Stamps, Vamps & Tramps (A Three Little Words Anthology)

by Rachel Caine

  They think it be some relic of an old devout given to the Plague. Miracles happen when they scrawl on it, like.

  “This is like stealing from the Monarch of Ars.”

  More like the General of Dem, but it be the only way. I have an idea, though.

  “Anything to prolong the inevitable.”

  You got a quill and ink handy?

  “What? No. Why would I?”

  Hmm. That’ll complicate it, but not matter. Just follow my lead.

  Chernyl pointed to a dark archway leading into the Church and Grimshaw followed. Chernyl’s arm shot out and grabbed a brick, swinging them into a different hall.

  “Pointing will be just fine,” Grimshaw said, regaining his balance.

  Sorry. Just got excited. Don’t know where me head went.

  Grimshaw sighed and followed Chernyl’s directions, taking a left here, a right there, diving into a prayer alcove to avoid a devout.

  “We nearly there? My heart can’t take much more.”

  Yeah, yeah. Hang in there, buddy. It’ll be the next alcove on your right.

  Grimshaw ducked into the alcove and sat on the stone bench inside.

  “Now what? We’re lost in the largest Church in the known world, surrounded by armed devout guards, trying to steal their greatest relic.”

  We need something to write with. You got any qualms about cutting yourself?

  “What? Yes. I mean—no. Wait, why?”

  You’ll find out if you do it.

  “Gah, fine.” Grimshaw stuck his thumb between his teeth and tore a small hole in his skin.

  Write “Open” on my arm somewhere.

  Grimshaw wrote it. “Now what?”

  Now tear it off, slap it on the brick, and say the word.

  “But I worked hard to find that scrap of you. What’ll happen after I tear it?”

  Just trust me, buddy.

  He tore the scrap that read “open” from Chernyl’s arm and pressed it to the brick floor underneath them.

  “Open,” Grimshaw said. The word glowed white, and then Grimshaw was falling.

  He awoke in the dark, broken masonry pressing into his back and legs.

  “Er,” he said, blinking, “You’ve made me blind or dead or both.”

  Buddy’s being a bit of a baby. We’re just in a lower chamber. Thumb’s still bleeding?

  “Everything’s bleeding.”

  Use everything to write “Fire” on my arm. Then tear it and say it.

  Grimshaw did as he was told, and a spark of light illuminated the chamber. Unlit candles stood on ledges running along the chamber’s wall. Grimshaw lit one with the scrap of paper.

  “Where to now?”

  Start walking and I’ll tell you when to stop.

  “Put your hand on the wall so I don’t get lost.”

  Chernyl pressed his fingertips against the wall. Grimshaw held the candle out in front of him and started walking. The small glow of the candle didn’t allow him to see more than five feet in front of him at a time.

  There’s a left coming up. Take it.

  Grimshaw rounded the corner. There were no ledges in this hall. Instead, portraits of past Scribes lined the walls.

  Know any of these lads and ladies?

  He shook his head. “Nah. My grandparents kept this faith but it was burned with their Plague-ridden bodies.”

  Each devout wore one of three simulacra representing their patron: a gear for the Timescribe; a hammer for the Worldscribe; a claw for the Lifescribe. It made Grimshaw shiver.

  They keep only their most holy relics on the first level. A stone from the Worldscribe’s mountain. Flask of oil that dripped from the Timescribe. Hair from the living pages of the Lifescribe’s book. Down here are their extras.

  Grimshaw chuckled. “How does it feel to know you’re not as important as a rock?”

  Chernyl curled the fingers on his hand, dragging Grimshaw’s two good fingers across the rough stone.

  Door on your left, he said.

  Grimshaw grit his teeth and walked faster. The door was unlocked.

  The chamber opened up and down, left and right, like a bubble at least as large as the upper portion of the Church. A thin stairway led down into darkness, past the reach of Grimshaw’s light.

  Chernyl whistled.

  “I hope you know where to look.”

  And I hope your legs aren’t tired. Let’s get moving, buddy.

  Grimshaw wove in and around piles of what could only be called garbage. Stacks of moldering paper dripping with fluid from broken canopic jars. Soiled habits half-buried in rubble piles. Towers of torn paintings. He raised the candle above his head, but the light was swallowed by the massive cavern. Agoraphobia threatened to infiltrate his mind, squeezing it with an icy claw.

  Calm down. I know the way back better’n any compass.

  Grimshaw took a deep breath and started walking again.

  “How far in is your head?” he asked.

  Feels like it’s near the back wall.

  “Great.”

  The walk wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been in a straight line, or if drops of cold water didn’t fall down the back of Grimshaw’s shirt, or if the growling would stop.

  It’s at the center of the next pile, Chernyl said. Grimshaw looked around, but all he could see was what could only be called a mountain of paper, each page dense with characters.

  “In there?” Grimshaw asked, pointed.

  Yessir. Feels like five feet up and straight through to the heart.

  Grimshaw picked up a handful of sheets. Dense scrawl, not unlike Chernyl’s, packed every page, but it was nonsense. Random combinations of verbs, nouns, and adjectives.

  “Break library cold running rat vase falling,” Grimshaw read. The words began glowing.

  Drop those pages! Chernyl yelled in his mind. Grimshaw let them flutter to the ground and watched as the paper deformed, crumpled, tried to create what he had read. Rats, books, vases tried to push free of the page, their silhouettes looking like objects trying to press through cotton sheets.

  The commotion stopped, though, as the paper was ripped to tatters by the competing words.

  “What in the blackened name of the Fiend was that?” Grimshaw asked, stepping back.

  Me head’s where the base of me power is. It musta contaminated the rest of this paper.

  “What are you?”

  An arm and three fingers. Now get digging, buddy.

  Grimshaw shook his head and looked at the mountain of paper once more. It stretched into the darkness above him. No way could he dig through the entire pile, searching for a single sheet among the rest. Then an idea struck him.

  He used a tooth to reopen the wound on his thumb and wrote “crumble” on Chernyl.

  What’a doing?

  “Trust me, buddy.”

  Grimshaw tore the strip off and set it on the pile.

  “Crumble.”

  The word glowed white, and then broke into smaller pieces. Grimshaw’s stomach flopped as he watched; nothing else seemed to happen. Then, the paper underneath the scrap turned to dust, and the sheets touching that piece turned to dust, and then the reams touching the sheets touching that piece turned to dust.

  Chernyl grabbed Grimshaw’s thumb, welling blood onto his own finger. With deft motion, Chernyl wrote “Stop” on his shoulder, and tore the scrap off. He crumpled the scrap into a ball and tossed it as high as he could.

  “Stop,” Grimshaw said and didn’t say. His mouth moved, forming the words, but it wasn’t his voice that came out. It was a low and raspy voice.

  The ball of paper burst into a fine paper mist and settled on the crumbling mountain.

  Don’t do that again. Now go get me head.

  Grimshaw was at a loss for words. He could see the distinct yellow-brown of Chernyl’s skin sitting on top of what was left of the mountain and started to scramble up the side to get it. His feet slipped on paper and slick dust, but he managed to ascend the pile.


  Chernyl’s head looked more like a cowl with eyeholes. It was large enough to cover Grimshaw down to the shoulders.

  Grimshaw picked it up and started walking to the edge of the mountain when he heard the soft noise of bare feet on stone. He dropped to his belly and extinguished the candle.

  Moments later, a dozen Scribes armed with pikes and feuerglas lanterns walked out from behind a mound of rusting iron.

  “I heard something,” one of the lantern-bearing Scribes said.

  A larger Scribe with a pike snickered. “I’m sure you did. The garbage in here shifts constantly.”

  “But the door was open.”

  “True, but it may have been open for months. Nobody comes down to the lower levels.”

  Grimshaw moved back from the edge.

  What’re we going to do? Grimshaw thought.

  Simple, buddy. Put me head back on.

  Out of the question. We’re waiting till I can get us back to a controlled environment.

  Chernyl laughed. Controlled environment, buddy? When’ll you learn? Chernyl pushed hard on the mound, sending a cascade of papers down toward the Scribes.

  You have no control.

  “Up there!” the lantern-bearing Scribe said, pointing.

  You’ve killed us both.

  I can’t be killed, but you can. Now, buddy, put me head on and I’ll get us out of here.

  Fiend be damned, tell me how.

  The Scribes were nearing the bottom of the mountain, their voices raised in excitement.

  You’re a thick git, ya know buddy? We’ve been together months now and ya still don’t know? A child coulda guessed by where ya found me.

  Grimshaw thought back. Thought back to the lock and legends. The realization broke on him like a cold tide. His good hand shot into the air, waving frantically.

  No. No. I—I can’t let you. I won’t.

  “Over here,” he said, before fingers clasped his throat, taking him back to the ground.

  Sorry, buddy. Can’t let you do that. Not yet. It’s been so many years. So many sharp quills scratching my skin. Stories of love and death, shop inventory, children’s sums, even a ransom note, all bleeding into me and me bleeding back. Not anymore, buddy. Can’t do it anymore. Chernyl slammed a palm into Grimshaw’s nose. The bone crunched and blood began to flow. His eyes crossed and he forgot where he was for a second, but a second was all Chernyl needed. His yellow-brown hand snatched the cowl and threw it over Grimshaw’s head.

  “Together,” said the raspy voice. The word glowed white and Grimshaw went away as it felt like all the blood between his ears was sucked into the cowl. He could still see, could still feel, but it wasn’t him anymore.

  Chernyl stood up and stretched. One of the lantern-bearers threw his lump of feuerglas onto the top of the mountain. It tumbled to a stop near Chernyl’s foot. Even as smoke began to rise as the feuerglas ignited the mountain, a collective gasp went up as the light touched his parchment-bound arm, and their eyes followed the yellow-brown trail up past, elbow, shoulder, neck, to the ink-stained skull. The Scribes fell to their knees and bowed their heads.

  Chernyl smiled and ran a thumb through the blood flowing from his nose. In quick, precise strokes he wrote three words on his chest.

  “The Inked Man,” he said, and his whole body began to glow white.

  FROM THE HEART

  By Kella Campbell

  Lola knew exactly where she was—again. The teal-and-gold tiles under her cheek belonged to the VIP men’s room upstairs at the Club; achy stiffness and a gummy feeling around her eyes and mouth suggested that she’d been lying there a good few hours. Oops. Again.

  A dusty early light crept in through crimson-draped windows, gleaming on the balcony railing and the brass poles down onstage. Right through till morning, even. Lola staggered down the stairs, fumbled her way backstage to the dressing room and her locker—it’d be a bit much to go across to the Coffee Cave quite as she was, barely covered by a few bits of sequin and rhinestone—and where the hell had her corset gone? Pasties left on overnight would be adhesive-welded in place, so she didn’t bother trying to remove them, just tugged yesterday’s T-shirt overtop, with the faint hope that not too many people would notice the heart-shaped outlines. Again.

  Her lower back ached and stung as she zipped up her skirt, and she wondered if she’d fallen and scraped herself on something.

  Chad at the Coffee Cave eyed the heart shapes with a smirk as he took her money.

  “Rough night?”

  It would have taken too much energy to even roll her eyes in response. Embarrassingly, her hand shook as she lifted the coffee mug from the counter, and she heard Chad snicker as she turned away. Near the front of the coffeehouse, a skinny, homeless-looking guy mopped the floor, pale hair in a ragged ponytail, clothes hard-worn under the Coffee Cave apron— obviously from the Neighbourhood Work Initiative, doing chores in exchange for a meal. You’d think a coffee place that participates in the NWI would have staff a little more respectful of alternative lifestyle choices—at least I can feed myself and have a roof over my head. God, it was good coffee, though.

  Behind her, Chad called out, “Nice tramp stamp, Barbie Doll.”

  The fuck? Did I get a tattoo last night?

  Head high, refusing to acknowledge the comment or reach around to feel her back for evidence, Lola stalked toward the door, smiling slightly as she heard Chad’s outraged, ”Hey, that’s a for-here mug!”

  “I’m only going across the street; I’ll bring it back when I’m done, hipster boy.”

  The NWI mop-man shrank back and hissed at her as she passed.

  The tattoo was a flower, maybe a rose, no bigger than a silver dollar, with a few delicate leaves and thorny tendrils curling to either side. So sue me for my drunken lack of originality —it could as easily have been some dumb unicorn or emo skull art, stuck on my skin for all eternity. The dark design stood out against tender angry skin, inked in black or maybe a dark-singed crimson; Lola couldn’t be sure as she twisted and squinted in front of the mirror, trying for a better look. Does it matter?

  She gave up, and scrabbled at the bottom of her locker until she uncovered a bottle of extra-strength Aleve and a flask of unspeakable hooch she’d apparently not found the night before. Hair of the dog… She splashed some into the remains of her coffee and washed down the Aleve.

  Eventually she felt well enough to stagger the few blocks home, where her roommates shook their heads and made her put some Bacitracin on the tattoo before she fell into bed.

  “You ought to eat something,” said Chad as he poured her coffee.

  Lola shrugged. “What do you care, hipster boy? You get a raise if you sell enough sandwiches?”

  “Nah.” He turned away, wiping the counter until it shone. “You’re just… you look…” He sighed. “If you’re dieting, you don’t need to. If you’re broke, I got some day-old muffins back here waiting to go to the NWI center, and maybe you need ‘em more than they do.”

  “I’m not hungry.” She slapped some coins down on the counter. See? There’s more than enough, and I’m not even going to count it or ask for change.

  Chad stopped her with an awkward touch to her wrist when she would have turned to go, and she saw reluctant concern in his eyes. “I know it’s none of my business and all, but you shouldn’t spend all your money adding to that tattoo, m’kay? You gotta eat.”

  She jerked her arm away. “I’m just not fucking hungry!” Hearing the crazy-lady shrillness in her own voice, she bolted for the door, glancing back as she realized she’d abandoned her coffee—and in that instant, in the doorway, she crashed full-speed into the NWI mop-man just coming into work. His lean frame was more solid than she would have guessed, and she rocked backward, only saved from falling by his firm grip on her upper arms. “Oh, God! I’m so sorry.”

  “S’all right.” His voice was soft and raspy, as though he weren’t used to talking much. He released her.

  Feeling too many eyes o
n her, Lola stepped away from him, back to the counter to collect her coffee. “I’m not a charity case,” she told Chad in a voice that came out a little too loud. “I have a job—even if you’re standing there judging me for it. And I don’t spend my grocery money adding to a tattoo that I didn’t goddamn want in the first place.”

  As the words left her mouth, she thought of the mop-man standing behind her, and she turned to see how his face had closed up, his eyes gone like stone. Charity case. Oh, hell. But it couldn’t be unsaid.

  There was a rosebud next to the rose now, a sprouting of new leaves, another tendril of thorns dipping down toward the base of her spine. No sign that she’d had fresh ink done, this time, no redness to the skin. Maybe it was always… ? But Lola felt uncomfortably sure there had only been one blossom before, and nothing that dipped below the top of her jeans.

  She hitched her waistband up and tightened the belt another notch.

  “You’re going to have to take a break from dancing, hon.”

  She’d known it was coming, this moment, but it still hurt. “I… I’m fired, Morgan? For real?”

  “Call it sick leave, okay? Maybe you need to lay off the partying, take care of yourself a little better.” The Club manager had always been a blunt talker, and met her eyes squarely. “Burlesque is about flesh and curves, Lo, you know that— guests don’t want to look at a dancing skeleton, now, do they? Eat some donuts, sit in the sun a bit; you’ll be back before you know it.”

  Tears stung. Lola blinked them back. But they didn’t do hugs and cups of tea at the Club. She pulled the corners of her mouth up, working at a smile. “D-do I need to clear out my locker?” She couldn’t bring herself to ask about turning in her key to the stage door, but it came to the same thing.

  “Not right away. But if I have to hire a new regular…”

  “I know. You’ll need the locker for her. How long do I have?”

  But Morgan only shrugged, half turning away, conversation over—nothing more to be said. “I’ll wait as long as I can, Lola.” And that was as much sympathy as she’d get.