Angel's Ink (16 page)

In the end, it turned out to be a creature just as much of a pain in human form as it was under the caress of moonlight that finally stopped my progress down the street. I was passing by a sagging chain-link fence when a hand shot out to grab the crystal from where it dangled in front of me. Instinct took over. I jerked it away at the last second and took a quick sliding step back. At the same time, my free hand went to the gun at my back, but I didn’t pull it free. I stopped in time to take in my surroundings, but the damage was done, as everyone gathered knew what I’d been reaching for.

Leaning on the fence was a large, bare-chested man with long brown hair and deep-set brown eyes. His thin lips curled into a smile, revealing a set of white teeth that possessed a pair of long canines, leaving me wishing I had paid more attention to the
BEWARE OF DOG
sign. The rest of his pack rolled off the nearby porch and fluidly moved across the small trash-strewn yard like a set of wolves loping across a verdant field toward an unknowing buck. Werewolves. Of course, I’d run afoul of werewolves because I wasn’t paying attention. I could have given them a wider berth as I trekked down the street toward Sparks’s place, but no, I had to be completely lost in what I was doing.
Idiot
.

I eased my hand away from the gun at my back and allowed it to hang limply at my side while I tightened my grip on the crystal. I had lowered it so that it was hanging near my waist, glittering in the afternoon sunlight.

“Afternoon,” I said, meeting the werewolf’s narrowed gaze. “Is there some way I can help you?”

“Just wondering what you’re doing in our part of town,” he said in what seemed to be a friendly tone, but I wasn’t convinced, as his companions joined him at the fence. One even went so far as to open the gate and stand there. “I can’t say that I can recall your face.”

“I’m not from this part of town. I’m Gage, owner of the tattoo parlor called the Asylum, on the other side of town. Maybe I’ve done some work for one of your friends?”

This gave the leader pause, as he actually looked around at his companions for confirmation of whether any of them had gotten ink in my shop before. Unfortunately, every last one of them shook their head no before the leader turned his attention back to me.

“Hmm. That’s a shame.” I slowly reached into my back pocket with my empty hand, sending them all back a step in surprise and wariness before I withdrew a business card. Experience had taught me that it was always good to have some cards on hand because you never knew when you would meet someone who needed a little help. “Stop in sometime. Let me handle some ink for you. I’m one of the best in the city, ask anyone. If I’m not there, my coworkers are just as talented.” I handed the leader the card. He didn’t bother to even look at it, but immediately ripped it into two pieces and dropped it on the ground. I just gave him a little, indifferent shrug. “Trixie will be disappointed.”

“Trixie? Trixie Ravenwood? Dark hair and eyes? Tits?” demanded one of the other pack members as he held his hands out in front of his chest to simulate Trixie’s ample endowments and appearance under the influence of the glamour.

“Yes, that would be her.” It was a struggle to keep my voice light and indifferent when I wanted nothing more than to plow my fist into the man’s face.

“Damn, she’s fine!” he whistled, nudging one of his companions. “I’ve seen her and her work. She’s good.” He would have continued his praise, but one dark look from the alpha quickly shut his mouth.

“So, Gage,” the alpha resumed, seeming to chew on my name before spitting it out. “What are you doing in this part of town? Scouting for new customers?”

“Actually, I’m looking for someone in particular. Maybe you’ve seen him around. He would be an old man, in his sixties, with gray hair and pale skin, going by the name of Sparks. He could be working as a tattoo artist.”

“That’s interesting,” the alpha said with a nod, mocking me. “Unfortunately, information doesn’t just rain from the sky in this part of town. You’ve got to pay for it.”

“You’ve seen him?”

“Maybe.”

“What do you want?”

“Oh, I think you know,” he murmured.

My hand tightened on the leather thong that was attached to the quartz and I clenched my teeth. “It’s useless to you, just a bit of stone. You can’t even sell it for anything.”

“It must be worth something if you’re unwilling to let it go.”

I had two reasons for being unwilling to release it. First, it was my only chance at reliably locating Sparks. And second, it held my blood. In the world of spells, potions, and warlocks, a person’s blood was just a step down from having a piece of their soul. It was bad enough that Simon had ripped out a hunk of my soul already today, did I really need to give up a drop of my blood as well? I liked to think not.

“The crystal is not for sale. If you can’t help me, then I’ll be on my way. No harm, no foul,” I said, my voice growing more clipped. I knew that I was letting my temper get the better of me, but it had been a rough day and I wasn’t in the mood to be pushed and bullied by a pack of canine assholes.

“It’s a little late for that. You’ve already trespassed into our domain and now you have to pay.”

I smiled broadly at him as I shoved the crystal into my pocket. “No.”

As I expected, he tightened his grip on the fence and launched his body over it with a ripple of muscle and more ease than I could have shown. I didn’t move from where I was standing. Instead, I raised my right hand and palmed his face, stopping him dead in the air. Gazing deep into his brown eyes, I smiled as I quickly whispered a set of magic words. I swallowed a laugh at his look of shock and pain before I pushed him backward. When he landed in the yard, he had turned from a six-foot, muscular bully with a cocky attitude to a two-pound white Chihuahua.

The rest of the pack went into a frenzy of panic. Half of them immediately backed away from me, pulling toward the porch, while the other half must have stopped thinking because they moved toward me. The pack member in the lead immediately stopped as I pressed the muzzle of my gun to his forehead before he could react. I cocked the gun, capturing his full attention while the rest of the pack members came to a complete halt.

“I don’t think you want to do that,” I said calmly.

“What the fuck, man!”

“He’s fine.”

“Jack’s not fucking fine!” he said with an almost desperate whine.

“Jack? That the name of your alpha? Jack?”

“Jack, yeah. You turned him into a fucking Chihuahua!”

“Yes I did, but if you’ll recall, you really didn’t leave me much choice. I could have killed him, but I didn’t. I could still kill you, but I’m not going to because Jack will need a keeper for a few days.” It was all I could do to keep from laughing. This was the most fun I’d had all this long day.

“But he’s a fucking Chihuahua, man!” the werewolf continued to complain.

I shoved him a couple of steps from me with the gun and then put the weapon back in the waistband of my pants now that everyone’s attention seemed to be on the shivering, yapping Jack just inside the fence.

“Jack is a dog, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And dogs are relatives to wolves, correct?” I slowly pointed out.

“Sure.”

“So at the next full moon he’ll be able to shape-shift back into human form as well as his natural wolf form.”

“But that’s two fucking weeks away.”

“So in the meantime, I suggest keeping a close eye on him. Get him something to eat, and I’d keep the gate closed at all times. I’d hate for him to get hit by a car.”

“Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” I murmured as I bent down and picked up the two pieces of the business card that Jack had dropped on the ground. I handed it over to the pack member I had been talking to, who only stared at it in shock. “Stop by the shop when he’s back to normal. We can get you guys covered with some decent ink for a change.”

The werewolf looked at me in confusion, unable to understand my willingness to accept them as clients after they’d attempted to attack and I’d successfully changed their alpha into a shaking, whining ankle biter. “Really?”

“Yep,” I said, and then stepped around the pack members standing stunned on the sidewalk and continued up the street. The run-in was to be expected and no one had gotten hurt, honestly. In truth, we’d all probably gotten a good laugh out of it (except maybe Jack, but then, he’d started the mess). When all was said and done, business was business. Werewolves were great clients. They healed fast; had a high tolerance for pain; and had nice, clear skin for tattooing. Furthermore, since they tended to be parts of clans and packs, there was a lot of tagging involved, which could get complicated and expensive—all good for the tattoo artist.

As I continued down the street, I didn’t bother to pull my crystal from the pocket I had stuffed it into during the scuffle. A couple of houses down from where I had encountered the werewolves, I saw an old man standing on a stone porch stoop, wearing leather moccasins and with his arms folded over his chest. Sparks was waiting for me. He mouthed the word “Chihuahua” and shook his head with a grim smile. I shrugged my shoulders at him. He knew my secrets. He knew all my secrets because back then he was the only friend I had in the world.

The long years had changed things. I had opened my own shop, made lots of new friends, and kept my secrets tightly under wraps, with the exception of today. But then, I had always expected that one day I would end up on his doorstep and that it wouldn’t be a pleasant visit. I had a feeling that he’d been expecting me as well. Atticus Sparks was not only a talented tattoo artist, but he was also a very wise man. He was the one who had advised me to maintain a distance from my family and to avoid getting involved with other people. It was always best if I didn’t give the inhabitants of the Ivory Towers anything they could use to get at me. Letting me continue to walk the earth with their secrets was enough of a problem for them.

Chapter 14

T
he house made me hesitate. It was a ramshackle, shotgun style with its windows carefully covered to blot out all light as well as keep any nosy neighbors from peering inside. Claustrophobia set in as I stepped over the threshold into the living room. A sagging floral couch was against the far wall, while a small television with a wire clothes hanger sticking out of the top was against the opposite wall. The rest of the room was filled with stacks of old newspapers, boxes of stuff that had never been unpacked from his previous residence, and containers from old TV dinners. A blanket and a pillow were shoved to the far end of the couch, leading me to believe that he actually used it as a bed too.

Sparks had never been vastly successful with his tattooing business, but he’d made good money. The shop he’d owned had been big and he had maintained a nice-size apartment on the second floor. I couldn’t understand how he had come to the point in his life where he was obviously scraping by. Even if he couldn’t handle a tattoo machine any longer, that didn’t mean his brain didn’t hold a wealth of information that could be handed down to an apprentice for a nice price. Or at the very least, a price that would allow him to live in something better than squalor.

“So do you want me to start or do you want to go first?” Sparks inquired with a smug look on his face as he sat down on the couch. I stood in the middle of the room. There wasn’t enough room on the couch and I didn’t feel comfortable leaning against anything.

“Go for it,” I said. I was sure that he had some scathing remark, but I could take it. At the moment, I had no tactful way of tackling what I was looking at or the man I had looked up to for so many years.

“Magic? In public?” Sparks began, raising one eyebrow at me. “That wasn’t self-defense, Gage. I’ve seen self-defense, and that wasn’t it. That was you having fun, and you’re not supposed to have fun without risking the attention of the Tower twerps. You could have been killed in an instant for being so stupid, unless something has changed and you’ve moved back to the Towers.”

“No, I’m still living down here among the dregs.”

“Then what?”

I paused, trying to sum up the mess that had become my life during the past few days, but I couldn’t come up with much that seemed helpful. So I decided to keep it simple. “Simon came looking for me today.”

“Your old mentor?”

“I stopped by your shop looking for you and found him instead. He had one goal: to kill me. There was no discussion, no great reason or no law that I had broken this time. I’m beginning to think that my existence has gotten in his way up there in the Towers and he needs me gone fast.”

“So what?” Sparks snapped. “Now you’re playing fast and loose with the magic because you’ve got a bull’s-eye on your forehead? Doesn’t sound too smart to me. Sounds like you should be keeping your head down instead of sticking your neck out.” His words sounded sickeningly close to what Gideon had told me just a short time ago. The sad part was that I wasn’t sure I was going to listen to Sparks any more than I was going to listen to Gideon.

“They can find me anytime they want. I’m not changing my life or running because the warlocks have gotten their panties in a bunch.”

“They’re going to hurt those around you.”

“They’re going to try, but it’s not going to happen while I’m around. I’ve lost enough because of the mistakes I made when I was a kid. I haven’t seen my family in years. And the last time I did see them, everyone was terrified until I left. Why should I walk away from the rest of my life?”

“Because they are the warlocks.”

“That shouldn’t be an excuse.”

“It is.”

“Not for me. Not anymore. Not if they’ve decided that they’re gunning for me for no reason at all.”

Sparks heaved a heavy sigh as he shifted his weight on the sofa so that he was now leaning all the way back. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, boy.”

“They chose this route. Not me.”

Sparks snorted, relaxing. “Stubborn ass. I think this was a mutual decision. On a side note, the Chihuahua was a nice touch. I wasn’t quite sure what you were going to do, but it was a nice surprise. I hadn’t had a good laugh like that in a while. It’ll take the wind out of the bastard’s sails for a time.”