"I will never leave you," she said, rising and moving away into the shadows. "Never."
He reached out, saw the brighter light of the threads that bound them, watched as she pushed the stone door of the tomb open with ease and slipped out, and he knew her words for truth. The light remained, pulsing, sending her sensations to him. Never. Never alone again.
He lay back quietly, staring at nothing, waiting. In the darkness above him, floating gently on a net of light, were her eyes smiling. Laughing. He felt another sensation, one not apparently lost to him. Her memory was firing his passion yet again, and he smiled.
The vacation of a lifetime, he thought. A lifetime that is just beginning.
To Dream of Sheherezade
The sun had just set, and business was unusually slow. The mid-day heat was hovering just above the pavement, mixing with the moisture from the ocean breeze to form a cloak of hot, damp lethargy that settled over the downtown streets like a shroud. Chance sat, staring out the window toward the street and wondering where the next month's rent would pop up from. It was a habit -- worrying about money.
There was one skinny, obviously runaway kid looking fixedly at a flash card of half-naked women in the clutches of various demons, but there was no real business in sight. As the streets faded to dusk, he flicked the switch beside his chair and brought the cheap, pink and blue neon sign to life on the street.
"TATTOOS"
The word would blink on and off like a beacon throughout the evening and into the night, drawing those with nowhere better to go like moths to a lantern. Business at Ace's came in three types.
There were the regulars, street people, bikers, rock musicians and fans, soldiers, sailors, and marines. For them, tats were a way of life, a badge of individuality -- almost a part of their clothing.
Next came the "impulse" buyers. These were young girls on a night away from home, runaways with a few dollars or a nice ass, businessmen with one or two too many drinks in their systems -- housewives whose husbands were out of town trying to spice up their lives. These were less frequent, though often more interesting than the regulars.
Then there were the "special" cases. Chance lived for those moments, the moments where his talent might truly make a difference to someone. A "special" case was someone who truly believed in tattoos as art. These were the driven and the obsessed, customers who would either bring in incredibly detailed ink or pencil drawings, prints, things that were unique and challenging. The best of them were those who left the art to him.
Chance had no illusions about his career as an "artiste". He was a tattoo artist, and that was what he would remain. The money was sometimes good, sometimes not there, and occasionally amazing. The rewards were the same.
Most of the time he'd spend his evenings tracing the same old stencils of Porky Pig and the Tasmanian Devil, daggers with snakes that proclaimed "Death Before Dishonor," and the customary hearts with "Mom" emblazoned within their depths, motorcycle emblems and band logos. It paid the bills, but it was meaningless drudge work. It was only the "specials" that made it all worthwhile.
The door swung open with a jingling of bells, and an oddly thin, young man entered. The guy was wearing a black t-shirt, black pants, big hair that fanned out to surround a pale, chiseled face. Chance's first thought was Musician.
He recanted that almost immediately when he heard the man speak.
"You are the man called Chance?"
The words seemed to flow from too-red lips. The man's eyes were wet -- like those of a wild animal -- full of emotion, deep. It was a long moment before Chance shook his head slowly and stammered a reply.
"Yeah . . . uh, yes. That's me."
At first the man did not speak. He stared at Chance with those weird-assed eyes, scanned the walls surrounding them both quickly, then returned to his stare.
"This is not your true work?"
Somehow he knew the man was talking about the flash boards on the walls. He shook his head, then answered.
"No, not mine. This is the stuff that we all do, what we share. My own work is in that folder over there." He pointed at a battered black binder on the room's one small table.
Without a word the man moved to the table and snatched up the book. He flipped the pages rapidly, one after another, drinking in the artwork. Once or twice he paused, murmuring quietly over one piece or another, but as far as Chance could tell, the dude was in another world.
Suddenly the man snapped his eyes from the book to meet Chance's own. "You do custom work?"
"If the price is right," Chance answered, trying to figure out why his heart was racing, why the skin on his arms was layered three-deep in goose-bumps. It wasn't like Charles Manson had come through the door, was it?
The runaway, not liking the "feel" of the place now that the stranger had come in, banged out the door in search of a meal, leaving them alone. Chance wished, for a fleeting moment, that the kid had stayed.
"The price is not an object," the man said. His left hand had come lightly to rest on the counter top, and Chance's eyes were drawn to the ring he wore on his index finger. It was old, really old, tarnished gold with a deep red stone set in its center. The stone was cut into the shape of a gryphon. That ring alone, he assessed quickly, was enough to keep him in hamburger and beer for over a year.
"Yeah, well, what did you have in mind?" he said cautiously. "It might get busy here any second..."
The man's eyes blazed momentarily, and Chance fell silent. Fine, let him call the plays.
"I have a story to tell," he said. "I will begin with my name, Alex... I want you to record my life."
Chance could only stare at the man. "You want me to tattoo your life onto you?"
"In a sense, that is exactly what I want. Let me explain, then we can begin."
There was no hint of discussion in the man's tone. It was an arrogant voice, filled with the strength of certainty, vibrant and hypnotic. All Chance could do was to listen.
"I have lived . . . a very long time. You will have to trust my words for their veracity; I have neither the time, nor the inclination, to prove myself. In all the years that I have lived, art has been the one constant, the one thing that could always remind me that there was beauty in the world. I have always cherished it.
"I have known great artists . . . more than you could dream. I have walked the halls of sculptors, played music with the bards; every time, every age, has its genius. My life has not been a thing of beauty, but of blood and violence, darkness and shadow. In this age, that is acceptable. In this age, mixing your very blood with the art is acceptable -- you do this on a nightly basis.
"This is what I want, Chance; I want you to make me a work of art. I want to walk with the lines and hues of genius twining across my limbs. I want to be art."
Seeing that Chance was about to speak, he held up a long, delicate finger to his lips. "No, let me finish," he smiled. There was no humor in that smile -- no compassion. No debate.
"I have walked the streets of this city night after night, and I have seen your work. There was a girl -- Cindy -- the horse with the gossamer wings of a butterfly? There was the city, surrounded by a dragon, overlooking a wizard's tower? A man named Billy? You would remember these.
"I see in them the spark of a genius beyond the scope to which it has been applied. I am offering you transcendence, Chance. If you come through, if my eye is true, and you are the one, then I will pay you beyond your wildest dreams. I will pay you as one of the great artists of history would be paid, and you will have created a masterpiece."
"And if I blow it?" Chance asked softly. "If I am, after all, just another tattoo artist, what then?"
The man didn't answer, but the words were there to be read in his eyes, in the dangerous, unsmiling curl of his lips. There would be no second chances...tattoos were forever.
"I can't tattoo an entire life in one night," Chance said at last. "It just isn't possible."
"I have chosen the most important tale that I h
ave to tell," the man said, turning to flip the door lock and to turn the sign to CLOSED. "We will start at once."
* * *
Chance led the man into the back room of his studio, where the serious work was always done, and laid out his needles, inks, and alcohol in silence. There was nothing left to say. His heart was running in overdrive, but his hands were surprisingly steady. He'd always said it was the "specials" that made his life worth all the crap he went through, now it was time to make good on that.
Put up or shut up, Chance ol' boy, he thought, avoiding the stranger's eyes as he hurried through his preparations.
As the man removed his shirt, leaning forward over the back of a chair and brushing his hair to the sides, he began to speak. The words flowed forth to fill the room, and Chance felt himself calming, moving toward that peak -- that edge where the creativity was automatic, that place where the magic comes from that reveals itself to the world in the words of poets, the oil and pastels of the painters, the ink of the tattoo gun in his hand. He listened, and as he listened, he began to work.
* * *
"My brother was always favored," Alex began. "Though I was swifter, more intelligent, stronger, still he was favored. 'Your brother is the eldest,' my mother would tell me. 'He will inherit everything someday. You must support him.'
"Who, then, would be left to support me? In any case, Bryan did not want my support. He wanted to humble me, to use his position as heir to perpetuate his own false sense of superiority. He wanted me broken. This last was obvious to me, even if it was not to everyone around us, and I hated him for it more than I have hated any other in all the days of my existence.
"I avoided him whenever possible. There was the hunt, and there were my studies -- neither of which interested him in the same way as they did myself. He spent his hours training with the older boys. He was weak -- not the best with a weapon or a thought -- but the other boys knew that one day he would be their liege -- their duke -- so they pandered to his arrogance.
"I took to spending more and more time at the hunt, ranging farther and farther from home. At times I would be gone for days, always returning with more than the other hunters; not that mother or father would ever take more than passing notice. It was on such a hunt that I met Evander, and my true life began."
Chance was beginning to feel a bit nervous. The things the man was talking about seemed like some elaborate fantasy -- a folk tale out of history. If he were telling the truth, then he was either very delusional, or much, much richer than Chance had counted on. No one had “estates” in Southern California . . . no one that came to tattoo parlors on Broadway, anyway.
Chance had begun in the center of the man’s back, tracing the subtle, almost beautiful lines of the man’s face as he listened, waiting for the vision that would surround those features to coalesce. He was irritated with himself for worrying over the strangeness of the tale. He needed to concentrate. What difference did it make if it was all some weird fantasy? If he recreated it -- and that was what was desired, where was the harm in it. He shook off his concerns and concentrated, letting the story leak into his mind and direct his needle.
"Evander came to my fire one night, melting from the shadows more easily than a cat. He could have thrown my husk to the rodents and the crows with no more effort than a cat toying with a small bird, but he did not. He came to the fire, and we talked, long into that night and again on the evening following. He did not conceal his nature from me -- rather he preened, like a beautiful woman who demands admiration. He was truly beautiful, beautiful in a way I had never considered possible for one man in the eyes of another. His beauty was born of the darkness -- drenched in the decadent, decaying edges of reality -- the places parents warn children of and spend their nights embracing in worlds of dream."
Alex's muscles tensed, then, and Chance hesitated as the man spun, his eyes flashing to meet Chance’s own, as if daring him to refute the statement, or to laugh. "And I don't mean in the way of some dandified little-boy gazer, either. The streets beyond your shop are ripe with those, but they pale in comparison. Evander’s beauty transcended anything sexual in a way that was totally new to me. Rather than taking me at his leisure, he seemed to enjoy the seduction of it -- convincing me to give of myself freely.
"I was never the same. I awoke to the night after he had made me as himself, and he was there, cradling my head and feeding me the blood of a rabbit he'd killed -- just enough to get me on my feet, to give me that chance. I never saw him again. He left me, the hunger rose, and I learned -- learned fast, hard lessons, strengthening my abilities and savoring my moment of vengeance, which I knew had finally come.”
Chance felt a slight tremble rippling through his hand, but he steadied himself, continuing as though the madman in his chair was talking to him about the weather, or some sporting event they had a mutual interest in. Drinking blood, beautiful men who drew you in with their eyes -- these were more at home in a role-playing game, or a fantasy novel. He began to outline the slender shoulders -- the wild, windswept hair. The story droned on, and he drank it in . . . dwelling on every syllable, every intonation. It was becoming obvious that his future might actually depend on his ability to transfer those words to body art, and Chance was fond of the notion of having a future.
"It was two weeks after Evander left me alone in that clearing that I went to my brother. The family had not yet missed me, feeling certain that I was on another extended hunt and that I would be back soon. I came upon Bryan at the setting of the sun, catching him just returning from a long ride. He'd left his horse with the groomsman and was making his way to dinner when I stepped from the shadows and grabbed his arm."
"Brother Alex!" he said, as though glad to see me. "You have returned! I trust we shall eat well this night -- tell me, did you bring us a stag?"
"Much, much better than that, brother," I answered, not releasing his arm. "I have a secret to share -- a grand secret. Do you suppose you can promise not to tell?
"He struggled in my grasp, but I could have held him before the change, and afterward he was like a child to me. I smiled at him, letting him see my new smile, and without a further word, I took him.
"He was so weak, so pathetic. He was drained and without life so quickly that my thirst was barely sated. Throwing him over my shoulder, I took off into the night, coming eventually to one of the hunting lodges I frequently used. I had already been there, barring the windows from the sunlight and preparing a place for myself, and for my dear, dear brother, to sleep. He looked so pale, so helpless -- and yet I had my true revenge still in store.
"When he awoke that night, I was at his side. I held up a flask, filled with the blood of a newly slain lamb, but I held it just out of reach. I will never forget his eyes -- beseeching me -- helpless. I poured that rich red blood down my throat and never let my eyes break contact with his. It was as though I could see him shriveling before my eyes."
Chance considered, for the briefest of moments, jabbing the needle through the back of this psycho’s throat with every ounce of energy at his disposal and taking his chances with the truth behind the hypnotic power of Alex’s voice as he lunged for the door. The tattoo drew him back, held him in place, enthralled. It was growing, spreading across the pale flesh with unbelievable rapidity. Background scenery had worked its way into the picture, a second face -- like Alex, but duller -- broader. He didn’t know where the features had come from, but somehow he knew it was Bryan.
"I stayed there with him for a week, each night finding a new revenge, a new torture. His struggles never weakened, the pain floating in his eyes never grew less intense. His eyes were afire with desperation . . ."
"The final night I came to him, and I brought his fiancé, Gwendolyn. She came trustingly -- I told her I'd discovered him in the woods and that he was hurt -- that he needed her. It was true. If he could have gotten to her throat, he would certainly have slaked that need. I fed upon her as he watched, dragging the corpse in a close circle aro
und him, letting the scent of the fresh blood surround him. He amazed me then, because he almost moved. Almost."
Chance dabbed off the black ink, drawing the bright red to him quickly and returning to the flesh before him. Alex was only the backdrop now, his words the foundation. Chance was lost in creation . . . dead to the room surrounding him and the insanity of the moment.
"I climbed to the roof that night, and I tore the shingles from it with my bare hands.” Alex continued. “Then I ripped out the planking beneath, so the moonlight shone in clear and bright.
"I waited with him there in that light, and I told him my story. I told him that I was going to live forever, that I had proven, finally and irrevocably, who was the stronger -- the better. I told him how our parents would find him eventually, and would undoubtedly see what he had become. They would find Gwendolyn as well, and draw their own conclusions. Then I smiled at him a final time, drinking in the pain in his eyes, and I left. I never looked back."
Chance waited a few moments to be certain that the man was finished speaking. When there was nothing further immediately forthcoming, he chanced a comment of his own -- casually -- trying to keep the nerves dancing behind his heart from altering his voice. Somehow he thought that showing fear in this man’s presence would be a fatal mistake.
“You tell the story like it happened a long time ago,” he said slowly. “You don’t look a day over nineteen.”
“Don’t I?” The man pulled away gently, removing his skin from the touch of the tattoo needle before it could mar the design. He met Chance’s gaze levelly, and the truth danced in his eyes. Deep eyes. Ancient. His body might be nineteen -- might look nineteen, but there weren’t enough days or years in Chance’s experience to plumb the depths of those eyes.
Not flinching from that icy stare, Chance replied. “You are remarkably well-preserved, then.”
Alex held the stare a moment longer, then burst into a gale of laughter that sounded like glass shattering on stone. There was little humor in it, but Chance sensed, somehow, that the tension had been released. He allowed himself a grin.
A Taste of Blood and Roses Page 8
