by Kara Silver
“You’re not fixing to go in?” His drawl was laced with amusement but curled at the edges with a warning.
Kennedy didn’t catch Aeth’s reply.
“Don’t care what kind you are. You must get told all the time: no pulse, no service? So, I’ll just say, keep to your boundaries, stone drag.” He glared for a few seconds more, then replaced his dark glasses and turned to walk away. Kennedy gawped at the sheer cockiness of the guy’s strut. Like a cowboy. Owning the street. No, owning the light, came her confused thought. Because the man seemed shrouded in a shadow.
“Miss? Your change?”
“Oh. Thanks.” Kennedy took it from the driver and jumped out, still staring down the street after the extraordinary man. “Who—”
“Don’t know. But I can’t go in that place.” Aeth took a step towards the cab before it left, but Kennedy grabbed him.
“Then wait here. Because I am.” When he went to speak, she added, “I’ll be quick. And you’ll be able to see me the whole time.”
The shop window was big enough. She took a massive breath and pushed open the door, recoiling as opening it clanged the bell. The space was large but shadowy, the music pulsing. Kennedy could hardly think over the loud beat and revolved slowly to take in the designs on the walls, all skulls, serpents and blood-dripping daggers.
Movement caught her eye. Something, someone coalescing from the darkness, behind the desk in front of a huge curtain. Like Aeth emerges from stone, was her first thought. No. That was impossible. She stared. The guy must have gotten to his feet; that was all. The music lowered to a less ear-splitting level and Mr Long Legs in Tight Jeans walked towards her.
Also impossible. She’d seen him walk away? Must all have to dress in the same uniform. Or they all share the same aesthetic. His lips hitched into a smile as he regarded her, if he could even see through his dark glasses.
“Whoever you are, you’re in the wrong place.”
His voice, wrapping around her like a caress, was the smoky-dark of the guy from earlier. Maybe he came back in through another door? Whatever. She had no time to ponder.
“Yeah, so, I’m like, thinking of getting a tatt?” Kennedy managed. “Only I’m, like, not sure what I want?” Is that too many likes? “I’ve seen this one I like, wondered if you do it?”
The look he peeled off his dark glasses to shoot her? If she’d wanted a piercing, she wouldn’t have needed him to get his needle gun out. It seemed to lance her. He wasn’t falling for her vacuous act, and even seemed amused by it. He was close enough for her to catch his scent now, and it made her nostrils twitch. Wood smoke? Okay, so he’s a smoker.
“Fine. We’ll play this out. So, yeah, we do all styles. Japanese, black steel, colour line…mostly traditional American. Depending what you want, you might have to book for when the right artist is free.” He gestured at the designs and signs hanging intimidatingly on the walls. “What style is it?”
“I don’t know the technical terms. But, it’s this.” Kennedy pulled out her drawing. The guy moved in to take it in a firm, tanned hand and Kennedy schooled herself not to step back, away from him. Mr Sex in Double Denim was threatening, sure, but there was something…unearthly about him. That smoke-scent had a chemical tang. A metallic tang?
When he looked from the drawing to her, his pierced eyebrow quirked, she gasped. “You know it? I mean, you’re familiar with it? This mark?” She caught her slip and wanted to smack her own face.
“Oh, yeah. But it isn’t a tattoo.” He focused on her and Kennedy fought the urge to slap a protective hand over her birthmark.
“What it is, then?”
“Scarification. Body modification by branding the skin with a scar rather than ink.”
“What?” She couldn’t deal with that now. Later. “How-how can you tell?”
“By the outline. It’s raised, isn’t it?”
He traced his finger around the drawing’s edges and Kennedy did step away this time, because as he delineated the design she’d made, she felt his touch on her skin. Felt it stroke her shoulder blade mark. And it was a mark. She couldn’t think of it as a birthmark, not now. She couldn’t speak until he dropped his hand.
“Do you do this?”
He narrowed his eyes. “What are you really askin’? Why’s it so all-fire important now to ask about something that’s been around from the earliest days of the human race?”
A shout came from behind the curtain, breaking the beating silence between them. When the guy turned to reply, the connection was weak enough for Kennedy to slide the drawing from his fingers and bolt for the door.
“Wait!” he called, but she didn’t. Couldn’t. Couldn’t even reply, make up an excuse or toss out a wisecrack. Just needed to be away from the shadows and in the sunlight, however feeble it was. Outside, she grabbed Aeth from where he was slouching against a stone drainpipe and hustled him away.
“Sorry if you were recharging,” she gasped, dragging him up a side street, belatedly realising she’d taken his hand. She dropped it. “Aeth, the mark—it isn’t a tatt. Not something inked on. It’s scarification! Cutting or branding the skin! Why would anyone want to do that?”
“Oh, of course.” He gave a nod.
“What?”
“I knew I’d seen the symbol before, and now I understand why. Come on.”
“Where—” She didn’t have enough breath to talk and follow him, so chose the latter. And yeah, they were headed back to Heylel and the museum.
It was weird, seeing normal members of the public visiting the place, adults exclaiming over the displays, and kids daring one another to peek inside the cases. A gallery assistant sat at the desk near the door, pointing out something to a couple, and a small group of students sat at the learning station on the middle floor. There were classes on a Saturday? Probably. Or this lot was keen.
“Up.” Aeth indicated the second floor.
“The body art?” Kennedy guessed, clattering up the helical stairs. “Oh—” The display she’d seen before, the one that had started all this, was now covered. UNDER ARRANGMENT, a printed notice said. Maybe because of the temporary exhibition? Replacing things?
“Scarification.” Aeth frowned until she caught him up, at the next case along. She hadn’t got that far before.
“Its main purpose is to enhance a person’s beauty?” Kennedy exclaimed, scanning the information about the parts of the world where cutting the skin to permanently mark it was practised and why.
“That’s one purpose. It’s a serious ritual. The reasons behind it connect to a culture’s social systems and cultural beliefs. Thought you were an anthropologist.”
She flushed at his sharp look. “To mark stages in a person’s life? But I—” I’ve had mine as long as I can remember. What she didn’t remember was anyone doing it. No ceremony. Or ceremonies at salient points of her life, where the pattern was returned to and deepened and finished. Like sleeve tattoos. Kennedy had no tatts. Had never wanted one. Wanted one even less now. “People say getting tattoos feels good.” She tried to explain her thoughts. “So, I suppose with this, the endorphin release, or rush…” What did that remind her of? “Especially if it happens over time, like getting a boost?”
She grabbed for her bag and the drawings. The marks she’d seen in photos of the girls—they hadn’t been exactly the same? And not exactly the same as hers? Works in progress?
“Different phases.” Aeth nodded. “And different group identities.”
“Umm.” The display mentioned different tribal markings and Kennedy’s mind leapt ahead. Like a cult? “What…” Oh, yes, she recalled from that first practical here, the one that seemed a lifetime ago, the instructor saying the drawers underneath the displays opened. This one did. And wasn’t empty. “What’s that book?” She pointed at it lying there. “It looks old. Is it…handwritten?”
“Think of it as a card index.” He sighed at her bewilderment. “A pre-internet search engine. It’s a field journal, in point of fac
t. Notes and research made by a researcher.”
“And drawings.” Her heart thumped, and she betted Aeth could hear it.
“Keep watch.”
She turned around at his order, but no one seemed near, or interested. She twisted back when Aeth exclaimed, “Here.”
There were lots of heres. Several heres. The mark, again and again, the pencil or charcoal drawings much better and neater than hers, reaching across time to her. “Why so many?”
“Different cultures.”
“But same mark.”
“And same meaning. Or, at least the researcher’s attempts to translate what he or she heard or read.”
She didn’t need to look. “Allegiance.”
“That’s right. Or belonging.” Aeth closed the pages.
“With the devil.”
“Demons.” His correction sounded almost soft, and he sank to sit on the floor next to her.
“I’m more confused than ever,” Kennedy confessed, wanting to howl at how overwhelmed she was. “Why would anyone do that? Or…maybe they don’t do it?” The marks were seen before the girls vanished. Her thoughts about this being a cult came back. Not all members were in them of their own free will. And the girls hadn’t seemed, well, cultish. At least not from their online presence. Had seemed normal. Friends, parties… Parties. Party.
“That party. That thing in the bar.” She pointed as if the cellar bar was over his shoulder. “You made me leave. Why? What was going to happen?”
Something flashed in his eyes and her fuse burned shorter. “Aeth, I’m warning you. Don’t do that Mr Enigma thing! We need to solve this! Why won’t you just tell me?” She grabbed him, got two handfuls of his shirt in her fists and pushed him into a niche, thudding him against the wall. “You should feel at home there,” she snarked.
“Don’t.”
The low-voiced command the hardness to his gaze made her drop her hands, but she didn’t let up. “You know more than you’re telling me. Admit it.”
“Tell. Admit. Remember what I said before? About asking the—”
“That’s it. Enough. I’m done with this.” Kennedy shoved him and backed away. “I don’t need this, you holding out on me. Working against me, for all I know.”
Hard hands grabbed her and spun her back before she reached the stairs. “Against you? Everything I’ve done has been to protect you, you ungrateful little de—”
“Demon?” Kennedy stepped into his space. “Say it. I dare you.” Energy flickered, just outside her skin. Focussing, Kennedy breathed in and caught and held the force, or power, or whatever it was, making it ripple through her. The touch of shadow, of smoke, perhaps, it held? That felt fantastic. “I thought not. Now, talk, stone boy.”
22
“Not until you calm down. Kennedy, centre yourself.”
Without warning, Aeth placed a hand on either side of her face. His touch was cool and certain, like a stone dropping from a height into water, the impact minimal and the depth great. She could even scent cold freshness, dissipating the fire smoke or whatever it was of earlier. She nodded for him to continue.
“Not here.”
They were attracting attention. Kennedy jerked her head, and it was his turn to nod. He indicated for her to lead the way and with another sly glance about her, she did, to the small set of stairs and the roof. She guessed Aeth would feel more…whatever it was he usually felt, in his natural habitat.
“So?” she asked, reaching for his arm to stop him from pacing.
“I told you I’m a guardian. A protector. Hence the training: if you intend to stay here, you’ll need to learn to use your power.”
“And I told you I do intend to stay here.” Something in his tone snagged. “So, if I wasn’t here, there’d be no need to train me? You’d…prefer it if I wasn’t here.”
“It would be easier if you’d stayed away.”
“Well, isn’t that just bloody charming?” Kennedy stretched out her fingers that were wanting to curl into fists. “And, yeah, sarcasm.”
“I don’t see why my stating facts should provoke this level of anger. Although…”
“What? Spit it out. I think we’re beyond coy.”
“I was angry about it too. About that, I mean.” He looked surprised at the fact, or maybe that he was revealing it. “I was angry at your original guardian for injuring you. That was the wrong way to go about things.”
“Wh—” She sort of stuck there, all the ‘wh’ questions she wanted to ask jammed like cans in a vending machine. She shook herself, hoping to free them. “You mean my ankle? The bastard!”
“I don’t know he meant it to be as serious as it was.”
She grabbed out at him when he went to move. “Don’t you dare slink off! Come back here!”
He didn’t, so she followed him to his ledge. “I tripped over a milestone, a small one just sticking up out of the pavement at the top of the market square. Funny when we all used that shortcut through the square on the regular, and none of us ever had any problems before. And what’s even funnier? That none of us could remember seeing a mile marker thing there before. A stone mile sign thing.”
She sat next to him and huffed out a laugh. “Oh, God. I should have known, shouldn’t I? When Layla rang one of those solicitors who advertises in the Accident and Emergency ward, he said to get pictures of the obstacle for the case file. Only, when we went back to the spot… You can guess the rest.”
“The milestone was gone.”
“Yeah.” Kennedy shivered a little and stared as Aeth removed his jacket, to drape over her shoulders. “Thanks. Well, we just assumed we were in the wrong spot, or I’d broken the stone off when I fell over it, or I’d fallen over something else that’d been cleaned up. Anything, really. I mean, I thought I knew what had happened, but I told myself I was mistaken.”
“As I said, people see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe.”
“So. My former protector. Incompetent or malicious?” Kennedy queried.
Aeth tilted his head to one side. It made his fringe flop, but Kennedy didn’t tell him. “More the former. Sledgehammer to crack a nut type of creature. Not…subtle. Primitive. Crude, even. Of course, he didn’t have much, if anything, to do for many years. Not until recently.”
“I can imagine. So, he just spent the majority of his time hanging around on the roof of Wyebury Cathedral.”
“Oh. You know him.”
Was Aeth impressed? Hard to tell. He looked…tired.
“I can show you a postcard of him. I use it as a bookmark. Is getting lazy, not wanting to put the work in, an occupational hazard of the guardian-protector gig? Asking for a friend, whose guardian guy didn’t want her to come to his town so he’d have less work, when he was assigned to her.”
Aeth looked out over the grounds. “It’s not exactly that. More…forgetting how to interact. Finding it harder and harder, the longer one goes on, until it’s impossible.”
Kennedy didn’t know what to think to that. “Well, thanks, I guess?”
“For…”
“Looking out for me. The party. And, now, you’re going to tell me, because I’m asking the question, what was that party all about?”
When he spoke, his voice was slow and a little slurred. “At those so-called parties, girls are drugged and a sample of their blood taken.”
She nodded. She’d suspected as much from Maja’s description of the needle mark on the inside of her elbow. “Because?”
“Which blood tastes the purest, they go after her. That’s all I know.”
“I believe you.” Silent, now, she replaced his jacket on his shoulders for him. He looked as if he needed it more. “So, we don’t what they want it, or the girls, for. But I do know what it means. It means we need to get invited to another party.”
“Not…tonight.” Aeth sort of folded into himself. “Training. Later. I’ll…” And just like that, he was stone. Solid, immoveable, as if he’d never been human.
“Typical. Men. Even if they’re hermai. No stamina.” Kennedy patted him. “You have a nice rest and don’t worry about me. See you later.” Because she had bridges to build, with someone who’d been to a few of these parties and who could extend her an invite to the next.
“Emma.” Kennedy stepped over the dining hall bench to sit next to her, ignoring the tuts as the people to that side of Emma had to shove themselves and their dinner plates down the long table. “Hi. Haven’t seen you to talk to for a while.”
“Well, you keep… What do you smell of?” Emma leaned close. “Leather? Petrol? Smoke?”
“All of the above? Might be patchouli,” Kennedy replied. Black Hair and Piercing guy did have that sort of scent to him.
“Been to a heavy metal concert? Or hanging around with Hell’s Angels?” Emma sniggered, making her strawberry-blonde hair bounce.
“Again, sort of both? I was in that American tattoo place on Cowley Road.”
“Oh?” Emma stopped eating, her eyes wide.
“Yeah. Some cute guys there.” Kennedy shot her a wink. “Bit more interesting that the average college boy, ya know? Not a popped collar in sight. Bit more my scene. And speaking of, anything going on, event-wise? Or is everyone too settled into the term now? Work piling up? Mine is, but what the hell.”
“My work is piled high,” Maja leaned across to say.
“Which means you need to study, babe,” Emma replied. “Whereas you, K, sound like you need to let off steam. And as it happens, I do know of this great party next week. Off campus, so anything goes. Not some tame ‘no noise after eleven p.m.’ affair.” The smile she turned on Kennedy was part-challenge, part-smug.
Kennedy copied her in smirking at Maja, then tore off a strip of pizza and folded it into her mouth. “Tell me more,” she said, chewing at the same time. Oh, I’m getting good at this.
