Nightmare Ink

by Marcella Burnard

  “Fuck off, you coward,” she said to the tattoo.

  Wrath seared her insides.

  She whimpered.

  The fire of his rage went ice cold. Die, then. I will be free.

  He pulled back. He still watched through her eyes, but his stance made it plain he would offer no strength or word of advice.

  Fine. At least she could move.

  Wavering with fear, she tottered to the kitchen to rescue her cat. She couldn’t hear the giggling anymore. Heart trembling, Isa shuffled her slippers through the water, glass shards, and flower corpses.

  She expected bloodstains at best and Ikylla’s disemboweled corpse at the worst.

  She saw neither.

  Her tabby warrior had the abomination cornered between the wall and the stove. Yellow-green slime dripped from the monster’s rows of flower-caked teeth.

  Isa edged closer, “Get away from it, Ikylla! Come here, baby girl.”

  The cat didn’t even twitch an ear in her direction. Growling in a low rumble that made the hairs on the back of Isa’s neck stand up, Ikylla landed a lightning quick slap on the creature’s paw.

  The stink coming off the thing intensified as puce blood welled up from the scratches Ikylla had opened on the paw. Or was it a hand? Either way, the insanely long, serrated talons made Isa flash on an old horror movie. Shuddering, she reached for one of the knives in her block before recalling she couldn’t hold it.

  The damned tattoo was right. How was she supposed to fight this reeking, ghastly thing?

  A sense of grim satisfaction seeped into her chest from him. He stabbed a command at her to flee. Isa growled in return.

  The creature looked at her. Her skin crawled.

  Gus’s barking turned to frantic howls.

  “Steve!” she heard Nathalie scream from the living room. “We’re being attacked!”

  The knee-high monster launched itself at Isa. Cringing, she brought her arms up to shield her face as the tattoo shouted inside her head. RUN!

  The thing landed with a sickening thud against her chest. It sounded like an overripe melon. It clung to her sweatshirt. Fabric ripped. Putrid, brown magic sliced at her mind. Golden power, tainted by the touch of shadow, flashed to her defense, sewing up the psychic wounds. Agony slammed her hands.

  Gagging on the burning, open-sewer smell of the creature, she jerked her arms away from her face.

  And batted the thing right off of her. Talons flailing, it hit the floor.

  Ikylla screeched in fury and, tail lashing, pounced.

  Fur. Slime. Screams—theirs and hers—sprayed the kitchen as cat and creature rolled, locked in combat.

  One of the screams fell a quarter tone.

  Isa’s heart tripped.

  The thing pitched Ikylla halfway across the kitchen.

  Already twisting to reacquire her target, the cat landed on her feet. The throw might as well have been a springboard for attack. Windmilling, her glittering claws out, Ikylla hurled herself at the monster crouched on the black-and-white marbled linoleum.

  Isa cried out and rushed the roiling mass of fur and she-didn’t-know-what.

  NO!

  Isa froze in reaching to yank Ikylla out of the battle by the scruff of her neck with hands that didn’t work.

  The tattoo had mastered her motor control.

  Flecks of red blood flew from the combatants. Horror choked her. The creature didn’t bleed red.

  Ikylla. Her voice wailed inside the echo chamber of her head.

  Another caterwaul rent her hearing. An answering off-pitch shrill flattened a full half tone before rattling into silence.

  “Let go!” she snarled at the Ink. Adrenaline seared her system. She shook with it even while the tattoo locked her in place.

  The blur of cat and creature flipped.

  Ikylla stood splay-legged, her sides heaving, her ears plastered flat to her skull, her bottlebrush tail lashing side to side, and her jaws clamped on the noisome thing’s gullet.

  The monster’s limbs twitched then went limp.

  Isa noticed abruptly that where globs of slime had landed the linoleum and her white-painted wood cabinets had turned black.

  Your purr-thing killed it, the tattoo murmured. He sounded surprised and a little like his surprise disturbed him.

  “Cat, you asshole,” Isa corrected. “She’s a cat. Now let go or help her.”

  She doesn’t require aid. Asshole. Is that your name for me?

  “If you keep acting like one, yes.”

  He didn’t understand. Oh, he comprehended and accepted asshole as something filthy and beneath contempt. He’d absorbed that insult as if he’d expected it, but he seemed to have no comprehension of what her use of the word meant—as an epithet earned by his action.

  Why could she know so keenly what he did or didn’t comprehend? Was it by virtue of the fact that he processed everything through her biology?

  Guilt stung her. Sure. He’d been acting like her definition of asshole, but did he deserve the definition he understood?

  “No,” she amended. “I don’t know your name. It’s up to you to tell me what it is.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Still unable to move, she finally registered that Gus had fallen silent. She didn’t hear Nathalie on her cell anymore, either. Fear slid a chilly knife between her ribs.

  Had there been another one of the things? Was it out there slicing Nathalie and the dog to bloody ribbons? Or had Nat bled out after cutting herself on vase glass when she’d fallen?

  The Ink released her.

  She stumbled.

  Infernals cannot coexist.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

  These creatures come from my plane. My world.

  “If there’s more than one where you come from, they can coexist.”

  In my world, they are a formidable army. But they cannot coexist in your simple world.

  Meaning now that Ikylla had destroyed one, another of the little monsters could come hunting Isa?

  The crunch of a footfall brought her around to face the archway between the kitchen and living room.

  Nathalie, dripping flowers and water, cell phone clutched in her left hand, limped into the kitchen, her boots crushing the multicolored litter of glass. Her already ripped jeans bore a new slice above her right knee. A thin line of blood welled up between the edges of the denim.

  She snatched a butcher knife from the kitchen block with a shaking right hand. “Is it dead?”

  Ikylla, her breathing noisy, growled and sidled around to face them when Isa turned to her and crept closer.

  “I think so,” Isa breathed. “Good girl, Ikylla. We’ve got to get her off of it. She’s bleeding.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Are you and Gus okay?”

  “Yeah. I told him to stay. I shouldn’t be, but I’m fine.”

  “You’re limping and bleeding.”

  “Twisted an ankle, and that thing scratched me when it came past.”

  “Not cut by breaking glass?”

  “No . . . Steve’s on his way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t see any obvious injuries on Ikylla, warrior princess,” Nathalie said.

  It was true. That Isa didn’t see any visible injury along her slime-speckled back, sides, or head didn’t reassure her, however. It left her vulnerable belly.

  “Good job, Ikylla,” she crooned, taking the risk of crouching down before her.

  She reached a bandaged hand out to her still furious cat. As far as she could tell, her tattoo had retreated. His presence had dwindled as if he’d sunk out of her awareness. A single shadowy thread remained, sharing her eyesight. If he knew what this thing was, she wouldn’t blind him by shutting him out of the use of
her eyes. She was getting used to the twinge of headache.

  One of Ikylla’s ears twitched and reset to a point slightly higher on her head.

  “My God, that thing reeks. You’ll never get the smell out of here,” Nathalie muttered.

  “Good girl, Ikylla. You are so brave. Look at you. What a righteous kill,” Isa murmured to the cat. “It’s dead, sweetie. You killed it. Can you let go? Let go and let me make sure my brave hunter is okay.”

  She sounded like an idiot.

  But Ikylla seemed to listen. Her slime-smeared fur settled into place. Her gold-green gaze flicked to Isa’s face. Nose wrinkled in disgust, she worked her jaws, biting down harder.

  Something crunched in the corpse’s neck. Isa swallowed a surge of nausea.

  Her cat released the dead thing and, moving as if everything hurt, backed off. She flopped to her side on the linoleum, panting.

  Blood smeared her white belly.

  “Oh, my God. Ikylla,” Nathalie breathed. The butcher knife clattered to the floor. So did Nathalie’s cell.

  “Whoa!” Isa said, glancing over her shoulder at Nathalie’s wan face. “Sit down and breathe! She’s okay. It’s not enough blood to be serious. If you pass out, I’ll make Steve call an ambulance.”

  Grabbing the back of one of the chairs at the table, Nathalie bent at the waist and sucked in a gulp of polluted air.

  Isa heard sirens. Lots of them. Sounded like Steve had brought half the force.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she rasped.

  “Don’t try me.”

  “Some piercing artist,” Nathalie grumbled as the color came back to her face. “Sorry.”

  “It’s different when it’s someone you love.”

  “Hell, yeah,” she said. “Can you tell where the blood’s coming from?”

  Ikylla had regained her breath. She picked up a white-gloved paw and began licking her toes. She hissed. Taste? Pain? Or both?

  “Nothing I can see on her belly,” she said. “Not with her fur caked like that.”

  “I think it’s that paw,” Nathalie offered. “And here comes the cavalry.”

  “Help me get Ikylla to the bathroom?”

  “You’re going to risk your life giving the cat a bath?”

  Isa smiled at her feline. “She saved our lives. I won’t risk hers to whatever that crap is all over her fur. Besides. After facing that thing? I feel . . .”

  “Filthy?” Nathalie finished. “Yeah.”

  Boots crashed up the stairs. The windows rattled as they approached.

  “Come on.” Nathalie hooked her hands beneath Isa’s upper arms and lifted.

  The front door slammed open.

  “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! What is that smell?” a young man’s voice protested.

  “Secure the premises!” Steve commanded.

  “In the kitchen,” Nathalie called. “You can relax. It’s dead.”

  “What’s dead?” Steve demanded from behind them, as if he’d teleported into the room with a blur of blue uniforms behind him. “What the hell happened, and what is that?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nathalie recounted the events while Isa coaxed the cat into letting her pick her up. She should be able to do that if she balanced the weight on the splints and not on her hands. Right?

  When Nat mentioned the flowers outside the front door, Steve interrupted, “Roses? What roses? There’s nothing outside the door.”

  Isa shuddered.

  Of course it was gone. The arrangement could have been traced.

  The Ink hissed through her teeth.

  “You didn’t see anyone?” Steve demanded.

  “Someone was out there?” Nathalie squeaked.

  “Damn it. Foster!” Steve bellowed. “Hallway, stairs, and landing! We had a perp who took away evidence.”

  “On it!” a woman’s voice responded.

  “Isa . . .” Steve began.

  “Got to take care of Ikylla,” she said.

  “I’ll do it,” Nathalie countered, holding out her hands as if Isa would consent to give up her cat.

  “No.”

  “You’re not supposed to get your bandages wet.”

  “Screw the bandages,” Isa retorted.

  “Damn it, Isa. Your hands won’t articulate enough to wash her.”

  You can’t even wash yourself.

  Anger at being ganged up on from inside and out—never mind that Nat had no way of knowing that had happened—turned Isa’s spine to solid cast iron.

  “No.”

  Nathalie’s hands dropped to her sides. Her shoulders drooped.

  “You’re going to have to trust someone, sometime,” she noted, turning away. Her voice sounded flat. Hurt. If she’d had a tail, it would have been tucked between her legs.

  “It’s my job,” Isa said.

  “I love her, too!” Nathalie yelled, spinning back to glare with watery eyes.

  Conscience bitch-slapped Isa. Her eyes burned.

  The tattoo jerked back from the physical sensation as if he’d been stabbed in a kidney.

  “I know,” she said. “We’ll both do it. I’ll hold her. You scrub.”

  Nathalie blinked. The tears in her eyes evaporated. “Deal.”

  Ikylla didn’t want to be held, but Isa at least had the domesticated version of her feline lounging on the kitchen floor rather than the deadly predator who’d taken down something none of them could—or wanted—to identify.

  She hugged the stinking, filthy cat to her chest. Ikylla was trembling. Steve lifted Isa to her feet.

  “Render first aid to the hero,” he said, walking them to the bathroom, “while I get—who? the coroner? a zookeeper?—down here to retrieve that corpse.”

  “It’s magical,” Isa said. “Daniel sent it.”

  Steve cursed. “You do Live Ink. Since when have you been able to see other people’s markers?”

  Since before she’d even known what magic was? Not that she intended to admit to that.

  “His markers,” she corrected. “Since my life depends on it.”

  Gus whined from the sofa as she left the kitchen.

  “Come on, then,” she said.

  Nathalie ran a hot, shallow bath.

  Gus planted his butt beside the tub to stand guard.

  Isa climbed fully clothed into the water that came up to her hips when she sat down and lowered the cat into the water. Ikylla squirmed and yowled once just to prove she protested getting her fur wet, but then she dug the claws of her left forepaw into Isa’s right thigh. Her trembling intensified.

  Nathalie’s eyes widened. “What happened to your sweatshirt?” she asked, dumping shampoo into her palm and rubbing it into the cat.

  Isa glanced down. The front of her sweatshirt hung in ribbons.

  “She didn’t do that.” Nat dipped her chin to indicate the soapy cat.

  “No.”

  “The gremlin?”

  Isa blinked. “You weren’t even born when that movie came out.”

  “Like you were?”

  Nathalie shampooed the filth from Ikylla’s coat. To Isa’s relief, the slime dissolved.

  Ikylla relaxed into the process, and Isa suspected she was happy to not have to lick her fur clean. She seemed oblivious to the fact that they examined her for injuries as they washed her. Isa saw nothing to account for the blood until Nathalie soaped Ikylla’s right foreleg and paw.

  The cat tensed, claws from three feet digging into Isa’s skin. She hollered the feline equivalent of “Ouch!” and tried to use Isa’s thighs as her claw-powered launching pads.

  Somehow, Isa clung to the slippery cat. “I’m sorry, baby girl. I’m sorry. Easy.”

  Gus jumped to his feet and poked his nose at them.

  “She’s okay,” Isa assured h
im. She heard the weariness in her voice, felt it in the quiver of her muscles. “We’re all going to be okay.”

  “Damn,” Nathalie said as she used a plastic cup to rinse the soap and goo from Ikylla’s fur. “It’s bleeding again. Ice, I think she tore the claw out. Can’t get a solid look at it. I think we’d better call the vet.”

  “I wonder if she’d make a house call. Run some more water, and give Ikylla another rinse. I don’t want any residue on her when she starts licking herself dry.”

  “I hear that.” Nathalie pulled the plug, let the grungy, stinking water drain, and then refilled the tub.

  They finished up Ikylla’s bath under Gus’s watchful eye.

  Nathalie yanked a blue towel off the towel rack, draped it across her chest and reached for the exhausted, wet cat. “Come on, girlfriend. You are looking and smelling much better. Come to Auntie Nat. We’ll get you warm and dry.”

  “A washcloth will take care of her face and head,” Isa said, as Nathalie disengaged Ikylla’s claws from Isa’s clothes and shifted the cat into her grasp.

  “Tell you what,” Nathalie said, swaddling the tabby like a baby and putting her back into Isa’s arms. “Hold on to the warrior princess.”

  She opened the bathroom door and slipped out, closing the door behind her.

  Isa brought her knees up and held the bundle of feline and towel against her chest and thighs. She soaked the bandages of her right hand and used the wet gauze to stroke the rest of the slime from Ikylla’s head and ears.

  The cat watched her face, the pupils of her eyes over dilated. Her body shuddered every so often as Isa held her. Pain? Or something else?

  “Is this poison?” she asked internally.

  A snort of derision made it clear he wouldn’t bother answering. Intellectually, she knew her fear was in his best interest. Therefore, he had reason to lie rather than assuage her fears by telling her it wasn’t.

  He sneered. How would I know what’s poison to this cat of yours?

  Sure, he was having a dig at her. But it didn’t make what he’d said any less true. A chill walked down her spine.

  “I need you to be okay, baby girl,” she murmured to Ikylla and kissed her damp head.

  The cat awarded her an offended huff of breath.