Chapter Seventeen
"ONE MORE TIME, DEL." Nicholas pointed to the servants' entrance on the three-dimensional blueprint hovering in front of us. "We enter here...."
"Nicholas," I ground his name out from behind clenched teeth. "We've been over this a hundred times. We could go over it a hundred more, and it still won't distract me from the fact Lars still isn't back."
"He's only been gone"—Nicholas glanced at his watch, wincing when he realized the time—"two hours."
"I caught that look. You're just as worried as me. Admit it." Hands on hips, I waited for Nicholas to tell me I was right, letting out a huff of air when he didn't. "Do you have a scrying mirror?"
"A what?" Appearing momentarily stunned by the abrupt change in topic, Nicholas stood by the couch for a couple of seconds before he followed me into his spelling area. "Third drawer on the left." He caught up to me, resting his hands over mine to stop me from yanking any harder on the drawer. "It sticks." His fingers slid over mine as he gave the drawer a gentle wiggle from left to right, followed by a slow tug that freed the old wood from its track.
He lifted his hands from mine, backing up a step as the drawer slid open, and I immediately felt his absence. Chalking up the small spark of attraction to frayed nerves and a need for comfort and reassurance over the building concern about Lars, I cleared my throat and looked inside the drawer. A bundle of burgundy velvet the size and shape of an oval hand mirror minus the handle took up most of the drawer space. A few pieces of chalk rolled around beside it.
"I didn't realize you had the gift of clairvoyance as well." Nicholas moved a few jars and scrolls out of the way, clearing a space on the counter for me to work. "It wasn't in your file."
"My file? Your uncle has a file on me?" And just like that, I remembered how Nicholas came into my life, and any spark of attraction was quickly snuffed out.
He shrugged, as if to say I should have expected it, and he was right, I should have.
"It wasn't in my file because I'm not gifted in the art of divination. I'm going to make a looking glass."
"You know how?" He was instantly back by my side, crowding my space to look over my shoulder. "You know the spell for a looking glass?"
"You will, too, in a minute." I nudged him back with my shoulder. "If you give me some room to work."
With a tug on the twine holding the velvet closed, the bundle opened like a flower unfurling its petals. I caught my reflection as it rippled across the black mirror's surface, hardly recognizing myself. The altercation with Aldridge and the stress of going up against Winslow were taking their toll. More than one dark circle had taken up residence under my eyes. With my right index finger pressed against the glass, I started drawing the series of symbols that would convert the old mirror from a tool to see the future into something akin to closed-circuit television.
Nicholas watched with interest, scratching down each symbol in a notebook he'd retrieved from the shelf above the workbench. He'd put the finishing touches on the last symbol just as the tremors started in my hands. Less than a second later, the shakes moved up my forearms, across my chest, and spread like wildfire through my body.
Looking Glass spells weren't known to cause that type of side effect. But the ward being tripped at Something To 'Ink About was.
"Lars." The scrying mirror slipped from my hands and crashed on the floor into a thousand tiny pieces, the shards looking like reflections of my heart. "The shop, something's wrong. I have to go."
I headed for the door, hooking my hand through the strap of my backpack on the floor and hoisting it over my shoulder. Grimacing, I grabbed hold of the doorknob and prepared for the jellyfish-like tendrils of Nicholas's magic to sting every inch of exposed skin as I moved through his security system.
"I'm coming with you." Nicholas had his own backpack slung over one shoulder. Pressing his palm against the wooden door, he whispered the words that lowered the security and allowed us to leave the safety of his hidden workshop without setting off an alarm.
"Thanks." I was more than a little relieved and not just because we’d skipped the painful part.
The wards at the shop had never been tripped. Not in my lifetime, anyway. If they were going off, it meant Lars was in danger. Real danger. And that meant I needed backup. The possibility we'd been betrayed, that this was all part of Winslow's plan and we'd made the wrong choice trusting Nicholas crossed my mind, but I ruled the possibility out.
There wasn't time to question my instincts.
WITH A LITTLE MAGIC and an old Indian motorcycle, we made it across the city in record time. My body glued to his, I held on for dear life as Nicholas navigated the streets of Providence. He spelled the lights so we stayed on green the whole way, only dodging in back alleys and side streets once we were within three blocks of Something To 'Ink About.
Cutting the engine, we coasted into a spot behind a Portuguese bodega and tucked the bike behind the dumpster. A quick and dirty Now You See Me, Now You Don't to keep the bike hidden and we were off again. Sticking to the shadows on foot, we worked our way toward the shop. The closer we got, the closer the symptoms of the broken ward became. This ward was more than a notification system—it was meant to be a repellant. Grim had designed it himself.
I couldn't see anything from our position. Using hand signals and mouthing the words ‘move up,’ I silently instructed Nicholas to get closer. Apparently having spent zero time on covert ops or in back alleys, my gestures left him utterly confused.
I pressed my lips to his ear, almost intimately, lowering my voice to a murmur. "We need to get closer."
"I don't think we can get any closer." Nicholas, still on hands and knees, shifted his shoulders which shifted me in the process. "You're practically on top of me."
"Closer to the building. I can't see anything from here." If there had been more room in the patchy boxwood to move, I would have pinched the bridge of my nose. As it was, I only stifled a groan and nudged him forward.
"This doesn't feel right." Nicholas resisted, pushing back to keep us in the shrubbery when I would have thrust us out into the parking lot.
"Of course it doesn't feel right." Keeping my voice low while arguing proved more difficult than I would have thought. "There's two of us in a bush large enough to hide a squirrel, I'm shaking hard enough to drop what little foliage remains on the branches, and Lars is inside suffering Goddess only knows what. The entire situation is anything but right."
"It's a trap." Nicholas clamped a hand on my thigh, likely an attempt to keep me from springing out of the boxwood and hightailing it to the back door.
"Obviously." I shook my head, rattling the branches. "But Lars is in there. I know it. I can feel it."
"And you think he'd want you to risk yourself by charging in there to save him?" With one hand still on my leg, Nicholas used his free hand to draw sigils in the air. Time slowed and so did my movements.
"It's not about what he wants." My voice sounded strange, like someone playing a vinyl record backwards on the wrong speed. "He told me to run, not to take the Karen Brown appointment. I didn't listen, and now he's in there with them."
"We don't even know who they are," Nicholas said. "What if it's more than just Footmen in there?"
"Exactly. That's why we need to get closer."
The fact Nicholas remained at regular speed and time while I moved like I'd been suspended in a bowl of jello pissed me off. Several ways to pay him back for that little spell danced through my head. There would be plenty of time for that later.
It was a slow process—sloths moved faster than I did under Nicholas's spell, but I managed to get all of my weight behind one good shove and popped us both out of the bush and onto the pavement. His concentration broken, Nicholas's magic dissipated, and my range and pace of movement returned to normal.
Just in time for the explosion.
Witch fire erupted inside the shop, blasting out the windows. Glass particles in all shapes and sizes glittered in the s
ky before raining down on top of us. The parking lot and everything in it—Nicholas and myself included—were left scorched by the radiating wave of heat and flames. The old VW bus Lars used to transport our gear from one job to another looked like something out of a dystopian movie, with its tires melting in puddles and resting on its rims.
A gaping hole replaced the rear entrance, the brick charred and crumbling where the doorframe used to be. Two Footmen I'd never seen before crawled out of the blast zone, with no signs of Lars.
Forcing myself up off the ground, I snuffed out the residual flames trying to reignite on the hem of my shirt. I ignored the smell of singed hair and skin and the urge to gag when I realized both of those smells were coming from me.
Getting to Lars and getting him out was all that mattered.
The two Footmen who’d managed to escape the witch fire with their lives hauled ass without so much as a glance in our direction.
Nicholas was up and by my side, smacking at the circle rimmed in black and orange still growing on my shirt. He followed me across the lot, catching me when I stumbled over chunks of brick and debris. This was the second time in as many days that I'd been caught in witch fire, and it was starting to show. With one arm draped over his shoulder, I leaned on Nicholas for support and let him lead us inside.
Something To 'Ink About was almost unrecognizable in the haze of the aftermath. Everything inside was blackened and burnt. The old black and white photos that made up our tattoo Wall of Fame destroyed. Grim's framed tattoo flash from his younger days ruined. Smoke filled the air, burning my throat and lungs.
Nicholas let me go, falling into the grips of a coughing fit. I stumbled on, calling out for Lars in a raspy voice between coughs of my own. The ringing in my ears made it difficult to hear, but my gut feeling said there wasn't one.
I tore up what was left of the shop with Nicholas's help. Upturning furniture, busting down the door to the supply closet—anywhere Lars could be hiding or lying hurt in need of my help. We checked every inch of the place and didn't find him.
What we found was evidence the fire had started in Lars's workspace. Melted equipment served as proof that the flames burnt hottest in that section of the shop. The buckles from his pack on the floor were all that were left of him.
Lars was gone. They'd taken him from me. They'd taken everything from me.
Something To 'Ink About was more than a tattoo shop. It was more a home to me than any place else I'd laid my head. I spent more nights on the loveseat in my tiny office than I did at my apartment. Lars was more than a partner or friend. He was my family. The only family I had. He’d managed to plug the dam that broke inside me when Grim died. Without him, all the pain and anger ran free.
I was a woman with nothing left to lose who'd just been granted a death wish.
Chapter Eighteen
"DEL, I..." NICHOLAS struggled to find the words and ended up saying the most useless ones a person could. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't cut it. It's not going to bring Lars back. Or Grim." I smacked his hand away when he reached for me. Choking back tears, I headed for what was left of my office to salvage anything I could before I walked out of the shop for the last time. I paused at the burnt wood that used to be the doorway. "This is as much your fault as your uncle's. Why me? Why did you have to walk into my shop?"
He didn't respond. The silence and distance growing between us was as telling as any reply he could have made. It wasn't fair to blame Nicholas. He was as much a pawn in Winslow's plan as anyone. At least according to the rational part of my brain.
The irrational part? That belonged to the childhood version of me Grim and Lars had saved all those years ago. She crawled out of the dark corners of my mind, bringing all of her anger and fear with her. The scared little witch I used to be wanted to start a witch fire of her own, laying waste to the city and everything in it, raze it all to the ground. Let them see what their indifference to the lower class of witches created. Let them see what happens when you fuck with Adeline Severance over and over and over.
A witch could only take so much.
I left Nicholas alone in what was left of Lars's workspace and went into my office. The thought of my best friend's ashes mixed in with all the rubble fueled my hatred for anything and everything associated with the Magistrate. I peeled back the blackened area rug from its place on the floor in the center of the room, its anti-slip rubber backing stuck in parts to the wooden planks. The heat had melted the carpet fibers together, distorting the ornamental pattern I'd always hated.
"Let's be honest. It's an improvement." Nicholas appeared in the doorway, mirroring my own thoughts.
I cracked a smile despite myself. A smile must have been the equivalent of an olive branch to Nicholas because he dove right in as if I'd never been mad in the first place, proving someone can be both brave and stupid at the same time. Lucky for him, the rational part of my brain won out. We had a common goal, and he was all I had. We needed to work together.
"What's in the safe?" Nicholas squatted beside me, peering over my shoulder as I tried the combination for the second time.
"Whatever Lars came here to get. Damn it." I spun the dial to clear the numbers and started over. Nerves and adrenaline were getting the better of me. Finally, the tumblers fell into place, and the safe opened. "Third time's a charm."
I pulled out the contents, careful not to break any of the ink pots as I set each one on the floor. Miscellaneous spelling ingredients, cash, passports, a few letters, and an old black and white photo rounded out everything Lars and Grim had stashed inside.
"That's my father." Nicholas reached over, plucking the picture up off the floor to examine it more closely. "Why is there a picture of him in your safe?"
"The better question is why is he in a picture with Grim?" I took the picture from him, looking at the two men standing side by side. Nicholas looked just like his father, who was probably close to the same age at the time the picture was taken. The family resemblance was uncanny. Grim was young, too. Younger than I'd ever known him to be when he was alive. "Where are they? I've seen that building before."
"Probably on your stakeout. It's a building on campus." Nicholas shook his head, a surprised look on his face. "Grim was a candidate?"
"If he was, he never talked about it." I was about to call for Lars, to tell him what we’d found, show him the picture and ask if he knew anything about Grim's time on campus.
The realization that I couldn't hit me like a sledge hammer to the temple.
"Let's go." I packed the ink pots and spelling ingredients in my bag with care, then shoved the rest of the safe's contents on top.
“Where?” Nicholas asked.
"We've got a ferry to catch,” I said, blinking back tears. “We're paying your uncle's summer home a visit."
Nicholas followed me outside into the storm that had gathered to match my mood. Under the camouflage of the heavy raindrops that began to fall, I allowed the tears I'd held back to do the same.
"Are you sure we should go..."He eyed me from over the roof of my Chevy that I hadn't noticed was in the parking lot until he stood beside it. "Never mind. I'll drive."
The look of determination I was sure I wore on my face must have been answer enough because Nicholas unlocked the doors and slid behind the driver's seat.
"Was this here the whole time?" I set my backpack on the passenger side floorboard, taking care not to step on it when I climbed inside. A familiar shimmer of magic settled over the car when I closed the door. "Lars."
The clever glamour Lars had designed to both make the car invisible and give anyone who was actually looking in its direction a strong urge to look away dissipated with the click of my seat belt. My shoulders rose and fell as I took a breath and exhaled.
"I think he's been driving it since we disposed of Aldridge and he dropped you off at my place." Nicholas turned over the ignition before I dug my set of keys out of the front pocket of my backpack. "Probably because th
e partial primer paint job you have going on with this old rust bucket makes it less conspicuous than his van. Not too many fully restored Vanagons driving around these days. And it has a trunk."
"Trunk space is key. I mean, where else are we supposed to put a body? All seriousness, though." I ran my fingers along the edge of the dash. "The Chevy II is basically the first edition Nova. This rust bucket is historic and a work in progress."
In truth, all progress on the car had stopped when Grim died. It was our project, something we did together on Sundays when the shop was closed. Each spot of rust, each dent in the car still untouched was a memory of Grim frozen in time. Eventually I'd have to finish it or the car would disintegrate, but for the time being, it stayed the way it was.
"Historic. Right." Nicholas put the car in reverse and backed out of the spot.
Rather than waste the energy or focus it would take to explain why this car was both cool and historically significant, I closed my eyes and attempted to rest.
Aldridge's attack hadn’t been aimed solely on the physical but the metaphysical, leaving my reserves low. When—not if—I needed to use a spell other than a ward, I needed to be at my best, which I was currently not. A thirty-minute power nap on the way to the docks was exactly what the doctor ordered.
The drive to the ferry was quiet, uneventful even. Which, given my luck, meant all hell was about to break loose.
THE POINT JUDITH FERRY sounded its horn as a fifteen-minute warning. We’d pushed the Chevy down a narrow path between overgrown patches of beach grass. My car was safely hidden on a rocky swath of beach known to only a select few of locals.
Our disguises were all that remained.
Small ink pot of Halloween glamour in hand, I set about transforming Nicholas from hipster professor to West Coast beach bum, complete with sandy blond hair, blue eyes, board shorts, and flip flops. For myself, strawberry blonde hair, fair skin, hazel eyes, and a simple navy-blue sun dress with white polka dots and white sandals. My skin and scalp itched, but the glamour held, hiding any signs of who I was from the naked eye.
'Ink It Over: A Touch Of Ink Novel Page 12
