'Ink It Over: A Touch Of Ink Novel

by Rachel Rawlings

  “Oh, and Nicholas,”—Winslow stopped his nephew a second before he left the office—“have that graffiti lasered off your arm. Today, if possible.”

  “Yes, Uncle.” Nicholas closed the door behind him.

  The transmitter on the com unit was strong enough to pick up the hushed voices coming from inside the office as Nicholas left. Winslow and Aldridge.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think there’s a lot your nephew isn’t telling us.”

  “Yes, I suspected as much. You know what to do, Aldridge.”

  With no way to confirm if Nicholas had heard the exchange between Winslow and Aldridge or to warn him until we reached the rendezvous spot, we were forced to watch him exit the campus grounds and walk down the street to his car. He glanced once in our direction, relief clear on his face, confirmation he hadn’t heard what his uncle said.

  One hand on the door handle, the other on the glass, it took all I had not to burst from the car and warn him. The urge to get Nicholas into the car, tell Lars to hit the gas, and never turn back was strong, but I knew Lars would blast me with a knockout spell before I opened the car door. Helplessness wasn’t something I’d felt in a long time. Not since my years in foster care. Thanks to Grim, I’d learned to become helpful, and I much preferred it to the alternative.

  Nicholas was a dead man walking, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.

  Chapter Twelve

  “WHAT TIME IS IT?” I paced the floor of our rendezvous spot as we continued to wait for Nicholas to arrive. “He should have been here by now.”

  Lars and I had made quick work of setting the perimeter wards, ensuring they were tuned to Nicholas’s magical signature by using a lock of hair he’d reluctantly provided before meeting with Winslow. Nothing could get in or out unless we wanted it.

  The old Reptile House and the portion of property it resided on at Roger Williams Zoo had been abandoned for years. It was one of half a dozen locations that hadn’t been discovered by someone within the Magistrate, and I hoped it stayed that way. Straight out of the Victorian era, it looked more like an atrium than a place to house reptiles. The glass ceiling merged seamlessly with the glass walls that ended in an unlikely union of concrete which formed the knee-high walls supporting the entire structure.

  It was one of my favorite locations to ward. A glimpse into the past, to the time before the Magistrate lost its way. Properly warded, it offered a panoramic view of our surroundings and anyone approaching the building while we remained invisible. Beautiful and functional.

  “Relax, take a deep breath. He’s only a couple minutes late.” Lars moved to the south side of the oval structure, peering out the glass wall for any sign of Nicholas. “He’ll be here.”

  I knew Lars well enough to know he was not as confident as he sounded, but appreciated the fact he put on a brave face for my sake.

  Just as my anxiety reached a crescendo, Nicholas arrived. The door had only just closed behind him when I pounced. “What the hell took you so long?”

  “It’s nice to see you, too, Del.”

  “Winslow knows. I think he’s onto Del, to us,” Lars said. “We don’t have much time. Del needs to disappear. You might want to consider doing the same.”

  “He has his doubts about my competency, but beyond that?” Nicholas seemed unsure, his voice lacking the confidence his statement warranted. “I think we bought ourselves some time.”

  “You might want to think again, Nick.” I shrugged in response to his arched brow, likely triggered by my shortening of his name. I figured if we were running from the Magistrate together, we’d reached a point in our relationship where nicknames were acceptable. “We heard something on the com, an exchange between Aldridge and your uncle as you walked out.”

  “A couple sentences at most but it was enough,” Lars said. “He’s definitely suspicious, and Aldridge is on the hunt.”

  “What does he have on you? Besides the whole ‘turning your roommate into a familiar’ thing?” This line of questioning was a detour from planning our escape, but I had a hunch it was all connected and I needed to know everything Winslow had on Nicholas. He knew everything the Magistrate had on me. It was time for a little quid pro quo.

  “My mother. Her money.” Nicholas’s posture changed, tension building in his shoulders as he clenched his fists slightly. “Eradicating the Marks line and ensuring his complete control of the Winslow family. My mother kept her maiden name. After my father died, I became the last of that line. He wasn’t a rich man, my father, but everything I inherited as his heir will go to my mother and ultimately Winslow if I die.”

  “So, this is all over money?” Lars sounded as skeptical as I felt.

  “Knowing my uncle? Yes and no. It’s more than that.” Nicholas paused, clearly mulling something over. “It’s status, too, within the Magistrate. That’s all he cares about.”

  “Okay, so as far as Winslow is concerned, we’re both better off dead.” I looked to Lars, who nodded in agreement. “So, let’s play dead.”

  “You want to fake your death?” Lars laughed. “Grim’s contingency plan.” He gave Nicholas an apologetic look. “Sorry, kid. It’s only for one.”

  “We’d need two bodies.” Nicholas shifted his attention solely to me, effectively cutting Lars out of the conversation.

  “No, just no. I am not... We are not”—Lars wagged his pointer finger between me and him —“grave robbing.” His tone brooked no argument. Not that that had ever stopped me before.

  “You’ll tie up a living, breathing human and stuff him in a trunk, but you’re going to balk at putting a corpse to good use?” Nicholas asked.

  Stating the situation that way didn’t exactly help rationalize the potential plan, but I had to give Nicholas points for trying.

  “Everyone has a line. I’m drawing mine at digging up a dead body.” Lars snorted when I held up two fingers. “Excuse me, I stand corrected. Two dead bodies.”

  “Lars, just listen. Hear me out, okay?” I prayed my pleas didn’t fall on deaf ears. “Even if we implement Grim’s plan, they’ll find me. I’ll never be free, not unless they think I’m already dead.”

  A blast of magic hit Lars square in the back the same instant I felt the first sign of our wards being tripped. Either we were getting sloppy or the Magistrate was getting better.

  “Oh, you’ll be dead all right.” Aldridge blocked the doorway and fired another shot at Lars. The second blast, which had a similar effect as being hit with a stun gun, dropped Lars like a sack of potatoes. “But not until we’ve finished with you.” Aldridge stepped over Lars’s prone body. He stalked toward me, a wild look in his eyes. “It’ll be fun. I promise. For me, anyway.”

  My skills weren’t in combat, but I gathered what defensive magic I had and prayed to the Goddess for the strength to knock this fucker back to the Dark Ages. I pulled on the energy I’d spindled in my chi, gathered some of it into a small glowing orb in my hand, and drew my arm back like a pitcher about to throw a ball over home plate.

  Aldridge was ready for it.

  He dodged left, narrowly avoiding my Knock Back spell and launched a counterattack. As a Footman and Councilman lackey, his fighting skills were far superior to mine, and he didn’t hold back, going right for the big guns with the first shot he fired my way.

  Death of a Thousand Cuts.

  The first, no larger than a paper cut, opened on my cheek. Warmth spread from the tiny wound as the magic flared across my skin. A second appeared on my clavicle, a little longer and deeper than the one on my face. Close to major arteries on my neck but not close enough. And so it would go, near my wrist, on my thigh.

  Nine hundred ninety-eight more times.

  None of them were fatal individually, but combined, the end result was death. Aldridge would have to unravel the spell, or he’d be dragging a corpse into Winslow’s office. He’d already indicated they had a plan for me. I assumed he was waiting for me to pass out.


  Nicholas moved into action, stepping in front of me and directly into Aldridge’s line of fire. Spells and counter spells volleyed between the two of them.

  “Your uncle didn’t give instructions for your return.” The Footman smiled. Something about his expression—the emptiness, the soullessness of his eyes—said more about what kind of monster Aldridge really was than words ever could. “How does it feel to know you’re expendable? Just like your father.”

  Blood trickled down my chest, soaking into my bra. Another cut on my forearm sent a trail of blood down and across my palm to drip off the tip of my middle finger. No one wanted to be standing in a puddle of their own blood while being flayed by magic, but if Nicholas managed to distract Aldridge long enough, I had a good chance of marking him like I’d done Nicholas back at the shop.

  Nicholas switched tactics, using physical blows rather than magical ones. Aldridge, who’d clearly been expecting a magical duel, looked caught off guard. Nicholas landed a lunging roundhouse kick to the face and followed up with a Knock Back spell. The Footman stumbled backward into the massive arms of an angry and awaiting Lars, who’d finally regained consciousness—and his feet—after being virtually electrocuted.

  Lars whispered something that I assumed was a binding spell in a language which sounded an awful lot like Latin and yet nothing like it at all.

  Aldridge’s eyes widened, a look of shock spreading across his face. Blood trickled from the Footman’s eyes, nose, and ears as he struggled against Lars’s magic. The flow of blood increased as Aldridge managed to gain ground within the invisible bonds Lars used to hold him. His hand raised, fingers curled inward, and a ball of energy began to form in his palm. Small tendrils of a nasty-looking spell crackled out from the center of his palm to his fingertips.

  I swooped in, using the blood dripping from the tiny lacerations that continued to appear on various parts of my body to make my mark. The same mark I’d used to drop Nicholas in my office—with a twist. At the last second, I combined the mark I’d used to silence Nicholas in the car.

  Letting Aldridge talk was as dangerous as letting him walk.

  “Del, grab your bag.” Lars released Aldridge, who hit the floor with a resounding thud. “I’m getting you out of here. Sorry, kid, you’re on your own from here.”

  I stood my ground. I’d relied on Lars for so long. Maybe too long. It was high time I started trusting my instincts and my instincts were telling me to stay put. There was also the matter of removing Aldridge’s spell.

  Lars’s eyes swirled with anger. “Adeline.” His voice was even, controlled. His temper was not. “I said, get your fucking things.”

  “She’s not going anywhere.” Nicholas threw out an arm, stepping in to block my path as if afraid I’d follow Lars.

  “And you’re going to stop me? What, with all your flying kicks and shit?” Lars’s jaw twitched in time with the pulsing vein on his neck.

  “She’ll bleed to death, jackass. Look at her.” Nicholas gestured to the multitude of cuts covering my body. “Death of a Thousand Cuts. One of Aldridge’s favorites. Sadistic bastard.”

  Lars looked at me, fear eroding the mask of anger he’d worn since getting up off the floor, his gaze roaming over my skin. More cuts appeared with every passing second. Lars shoved Nicholas out of his way as he rushed over to me, his hands hovering over the numerous wounds on my body.

  “The Magistrate wants something from her. Aldridge won’t kill her. Not yet. But we can’t take her out of here until he unravels the spell.” Nicholas shifted his gaze from me to the immobile Footman prone on the floor.

  “Del, you’re going to have to remove your mark first.” Lars looked at me, clearly conflicted. If I knew him at all, I knew there were at least a hundred things he’d rather do to Aldridge than let him go.

  “No.” My response seemed to shock everyone. Even the Footman on the floor, who managed to widen his eyes a little.

  “Del—” Nicholas started.

  “Someone as strong as Aldridge doesn’t need to use his words. If he can think it, he can do it.” I squatted down, balancing on tiptoe as I teetered forward, locking gazes with Winslow’s lackey. “Isn’t that right, Footman?”

  Hate-fueled rage filled Aldridge’s eyes. His features contorted, the muscles still frozen by my spell struggling to form into the emotions he wanted to express. The more he fought it, the more painful the spell’s grip became. It never stopped me from trying all those nights I lived in foster care, and I knew it wouldn’t stop Aldridge. But everyone had a breaking point.

  The question was, did we have time to wait for Aldridge to reach his?

  The anger in his gaze intensified. When all of this was over and I’d outlived my usefulness to the Magistrate—whatever that usefulness was—Aldridge was going to kill me. It would be slow and agonizing, and he would enjoy every minute of it.

  But for the moment, he still needed me, and I needed to find out why.

  I knelt, swaying—more than likely from blood loss—and waited for the Footman to reach the same conclusion I had. He was going to release me from the spell. Not because I, Adeline Severance, was of such importance to the Magistrate as an individual. But he needed to bring in a Warder, an experienced one, and the only other one within one hundred miles of Providence besides me was already dead.

  For being such a sinner, Aldridge had the patience of a saint. He held out far longer than I’d anticipated. Woozy, I pressed a palm against the floor for added support. Nicholas and Lars alternated between bickering at each other and begging me to stop.

  The clock on the spell was ticking, and the number of wounds increased with every passing second.

  Blocking them out was easy when my sight blurred around the edges and everything started to sound fuzzy, like a radio station that wasn’t coming in all the way. I wasn’t just knocking on death’s door—the door was open, and I was stepping across the threshold.

  Just when I thought I was going to end up lying in a pool of my own blood next to Aldridge, he unraveled the spell. All of the tiny fissures he’d opened up on my body closed of their own accord, the skin practically flawless. You’d never know I almost died—apart from a few red marks and an obscene amount of crusty blood covering my entire body, which had already begun to flake off and itched like a son of a bitch. My arms wobbled like a lime Jell-O mold, and I was in serious danger of toppling over when I felt Lars and Nicholas on either side, holding me up.

  “We need to get her somewhere safe. I’m no doctor, but Grim taught us the basics.” Lars started to stand, lifting me up from his side.

  Even if I wanted to help, I couldn’t.

  Which I didn’t. We weren’t done with Aldridge yet. For some reason, no one seemed to agree with me on that point.

  “What she needs is a hospital.” Nicholas followed Lars’s lead, rising and dragging my other half with him.

  “Yeah, well, that’s not happening. Help me get her to the car.” Lars stopped when he saw me raise my hand.

  It took a lot of effort, but I managed to point a finger at the Footman still lying mute and immobile on the floor.

  “We’ll deal with him after I get you tucked safely in the car, okay?” Lars said.

  It’s hard to hold your ground when you’ve lost a lot of blood and there are not one, but two people dragging you away, but I managed to tap what remained of my magic and cast a rudimentary spell that altered the weight of my body.

  “She’s not going to let us take her out of here until we’re finished.” Nicholas grunted as he struggled to move a person who used to weigh no more than one-twenty-five but now felt like she weighed the equivalent of an armored tank.

  Lars, being the larger, stronger of the two, should have had an easier time moving me. He didn’t but that didn’t stop him from trying.

  “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to unravel it.” Nicholas paused before clarifying his request. “Enough so he talks.”

  “He could kill us both. What’s to stop him
from spelling us and taking her out of here?” Lars ground out behind gritted teeth, still trying to move the immovable object I’d become.

  “Right now, he needs her for more than just fulfilling Winslow’s plans. He needs her to unravel both parts of her spell, and she won’t do that if we’re dead.” Nicholas kept one arm wrapped around my waist and moved his free hand to cup my face, gently lifting my head so I could meet his eyes. “Tell me what to do.”

  And I did. I told him something I’d never told Lars—or Grim for that matter. I taught him a mark that no witch should have in their arsenal, one I wished I hadn’t experienced firsthand so many times as a child, one I’d used more times since Nicholas Marks crossed my path than I had in my entire life. Maybe he’d proved himself. Maybe I trusted him.

  Or maybe it was the blood loss.

  Chapter Thirteen

  NICHOLAS RAN A FINGER through the last spot of blood on my body that hadn’t gone tacky or crusted over, sending a chill down my spine. Allowing someone to use your blood to work a spell was dangerous. Allowing someone who turned their roommate into a familiar to use your blood for spell work was just downright stupid.

  Still, it probably didn’t break the top five dumbest things I’d ever done, which really said something about my life choices. I needed to reevaluate my priorities. It was going on the to-do list.

  Right under don’t die at the hands of the Magistrate.

  Nicholas offered an apologetic smile before getting to work. Three small spirals resembling the ampersand symbol and it was done. Aldridge couldn’t move, but he could talk. As one would expect, his first words weren’t so nice.

  “Aww, Aldridge, is that any way to talk to a lady?” I crooned, feigning bravery when I was actually about to faint.

  “Mongrel bitch. You won’t get far.” Unlike the rest of his face, Aldridge’s eyes were full of emotion, amusement and loathing first among them. “Winslow will use every last drop of your Warder blood before disposing of your corpse. You’ll beg for mercy in the end, but it won’t come. It never does, not for your kind. Just ask the leader of your little rebel gang. Oh, wait, you can’t. He’s dead.”