Angel's Ink (40 page)

“I’ve been thinking,” I announced, my voice cutting across the distance so sharply that Sparks flinched. “You didn’t seem all that surprised to see me the other day. I was wondering why. We haven’t spoken in a few years.”

Sparks gave only the barest of shrugs of his slumped, rounded shoulders. “I always knew that I’d see you around eventually.”

“Why did you send her my way?” I asked, grinding the words between my teeth before I could shoot them at him. I started walking again, closing the distance between us so that I was standing in front of the curb.

“I thought you could help her,” Sparks admitted. He lowered his head, and rubbed his hands over his face and through his thinning hair.

“Help?” I snapped, but quickly got my voice back under control. “She was dying of cancer. What did you think I could do?”

“Help.”

“She’s dead.”

Sparks shook his head, his tired eyes remaining on the sidewalk. His face was thin, as the skin seemed to hang off his cheekbones, deepening the wrinkles that lined his frowning mouth. He looked as if he had aged several years since I’d last seen him.

“What were you expecting me to do? I’m a tattoo artist, not some goddamn miracle worker,” I pressed when the silence stretched between us.

Atticus Sparks looked up, glaring at me through narrowed eyes. With a struggle, he pushed off the concrete steps and took a couple of steps closer. “I was expecting you to heal her, you cocky bastard!” he snarled. “Even when you were just learning how to mix potions and ink, you still walked around this place like you owned it. Okay, so you were a fast learner, but you weren’t the best there ever was and you still ain’t!”

“I never claimed—” I started in a slightly dazed voice, but Sparks was quick to cut me off.

“No? You weren’t strutting around with your nose in the air? You weren’t trying after the first year to correct
me
when I was stirring potions?”

“Hey, I wasn’t as green as some of your other apprentices!” I snarled back at him. “I learned a few things while I was up in the Ivory Towers and I didn’t see any harm in trying to apply some of that knowledge.”

“You should have stayed in that damned Tower!” Sparks shouted, jabbing his finger at the sky. His voice lowered to a sneer, as he inched closer to me. “You don’t belong here. You’re not one of us anymore, probably haven’t been for years. They brainwashed you, or maybe you were just born this way, I don’t know. What I do know is that because you think you’re better than the rest of us, you’re as bad as those arrogant bastards trying to crush us into the dirt.”

I jerked back a step into the street, feeling as if I had been smacked by my father. When I left the Ivory Towers as a young teenager and was wandering around, feeling useless and lost, Sparks had been the one to swoop in and save me. While gruff and harsh, he had still been like a father to me. He hadn’t let on once during all the years I had known him that he felt like this about me.

“How long have you felt like this?” I asked in a subdued voice.

“Since the day I first met you,” Sparks growled.

“Then why do anything? I was homeless, helpless, lost when you found me. I probably would have died out on the street if you hadn’t done something. Why bother if this is how you felt?”

“Because for some insane reason I thought I might be able to change you. That was a waste of my time,” Sparks grumbled and then turned back to the steps where he sat down on the top one with a soft grunt. He waved me off. “Much like what you’re doing now. Get out of here. I don’t have any more time to waste on you.”

I paced a few feet away from where I had been standing, clenching my fists at my sides. None of this was making any sense. “If you hate me so much, why send Tera to me? Was it just to see me fail? You wanted me to watch her die, knowing that I couldn’t do anything to help her? It looks like you could have used the money and yet you turned her away.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. Just get out of here!” Sparks barked.

“Oh, I think it’s a bit late for that,” purred a deep voice from the shadows beyond the edge of Sparks’s house. I jerked my head in the direction of the comment as Sparks lurched to his feet. The old man took a couple of steps backward, edging in my direction. The frown on his lips deepened, pulling at the lines so that they dug heavy furrows in his face. Keeping my attention on the edge of the house, I tensed when Simon strolled into view and leaned against the side of the house.

The warlock wore a dark suit with a crisp white shirt and dark tie with thin red stripes. His fingers were loosely threaded together and held just at waist level, his wand nowhere in sight. He was far from harmless, but at least he didn’t appear to be actively targeting me with a spell. Hatred glittered in his eyes as he watched me with a mocking smile. In all those years, I never saw anything other than hatred and contempt in the man’s eyes. He laughed at another’s misfortune. He took joy in pain. Simon could not be permitted to ascend to the council.

“Don’t look so sad, Gage,” he cooed as he pushed off from the corner of the house and walked toward me with slow, deliberate steps. As he moved closer, I backpedaled into the street, keeping distance between us. “You had to know that the old man was lying with every disgusting word that slipped from his alcohol-laced lips.”

I slid my gaze over to Sparks to find him also shrinking from Simon as he approached. His eyes didn’t waver from the warlock, while his expression remained unreadable. Had Sparks been lying to me? His words had been shocking and didn’t exactly feel right, but he had delivered them with such force and venom that I hadn’t questioned it. They had played on my own fears. I had wondered time and time again when dealing with Tera if I had been too cocky when she had come to me.

Simon’s dark laughter sent a shiver up my neck, drawing my full attention back to him. “You did believe him!” he exclaimed. “Amazing. I really did think you were smarter than that. Well, maybe you can be quite intelligent, but you really do lack any kind of common sense when it comes to other people. You should have taken the hint that he was nearly screaming at you.”

“Hint?”

“Leave,” Sparks grumbled under his breath.

“Yes, he was trying quite earnestly to get you to leave and you just weren’t smart enough to take the hint,” Simon mocked. He dropped his hands down to his sides and I jerked back an extra step as he paused. His smile widened at my edginess. “We both knew it would only be a matter of time before you connected the dots back to Atticus, and you would come running here for some answers. He was just hoping that you’d leave before I showed up.”

My gaze jumped from my first mentor to my last mentor, my heart thudding in my chest. I had been right. As far as I knew, Sparks and Simon had not known each other. There was no reason for their paths to cross but for me.

“You set me up,” I said softly, looking over at Sparks. The old man shrank back from me, his shoulders rising as if he expected me to throw a spell at him, or just punch him in the face. His eyes fearfully darted to me for only a second before fixing on Simon again. He was struggling to decide which of us was the bigger threat at the moment. Simon was winning that contest, but I doubted that it was by a large margin. Sparks knew my temper.

“Of course he did,” Simon proclaimed.

Sparks jumped in before the warlock could continue, trying to soothe the wounds that he had inflected only minutes earlier. “I didn’t have any choice. He came here, threatening to kill me if I didn’t help him. He knew I was the only one close to you that he could manipulate.”

“So you agreed to help him,” I said, clenching my fists at my sides. “You jeopardized my life, my work, my friends—”

“Have pity, Gage,” Simon interjected as my voice gained in volume. “He really did have no choice. I did threaten to kill him.”

Somehow I managed to be angrier at Sparks than at Simon. The warlock was just being true to his nature and hadn’t surprised me in the least. Sparks, however, had betrayed me, even if it was to save his own neck. I had believed that the old man would have my back, but then I had never really expected Simon to return to my life like this. Some part of me must have thought that I would be left in the hands of the guardians and the council, while Simon returned to his old life, pushing me out of his mind.

But Simon couldn’t be free of me. I was a blot on his otherwise clean record. A grim smile curled the corners of my lips as I stared at the warlock. I was as much a thorn in his side as he was in mine. And the only way either of us was going to be free was to kill the other. I wasn’t a coldhearted, bloodthirsty killer by any means, but I knew that if any of us were to have a shot at living, Simon had to die and there was no one else who could do it. Of course, as I thought about all the abuse I had suffered at the hands of this man as well as the dark future that lay ahead for the human race should he succeed, I found that I was more than willing to take on the task.

Taking a step back, I opened my hands at my sides and attempted to secretly draw some energy together for a spell, but Simon instantly sensed the shifting in the air and tensed. His left foot slid back a little to brace himself for whatever I was preparing, while his own hands shot in front of his body, fingers slightly curled as he wove together, like a spider’s web, strands of energy. I gritted my teeth and threw my hands out, but not at Simon. The energy exploded from my fingertips and slammed into Sparks. The old man was lifted from his feet and thrown against the side of his house, where he slid, unconscious, to the ground. He had been knocked out before he hit the peeling wood siding, so he didn’t feel the impact. I just hoped that I hadn’t broken anything with the spell.

I shook off the concern and concentrated on Simon. Broken bones would mend. Bruises would heal. I had needed to get Sparks out of the line of fire so Simon couldn’t use him as a shield or distraction when I attacked.

“How sweet,” Simon said. “The human betrays you and you gently move him out of the way so that he can’t get caught up in the fight. Very noble of you.” A sneer wiped the last remnant of amusement from his features.

“Maybe I’m just looking forward to dealing with him at my leisure once I’ve brushed you aside,” I mocked, earning me a fresh scowl. It had always been easy to get under Simon’s skin. But then, as far as I knew the man hated everyone, making it easy to piss him off.

The warlock’s temper snapped. With a wave of his arm and a quick flick of his right wrist, he threw a ball of energy at me that was meant to sizzle through flesh and break bone. Raising both arms with wrists crossed in front of me, I conjured up a defensive spell in time to block his attack, leaving the energy to dissipate harmlessly over the softly humming blue shield. The amulet lying against my chest warmed at the presence of magic, as if suddenly waking from a deep slumber. I wasn’t sure what it could and couldn’t do, so I was more than willing to rely on my own abilities for now. I just hoped that the amulet managed to kick in a little juice should Simon succeed in getting through the defensive spells I did know.

“One last thing,” I called as Simon sidestepped out into the street with me. “I would like that portion of my soul you stole before I kill you.”

Simon chuckled, creating an uneasy twisting in my stomach. “It would seem that I no longer have it in my possession. I sold it to someone I thought could find some use for it, since I truly doubt you were using it.”

The warlock’s grin dimmed slightly when I failed to react with anger. Instead, I nodded at him and gave a little bow. “I guess we do have something in common after all.”

“I doubt that.”

“I no longer have that bit of soul I stole from you either. I traded it to someone I thought could put it to good use. He seemed to be quite pleased with the exchange.”

“You bastard!” Simon roared at me as he charged. He reached into the left sleeve of his jacket and pulled out a gnarled wooden wand made from an ash tree. Giving it a quick twirl over his head, he pointed the wand at me with a snarl on his face. A bolt of electric green energy shot from its tip and hammered into the blue shield that I was still holding in place. The shield cracked under the intensity of the blast and the energy shot through, aiming for my heart.

A second golden shield burst into life before Simon’s green bolt could strike me, knocking the energy back toward its creator. Simon shouted as he dodged the energy blast, flattening himself against the pitted asphalt street. The magic deflection amulet worked, to my great relief. I didn’t wait for the bastard to rise to his feet. Skidding over to the gutter, I snatched up a jagged piece of glass glittering in the dirty lamplight before launching myself at Simon. The old man started to roll away from me as I landed beside him. The glass dug deep into his upper arm, wringing a scream of pain out of him.

The deep cut didn’t deter him as he reached up and grabbed the collar of my T-shirt. Confusion ensued. I had summoned up some energy at the same time as Simon. Between the two conflicting spells and the power from the magic deflection amulet, there was an explosion centered between us, throwing both Simon and me in opposite directions. As we were pushed apart by the force of the blast, I heard my T-shirt rip, followed by a pull against the back of my neck. A glint of silver caught my eye as it hurtled through the air away from me. Simon had grabbed the chain the amulet hung from and had pulled it from around my neck. Yet the force of the blast sent it spiraling out of his grasp and flying through the air away from both of us.

I slammed into the ground with a painful crunch as at least two ribs fractured under the impact. Rolling several feet until I hit the front bumper of a stationary car, I winced as pain spiderwebbed throughout my body. I had lost the magic deflection amulet, but at least Simon didn’t have it either.

With a grunt of pain, I rolled over to my hands and knees, trying to pick myself up again. My head was pounding and my ears were ringing from the blast. Lifting my head, I found Simon still on the ground, but moving slowly. A gentle hand slipped under my chin and tilted my head up so that I looked into a pair of deep black eyes. Dark hair framed her face, while pale grayish-white skin shone like a dirty pearl in the nearby light. I blinked a couple of times, my mind struggling to take in the figure kneeling before me.