Angel's Ink (11 page)

Now I was in more trouble than I had expected. Standing on the sidewalk, I was trying to think of some way of locating where Sparks might have disappeared to when the thick scent of magic started to waft around me. I spun around, my hands extended, barely resisting the urge to call up my own barrier to protect me from whatever was brewing. My skin prickled and a cold sweat beaded across my back and down my spine despite the growing heat of the afternoon sun. Someone was coming. Someone powerful.

The distinct smell of magic was that of a warlock or a witch, but it wasn’t Gideon riding my ass again. No, the black-cloaked figure who suddenly appeared on the sidewalk a few feet from me was Simon Thorn. It didn’t look as if he had aged since I had last seen him. Then again, the Ivory Towers occupants had long ago learned to stretch the years of their lifetimes. I hadn’t seen him since I had given up my warlock studies years ago. I had barely survived the experience, but I did give as good as I got, making him wary of me.

Beneath the traditional black cloak, he wore a dark suit with a crisp white shirt. His hands were encased in black leather gloves as he tugged at the cuffs of this shirt. Instead of a tie, a large red jewel was tucked in the top button. It was a new addition to his traditional ensemble and I had to wonder if it added an extra layer of protection to his usual battery of magical defenses that I had once torn down. When I escaped Simon, I had been fresh from the schoolroom and spells flowed through my brain like a swollen river. But I was at a distinct disadvantage this time. I knew it was too much to ask that he wouldn’t pick a fight. Hell, I had little doubt that Simon was ready to finally kill me after having failed the first time.

A woman’s scream tore at the midday city sounds, followed by the hard clatter of feet on the sidewalk as people scattered, darting into buildings and ducking for cover at the sudden appearance of a warlock in their midst. Things had been quiet until recently. The scene at the Cock’s Crow just the other day had shaken up our recent stretch of peace, and now Simon had descended from the Towers with the obvious intent of kicking my ass. Sometimes the people of this world couldn’t catch a break.

“Back to the scene of the crime, I see.” Simon’s cold voice whipped around me like a bitter winter wind. He looked up at the building, his upper lip curling as he took in the abandoned business covered in a layer of dirt and dust. “I see that it has been a profitable choice for your former mentor. Of course, I’ve heard that you’ve done significantly better now that you’ve chosen to cut corners and work in the shadows.”

I took a couple of steps back from him, keeping my hands open and extended from my body. Instead of being a nonthreatening stance, among warlocks it was an aggressive stance, as it was the easiest way to both catch and sling spells when needed. “Talking to Gideon?” I said with a smirk. “He’s always been such a gossip.”

Around us, the sidewalk remained frighteningly empty, leaving me half expecting to see a tumbleweed roll between us on a hot breeze. Even the cars rumbling down the street had gradually stopped and all signs of life seemed to have disappeared. To a warlock or a witch, there was no such thing as an innocent bystander—anything that breathed was just a potential target.

“I don’t need reports from the guardians. You were never interested in the purity of the art. You were only interested in how magic could be used to benefit your ends.”

I couldn’t stop the derisive snort that escaped me. “You’re just upset that you didn’t have much to teach me. The art came naturally to me, allowing me to cut corners that you simply couldn’t.”

“You never appreciated what we were offering you,” Simon snarled.

“And what exactly were you offering me?”

He waved his hands around our surroundings. “The chance to be a god among these creatures.”

“You mean a monster. Not interested.”

“And it’s time that you paid the price for turning your back on us.” As he spoke, he hurled a bluish-white ball of energy at me. I instantly threw up a protective barrier so that the energy washed harmlessly down the front of the barrier like water. Without giving Simon a second to come up with another spell, I collected my own fistful of energy and magically grabbed the front of his suit like I had grabbed Dalton’s clothes just a few days ago. Surprise popped on Simon’s face before I threw him through the front window of Sparks’s old shop, sending glass splintering in all directions.

Smiling, I pulled all the shattered bits of glass back together with a wave of my hand, re-forming the window so that Simon was at least temporarily shut up in the old building. Dusting himself off, Simon stepped forward, holding out his hand before him as he approached the window. But to his surprise, he walked right into the window, bouncing off what was now plastic instead of glass. He had used the wrong spell to shatter what he assumed was glass and he had failed to break through.

I couldn’t stop myself. It wasn’t often that you saw a full-grown warlock smash his face against a plastic window and then bounce off in total shock. I bent over at the waist, laughing, my arms wrapped around my stomach. The surprised look disappeared from Simon’s face, instantly replaced with fury. As he approached the window a second time, a hole appeared in the center and quickly grew bigger as he melted the plastic so that he could step through.

“It’s all still a game for you,” Simon said through clenched teeth.

Swallowing back the last of my chuckles, I shook my head once as I regarded the warlock. “If you can’t laugh at life, then what’s the point?”

From an inner pocket of his suit jacket, he withdrew a wooden wand. The sight of the device froze the blood in my veins. Simon was done playing nice, lobbing softballs in my direction. Now I knew that he meant to kill me. Spellcasters could perfectly direct their magic with their wands, making the magic spell stronger and more concentrated. It was also ten times harder to deflect and block.

“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.