain attempted to sort through the newest horror to dawn on me.
“What?”
“He’s heading to Low Town,” I whispered.
“How can you be sure?”
“The serial killer in Low Town. She’s killed at least two pregnant women. They were in their final months of pregnancy and the babies died as well.”
“Oh shit,” Gideon said in a low voice.
“I don’t think she knows about the Death Magic user, but the killings in Low Town have been making the national news because of the victims. This killer has to have heard about them,” I said, pointing at the wall covered in spell notes. “What if he’s making his way north to Low Town so he can meet with her? What kind of power is he going to stir up if these two meet up?”
“We need to keep these two apart, Gage,” Gideon said with a frightening urgency.
“No shit, Sherlock! But how the hell are we going to manage that if we can’t catch this guy?” I snapped.
“I guess you just need to catch the female.”
I nearly smashed my fist into his face. If it was that fucking easy, I would have done it days ago. Settling for flipping him the bird, I stomped across the room to the stairs leading to the main floor. Of course I needed to catch the bitch who was terrorizing Low Town. It was all part of my plan to keep Trixie safe. There was no doubt that she was feeling particularly vulnerable now that she was a target, even though you couldn’t tell she was pregnant if you looked at her. And then Ellen was pregnant as well, making her a potential target. Damn, I had to catch this psychopath!
Halfway up the stairs, I stopped and turned to find Gideon standing on the bottom of the stairs, ready to ascend behind me. “Can you get me into a library in one of the Towers?”
Gideon jerked back in surprise at my request. “Why?”
“I need to know more about this Death Magic if we’re to figure out who is trying to use it now. I need to know who created it, who used it, and who put a stop to its use. I also need to know how it’s used.” Gideon frowned at me, looking less than enthusiastic about my stepping foot inside the Towers again. “We’re at a disadvantage here, not knowing shit about what this bastard is up to. The more we know, the faster we might be able to identify who or what this is. It’s not like I’m going to start using it. I just want to know what we’re up against.”
The warlock nodded slightly, his frown starting to fade. “I agree, but your induction into the guardians was a . . . provisional thing. You don’t have the full rights of a warlock. I’ll need to do some checking to see if I can arrange something. If I can get you in, it’s not likely to be a comfortable thing.”
“Nothing ever is where the Towers are concerned,” I said with a sigh. “Just see what you can do.”
“I will.” I started to walk up the stairs again when Gideon’s voice stopped me. It was one of the few times I had ever heard him sounding hesitant and unsure. The warlock was always so confident in everything he did and said, I was a little taken aback. “If you think you can tolerate it, I’d also like to teach you a few things. Spells. Wards. A few charms. Protection items that would help make your life a little safer.”
I smiled, though he couldn’t see it because I wasn’t looking back at him. He was actually afraid that I’d turn him down. That was laughable. “Bring it on. I’ll take all the help I can get.”
Chapter 4
Something inside of me relaxed when I stepped over the threshold of Asylum just after noon that day. The quiet in the parlor was absolute. Standing in the center of the front lobby, the silence crept into my soul, settling the raging frustration and building sense of helplessness so that I could draw my first deep breath in days.
Asylum Tattoo Parlor was mine. It was my refuge. It was my castle. It was my domain. TAPSS slithered in every once in a while to throw their bureaucratic weight around, but they could not tear down these walls. And so far, the Towers had yet to find me here, even though Gideon’s shadow had crossed the doorstep on more than one occasion.
The world made sense when seen through the large front window of Asylum. The people who came through my door wanted ink or they wanted a fix for their problems. They needed help with their love life or illness or luck. They needed something to give them an edge in a world where humans weren’t the top dog. And I could do it with a potion.
It was just ironic that I didn’t know the right potion that would fix all the problems in my life.
After resetting the antiglamour spell I had carved in the floor of the lobby and replacing the large area rug, I jacked the heat back up and put away my winter coat. The daily routine of opening the shop—checking the ingredients and other supplies, turning on lights, reviewing my schedule as well as the schedules of my employees so I knew who was due when—helped to settle my ragged nerves more than any number of Jack Daniels shots could have. I’d had Asylum for several years and I could go through all those motions without a thought, which I welcomed. The empty hum in my head allowed my subconscious to churn away, turning over my current problems, looking for an obvious answer I had not seen yet.
Before flipping the sign over to open, I pulled my cell phone out of the back pocket of my jeans. There were no messages for Bronx, Trixie, or Serah. I tried to take this as a good sign. No news was good news, right? Not really, but I could really use some fucking good news.
The parlor wasn’t typically open on Monday, but I’d recently started keeping limited Monday hours in an effort to make some extra money and catch up with clients after I’d been forced to repeatedly cancel due to some other obligations. I left it to Trixie and Bronx to decide whether they wanted to work on Mondays and was only a little surprised when they decided to join me at their usual times.
The first couple of hours were quiet, with a few people stopping by to schedule appointments for later in the week after I finished an initial sketch of what they wanted me to do or acquired any of the ingredients that I might need for the potion. While I had a solid stockpile of items, there were just some things that were better if they were as fresh as possible. I’d recently learned that the hard way when dealing with a luck spell.
For the most part, the local ingredients shops around Low Town provided what I needed, but occasionally I had to contact some less-than-legal sources to get the item. Those tattoos were quite pricey and required upfront payment. Those didn’t happen often, but when they did, you could smell the desperation on the client.
When Trixie strolled into the shop around five o’clock, I had completed two small tattoos and the outline for another that would require several visits due to the level of detail. It was nice when a customer came in just for a piece of art. I glanced up from the guy’s bicep at the sound of her heels across the hardwood floor. I had been in the middle of inscribing a protection potion into an abstract piece I had completed a few years earlier. Flashing Trixie what I hoped was a reassuring smile, I clamped down on the nervous fear that was clawing at my heart. It was the first time I had seen her since she dropped her bombshell on me and I didn’t want working together to suddenly become awkward.
“Hey, Trixie,” Gary called, waving with his free hand while I returned my attention to the man’s arm.
Gary was one of my regulars. A bouncer for a seedy bar down on Main Street, he came in once every six month
s like clockwork to have the protection potion touched up. The potency of the potion faded with time and he relied on it to help keep a knife out of his back. He was a good guy, always paid cash, and had a strong work ethic. He’d been bouncing for more than a decade and with his experience, I wasn’t sure that he actually needed the protection potion, but I guess he was willing to accept any kind of help he could get if it could get him through his shift alive and in one piece.
“Hey, Gary. How’s things?” she asked as she stowed her bag in one of the cabinets near the floor and shrugged out of her heavy coat. Her glamour was in place, so that the world once again saw her as the human with rich brown hair and a heart-shaped face.
However, because of the antiglamour spell I kept on the shop, her brunette image was reduced to a shadowy ghost over her real appearance so that I could see both worlds. This was the way I’d always seen her.
“You know, just more of the same shit, different day,” he said with a wide grin.
The two amiably chatted as I continued to work and Trixie set up her station for the day. Unfortunately, I finished with Gary’s potion touch-up ten minutes later and he was out the door a couple minutes after that. Trixie and I were alone.
The tension in the parlor immediately ratcheted up so that I was massaging the stiff muscles in the back of my neck while I stood behind the glass case in the front lobby. I felt like a coward lingering there when I had no reason to, but I didn’t know what to say to her. Was I supposed to pretend that everything was normal and that our relationship wasn’t crumbling before my eyes? I didn’t want to say anything that would drive her away faster, but we couldn’t sit all day in this uncomfortable silence.
“Nine Inch Nails, huh?” Trixie called from the main tattooing room.
A reluctant smile tweaked the corners of my mouth and I turned around to face her. Music had always been the easiest way to determine the mood of whoever was controlling the MP3 player hooked up to the speakers. When Bronx was troubled, it was Pink Floyd, and when he was happy, it was Cage the Elephant and Foo Fighters. When Trixie was in a good mood, she opted for Dropkick Murphys, and switched to Tool when she was upset. And when I was in a bad mood, I listened to NIN. Oddly enough, when I was in a good mood, I frequently put on show tunes, but that was only to torture my coworkers. If I was alone, it was Shaman’s Harvest.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I admitted, desperately holding on to my smile.
“I would imagine.” The elf sat on the little rolling stool beside the tattooing chair she preferred, her hands folded on her knees. She looked exactly the same to me despite the fact that she was carrying my child. There was no extra fullness to her, no extra luminescence that shown out from her soul. She was still Trixie. Beautiful, sarcastic, intelligent, perfect Trixie.
“I heard on the news that there was fight between a pair of warlocks this morning down in North Carolina. Would you know anything about that?” She lifted one brow to me in question while fighting her own smile.
“Two warlocks fight and you automatically assume I’ve got something to do with it,” I teased, waving my hands about dramatically. I crossed the room and dropped onto the tattooing chair I usually used. “You know I hate to get out of my bed in the morning.”
“True, but I thought it might be you since there were no reports of anyone being killed by the warlocks,” she pressed.
“Oh,” I murmured and I could feel a light blush staining my cheeks. That was something of a dead giveaway. Beside the fact that warlocks won’t fight in public, it was rare for them to not at least maim someone. “Yeah. Gideon and I were checking something out. It didn’t go as well as we might have hoped and I guess we needed to blow off a little steam.”
Trixie shook her head, a hint of a smile showing on her face. “At least you didn’t get yourself killed.”
I flashed her a smile that felt more genuine the longer we talked. “I’m harder to kill than a cockroach.”
“And just about as charming,” she muttered.
I snorted and rolled out of my chair so that I was standing before her. “I think you’ve found me plenty charming,” I said, wagging my eyebrows at her. “You know, considering you’ve got a little Gage growing in you now.”
Trixie chuckled softly. “Like I said, as charming as a cockroach.”
Bending down, I pressed a gentle kiss to her lips while she was still laughing. For a heartbeat, I was lost in her lovely scent drifting around me. A thousand memories surged to the front of my mind so that I could clearly remember every time I kissed her, touched her, and held her. I remembered every laugh and I could count the tears that had slipped down her face. It was all there and I wanted a thousand more instances just like those, but I was afraid that they weren’t in our future.
When I pulled back, the laughter was gone from her eyes and she looked as worried as I felt. There was no dancing around the obvious when we were alone together. This tattoo parlor wasn’t big enough to house us and the elephant in the room.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, taking a step back so that we both could breathe.
“I’m good. A little more tired than usual and my stomach gets a bit touchy at times, but the doctor said that it’s normal.”
“You’ve been to a doctor? What did he say?” Without thinking, I sat on the tattooing chair next to her and then leapt back to my feet, worried that she didn’t want me that close when we talked about this, that she might prefer a little space.
“Sit, Gage,” she said with a tender smile, patting the seat I had just vacated. She waited until I was seated again, her hands clasped in both of mine. “Yes, I’ve been to a doctor. She said that everything is progressing just fine and that I’m in good health. She doesn’t think I’m going to have any problems despite my age.”
“Despite your age! What the hell is that supposed to mean? Does this quack know that you’re an elf?”
“Yes she does.” Laughter tinged her words at my outburst, while I was barely managing to keep my seat. I was fighting the urge to call of this so-called doctor and give her a piece of my mind. Despite her age!
“You’re still incredibly young.”
“I’m almost six hundred years old, Gage,” she said patiently.
“Sure, but that’s young for an elf.”
Trixie gave a little shrug. “Reasonably so, but it is somewhat old to be having a baby. At least a first baby.”
“Pfttt. You’re in perfect health. Age has nothing to do with it. You and the baby will be fine.” But even as I uttered the words, a chill ran through me. What if she wasn’t? What if something went wrong and the pregnancy hurt her? The worry must have shown on my face because Trixie placed her hand against my cheek, drawing me back from my dark thoughts.
“You’re right. We will be fine,” she reassured me before pressing a kiss to the tip of my nose.
I took a deep breath and slowly released it, pushing those fears away. There was no reason to go borrowing trouble, as my mother used to say. I had plenty of trouble already on my plate that needed taking care of.
“Do you know what it is?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a baby,” Trixie teased.
“You know what I mean, woman! The sex. The gender. Are we having a boy or a girl?”
She laughed at me, the wonderful sound rising up to fill the entire parlor so that I was laughing as well. When she could catch her breath again, she shook her head at me. “It’s still too early. Another month.”
I wanted to ask her more about the baby in general, and if there was anything she worried about because the child would be part elf and part human. I wasn’t ready to think about the prospect of the baby inheriting more from me than just my blue eyes and big feet. The child was likely to be magically inclined already, due to its elvish heritage. With any luck, that would be enough to mask anything that might catch the attention of th
e Towers. Unfortunately, a chime echoed through the parlor, indicating that someone had come in the front door. A glance at the clock revealed that it was likely to be Trixie’s first appointment of the night. We’d have to circle around to this later. Right now, it was time to get some work done.
It was just the two of us for a couple hours and then Bronx joined us at seven thirty. With it getting darker sooner, the troll had shifted his hours as well, taking advantage of the longer nights to make some extra cash. He paused in the doorway and also commented on my choice of music when I looked up from the dwarf I was tattooing. I swore under my breath, and made a mental note to change the music as soon as I was finished with my customer.
We settled into our easy routine without batting an eye. Trixie was kept busy with her client and I was relieved to be busy as well. December wasn’t usually a big tattooing month, as most people chose to use money for gifts and holiday celebrations, but people were making exceptions this year. My calendar was full for the next couple of weeks and it looked the same for my companions. I welcomed the brisk pace, as it meant that I couldn’t spend time worrying about things I couldn’t fix.
As I bandaged up my customer and walked him to the lobby, Trixie started pulling out her greasepaint as she chatted easily with Bronx. When I returned to the tattooing room, she had dragged her chair over and was already drawing on his left bicep. It was a tradition that had gone on almost nightly for more than two years. Trolls were impossible to tattoo because of their thick, rhino-like skin. Being a tattoo artist, Bronx felt odd not having a tattoo, so Trixie used greasepaint to draw pictures on him.
Tonight, it was a flashback to a classic I had never seen her draw before. A large red heart outlined in black covered his bicep and across the center of the heart was written mom in large white block letters.
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