3
REAVE SURPRISED US as we reached Trixie’s apartment complex. Escorted to a large, dark warehouse in a not-so-nice part of Low Town, we stood in an open area with large wooden crates lining the far walls. Reave’s black clothes and liquid black hair allowed him to nearly disappear into the shadows. Streetlights leaked through the dirty second-story windows, but he avoided the light for the most part.
To say that Reave was pissed would be an understatement. The Svartálfar wasn’t raving and stomping around the room while intermittently throwing things at us. Dark elves, like their Summer and Winter Court brethren, didn’t show emotion like that. But the telltale muscle spasm at the corner of his eye and the constant fisting and unfisting of his hands said it all.
“Why do it, Gage? That’s all I want to know,” Reave said in a low, even voice. He almost sounded reasonable.
I shrugged, fighting to not look over at Bronx. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. You wanted the house protected from intruders. I protected it.”
“While destroying my supplies in the process.” Each word was ground between clenched teeth. “There are consequences for every action.”
It happened too quickly for me to react. Two pairs of hands roughly grabbed my arms, jerking me away from Bronx while at the same time turning me so I could easily see him. Five large trolls stepped out of the darkness toward Bronx and began beating on him. He fought back for a few seconds, ducking blows and swinging his meaty fists, but they were too many and too strong. Trolls can take a beating, but even they will start to fold under so much abuse from their own kind. As Bronx was knocked to the ground, I increased my struggles against the hands holding me while screaming at Reave until I was hoarse as they kicked Bronx in the ribs and stomach.
The dark elf jumped from the shadows; a long curved blade winked in the faint light before it was pressed against my throat. The sharp edge bit into my skin, sending a trickle of blood down my neck.
“Easy, warlock,” Reave snarled in my ear. He was taller than me, forcing him to bend his head down and press it against the side of my head so that I could hear his ragged breathing. The knife sawed into my neck while he crowded close, but my eyes were locked on Bronx as he tried to regain his feet under the punishing blows. “Hold it together. We wouldn’t want any accidents.”
“Let him go, Reave!” I shouted. “You know he had nothing to do with what happened at the house. It was me. Punish me.”
Reave chuckled in my ear, tilting the blade so that it slipped a little deeper into my throat, sending more blood down my neck. “Does it really feel like you’re not being punished right now? If you want to break a man, you hurt the ones he loves first.”
“Stop it! You’ve f*cking won!” I couldn’t pull my eyes from Bronx. He had stopped moving and was lying on the dirty warehouse floor, curled into a fetal position as he tried to protect his head and gut.
Reave pulled the blade away and smiled at me as he stepped into my line of sight. “I won months ago. You’re just slow to realize it.” As he turned from me, he snapped his fingers. The trolls stopped beating Bronx and stepped away while the hands on me fell from my arms. Pressing one hand to my throat to slow the bleeding, I hurried over to Bronx and knelt beside him. What I could see in the darkness wasn’t good. His face was bloody and swelling so that he could barely see out of either eye. I couldn’t tell if his nose was broken because it had always looked somewhat broken to me, but I figured it was a safe guess that it was by his labored breathing through his mouth.
“I warned you, Reave,” I said in a low voice. “I warned you that I wasn’t going to do anything that would hurt someone else. I’m not going to kill anyone for you, and leaving that house as it was would have meant killing pixies. I don’t regret what I did. And if I find another one of those f*cking fix houses, I’m going to do it again.”
“And risk putting Bronx in danger again?” Reave asked lightly. His voice echoed across the warehouse, dancing through the shadows. He was walking, but I couldn’t see him.
Energy crackled around me as I grew angrier with each passing second. I wanted to burn away every shadow and dark corner in that room so Reave had nowhere to hide. I wanted to run him to ground and beat him the same way Bronx had been beaten. But I did nothing because I couldn’t afford to draw the attention of the Towers, and Reave knew it. “No. This was the last time you’ll ever touch Bronx. I promise you.”
Reave laughed. The sound was like razor blades across my back, leaving me gritting my teeth until my jaw ached. “You’re right. I’ll leave Bronx alone. You’ve got plenty of other people in your life that you care about.”
I kept my mouth clamped shut, fighting the urge to warn him off of Trixie. He knew about her. There was no reason to prove my feelings for her even more, deepening the danger. My jaw throbbed from my clenched teeth while I mentally repeated to myself, If you use magic, the Towers will kill you. Everything was insane right now in the Ivory Towers, and they would jump on the opportunity to string me up in hopes of reining in the chaos. Gideon wouldn’t be able to protect me.
My death meant that Bronx would be trapped working for Reave. A dead Gage meant that Trixie was in danger and on the run from the Summer Court. If I kept my temper and was smart, I could stay alive and help my friends.
“If you have no more use for Bronx as leverage, then release him from your little organization,” I said when I had my emotions somewhat under check. “You only need me.”
Bronx groaned softly. “Shut up, Gage.”
“The troll is right. Shut up, Gage. I have plenty of uses for Bronx. I’d hoped that he might be a voice of common sense for you, but he has failed at that endeavor. I guess I’ll have to find something else to do with him.”
“You’ve got plenty of others to do your dirty work. People who want to be here. Let him go.”
Bronx shifted beside me, slowly uncurling his body, but still remaining on his side so that his back was to Reave. “I work with Gage or not at all.”
The dark elf stepped close, moving away from the shadows to the edge of a square of light. His expression was blank as he stared at Bronx’s inert form. I tensed, waiting. If Reave did anything more than breathe, I would jump the bastard. My friend had been hurt enough because of me. I wasn’t about to let Reave inflict more harm.
“Fine. Rein him in,” the dark elf bit out. There was an “or else” left hanging in the air. We both knew that if I crossed Reave again, Bronx would be killed regardless of whether he could stop me.
He paced away, brushing his hands against each other as if wiping away the distasteful business that had brought Bronx and me to his doorstep that night. I wished he would leave so I could work on healing Bronx. A handful of healing spells could fix the worst of his wounds, but he would still need to get home and rest. The cold concrete floor that he was currently lying on didn’t seem like the best option.
“Now then, since my first task seemed too difficult for you to handle, I’ve got a new job for you,” Reave began, as if he was content to wipe away all the previous unpleasantness. I frowned, keeping one reassuring hand on Bronx’s shoulder. I wanted to tell this a*shole where to shove his new job, but I kept my mouth shut. Obviously Reave was done trying to get me to cooperate through beating me. He was going to drag in one person I cared for after another and beat them until I agreed to his terms.
He paused and turned to look at me, waiting.
“What job?” I asked through clenched teeth, earning a grin from the dark elf.
“I’m so glad you asked.” Reave chuckled and resumed his pacing. “I have someone that will be doing an important errand for me and he needs some added protection. Unfortunately, he can’t travel with the usual assignment of muscle. It’s too conspicuous. As a result, you will be giving him a tattoo that will provide him with the needed protection.”
It seemed too easy and it appeared as if it would be legal as well. “What kind of protection does he need?”
“I think that will best be decided by you.”
“How can I do that? Who am I protecting him from? What’s this job that he’s doing for you?”
“Delivery.” I waited for Reave to elaborate, but he didn’t say anything else. I sighed, running my free hand through my hair, leaving it standing on end. It was turning out to be a long f*cking night.
“Fine. Am I to meet this person somewhere or will he come to my shop?”
“He’ll stop at your tattoo parlor for the work.”
“When?”
“Soon,” Reave called over his shoulder as he started to walk out of the warehouse with his flunkies following behind him.
“Hey! You never told me his name!” I shouted, lurching to my feet.
“You’ll know him when you see him.” Reave’s comments were soft as they floated across the empty expanse toward me.
I stared at the door that slammed shut behind the last thug as he exited the warehouse, leaving me alone with Bronx. My heart thudded in my chest and a chill crept down my spine. I’ll know him when I see him. Yeah, that sounded bad. I knew a lot of guys who were involved in some shady shit, most of them being tattoo artists. But as far as I was aware, none of them had these kinds of dealings with Reave and his sort. I wanted to pretend that Reave hadn’t found another way to strike at me, but even my imagination wasn’t that good.
Bronx groaned as he rolled onto his back. The pain left him panting heavily and I could see sweat—or blood—shining on his wide brow in the faint light.
I knelt at my friend’s head and hastily pulled off my light jacket. Fall was just settling on the city and the nights were still warm, but I had grabbed it more out of habit than real need. I rarely remembered to glance at the weather report most days and I had learned from experience that weather in Low Town was unpredictably strange on the best of days. I placed my hands on either side of Bronx’s face and angled his head so that he was staring straight up at me. He winced at the movement, but didn’t make a sound. Quickly folding my jacket, I gently placed it under his head.
“Where’s the pain?”
“My body,” Bronx grunted.
“A little more help, please.”
“Get me home. I need some rest.” His words were labored between bursts of heavy breathing. Each breath was wheezy and slightly liquid, making me think that one of his lungs had been punctured, possibly by a broken rib or two. If I had to guess, he had internal bleeding from several organs and broken bones, and a concussion. From what little I knew of trolls, they weren’t the quick-healing type like shifters or vampires. If I didn’t do something, Bronx would drown in his own fluids.
“You need a lot more than rest, but you don’t seem the take-me-to-the-hospital type.”
“Go to hell, Gage.” Bronx gasped as he tried to move, clenching his eyes shut.
“Already there,” I said, but my mind was elsewhere, focused on setting up the cloaking spell I needed in order to do my work. I was planning to do a whole lot of loud magic and I wasn’t stupid enough to do it right out in the open to draw the attention of every Merlin and Morgana in the Ivory Towers. Gideon might not have been actively hunting my ass, but that didn’t mean others weren’t watching for me to f*ck up.
The cloaking spell wasn’t without its defects. No one would be able to see what I was doing, whether they were using magic or not. To the naked eye, we were invisible. When I was using magic, a warlock or witch would simply see us sitting on the warehouse floor, but at the same time there was an energy void around us. Voids were anomalies created by magic spells, which would raise questions should a warlock or witch stumble upon us. My plan wasn’t foolproof, but without the cloak, my healing spells would be like fireworks in a frigid winter sky.
“You using magic?” Bronx asked.
I sighed as the cloaking spell fell easily into place with a wave of my hands and a couple of whispered words. “Just a bit.”
“Don’t. You’ve . . . got enough problems.”
“Stop talking. You don’t want to distract me,” I said, earning me a low growl. “Got to heal you. I’m not carrying your heavy ass to the car.”
“F*cker.”
I smiled and closed my eyes as I placed both my hands on his shoulders. “Just a warning: this might not work. I’ve never tried it on a troll.”
Bronx stiffened under my fingers, sucking in a ragged breath. “Great.”
Truth was that I had never tried this healing spell on anyone but myself. Warlocks and witches were more concerned with their own survival. Hell, when we were learning to heal wounds, it was always the hard way. Our mentors beat us until we were barely conscious and then left us alone in an empty tower. You learned to heal yourself or you died overnight from a ruptured kidney or drowned in your own blood as it poured into your lungs.
Focusing on the spell, I sent a wave of energy coursing through Bronx’s body, kicking off the first phase of the spell. Organs were mended so that they were no longer losing vital fluids and were returned to normal functioning levels. They were still battered, bruised, and extremely sore, but no longer in danger of failing him. As the spell moved through him, I could feel each organ as it healed. One lung had been punctured and flooded with blood, the other bruised. A kidney had been badly damaged and it looked like his spleen was on the point of rupture. A few blood vessels had been crushed, but were now open again, sending blood through his body.
As the energy exited through my hands, I sent in a second wave. This was the painful one. Each broken bone was set back to rights, causing a sickening echo of snaps and clicking through his body. Bronx groaned loudly as the spell took effect, causing him to arch off the ground while trying to pull away from my hands. I rose up on my knees and pressed down, holding him in place. The spell needed additional time for the bones to properly set and harden again.
The second phase lasted less than a minute, but there was nothing I could do about the pain, leaving both Bronx and me covered in sweat and breathing heavily. The energy flowed back to my hands and I sent the final wave through. This one knit together any cuts in his skin, stopping any additional bleeding while urging his body to speed up the process of creating fresh blood to replace what he’d lost. There weren’t many cuts and the final wave returned to me after only a few seconds.
I fell backward, sitting on my ass on the cold concrete, trying to get my breathing to even out again. I was exhausted, but Bronx’s life was no longer in danger from his wounds. I looked down at my friend. He breathed evenly without the sickening rattle and squish I had heard before.
“What the hell did you do to me?” Bronx asked. He had yet to move and I was glad for it. He needed time to recover. You didn’t walk away from a troll beating even if you were a troll.
“Heal you.”
“Then why the hell do I still feel like shit?” he growled.
I laughed, my head dropping back so that I could stare blindly up at the ceiling. There was nothing but blackness broken by dirty light filtering through a grime-encrusted skylight. “The spell fixed broken bones, stopped bleeding, and mended organs. You’re still badly bruised and battered. Time needs to heal that. I don’t have the energy in me to fix it all.”
“You didn’t have to do it,” Bronx murmured.
“Yeah, I did.” My eyes fell shut as the memory of his beating rose back to the forefront of my mind. He wouldn’t have been touched if I had protected the house like Reave had ordered. F*ck. Bronx wouldn’t have been in this mess to start with if I had killed Reave two months ago when he first threatened me with exposure.
But I was clinging to the idea that I wasn’t a killer. Warlocks were mindless, empty killers who thought nothing of taking a life. Witches were heartless killers. I chose to leave the Towers. I chose not to be a killer.
Simon’s laughter picked that moment to rattle through my brain like the Ghost of Christmas Past. I had killed Simon, but it had been self-defense. Right? I had to kill Simon or he would have killed me.
“Gage?” Bronx said, jerking me from my thoughts. Silence had stretched between us, but I didn’t know for how long. Had he been talking to me, waiting for my response? I had to let these doubts go. F*ck you, Towers. I wasn’t one of you. And f*ck you, Simon Thorn. I hoped you liked your new job as ferryman to the dead.
“I had to heal you,” I said, my voice picking up strength as I returned to our conversation. “It was either leave you to die or carry your fat ass to the car. Do you know how hard it is to find a good tattoo artist to work in our part of town? Not that easy.”
Bronx chuckled. His normally deep voice was even deeper from the pain that lanced through his body. I rose and offered him a hand while bracing my legs to help pull him to his feet. It took a couple tries and we were both puffing heavily when it was over, but Bronx was standing without help. The troll was roughly triple my weight. There wasn’t much I could do if he couldn’t walk to his car on his own.
I waved my hand in the air, dispersing the last of the cloaking spell before bending down to scoop up my jacket. My back protested and my knees were stiff from sitting on the cold floor. I needed to get back to the gym. I had been trading off my usual trips there in order to spend time with Trixie before going into the parlor. Maybe it was time to find a little balance. I was beginning to think that I needed to be in shape if I was going to keep up with Reave and his band of thugs.
“Now what?” Bronx asked around another wince of pain as he hobbled toward the door.
“Home. Shower. Bed,” I listed, keeping pace beside my friend. “We’ll deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes.”
“Not Trixie’s?”
Trixie’s place felt like some distant dream, an oasis in the wasteland my night had become. I would have given anything to see her and settle in her soft arms, but I shook my head. “Home.”
Trixie didn’t need to see me when I was in this mood. She would have argued otherwise, but our relationship was still too new for me to be dumping the weight of my past into her lap while I grumbled the last of the night away. She would try to help me forget and move on, but the only thing that would help me was sleep. In sleep, there were no memories to haunt you and no doubts to chase you. There was just the cool bliss of nothingness.