“Have you had any problems?” I asked.
“None. You’re one of the few who still visits me. I’m sure that everyone else has forgotten about me by now.”
“You’re a hard one to forget.”
Sofie let out a long soft purr of pleasure. “While I certainly appreciate it, I know you didn’t come to visit me just to throw sweet compliments at my feet. What’s troubling you?”
“Simon,” I grumbled.
“That annoying old windbag is still giving you problems? I thought he had finally let you go,” Sofie said, her tail stopped in its swishing about at the mention of my former mentor’s name. There seemed to be too few witches and warlocks in existence who had a good memory of Simon. Even if he hadn’t been a warlock, I had a feeling that man had been born to be an asshole.
“It had been a while since I’d last encountered him. I’ve got my own personal guardian keeping tabs on me and generally harassing me whenever he gets the chance.”
“Who?”
“Gideon.”
Sofie nodded once as she settled down to lie on her stomach on the old woman’s lap. “He’s a fair one as warlocks go. It could have been worse.”
“Possibly, but I’m getting the feeling that Simon has told Gideon to step aside for a while so that he can personally take care of me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“A few days ago I used a little magic in a fight and Gideon was all over me. Since then, I’ve used magic several times in some questionable circumstances and Gideon hasn’t taken those excellent opportunities to haul me in front of the council and let me get fried. On the other hand, Simon seems to be popping up all the time now even though I haven’t seen him in years.”
“That is odd,” Sofie admitted as she rested her chin on her front paws.
“What do you think?”
“It doesn’t look good for Gideon. He has always taken his job very seriously, and he was never one to step aside for anyone, particularly Simon. Unless, of course, Simon has gained enough power to actually ascend to the council.”
“Not good for me.” I frowned as my gaze drifted around the room, taking in the floral wallpaper, pretty landscape pictures, and collection of delicate porcelain plates. I shivered, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with the air-conditioning, cranked to the max. I would be the last person to say that Gideon was a good guy, but Sofie was right in saying that he was fair. I could at least reason with him, whereas none of the others seemed willing to listen.
With a sigh, I slumped on the couch and looked back at Sofie, who was still regarding me with her bright yellow eyes. “Have you heard any news from the Towers?”
Sofie blinked once and then turned her head away from me and closed her eyes. “Not anything that you’d want to hear.”
“What?” I demanded, jerking upright again so that I was sitting on the edge of the sofa.
“Have you considered moving?”
“Where? Where on earth don’t they have an influence? Where can I run, because that’s what you’re telling me to do? Run?”
Sofie opened her eyes and looked at me again. “Peter died about a month ago.”
“Shit.” I sank back into the couch and dropped my head into my right hand while resting my elbow on the cushioned arm of the couch. The council was comprised of thirteen witches and warlocks who tried to maintain some kind of peace between the inhabitants of the Ivory Towers and the rest of the world. It was never an easy peace. When I decided to part ways with Simon, barely surviving the resulting fight, my case went before the council. The vote had been seven to six to let me live. Peter had been the deciding vote in my favor. I didn’t know who the others were who voted for me and I doubted I ever would. As I was leaving the Towers, Peter had pulled me aside and given me one last bit of advice. Hide.
“Who has taken his place on the council?” I asked.
“No one yet, as far as I have heard. These things can take a while. But my guess is that Simon is trying to clean up his past so he can be considered.”
“And I’m an ugly blot on his past,” I muttered under my breath. Glowering at the coffee table, a new heart-stopping thought occurred to me. I pushed up so that I was sitting on the edge of the couch. “Can they retry a case if they get a new council?”
“No, they can’t. Once a decision has been handed down, they won’t bring it back up for review. However, at the moment, I wouldn’t risk getting pulled in front of the council. With Peter gone, it doesn’t look like you would have enough votes.”
“And if there’s a tie vote?”
“You’ll be imprisoned until the council seat is filled and the deciding vote is cast. That could be years, my dear. But I wouldn’t worry about that. If rumors are to be believed, you wouldn’t get a tie vote.”
“Why do you say that?”
If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it possible for a cat to sigh, but then Sofie wasn’t a normal cat. She sat up again on her back paws. She was a slightly larger than usual cat, but not so that you’d think it was too out of the ordinary. She had a regal bearing, making it easy to see why cats had been worshipped in Egypt.
“You’re not the only renegade warlock running around now,” Sofie admitted.
“What?”
“They did everything they could to hush up what happened with you, and wipe away all memory of you, because they were afraid that if other apprentices heard what you did, they would rise up as well.”
“I wasn’t trying to lead some kind of revolution for better treatment, I just wanted out.”
“Whether you were the inspiration or not, three apprentices have left their mentors during the past several months. Two warlocks and one witch-in-training.”
“Fuck,” I whispered, flopping back against the couch. “Have you heard whether they’ve been caught?”
To my surprise, Sofie jumped from the old woman’s lap to mine. Standing on her back paws, she leaned her front paws against my chest, putting her face just a couple of inches from mine. “No, but I wouldn’t tell you anything about them if I did know. You can’t seek them out. You can’t help them in any way. If you are seen with them, the council will instantly see it as you trying to lead a rebellion against the Ivory Towers. They won’t hesitate to send everything they’ve got against you, and they won’t stop until you’re dead.”
I picked up Sofie and held her out at arm’s length so that my eyes weren’t crossing as I tried to focus on her. “I have no intention of leading a rebellion. I just wanted to escape Simon and live my quiet life unnoticed.”
“Good luck with that,” she mumbled, her ears twitching slightly. I lowered her back down to my lap where she sat looking up at me.
“So Simon wants me dead in order to get a position on the council, and the others would prefer seeing me dead so I can’t assist those who have escaped. It’s sad they don’t take this as a sign that maybe times have changed and that the apprentices need to be treated better.”
Sofie made a little noise in the back of her throat that sounded like she was trying to cough up a fur ball. I was starting to reach to push her off my lap when I realized that she had actually given a little laugh at my comment. “They’ve been doing things this way for centuries. They’re not going to change.”
“No, I guess not.” I lifted my arms and dropped them over the back of the couch as I lounged there, staring at the sleeping old woman. Sofie was one of the most compassionate witches I had ever met, but she still had the mentality of her peers. She hadn’t thought twice about moving into the old woman’s home and taking over her mind for her own ends. The old woman had become little more than a fleshy puppet to be used. Was that how all the witches and warlocks saw the creatures of the earth, particularly the humans?
A substantial change to the council also didn’t offer any promise of a bright future for humanity. The Great War that had been waged with the Ivory Towers had decimated the human and fey populations nearly a century ago and had l
ed to the extinction of at least two races. The resulting peace when a surrender was finally tendered had always been a shaky one. Many who inhabited the Ivory Towers had argued that the warlocks and witches had not acquired enough concessions or enough power. I was sure that Simon was one of these. If he rose to the council, a new war seemed to hover just over the horizon.
But I couldn’t worry about any of that. I had enough with my own problems. “So what am I supposed to do?” I asked.
“I think you know what you need to do,” Sofie said.
“Run and hide again?”
“No.”
“Kill Simon,” I replied in a soft voice, to which Sofie simply nodded. Yeah, I thought so. Simon’s death would not only buy me some time, but everyone else as well. “Murder isn’t high on my to-do list and I’m not even sure I’m strong enough to accomplish such a thing.”
“Well—” Sofie started and then suddenly stopped, her body going stiff while her ears perked up and forward as if she was listening for something. I turned my head as well, straining to hear a sign of someone coming up on the front porch, but everything was silent.
“Were you followed?” Sofie demanded, turning her face back toward me.
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Someone is here.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know,” Sofie replied as she jumped from my lap and back over to the old woman’s. She pressed her front paws against the woman’s chest and meowed once. The old woman’s eyes opened and closed a few times before she looked over at me. “We need to leave now,” she announced.
I pushed out of the chair at the same time that the old woman rose. Laying my hands on her frail shoulders, I stopped her as she tried to shuffle toward the front door. The cat threaded through her legs, meowing desperately.
“She can’t go, Sofie,” I said, looking down at the cat.
“Why not?” the old woman asked, jerking my eyes back up to her face. I hated it when Sofie talked through the old woman. I wasn’t sure who to look at when I replied.
“She’s old, Sofie. She won’t survive running from anyone who might have come looking for you or me. She has to stay behind. They are not looking for the old woman and won’t harm her.”
The old woman stared at me, frowning for several seconds before she finally stepped back, out of my grasp. She sat down in her rocking chair and promptly fell asleep again. She was out of Sofie’s grasp.
Bending down, I scooped up Sofie while briskly walking toward the door. Propping the cat on my left hip while holding her by her stomach with my left hand, I slowly pulled open the front door and peered out. The neighborhood was empty. A bird chirped from the white picket fence by the sidewalk, which was a slight reassurance. When a witch or a warlock was about, wildlife was quick to flee.
“Wait!” Sofie commanded as I took a step into the doorway. I paused, still peeking out the slender opening. On my left, I could feel a stirring of energy as Sofie started casting a spell, for which I was grateful. She hadn’t been banned from using magic, unlike me. In fact, she was still technically a member of the Ivory Towers community if she wanted to return. I wasn’t sure if she’d left because she was stuck as a cat in a largely humanoid world, or if she was afraid that she’d be easier to kill in cat form. Either way, she’d left it all for a seminormal life as a house pet.
Just past the door, a Russian blue cat shimmered into existence. It bent its head and briefly licked the fur on its chest before darting off the porch and through the flowers in the front yard. A second later it vaulted over the small white picket fence and ran across the street where it disappeared behind a yellow house.
“Okay, go now,” Sofie said.
I didn’t question it or hesitate. Quietly shutting the door behind me, I slipped off the porch and jogged to my car parked a couple of houses down the street. Jerking open the driver’s-side door, I tossed Sofie inside and slid behind the wheel. I was vaguely aware of the cat jumping from the front to the backseat where she leaned up against the window and meowed forlornly.
“Mae!” Sofie plaintively cried as I revved the engine and pulled away from the curb. I didn’t look back as I drove out of the subdivision and headed for the nearest highway on-ramp.
“She’ll be fine,” I said, trying to reassure her. Unfortunately, I had more than I could deal with on my plate already. I didn’t want to add concern over an old woman looking for her lost cat. “I can find a way to get her a new cat.”
“Thank you,” Sofie whispered.
As we slipped into evening traffic and headed back to my tattoo parlor, I turned my thoughts back to more pressing issues. “What was it back there?”
“Not sure,” Sofie said as she jumped back into the front seat and curled up. “But there were two of them.”
“How did you know they would go after you?” I asked, thinking of the decoy she had sent running off the front porch and across the street.
“I didn’t. I sent a similar image of you running out the back of the house and over the fence for them to chase as well. They took the bait and I’m not going to question it.”
“I’m sorry about this. I didn’t mean to drag you into my problems. I know you had a comfortable life.”
Sofie stretched out her paws, extending her long sharp claws, while yawning. “It was a life. It’s better this way. I had grown fond of Mae and I didn’t want her hurt should someone decide to finish me off.”
“Where will you go now?”
Sofie gave a soft chuckle as she curled up again. “I’m your pet now, Gage.”
“What?” I cried, jerking the wheel at her announcement. I quickly righted my bulky SUV again in the center lane before I plowed us into a semi. “I don’t think so.”
“They wouldn’t have come looking for me if I hadn’t helped you. You cost me a home, so I think it’s only fair that you provide me with a new one.”
“I’m not very good with pets. I could never keep my goldfish alive,” I hedged. I really didn’t need a cranky old witch trapped in a cat’s body prowling around my apartment. I still had to deal with the grim reaper and Simon. My life expectancy wasn’t looking that great, and I didn’t want to worry about keeping a cat alive.
“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” she purred.
I frowned as I switched lanes, passing a slower car as it signaled to leave the interstate. This had not been a part of my plans for the day. “I also don’t do mind control. I’m not going to be your puppet.”
“I have no plans to do such a thing to you.”
“Or my friends?”
“Or your friends,” Sofie repeated, sounding a little put out.
“Fine,” I huffed. “You can stay at the tattoo parlor for a while until we can figure out something else. I’ve got a lot of balls in the air right now and I don’t want to worry about your safety or happiness.”
“I’m stuck in the body of a cat, Gage. How much trouble could I be?” she demanded, sounding more than a little irritated with me.
“You’re a witch. That in itself is trouble enough.”
Sofie softly purred from the passenger seat as she stretched out on her back and closed her eyes with a look of contentment. She seemed to have gotten over her separation anxiety regarding her former owner relatively quickly. “I’ll behave. Now roll down the window. I want to feel the wind through my fur.”
I pushed the button on my armrest, lowering the passenger-side window while trying to keep my attention on the busy road before me. For the first time I wondered if I had been duped. I had never sensed a presence at Sofie’s house, but then I trusted her more honed skills and years of experience. Could she have grown tired of her old life and wanted something more entertaining? Or was she now trying to keep an eye on me for her own purposes?
A sigh slipped from my parted lips as I slumped behind the wheel, squinting against the setting sun. It didn’t matter for the time being. I was now the proud owner of a beautiful cat that could tell me exactly what it
was thinking. Things were not looking up.
Chapter 28
Driving toward the parlor, I found myself wishing I had dropped Sofie at Trixie’s place for a while until I could figure something out. I really was no good when it came to animals and I didn’t want Sofie at my apartment. I stopped at a red light and frowned. But if someone was still looking for Sofie, dropping the cat at Trixie’s would only put the elf back in danger. The light changed and I pressed the gas pedal, jumping across the intersection. The parlor would have to do for now. I stopped briefly at a pet store to pick up some odds and ends before parking behind the shop.
I trudged down the wooden stairs to the apartment on the second floor. Balancing everything in my left hand and on my hip, I unlocked the door. Sofie shot inside ahead of me, sniffing around the living room as I followed. I quickly set up food and water bowls in the kitchen, and was secretly grateful when she told me that she used the toilet rather than a litter box. My stomach had turned at the thought of cleaning up the droppings of a witch in cat’s garb.
Pulling my cell phone out of my back pocket I glanced at the time before shoving it back in place. It was just after eight o’clock. I had some time to set things up in the tattoo parlor before Tera was to meet me. Turning back toward the door, Sofie jumped up on the sofa and stood on the arm nearest the front door, watching me with expectant eyes.
“Are you leaving already?” Sofie asked.
“I’ve got another appointment tonight that I can’t miss. I want you to stay here until tomorrow and then we’ll try to figure out something more permanent.”
“This isn’t your apartment?”
My eyes darted away from her face, and it was only when her front paw brushed against my arm that the words jerked out. “No. I own the building and sometimes stay here, but this isn’t my apartment.”
Angel's Ink Page 27
