Robert relaxed on the bench beside me, stretching his legs out while rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. “How do you think? Some guy.” I laughed at the disgust in his voice, but he wasn’t serious. “You know, our sister didn’t turn out half-bad-looking. Good thing she was the one in the family that also ended up with the brains. As soon as she finished college and got her teaching certificate, she ran off to Germany with this guy she met.”
“She still with him?”
Robert snorted. “Lasted three months.”
“And she didn’t come home after that?”
“Would you?” He arched one brow at me, mocking. I shrugged. Truth was, the Ivory Tower I had lived in was in Europe and I’d seen most of the hot spots in Europe by the age of fifteen. They were nice, but I liked living in Low Town.
“She lasted in Germany for another few months, then ran off to Austria, Croatia, Uzbekistan—don’t ask me why—and then Romania. I doubt that’s everywhere, but our dear sister has been kind enough to censor her e-mails to me.”
I smiled at his tortured expression, leading me to believe that our dear sister wasn’t censoring her letters enough for Robert’s comfort. I held on to the smile, pushing down a nagging feeling. By my guess, Megan had been traveling Europe for a couple years and Robert hadn’t seen our parents in a few years, so who was watching over them? When I left my family the second time after escaping the Ivory Towers, I had consoled myself with the thought that my parents still had my siblings.
There was one other bothersome question nagging me. Why had they left Vermont? It could have been nothing, but I doubted it. I pushed the question down with the other and looked at my older brother. It could wait. He was living in Low Town. We had found each other again, and if I was careful, we could safely stay in contact without the Towers ever getting wind of it.
“You know that leaves only one important question,” I said.
Robert stiffened a little as he looked at me. “What’s that?”
“What the hell are you doing here? I mean, of all the tattoo parlors in Low Town, how did you end up here?” I laughed.
The tension instantly flowed out of his body and he lounged against the bench again. He waved one hand at me and smiled. “Oh, that. Reave sent me.”
6
I DON’T RECALL getting to my feet, but I suddenly found myself standing in the middle of the lobby, barely holding together the rage that was burning through my brain. That fucking bastard! Reave had my brother. My older brother was working for that low-life Mafia scum. The dark elf had found a way to get even with me. I thought it was over when he had ordered Bronx’s beating. I had been punished and I thought we would be starting fresh, but Reave had shoved the knife a little deeper into my gut.
The Svartálfar was using my brother for whatever horrible job he needed done, putting him in danger. It was the perfect way to force me to do exactly what he wanted. I had to protect my brother. No matter what he was doing or how he was involved, I had to protect my brother.
“Reave?” I demanded in a rough voice when I could get my teeth to unclench enough so I could speak. “You work for the fucking Svartálfar bastard Reave?”
Robert pushed to his feet and pointed one finger at me, his expression losing all its earlier lightness. “Watch what you say about Reave,” he warned. “He’s my boss and he’s been good to me.”
I pressed my hands to my temples, my fingers threading through my hair as I swallowed a scream of frustration. It had suddenly become hard to breathe, as if the air had been sucked from the room. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to block out the sound of blood pounding in my ears like a tribal drum. Energy sizzled against my skin. The magic was building, pressing against the seams of the walls. With a push, I could blow the entire building down. I could rip it apart like a twister blowing through a trailer park.
Trixie’s voice was suddenly there. Soft, breathless, and desperate. Her pleading penetrated the fog, so that I could feel her gentle hand on my cheek and the other arm wrapped around my back, her slim fingers digging into the side of my waist.
“You have to breathe, Gage. Just let it go,” she was saying. “Let go of the magic. If they catch you, they’re going to kill you. They’ll kill us all.”
Another, larger hand landed on my shoulder opposite to where Trixie was pressed against me. Strong and firm. Bronx. “Let it go, Gage.”
Overhead, soft popping followed by the tinkle of glass echoed through the shop. The lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling were exploding and the glass was falling inside the protective containers that surrounded them. I opened my eyes to find that the parlor was black except for the light coming in the front window and door from the street. Robert was standing with his back pressed against the far wall. There was no missing the terror on his face.
Fresh pain lanced through me. I flinched and Trixie pressed closer, holding me a little tighter as if she could absorb the pain. Robert was working for the devil but he was looking at me with fear in his wide eyes—as if I would ever hurt him. We had had scuffles as kids, but I didn’t hurt him and I had never hurt him with magic.
“He’s got my brother,” I whispered in a rough, broken voice. My world was breaking apart around me, but Trixie and Bronx continued to press close.
“We’ll fix it,” Trixie murmured in my ear, and Bronx’s hand squeezed my shoulder.
Dropping my hands from my head, I dragged in a deep breath in an attempt to relax the muscles that had tensed throughout my body. The energy dissipated. The soft snap and crackle faded to nothingness and the air seemed less thick. Trixie loosened her grip on me, but remained close.
Bronx waited for a nod from me before dropping his hand. He looked up at the darkened light fixture above us. “I think we’ve got some spare bulbs in the storage closet. I’ll go get them and the stepladder.”
“It could have been worse,” Trixie said, drawing our gazes. “It could have been the front window . . . again.”
Bronx shook his head as he left the room. I tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. Trixie was trying and I appreciated it. “I’ve yet to break the front window. That’s Bronx.”
Trixie dropped her arms from around me and grinned. “It’s not like you didn’t want to.” She was right. Less than a year ago, a customer Trixie was tattooing had hit on her hard. She was polite but it was obvious that she was becoming uncomfortable with his persistence. Bronx gave the asshole one warning, but he didn’t listen. A minute later, he was flying through the front window.
Trixie tried to step away from me, but I grabbed her wrist, holding her in place. “Trixie, this is my older brother, Robert,” I started, looking at my brother. He was still pressed against the far wall as if he were trying to sink into the plasterboard rather than be in the same room with me. The fear was gone from his eyes, but so was the easy laughter. “Robert, this is Trixie. She’s a tattoo artist here, and she’s . . . my girlfriend.” The last two words fumbled from my mouth, but then it was the first time I had ever introduced her as such.
Trixie shot me a smile before turning to face Robert. She extended a hand toward him and he hesitated before quickly shaking it. “It’s nice to meet someone from Gage’s family.”
Robert mumbled something that I didn’t quite catch before sinking back against the wall. Trixie turned to me and gave a little roll of her eyes. She wasn’t afraid of me and I loved her for it. Bronx wasn’t afraid of me, and in my own way, I loved him for it, though I was grateful that I didn’t feel the need to kiss him like I needed to kiss Trixie.
She wrapped her long arms around my neck as she snuggled close. “Get out of here. Your shift’s done. Spend some time catching up with your brother.”
“I’ll see you later tonight.”
“You’re stopping by?” she asked, going for innocent, but the wicked light in her eyes ruined it.
“Oh, yeah. Gonna need to.”
Trixie gave me one last lingering kiss that managed to put a different kind of tensio
n into my body before gracefully sauntering from the room. I glared at Robert when I saw his eyes following her. My older brother opened his mouth, but I stopped him.
“Watch what you say or I will give you a reason to be afraid of me,” I warned.
Robert glared at me. “She’s hot,” he said as if daring me to argue with him.
I snorted and shook my head. “Yeah, I’ll give you that one. Let me grab my jacket and we can get out of here.”
“What about the tattoo Reave said you’d work on?”
Rage flooded my veins once again, but I kept my head this time. It wasn’t as much of a shock as it had been the first time. “I doubt what Reave has planned is something I can slap on in a few minutes. We’ll need to talk and plan. And drink.” The drinking probably wouldn’t help much with the planning, but it would help me from exploding again—safer for all those around.
Using the dim light from the front window, I walked into the main tattooing room to find that Bronx had already lit some candles and was in the process of setting up the stepladder so he could replace the fluorescent bulbs I had destroyed.
“I’ll be upstairs in case you need anything,” I announced. I crossed to the far cabinet and knelt down as I pulled it open.
“You taking the Mordred?” Bronx asked from the stepladder in the center of the room.
A little shudder racked my frame. “Absolutely not. I need to mellow out, not get stupid. I’ve got a bottle of Jack that should get us through without killing each other.” I may have hated Reave and held no love for the entire Svartálfar race, but by all that was sacred and pure, they knew how to make a damn good whiskey. Mordred was fucking hard to get your hands on if you weren’t Svartálfar and like liquid fire going down, but damn, it was good.
“I can take your keys to the shop. Protects against intoxicated tattooing,” Bronx offered.
“Fuck you,” I grumbled with no real venom. The last time Bronx and I had drunk Mordred together, the results were not good. Suffice to say, Bronx had tattooed an incubus, resulting in an outbreak of mass fornication that needed to be stopped.
I grabbed the liter bottle and stood, shutting the cabinet with my knee as I scooped up my jacket off a nearby chair. “I’ll talk to you guys later.”
Robert was out in the lobby when I returned, looking as if he wished he had left but was afraid to after my temper tantrum. He followed me out the front door of the parlor, but paused when I started down the alley beside the shop.
“Where we going?” he demanded, stopped at the mouth of the alley.
“Somewhere we can talk and drink.” I held up the new bottle and gently shook it back and forth as if trying to tempt him. Or hypnotize him. I’d take that. He frowned, but started to follow after me through the alley to the back of the shop and then up the wooden stairs to the second floor of my building.
After Asylum took off, I managed to buy the entire building from the owner instead of renting. I had lived in the second-floor apartment for a while, but had moved out a few years ago so I could get a little space in my life from work. The apartment above the parlor was kept empty for times like these, when it was better to deal with matters here rather than drag anyone into my home.
“This your place?” Robert asked as he shut the door behind him.
I shook my head. “Just somewhere I crash on occasion.” Setting the bottle on the scarred coffee table, I walked into the tiny kitchen and grabbed a couple plastic cups that I kept there. I paused, staring at the disposable plastic cups. It had been a while since I had gotten plowed in this apartment with a friend or two. Was I mellowing out too much? Getting old? I rolled my eyes and wandered back into the living room with its cracked beige walls and stained carpet to find Robert sitting on one of the sunken cushions of the couch.
Sitting on the other end of the couch, I poured us each a healthy shot of whiskey and sat back. “All right, talk.”
Robert took a big swallow and winced as it went down. Definitely not as smooth as Mordred, but it would get the job done. “I don’t have to tell you shit.”
“You’re going to talk and tell me every fucking thing I ask for. I deserve that if I’m going to protect you from whatever Reave has got you involved in.” I set my own glass down without drinking. It was like talking had triggered all the emotions that I had managed to get a handle on. “Why are you fucking working for Reave? You’re not an idiot. Fuck. How could you do this to Mom and Dad?”
“Do this to Mom and Dad?” he repeated, looking at me like I had lost my mind. “I’m not doing this to them. I’m helping myself, and what the fuck do you care about Mom and Dad? What the fuck do you care about any of us? You left!”
“Of course I left!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. Robert pushed to his feet as well so I wouldn’t tower over him. Whatever fear he was feeling toward me wasn’t there now—we were both too pissed. “I had to leave if I wanted to protect you and Meg and Mom and Dad. The Towers might have let me go, but they weren’t going to let me live happily ever after. I’ve had warlocks and witches hunting me for years. You think they wouldn’t have tried to use you or Meg as leverage to get me to do what they wanted? Fuck! I left because I had to.”
“You should have never come back in the first place!” Robert roared. I took a step back, my anger instantly melting away, but Robert didn’t notice. Apparently there was something on his mind that he had been itching to vent. “When you disappeared as a kid, we told the world that you had been killed in an accident. You think we could tell anyone that you became one of them? We would have been lynched in a heartbeat. But no! You came back, destroying everything. Dad tried to make up stories, like you were a distant cousin, but no one believed him. They knew you had been taken to the Ivory Towers. They knew you were a warlock, and everything changed.”
Robert paced a couple angry steps away from me and then turned back, his face twisted with pent-up rage and pain. “You want to know why Mom and Dad moved to Low Town? Because of you. They left Vermont and New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and West Virginia because they were trying to outrun the rumors that they had given birth to a warlock. They came to Low Town to hide!”
I collapsed on the couch behind me, staring blindly at the wall. Whatever anger I had felt only seconds ago about my brother being a part of the Low Town Mafia evaporated. My chest ached and there was a lump growing in my throat threatening to cut off my breathing. In my lifetime, I had been burned, stabbed, poisoned, shot, and had a chunk of my soul ripped off. This felt worse. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt to think, but I couldn’t stop my mind from churning over the same thought. If I had never returned home after leaving the Towers, my family would have been happy, healthy, and safe.
I had been sixteen when I left the Towers and I couldn’t think of any place I wanted to go more than home to my family. I hadn’t seen them in nine years, but they still represented the only happy memories I had in my life. They were laughter, warmth, and love wrapped in a modest middle-class home on an old tree-lined street in Vermont. I had nowhere else to go and nowhere else I wanted to go. I knew that it was only temporary; I didn’t trust the council’s promises and reassurances. But I needed help and my feet set. I was only sixteen.
When I walked in the front door, Mom cried. She held me so tight and cried tears of joy. She cried for four days every time she looked at me. Dad cried too, his arms wrapped around Mom and me. No one asked questions. We hugged, cried, and were happy to be together. I could only guess that was before anyone started to think about how the rest of the world would react to my miraculous return from the dead.
I should never have gone home.
“Gage, man,” Robert whispered beside me. The couch shifted as he sat down again, but I was still staring straight ahead, my body so stiff that muscles ached. I was afraid that if I moved, I’d shatter. I had destroyed my family. I destroyed them by being a warlock and by returning home to give away their secret shame.
“I didn’t know.” My voice was rough
and low like I had been gargling razor blades, and it was starting to feel that way as well.
“I know. They didn’t want you to know and, man, I’m a fucking idiot. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not your fault.”
A short, bitter laugh escaped me as I looked over at him through narrowed eyes. “Yeah, not my fault that I was born a warlock, but it was my fault that I came home.”
“We never felt that way.” I frowned at him, not needing the lies. Robert squeezed my shoulder and smiled. “Well, okay, so maybe I was pissed at you for a year or two right before I dropped out of college, but then I got my shit together. Mom and Dad never regretted you coming home. Not once.”
“I ruined their lives. I’m guessing I screwed up yours pretty badly as well as Meg’s.”
Robert gave my shoulder a shove but didn’t let go when I started to look away from him. “It’s not your fault. Blame it on the assholes in the Towers. Hell, better yet, blame it on the assholes that ran us out of New England. They only focused on the fact that you’d been born a warlock—which could have happened to any one of them just as easily. They should have been focusing on the fact that Mom and Dad raised a kid who was smart and brave enough to fucking leave the Towers.”
I nodded, trying to breathe. “Thanks.”
Robert dropped his hand back to his lap while reaching for his drink with the other hand. I did the same and we both finished our first glass before either could speak again. The alcohol would numb the worst of the pain. There was truth to what Robert had said, all of what he said. It wasn’t all my fault, but by the same token, I should never have gone home when I was a teenager.
“You should go see them,” Robert suggested. He reached across the table and snagged the bottle, pouring us both a new glass.
“Mom and Dad?”
“Yeah. I know they’d love it. They miss you.”
I sat back against the couch and stretched out my legs, trying to ease the tension crawling through my frame. “I don’t know if it would be safe.”
Jocelynn Drake - [Asylum Tales 02] Page 7
