Trixie winced, her eyes darting to the window to check that no one was approaching us. “Sorry.” I released her with a grunt and turned back to where I had been just moments before, my gaze locked on the three figures in the middle of the street.

“How do you know?”

“I make it my business to know what kind of neighborhood I’m in. It makes it easier to protect yourself.” Rather, it made it easier to judge whether a warlock or a witch might have a reason to stop in this part of town and happen across me. Per our agreement, only the council and my assigned guardian/parole officer, Gideon, were supposed to know my exact location. I knew Dolan’s illegal activities might draw the attention of the Ivory Towers, but I had been secretly hoping they would go after the supplier rather than the dealer.

“Dolan was always so nice. Why would he sell fix?”

“The money’s good.”

“It’s murder,” she growled.

“On both ends.”

Fix was a high-end drug, one of the few potent enough to affect the larger creatures such as trolls, ogres, and minotaurs. However, for humans, it was almost instantly lethal. Yet I had heard whispers that a few dealers had found a way to mix it with cocaine so that humans could use it. It wasn’t because the owner of the Cock’s Crow was dealing drugs in our neighborhood that Trixie was so upset. Hell, there wasn’t a bar within a thirty-mile radius that didn’t specialize in a little something.

No, Trixie was pissed over the source of fix. It was made exclusively from pixie livers. Thousands of pixies were trapped, ripped open, and harvested throughout the year simply for their organs. The pixie livers were dried and pounded into a fine powder, to be used later in a variety of ways.

Sadly, the warlock and the witch weren’t at Cock’s Crow because of the murder of countless pixies. They weren’t even there because scores more creatures died every year from the use of fix. They were there because the drug dealers were cutting into their supply of the potent organs. There were more than a dozen potions that benefited from the use of pixie livers, not to mention a few charms and countercurses. The Ivory Towers didn’t appreciate the competition.

A bloodcurdling scream ripped up the street as the minotaur buckled to his knees under a double blast of energy from the wands of the witch and the warlock. Dolan fell onto his back, writhing around on the asphalt in agony as the assault continued.

“He deserves what he gets,” Trixie muttered. The hand she’d laid on my shoulder had clenched when his screaming started. I wasn’t sure that I agreed with her. I thought that he deserved to be stopped, but the warlock and the witch had no business being the ones to mete out punishment. They were no better.

“You should go inside,” I bit out through clenched teeth. I was tired of this. Everyone along the street was cowering inside in fear, terrified that if they were seen they could suffer a similar fate simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was stepping down to the second step when Trixie’s hand tightened on my shoulder and she started to pull me back toward the shop.

“No, Gage!” she said in a harsh whisper. “Get back inside. Please, they might see you.”

I stopped on the second step, just above the sidewalk, still staring at the warlock and the witch laughing at the whimpering Dolan. There was a brief pause before Dolan’s pain-filled scream rang out again and then abruptly stopped. I flinched at the silence, knowing he was dead.

Trixie increased pressure on my shoulder, turning me slightly back toward the entrance of the shop while placing her other hand against my cheek. “Please, Gage, come inside where it’s safe. There’s nothing you could have done. They would have killed you too. Please, come inside. Please.”

It was the waver I heard in her final “please” that had me closing my eyes and releasing the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I leaned my cheek into the palm of her hand for a couple of seconds, letting her soft touch push the last of the fiery anger out of my veins. She was right. There was nothing I could do, and if I had tried, I would be dead and she could very well be in danger as well.

“I’m coming in,” I murmured, opening my eyes. Trixie dropped her hand from my cheek, but didn’t release her hold on my shoulder until I stepped over the threshold of the shop. As I shut the front door behind me, I heard the back door open when Bronx returned. Pulling Trixie against my chest, I tightly hugged her. “They’ll be leaving soon. We’ll be safe.” My lips brushed against her temple as I spoke. Her scent wrapped around me, helping to ease the last of the tension still humming in my frame. I didn’t know whether I was trying to reassure her, or was simply clinging to something good and wonderful for a few moments in an effort to blot out the horror of our reality.

As I released her, Trixie looked up at me, a faint smile lifting her lips. “Thanks.” I watched her walk back into the tattooing room where she patted Bronx’s arm before disappearing from sight. Gazing back out the window, I found that the warlock and the witch had taken the time to set the bar on fire before disappearing. With any luck, everyone had escaped through the back exit before it was too late.

I moved back behind the glass counter and restarted the MP3 so that the first notes of “Comfortably Numb” drifted through the shop as the world started up again. We had two choices: ignore what had happened or die at the point of a wand. Those who still lived chose to ignore, but no one ever forgot.

Settling onto the stool, I watched as Bronx dropped onto his own stool at his workstation. The troll silently began organizing his area in the far corner, pulling together a collection of paper plates and ink caps and checking to make sure that he had an ample selection of tattooing needles still neatly packaged in their sterile casings. At the same time, Trixie pulled open one of the drawers and withdrew a large number of greasepaint sticks, tubes, and containers that she carried over to Bronx. Because of the thickness of his skin, Bronx could not be tattooed, which had always made him feel uncomfortable considering that he worked in a tattoo parlor. So at the start of his shift each night, if Trixie wasn’t busy with a client, she would use greasepaint to cover him in a series of designs and images that could pass as tattoos. Despite their constant arguing over music, the two actually worked quite well together.

“What are you in the mood for tonight?” she inquired, lining up her colors along the nearby counter. Sometimes, it was just easier to pretend that certain things never happened.

Bronx pushed over a stool on wheels for her to sit on. “I want white ivy with green leaves all along my right arm.”

Trixie arched one thin blond eyebrow at him in surprise and even I was taken aback. After more than two years of this process, Bronx had begun to run out of fresh ideas and simply let Trixie draw whatever she was in the mood to draw on him. He had even come to tolerate her preference for flowers and butterflies as long as she stopped drawing hearts and rainbows on him.

“Anything on the left arm?” she inquired.

“Nothing.”

Leaning against the door frame, I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at the troll in the sleeveless shirt and spiked pale blond hair. I had known Bronx slightly longer than I had known Trixie. Trolls, from my experience, were naturally reticent creatures, preferring to keep to themselves. No one would ever accuse them of being chatty, but I had gotten pretty good at reading Bronx’s moods. Something was bothering him and I wasn’t sure that it was tonight’s spectacle down the street.

“Is there a special reason for the ivy?” I asked.

“Got a feeling.”

“Oooo … Do tell,” Trixie purred as she settled on the stool next to Bronx.