Angel Unleashed. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

shoulders made her roll them back to ease the buildup of tension. Her black leather jacket creaked as she took stock of her surroundings.

      The tat parlor was uncommonly tidy for such a dark, rather seedy, less than desirable location on the London outskirts. A metal counter ran the length of the store on one side. Several cheap chairs crowded the room. Pinned to the milky-blue walls were hundreds of photos of tattoo art, hanging in fairly neat, symmetrical rows.

      Bad luck, though. She wasn’t the only customer.

      In the center of the small space, a padded chair that had been patched one too many times was occupied by another client. Still, it could have been worse. The occupant of that chair was a young girl probably no more than sixteen years old.

      Tears of discomfort dripped from the girl’s big brown eyes. Her thin hands white-knuckled the seat. No doubt this teen had snuck in here while in the midst of a rebellious streak with her allowance money. A sixteen-year-old’s tat of choice? Winnie-the-Pooh.

      Avery didn’t bother to check the place for tidiness or proper hygiene since those things didn’t matter to her. The guy in the faded black T-shirt who was working on the girl’s ankle was her target. Rumor had it he was good at cover-ups, with a talent for making things look like something else. He was a fixer credited with being discreet.

      “What are you in for?” he asked, addressing Avery without looking up from his work, and waving a small instrument that looked either like a miniature throwback to dark days in medieval dungeons or a super-sized electric toothbrush.

      “Tattoo,” she said drily.

      He did a double take once he’d focused on who had entered. Used to stares, Avery didn’t take this personally. She knew she presented a strange picture with her hood pulled up around her face and her mirrored sunglasses reflecting the neon signage...especially since it was after 9:00 p.m.

      Snow-white hair, mostly hidden behind the black hood, didn’t often stay put. Several pale strands drifted now in the stale-smelling breeze from the open doorway. The sunglasses protecting her sensitive eyes from the lights, as well as the sneak peek of pale skin around them, had to seem freakish in a healthy blond and brunette world, even in the sun-challenged UK.

      All in all, though, she fit in better here than she would have in Florida.

      “Take a chair by the desk if you want to wait. Feel free to peruse the art on the walls,” the guy said. “Maybe you’d like to choose one of those designs.”

      Peruse. Such a strange word for a century like this one, and odd when spoken with a Cockney accent.

      Avery checked out the girl in the chair. The honey-colored bear on the girl’s left ankle was a decent rendering of the cartoon and almost finished. She wouldn’t have to wait long for a turn with the whirring needles. Still, she was antsy, and anxiously tossed another glance at the street through the front window, half expecting to see someone standing there.

      No one was.

      Short on square footage, the shop made her feel claustrophobic. Enclosed spaces didn’t suit her. Patience had never been her forte, which was odd since she’d had such a long time to try to perfect that skill. Because her energy was untrustworthy and came in wayward steaks and flashes, sitting down to wait her turn was out of the question.

      For those reasons and more, it was never sensible to remain in any one place for too long. Nor was it smart to give anyone a good long look at her. Definitely no close-up.

      Since she had picked the guy in this shop for his talent and stellar reputation, however, quelling her anxiety was paramount. So was maintaining her human-like persona for a while longer.

      With that in mind, Avery headed for the counter.

      As he got back to work, the artist barked, “More pictures are in the book on the desk.”

      When she didn’t open the three-ring binder next to her, he looked up a third time. “Ah. The lady already knows what she wants.”

      Seconds later, he added, “Five more minutes here, tops. There’s beer in the cooler.”

      The girl in the chair spoke up. “You didn’t offer me a beer.”

      Artist guy laughed. “Yeah. Right.”

      Avery wasn’t up for polite banter or alcohol, or for reminding the young girl in that chair, who seemed to be missing parental guidance, about the dangers of being out alone, past her bedtime in a city full of shadows. Nowadays, she wasn’t anybody’s conscience. Those days were far behind her.

      As for the room...

      A more thorough scan showed closeable blinds on the front windows and an interior door leading to an adjacent private room, probably used for etching tattoos on a person’s backside. She perceived no heartbeats beyond those of the two people in front of her. Those beats were steady and rhythmic.

      Just a normal night in the life of a tattoo parlor.

      But hell...her shoulder blades were already aching more than usual, as if they knew what she was going to do and also that there would be pain involved. Muscles often retained memories of what had happened to them in the past, especially after experiencing the extremes of agony. And although pain was nothing new to her, Avery always dreaded having more of it voluntarily.

      “Take a chair,” the artist suggested. “They’re more comfortable than they look.”

      She didn’t heed his advice. The lingering odor of hot flesh was cloying. The ink used for the tattoos offered up another distinct scent that tripped more old memories best forgotten.

      Nerves bristling, Avery glanced again to the front door, nixing the return of a hazy belief that someone was out there. Anxiousness was likely the cause of her nervousness. An artist in a rundown ink shop was going to see her scars. He was going to touch them—a crime so heinous that no one had ever managed it.

      Hadn’t she dispensed with the last person who tried?

      In order to provide this guy with his next canvas she’d have to take off her shirt. Predicting his reaction to the sight of the multitude of scars covering her body was a no-brainer. Very little space wasn’t crowded by the grid of crisscrossed white raised lines. Tat Guy would be fascinated by the old wounds and he’d be nosey, but the stories those grids told were none of his business or anyone else’s.

      She wished they weren’t hers.

      “Almost there,” he said to her while dabbing at the girl’s ankle with a cloth—a benign little bear on a girl’s youthful, otherwise unblemished skin.

      What would this pubescent girl say if she were to witness Avery’s roadmap of scar tissue and the two deep six-inch grooves edging her spine? Humans were squeamish about marred flesh. Other species reacted differently. Werewolves, in particular, got turned on by battle scars and displayed them like jewelry.

      So, if exhibiting or touching her old wounds was blasphemy of the highest order and against the rules, why was she chancing this?

      She was here because it was her one shot, a last-ditch effort, at soul healing. If this artist could cover the two large wounds on her back with a design that would make her feel like her old self, maybe she’d regain some semblance of balance and a small modicum of peace.

      That ever-elusive peace...

      The transformation of something ugly into something better, at least superficially, would be an accomplishment terribly long overdue, and one less freakish thing to contend with in the long stretch of unending years to come...if she didn’t find what she had come to London to find.

      “You still there?” the guy asked, speaking to her.

      There was no need to answer him. He was acutely aware of her. She could feel how badly he wanted to take a closer look. The air between them vibrated with that need. He was struggling to keep his attention on the ankle in front of him, and eagerly awaiting the girl’s departure.

      This