0.5-The Asylum Interviews: Bronx: An Asylum Tales Short Story Read online

  CHAPTER THREE

  Let me die.

  It was the only thought that I could squeeze through my brain past the hammering of my pulse against my temples. Let me die. Let me die. Let me die.

  It was four in the afternoon and all the lights in the tattoo parlor were still off. I should have opened the shop already, but I could hardly open my eyes, and just the idea of hearing the buzz of the tattooing machine made my headache worse. No more dark elf whiskey for me. The stuff was like liquid ambrosia going down, but I had yet to drink it without suffering a miserable hangover the next day.

  Pulling off the plastic lid to my take-out coffee, I poured in the herbs I had ground together. I swirled it around in the black liquid for a second before taking a scalding gulp. This was my second coffee of the day. Shortly after two, I slunk out of the apartment and down the street to a nearby coffeehouse/bookshop, where I purchased a large black coffee. I sat in a dark corner of the shop and drank the first one while watching the pavement get pounded by a spring shower that had blanketed the sky in nice, thick clouds. As the rain let up, I returned to the parlor with a second large coffee and mixed up my hangover cure.

  The added herbs made the coffee taste like crap, but the throbbing in my head was easing, along with a bevy of aches and pains. My mind was starting to perk up as I could now string together two and three thoughts without longing for death or cursing the Svartálfar whiskey.

  My pocket vibrated. I jumped, sloshing coffee over my hand as I dug into my pants for my cell phone. A quick glance at the screen made me frown—Parker. My killer headache was passing, but I wasn’t enthusiastic about talking to him yet. Unfortunately, my memory was a little foggy and I needed him to fill me in on what happened. The last thing I could recall was discussing some tattoo.

  “I hope you’re in as much pain as me,” I said after I pressed the talk button.

  “Gage! You’ve got to help me!”

  Parker’s frantic voice washed away the last of my aches and pains. He sounded worried and frightened, which was highly unlike my friend.

  “Sure, what’s the problem?”

  “Something went wrong with that tattoo,” he said in a harsh whisper.

  “Tattoo? When did you get tattooed?”

  Parker made a sound of frustration in the back of his throat. “Hell, you’d passed out on the couch. Your friend Bronx, he gave me that tattoo you two were talking about. The one to help with my hunger.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I mumbled as the memory grew clearer. “You did that? We’d all been drinking. I didn’t think you’d—”

  “Focus!” Parker snapped, then cursed under his breath before returning his voice to a whisper. “Yes, I got tattooed and now you’ve got to fix it.”

  Turning on heel, I started to pace the small backroom in the dark, weaving around chairs and small tables on wheels out of practice. This wasn’t good. Every once in a while, a tattoo potion didn’t have the effect that the artist anticipated, or there was always the potential for the ingredients to go bad. As a result, the artist had to do some quick work to fix the problem. During an apprenticeship, a tattoo artist spent as much time learning how to undo the effects of a potion as he did learning about how to stir the initial potion.

  Unfortunately, this could be a whole lot worse than Parker’s tattoo gone wrong. If TAPSS got wind of this, I could lose my license. I had let someone stir and ink in my shop without my supervision. Hell, I hadn’t even seen Bronx’s license to confirm that he was authentic. If I was lucky with TAPSS, I could get off with a fine. If not, I was in deep.

  “Okay.” I sighed, slowly letting out a deep breath. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  “Sex. Everywhere. Lots and lots of sex.”

  I jerked to a stop and straightened. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Everyone in my apartment building is having sex or has just had sex.”

  “And this is because of your tattoo?”

  “Yes!”

  I snorted as relief flooded into my limbs. “Parke, it’s a rainy spring day. What else are people supposed to be doing?”

  “This isn’t a joke, Gage! I’m being serious.” I could hear a knocking in the background and Parker cursed again. “Damn it, I woke her up.” Parker partially covered up the phone, but I could still make out the sound of him trying to placate Jill.

  “What’s going on?” I asked when he uncovered the phone.

  “I’m hiding in the bathroom. I didn’t want to wake up Jill. She had finally fallen asleep again.”

  “Talk to me.” The joking was gone. Whatever was going on was affecting both of my friends.

  “Bronx tattooed me and everything seemed fine. I went home and climbed into bed. I was woken up this morning by Jill straddling me. She seemed fine so we had sex.”

  “Not a bad way to wake up,” I commented, to which Parker growled at me before continuing.

  “Yes, but her heart rate hadn’t even slowed down when we were done before she’s coming at me again like I never even touched her.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Damn it, Gage! It’s not normal. Jill’s not like that. There isn’t a race out there that has that kind of recovery. Not even my race. We’ve done it five times since nine a.m. and she’s hovering outside the door now looking to attack me. I haven’t looked at her or touched her. She just comes at me primed and about to explode.”

  “No, not normal,” I said, mostly to myself. “But you mentioned something about the rest of the apartment building?”

  “After she fell asleep, I slipped out to grab the paper off the doorstep. It was then that I realized that every couple in the apartments around us was having sex.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Fuck! I’m an incubus! I know when people around me are having sex!”

  “Sorry. I’m guessing this has never happened before.”

  “Ten apartments all at the same time? No. It’s this damn tattoo.”

  I had to agree. This was not right, and while the effects could be a whole lot worse, this couldn’t be allowed to continue. The world couldn’t come to a stop because everyone who encountered Parker needed to suddenly get laid.

  “All right. I need to take a look at the tattoo. Get down here,” I said, walking out of the back room to the front of the shop where I kept my schedule. I quickly flipped it open and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that I didn’t have an appointment until eight. There was some time to try to clean up this disaster.

  “It’s almost rush hour. I don’t want to cause any wrecks.”

  “Then take the freaking back roads and hurry! Don’t come into the shop. Go to the upstairs apartment and wait for me. I’ve got some . . . stuff I can do to the apartment that might suffocate the effect that you’re having on people.”

  “What about Jill? How will I get past her?”

  “I don’t know. Have sex.”

  “Gage!”

  “Damn it, Parker! I’m sorry but it looks like you’re going to have to screw your girlfriend so you can get out of the apartment. That or give her whatever you gave me last night. Figure it out. I’ll meet you here.”

  I hung up the phone before he could argue with me any further. I needed to do some quick thinking. It would take Parker at least twenty minutes to drive from his apartment to the tattoo parlor and then there was whatever he was going to do to subdue Jill. That put it at least thirty minutes, if not a little longer, before he arrived. The first thing I needed to do was secure the second floor apartment so he couldn’t cause any more chaos.

  But to do that, I had to dabble in things I had sworn off.

  I posted a sign on the front door of the parlor stating that I would open the shop at eight. With fists clenched at my side, I walked to the back room and shut the door behind me. There were no windows in the room, and the door leading t
o the back alley was already locked. No one could see me. No one would ever know, or so I told myself.

  Hurrying across the room, I pushed aside a small rolling table and lifted up the trapdoor in the wooden floor. The stairs creaked and groaned as I pounded down to the dirt floor beneath the shop. I grabbed the pull chain to the single light bulb, bathing the large room in dirty yellow light. As I hit the floor, I threw out one arm, sending a burst of energy across the room to the array of symbols spray-painted on the wall to disarm the magic defense spell that blanketed the room. The ward protected the basement against any intruder, but it was extremely dangerous and aggressive. I didn’t always feel safe down in the basement with it activated even though I was the original spell caster.

  I paused in the center of the room and looked around, checking to make sure that the three walls of cabinets hadn’t been disturbed. They contained some of the rarest ingredients in the world. My secret stockpile for whatever I wished to stir. Most were lethal on their own, and a number of them I would be killed just for having.

  More than seven years had passed since I escaped from the Ivory Towers. I had never wanted to be a warlock if it meant being a power-hungry megalomaniac dedicated to a lifetime of death, destruction, and domination. By the grace of the gods or whatever powers there may be, I was given a reprieve from the Towers so long as I never used magic again except in self-defense. But upon opening my own shop, I discovered that I couldn’t give up magic. Not only was it my only true source of protection, but I was more likely to cut off my right hand or stop breathing than give up magic. So I worked to keep it secret, or I would be killed by the Ivory Tower council.

  Shaking my head, I walked over to the large tabletop pushed against the far wall, which I used as a workspace. I was past regrets about my choices. I wasn’t a warlock, but I wasn’t quite human either. Just something that hovered in between that needed to keep one hand tapped into the power around me.

  My eyes danced over the collection of crystals hanging along the wall that I used in a variety of spells. The tabletop was covered in random items, like a packrat’s treasure trove of crap. Pieces of tree limbs, chicken feet, smooth marble stones, half a deck of tarot cards, stubs of candles in a rainbow of colors, a jar of clover honey, two large containers of salt, and a few rusted nails littered the table among other junk. At the far end was a stack of hardcover journals that I used to write notes for original spells and potions that I created. I grabbed the top journal and ran my left hand along the back of the table, which was lined with old baby food jars filled with different color pieces of chalk, each in its own jar. It was one of my rare attempts at organization that worked. Snatching up a couple pieces of black chalk, I waved my hand at the symbols on the far wall, reactivating the protection spell as I ascended the stairs again.

  Slamming the trapdoor back in place, I also grabbed a pencil from one of the tables in the back room and hurried out the door to the alley. Chalk in hand, I paused at the bottom step leading up to the second floor apartment and quickly inscribed a magic symbol, followed by a little burst of power to kick off the spell. I waited, glancing over my shoulder as every muscle in my body tensed, waiting for the blow. But nothing happened. Maybe my warden wasn’t watching.

  I stepped over the chalk-etched symbol and climbed the stairs. At the door to the apartment, I set about inscribing a series of symbols and glyphs around the wooden doorjamb and on the door in the black chalk. As I finished with each one, it briefly flared to life before fading. There was nothing subtle about this magic, but I couldn’t think of anything subtle that would be effective against something as strong as the magic obviously emanating from Parker.

  There was a soft sigh behind me as I turned the doorknob to enter the apartment. “Fuck,” I whispered just before a blast of energy slammed into my back. Thrown against the door, I fell into the living room and rolled across the floor, dropping the journal, pencil, and chalk somewhere along the way. Heart pumping. Body tensed. No thought. Instincts reacted to the crackle of energy in the air. Someone was attacking me with magic—I had to protect myself. Rolling to my feet, I turned with my hands out to my side, drawing power for the attack.

  Gideon stood in the doorway, running one finger along the doorjamb, smearing some of the black chalk. Tall, with dark hair and silver-gray eyes, the warlock ignored me as he casually inspected the glyphs I had drawn. I tapped down the energy I had summoned up as my stomach knotted and my breath exploded from my lungs. Fuck, indeed.

  “Interesting,” Gideon murmured, his narrowed eyes shifting over the symbol on the door before settling on me. “What are we up to?”

  “Just a little protection.” I smiled, trying for light and innocent—not that I thought he was going to believe it. Gideon was my parole officer, my warden, my babysitter. The Ivory Towers were willing to let me live only if I agreed not to practice magic beyond a little self-defense. Naturally, they weren’t willing to take me at my word of honor. If I stepped a toe out of line, Gideon was there to knock me around and then bring me back before the council to be executed.

  The warlock arched one brow at me. “With black chalk?” He stepped into the room, brushing his fingers together to dust them off. He looked around, his upper lips curling in disgust. It wasn’t much. Stained carpet, walls spiderwebbed with cracks and spotted with random holes that had never been fixed, and furniture held together with duct tape and wishful thinking. The profits from the first year at the tattoo parlor were lean, but improving. My new apartment was better, but still not something Gideon would care for.

  “That’s a pretty impressive ward,” Gideon continued. “But I don’t think that’s what was agreed upon when you last stood before the council.”

  I opened my mouth to counter his comment, but something clamped on my wrists, snapping them together before jerking them over my head. Pulled upward, I gritted my teeth against the pain in my shoulders as Gideon’s spell torqued my body, fighting to stay flat-footed on the ground instead of off-balance on my toes.

  The warlock stood on the other side of the room with his arms folded over his chest, looking supremely bored and more than a little irritated. When learning magic, all warlocks and witches used their hands to manipulate and move the energy in the air toward the desired target. It was clunky and not very accurate, but it was fast and could be effective. Students then moved on to wands for delicate, tightly focused spells. Gideon used neither, which meant that he was experienced, focused, and fucking powerful.

  The warlock stepped into the room and the door slammed shut without him touching it. “At the close of your case, the council ruled that you would be permitted magic for self-defense only, not that you should actually need to do so. I always thought you were skating on thin ice when you pursued this tattoo artist disguise. You could never stop using magic. You’re more likely to be carried off by a dragon than voluntarily stop using magic.”

  “This isn’t some disguise,” I snapped, sickened by his reference to the now-extinct race destroyed by the Ivory Towers. “I am a tattoo artist and a damn good one! I’m helping people, which is a whole hell of a lot more than any of you Ivory Tower fanatics can claim.”

  “Helping people?” Gideon scoffed. The energy tightened and I was lifted another inch higher, pulling my heels up off the carpet as my spine popped. “I’m sure you get a lot of visits from half-starved orphans and little old ladies on pensions. And naturally, you’re doing these good deeds for free because you’re such a humanitarian.” He snorted as he let his hands drop to his sides and took a step closer. “Don’t lie to me and definitely don’t lie to yourself. You’re only out for yourself, just like everything else that crawls on this mud ball.”

  Swallowing a curse, I turned my attention from the warlock to the spell holding me in place. It was basic enough. Opening my fingers, I pulled together a web of energy while kicking my feet out so that I would be suspended by my arms. The combination of the energy
and the sudden shift in weight broke the spell. I crashed to the ground, landing on my ass only after I nearly jerked my arms out of their sockets. Pushing the pain aside as it stole through my arms and back, I rolled away from Gideon and came up in a crouch with a magic blue shield around me.

  The warlock never moved. Hell, I doubt he even flinched. Arching one eyebrow at me, he waited until I dropped the shield and stood. Gideon lunged at me, closing the distance in the blink of an eye, pummeling me in the face and stomach with his fists before I could even raise my hands to defend myself.

  Gideon leaned in close as I slouched against the wall, gasping for air and wincing against the pain of each labored breath. “I don’t need magic to kill you—you’re not worth losing one year of my life. But don’t doubt me, I will kill you. Now, what’s the purpose of the wards? I’d like to give a full report to the council.” He never raised his voice, but he didn’t need to. His tone was cold and hard. His decision was already made.

  “It’s just protection wards. Go look at them!” I wheezed in a ragged breath.

  “I saw them. They’re somewhat generic and could be used for many things.”

  “It’s just protection. An incubus is getting a bad reaction to a tattoo. I said I would take a look and help, but I have to protect myself against the effects.”

  For the first time since I had met Gideon, he looked surprised. The warlock stepped away from me, his expression slightly twisted in confusion. “What kind of reaction?”

  “Everyone in his vicinity becomes highly sexed.”

  “An outbreak of mass fornication?” To my utter shock, he didn’t sound particularly skeptical of my situation.

  “Whenever he’s near people,” I confirmed. “It even leaks through walls—brick and concrete don’t even slow it down. That’s the reason for the wards. I’m hoping it’ll contain the effects until I can re-tattoo him.”