Nightmare Ink

by Marcella Burnard

  He revealed the tattoo one fold of his sleeve at a time.

  Isa edged closer, hands behind her back. Monochromatic. She’d have said it was a hippogriff, but the talons were too large for the depiction and the hind end of the creature tapered to a snake’s tail that wound up and around Zoog’s arm.

  “How high does it go?” she asked.

  He started and sucked a breath between his teeth. “Ends at my heart.”

  It was a jagged, ugly piece of art. Like Zoog with his two-bit hoodlum wannabe scars, piercings, and flat ink. She’d never expected him to score Live Ink. He didn’t have the money for it.

  “Who did this?”

  “Daniel. Who else?”

  Why had he drawn something so hideous? “Why didn’t you go back to him? It’s his Ink. He needs to know there’s a problem.”

  “I did. He—uh—said everything was going fine.”

  Meaning Daniel had tossed Zoog out into the night with Live Ink going bad? She scowled at the ragged scribble. What had possessed Daniel to treat a client and the Living Tattoo he’d drawn so callously? Some kind of thug rite of passage?

  The memory of sulfur stung her nose. Isa flashed on what she thought she’d seen in Daniel at the police station. She shivered and stuffed the memory she couldn’t make sense of out of sight.

  “Relax,” she ordered to cover her discomfort. “Lie back in the recliner. Take a deep breath. Let it go. Good. In order to understand this creature, I must wake it.”

  Sweat trickled down Zoog’s face. The reek of his terror nearly overpowered the smell of sage and pinyon.

  “In this place, it can do you no harm,” Isa said. “If I am to bind it, I must know its purpose.”

  “Daniel said it would make me his,” Zoog whispered as if he didn’t trust his voice. “I hear it, Ice. Talking to me. Screaming at me. All the time. It wants me to do things.”

  Misgiving rang through her chest. “Tell me.”

  A shudder racked him, and he clenched his fists. “It wants me to hurt you.”

  Interesting. A tattoo that would make Zoog Daniel’s? What use did Daniel have for a petty thief like Zoog?

  She studied him again, this time looking deeper than the changed costume, the untidy hair, and the pallor. Something other than the directionless twenty-nine-year-old she’d known for the past four years looked out of his eyes at her. “Why don’t you hurt me, Zoog?”

  A thread snapped. The impression of someone—something—else in his eyes vanished. Only he remained, scowling.

  “’Cause you’d have Troy kick my bony ass, Ice,” he snapped, sounding impatient. “I may be in trouble with this thing, but I ain’t stupid.”

  She’d beg to differ another time. With one foot, she snagged her stool out from beneath the recliner, switched on her overhead lamp, sat, and adjusted the height so she could get a detailed look at the Ink on Zoog’s arm. From the raw, red condition of the lines, the tat was recent. Zoog hadn’t been taking care of it. Scabs had formed. He’d been scratching. Maybe clawing.

  “You’re resisting this thing,” she said. “That takes willpower, Zoog.”

  He grunted a pained laugh. “Thought I didn’t have it in me?”

  She hadn’t. Glancing up to meet his eye, she saw the hurt in the lines etched around his mouth.

  What surprised her was the pang she felt for wounding the thug wannabe’s feelings. “Sorry, but me underestimating you has an upside. Your force of will makes my job much easier.”

  “Oh, good,” he breathed, asperity in his tone.

  It made her smile as she pulled on a set of sterile gloves. “I’m going to get to work. I’ll try to talk you through this, okay? Cleaning the tattoo first. It may sting a little.”

  His breath hissed in between his teeth as she smoothed an antiseptic and Xylocaine mixture from his wrist to where his rolled-up sleeve bunched at his biceps. A few of the scabs dissolved, and fresh blood oozed to the surface of his skin. As the topical anesthetic took effect, the muscles in his jaw and neck loosened. Zoog relaxed into the recliner.

  “You’ve been digging at this,” Isa chided. “You’re ruining the artwork and giving infection a chance to set in.”

  “Least of my worries,” he croaked.

  “Only at the moment,” she said. “Antibiotic ointment.”

  “As if this thing isn’t killing me long before infection could.”

  “You came here knowing I couldn’t let you die, Zoog,” she countered. “Not if I could do something about it.”

  “Can you?”

  She tugged off her gloves. “Yes. I’m putting my hand on your wrist. Time to roust that willpower of yours. I need contact with the tattoo, and it’s probably going to get pissy.”

  He drew a breath that sounded like a sob.

  “It’s on my turf now,” she said. “It doesn’t get to kill you. If only because I can’t handle any more police reports.”

  That elicited a laugh from him.

  Good. She nodded and covered his wrist with her right palm. “I won’t let this get out of hand.”

  She hoped.

  Nothing happened.

  She drew a deep breath and opened the door to another, deeper sense. Either she’d frightened the creature into retreat with minor magic or the thing wanted to draw her into—

  A trap.

  Howling, sharp, bloody black swirled around her. Huge claws exploded out of that dark, slicing for her.

  What was it with all the clawed things wanting to take her apart lately?

  Only long habit kept her from throwing herself to one side and losing contact with Zoog’s clammy skin. She jerked back, psychically and physically, as the magical defenses she wore as a matter of habit flared to turn the blow aside. From the ache and warmth trickling down her right arm, she gathered she hadn’t been fast enough. Again. Muttering a curse, she leaned forward on the stool.

  “This thing is really pissed off, babe,” Zoog breathed.

  “Me, too,” she said, edging back into that sense of enraged, bleeding dark. She didn’t have a body per se in this world between daylight and the things that went bump in the night. Anyone who learned to deal with magic, however, needed a frame of reference for working with the astral planes no one else could see. So most people took their images of themselves into the otherworld. The etheric. Or dreamtime. Or magical planes—different cultures called it different things. Isa wasn’t invested in the semantics. The important point was that what affected her in this place impacted her physical body sitting in her containment studio if she didn’t shield quickly enough.

  So when she summoned a mote of power into ephemeral hands and set it alight, it was merely to illuminate the trap and the creature that had laid it for her. In this otherworld, illumination meant both light and understanding. She desperately needed to comprehend the nature of what she intended to bind.

  The next attack came, brutal and raging.

  The ball of light in her hand expanded in the blink of an eye, surrounding her, protecting her.

  Claws, vastly oversized and heavy, slashed. They collided with her energy shield, but didn’t break through. Light exploded over the thing.

  The creature squalled. It withdrew.

  It was a killing machine, something brought into being for the sole purpose of cutting down other living things. Few animals on earth killed for the sheer joy of destruction. This thing did.

  Isa could bind that kind of evil. She could wipe its existence away as if it had never been, and then Zoog would have a damned ugly flat tattoo to show for his foray into Live Ink.

  On the heels of her decision, the creature threw itself at her in a frenzy, ripping, shrieking in protest and terror. Even surrounded as she was with a shield, the creature knocked her off her feet.

  Ice dropped into her middle.

  Ground had
no meaning here. It took several seconds to gain command of the notion that she’d fallen, was still falling. When she righted herself in her bubble of golden sunshine, nausea sloshed in her belly.

  Zoog’s tattoo struck again, knocking her spinning.

  That’s when she saw the hole between its shoulder blades. Raw. Oozing. Painful.

  And that’s when Zoog’s screaming finally ripped her out of trance.

  “Kill it!” he wailed. “Kill it!”

  The creature shrilled in Isa’s head.

  “SHUT UP!” she shouted, yanking her hand free of Zoog’s skin. “I can’t just kill it!”

  Silence settled over the studio. Surprise at the pronouncement rocked her. The chill in her gut dissipated, but it took several seconds for the heat and smell of sage to drive away nausea.

  “What do you mean you can’t just kill it?” Zoog said. His voice sounded stronger.

  “It’s wounded. Bleeding. It’s a cornered animal, in pain and afraid.”

  He scowled and shook his head. “You make it sound like it’s alive, babe. This is nothing but Ink and magic, right?”

  “Who told you that?” she snapped.

  He propped himself up on his elbows and levered himself up to look her in the eye. “Daniel. While he was inking me.”

  Isa shivered. She shut out disquiet with a bracing dose of anger. “What? Daniel thinks he’s God, creating animate constructs with Ink and magic? What did you think while he was inking you, Zoog? That he’d birthed the animating force out his ass?”

  He barked a strangled laugh. “You have a way with words, Ice.”

  “Part of my charm.”

  “I know. Marry me.”

  “Sorry. I don’t like the company you keep.”

  “You?”

  “In part.” She smoothed damp palms down her jeans. An image resolved in her brain, just behind her eyes. Pressing. Wanting form. Where the hell had that come from?

  She saw Zoog’s tattoo as it should be. Whole. Healthy. A sly, deadly predator. She squeezed her eyes shut as if she could press the unwanted vision back into the dark. Damn it. She’d sworn off doing Live Ink.

  The last time she’d put Live Ink on anyone, it had been her teachers, Joseph, Henry, and Ruth. The three Navajo elders and healers who’d made her who she was.

  Ruth had adopted her, and then the three of them had taught Isa to understand and control her abilities. It had taken discipline, hard work, and frustration on her part. But her teachers made sure her lessons included plenty of laughter and encouragement. They’d become her family, a patient, good-natured mother and two beloved uncles teasing her when she struggled to master a new aspect of magic they insisted she needed to know.

  Eleven years into her life as their apprentice, her mentors had asked her for Live Tattoos. She’d hesitated. Drawing on someone went against what the Navajo believed. Yet her teachers had made certain she’d started training in Live Ink. They’d found a tattoo artist; Isa had never known where the young woman with the shadowed blue eyes had come from. She’d come to the reservation twice a week to teach Isa technique.

  Joseph insisted Isa tattoo Coyote on his chest, over his heart. Henry wanted Lizard walking a path down his ribs. Ruth had asked for Raven between her shoulder blades.

  The tattoos had turned out beautifully, better than Isa had drawn them. Her teachers had paid her the highest compliment they could. When she’d finished the last tattoo, they’d risen and left the circle, each of them pausing to squeeze her shoulder without a word.

  In the morning, all three had vanished, consumed by the magic she’d etched into them. The only trace had been a single ebony feather left at the foot of Isa’s bed.

  She’d sworn off doing Live Ink. Shaking with the urge to suppress the words trying to spill from her tongue, she opened her mouth to say, “Let’s bind this thing.”

  Instead, she heard herself say, “Your tattoo is drawn wrong.”

  Her eyes snapped open. She had to curl her left hand into a fist to keep from slapping it over her rebellious mouth.

  Zoog, looking like she’d slugged him, collapsed back into the recliner. “What?”

  “I think I can fix it,” Isa said. Even she heard the surprise and uncertainty in her voice.

  “Fix it?” he echoed. “What do you mean ‘you think?’”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never run into this before, Zoog. I won’t lie. Daniel doesn’t usually make mistakes, but when I look at this Ink, the creature is incomplete. It’s broken and in pain.”

  “Maybe he left it broken so it couldn’t control me?”

  She shook her head. “That’s not how this works. You know that. Live Ink is supposed to integrate. The two of you are supposed to live in symbiosis—harmony.”

  “Fixing this thing will do that?”

  “It’s certainly not happening now.”

  “Can’t you bind it? That’s what you do.”

  She hesitated. She could. She should. Gathering her courage, Isa nodded. “If I bind this, it dies. You’ll be wearing stupidly expensive flat ink.”

  Zoog stared at her. “You’ve never had to kill one of Daniel’s before.”

  “No. I haven’t.” She wasn’t going to tell him she’d never had to fix one of his before, either. It wouldn’t help him decide. It wasn’t helping her. A tremor she didn’t want to examine ran down her spine.

  He blew out a shaky breath. “I can’t pay you, Ice. Not tonight.”

  “You can’t pay me at all if you’re dead. If I don’t do something tonight, you’ll both be.”

  He blinked again, hard, as if holding something back. “Okay, let’s do this. Fix it. I’ll find a way to pay you back, babe. I swear.”

  Chapter Four

  Heart thumping against her ribs, Isa pulled the key she kept on a cord around her neck from beneath her shirt. The key unlocked a stone-lined steel box bolted to the bottom shelf of her equipment cart.

  At least Live Inks didn’t go bad. The magic that went into formulating Live Ink acted as a preservative. She’d always planned to destroy hers.

  She couldn’t explain why she hadn’t.

  She stuck the key in the lock. For a bad moment it resisted, then it turned with the sound of stone rubbing on stone. The lid popped open. Chalky dust slid off the back of the lid, raising a cloud. Her fingers came away from the container smudged gray. Wiping her hands on her jeans left pale streaks on the black denim.

  She drew forth a wooden box. The gnarled wood grain made it look as though the box writhed in her hands.

  “What is that?” Zoog asked.

  Glancing up, she saw he’d leaned over to watch.

  “My Live Ink.”

  “I meant that wicked-looking box,” he said. “That shit has ‘here be magic’ written all over it.”

  For the second time that night, Zoog surprised a smile from her.

  “Apple wood,” she said, “from a tree that supported an infestation of mistletoe.”

  “Infestation? Isn’t that the stuff people kiss under at Christmas?”

  She nodded as she pulled her sleeve down over her right hand to wipe the dust from the wood. “That’s the stuff. It’s a parasite that grows on trees with soft bark.”

  Zoog glanced at his arm. “Kissing under a parasite? Ain’t that jolly? Sure explains my folks.”

  “Mistletoe has magical properties,” she said, rising and setting the box atop the cart. “It was thought to be a door between the worlds. Certainly it was once used to alter consciousness. Apple wood promotes peace and harmony. The two of them together, made into a box, do a good job of keeping Live Ink quiescent.”

  “Why do you lock up your Ink? Daniel doesn’t.”

  Because until recently, she’d thought that all magic, except what little she needed to bind someone’s Live Ink, deserved to be locked up
. Not that she’d dishonor her teachers’ memories by saying that out loud.

  She frowned at Zoog instead and opened the lid. A faint apple fragrance, underpinned by the wilder green scent of a long forgotten orchard, rose to greet her. Seven crystal vials, one bigger than all the others, nestled in the box. Time hadn’t dimmed the sparkle of the quartz containing the magic swirling within. The bottles glistened in the overhead lights.

  As her hand closed on the largest vial, the magic arced, pinging through the quartz to tickle her fingertips, the greeting of a long lost friend.

  She sucked in a startled breath.

  “You okay, babe?” Zoog raised his eyebrows.

  “This is why I lock up Live Ink,” she said. “Magic is dangerous stuff.”

  “Tell me about it.” He laid back in the recliner, watching as she filled an ink well from the biggest crystal vial.

  She pulled on a fresh pair of gloves, and then picked up the tattoo machine.

  “Hey. Isa,” he said. “My name is Horace. Just wanted you to know in case, you know, anything goes sideways.”

  Isa stared at him, her head full of the vision of what his Ink should be. The offer of his real name sank through her, trailing warmth as it went.

  “Names have power. Giving me yours, that’s a lot of trust,” she finally managed. “I appreciate it. Horace.”

  His gaze fled hers. “Tell anyone and I’ll rip out your liver.”

  “Because presumably I don’t have a heart?”

  He started to protest.

  She shook her head. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone. Horace is a strong name.”

  “It means ‘Man of Time,’” he said.

  “It’s also the name of an Egyptian God. Horus. Spelled differently, but he protected an entire nation. Ready?”

  Horace “Zoog” Fairbanks smiled. “Ready. I think the Ink is, too. It’s been quiet since I said okay to fixing it.”

  “That helps.” She hoped.

  Time to find out whether she could still draw things that came to life.

  Letting her focus soften, she turned her awareness inward. Sinking deep into the river of magic within, she followed it to the dark, barren place where she’d stuffed that particular talent when last she’d used it. When things had gone so wrong. She’d put the ability away, wanting it to wither and die. It had done neither.