Poison Ink

by Christopher Golden

  Breathing hard, her mostly healed ribs and face throbbing, she stopped to listen for Dante’s motorcycle. Then she slid the tire iron back into her backpack, picked it up, and stepped into the darkness. Reaching out, she searched for a light switch on the wall just inside the door. When her gloved hand found it, she pulled the door closed behind her and turned the light on.

  The illumination came from a single, dirty, overhead fixture and cast a yellow gloom on that room. A single glance made Sammi realize that she had broken into the area of Dante’s shop that had been off limits when she and the girls had visited before. From inside the shop, the room was padlocked.

  Now Sammi understood why.

  A thin futon mattress lay in one corner with a tangle of sheets and blankets and a pile of pillows on top. A refrigerator hummed against the wall. Another narrow door hung open to show a dingy bathroom. Dante actually lived here after all. A shelf stocked with food and a microwave oven completed the picture.

  But that was hardly all. Dante’s living area comprised only about a quarter of the space in what had once surely been a storage room. A huge desk with a high-backed wooden chair had been set up in the middle of the room, not far from the door that led into the area where the tattooist did his work. Shelves lined the walls. There were a couple of floor lamps, but she didn’t need the additional light to see the bizarre collection of items Dante kept in the confines of his sanctuary. Two tall shelves were full of books, mostly old, faded, leather volumes.

  Conscious of the time, not knowing when Dante would return, Sammi hurried into the room. On other shelves she saw bottles and plastic jars of paints and dyes, as well as metal and bamboo spines that could only be the tools for the kind of slow, agonizing tattooing that some cultures thought of as an art and Dante claimed he did not do. One shelf had shoe boxes full of Polaroid pictures. She did not take off her gloves, but fished around in the top box. What she could see of the photographs made her stomach turn. The images were of grotesque body modifications, ritual scarring, strips of skin being torn off a woman’s back and then painted, the ochre color mixing with her blood. There were piercings that made her feel sick to her stomach.

  But the pictures revealed something even more unsettling. In many of the photographs, black and white and red candles burned in the background. Strange symbols were painted on the floor beneath a woman splayed out while her breasts were being linked together by a heavy chain connected to hooks that pierced her nipples.

  In disgust, Sammi stepped away from the box. She turned to find herself face to face with a shelf covered with dried herbs unfamiliar to her, jars of strange-colored powders, and bottles full of cloudy liquid in which small objects floated. She couldn’t tell what they were with the debris that drifted in that liquid, and did not want to know.

  “What the hell is all this?” she asked the quiet of the room.

  Hurrying now, her heart beating faster and a terrible dread twisting in her gut, she went to the bookshelves. Fumbling for the switch, she clicked on the floor lamp between them, illuminating that corner of the room. Most of the books were so old that their titles were obscured or totally faded. She could make out Sons of Arkham and Mysteries of the Wurm written in antique script. Others were in languages that might have been German and Latin, and one she recognized as French.

  On more than one, she saw the word “grimoire.”

  She pulled one of those off the shelf and flipped it open. Inside were nonsense words and gibberish she didn’t understand at all. There were inscriptions and pages of freaky symbols, and she shuddered. Her upper lip curling in disgust, she slid the book back into place and backed away.

  Sammi looked around at the other shelves again. Some of it was just extreme tattoo and body modification stuff, but the rest…

  “Magic.” The word felt ridiculous on her lips. But hadn’t she suspected as much all along? What other explanation could there have been? Evidence of a depraved mind filled the room, and the occult artifacts and grimoires were just a part of that. Dante was sick.

  He’ll know I’ve been here, she thought, and a fear unlike anything she’d ever felt went through her. In that moment, Sammi thought she understood what real fear was, the terror of the unknown lurking in the dark that had plagued her ancestors in a time before civilization.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “He’ll know.”

  No way could she fix the lock. Her only hope was that he would assume some thief had broken in.

  Glancing around for something to steal, she saw nothing of any value. No TV, no DVD player, no computer. Frantic, she hurried to his desk. On it were stacks of papers, a ragged leather book, and another shoe box full of Polaroids. Ignoring them, she started opening drawers but found only more papers. No cell phone. Nothing of value. To take anything worth real money, she’d have to get into the shop itself, and that would require breaking the padlock.

  No way.

  Just go, she told herself. He can’t know it’s you.

  Unconvinced, she started to turn anyway, and the box of pictures caught her eye. On top was a Polaroid of a naked woman with long, red hair. An insidious certainty sent a chill down her spine even as her face flushed with the heat of embarrassment. Unable to stop herself, she picked up the box in her gloved hand.

  T.Q. lay on a concrete floor in the midst of some kind of occult symbol drawn in chalk. Her body had been smeared with something that might be blood. She held a serpentine blade between her splayed legs in an obscene pose. Sammi refused to wonder where the blood had come from, if blood it truly was.

  She dug through the box. There were other pictures, some playful, others far more obscene. Some had been taken on that same concrete floor, but many had been taken elsewhere, at Covington High or around town. All the girls were there—Caryn, Letty, and Katsuko—and none was spared. In one Polaroid, Letty was plunging a hypodermic needle into a vein between Caryn’s toes. Caryn’s eyes had rolled back to white and her mouth half opened in almost erotic pleasure.

  Some were worse. Much worse.

  At last, unable to look anymore, Sammi pushed the box away. She glanced down at the book that lay open on the desk. Its yellowed pages showed a number of strange designs, but unlike the occult symbols she’d seen, these were almost artful. She flipped a page and saw illustrations showing the very same antique tattooing equipment that sat on Dante’s shelves, as well as what seemed to be directions for mixing different dyes and inks.

  A photograph jutted from the top of the book like a bookmark.

  Her mouth dry, feeling almost as though she were in a dream, Sammi opened the book to that page. The picture had been taken from a distance, its subject unaware.

  The photograph was of Sammi. From the sweater she wore in the picture, one sleeve pulled down to cover most of her cast, she knew it had been taken the previous Tuesday in front of school, while she waited for her bus.

  Her good hand came up to her mouth, and for a moment she thought she would throw up. But then she saw the illustration on the yellow page that the photograph had been marking. That thick, black circle with its hollow center, five waves sweeping up from its surface. The ocean, Dante had said. He had pretended to create the image on the spot, but here it was, in a book at least a century old.

  The text seemed to be some kind of Nordic language. Whatever it was, she couldn’t read it, but knew what it meant. Numb, forcing herself to breathe, she turned the page. There were other, similar designs, some with two, three, or four prongs, and some with more, all representing the number of people to be bound together by a symbol, by a ritual scarring.

  By poison ink.

  The girls hadn’t been bound to each other by the tattoo. Somehow, they’d been bound to Dante. Like some kind of puppet master, he had to be manipulating their every move. And if the photograph of Sammi was any indication, he wouldn’t be happy until the ritual was complete, until the spell that had been intended for five girls claimed the fifth.

  Confusion filled her. If Dante w
anted her under his control, why not just come for her? Why would he let the girls—or make the girls—beat her so badly? Letty and the others hadn’t so much as spoken to Sammi since she had gone back to school.

  An inkling of an answer came to her. They had all come here willingly, had offered themselves up to him. Sammi thought maybe that was the difference. Maybe whatever power Dante could put into that tattoo, it wouldn’t work on her unless she asked for the tattoo—unless she wanted it. And there was no way in hell that would happen.

  So why did the psycho have her picture?

  Her thoughts were so busy with that question that she didn’t notice the sound right away. But then the muffled growl of the motorcycle engine grew louder, and she cursed under her breath. Frantically she flipped pages to find the one the book had been open to. Hoping she’d remembered correctly, she crossed the room, snatched up her backpack, and eased the metal door open. Heart pounding in her ears, she reached out her cast and used it to switch off the dusty light fixture, casting the room into darkness.

  The alley behind the shop remained mostly shadows, but none of them moved. There didn’t seem to be anyone watching and she slipped out, ears attuned to hear any sound of Dante coming back into the shop from the front.

  A frown creased her forehead. The growl of the motorcycle engine had begun to diminish again. A wave of relief washed over her as she realized that, though it was as loud as Dante’s Harley, this bike belonged to someone else. The noise of the motorcycle moved away.

  Still, she owed its rider a debt. It must be at least ten o’clock by now, perhaps later. There was no telling when Dante might come back, but she had already risked too much.

  Slipping the leather glove into her backpack, Sammi zipped it, then slung it across her shoulder and started walking. This time she headed along the narrow maintenance alley behind the row of shops toward the single light at the end of the block. Once there, she turned left and walked into a neighborhood of barking dogs and rusty swings. At the first cross street, she turned left again, and slowly made her way back to Vespucci Square.

  The last bus came by at ten-twenty-five, according to the schedule. She made it with seven minutes to spare and then waited with mounting panic for an additional ten beyond that. When the bus arrived, late, she quickly climbed aboard, thinking that she would feel safe once it rolled away.

  But Sammi did not feel safe at all.

  14

  T he house seemed dark and silent when Sammi arrived home. Its stillness made it seem empty, almost abandoned, as she walked up to the front steps. Sammi frowned. Her mother had to be home. If she had gone anywhere she would have called. Sammi had her new cell phone in her pocket, set to vibrate.

  She must be sleeping.

  A layer of ice seemed to have formed on her skin. Sammi’s insides felt brittle. Images swirled in her mind that she wished she could scour away forever. The photographs in Dante’s sanctuary were things she could never unremember. But even worse than those Polaroids—than those images—were the epiphanies she had experienced.

  She’d give anything to forget what she knew.

  A snippet of an old song—one of her father’s old favorites—came whispering through her mind. Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then. Truer words had never been spoken.

  Once inside, she slipped her keys into her pocket. The tire iron felt heavy in her backpack as she closed and locked the door behind her. Dim illumination came from the back of the house. They had always kept the light over the kitchen sink on overnight, just in case anyone wanted to come down for a glass of water.

  Sammi set her pack down quietly on the throw rug in the foyer and slipped off her shoes and jacket. She didn’t turn on any more lights. A couple of windows had been left open a few inches in the living room, and she padded quietly over to the nearest and slid it closed and locked it.

  “I guess it’s your turn, huh?”

  She spun, heart fluttering, and saw her mother curled on the sofa with her head on a burgundy cushion.

  “Mom! Jeez, you scared the hell out of me!”

  Sammi pressed her good hand to her chest and felt her heart beating wildly, a caged bird struggling to be free. She steadied her breathing and stared at her mother, frowning with the realization that her mom had been lying on the sofa in the dark without even the television on, and wondering how long she had been there.

  “What’s wrong, Mom? What do you mean, my turn?”

  Her mother stared past her with glazed eyes. “What time is it, Samantha? After eleven, I think. You have school tomorrow. I expected you home two hours ago. Or did you just decide you don’t give a shit anymore what I want or expect from you? That your mother’s concern for you and the rules of this house weren’t important?”

  She shook her head. “It isn’t like that. I told you I’d be late—”

  “By ten, you said. And even then, I wanted to argue. I didn’t, because I’m trying to give you some freedom. You need that right now. I understand. But this is too much.”

  Linda Holland sat up and pulled the cushion onto her lap, petting it like a lazy house cat. “Not that you’ll listen. Or care.”

  Sammi stared. “Of course I care. I just…I screwed up tonight, okay? I lost track of time. I’m sorry. I am. But you’re making way more of this than—”

  “Than what?” At last her mother looked at her, eyes narrowed. But her gaze held pain instead of anger, and Sammi wished she hadn’t looked up after all.

  “You’re sixteen, Samantha. In two years, you’ll be gone, and I’ll be on my own. I’ve been trying to prepare myself for that. What I didn’t expect was that you’d leave sooner. College is almost two years away, but you’re already gone. Just like your father. You’ll do anything to avoid coming home, now. Just like him.”

  She spat the last word with such venom that Sammi winced, gnawing at her lower lip.

  “Wait a second,” Sammi said. “I come home late and you just assume the worst? I know things are pretty screwed up right now and you’re having a hard time, and I’m sorry I haven’t been around more, but I’m having a pretty shitty month, too, you know?”

  She felt her composure cracking. “Never mind getting my ass kicked. I’ve lost a lot of things I thought I could count on. My best friends. This guy I thought might actually turn out not to be a total jerk. Not to mention my father—”

  Her mother smiled without a trace of amusement. “You never had him, Sammi. Not really. Neither of us did. Counting on him was a mistake. The worst part is that the older I get, the more I realize that the only person you can ever count on is yourself. Your father’s gone. I love you more than anything, but I’m not just upset with you for the way you’ve been vanishing lately. That’s just helped me see the truth. You might as well already be gone. I’ve got to come to terms with the fact that I’m alone.”

  “That’s not fair,” Sammi protested.

  Her mother shrugged. “What is? We live our lives. That’s all we can do. Fairness is a myth, no different from Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, but it’s the one we hold on to the longest, right up until reality spoils it all.”

  Sammi tried to think of some way to explain why she’d kept her mother at such a distance the past couple of weeks. But just as her mother had been trying to hide the worst of her pain over her impending divorce, Sammi couldn’t add to the burden her mother was already carrying.

  “It isn’t what you think, Mom. I’ve got a lot going on, that’s all.”

  Linda stood. “Look, it’s just life. I’ve got to figure out what mine is going to be now. In some ways you’re doing me a favor, making me realize this sooner than if I’d waited for you to graduate high school.”

  “Mom—”

  “I’m going to get a glass of water. Go up and get to bed. You’ve got school tomorrow.”

  Sammi felt a tightening inside her chest as she watched her mother turn her back. She didn’t think her mom had ever done that before, and it hurt more than she ever
would have guessed. She tried to think of something to say—something that would not require her to discuss the impossible turns her life had taken—but came up with nothing.

  Under the weight of her regret, Sammi left the living room, picked up her backpack, and went up the stairs to her bedroom.

  She peeled off her clothes and pulled on a T-shirt. Retrieving her cell phone from the pocket of her jeans, she flipped it open and scanned the menu of her programmed numbers. Adam Levine’s home phone was still in there, listed as Adam Levine. She hadn’t changed it to Cute Adam, as she’d listed him before. She couldn’t bring herself to be that precious with him when he was so furious with her. When he hated her, which he surely must.

  Maybe it was just a fantasy, but she thought she could have talked to Adam about all of this. Even if he hadn’t understood what she was going through with her parents, and even if he didn’t believe her about Dante, he had an openness that would have meant so much to her right then. She needed someone to talk to—someone to whom she could tell her plan.

  But Sammi couldn’t think of anyone who wouldn’t think her crazy, and that was the last thing she needed right now.

  With a sigh, she flicked her phone closed. Almost every day since she had first called him and discovered how the girls had destroyed any chance she had of having a relationship with the guy, she had sat and stared at his name programmed into her phone. Eventually she would call him again. Try to explain.

  If she could just get him to listen long enough to tell him what Letty and the girls had done—how they had assaulted her, and that they’d stolen her cell phone and sent him those messages—perhaps they could start again. If she could just get him to believe her.

  Sammi ran her thumb across the smooth shell of the phone. If she had his cell number, she could text him. That would be easier.

  She frowned, realization making her feel absurd. Could it be that simple? With a shake of her head, she got up from the bed and went to her desk, took out a piece of paper, and started to write. Her mother knew the name of Adam’s mother. With that, and the number, getting the street address would be simple. She would write a letter.