She kissed the hollow of my neck lightly and I felt her lips on mine. The kiss was tender. With the meshing, I could see through her eyes. It was odd to watch the skin on my face change as her healing spell worked its magic.
Together, we focused energy and spoke the second spell. A nigh impregnable shell of energy sprang into existence over us.
Separating, I dropped into a sitting position, cross-legged; a moment later, I heard the rustling of material and felt Tess’s knees bumping mine.
I blinked as a shadow moved across my vision. “Hey, good news, I can see shapes again.”
“That’s great, Rafe. Now what?”
“Now I start burning my tats back. Could you call up the shield spell?”
Tess laid the grimoire on the ground between us.
“Show me what I seek,” she ordered again.
The grimoire opened and pages flipped past until it stopped on the shield spell that had been my first tattoo. I unzipped my leather jacket. Standing, I shucked it off and dropped it to the dewy grass at my feet. Taking off my shirt, I dropped it atop my jacket and then laid down prone on the grass in front of Tess.
“You’re putting it in the same place you had it?” Tess asked.
I shrugged. “No point in changing what worked.”
Closing my own eyes, I studied the grimoire’s page where it sat on the grass in front of Tess. I studied the spell for a minute and then tried to recall the complete pattern. It took me far longer than it should have.
“Are you sure you don’t want to use the recall spell that Joe taught me?”
“I told you, that’s cheating.”
“You’re just being stubborn. You know it’s helped me, why can’t you just accept that it’s a better way of remembering things?” Tess scolded.
“It may be okay for memorizing a location so I can open a portal back to a particular spot, but that isn’t how Wanderers earn their tattoos.”
“Even when you’re desperate?”
“I’m not desperate,” I stated.
“I know what you’re feeling, Rafe. I’ve never seen you desperate before, but I recognize it when I see it.”
“Tess, Apprentice, just let me do it my way.”
“Being my mentor doesn’t mean you can’t be wrong,” Tess said puckishly.
I wanted to roll my eyes at her, but while we were meshed, it would be too obvious.
“Just let me concentrate,” I said.
“Fine, be a stubborn old man.”
At least ten minutes passed before I was comfortable holding the spell in my mind.
“Okay, I’ve got it. I’m going to do this one in one pass.”
“Okay,” Tess said.
I relaxed and focused on a spot on my lower back. Tess put her finger at the spot. I held the pattern in my mind’s eye and focused energy where I would start burning the pattern into my flesh.
Nothing happened.
I concentrated harder. Sweat beaded up on my forehead as I focused, concentrating more and more energy.
Nothing happened.
“Ah, Rafe…why aren’t you starting?”
I fought the panic that was trying to overwhelm me.
“I did start. It. Just. Isn’t. Working!”
The one thing that made Wanderers superior in magical combat was our tattoos. Without them, I was just another magic user.
I focused more energy and concentrated on that damn spot on my lower back.
Still, nothing happened.
Chapter 17
Therese
“How is that possible?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’m doing everything I always do, but it just isn’t burning a tat,” Rafe said with a quiver in his voice.
I could feel the concern behind his words. He couldn’t hide his emotions while we were meshed and I’d never felt anything like this from him before. Rafe was always confident, always cocky, and always capable of performing any magical task he set for himself. This was not like him.
I ran my fingers across the bare skin of his back in a gentle caress and then leaned down to kiss the nape of his neck. “Perhaps you’re trying too hard. Maybe you’re still too shaken by the blast and the spell that erased your tats. Try resting for a bit before making another attempt.”
“You really think I’m not calm enough to control my focus?” Rafe spat.
“Hey, easy there, Rafe. I’m just offering a suggestion. I’m not implying anything.” Rafe never snapped at me. He might criticize my actions and even put me in my place when he felt I was abusing our mentor/apprentice relationship, but he never sounded angry with me. He must be affected more than he thought, but how could I make him see reason if he thought I was criticizing him?
I massaged the muscles of his shoulders and tried to work loose the tightness I could feel there.
“I’ve been burning tattoos longer than your father has been on this earth. You think being upset would affect my ability to focus energy?”
He rolled out from under my hands and leapt to his feet. With a gritty growl, I’d never heard before, he swore, “I–never–lose–control.”
As he pointed at a clump of grass, I felt him focusing. Energy swirled around us and I expected the grass to burst into flame.
Nothing happened.
Rafe’s face mirrored the horror I felt emanating from his emotions. He was beginning to doubt his own capabilities.
Energy built. I activated my enhanced senses tat in an effort to see what was causing his problem. As my tattoo glowed to life, my sight spread into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums, my hearing became sensitive to higher and lower frequencies that humans normal have no access to. Even my sense of smell, touch, and taste became acutely sensitive. In this onslaught of new sensations that I had become
