Nightmare Ink

by Marcella Burnard

  Murmur captured her head in his free hand and kept her there spinning out on the sensation.

  She hated having to pull away to breathe. He released her as if reluctant to let go.

  She touched the bloody white shirt he wore and shook her head. “I don’t know how this happened.”

  “The paper in your coat pocket,” he said. “Your blood. Daniel’s lifeblood. Me, cut free. It acted as a conduit.”

  A twinge of pain touched her neck. “You killed Daniel and then ripped out my throat.”

  “I did. You would have survived me if you’d healed as I’d told you.”

  “The portal opened. I couldn’t sacrifice my world and yours. Not in trade for my life. I had to close the door.”

  He nodded, emerald eyes gleaming. Barely any trace of Daniel remained. New shadows subtly changed the planes of his face.

  The sirens wailed, much closer.

  “Go,” Isa said in a rush. “Before the police arrive. You’re wearing a body that’s been accused of all kinds of crime. I won’t watch you be put in prison. Not now.”

  His eyes closed on a pained expression.

  “You’re Daniel Alvarez,” she said.

  He grimaced. She took his face in her hands. He opened those piercing green eyes.

  “Hate him,” she said. “But he’s dead, and you’re free.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

  Murmur raised a shaking hand to cover one of hers.

  “He had resources and money. Use them. He was already sliding out from under the charges. Call his lawyer. Get clear. The information will be in the pockets of his clothes,” she said.

  “I won’t lose you,” he bit out.

  Moisture leaked from between her lashes. Again.

  “You know where to find me.” Her hands slid from him as he rose.

  Staring at her, he hesitated for a moment.

  The first siren died in a screech of tires. One of the bodies nearby moaned.

  Murmur pressed his lips tight and fled.

  Isa buried her face in Steve’s warm, rising and falling chest. She let the tears fall.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “So even though we found enough of his DNA on-site,” Anne Macquarie said to those gathered around Steve’s hospital bed, “Daniel Alvarez appears to be a fellow victim of the rogue tattoos. If I have to listen one more time to that man’s lawyer swear Alvarez had nothing to do with this . . .”

  “I know what I saw,” Steve growled.

  “While you were being attacked by rogue Ink,” Oki said.

  “Meaning what?” Steve said.

  “Stop it before I make you two kiss and make up,” Troy rumbled.

  Isa sat on the edge of Steve’s bed and took his hand, the one not hooked up to an IV. The tension ran out of him.

  Nathalie grinned.

  “Your exploding spell stunt knocked out everyone on scene yesterday. The two casualties were clear Ink kills. For some reason, I can’t convince anyone to press charges against you,” Anne said to Isa. “That psychotic gang thug confirms your story that the spell you blew up was yanking Live Tattoos off their hosts. You killed the rogue Ink that wasn’t already dead when the spell blew.” She shook her head. “I knew you were going vigilante on me. I didn’t think you were stupid enough to take on five rogue tattoos by yourself.”

  “It hadn’t been the plan,” Isa said.

  “Don’t give me half-truths, Romanchzyk, and I won’t bust your ass for doing Live Ink without a license,” Anne snapped.

  “She didn’t!” Oki protested.

  “I did,” Isa countered. “Emanuel.”

  “His Ink was going critical,” Troy pointed out.

  “That, along with the fact that Mr. Hernandez afforded us so much valuable information regarding yesterday’s events,” Anne said, “I’m developing a severe case of amnesia regarding Live Ink and licenses.”

  “You don’t need to. Ink Master Tokoro Masatoshi dated Isa’s membership in the Imperial Order of Living Art to that same day my father called him on Isa’s behalf,” Oki said. “Master Masatoshi asked her to be his apprentice.”

  “Holy shit, Ice,” Troy breathed. “That old codger is like God to Live Tattoos.”

  “Do you have to go to Japan?” Nathalie asked.

  Steve tugged her hand. “Yes. Do you?”

  “To visit she does,” Oki said. “I leave in three weeks. You all have to visit. Just not at the same time.”

  Steve’s phone beeped. Isa handed it to him. “My folks and my sister,” he said. “They’re on their way up.”

  Anne left. Troy and Nathalie went to open Nightmare Ink. Oki nodded and slipped into the hallway. Isa tried to follow her.

  Steve grabbed her hand. “I want them to meet you.”

  She turned back, bent in, and kissed him. “Not over the hospital bed you’re in because I nearly got you killed.”

  He frowned. “Isa . . .”

  “If you apologize for that emergency department debacle one more time, I’m going to arrange for you to be in this hospital bed a lot longer,” she said. “Alone.”

  A smile spread on his face. His gaze fell to her now bare throat. “The monster’s really gone.”

  He meant Murmur.

  Isa saw a murderer with the face of an angel. “I hope so.”

  Oki drove her back to the shop, parked, and came in with her.

  “Three weeks?” Isa said.

  Oki nodded.

  “Still serious about Live Ink?”

  Oki grinned. “You’ll do it?”

  Isa held up a hand for Troy and Nathalie. “Stop before you two even start to trade that told-you-so glance.”

  Everyone laughed. It surprised Isa to find she still could and mean it.

  “Come on down to the studio,” she said. “I have a design in mind. I want to see what you think.”

  When Isa opened the containment studio, Oki plastered herself against the outside of Isa’s circle, staring in helpless adoration at the dragon.

  When Isa opened a door in the circle to admit them, the dragon flowed past her as if she didn’t exist and tumbled straight into Oki’s arms.

  “He’s so beautiful. When?” she demanded. “When can we start?”

  “Steve’s doctors will spring him tomorrow. How about right after that? Want to feed the dragon?”

  At Isa’s direction, Oki slashed the palm of her hand with the obsidian knife. The dragon sampled Oki’s blood and magic, then draped across her lap in the recliner, his head on her chest.

  “If I can have your good hand,” Isa said, “I’ll close that cut.”

  She put her palm on Isa’s. Sunshine flashed into starlight. Oki jumped and swore.

  The dragon eyed them.

  “Wow,” Oki said, studying the hand she’d sliced. “Not a mark.”

  “Murmur taught me that.”

  Oki’s smile died, and her gaze dropped to where Isa’s tattoo had been. Even the Ink was gone.

  Isa had a picture of him on the paper he’d passed through to get to Daniel’s body, but that’s all it was. A dead ink picture of someone who’d been a part of her.

  “He was a bastard,” Oki said, “but he was your bastard. I’m sorry.”

  Isa blinked stinging eyes. “Me, too.”

  They left the dragon with the promise that they’d return in the morning.

  “I’ve gotta tell Dad!” Oki said. She sprinted out the door and past Patty’s still empty corner.

  “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Troy said.

  She nodded.

  “You’re in the Live Ink business?” Nathalie asked.

  Isa smoothed the new Imperial Order of Living Art membership certificate hanging beside the reception desk. “I’m in the Live Ink business.”

 
Look for the next Living Ink novel from InterMix in November 2014!

  Photo © by Lidija Gjorgievska.

  Marcella Burnard graduated from Cornish College of the Arts with the ever-practical degree in acting. She promptly made more money as a musician than as an actor, so it made sense that she switched to writing fiction for Berkley. Her first book, Enemy Within, won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Futuristic of 2010. The second book in the series, Enemy Games, was released in 2011, followed by the novella Enemy Mine, set in the same world in 2012. She currently lives with her husband and their cats aboard a sailboat on Puget Sound and writes full-time.