Lars needed something other than his suspicions about Nicholas. He needed something solid. Something that would convince me using the immobility mark and the silencing mark was worth risking our relationship over.
To say I was disappointed was the understatement of the century.
“Hear me out okay? He’s working for Winslow. I know you have feelings for him and that’s muddling your judgment but this is all too convenient. All of it.” Lars spoke in hushed tones, leaning in so I could hear him over the sound of Nicholas’s apartment being ransacked and the footmen barking orders to each other. “We were right not to trust him in the beginning. He’s a plant and he’s playing the long game. Winslow has been trying to get his hands on someone with death magic. Probably for years. I’m willing to bet it’s what’s behind his new war on warders. He doesn’t want to eradicate them like his buddies in the Magistrate. Not until he gets what he wants and what he wants is for you to undo the ward.”
A footman exited the building and headed down the alley in our direction. Lars reassured me the glamour would hold but not before doubling down his spell. A nervous sweat broke out all over my body; the sweater I wore, hidden beneath the glamour, clung to my skin. Dread knotted my stomach as I watched the footman come closer. After a cursory check of the alley, he seemed satisfied no one was there and started back toward his post outside the apartment— until something caught his eye.
Us.
He turned around and made a beeline for the alcove where Lars attempted to hide us from the raid he called in. “What are you doing here?”
“Just left the bars. This lightweight can’t hold his liquor.” Lars piped up, giving me a light shove on the shoulder. My wobble had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with my immobility. Lars swiped a finger across the mark on my arm and released the first spell. I staggered forward, the sudden release of his control over my magic and rush of mine flooding back into place threw me off balance and sent my stomach into turmoil. The sensation came to an abrupt end when I threw up all over the alley. The footman jumped out of the way in time.
Lars was less fortunate.
“See what I mean?” He grimaced. “Gross. What the hell have you been eating?”
“You two,” The footman pointed a finger at Lars but stayed clear of me, “get your stuff and get out of here before I have you arrested for disorderly conduct.” He kept up the rouse of mundane police officer and ordered us out of the alcove, the alley, and away from the apartment; threatening arrest again this time for trespassing if he caught us within a hundred yards of the building.
I wiped the remnants of my last meal from my mouth and stumbled out of the alley behind Lars who whipped out his phone and called for a ride-share.
The driver pulled up curbside across the street from Nicholas’s building. The driver, an attractive middle-aged mundane African American woman, opened the car window and marveled at all of the flashing lights and policemen.
“Is all that for you?” Her lush natural locks, combed into a soft sphere that complimented the sharp angles of her cheekbones, swayed as she shook her head in disbelief. After a low whistle, she added, “That’s some serious heat.”
Lars hooked his arm through mine and guided me toward the car. “If it was, we wouldn’t be leaving with you.” He opened the rear passenger door and climbed in, scooting across the back seat to make room for me.
Never get in the car with a stranger. Sage advice even as an adult. The person sitting behind the wheel was an unknown. But so was the person in the back. I knew him almost all my life but he couldn’t have been more of a mystery to me than in that moment. We didn’t turn people into the Magistrate. That wasn’t who were— even if it meant putting ourselves at risk. Lars knew better. I know this because we had the same teacher.
I shut the passenger door and walked in the opposite direction of the car, keeping my eyes cast downward to avoid eye contact with any footman I passed. One run-in with the magical law was enough for the night.
A car door opened and closed. Lars instructed the driver to wait before calling out after me. “Hey, I got us a ride. Where are you going?” His inability to use my name or cause a scene because of the Magistrate’s men made walking away easier. As if walking away from the only family I had left was easy at all.
But what choice did I have?
Lars gave Winslow exactly what he wanted when he turned Nicholas in— death magic. Stunted, but death magic nonetheless. There was only one piece of the puzzle missing. Me. If Winslow was gunning for me before, he sure as hell wasn’t going to ease up now that he had his hands on his nephew. He didn’t like or trust Nicholas. It impacted his choices. Lars rushed to judgment and acted on impulse putting us in more danger.
And let’s be honest, if our only plan was acting on impulse, I could do that by myself. Afterall, that was my modus operandi.
Two footmen, still in their mundane police uniforms, exited the building at the same time I stepped out of the alley and crossed the street. I caught a glimpse of Nicholas, handcuffed and shackled, being pulled in tow. His hair was matted, clothes disheveled and torn in places, blood and bruising highlighted the swelling around his eyes and mouth. Hardly what you’d expect for someone working for the enemy as Lars claimed.
Nicholas kept his head down, his gaze transfixed on the shackles hindering his steps. The Magistrate’s men broke him before they even got him out of his apartment and into the paddy wagon. I slowed my pace, watching as they directed him to the back of the transport van. He raised his head before stepping up inside and glanced in my direction. I hadn’t meant to stop walking or make eye contact but both of those things happened when his eyes locked onto mine. He held my gaze long enough to see through the glamour. It was then I realized the footmen hadn’t broken him.
The idea of my betrayal had.
He looked away, turning his attention back to his jailers but not before I saw the pain and despair in his eyes. I should have trusted my instincts, demanded that Lars do the same. I glanced over my shoulder at Lars who looked unphased by Nicholas’s appearance and predicament— or the fact that the blame for both of those things could be laid at his feet. He shook his head when I took another step forward, another step further from him. Lars opened the rear passenger door of the car, slipping about my disguise when he informed the driver that “she’s not coming.” He shut the door as the car zipped off in the opposite direction.
Nicholas was loaded into the back of the van. The cargo doors closed, blocking my only view of him. One of the footmen doubled-checked the lock before patting the side panel of the van and walking back to his own patrol car as the transport took Nicholas away. The parade of pretend police continued as footman after footman exited the building, each of them carrying a box or swaddled bundles that most likely contained spelling ingredients. A few carried stacks of books. The amount of magical and personal information they gathered was terrifying.
Lars did that. Lars tied everything up in a nice little bow and left it, along with Nicholas, like a present under the Solstice tree. And he made me a party to it. Had there been anything left in my stomach, I would have been sick all over again.
“Hey, I told you to get out of here.” The footman who ran Lars and I out of the alley noticed me standing on the sidewalk across from the building. “This is your last warning. Leave now or I’ll haul you in.” He adjusted his belt and hitched up his pants before stepping away from his car in my direction.
I adjusted the glamour Lars gave me to include a hood on my jacket and drew it up over my head to hide my face as I walked away from the rubble of my life.
Again.
Winslow managed to burn another safe haven and he didn’t need witchfire to do it. I didn’t have money or a place to sleep or Lars. For the first time in a long time, I was on my own again. Once a street rat, always a street rat. The circumstances that brought me back to the beginning were different but the rules always stayed the same.
Trust no o
ne and do whatever it takes to survive.
Winslow thought he had me right where he wanted me— between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to turn for help. He couldn’t have been more wrong. I relied on Grim and eventually Lars for a long time but before I found the safety and security of a real family, I was on my own. There was dirt under my nails, holes in my clothes, and occasionally days between meals. I knew what it meant to be alone in the cold.
To be unseen.
I was tired of hiding, tired of running and tired of Winslow’s shit. It was high time I dusted off my survival skills and reinvented myself.
Again.
Chapter Thirteen
I put the apartment building and the Magistrate’s men behind me and made a left at the corner. My rusty survival skills were already kicking in, telling me that was a stupid idea. Rule number three to life on the streets: keep your enemies where you can see them. But sometimes that means your enemy can see you, too, and I wasn’t ready for that.
I wasn’t sure I ever would be.
For the time being, staying alive was enough and I couldn’t do that in Providence. So, I kept walking until I reached the bus depot. I reached the ticket window just as the woman working the counter was flipping the sign from open to closed in the window.
“Figures,” I grumbled, turning to go take a nap on one of the metal benches— it wouldn’t be the first time.
A rap on the tempered glass window stopped me in my tracks. The older woman with a perfectly coiffed salt and pepper bob rubbed her almond-shaped eyes and stifled a yawn. She kept the closed sign in place but waved me back to the ticket counter.
She pressed the button on the base of her microphone. “Where you headed?”
“Anywhere but here.” I replied after a long sigh.
“Sorry, kid, sold my last ticket to anywhere about an hour ago. All I’ve got left is a ticket on the last bus out.” She clicked a few keys on her keyboard and answered the question of where to— not that it mattered. “Let’s see here... Columbia, South Carolina. Last call. It leaves in fifteen minutes.”
“How much?” I dug in my pockets and pulled out the few crumpled bills I had to my name; wincing when I counted out less than twenty.
The elderly woman’s knobby pointer fingers poked the keys one at a time. The printer whirred as it came to life spitting out a ticket I hadn’t even paid for yet. She snapped the paper off the machine, slipped it in one of their bifold envelopes and slid it through the opening at the bottom of the safety window. “This one’s on me, sweetie. Whoever they are, they aren’t worth it.”
I reached into the metal tray and took the ticket, tears welling at the rare kindness of a stranger when I needed it the most. “Thank—” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Thanks so much. I appreciate it.”
“You just remember what I said.” She pointed to the only bus in the terminal. “Better hurry. Sam doesn’t wait for anyone.” She lowered the Venetian blind in the window and clicked off the light in her ticket booth.
The bus was on the opposite end of the terminal. I watched several passengers stow their bags before boarding as I walked the full length of the bus station. I reached the bus just as the doors were closing. The driver, presumably Sam, pulled a shiny metal lever and the glass doors opened again. He was a gruff old man with snow white handlebar mustache, a stark contrast against his chocolate complexion. A glob of yellow mustard dripped from the crust of his sandwich on to the paper napkin tucked into his shirt collar. “On or off? This bus is rolling out either way.”
Ticket in hand, I climbed onto the first step. My right foot barely hit the second before Sam closed the doors, almost clipping my ass in the process. I jumped up on to the top landing, handed over my ticket, and scanned the auras of the other passengers as I walked down the narrow aisle. A Greyhound with only one way on and one way off was not where I wanted to find a surprise from Winslow or the Magistrate.
With fifty seats and only a dozen or so mundane passengers, it didn’t take long to find an empty spot. A window seat in Row E. Sam, the man who waits for no one, pulled the bus out of the station before my cheeks hit the cushion. We made a right turn, heading out of the city, and eventually out of New England before I clicked my seatbelt into place.
The other passengers on the bus were quiet. Almost too quiet. A handful dozed off, but the others? Were they running from someone or something like me? The scenery on the other side of the small window morphed from the familiar into the unknown. The city streetscape gave way to the interstate dotted with trees and tributaries once we crossed over into Connecticut.
I had a head start, but the pieces of my broken heart, like a trail of breadcrumbs, could lead Winslow’s men right to me.
With my backpack wedged against the window as a makeshift pillow, I closed my eyes and tried to catch a few hours of sleep.
***
The air brakes hissed as the bus lurched to a stop. “Baltimore,” Sammy called out as two passengers shuffled toward the front to get off at their stop. “Fifteen-minute break.”
He followed the two people disembarking the bus and headed inside the station. I decided to follow in hopes of finding not only the bathroom but some vending machines as well. My stores were low— magically and physically. I couldn’t even remember what or when I ate last and my mouth felt like the Serengeti.
I found the ladies room— or more accurately the line to the ladies’ room. More than one woman stared in disbelief when I took my place behind a young lady who looked to be around twelve or thirteen at the end of the line. She snapped her gum several times before blowing a bubble large enough to conceal her entire face. The girl turned to look behind her, little pink dots lining her upper lip from where the bubble popped.
“The men’s room is over there.” She pointed in the direction of another doorway— this one with a picture of a person without a dress and no line. When I didn’t step out of line, she got indignant. “Dude, really? I’ll call security.”
Security was the last thing I needed.
Confused, but unwilling to cause a scene and draw unnecessary attention to myself, I placated the young lady and took a couple steps in the direction of the men’s room. The lack of a line was tempting. There were stalls. If there was someone in there, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before. I rationalized all the reasons why I could use the men’s room while my bladder demanded attention. Decision made, I squared my shoulders and marched into the bathroom. I was about to make an announcement about a woman being in the bathroom when I caught sight of myself through the water spots on the mirror.
“Well, shit.” I completely forgot what my glamour looked like. Emo goth boy glared back at me. “I’m an idiot,” I muttered to myself.
The stall door opened. “We’re all idiots, kid.” An older man with salt and pepper hair stepped out and finished zipping up his khaki pants. “Acknowledge and accept it now. It’s the key to long and happy marriage.” He tucked in his shirt and moved over to the sink to wash his hands before he walked out of the bathroom.
Sage advice from an elder.
Remembering I was on a schedule, one Sam the bus driver took very seriously, I made quick work of business in the bathroom and beat feet to the vending machines. My stomach rumbled as I took in the unhealthy options. I swung my backpack around and dug down to the bottom to find enough change for a small bag of chips, some trail mix, and an energy drink. Excluding my tattoo and warding supplies, I found a paper clip, lollipop wrapper, and three pennies.
That ought to cover it.
I rolled my eyes, annoyed with myself and my lack of street smarts. I was better than this. The rust wasn’t coming off as quickly as I hoped. I’d gotten soft, used to having help and someone at my back. I glanced over my right shoulder, then my left. Everyone was preoccupied with their phones and not paying me a bit of attention. Seizing the opportunity, I channeled a small amount of magic as I hit the keys. A5. The potato chips dropped. B7. Trail mix. Just as I hit F1 fo
r the energy drink, someone called out in my direction.
Shit. Busted.
“Hey, buddy, were you getting back on that bus?”
I dropped my snacks and ran to the glass door, reaching it just in time to see Sam driving away. “Damn it.” I trudged back to the vending machines, grabbed my food and energy drink, and plopped down on a metal bench to figure out my next move.
First things first. I needed a ride. Secondly, I needed a destination. Neither of those things would manifest themselves on their own— I’m a witch, not a miracle worker— so I stepped outside to find a place to hide and performed a little magic. The first thing to go was Lars’s glamour. My odds of picking up a ride out of the bus depot were far greater if I looked like myself than a goth boy.
Lars’s spell coated my skin like magical tar. It did not want to come off. Perimeter wards were his specialty and as far as he was concerned, a glamour was, in essence, a perimeter ward for your body. Which meant he approached them the same way. It also meant breaking it down was tricky and required salt.
Thankfully, I hadn’t eaten all of my chips.
“I’m going to break out from this.” I dipped my index and middle fingers into the bag and swiped a line across my forehead, followed by a diagonal line across my left breast and one last line on my stomach. The glamour had more layers than a trifle dessert. Magic sloughed off my skin in sheets. The prospect of being on my own, left to my own devices and walking around in my own skin had my blood pumping. Using the edge of my shirt to wipe the potato chip grease and salt off my forehead, I stepped out from the gnarled vines and bushes I used as cover, feeling more like myself than I had in months.
It was time to find a mark and get the hell out of there.
“That’ll work,” I muttered to myself as I caught sight of a few frat boys with matching college decaled baseball caps walking toward a car in the lot. With a thanks to the Goddess for providing easy prey, I followed them. A quick check of their auras confirmed they were relatively harmless.
Better 'Ink Twice Page 8
