Robert grimaced, but took the mug and drained its contents. My brother had been right not to trust me. I had been lying through my teeth since he walked through the door. Reave wasn’t going to kill him if he wasn’t tattooed because I was going to take care of Reave. Unfortunately, Robert was still a target for the Towers and that was why I was going to tattoo him.
“Take off your shirt and lie on your side on the table,” I said as I took the mug back from him. He nodded, following my directions while I grabbed the paper with the coordinates and settled on the little stool beside the table as he got comfortable. There was no outline to put on his body. I was working purely from memory. But I wasn’t worried. I wouldn’t screw this up. If I wanted to save my brother’s life, the tattoo would be perfect.
I prepped the area where I would be working, shaving away the little hairs while slathering some petroleum jelly on his side. Snapping on a pair of gloves, I took up the tattooing gun in my right hand while positioning the pedal under my toe.
“I was thinking of stopping by to see Mom and Dad soon,” I said, holding the needle poised over his skin.
“I think they’d like that.” Each word was slow and slurred as he started to drift off to sleep.
“Good. I’ll tell them you said hi.”
“Thanks,” he murmured, the word nearly lost in an expelled breath. “Don’t try to save me, Gage. I’m the older brother. It’s my job . . . to save . . . you.”
A couple seconds later, a soft snoring tumbled from him as the sleeping potion took effect. Keeping Robert asleep throughout this process would make it easier for me to work the various spells and potions I was attempting.
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I stepped on the pedal and drew my first line. The world slipped away from me so that I was no longer aware of the shop or Robert’s snoring. There was only the steady buzz of the tattooing machine and the stretch of living canvas spread before me.
Six hours later, I sat back against the wall, staring at the man on the table. It had taken me nearly three hours to complete the tattoo and another three to finish all the other spells. I was exhausted, drained to the bone, but I expected my plan to work. Robert had walked in with brown hair and eyes. The tattoo had changed that, giving him blond hair and green eyes. Pushing away from the wall, I walked over and leaned down to take a closer look at him. The stubble on his now-wider jaw had a reddish tint to it and his nose looked larger and crooked as if it had been broken. There were a couple scars on his arms and his neck that hadn’t been there when he walked in. I thought they’d be a nice touch. No one would recognize him. Not our parents. And now not even Robert himself.
He shifted on the table, waking as the sleep potion wore off. I stepped back, turning toward the table where I had left his wallet with his new ID and credit cards as well as some extra cash from my own wallet.
“How you feeling, Chad?” I asked, raising my voice while pretending to look for something on the table. “You dropped off on me about halfway through. Trixie even poked her head in when she heard your snoring to make sure I hadn’t fallen asleep.” I forced a little chuckle as I turned back to him.
Robert, now turned Chad Lancaster, sat up and rubbed his head with the heel of his palm, looking somewhat dazed as his gaze drifted around the room. His memory was going to be foggy for a little while because his mind was trying to organize the holes where I had taken memories and to sort through the new ones I had put in their place. It wasn’t a smooth process since I was forced to distort a lot of old ones rather than risk leaving him with no new memories.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem. You warned me you were exhausted. You want to take a look at the tattoo?” I asked, motioning toward his ribs. He twisted in surprise and then winced as the pain reached his brain. Slipping off the table, he walked over to the mirror hanging on the wall.
“I liked your idea of doing two of your Chinese zodiac animals. It’s a very powerful tattoo,” I continued, trying to verbally reinforce the memories I had implanted about him coming into the parlor.
The tattoo was of a monkey and a wild boar wrestling, their bodies curled in such a way that they almost formed a circle. It was one of the best tattoos I had ever done. The colors, while sharp and vibrant, were soothing to the eye. The wild boar, or rather pig, represented the Chinese zodiac sign that Robert had been born under, while the monkey represented the person I was trying to change him into. In the tattoo, the monkey was winning the fight.
I didn’t put much stock in astrology and the different zodiacs, but the animals of the Chinese zodiac had proven time and again that they were effective when it came to tweaking a person’s outward appearance and sometimes personality. It was the reason I had used my own zodiac animal of the tiger to change my appearance when I had my back tattooed.
What Chad didn’t see was the code for the Towers hidden within the lines of the tattoo. With luck, he would never see it. It wasn’t meant for his eyes, but for his protection.
“It looks fantastic,” Chad said, twisting to the left and then right to take in the whole design.
“Glad you like it. Let’s get it bandaged up so you don’t miss your flight tonight.” I walked over to a table, holding a pile of gauze and tape. Chad nodded and quietly let me bandage him up while giving him proper care instructions.
When I was finished and he was dressed again, I handed back his wallet. “Oh, here. A courier dropped off your bag and plane ticket while you were out. Good luck in California.” Bending down, I grabbed a large black bag filled with clothes I had created while he was sleeping and handed it to him. I couldn’t risk letting him have any of his former possessions for fear of them triggering an old memory.
“Thanks. I think it’s time for a change of scenery and California sounds good to me. I was passing through Low Town when I heard about your shop.”
Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief. He had pulled up a thought I had placed in his brain and used it, sounding comfortable and accepting of the idea. My words and actions were matching the memories he had, so he was willing to go with it.
A knock on the door nearly had me jumping out of my skin.
“Taxi’s here,” Trixie called through the door. Her footsteps echoed through the hall as she walked toward the tattooing room.
“Great! Thanks!” Chad said, shouldering his bag. I stepped in front of him, quietly unlocking the door before he could notice and held it open. He walked out of the room and gave a wave to Trixie and Bronx before stepping into the lobby. Trixie followed him with wide eyes, but she said nothing.
As he opened the front door to leave, I stepped in front of him and extended my hand. “Take care of yourself, please,” I said, struggling to keep the waver out of my voice.
Chad gave a little smile, clearly confused by my sudden shift in emotion. I knew I was acting strange when he had no memory of us meeting before today, but I couldn’t hold it back. This was going to be the last time I ever looked at my brother, ever talked to him.
He took my hand in a firm grasp and shook it. “I will. You too. Thanks again for the great tattoo.”
And then he was gone.
I don’t know how long I stood at the front window, staring out at the empty street where his taxi had been before Trixie joined me in the lobby. Her long arms wrapped around my waist and she pressed her head against my shoulder. She didn’t ask any questions. Just stood there, leaning against me.
“When I left home the last time, I knew I wouldn’t ever see my parents, brother, or sister again, and somehow it didn’t hurt as bad as it does now,” I said in a rough whisper. “For the past couple days, he’s been at my apartment when I got home. We ate pizza, drank beer, laughed at movies we never got to watch together until now. In the span of a couple hours, he went back to being the best friend I ever had. I think I let myself dream that we could have this friendship now that I was away from the Towers. But he shook my hand, looked at me, but didn’t see me
. He doesn’t remember me and he never will again.”
“Is he safe now?” Trixie asked, her arms tightening around me.
“Safer now than if he stayed and remembered.”
“Then it’s for the best.”
She was right, but it did little to ease the pain. I was clinging to the hope that handing Reave over to the Ivory Tower council would help with the pain. The bastard was going to pay for touching my family, for destroying lives.
27
A SOFT SCRATCHING sound on glass rose over the fading chords of a Perfect Circle song playing through the speakers. I looked up as Trixie stepped away from me, also searching for the source of the sound. We turned toward the front door to see a little demonic face peering through the glass at the top. Duff was hanging upside down, clinging to the top of the door as he stared at us with his impish grin.
Bronx stepped into the lobby as I opened the door to let the hobgoblin in. Extending his leathery wings, he caught the wind as he dropped so that he could easily glide into the shop. He circled the lobby once, wagging his fingers at Trixie before lightly landing on the glass case that served as a counter. Duff puffed up his little chest and threw his wings out wide as if trying to warn off Bronx before he took a couple sniffs of the air.
“You got a cat in here?” he asked, cocking his head at me.
“No cat,” I said as I shut the door.
“You sure about the cat? I can smell a cat here.” He scuttled around the case, gazing over the edge and down through the glass, searching for Sofie.
“I’m sure. The cat’s not in the shop today,” I reassured him. He nodded, sitting down on the case with his wings gathered behind his back. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to let him rest. “Did you find him?”
“We almost lost him a couple times, but he’s not sneaky enough,” he said with an evil chuckle.
“Where is he?”
“Home.”
My stomach did a sickening little flop at that single word, but I pushed the feeling down and clenched my hands into fists along the end of the case. “He’s hoping for a little safety in numbers to work in his favor. Where are they now?”
“That’s the strange thing,” he said with a shake of his head. “They’re close. The Svartálfar are never near when another Court is close, and I know that the Summer Court is in the immediate area.”
Trixie’s hand grabbed my wrist, her nails biting into my flesh, drawing my gaze to her stricken face. I covered her hand with my free one. “I’m sure they’re only in town to stir up trouble, but we both know that their problems have already been taken care of.”
She nodded stiffly, forcing out a breath, but her grip didn’t immediately ease on my wrist. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to relax until she knew the Svartálfar had left the area or that the throne of the Summer Court was secure. With any luck, the queen and king were already working on that.
“Was he tracking the one who has the information?” Trixie inquired. I nodded.
“Reave?” Bronx’s deep voice swept through the room. He was frowning, a look of worry in his eyes.
I nodded. “He was using my brother as a delivery boy for the info, but I made a slight change of plans in hopes of protecting him. I’m going after Reave next.”
“What do you mean you’re going after him?” Trixie snapped. Using her grip on my wrist, she pulled me so that I was forced to turn and look at her. Fear clouded her lovely eyes and cut lines of worry around her mouth. “If you know where he’s at, can’t you send some message to the Towers telling them? Let them handle it.”
“You know that won’t work. Do you think the Towers would bother to sort out who knew what? No. They’d exterminate every dark elf in the area.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she said in a low, hard voice.
“You don’t mean that.” She looked away from me, but I put my hand against her cheek and turned her face back to me. “I won’t let them exterminate another group. And even if they did, it wouldn’t stop them from coming after me later. I need to deliver Reave to the Towers personally.”
“You’re going back?” She whispered her question so softly that I barely heard it, but there was no missing the horror in her expression. “You can’t go back. They’ll kill you. There has to be another way.”
“If I don’t go, they’ll kill me. They’re going to question Reave before he’s killed. My name and my brother’s are going to come up. I have to try to control the damage if I’m going to have any chance of saving either of our lives. I have to go,” I said, hating myself for the pain I was causing her.
Her voice drifted to me, weak and thready. “There has to be another way.” She sounded as if she were being haunted by visions of my dead body. Unfortunately, she had already seen that once. I’d prefer it if she’d never have to repeat that experience.
“There’s not,” I said firmly, then looked up at Bronx, who was watching with his usual unreadable, stoic expression. “If things go badly and I don’t come back right away, I’ve left a copy of my will in the back room. It can’t be executed until I’ve been missing for eighteen months, but it contains all the information and passwords you might need to keep the shop going. I’m leaving everything to you and Trixie.”
Pain exploded across my cheek, jerking my head around to look down at Trixie’s tear-streaked face. “How can you talk so calmly of dying? If you go after Reave, I’m not sticking around here, waiting to hear whether you’ve been killed or not. I can’t do it.”
The pain tearing through my heart was infinitely worse than the temporary pain in my cheek. But I pushed it back, keeping my tone hard and even. “That’s fine. You’ve got somewhere safe to go now.”
She gasped, taking an unsteady step away from me. “You’ve planned this all along. It’s the reason you’ve helped the elves.”
“When I started, it was about making sure you could stay here with me, but recently, yes, I needed somewhere you could hide safely if I failed.”
A bitter smile twisted on her mouth. “Well, you succeeded in that, because I’m not waiting here for news of your death. I can’t. Not again.” Trixie turned sharply on her heel and stalked out of the room, sliding past Bronx and into the back. I could hear her heels pounding on the floor until she reached the back room and slammed the door behind her. Duff stood and glared at me for a second before shape-shifting into a pixie so that he could easily dart off through the parlor after Trixie.
“She’s scared,” Bronx said, and I nodded in a jerky motion. “But you know she’ll be here when you get back. We both will be.”
I narrowed my eyes at the troll. “Why aren’t you asking to come with me?”
“Would you let me?”
“No.”
The troll raised both eyebrows at me and gave a little smirk. “And that would be why.” He shrugged his massive shoulders as he laid his hands on the countertop. “Seems like it’s a magic users’ party anyway and we trolls aren’t so strong at magic.” His light expression slipped away and he frowned at me. “I would go with you, though. I’d take on the Svartálfar and go with you to the Ivory Towers.”
“I know. I’d choose you guarding my back over a hundred warlocks anytime.”
“Thank you.”
I smiled weakly. “Watch over Trixie for me.”
“Of course.”
There was nothing left to say. I was merely wasting time because I didn’t want to go charging after Reave into the heart of the Svartálfar nation. I didn’t want to risk my life to capture him, only to take my life in my hands again when I delivered him to the Towers. Despite all my planning, this wasn’t going to end well. It couldn’t. But I had to keep moving. The longer I delayed, the more people were going to be hurt.
Pulling my wand out of my back pocket, I turned and opened the front door, sending a little electronic chime through the shop. As I expected, the hobgoblin darted from the back of the shop. He settled on my shoulder, one small arm resting on the top of
my head while his long tail wrapped around my biceps. He had to give me some directions to Reave’s location. We stepped out into the cool night air, ready to hunt down a dark elf.
28
THE DARKNESS SEEMED impossibly thick around us despite a velvet sky full of stars and a half-moon hanging overhead. As my eyes soaked in what little light there was, I started to pick out a thick swath of trees surrounding us. There was a feeling of empty space directly in front of me, as if the earth suddenly fell away. I decided to trust the feeling and not step forward.
I had used a teleportation spell to take the hobgoblin and myself across more than a hundred miles, leaving us close to where the dark elves were huddled. Duff had given me the mental image of the spot, promising that it was a safe distance from where he had last seen them.
I needed to get my bearings before we started out. I had no idea where the hobgoblin had taken me, just that it had been south of Low Town and my shop. Cupping my hands in front of my face, I blew a slow, steady breath into them as if trying to warm them. The air curled around my palms, brushing against my fingers as I willed it to form an almost solid ball. Closing my eyes and turning my head away, I gave one more push of energy into the ball of warm air before tossing it up into the sky. When I looked back, a ball of energy hovered a few feet above me, casting the area in a soft, white glow.
Shadows lunged and thickened where they tightly clasped to trees and in deep hollows. There was a drop-off directly in front of me. I couldn’t tell how deep it was, but I wasn’t willing to find out the hard way. I could see a path leading off to my right that seemed to snake through the forest. The trees were heavy with leaves and the brush was thick on the ground, hiding all sorts of predators, but then I wasn’t counting on sneaking up on the Svartálfar. No one snuck up on an elf on its home turf, not even a warlock.
Turning around, I saw a stone formation rise up behind me. The glowing orb ducked in closer at my command, showing that two openings had been cut into what would have been a rock wall. A rush of anger flooded my veins and I silently cursed the dark elves for ever stepping foot in this place.
Jocelynn Drake - [Asylum Tales 02] Page 32
