Krissy considered, straining to think of anything she might have missed. Unfortunately, she came up with nothing and I drove her home, promising to do some research and to go back to the tattoo shop later. She wasn’t thrilled, but she didn’t ask for a refund, which was a relief, since I have a no refunds policy.
I drove her back to her friend’s condo, all the way down in Kirkland, and headed home.
* * *
I’d definitely earned a beer and a cheeseburger. Krissy had been disappointed in our progress when I dropped her off, but it was progress. After all, we’d crossed her hair stylist and the mirror off the list of causes. After I ate, I’d ask some of my contacts if they knew of anyone who specialized in curse work. I’d read up on curses. I’d get to the bottom of it. Just not on an empty stomach.
I parked Silas’ car in the garage, leaving the keys in the glovebox, and headed for the New Moon Tavern, a dive bar just blocks from my building. It mostly served mundane clientele, which made it extra appealing. I was less likely to have a run in with someone I didn’t want to see.
So I was pretty stunned to find Conor Ramsey sitting at the bar. My pulse raced at the sight of him. He wore his gray Watcher uniform, which made him stick out. His head was bent over a book, a gin and tonic sitting untouched in front of him, the ice nearly melted to nothing. His shaggy, very sexy dark hair covered his face, but I knew it was him from the cut of his shoulders.
I just didn’t know why he was hanging out in my hole-in-the-wall.
I sat next to him. He looked up, his blue eyes landing on me and his mouth opening slightly before twisting into a smile.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Having a drink.” He gestured to the glass. The condensation had melted the cardboard coaster and I doubted he’d had more than a sip.
I slapped his book. “And you’re reading? This is not the kind of bar for that.”
He closed the book and I stole a peek at the cover. It was leather-bound and the title wasn’t printed on the front. “So that’s why I’ve gotten so many funny looks.”
“Right,” I said. “It has nothing to do with the gray-on-gray ensemble.”
The Watchers were the Magic Council’s police and the gray uniform—drab, efficient, awkwardly noticeable to mundanes who might not otherwise notice them—was a perfect example of how they operated: with a strong, visible presence. In theory, they were doing what was best for the magical community—more specifically for the witches, but also shifters and vampires and other creatures who didn’t fall under the fae umbrella—but in practice, they were too busy upholding their own rules and laws to really consider the community’s needs.
Riley, the bartender and local godsend, set a pint of India Pale Ale in front of me along with a menu that I didn’t need. I asked for the cheeseburger and he retreated.
“Long day?” Conor asked.
“It’s my lunch break,” I said. “I’m on a case.”
He raised one eyebrow in interest. I wished I’d kept my mouth shut, so I sipped my beer and didn’t offer further details. Conor was handsome, with nice cheekbones and a tendency to look inscrutable that for some reason I found attractive.
Conor was also off-limits. He was firmly against any and all demon magic. My situation was unique: I hadn’t set out to summon a demon and the magic it left behind in me wasn’t something I’d asked for. I used the tools I had to do my job and survive, and that included demon fire and shadow sight, things the Council would happily lock me up for should they ever find out, and Conor would be the first to turn me in.
“Don’t you have something you should be working on? Demons to hunt or whatever?” I asked.
“I have plenty of work,” Conor said, being as vague as I’d been. “But I’m off duty now.”
“And in my bar,” I said.
“I didn’t realize you’d abandoned the PI business to go into food and beverage service.” He smiled at me.
Heat rose in my cheeks and neck as I realized he’d come here to see me.
It had been almost a month since we’d defeated a group of demon-worshipping mages. They’d tried to summon an arch demon and break open a massive portal to the Underworld. I’d been avoiding him since then because I’d used my demon magic and control over the demon shadows to close the portal. Conor knew I’d closed it using magic. He just didn’t know how. I’d done something that witch magic shouldn’t be capable of.
I’d managed to get through the Council’s questioning by insisting I hadn’t done anything but try to close the circle and I didn’t know how it had collapsed. I tried to blame the mages’ failure to open the portal correctly. I insisted that while trying to close the circle, I’d blacked out and didn’t remember much.
They’d let me go, reluctantly, since they couldn’t prove I’d done anything but attempt to close the circle, which was totally legal. And since closing the circle had been their goal, it wasn’t like they could punish me for it. Well, they could, but they hadn’t thought of a good way to spin it.
But Conor was suspicious. And so were other members of the Council.
So I’d been avoiding them, hoping that “out of sight, out of mind” might apply to a witch like myself. And now here he was, at my local haunt hoping to run into me. I didn’t know how to feel about that.
“What important Council business do they have you doing?” I asked him, mostly to change the subject.
“Actually, I just got back from Vancouver. A demon hitched a ride on the Victoria ferry and I had to contain it.”
“How exciting,” I said.
Conor frowned. “Not really. About thirty passengers had to be convinced they’d been subjected to a gas leak and were having hallucinations.”
Riley brought me my food, which I ate with gusto, having not had much since my Pop-Tarts earlier that afternoon. It was now almost nine o’clock at night.
“What do you know about curses?” I asked Conor, while idly chewing on my burger.
“A lot,” he said flatly. “Watchers take a comprehensive training course on them as part of our education.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Conor stared at me so hard I thought the force of it might knock me off my stool. “Curses are deeply frowned upon.”
“I’m not planning to curse anyone, jeez,” I said. “I have a client who thinks she’s been cursed.”
“Usually that’s the type of thing one is sure about.” Conor finally lifted his glass and took a teeny, tiny sip of his gin and tonic.
“I know. But she has had a pretty shitty run of luck. She’s not wearing a talisman and she hasn’t raided a tomb or sacred burial ground. Any ideas?” I picked up a fry and dipped it in ketchup.
“Not hexed?” I shook my head. Hexes left a mark on one’s aura, a faint red glow, and Krissy didn’t have that.
“Could be a jinx. She tick off a jinn or someone bound to one?” Conor asked.
“She doesn’t think she has any enemies,” I said. I finished my last fries and crumpled my napkin on my plate, pushing it to the edge of the bar.
Riley, ever on top of things, put down my bill and I quickly counted out cash.
“If you want, I could run to the Watcher’s Archives and grab some books on curses, meet you at your place?” Conor offered.
I met his blue eyes, warm and inviting. I wanted to believe he had good intentions and was trying to help but I couldn’t shake the feeling he might have an ulterior motive. Like, say, learning more about me and my magic and how I might close a massive circle while an arch demon tried to break through it.
“I actually have to meet someone,” I said, keeping it vague so he couldn’t invite himself along. I had been planning to go back to my office, or even my apartment, and scour the internet for information but now I felt itchy and anxious, so I came up with a plan B. “See you around, Ramsey.”
I ran home to grab my sword and borrow Silas’ car again.
Chapter 4
At th
is hour, nearly eleven o’clock at night, I expected Floral Ink to be locked up tight and empty. My plan was to break in and look around for any signs of magic or demon shadows in the back rooms. Maybe I could find Jade’s address so I could track her down at home for a nice, quiet chat.
But when I pulled up, the shop’s lights were still on and I saw someone moving around inside. The figure disappeared into the back before I could get out of the car. I left my sword in the backseat, as I didn’t want to spook whoever was there. Although given how irritating the receptionist had been, I definitely considered it.
The closed sign hung in the window but the door wasn’t locked and opened when I tried it. An electric bing sounded as I stepped inside.
A young blonde woman with a shaggy, overgrown pixie cut and ethereal features came out from the back room. She had green eyes rimmed with thick black liner. Her aura was strange, shifting slightly from faintly blue to white and back again. I didn’t know what to make of that. Even kitchen witches had a steady glow. Maybe she had only a tiny amount of witch blood or maybe she was something else entirely.
Either way, it set my hair on edge.
She looked at me with wide eyes, quickly checking behind me as if she expected me to be followed by an army. When she saw no one else, she relaxed slightly, but her shoulders remained tense.
“We’re closed,” she said. She had a surprisingly deep voice for someone so petite.
“Oh, sorry. I was looking for Jade,” I said. “I was told she works here.”
She gave me a funny look but then smiled. It was a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes but it was better than nothing. “I see. I’m Jade. And you are?”
The jerk receptionist had lied after all. She wasn’t off all week. She’d probably been here all day.
“I’m Dani.” I immediately wished I could suck the name back and replace it with a fake name. Normally I had an alias ready to go, but I hadn’t expected to need one. “How lucky to catch you.”
“I work a lot,” she said, glancing out the window again, like she was waiting for someone. Or maybe afraid of someone. “Did you need something?”
“I’ve been told you’re the best tattoo artist in the area,” I lied. “I was hoping to get an appointment for a consultation.”
She considered that. I waited for her to tell me to get out and come back during business hours or else move behind the computer to make said appointment. But after a moment of chewing her lower lip, she said, “Okay. I’ve got a few minutes. Come on back.”
She held open the door to the back area for me.
“Great,” I said, forcing myself to smile like it was my lucky day, even as my stomach churned uneasily, full of beer and grease.
In the back, there were two parlor rooms and a bathroom. She had me go into the first room, where there was a large black chair not unlike a dentist’s chair. That was enough to make my skin crawl. I hated going to the dentist. I didn’t have to go often but witch magic and regular brushing could only do so much.
“Take off your coat and have a seat,” she said.
“Oh, I wasn’t planning on getting any ink tonight,” I said. “I just wanted to know how much it would be and when you’d have time…”
“No worries,” she said. “Prices vary. Let’s talk about what you want, I can do a quick sketch, and we can go from there.”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” I hedged. “I know it’s late…”
She smiled more warmly. “Happy to do it. I’m not in a rush to get home.”
She held out her hands for my coat. I shrugged it off and handed to her, watching as she hung it on a hook by the door. I took a seat in the big black dentist chair. She pulled out a pen and some tracing paper on a clipboard and took a seat near me. There was a black tattoo gun on a metal rolling cart that had a drawer in it, maybe to store needles.
I did a quick check for demon shadows and again, came up empty. That was good, if not much comfort.
“So,” she said, sitting on a rolling stool to my right. “What kind of ink do you want?”
“Just a small tattoo,” I said.
“Of what?” she pressed, pen hovering over her paper.
I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “A flame.”
She raised her eyebrows and something passed over her expression, but it was gone too quick for me to decipher. “What kind of flame? Like on a candle, or…”
“Just a cool looking flame on my arm.” I pointed to my upper right arm, near my shoulder. “Really simple and small. Like the size of a quarter,” I said, keeping even my imaginary tattoo tiny. I didn’t want to keep her drawing for long. In fact, despite being beautiful with a bit of a wishy-washy aura, there was nothing about her that suggested Jade was anything but a workaholic tattoo artist. If that was true, I was wasting both of our time.
And to be honest, because I was sitting in a dentist chair in a room full of needles, I kind of wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.
“Huh, okay,” she said, sounding confused. I supposed most people who wanted tattoos had a pretty clear of idea what they wanted to put on their bodies forever.
She drew for a few moments and I shifted uncomfortably in the chair. When she was done, she turned the paper around and showed me three small sketches of flames. One was more animated, one was more cutesy, and one was very basic, like cheap clipart.
I pointed to the more artsy, animated-looking one. “That one.”
“Awesome. That’s my favorite, too.” She winked.
There was a noise out front, like the sound of a refrigerator compressor I thought, and Jade jumped so high I thought she might hit the ceiling. Then she went very still. My heart hammered in my chest. She finally went to the door and peeked out in the hall. Then she let out a breath.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
She’d gone white. But she swallowed and forced a smile back on.
“Fine. Sorry. I just thought I heard something.” She laughed nervously. “I get wigged out working here late sometimes.”
She seemed more than a little wigged out, but before I could argue, she opened the drawer beneath the tattoo gun. I stiffened.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to get it now,” I said. “I’m still thinking about it.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, slightly exasperated. “I’m just going to sketch it on your arm with a pen so you can see what it looks like. For someone who came in after hours to see me, you sure are jumpy about the tattoo itself.”
She gave me a look I couldn’t read, somewhere between annoyance and confusion. But she had a point. I wasn’t playing the part very well. I relaxed.
“Sorry. Needles just make me a little nervous,” I said. “That’s why I want to keep it small.”
“You’d be amazed how many people come in here for work but hate needles. It’s not like getting jabbed at the doctor.” She pulled out a pair of scissors and cut the little flame I’d selected out of the paper. Then she stepped toward me and taped the paper to my shoulder. She handed me a mirror. “That about right?”
I made a cursory glance at the position of the paper on my shoulder and nodded.
“Great.” She searched around her work space and let out a sigh. “Let me go get my pen. Be right back.”
I tried to relax. She was just going to draw the stupid thing on my arm. I could scrub it off when I got home. Still, unease wormed through me. I wasn’t actually afraid of needles and I wasn’t getting any impressions of magic in the room, but something felt off. And Jade was clearly on edge, much as she was trying to disguise that fact, which put me on edge.
She returned a moment later with a strange looking black pen. It was similar to those pens they sold at souvenir shops with the liquid inside, only in this one, the liquid was black. She also held a plastic syringe full of something bright pink.
Before I could question what either thing was, she smiled at me and grabbed my jaw with her hand. She held my face steady and met my eyes
, staring into them like she was trying to find something.
Her eyes burned green like little flames and I found myself incapable of looking away or closing my eyes.
A faerie glamour.
My pulse raced. Faerie glamours didn’t usually work on witches but the sheer intensity of her gaze was terrifying.
“Hold still,” she commanded.
I pulled out of her grasp, yanking my head to the side and out of her hold. I tried to get up but she was practically on top of me.
She frowned, looking sort of annoyed that her glamour hadn’t worked. But that didn’t faze her for long. She pressed the plastic tip of the syringe into my mouth and pressed the plunger.
A sugary sweet syrup hit my tongue and splashed against the back of my throat. I coughed and tried to spit it up but she held my chin to keep my jaw closed. Eventually, I swallowed, gagging on the sweet, viscus liquid.
“What was that?” I demanded, my tongue thick and words slurred. My limbs started to go numb. I tried to get up but my body wouldn’t obey my commands. My limbs were too heavy suddenly, like they’d been filled with lead.
She ignored my question as she put ink into the tattoo gun and inserted a clean needle. I tried again to get up and escape but now I couldn’t move at all. Fear erupted inside me.
For a potion to have such a strong effect and paralyze a person, it had to be intensely powerful magic.
“I’m sorry to do this, but you left me no choice,” Jade said. I felt the needle trace the image on the thin paper. My skin tingled as the needle buzzed but that was the only thing I could feel. The rest of my body was numb. Magic rose as the needle worked and the sharp smell of chili powder mixed with sumac stung my nostrils.
It couldn’t have taken more than fifteen minutes. She stepped back when the tattoo was done and examined the work.
Feeling began to return to my limbs and relief flooded over me. The potion was strong but at least it was short-lived. I wiggled my fingers and toes, testing them as feeling came back. Jade watched me with a blank expression, detached as if she wasn’t part of anything that was happening.
Demon Rogue: Brimstone Magic - Book 3 Page 3
