Angel's Ink (41 page)

“Wake up, Gage,” purred a soft voice. “You still have to kill him.”

Lilith.

My body jerked painfully away from her touch as I finally recognized the woman. Falling backward onto my butt, I looked up at her and found that she wasn’t really there. At least, not fully there. She was transparent enough that I could see the beat-up red car and dilapidated house on the other side of the street through her. It was possible that she hadn’t fully escaped the underworld, but I wasn’t reassured by the fact that I could see her here at all. There were no positive stories associated with the myth that was Lilith. A destroyer. A seducer. A mother of demons.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded. Using my heels, I pushed away from her, trying to put a little distance between us so she couldn’t easily touch me again. I hadn’t exactly felt skin when she placed her fingers under my chin. There had been a cold sensation, as if I had been touched by death.

“I came to claim my freedom from you. I can help you destroy this creature before he can harm you again,” Lilith offered, taking another step closer to me.

“Go back to the underworld and wait for the end of days. I’m not helping you,” I growled as I shoved back to my feet. I turned my back on her as I walked toward Simon, who was now on his knees, rubbing his temple with the heel of his left hand. Blood trickled from a cut on his scalp, running across his forehead.

Lilith flowed in front of me again as if she were little more than a leaf dancing on a breeze. There was no anger in her face, but I could feel the pull of her black eyes, attempting to drag my gaze back to hers so that she could find some way to control me for her own purposes. A cold chill swept through me, but I kept my eyes focused on Simon as he rose to his feet and stared down the street at me. To my surprise, confusion skittered across his features as he looked not at me, but at Lilith. I had thought I was the only one who could see her. This was not good. While I didn’t want to help Lilith, I also didn’t want her turning her attention to Simon. I wasn’t too sure that he wouldn’t accept her help, no matter how dangerous it was.

With a frown, I whipped my right hand out and shot another bolt of energy toward Simon. He easily blocked the energy with a shield, as I had been expecting. The energy was enough, though, to knock him back over so that he was seated on the ground again, breaking his stare at Lilith and distracting him.

“Get out of here, Lilith,” I growled at her while keeping my gaze locked on Simon.

“Lilith?” Simon demanded as his gaze snapped to the glowing vision of a naked woman. I inwardly groaned, smacking myself on the forehead. I really could be an idiot sometimes. If Simon hadn’t known who she was before, he did now and he was certainly interested. I didn’t need my two enemies joining forces to get at me.

Growling in frustration, I grabbed my wand from my pocket and pointed it at Simon. With a burst of energy exploding from the tip, I started to throw him across the street, aiming to toss him against the side of a nearby brick house. His feet slid across the street less than a yard before he stopped moving, and the spell completely dissipated with a wave of Lilith’s hand. Panic clenched in my stomach. She brushed off the power as if it had been nothing more than an annoying mosquito buzzing around her head. Obviously, I wasn’t going to be able to use magic to get rid of Simon.

“Quiet, Gage. We’re talking,” she murmured, keeping her gaze locked on Simon, who was staring at her, completely enraptured. She took a step closer to the warlock and smiled. “It seems Gage has been giving you some problems. Would you like my assistance in dealing with him?”

“Yes,” Simon whispered. His hands were trembling in his excitement as he edged a little closer to her. “I very much need him dead. And then you can have him, right?”

“I will have him when he’s dead, but to help you I need something valuable in return.”

Simon fumbled inside his jacket, searching for something in the interior pocket. After a couple of seconds, he pulled out a small pouch made of what looked to be velvet. He struggled to open it in his enthusiasm, but finally pulled out a small vial.

“Hey!” I shouted, taking a step closer before I could catch myself. It was the fragment of my soul that Simon had stolen. “You said you didn’t have it any longer.”

The warlock looked at me, an evil grin spreading across his features. “I lied. Who could have more use for it than me? Except maybe this lovely woman.”

“She’s not a woman, Simon! She’s a monster. You can’t do this.” Even as I spoke, I started summoning a spell. I threw one aimed to shatter the glass vial, but nothing happened. Desperate, heart hammering in my chest, I threw a second aimed to simply knock the vial out of Simon’s hand, but even that failed. No spell touched them thanks to Lilith.

My breath lodged around the knot in my throat as I watched the vial slip from Simon’s fingers into Lilith’s glowing hand. The glass slipped through the nothingness, but as it fell to the ground, I saw that it was already empty. Focusing on her hand, I saw the small fragment of my soul wriggling around her fingers.

As she clenched her fist around my soul, I felt a tightening in my chest. She was strengthening her hold on me. I stumbled a couple of steps backward. I didn’t know what powers she had topside, but I was willing to guess they were going to have an amplified effect now that she was in possession of my soul fragment. How did I defend myself against anything she threw at me?

Smiling, Lilith walked toward me. She gave her hand a little shake and my soul fragment disappeared. I could only guess that she had sent it somewhere for safekeeping so that I couldn’t try to reclaim it.

“He can kill you,” Lilith needlessly reminded me as she approached. As my gaze returned to Simon, who was watching with sickening glee, Lilith placed her arm across my shoulders. “You have to kill him first. Kill him with magic.” Her soft, breathy voice wound its way through my brain, wrapping around my thoughts so that the world was in a type of fog. Everything slowed down but my heartbeat, which pounded in my ears like a tribal drum, urging me forward.

Simon’s joy disintegrated before my eyes, replaced by anger. “What are you doing?” he snarled. “You said that you’d help me.”

Lilith smiled at the warlock. “I lied. I need Gage alive to be useful to me. You, on the other hand, would be more useful to me dead.” She then turned her attention back to me, looking serious for the first time since she had appeared before me. “I can’t interfere anymore. You’ll have to handle this on your own, and he can still kill you.”

“She’s right, Gage,” Simon called. “I will kill you.”

“So you can rule over your own genocide of the human race,” I snapped, pushing through the lingering tendril of the mental fog as Lilith stepped away from me.

“Don’t worry. I won’t limit myself to just the human race. I think I’ll start with your friends before moving on to your family. I’ll wipe away all memory of your existence.”

“Kill him!” Lilith goaded, her tantalizing voice growing hoarse and more urgent. “Kill him in my name before he destroys your beloved Trixie!”

Fear clenched in the pit of my stomach and ripped through my mind, wiping away the last of Lilith’s attempts at control. I bellowed at the warlock with all my rage, throwing out both my hands toward him, wand pointed at his chest as my fingers clenched and trembled. Magic pulled from deep in my soul surged and rushed out my extended arms toward him. Wild and barely controlled, the lightning white energy hammered against the glowing blue shield he had erected around himself. He rocked backward under the force of the blow, but his shield held.

Curling my left hand around to reach up from below, I created several sets of hands that rose from the asphalt below him, grasping his legs. The hands, made of black rock and gravel, grabbed his limbs and pulled on his clothes, tearing them as he fought to be free. The street beneath him grew soft and the warlock began to sink down into the earth, the hands pulling him lower and lower.

A strangled cry escaped Simon as he sank down to his chest in the street. His protective shield wavered as his panic at being buried alive overcame his ability to concentrate on the spell. I took advantage of the momentary distraction and sent another white bolt of energy at him. The spell shot straight through the shield like an arrow piercing an apple. Simon’s head spun around with a sickening crack as his neck shattered, killing him instantly. The sound sliced through me, causing my heart to stumble for a couple of beats before resuming its pounding rhythm.

I took a step backward as I watched the asphalt hands continue to rise and pull his limp body into the ground. There were no thoughts in my brain. There was no room for them beyond the horror of what I had done. I hadn’t thought about it, I’d simply reacted to his threat against the loved ones in my life. The power was just there burning inside my chest, needing to strike out at him. And I killed him. With magic.

Simon’s body disappeared beneath the asphalt. The hands blended back in with the street and the surface became as smooth as the black waters of the Styx. He was gone. His soul was now in the hands of Charon for all of eternity.

I crumpled to my knees, my breathing fast and uneven, as I stared at the spot where I had last seen him. It was only when I felt a hand pat me on the shoulder that I looked up to find Lilith still standing over me. There was a thoughtful expression on her beautiful but frightening face as she stared down the empty street.

“Well, that’s not exactly what I wanted,” she murmured as if talking to herself. The mother of demon spawn then looked down at me and smiled, sending a chill down my spine. “But you did kill him with magic. That will put you into my hands for one year. Hmmm . . . maybe longer considering what I have in my possession now.”

“No!” I gasped, terror rocking me to my core.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. I get to watch over those who die but are destined to return after a year. I’m sure we’ll have great fun together.” I watched as she took a step backward and disappeared like a puff of smoke dispersed on the air.

I lowered my head into my hands as I knelt on the ground. Not only had I killed a man, but I had also handed my soul over to the queen of the underworld. This was not how I had hoped the evening would go.

Chapter 33

I
turned the folded sheaf of paper around, holding it with two fingers at the corner as the fire licked across the surface. The blackened ash curled and flaked off, dancing in the faint breeze that stirred the dense summer air. Sitting in the dark behind the tattoo parlor on the wooden steps leading up to the second-floor apartment, I watched the long letter I had written to my friends burn away to thin wisps of ash. Somehow, against the odds, I had survived. I had survived the planning and scheming of Simon as well as Gideon’s group. I had even escaped the grasp of the grim reaper while prolonging Trixie’s freedom from her own kind. Bronx was still stuck, but he was safe for now.

But sitting in the dark, crowded city, I felt alone and soul weary. I had killed a man. Simon and I had fought on several occasions, but I had never crossed the line I had drawn in the sand so many years ago. I had always sworn that I wouldn’t take a life. I believed my powers could be used for positive, useful purposes. Warlocks weren’t supposed to think like that. Or at least, that’s what I had been taught to believe.

Gideon was different though. And maybe there were others out there like me who believed that our powers were something other than a god-given right to rule. Gideon had used his powers to strike fear in me, but he had done it to protect his own family. He loved. I could see when he looked at that picture of his wife and daughter that he loved them deeply. We weren’t all monsters as it seemed.

And maybe I wasn’t alone.

I dropped the last bit of unburned paper on the ground between my feet, allowing the fire to eat it without nipping at my fingertips. A bright light shined down the narrow alley along the side of the tattoo parlor, drawing my gaze up from the burning paper. My body tensed, but I didn’t move. No one was supposed to come down the alley. They had no business back here.

A heavy sigh of relief hissed between my teeth as the front of Trixie’s green Prius poked around the edge of the building. I didn’t know what she was doing here, but at least I knew that I wasn’t facing more trouble. I had already had my fill this evening.

Trixie parked her car next to mine in the empty lot behind the shop. A shocked smile quirked the corners of my mouth when I saw both Trixie and Bronx climb out of the little mint green vehicle. This was beginning to feel like an intervention. Bronx refused to ride in any car Trixie was driving, claiming the elf spent too much time multitasking while driving instead of just keeping her eyes on the road. As my friends approached where I was sitting on the second step of the staircase, I noticed that Trixie was walking around without her glamour spell. She looked beautiful. Her long blond hair was like a halo about her head, glowing in the nearby lamplight. Her green eyes were wide, scrutinizing my features as if trying to read my mood.

I loved her. I didn’t know how long I had loved her, but it only mattered that the feeling was there in my chest, beating in time with my heart. I loved how she walked and smiled. I loved how she still loved her brother despite the fact that he was trying to destroy her life. I loved the tenderness she showed for Bronx when she drew on him each night. I loved listening to their arguments, ranging from sex to music to pizza toppings. But most of all, I loved her for standing before me with that worried look on her face when I needed her most.

“What are you guys doing here? You’ve got the night off,” I said, forcing my stare away from Trixie’s face and over to Bronx’s ever stoic expression.

Trixie stepped around me and walked up the stairs. To my surprise, she sat down on the third step directly behind me while putting her long legs on either side of me. I twisted around to look up at her, raising one eyebrow in question at her sudden closeness, particularly in front of Bronx. While we had always maintained a harmlessly flirtatious relationship in the shop, this was a little closer than I had been expecting.