'Ink It Over: A Touch Of Ink Novel

by Rachel Rawlings

  “I didn’t think you were going to help me.” After shuffling the papers back into a neat pile, I handed them over to Lars for his review.

  “I didn’t agree with Grim half the time. More than half, but I always had his back.” He set my stack of paper on the floor and picked up a familiar roll of papers held together with a rubber band.

  The Lars special—one set of blueprints for the building, one set of schematics for his perimeter wards. A little old-school but you couldn’t retrieve any incriminating information after you set witch fire to paper.

  “I’m sorry.” I was stubborn. Lars was right about that. And I very rarely apologized, so those words meant something when I said them.

  Relief filled every cell in my body when I unrolled the papers across my desk. Not having Lars at my back was something I never wanted to contemplate again.

  And then I saw the building name stamped at the top of the blueprints.

  “The old Milk Can?” The Milk Can was an old ice cream shop in the shape of its namesake which had been moved to a stretch of highway outside of town and left near a gas station with the intent—never realized—of refurbishing it. “There’s only one exit and barely enough room for one person inside.”

  “Are you having a change of heart?”

  I shot him a death glare as an answer, which seemed to satisfy him.

  With a snap of his fingers, new plans shimmered into view, replacing the Milk Can with the Shore Diner. “You can’t blame me for trying.” Lars shrugged and went about reviewing the layout of the abandoned diner.

  The Shore Diner was abandoned, but the surrounding grounds were not. Once a part of Rocky Point Park, the diner and what few structures remained of the amusement park were surrounded by a walking trail overlooking the ocean. The property was maintained by the state and was still a popular spot for locals during the day.

  “I’m not sure this is any better.” Looking at the plans for the old dining hall stirred up old memories of my last trip there with Grim. I could almost smell the ocean, hear the thumping music, the roar of the crowds and the chink-chink-chink of the old wooden rollercoasters moving along the tracks. “A Now You See Me, Now You Don’t?” I pointed to the notations in the side margin of his plans. “Did you inform the Browns they’d need to cast one on Karen before she shows up?”

  “They know what to do.” Lars tapped the plans with his index finger, and a new image emerged with an overlay of the ward schematics on the blueprints. “It’s a lot of work, but I think we can pull it off.”

  “We?” Still marveling over the intricacy of his plans, I flicked a quick glance up at him before focusing on the details again.

  “We can’t use any of our old spots. The Magistrate is probably onto some of them, and I don’t want to risk burning the ones they don’t know about. Not yet, anyway. We haven’t worked this location before.” Lars snapped his fingers again, blurring the lines on the blueprints until they became illegible. When he had my full attention again, he continued. “You’re not giving me the usual amount of time on this one. Which means I’m going to need your help.”

  I should have said no, demanded we stuck to our usual routine, but Lars wasn’t the only one who needed help. A dimmer ward was the mother of all wards, and I’d only performed it once. Besides, I loved watching Lars work, and it had been a long time since we’d set wards together.

  “Oh, you’re smiling now.” Lars chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Let’s see if you feel the same way once you’ve finished helping me set my wards and have to start setting wards of your own on the Brown girl.”

  “Is that a challenge?” I was out of my chair in the blink of an eye, slipping my arms through the straps on my backpack. “Well, what are you sitting around for? We’ve got work to do.”

  Chapter Six

  “YOU’D THINK THE SMELL of frying oil and clams would have faded by now.” I stepped over a pile of deteriorating napkins and followed Lars through the kitchen into the dining hall.

  “With the amount of clam cakes and chowder they served up in this place? The smell is practically baked into the walls. It’ll never come out.” Lars set our gear in the middle of the dining area. “You ready to get to work?”

  “I don’t suppose you packed some air freshener?” A Rhode Islander born and raised, I loved clam cakes and chowder as much as the next girl, but the smell of old grease tinged with seafood was enough to put me off the stuff for the rest of my life.

  Lars checked his watch. “I think we’ve got time for a little spring cleaning.”

  “I should hope so. I’d hate to send Karen Brown home with a headache and sour stomach along with a dimmer ward.” After grabbing a lighter and the small bundle of sage from out of the pack, I lit one end and walked the perimeter of the room.

  “Hey, I provide a sanitary work environment. You want it to smell like potpourri, that’s extra.” Lars grabbed a jar of salt and fell into step behind me, lining the walls and windows with a thick strip of the white granules.

  “Remind me why we’re doing this in a public place again?” I asked, waving the sage in Lars’s direction.

  “Because we’re out of options.” Lars held his own bundle of sage and walked in the opposite direction.

  The Shore Dining Hall wasn’t an ideal work space and posed more problems than were typical when setting up a new spot. At the top of the list of added complications were the people walking around the property. A Now You See Me, Now You Don’t spell was easier to cast on a building than a person. Neither of us could afford the energy drain casting one on ourselves as well as the diner would have caused. The less attention we drew to ourselves before the spell was in place, the better, which meant we weren’t opening any windows.

  Hence the sage to cover the permanent smell of more than half a century’s worth of fried seafood.

  An hour or so later, thanks to the wonders of magic, the old Shore Dining Hall looked and smelled better than it had in years. With the restaurant disease- and relatively odor-free on the inside, Lars was more than ready to get started on what he deemed the important things.

  Apparently, the importance of not vomiting on my client while warding was debatable.

  Our illusion spell and security wards were locked firmly in place by the time dusk settled over the horizon. There was nothing left to do but wait for Karen Brown to show up.

  I’d be a liar if I said a small part of me hoped she didn’t.

  A deck of cards, thermos of coffee, and what Lars referred to as a disturbing amount of candy bars helped pass the time. I’d beaten Lars at Blackjack, Five Card Stud, and was in the process of handing Lars his ass in a game of War when Karen arrived.

  The younger Brown woman was nothing like her mother. Soft curves, round face, chestnut eyes and hair, all in contrast to the hard lines of her mother’s physique and expressions. She was younger than I’d expected, early twenties at the most.

  Karen stood just inside the doorway, clutching a piece of loose-leaf paper as she gnawed on her bottom lip. Head tilted to one side, gaze wary, she looked us over before taking her first step toward the makeshift tattoo station Lars and I had set up in the center of the room.

  Moving through the numerous magical traps we’d set around the dining hall and up the walking path in the park was enough to make anyone nervous, but the emotion radiating from Karen made me want to check over my shoulder.

  “My name’s Del. This is Lars.” There was no need to ask for her name, obviously. If she was anyone other than Karen Brown, something other than me and Lars would have greeted her at the door. “Is that your design?”

  Without a word, Karen closed the distance between us and handed me the paper. Her gaze shifted over each piece of equipment as she walked around the chair, before settling on my machine and the needles still sealed in their packaging. She leaned in for a closer look at the sets of needles, her hand poised to touch them, and then abruptly sat down in her designated chair.

  I took
that as Karen’s cue to begin.

  Lars gave me a look that pretty much summed up what I’d already been thinking—there was something a little off about her. She hadn’t spoken a word to either of us, just sat expectantly in her seat while Lars and I tried to figure out the puzzle that was Karen Brown.

  Short on time, Lars and I shrugged in unison and got to work. He took Karen’s design from me and grabbed a sheet of transfer paper to make the stencil while I opened the first package of needles and set my machine up for lining. If Karen didn’t want to talk, that was her prerogative. It’s not like we were there for a counseling session.

  While the phoenix she’d chosen made sense for her transition, the placement of her tattoo did not.

  “The neck?” I asked, unable to hide my surprise when she pointed to the right side of her neck just below the ear.

  Convincing someone to change the placement of their tattoo was difficult when the conversation was one-sided, but Lars managed to do it after explaining neck tattoos drew a lot of attention – unwanted attention in Karen’s case. She wanted to see the tattoo—Lars managed to pull that much out of her from a series of nodded responses to his questions. A compromise for an arm piece was struck.

  With Karen’s upper arm prepped and the stencil in place, I settled in to start working on the phoenix she’d chosen. At its core, the dimmer ward was a high-level binding spell. It functioned like a dam, allowing only the preset amount of magic through. The trick was getting the right amount. Too low and the witch was too weak to perform even the most rudimentary spells. Too high and all you’d be left with was a pretty piece of ink because the ward was useless.

  And if that wasn’t complicated enough, I needed to layer in a conversion ward or we’d still have an Angel of Mercy running around for the Magistrate to scoop up.

  The conversion ward is the magical equivalent of a caterpillar and a chrysalis. Go in a caterpillar, come out a butterfly. The formidable Ms. Brown had sent a note with her daughter, which was handed over just as we were about to begin, providing detailed instructions on what Karen needed to become. If we thought Karen’s first pick for placement of her tattoo was shocking, her mother’s order for her conversion was mind blowing.

  “Is she fucking kidding?” Lars crumpled the note, the wad of paper disappearing in his meaty palm. “A Mundane?”

  “We should have force-fed your mother the Forgive and Forget potion.” I looked at an unfazed Karen. She hadn’t so much as blinked when Lars opened the letter and read it aloud. “This is what you want?”

  “What I want is to disappear.” Karen’s first words rang through the old dining hall like a percussion grenade.

  My jaw and stomach dropped. She couldn’t understand what she was asking me to do. I was invisible once, and I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone. “So you want to be a Mundane, to give up any and all magic, and live outside the community? Because that’s what will happen.”

  “I want to live outside of the Magistrate.” Karen leaned forward, her gaze locked with mine. The set of her jaw, the determination in her voice, said it all.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” I looked at Lars and shrugged. “I’m having a hard time coming up with a reason why that would be a bad thing for someone like her.”

  “You mean aside from the fact that this is what started the hunt for and near extinction of Warders in the first place?” Lars produced the ingredients for witch fire. As far as he was concerned, the appointment was over. “Not only does it go against everything you’ve been taught, it goes against your self-preservation. Pulling this kind of magic, you might as well walk yourself right into Magistrate headquarters.” Lars groaned in time with the tattoo machine as I fired it up. “We’re doing this? Okay, fine. Fine. I’ll cancel the hotel reservation and make one at the funeral parlor instead.”

  “Dramatic much?” Head down, I kept my focus on the lining work. “I know what you’re thinking, Lars. Another unnecessary risk. And you’re right about the risk. But we both know this is necessary. She’ll be better off this way. Hell, we all will. You don’t want the Magistrate to have her any more than I do.”

  Lars didn’t say anything else, choosing to watch the runners pass by on the paved trail instead of socializing with us. That was fine with me, considering I worked most jobs alone. Karen, on the other hand, was apparently quite the chatterbox once she got going, and Lars seemed to be her favorite topic of conversation. Despite his prickly exterior, reluctance to help her, and alarming preference for doling out Forgive and Forget potions, she seemed enamored with my partner.

  Which of course I found highly entertaining and couldn’t help but encourage by regaling her with stories of my time growing up with Lars. I may have taken a few liberties and exaggerated a few things. By the time I finished the outline of the phoenix, Lars’s cheeks and ears were as red as the skin surrounding Karen’s tattoo.

  “You need a break or do you want to keep going?” My back was starting to cramp, but that was nothing new. I’d learned to ignore the minor aches and pains that came with the job.

  Lars’s shoulders relaxed when Karen shook her head. If she was sitting in the chair getting tattooed, she wasn’t free to roam the room or approach him. I’d never known him to miss out on an opportunity to flirt with a pretty girl. Contrary to popular belief, or at least my belief anyway, Lars was quite the lady’s man. But with Karen, he seemed to prefer keeping his distance.

  Maybe he had a thing against Angels of Mercy. They were known for sucking the life out of you, literally. That could be a strain on any relationship.

  After swapping my liner for the shader, I dipped the needles in the plastic thimble of red ink. I preferred black and grey, making the details pop by playing with shadows and light, but Karen’s piece had so many magical requirements I had to rely on color as well as the design to hide the sigils in my work. The dimmer was in the outline and in the first layer of red. Orange and bursts of yellow would complete the conversion.

  I switched out colors again, moving from orange to yellow for the final touches. Exhausted—mentally, physically and magically—I set the shader down on my tray and wiped away the excess ink with a paper towel. Pleased with the final result, I cleaned and wrapped Karen’s forearm while giving her my spiel about the importance of tattoo care.

  With a hug from me and an awkward pat on her back from Lars, we sent Karen on her way. No longer an Angel of Mercy, she was safe from the Magistrate, and we were safe from her. The only thing left to do was clean up.

  “Something’s wrong.” Lars stopped packing up to check the wards.

  “I didn’t feel anything.” We’d laid down these wards a thousand times over the years. It was second nature, like breathing. They never failed. Ever. “Relax. If something was wrong, we’d both feel it.”

  I should have kept my big mouth shut.

  No sooner had the words left my mouth than a tingle started in my fingertips and moved up my arm. Tripped wards were the magical equivalent to an ice-cold bucket of water being dumped on your head. Adrenaline kicked in, chasing off all signs of exhaustion as it pumped through my veins.

  “Son of a bitch. You need to go now, Del.” Lars whipped around, genuine fear in his eyes, and pointed to the rear exit before setting the witch fire alight.

  “I believe the phrase you were looking for was we need to go.” Arms crossed over my chest, I gave him a look steeped in indignation. If he thought I was leaving without him, well, he had another thing coming.

  “I don’t see anything.” Lars ran his hands over his smooth scalp, peering out the window. “But someone or something tripped those wards.” He turned to face me, anger and fear swirling in his eyes. “The witch fire.”

  Witch fire was as temperamental as it was useful. It burned quick and clean and left no trace of evidence behind without damaging the structure and alerting the authorities. The only downside? It’s not sentient.

  Which meant we were evidence.

  “Okay. Option A, stay inside
and take our chances with the fire. Or Option B, we take our chances with whatever’s waiting for us outside.” Lars grabbed my pack and slung it over his shoulder.

  “Well, seeing as how I don’t want to be a crispy critter.... Front or back?” Beads of perspiration formed in my hairline. White and blue flames moved across the diner, consuming everything in their path like a starved beast until they were close enough to lick at my heels. Out of time, I made the choice for us and grabbed Lars’s hand. “Back door. Come on.”

  We barreled out the rear entrance, sweaty and singed, to face whatever—or whoever—had tripped our perimeter wards.

  Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

  Chapter Seven

  HEART AND ADRENALINE pumping, I was ready for a fight when we hit the overgrown lot behind the diner. But I ended up a tangled mess of relief and disappointment as we headed toward the car with no sign of who or what tripped the wards. Lars seemed to feel the same, his shoulders relaxing with each step away from the old Shore Line.

  “We need to check on Karen. Give her a heads-up. Just in case.” I hit the button on the remote to pop the trunk for Lars.

  “She’s gone to ground by now. Probably left Providence and is halfway to the Mundane capital of the world, like Saskatchewan or something.” Lars walked around the back of the car to dump what gear we’d managed to save from the witch fire into the trunk.

  “It’s been less than an hour since she left. I hardly think she made it all the way to Canada.” I opted for addressing the obvious rather than the disappointment I’d picked up in his voice when the conversation turned to Karen. “We should at least call her mother.”

  Silence was Lars’s only reply.

  “Okay, one vote for no on calling the Browns. Good thing my vote counts as two.” I reached in my back pocket and pulled out my phone. Ms. Brown’s phone rang twice before the sound of a scuffle pulled my attention away from the call. “Lars?”