Amazon Ink

by Lori Devoti

  I forced my eyes and mind to focus. There were a lot of thoughts pinging around in my brain-Peter’s kiss and the idea that Reynolds was attracted to me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about either; my body was sure how it felt, but my mind, not so much. That Harmony was confiding in not only Dana, but also Peter-a man she had only met a little over a week ago-rather than me. The disturbing fact that Dana thought it was an okay idea to show my daughter a Web site with girls, Dana being one of them, obviously drunk and flashing skin. And finally, the biggie, that on said Web site there were pictures of both dead Amazon girls, not to mention the other girls who I knew from their art were also Amazons. Givnomais displayed for the world to see on the Internet…Someone in the tribe wasn’t doing her job educating these girls. It pissed me off.

  I put my anger aside, for now.

  I had to find out who took these pictures and posted them on the Web. I had to stop this leak, and in the process most likely I’d find the killer.

  And while not a total technophobe, I had clue zero on how to do that. Except asking Dana. If she didn’t know, I might have to do something crazy, like be responsible and call the police.

  Dana was back upstairs. I realized this as soon as I opened my office door-the smell of melting chocolate was a dead giveaway. As was the plate of freshly baked cookies sitting next to the group flash on the reception counter. They were still warm and gooey when I sank my teeth into one.

  I followed my nose up the stairs. For all the smells filling the building, the kitchen was frighteningly clean. I stood there, trying to think where a pregnant woman who had just baked six-dozen cookies (neatly resting on wire racks I didn’t know I owned) and scrubbed a kitchen (even the dust bunnies that were normally stuck to the chair feet had been evicted) would go next.

  I knew where I’d go-bed. With that in mind, I walked down the hall to the room recently assigned to Dana.

  She was there, but she wasn’t sleeping. Somehow in the last four hours, in addition to her baking, she’d found a can of paint, pan and roller, and brushes. She was halfway around the room already.

  Even if I hadn’t seen her givnomai on the Internet, I would have guessed it. No one but a bee, maybe a beaver, could be this diligent.

  She turned when I entered. A streak of purple ran down her nose and dots of white adorned her hair. “You’re done. Did you want some lunch? I made a quiche.”

  I’d never had quiche in my life, wasn’t 100 percent sure I knew what it was.

  “Uh, no, actually I wanted to talk to you about something.” Facing her beaming eagerness made bringing up the Web site that much harder. Made it hard to believe the drunken girl I’d seen on the Internet and this one were one and the same person.

  Finally, I just said it. “I saw the Web site.”

  “Oh.” She picked up the brush and dabbed at a spot where the old institutional green was leaking through the purple. “Do you like this color? I thought about pink. It’s my favorite, but Harmony didn’t think it was a good idea.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure why.”

  “Because of the baby?”

  She patted her stomach. “What about him?”

  “Him. He’s a boy.”

  The wrinkle morphed to a full-face frown. “I know.”

  I took a breath, then let it go. The kid was going to be the first boy in history raised with a family of Amazons-a pink or purple bedroom was sure to be the least of his differences.

  I paused, wondering if he, like many Amazons, would inherit skill sets from his grandmother. Pisto was a warrior and Dana a hearth-keeper. I had no idea which was more common in their line. Could a boy be a hearth-keeper? Of course, common belief was that males didn’t inherit any of the Amazon strengths, had normal mortal life spans and no powers; skill sets or lack of them should follow this same rule…

  “Is it okay if I paint the furniture too? I was thinking white.”

  Purple walls, white furniture…if the boy did get a skill set, I prayed to Artemis it was warrior. Or maybe on his thirteenth birthday I’d just gift him with a badger tattoo like the one Nick had been drawing. He’d need the added toughness to survive junior high.

  Dana picked a plastic bag off the floor and pulled a white lace baby gown and bonnet from it. “I got this from Goodwill. What do you think?”

  I rethought the tattoo. It would take more than a badger to handle the ribbing this kid was going to endure, even in liberal Madison.

  “Pretty. I might have some of Harmony’s old stuff stashed somewhere too.” And none of it was pink or frilly.

  “Really?” Dana pulled the gown to her chest and twirled. “I can’t believe how happy I am. Nothing could ruin this. Nothing.”

  Just hearing those words made me cringe inside. I’d felt that way once, but I’d learned that things had a horrible way of twisting around and around again until the one worst thing you never dreamed would happen did.

  And current times were far from certain. Still, I wasn’t going to stamp on Dana’s fluffy image of life. Maybe she was right. Maybe her life would be perfect from now on.

  “About the Web site. I was wondering if you could tell me who put it together.”

  “Oh, the one of our tattoos? I really don’t know. We went to a couple parties after the bar closed, and someone was passing around a phone. Most of the pictures we took ourselves.”

  “You didn’t even know whose phone it was?”

  She picked up a roller and started coating the wall in purple. “Didn’t seem important. It was just for fun.”

  Fun. Some fun. I couldn’t help myself, my “mother” voice kicked in. “You know you shouldn’t show people your givnomai.”

  Dana frowned, almost a scoff. “Everyone does.”

  The importance of guarding your givnomai had been pounded into me by Bubbe, into all Amazons by their elders, I had thought. Yet another example of teenagers deciding they knew better. I wanted to shake Dana, then and there. Shake Alcippe or whoever had fallen down and not warned these girls about guarding their givnomais too. Of course, it went past that, showed how much the Amazons needed to change. The world was changing; if the Amazons didn’t change with it, they would be destroyed by enemies they never knew existed.

  Who was I kidding? That’s exactly what was happening. I made a mental note to talk to Zery, to insist she get the older Amazons educated on today’s technology and the benefits and dangers that could come with it.

  I tightened my jaw and resisted my desire to lecture Dana until I ran out of words and voice. I knew from experience with Harmony that reaction would just shut her down, make her see me as the enemy rather than the cool friend she could trust. And for now I needed to be that friend.

  I let it go.

  “So, how’d you even find out the pictures were on the Web?” I asked.

  She took a step back to admire her work. “Same way. People at a party were talking about it.”

  “But no one claimed the page.”

  She filled in a spot of white with a quick hard turn of the roller. “Not that I heard.”

  I left her alone, happy and sucking up paint fumes. She had been very little help, except to tell me she was no help so I could move on to step B-whatever that was.

  Back in my office, I stared at the computer screen. I had told myself if I couldn’t figure out who had set up the page, I’d call the police-Detective Reynolds, to be exact. But now old loyalties were warring with that resolve.

  Should I talk to Zery first? What if she didn’t want to tell the police? But if I couldn’t think of a way to track down the page’s owner, how could Zery?

  I toyed with calling the social site and demanding their assistance, even went so far as to click around their “contact” page. There were all kinds of links to report abuse, but none that indicated they’d be willing to reveal who had set up a page. I had a feeling it was going to take a lot more than one parent’s outraged call to get that information out of them, especially since the pictures in question would garne
r at most a PG rating.

  Which brought me back to Zery and Detective Reynolds. I was savvy enough to realize calling the detective would focus his attention back on me as a possible suspect-not that his attention had wandered too far from that direction anyway. I also realized Zery was stubborn enough and arrogant enough to refuse to let the police into what she saw as Amazon business. Knowing the queen as I did, she’d put together some kind of war party, march to northern California, and storm the site’s corporate offices first.

  That would be lovely-computer programmers held hostage by a troop of six-foot-tall Amazon warriors.

  Amusing as the image was-it also rang horribly possible.

  I jerked open my desk drawer and rummaged for the card Reynolds had given me on his first visit.

  So far as Zery was concerned, better to ask forgiveness than permission. Okay, not so much with a warrior; you might not survive the forgiveness stage. But since I was damned sure I wasn’t going to be gifted with permission, it was the only option left to me.

  I picked up the phone.

  Detective Reynolds was in.

  “I found something I think you need to see,” I said, my eyes focused on the bear telios. If I concentrated on the girls, I wouldn’t think so much about how angry Zery was going to be when she found out I’d gone to the police before her.

  “Really?” He sounded bored, but it was an act. There was a little lift on the “L” that gave him away. “And what would that be?”

  “You near a computer with Internet?” At his affirmative, I read off the URL. “Scroll down to the third row, then over two pictures.”

  “How’d you find this?” Tense-not bored at all.

  “A client sent it to me. She liked one of the tattoos and wanted to see if I could replicate it. I recognized the bear and leopard from the pictures you showed me.” Peter had tried the story with me and it hadn’t worked. Didn’t mean it wouldn’t work with Reynolds.

  “Quit the bullshit.”

  Or not.

  “You’re welcome,” I replied.

  “Welcome, my ass. When are you going to come clean? Who are these girls and why won’t you tell me?”

  Amazons, and because it wasn’t really my secret to give up. But maybe it was time, and maybe I could convince Zery of that…maybe.

  I twisted in my chair and turned my back to the tattoos on my screen. For some reason I couldn’t face them right now. “I didn’t know those girls. I swear that.”

  “But you know more about them than I do. I’ve run every check I can think of and come up with diddly-and not much of that. What do you know?”

  I took a deep breath. I wanted to tell him. I really did, but…“I don’t know those girls. I had never laid eyes on them-” I cut off what I was about to say.

  “Had never laid eyes on them? That didn’t sound complete.” He took a breath. I could tell he was struggling for control. “You had never laid eyes on them before what? That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? Finish the sentence.”

  He was leaving something unsaid too-or else. Tell him what I knew or else…he’d arrest me? Question me? Make my life living hell? I didn’t know and didn’t want to find out. Still…“Before you showed up with those pictures.”

  There was a muffled curse, then the sound of his phone being slammed down. I listened to the angry buzz of the dial tone, then slowly slid the handset back on the receiver.

  Well, the ink was injected there. No going back.

  Now to prepare Zery.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I sought strength in a piece of quiche before facing Zery. It was good. Having a hearth-keeper around really had some benefits-at least until hearth-keeper junior showed up. I guess I’d see if having fresh-baked quiche for lunch balanced out waking to a baby screaming at two A.M.

  After picking the crust off the quiche that was still in the pie plate and popping it into my mouth, I squared my shoulders and went in search of Zery.

  She was on the phone and, lucky for me, she looked happy.

  “We found another girl who went to that bar and she named two others. The first is at the Florida safe camp. The other two are somewhere between Illinois and California. When they arrive in California, the queen knows to keep them there. We’ll find out what they know and keep them there, watched and safe.”

  “How are you going to do that?” The Amazons had a complex structure. Each Amazon had loyalty to their family group, identified by their telios, and to the six reigning queens-especially the queen whose safe camp they were visiting. But for the most part, we hadn’t changed a lot from our nomadic past. We had tribe loyalty and were constantly pressured to follow tribe rule, but I’d never heard of an Amazon (outside of the queen and high priestess) being grounded to one safe camp. It went against one of our basic tenets of survival and our history as nomads-keep moving, never settle in one place too long.

  “We’ll do it.” Her expression dared me to say otherwise.

  “You think that does it? You think the killer was only targeting the girls who went to the bar?” I was truly curious. I wanted to believe rounding up the girls and keeping any others from visiting the bar would stop further killings, but I just didn’t know.

  “Pisto’s taking another group to the bar tonight. Dana told her about parties they went to after the bar closed. Next party, we’ll be there.”

  And what? Beat each and every person there until they admitted to being the killer?

  “The parties are probably on the weekends,” I said for lack of anything else to add.

  “Maybe.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”

  I ran my finger over the top of a file cabinet that sat by the door. It came back coated in dust. I wiped the dirt on my jeans. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  She stood up and walked around to the front of the desk. “Talk.”

  “I…” Despite the fact that most of the tribe still despised me, Zery trusted me right now. I didn’t want to say anything to endanger that, but her trust also meant maybe she’d at least listen to me when I suggested it was time to bring the Amazons out into the open.

  “Like I said before, the police contacted me. Earlier, before you moved into the gym.”

  She tilted her head. “You mentioned that. They thought you might know something about the girls’ tattoos.”

  I nodded. “He’d taken them to some Milwaukee shops. Artists told him it looked like my work.”

  “And?” She hadn’t moved an eyelash.

  “And nothing. I told him I didn’t know anything.”

  Her posture softened, but her gaze didn’t. If anything, it became more piercing. “But you didn’t tell me. When you saw those tattoos, you had to know the girls were Amazons. Why didn’t you warn me?”

  She knew as well as I did that I had told her-that I had left the stone fetishes at the safe camp. She was giving me a second chance to explain that. I ignored her offer.

  “We didn’t exactly leave things on the best of terms.”

  She started to say something, but I barreled on. “Point is, this cop, I’ve gotten to know him some. He really cares. He really wants to find the killer, and I was thinking that we haven’t been making a lot of headway. Maybe we…you…should talk to him.”

  She pulled back like I’d slapped her, or tried to. “Have you been gone that long? We don’t work with humans. And we can certainly police our own problems-we’ve been doing it for millennia.”

  “But the Amazons have never had to deal with a problem like this. No one has ever preyed on the Amazons. And you seem dead set on not believing Alcippe could be involved. Who does that leave?” I didn’t wait for her to state the obvious: me. I kept going. “If it isn’t someone in the tribe, it’s someone outside of it. Outside of your reign. You’ll have to deal with humans sooner or later.” If the killer wasn’t Alcippe. But no matter what, I still believed the Amazons opening to the outside world was the right move-that ultimately their insistence on a closed co
mmunity was what had led to the girls’ deaths. And I didn’t want Amazons to reveal everything about who they were, just be more open, stop looking down on people who weren’t Amazons, be more aware of how the world had changed.

  Her lips thinned; the skin surrounding them turned white. “We can take care of our own.”

  I took a step forward. “I never thought you’d let arrogance cost Amazons their lives. The police can get information we can’t. Why not use that?”

  “You’re pointing fingers at me? What about those fetishes? How did you get them? Maybe Alcippe is right-you too, for that matter. Amazons have never been ‘victims.’ We’ve never had to fear anyone because, loose as our structure is, we respect tradition-know what being an Amazon means, know how important keeping ourselves separate is. But then you leave, mingle with humans, live as a human, raise your daughter as one.

  “As your friend, I can’t believe you killed your own kind. I can’t.” Her eyes were huge and her voice rough. “But as queen, I have to consider that you seem to value being human more than you ever valued being an Amazon. Is there a side to you I’m just not seeing? Is our friendship blinding me to your guilt? Did you kill those girls, or know who did?”

  Anger swelled to a roar inside me. “We have been over this. If I was the killer, why would I let you stay here? Why would I be encouraging you to talk to the police? Why would I be here at all? Why wouldn’t I have run by now?”

  She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the desk. I had the uncomfortable feeling it was to keep from grabbing onto me. “Why indeed? Maybe I’m not the only one who’s arrogant.”

  I left without replying.

  Zery wouldn’t talk to the police. I couldn’t make her.

  I stepped out of the gym and into glaring sunshine. Four Amazons sat on the ground outside, talking. When I walked out, they stopped and followed me with their eyes. Their animosity was tangible-worse than before. I guessed they’d heard of my run-in with Pisto or seen the evidence. I doubted Pisto would have run home and tattled. Not her style.

  I felt their gazes like stones attached to my back as I walked away.