I nodded. “Yeah, Tess told me about it. She said Rafe was able to remove it somehow. What’s that got–”
“And yet he didn’t remove the one in your mother and thus she died,” Rowle said.
Again, I nodded; I’d thought about her death too much over the months since the shade had killed her. “Yes, Rafe and Tess had been too late to save her, but I can’t blame him for not getting there in time.”
Rowle shook his head sadly. “Alex, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Raphael is the one who killed your mother.”
Chapter 16
raphael
I felt Tess grab me by my upper arms as I fought to keep control of my emotions. Damn, gone, almost all of the tattoos I’d spent more than forty years acquiring had vanished in under a minute.
“I don’t understand,” Tess said. “How can your tats be gone?”
“It’s that goo that was on me. Somehow, it erased every one of them except for the ones on my hands. It must not have reached them when I summoned lightning. Damn, how is that possible?”
“You can restore them,” Gail said.
“Goddamnit! You know how long it took me to burn back all of the ones that were destroyed when I lost my legs. I… Mount up. We can’t discuss this here.”
I reached out and found Beast’s mane. I swung myself onto his shoulders. He launched into the air a second later. As we gained altitude, I tried to sense my tattoos, to no avail. Whatever had erased them had done a thorough job of it. Other than the meteor tattoo and the lightning tattoo that were both on my left fist, my flesh was devoid of my magical tattoos.
“Beast, across the river. Find a clearing away from any structures,” I ordered.
Beast banked to my left and then flew east. I heard the beat of feathered wings as Maia drew up alongside.
“Are you okay?” Tess asked.
“Except for being blind and losing almost every tattoo I have? Yeah, I’m just peachy.”
“You don’t need to snap at me. It wasn’t my fault.”
I bit my lip and tried to dampen my anger. It wasn’t anger toward Tess and I had no right snapping at her. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just…this is trouble, Tess.”
“I hate to add to the bad news, but I can’t see the protective spells on your leathers,” Tess said.
“What? Hell, that’s not…never mind. It’s obviously possible. Less than twenty-four hours after Verðandi tells us that Alex has joined the ranks of the Wanderers, I trigger a booby-trap that takes away most of my tattoos. This can’t be a coincidence.”
“But how could anyone arrange for Alex’s death and a trap that your ward wouldn’t detect?”
“If I knew that, I’d probably know who did it. There’s only one person I’ve ever come across that I would have thought could arrange this and he’s dead.”
“Rowle?” Tess asked.
“Yes. If I thought it was Rowle, it’d be one thing, but to have an unknown player pull this off is scary. People just don’t attack Wanderers.”
Beast began to dive and a few seconds later, he touched down a lot softer than he usually did. He usually saved soft landings for when Tess or someone else was on his back.
I flipped a leg over his neck and slid to the ground, keeping one hand on Beast’s shoulder as I did.
“Beast, you and Maia take turns providing over watch. I want a warning if anyone or anything gets within a mile of us.”
I heard Maia land and a couple seconds later Tess thumped to the earth beside me.
“Tess, get your saddlebags. We’ll make this our camp for the night. Maybe by morning I’ll have my sight back and I can see about restoring some of my tattoos.” I hesitated. “Ah, could you get my saddlebags?”
I heard leather sliding against hide. Then Tess said, “I’ve got them.”
I felt the breeze as our familiars launched into the night sky.
I felt for my bottle of salt, located it, uncorked it, and threw the salt into the air. Immediately, I spoke the first circle spell that should form the salt crystals into an unbroken circle around us.
There was no snap of power as I finished the spell.
“Oh, hell.”
“Ah, Rafe, I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but that salt landed all over me and you both.”
“This is worse than I thought,” I mumbled.
“Your spell didn’t work, did it?” Tess’s voice was tremulous.
“Afraid not,” I said. “Tess, would you be a dear and cast it for me?”
“I’ll need your grimoire.”
I patted my pockets and then drew out the small grimoire that was always in my jacket pocket. Holding it out, I felt Tess take it from my fingers.
“Should we mesh first?” Tess asked.
“No, that’s all right. You just cast it. We’ll mesh to engage the circle.”
Tess said, “Show me what I seek.”
I heard the grimoire flipping pages until it came to stop on the spell she needed. It was a minor spell, not worthy of a tat, but had always served me well. She spoke the spell and I felt the snap of energy as it completed.
“It’s done,” she said.
I held out my right hand, Tess clasped it in her left and we meshed. As soon as our emotions, auras, and energies were meshed, I felt the concern that was affecting Tess. I tried harder to get my own emotions under control. As I did, I felt Tess calming also.
“It’ll be alright,” I said. “I was freaked out, but we’ll get through this just like we have everything else. I’m sorry if I had you worried.”
Tess stepped close and put her arms around me.
