Inked Magic

by Jory Strong

  Kelli saying goodbye to her daughter at an airport. Tears streaming down her face. Fear instead grief. Worry instead of regret.

  Cathal in a hospital room with a teenage girl. That same girl lying glassy-eyed in a bedroom with posters on the wall, movie and rock stars. Cathal at a funeral.

  Some small part of her sleeping consciousness recognized when the images stopped being random pictures caught in an accidental stream, and became instead memories to be secured behind mental barriers, because they were taken, possessed. They were Tyra Nelson’s thoughts and perceptions, her reality.

  The faces of rock stars and teen idols slid easily from bedroom walls onto the covers of magazines, a disorganized mess in a convenience store bringing a surge of irritation at having to straighten them for the tenth time since starting work.

  She’d be glad to leave this job behind. It was one aggravation after another, and on top of it, now she had to worry about the walk home and the rapist loose in the Bay Area.

  Not that there weren’t plenty of rapists out there. She knew that firsthand. But this guy was worse than a drunk uncle or the men who didn’t think no applied to them. This guy was scary psycho and deserved to be put down by a bullet. Death by lethal injection was too good for him.

  I need to buy some pepper spray. It was a good thing she already had the knife. It’d saved her a couple of times.

  With a sigh she crouched down in front of the magazine rack, her knees cracking and her back aching from being on her feet all day. Just be glad for the job. Times are tough. Bad enough there are teachers in line at the food bank. Job didn’t pay shit but it was better than being on the streets.

  Been there, done that, and managed to get off them. Managed to survive a few months of turning tricks before that crazy john scared her straight with his fists and his gun.

  Eight months clean and every day she was getting stronger. Praise the Lord.

  Magazines straightened, she stood in time to see the bitch fucking the manager walk in, a smirk on her face as she pulled a bag of chips off the rack and opened it, then snagged a soda, like she owned the place and everything was hers for the taking.

  “Time for you to punch out. Overtime eats up the profits.”

  It’s not the only thing doing it. And trust me, I’d like to do some punching.

  She held the words back, biting her tongue to keep them inside. Didn’t pay to make waves. Didn’t pay to let some slut piece of trash get under her skin.

  She had her GED now. Come fall she’d start taking classes at the community college. One step at a time and she’d get where she wanted to be.

  Her stomach growled but damned if she’d give back a single penny to this place. She punched out, grabbing a jacket and leaving without saying anything.

  A taxi went by, not a common sight in this neighborhood. She thought about trying to flag it down or going back in and calling for one, but didn’t. The ride home would chew up the money she needed to buy minutes for her cell phone.

  If she had a mind to splurge, better to detour a couple blocks and hit the McD’s. She decided to go for it, practically inhaling the double cheeseburger in the parking lot and nursing the Coke for as long as she could as she walked, one hand tucked into her pocket, curled around the knife like it was a lucky charm piece.

  The streets were deserted. For once she wished the gang bangers were hanging out like usual.

  A car backfired and she jumped like it was a gun going off next to her. Fear surged through her. She needed to get home. Better still, the police needed to do their damn job and catch that serial rapist.

  She stayed vigilant, aided by enough Coca-Cola in her system to make her bladder feel like a balloon just about ready to pop. If she didn’t hurry up and get home, she was going to have a different problem to worry about.

  Turning the corner led to another deserted street, quiet except for a few barking dogs and the caterwauling of some old tom. She heard muted music, mostly a beating vibration.

  Along the curb, cars were parked practically on top of each other, bumpers nearly kissing. She noticed a van, black, like a hundred others she saw in a day. It looked empty but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  She didn’t need a rapist on the loose to know how easy it was for some pervert to pull you into a van. It didn’t even need to be dark for that to happen. Only a couple of weeks ago a ten-year-old girl was snatched on her way home from school.

  She gave the van wide berth, congratulating herself on her street smarts; a second later her survival instinct kicked in.

  Too late she realized she had swerved close to where a man was waiting. He was on her before she could scream, a gloved hand over her mouth and something pressed to her neck. Taser.

  She lost control of her muscles and hot piss flowed down her legs, shaming her despite the terror pounding through her. The helpless feel of it carrying her back to the first time her uncle came around when she was home alone.

  A piece of cloth was stuffed into her mouth. It tasted like dish soap. Another was put on top of it, tied off to make a second gag before a bag went over her head.

  Her wrists were bound last, behind her back, just as control of her muscles was coming back and she might have been able to pull the knife and fight for her life.

  She heard the slide of the van door opening, whisper-soft, like he was trying to hide it. Hope flickered to life. He wouldn’t care what she heard if he intended to kill her.

  I can survive this. I WILL survive this.

  She struggled as he lifted and carried her. It didn’t do any good but she wasn’t going to give up. She wouldn’t ever lie down and be a victim again.

  Within steps he’d dumped her into the trunk of a car and slammed it closed. Terror surged into her at having been wrong about thinking the quiet van door meant something.

  The engine came to life. In the tight confines of the cramped space, the acrid smell of pee and rubber and carpet sliced through the sack over her head.

  She fought to get her hands in front of her. Prayed to the God she’d abandoned in childhood but found again in NA meetings.

  Her heart tried to claw its way up her throat. She felt like she was suffocating.

  Panic lent urgency to her struggles. She managed to dislodge the hood and rub away the gag. It took longer to dislodge the cloth stuffed into her mouth.

  She gulped air, only barely stifling the urge to scream because all it would do was alert her captor. They were traveling fast, like they were on a freeway. No one was going to hear her now.

  He hadn’t bothered patting her down for weapons. If only she could get to her knife . . .

  Her arms and wrists ached as she fought to get her hands in front of her. Sweat soaked the underarms of her shirt and her jeans were clammy and cold against her thighs. Her breathing became a harsh panting the longer she struggled.

  Sobs clogged her throat when she felt the car begin to slow. As it crept along she strained to hear any sound other than her heart thundering in her ears, anything that would make her think her screams would be heard.

  The car slowed more, then reversed and stopped. She rolled onto her back and drew her legs up against her chest, pain spearing through her shoulders at lying on them with her hands bound behind her.

  A sound reached her, like metal doors being shut. Moments later a latch popped and the trunk opened to reveal the ski-masked man.

  She kicked, making contact and sending him backward with the force of it, screaming then, praying someone would hear her as he returned to use fists to subdue her.

  In his struggles to get her out of the trunk, the sleeve of his jacket pushed upward, revealing white skin above black leather gloves and the bottom inches of a tattoo that went all the way around his arm. Demons, a twisting mass of faces with their mouths open, inhaling souls and terror.

  He jerked the sleeve down, calling her bitch, his voice holding panic, his fists coming faster. He managed to grab her legs and pull her from the car. Her head struck
the bumper and then the concrete floor, sending sharp pain through her skull and then a nauseating throb.

  There was a quick glimpse of oil stains and navy blue paint, a mud-smeared New York license plate. She fought when she saw the shipping container, flaked green and rusted.

  Splinters from the floor tore at her face as she was dragged inside and onto a bare, heavily stained mattress. The doors slammed shut, trapping her in darkness and steel.

  Etaín woke in a panic, the room loud with the sound of harsh breathing, the boxers and tank sweat-soaked and her body shivering violently.

  She crawled from the mattress and got shakily to her feet, hugging herself, disoriented, stumbling to the bathroom and retching, though after the visit to the hospital there was little left in her stomach. She splashed hot water onto her face and the tattoos on her forearms warmed, as if absorbing some of the shock and horror, drawing it from her as the vividness of the nightmare memory began to fade.

  She forced herself away from the sink, not allowing herself comfort, not then. Usually she started with her pencils, but this time she went to the computer, typing the words as if they were her own. Speaking for Tyra, who might never have any semblance of a life worth living after what had happened to her.

  When the account was done she sent it to Parker, pushing the netbook away and reaching for pencils and paper. She matched images to the written account, compulsively drawing, every scene coming to life in a sequence she couldn’t deviate from, like frames in a movie, fully captured and in color. Stark and brutal, terrible in the reality they portrayed.

  When the last of them was done, she took a shower, tears for Tyra mingling with the water. She hugged herself, this time letting the heat sliding into the intricate, entangled vine tattoos weave a mental barrier.

  It was like applying an emotional bandage to a nightmare reality so it was gone, but not eradicated. Separate, like horror-filled pages in a true crime novel she would always choose not to open in fear of reliving it. Compartmentalized behind a closed and locked door without guilt, so she could function, so she could go on to help others.

  She left the shower and dressed though she felt far from normal. Her phone rang as she laced her boots. Parker. He must have been waiting next to his computer and held out for as long as he could before calling. She answered the phone, and by doing it, signaled she was finished drawing. He said, “I’m on my way.”

  “No. I’ll come there.”

  Silence greeted the statement. She didn’t explain herself. Didn’t tell him she couldn’t spend the remaining few hours until dawn alone and didn’t want to have to make explanations to a friend.

  “You’re leaving now?” Parker finally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll call Trent.”

  The sketches were loose instead of bound. She gathered them, careful to keep them in order though she didn’t look at them as she stacked, then rolled and placed the papers in a tube.

  Capping the end, she put on her jacket and left, taking a direct route to Parker’s place. He and Trent were waiting for her at the end of the narrow driveway. She stopped the Harley and pulled the strap attached to the carrier over her head, passing it to Trent because his hand was there for it first. He turned and jogged toward the front door.

  “You want to come in?” Parker asked.

  Her skin felt stretched tight, her insides aching, jittery. It was worse now than it had been in the apartment. She took off her helmet, affecting a casualness that didn’t exist.

  “Sure,” she said, following him to the front door.

  He opened it, flooding the porch with light and stepping aside to let her enter first. But the instant she was next to him he grabbed her hand, his anger and disappointment pulsing into her. “Christ, Etaín, what’d you take?”

  She jerked out of his grasp, his touch and the accusation too much to handle. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re standing in bright light and your pupils are fucking saucers so don’t bother lying. You get picked up—”

  Anger welled up. Hurt. She turned her back and headed for the bike.

  “That’s right, fucking run away, same as always,” he yelled after her.

  She felt the sting of tears and quickly suppressed them. She didn’t need his shit, didn’t need him ripping off the bandages covering the bad memories of her past.

  They’d once been as close as if they were best friends, not just brother and sister—until the dreams started, the call to ink she’d once tried to silence with drugs.

  She rubbed a hand over her face, hating the way it trembled just a little bit, like she really was strung out, a junkie needing a fix. And maybe she did need one, only it wasn’t a high like the one Parker accused her of.

  Cathal’s face came to mind first, bringing heat to chase away some of the chill. She touched the pocket of her jacket, feeling the cell phone beneath her fingers.

  She couldn’t bring herself to pull it out and make the call. It was after hours, the club shut down for the night. He’d be in bed now, and maybe not alone.

  Images from her dreams slid in. Cathal standing at a graveside. Cathal looking down at a teenage girl with a blank stare.

  Etaín shivered. She needed comfort but she wasn’t sure she could bear to touch someone, even him.

  Memories of Eamon came, of his pinning her hands to the wall, then behind her back. Aware of the eyes on her palms but inviting her to come to him day or night anyway, assuring her she wouldn’t find him with another woman.

  She tugged on the helmet and straddled the bike, refusing to let the warnings of childhood or the danger he might represent stop her. She rode to Aesirs, taking the Harley over the curb and driving straight up the sidewalk to within steps of the front door. She didn’t bother locking the helmet to the bike, just took it off and tucked it under her arm, part of her half expecting to be turned away.

  She heard the chimes again as she approached, a hundred tiny fairy bells ringing in her ears. Fear tried to take hold and turn her from her course, but she refused to allow that emotion. She needed what she could find with Eamon too much.

  The door opened as she lifted her fist to pound on it. A man stood there, as gorgeous as any of the ones she’d seen earlier. “Lord Eamon is at his home. I’ll have a car brought around for you.”

  Lord. It fit Eamon. And maybe it explained the popularity of Aesirs, in part anyway. The masculine eye-candy still got the weight of her vote.

  “I don’t need a ride. An address will do.”

  “I’ll send for a car anyway. You can follow it, or ride in it, as you choose.”

  Seven

  Eamon stopped in the middle of one of the numerous walking bridges in the mazelike gardens of his estate. He crouched to watch the small leopard sharks swimming in the waterway, hoping the sight of them would grant him respite from the worry Etaín’s continued disappearance caused.

  She wasn’t with Cathal. His home and club had been watched from the moment those following Etaín reported their failure.

  The easy way she’d lost them in the canyons troubled him. Stirring misgivings and making him second-guess his decisions concerning her.

  It didn’t matter she’d lived this long without being discovered by others, or that she was in his city, in his territory. Even as wife-consort, the threat of having her taken and made prisoner by another only lessened somewhat, while the worry and the need for vigilance increased as the focus shifted to keeping her safeguarded against assassination because of what she was—not just his, but seidic.

  He frowned, wondering at what concern had taken her to the hospital, his resolve to extricate her from the grip of the human world strengthened by knowledge of her reason for going to the homeless shelter afterward. Bad enough that she put her ink on clients, but to apply it to all comers at an event to serve the most disenfranchised of human society . . .

  Frustration washed through him. Short of imprisoning her himself, he had no way of preventing her fro
m seeing her obligations through. He needed time with her. A chance to set hooks of desire and magic and knowledge. She’d soon stop thinking herself human, stop identifying with them.

  He was prepared to take on the responsibility that came with adding a few more of them to his household, but more than a few? His mouth tightened into a grim line. He had no desire to become known as either a Lord overly fond of humans, or one controlled by his seidic consort.

  With each human introduced to a world where Elves and Dragons and other supernatural beings not only existed, but lived hidden among them, the potential to have it become widely known expanded exponentially. There was much he’d risk for Etaín, but not exposure.

  The sea breeze ripple of magic across his skin had him standing and waiting for Rhys to wind his way through the maze. “You’ve got news of her?” he asked as soon as his second came into view.

  “Yes. She’s on her way here.”

  The tension flowed out of Eamon, confidence returning in his choices concerning her. “I will see to her myself when she arrives.”

  The sedan Etaín followed entered Pacific Heights. It didn’t surprise her Eamon lived in an area of embassies and mansions with multimillion-dollar views. But as they approached a walled estate doubt crept in. What was she doing there?

  She slowed the Harley. Crashing at Derrick’s place seeming like a better choice.

  The gate slid back before she could act on the thought, revealing Eamon standing in the driveway, sand-gold hair unbound and flowing over a naked, smooth chest. Hands shoved casually into loose black pants ending at bare feet.

  Need returned in a hot wave, the subtle vibration of the bike between her legs heightening the desire and turning it into a craving to have Eamon’s hand push beneath her waistband and cup her mound.

  The sedan continued on but she stopped just inside the gate, racking the kickstand and dismounting several car lengths away from him.

  He came to her like fog moving in off the bay, his presence blocking out everything else. Enclosing them. Encapsulating time so nothing existed, nothing mattered except the two of them.