by Lori Devoti
Chapter Three
When I woke the next morning-three hours past my normal waking time-my first thoughts were of the Amazons: had they found my clues? Did they know what they meant? Would my small message be enough to save another teen? And had they sensed my presence? I’d dropped the juniper, but that would offer only the smallest of clues. My energy smeared all over the mare would be much harder to miss-by a high priestess as powerful as, say, my grandmother anyway. There weren’t many as old as Bubbe, or as skilled, but it was a possibility. Were the Amazons already putting together a plan to drag me back to the council? To find out what I knew and how?
At that juncture I had no way of knowing the answers to any of those questions, but I was sure of one thing: hiding my unwilling involvement in the deaths was the right choice. If anything, my visit the night before, the roiling of my stomach when I’d first seen the house, remembering how even my best friend had turned against me, had confirmed that.
I’d done what I could to alert the Amazons, and the police were already investigating. It was enough; it had to be. I couldn’t even share what had happened with Mother or Bubbe. Odds were they would feel they had to alert the Amazons directly, which would mean me facing the Amazons. It wasn’t going to happen.
So, to keep up the facade of my carefully crafted world, I ignored the gnawing of my conscience, smashed aside all thoughts of Amazons, and went down the worn marble stairs that connected our living area to the main floor and my office.
The reception area was nothing but a couple of tall chairs in front of a barlike structure made of paneling and plywood. The shop wouldn’t open for another hour, and I had no early morning meetings, so I had the place to myself. I walked around the reception desk/bar and opened the glass-and-wood door that hid my office. The room had housed the school’s principal in its past life. My employees commented on that whenever I called them in to talk. Having been homeschooled myself or, more accurately, “road schooled,” since I grew up traveling from place to place, I got no negative vibes when entering the space, but it didn’t bother me that others did. There was nothing wrong with starting out with an upper hand-the principal thing did that for me.
A folder thick with papers sat squarely on the center of my desk.
Interview day. With everything going on, I’d forgotten.
Artemis bless Mandy for remembering.
My hand drifted down to the manila folder and rested there. Our business was growing-a good thing-and it was time to add an artist, also good. But I couldn’t help question if now was the best time to be adding a new employee to the mix-another set of eyes to take note of whatever strange thing happened next.
This was no spur-of-the-moment decision. We’d talked about hiring another artist in our weekly staff meetings for months. If I backed out now, it would turn more than one pair of curious-make that outraged-eyes on me.
To make matters worse, even in the best times hiring an artist could be tricky. To work for me they had to be the absolute best at what they did, and they had to ignore little things like Bubbe’s spell casting and Mother’s weapon practice in the basement below the shop.
Oh, and female. They had to be female.
Female-like the dead girls. I shook my head and stared down at the folder. Putting the deaths to the back of my mind wasn’t going to be easy, but somehow I had to-interviewing artists was as good a way as any. Resolved to the necessity, I heaved out a breath and flipped open the folder to see what my day had in store.
There were four applications inside, each with a time noted in the margin. My first was in ten minutes, a recent high school graduate with nothing more exciting to offer than a couple of art classes-and he was male. I shuffled his application to the side. I hadn’t told Mandy about my gender preference for employees. I could do what I wanted, but I couldn’t be obvious about it, which meant I’d have to interview any men who looked qualified. And while I didn’t have to give them serious consideration, it had to look as if I did.
The next two were also male. One had twenty years of experience in one of the top shops in Miami. I frowned. Not hiring him would be hard to justify. Tapping my pencil against the table, I said a silent prayer to Artemis that he arrived reeking of booze.
Number three had only a couple years of tattoo experience. The woman could surely beat that.
Thankfully, she did-ten years of experience, numerous awards, and recommendations out of this world. Ding, ding, ding. We had a winner; now all I had to do was get through the other interviews as quickly as possible, making note of all the men’s failings, and I’d be suitably protected from any potential legal problems.
At twelve thirty on the nose, my first interview arrived. He looked around nervously, obviously taking note when Mother stopped behind the reception desk dressed in Lycra shorts and a snug-fitting sport top. The old school’s full-size gym was in a second building next door, but Mother had claimed a room in the basement for her weights. She was down there more often than not and had a better body than most twenty-year-old human aerobics instructors. The artist I was interviewing noticed. He was also young, cute, and easy to mark off my list without a trace of guilt.
The second, Mr. Experienced from Miami, seemed to have as many issues with working for a woman as I did hiring a man.
“I thought your name was Mel,” he grumbled, reaching up to grab a cigarette he had stashed behind one ear.
“It is.” I didn’t bother explaining I was named for one of the original Amazons, Melanippe, a direct descendent of Ares and Otrera. Somehow I didn’t think he would be all that impressed.
“It all women here?” He leaned to the side to see around my office door out into the shop.
I folded my arms over my breasts and smiled. Tattooing is a sacred business for Amazons-one exclusively performed by women, for obvious reasons. Men just don’t have the same spiritual depth. I found it endlessly funny that in the modern world men had come to dominate the art. Of course, it also explained why most tattoos today no longer possessed the power they should.
“You have a problem with that?” I shifted my snake bracelet a little higher on my wrist, making sure the ruby eyes were pointed directly at my applicant, then smiled. I wasn’t putting the mojo on him or anything, but I was thinking about it-hard.
He shivered. “No, I guess not-just weird, s’all.”
“Yes, weird.”
I was suddenly bored and antsy to get things moving. I still had one more fake interview to complete before the woman/real applicant arrived.
“Well, it’s been nice. We’ll call you.” Or not. I ushered him out of my office.
A wave of surprise washed over his face, but he left. I followed him to the front, just to make sure. When he trudged down the steps to the front door, I wiped my hands together. Two down, one to go. Gotta love efficiency.
A man in his midthirties stepped inside as the second candidate left. He had dark hair and brows that drew attention to chocolatey eyes. He also had some impressive art on one arm, a quarter sleeve of mountains and stars. However, it was the portfolio tucked under said arm that led me to the ingenious assumption that he was applicant number three.
Kind of old for only a couple years of experience. I pegged him as a tattoo addict who thought he could do it himself.
This would be easy. I waved Mandy back to her spot behind the reception desk and held out a hand in greeting.
“You must be here for the interview.”
He stopped two steps from the top, analyzing me from the tips of my well-used hikers to the top of my baseball-cap-covered head. I felt an insane urge to yank the hat off and run my fingers through my shoulder-length auburn hair.
Primping was not a usual Amazon urge. Irritated, I jerked my hand back and scowled.
“I’m here to see Mel,” he announced.
Another one. “I’m Mel.” I waited for the shock and outrage that he had been scammed by my masculine name.
“Really?” Confusion flitted through his dark eyes. “I wa
s expecting someone…”
My scowl transformed into a smirk. I was starting to enjoy this; it was amusing and it kept my mind off the deaths…well, somewhat. “Yes, you were expecting someone…” I prompted.
He finished climbing the last two steps, stopping just inches from me. With the confusion still apparent on his face, he looked down at me.
“Taller. I thought you’d be taller.”
Well, hell.
I was a measly five eight. My mother was six foot two. I’d never met my father, but I suspected he was a midget. My outspoken interviewee had to be pushing six four. He had over half a foot on me. Strangely enough, it did not endear him to me.
“You have a height requirement for interviews?” Yeah, I was bitter. Yeah, it showed.
Busy studying the top of my Wisconsin Badger cap, it took him a while to answer. When he did, he seemed at least somewhat embarrassed by his prior declaration.
“No, it’s just, what with…” He stopped, switching his attention to Mandy, who was eyeballing him like a cat that’s just spied the last bowl of cream. I half expected her to lick her lips in anticipation.
This time I did yank off my cap and slapped it down on the reception desk. “Mandy, why don’t you order some more bandages? Janet said she was running low.”
My office manager didn’t seem in any big hurry to get back to work, so I picked my cap up and strode around the counter. “My office is back here. Might as well get on with it.”
Mr. Six Four, Peter Arpada, according to his application, managed to tear himself away from the reception desk and followed.
By the time we reached my private space, I’d regained a sense of calm. It wasn’t that I was sensitive about being short, for an Amazon anyway. It was just that not many people pointed it out. Which, come to think of it, brought a question to mind. He didn’t know I was an Amazon.
“Why did you expect me to be tall?” I blurted the question out before he had a chance to sit in the chair recently deserted by bad candidate number two.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He unzipped his portfolio and began flipping through pages. “The name, I guess, and the tattoo thing. I just expected someone different.”
He smiled, and I tried hard to keep my face stern. There was an insult in there somewhere, but it was hard to focus on it under the full power of his pearly whites. I decided to let the whole height thing go and just work on marking him off my list as fast as I could.
“Let’s see what you got.” I held out my hand.
I should have been warned by the confident tilt his head took as he slapped the leather case into my hand, but I wasn’t. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw inside.
“These are…nice,” I murmured. Nice my ass, these were killer. Not to be completely egotistical, but I hadn’t seen anything this good outside of my own shop, created by me. I flipped to a wolf head, done in portrait style, then quickly moved to the more abstract stuff. The colors were especially good choices; pausing on the image of a woman’s arm with a Celtic dragon wrapped around it, I frowned.
“What’s your story?” I asked.
He paused, his hands splayed over the tops of his denim-clad legs. I couldn’t help but notice how strong and efficient his hands looked, with long fingers and neatly clipped nails.
“My story?”
The question brought my attention back to his face.
“Yeah, you know, your history.” I pointed to the image in front of me. “This looks like you have graffiti in your past.”
“Oh.” He gifted me with another thousand-watt smile. “I learned the style the old-fashioned way, with a spray can and a blank wall. You know teenagers-too much energy and too little to do. Graffiti beat the other options.”
I responded with a noncommittal grunt. I wasn’t interested in discussing excess teenage energy and what it might cause right now.
“Portrait and graffiti. Don’t see an artist who can do both too often.” I couldn’t help it. I was impressed. And not only could he do both, he rocked at both. I closed my eyes for a few beats, then reopened them. He was still there, and he was still male. He reached up to rub the back of his neck, causing his U2 concert tee to pull tight across his chest-very male.
“You have any problem working with women?” I blurted out.
“No, not at all.” His lips tilted into another dangerous smile. “I like women.”
My heart slammed against my chest. Not good. I so didn’t need this right now-not ever.
Doing my best to pretend every inch of my body wasn’t tingling with awareness, I stood up and held out his portfolio. “Very nice, but I have a few more candidates to consider. I have your number. I’ll be in touch either way.”
He leveled an assessing stare in my direction before accepting the portfolio. “Let me give you my cell-phone number. I’m out a lot.” Reaching inside the leather case, he pulled out the sheet with the wolf portrait on it, then, before I could object, scribbled a number along the bottom.
“I have notepaper,” I replied, staring at the sample of his work. I knew it was only a copy, that he had to keep an original somewhere else, but the depiction of the wolf was so accurate, the eyes so piercing, it seemed criminal to use it casually for scrap. It didn’t help that the wolf was the traditional symbol for my clan. In fact, on the small of my back was a tattoo eerily similar to the one resting on the desk in front of me.
“But this is more memorable. I don’t want you to forget me. Besides, I can see you like wolves.” His gaze dropped to the wolf fetish nestled between my breasts, then flicked back to my face.
I stiffened in response. With a grin, he slid the paper across my desk toward me.
My eyes jumped from the image of the wolf to his tan face. Brown eyes filled with shrewd assessment stared back at me-like he expected something more, a reaction of some sort. A flutter of disquiet passed through me.
Without pausing to think, I placed my hand palm down onto the image, then held my breath, waiting. I’m not sure what I expected. It was silly, really. He was a man, and men just didn’t have the power needed to convert ink into something more. And even a priestess couldn’t create an image on paper capable of containing energy. Tattoos could only contain energy when attached to a living, breathing being, making it all the stranger that the dead girls’ tattoos had been removed. Realizing I was back to thinking about the teens and making assumptions about what the killer knew, I frowned, then knocked the thoughts aside. Back to the problem at hand.
Under my palm, the paper felt cool and smooth-not even an indentation where the drawing was. Because it’s just a copy, dimwit. Feeling silly, I jerked my palm up and balled my hand at my side.
“Well, thanks. Like I said, I’ll be in touch.”
He hesitated, long enough I thought he might argue, but he just slid his portfolio under his arm, flicked one long piece of unruly hair out of his eyes, and stood to leave.
I glanced at the wolf. Its gray eyes gleamed back at me, urging me to stop this man from going. I shoved the paper under a folder and plastered an efficient smile on my face. “Should know by the end of the week.” The sentence sounded false even to my ears, but my applicant just smiled and turned to leave.
“Wait.” The word passed my lips before my common sense could stop it.
He paused, his expression unreadable.
“The dragon. Do you think I could have a copy of that too? I’d like to show these”-I gestured to the folder that now hid the wolf from view-“to my partner, my mother. In case it’s a close decision.” Technically, my mother was my business partner, but I ran the place. I had no more intention of showing her his work than I did of giving Harmony a tattoo. But it was a good excuse, and I really wanted another look at that dragon.
If he thought my request odd, he didn’t show it. Just pulled out the Celtic dragon image and held it out toward my desk. I reached for it, but he dropped it too quickly. In a graceful zigzag motion it floated like a feather caught on a breeze before la
nding faceup in front of me.
I refused to look at it again until he left. So, I stood there waiting while he nodded a last good-bye and wandered from my office. When I was sure he was gone, I strode to the door and pushed it closed with a click.
Back behind my desk, I pulled out the wolf and stared down at both pictures. They were fantastic-no doubt about that-but mystical? I ran one finger over the surface of the dragon. Nothing. Just ink and paper. I let out a breath in a relieved puff; obviously, the tension of the past few weeks was getting to me.
Nothing like letting your imagination run wild.
Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I held the dragon up to the window. Still, there was something about his work that was familiar. The thought nagged at me, knocking around in my head like a discarded soda can in the back of a pickup truck.
Try as I might, I couldn’t shake anything solid loose. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t hiring him no matter how talented he was.
Forcing myself not to give either piece another look, I balled up the images and tossed them in the trash.
Chapter Four
Candidate number four dressed like she was trying out for some rock-chick reality show. Unfortunately, she was over forty and the black eyeliner didn’t do her crow’s feet any favors. However, she was also prompt and female. What more could I ask for?
“I don’t do feet,” she announced, plopping down into a chair. “And I don’t do cover-ups. Not my job to be fixing someone else’s mistake.”
Okay. Feet didn’t tend to be anyone’s favorite part of the body to tattoo, and I could understand her stance on trying to cover up someone else’s work-kind of.
“Maybe we should talk about what you do do.” I riffled through her file, searching for her résumé. I pulled it out and scanned it. “You have a very impressive list of experience here.”
“I know my stuff.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the wooden office chair. Her slashed tee slipped off one shoulder.
“So, what you do…” I prompted.
