“Yes.” Disagreeing with the Live Ink Association on that count couldn’t destroy Isa’s standing with the organization any more than binding Live Ink already had. She wasn’t popular at the yearly professional conference. How would her fellow Live Ink artists have responded to the last two clients who’d walked through her door?
“Talking about Ink as if it’s alive is convenient shorthand,” she temporized. “Look. For all Zoog’s longing to be a big, important man on the streets, through his rash of burglaries and drug busts, he’s never hurt anyone. No assaults. No extortion. I know stealing other people’s stuff isn’t exactly a victimless crime, but he’s never lifted a finger against another person or animal. I couldn’t condemn him and his tattoo based on what the pair of them might do once they integrated.”
Slowly, as if reluctant to agree, Nathalie said, “I’ll never see a can of spray paint in his hands again, will I? Damn it. You’re right. He brought Patty coffee last night. Then, before he went to Daniel, he stopped in here to see you.”
“Me?”
Nathalie shrugged. “Said he wanted to say good-bye to his few real friends before he went to Daniel. I guess he appreciated you riding his ass about his art. Even if he was too chickenshit to do anything with your advice.”
Isa drew breath to respond, then finally let it go. “You can lead a mule to water, I guess.”
“Horse. Isn’t that the expression? Lead a horse to water?”
“Is that how you’d describe him?”
Nat barked a laugh. “No. But mule is too generous, too.” Grinning, she spun and strode into the back hallway for her coat. “You in the Live Ink business again, Ice?”
“No.” Not just no. Hell, no. “I didn’t really do Live Ink. Zoog already had Live Ink. I tweaked it.”
Nathalie frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It was incomplete.”
“So you completed it.”
“I did.”
“How is that even possible?” Nathalie marveled. “That’s someone else’s magic, isn’t it? Live Ink artists are notorious for not being able to hang out with other magic-sensitives. I mean that’s why you leased to me, right? And rented shop space to Troy? Because we’re both dull as river rocks when it comes to magic and that’s why you can stand to have us around?”
Isa choked back a laugh. “I prefer to think of it as the two of you being restful to have around. And I have no idea how it was possible for me to complete someone else’s creation. Until I tried it, I wouldn’t have believed it. I’m still not sure I do.”
She glanced around the shop. The computer screen on the reception desk caught her eye—dark because of the message that had popped up. “Do not interfere.” Prickles minced down her spine.
“I will ask you not to mention anything about this to anyone,” she said to Nathalie.
“Jesus H. Christ, Ice,” she grumbled. “After the evening I’ve spent dodging ‘Do not interfere’ messages, you think I’m going to blab? My sense of self-preservation is better than that.”
Of course. Isa rubbed her forehead.
“Everything’s done,” Nathalie said, her tone still annoyed.
Isa looked at her.
Nathalie shrugged. “I don’t like being bored. I like being scared even less. So I got busy.”
“You should have gone home,” Isa said.
Nat’s tentative smile fell.
“Not that I don’t appreciate you doing my shop chores,” Isa amended in a rush. “You shouldn’t have to put in these insane hours.”
Shaking her head, Nathalie pulled her coat down from the row of hooks in the hallway behind reception. “You’re welcome, Ice. I’ll wait while you lock up.”
“Don’t. I have to put a few things in the autoclave downstairs.”
“They’ll still be there tomorrow morning,” Nathalie said. She paused in pulling on her jacket and scowled. “Sorry. Of course you can’t leave it. That’s magic Ink. Anything I can help you do?”
“I wish,” Isa said as she unlocked the front door for her, “but I can’t expose you to stray bits of magic and energy.”
Nathalie shrugged into her coat, zipped it high under her chin, and nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
“You bet.” Isa opened the door.
Nat dashed out.
The rain-drenched dark swallowed her whole.
Isa closed and locked the door before going back downstairs to clean up.
Everything that might have been touched by magic Ink got bundled into a bag for incineration. It was the only way to pry the magic out. Most people thought in terms of destroying magic, and maybe it amounted to the same thing, but burning magic Ink freed the energy she’d put into its making.
She disinfected the work cart and the parts of her tattoo machine that never actually touched a client. For good measure, she sprayed and wiped the capped Ink bottle she’d used, then unlocked the storage cabinet on the bottom of the cart to put the Ink away.
It sent a surge of electricity into her fingertips even through the crystal, as if it were a long lost lover, as desperate for her touch as she was for— No. Damn it.
She wasn’t desperate for anyone or anything.
Still, the charge flooded heat through her lower belly. Isa gritted her teeth. She’d forgotten what a good Ink session could do to her composure.
She’d always wondered if the flood of after-Ink energy had made her susceptible to Daniel’s seduction. Maybe it had. He’d made it more than worth her while. Briefly. All too briefly.
Shaking away memories that only spun up the pressure in her lower belly, she put the Ink away and locked the door on it.
Once she’d packed her gear into a sterilization packet, she dropped it into the waiting autoclave. She’d turn that on in the morning. The sterilization cycle took an hour, and she had plenty of equipment if she opened shop to find Live Ink hopefuls lined up around the block.
She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She’d hate to have to hunt Zoog down and kill him for failing to keep his yap shut.
All that remained was to sweep and mop the floor in the containment studio. The number of cobwebs her broom swept from the room accused her of neglect. She hunched her shoulders against a surge of guilt. Stupid reaction. Steve’s “clean team” should have done a better job.
She dumped her dustpan of debris into the burn bag, folded over the top, and carried the bag out with her. It would go into a sealed, granite-lined container that sat just outside the alley door.
Isa hated opening that door after dark when she was alone in the shop. Her imagination insisted that something waited to grab her. Never mind that nothing ever had. Her runaway imagination, the same one that drew pictures that came to life, added yet.
She stalled by opting to mop first.
Weary, she finished up, turned out the studio lights, dumped dirty mop water down the industrial drain, and then squared her shoulders to face whatever imagined horror waited outside the basement door.
The padlock on the bar across the door creaked as she turned the key. She lifted the bar out of its bracket, trying not to notice that the door looked like something that belonged in an asylum—one of the old, horrifying places that were mere holding cells for the mentally ill, the sane but inconvenient, and the criminally insane.
Imagination never presented her with rational fears about what might lie beyond. It was never a drugged-up gangbanger wanting to toss the shop. Instead, creatures with puce fur, crimson claws, and razor-sharp fangs dripping slime crouched in the dark outside, waiting to grab her the instant she peeked out.
Maybe she shouldn’t have watched that ancient black-and-white version of The Omega Man. She’d had recurring nightmares about milky eyes gleaming from the dark ever since.
The sensible thing to do would be to dry her damp palms, pretend her pulse didn’t soun
d like someone running for her life, and plan to oil the padlock in the morning.
Isa shoved open the door. It screamed a baritone screech that climbed to tenor in a voice that sounded like someone gargling gravel.
She shrieked in answer and backpedaled.
The steel door swung into the concrete wall with a clang.
The scream died.
“Oh, my fucking God, Ice!” a rough voice wheezed. “You scared the shit out of me. What are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack? I will make one ugly corpse.”
“Patty?” Isa breathed. She mustered the courage to edge across the threshold so the light shining out of the doorway would let Isa see her and maybe convince the lizard part of her brain still dumping adrenaline into her chest that she was not about to be eaten by a lion. “We almost died together.”
Patty’s wig and tulle skirt drooped, weighed down by rain. She didn’t bother to wipe away the water glinting on her face. Makeup slid in rivulets down her skin. Stripes of rough pockmarks and stubble showed through the perfect, smooth complexion her makeup gave her.
Isa liked the contrast, the reality of Patty showing through Patty as she wanted to be.
“Dying together’s overrated. Don’t care what Shakespeare said,” Patty grunted. “I hate all that romantic Romeo and Juliet shit.”
“Suddenly, so do I. What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Calling it a night,” she said. “Rain’s washing away my johns.”
“Patty, it’s very early morning,” Isa said. “Aren’t your clients at home asleep? Tomorrow’s a workday.”
Patty’s snort of derision sounded decidedly masculine. “Clients. You’re sweet, Ice. Naive but sweet. My johns aren’t usually nine-to-five types. What are you doing in so late? Aren’t you usually locked and shuttered by now?”
“Clean up.” Isa had no intention of telling anyone she’d fixed Daniel’s Live Ink.
Nathalie knowing what she’d done couldn’t be helped. She’d been here all night. And she was right. Her sense of self-preservation would keep her mouth shut.
“I have a few things for the burn container.”
Patty nodded. One false eyelash fell across her eye. She peeled it away with thick fingers. “Those police cleanup teams never really do clean up, do they?”
Isa unclipped the latch on the burn container while inwardly raising an eyebrow. Patty had reason to know the vagaries of police clean teams? How and when had that happened?
“I’m a few seconds short of drowning, Ice. I’m going home for a long soak in a lavender bubble bath.”
“Good night,” Isa said, snagging the paper bag and setting it inside the container. “Sorry about the years off your life.”
“At the risk of sounding like a stereotype, I’ll quote Freddie Mercury. ‘Who wants to live forever?’” She tottered down the alley, her high heels unstable in the gravel and potholes. She paused. “By the way. My former apprentice, Bishop?”
“Yes?”
“Works for Daniel.”
Isa’s heart kicked her in the ribs. “He had to be lying.”
“No,” Patty said. She barked a bitter laugh. “You never ask Satan where he comes from, Ice. You watch him slither back into his hole in the ground.” Five strides away, she disappeared behind the curtain of rain and darkness. For two more strides, Isa thought she could still hear her footfalls above the relentless impact of water pounding the city. Then she lost her.
Shivering as she latched and locked the burn container, she made a mental note to call for the incineration service pickup in the morning.
From somewhere behind her in the drowned city, an owl called. The mournful hoot lifted the hair at the back of her neck.
Isa straightened, frowning, and turned.
What would an owl want with Seattle? Or any city, for that matter?
Another cry. Nearer. Or was that the rain playing tricks on her with sound?
She stepped closer to the drip line of the eave, scanning the roof across the alley.
The ghostly white owl swooped out of nowhere, passing so close to her face she felt the rush of wind roiling beneath its wings.
Heart banging against her ribs, she shied back, uttering a croak of surprise. Breath coming in short gasps, she spun and bolted for the door. She yanked it after her, slamming it shut once she’d crossed the threshold into the basement.
As if the owl might develop thumbs and work out door latches, she raced to secure the bar across the door and lock it in place.
Isa tried to dismiss superstition. An owl hooting and swooping in front of her did not necessarily foretell a death, no matter what local native tradition said. She’d foiled the owl’s dinner plans, and some rat had lived another night. That was bad enough. Wasn’t it?
Chapter Six
Isa couldn’t stop shaking. Forcing herself to her feet, she ignored the dread rolling through her in waves as she went upstairs to finish closing up shop. Thanks to Nathalie, she had nothing much to do except set the alarm and turn out lights.
Rain still fell in sheets. In the glow of the streetlights, it resolved into waves of falling water. The downpour drowned out the normal sounds of the late night/early morning city. The bars hadn’t yet closed, but none of the regular smokers clustered beneath the sagging awning of the hip, tiny tapas bar on the corner across the street. One lone car passed on Twenty-second, headed north. The assault of water drowned out even the sound of the vehicle’s tires on the wet cobbled pavement.
Shoving her hands in her pockets, she strode up the block to the door to her apartment building, avoiding the waterfalls cascading off of the overhangs and signs of her neighbors’ businesses. By dodging from cover to cover, she managed to get in the apartment building door without having gotten completely sodden. She climbed the stairs, skipping the fifth tread that groaned like the zombies in a bad horror movie. No need to wake the other four tenants.
The aged building housed a row of shops on the ground floor and apartments on the floor above. She’d scored the apartment directly above her shop at the same time she’d leased the commercial space second from the corner. Her apartment was the last one on the street side of the building. She liked that her commute consisted of walking half a block from Nightmare Ink to the apartment building lobby and then nearly half a block back toward Nightmare Ink, albeit one floor up. As she unlocked her front door, flipped on the lights, and fielded Gus’s whining, whole-body wagging greeting, it dawned on her again, landing with sudden, inescapable weight. She’d done Live Ink. What the hell had she been thinking?
Gus leaned against her shins, his tail thumping the doorframe, grinning up at her with his tongue lolling. Isa pushed her concerns aside, bent over, and patted his shoulder. “Let me in the door, Augustus. Good evening, Ikylla.”
The brown and white tabby cat sat on top of the half wall dividing the entry from the living room, peering at her while doing her best impression of a Bastet statue. A Bastet statue with a note sticking out from beneath her furry butt.
Isa tugged it free.
“Dog walked. N.”
Nathalie.
For not making Isa go back out into the rain to listen for that stupid owl, she’d knock at least a hundred bucks from Nathalie’s shop rent for the month.
“Come on, you two. It’s past our bedtime.”
Gus swung away, his claws loud on the entry stone. Once he hit carpet, he stopped and looked over his shoulder as if to assure himself that she’d be following.
Isa locked and bolted the door, then took off her coat to hang beside it once she’d fished her cell phone from the pocket.
Ikylla pressed her head into Isa’s hand as she offered a drive-by pet.
“How’s my beautiful girl?” Isa murmured.
The cat blinked her gold-green eyes and purred.
When Isa went to the bedr
oom to plug in the phone, the cat and Gus followed. Ikylla leaped onto the bed, expectation in her stance.
Even though exhaustion swept her, Isa couldn’t face going to bed yet. She couldn’t slow the swing from elation to anger at herself. She’d done something with Live Ink she didn’t think had ever been done before. By so doing, she’d violated her oath to never touch Live Ink again. That should have felt like a betrayal of her mentors’ memories. The tremble of euphoria in her chest made no sense. Guilt raked her.
She shuffled into the bathroom to sink conflicting emotions in the shower.
She turned on the water, stripped, and tied her black braid atop her head. Washing her waist-long hair entailed hours of drying time, and she wanted to be asleep. She stepped into the tub and closed the shower curtain. When she’d picked up the rust-colored curtain, she’d wanted a splash of color in the stark white bathroom. Now she wished she’d picked something that looked less like dried blood. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at it. A wave of weariness swept her.
She heeded the warning. With soap that smelled of sweetgrass, she scrubbed her skin as if she could wash away what she’d done with Live Ink and the encounter with the hunting barn owl. She watched soap suds run down the drain and imagined she could see confusion circling and disappearing down the drain, too.
When she shut off the water and tugged aside the shower curtain, she found the dog sitting in the doorway. He rose, his tail thumping twice, once against each side of the doorframe. He’d cocked his ears halfway back, and his brown eyes followed her every move as she snagged a towel from the rack.
“You have nothing to worry about,” she said as she dried. “I’m fine. I apologize for the late night. Let’s go to bed.”
Ikylla stood up, arched her back as if for an invisible hand, and rubbed her body against the mirror.
Isa didn’t dare accept the invitation to pet her. Damp hands would be a mortal offense. She picked up her comb instead. Running the teeth gently down the cat’s spine earned her a rusty-sounding purr. Ikylla let Isa comb her for a moment, then she turned and rubbed her chin, first one side, then the other, on the teeth. Her eyes squinched in bliss. Her purr deepened, and she occasionally squeaked on the inhale.
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