Blood and Ink: Under the Skin Serial Part One

by K. B. Ladnier

  Claudia and I had just finished our third round of drinks and talking about plans for the next week, when she suddenly stopped mid-sentence and stared past my shoulder.

  “Um…Lucy…I think you have a visitor.”

  It was then I noticed that the bartender had completely disappeared and there was a significant lack of talking going on in the place. Only the music could still be heard.

  I followed where she was looking behind me and saw that Agent Grey had just walked in. Oh shit…

  “Well there goes my night.”

  Chapter 4

  “Good evening, Miss Bryant.”

  Claudia’s mouth was hanging open as Agent Grey approached. She was obviously thinking what I had when I first saw him. He looked delicious enough to eat.

  “Agent Grey,” I replied. Instead of stopping to stand next to me like I expected him to, he took the empty bar stool to my left.

  He wasn’t in the usual tactical uniform this time, but was sporting some nice jeans that fit him like a second skin and a navy-blue t-shirt with the words STF in white across the front. He had his agent badge fastened to his belt, along with the trademark gun filled with wooden bullets that had a silver core. Even without all the gear, he was intimidating. He smelled freshly showered and had the usual cool confidence radiating from him.

  The noise level seemed to pick back up as all the vampires in the place decided they were safe. I saw a few random ones give me looks of pity, and others continued to stare in open horror at the sight of an agent here. I didn’t blame them for freaking out. I would be too if I hadn't already been visited by this guy. They never stepped foot in vampire only establishments unless they were vampire agents. This guy had balls of steel.

  “How did you find me?” I figured if he was brave enough to come here with just the one gun and no armor, I could push past my fear of him and ask him whatever I wanted. Though at the same time, I was weary of what the vampires that hadn't vacated were thinking right now.

  “I would've called, but decided I’d rather have this conversation in person. I tracked your phone and it lead me here.”

  My jaw hit the floor. This asshole tracked me? Oh, hell no!

  “You tracked me? I would've met you somewhere if you had just fucking called!”

  Claudia gasped beside me. Yeah, it was brazen of me to speak to an agent like that, but he had no right to do that when I was a pretty fucking upstanding vampire citizen.

  Well…as upstanding of a citizen as anyone could be when you sucked blood out of people’s necks. I guess that wasn’t very citizen-like. But, I hadn’t done that in years!

  I hadn’t done anything wrong, in fact, and cooperated with the shithead when he came by that first night. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d have met him somewhere if he needed to talk in person.

  However, he didn’t look angry at my outburst. In fact, he was smiling. A smile that seriously almost melted my panties off me by how glorious it was. His teeth were perfectly straight and lacked any stains, even though his breath smelled of coffee. The way the right side of his mouth pulled up higher than the left gave the smile a bit more character. And not to mention, he had some seriously sexy dimples in either cheek. He could've given Elvis Presley a run for his money. I would know. When I was still human, I watched a few of Elvis’s performances live in 1968 when he returned to the stage and started that television show.

  “You're right. I could've just called. I apologize.”

  Well, color me fucking shocked. He apologized to me.

  “Uh…thanks,” was all I could reply. Claudia, who had been silent this whole time, finally found her lady balls and reached across me to hold out her hand to the agent.

  “I’m Claudia Adams and I have to say, you're the first STF guy I can genuinely say has shocked me in a good way.”

  Agent Grey’s brow arched up at her greeting him, but his smile stayed in place as he shook her hand.

  “Agent Hollis Grey. Do you mind if I speak with Miss Bryant alone, Miss Adams?” His voice was polite when he asked, gaining a small giggle from my best friend.

  A giggle she saved for when she was flirting. I gave her a ‘what the hell are you doing?’ look, but she just smiled at me before picking up her drink and wandering off to pretend she wasn’t listening.

  How on earth did Claudia go from looking like she was going to pee her pants, to giggling like a wasted school girl who just got asked out by the hot jock? When I turned my attention back to the agent, I was reminded why.

  Oh. Right. Those fucking dimples…

  “So, what is so important that you needed not only to see me in person, but also speak to me privately, yet in a very popular and public vampire club?” I crossed my arms and leaned back, waiting to hear this explanation with rapt attention.

  His smile faded a bit and he leaned in closer, pulling something out of his pocket. When he had it out, I saw it was another sheet of paper.

  “That address that Viper put down on that form was a dead end. The house was cleaned out and hadn't been lived in for at least a month, but the phone number was traced to another vampire named Ashton Marks. I put his information into our database and found a photo of him. I was wondering if you could ID him for me and tell me if he has any connections to Viper.”

  He unfolded and handed me the paper. The name hadn’t sounded familiar to me, so I scanned the face of the vampire. He had a hard look to him; emotionless and calculating was what his expression said to me. I was thrown into a flashback of the night I tattooed Viper.

  “Hey, Ash. How does this look?” Viper said to the vampire he’d been accompanied by.

  The vampire he called Ash, walked over and stood beside us as I put the finishing touches on the snake. He leaned in and looked it over. His breath smelled of copper and stale cigarettes. I knew he had recently fed and that the smell was distinctly of fresh blood. Vampires could smell a difference in blood fresh from the vein and the kind from a bag. This was a straight feed.

  “Looks good to me,” Ash said, stepping back and crossing his arms.

  I stopped my machine and set it down, my nose still wrinkling from the smell of the vampire’s breath. I loved blood as much as any vamp, but I had spent many years fighting for self control and the smell of unbagged human blood was testing my limits.

  “I may have to recommend her to the boss. This is fucking awesome!”

  “Miss Bryant? Miss Bryant? Lucy?”

  I jumped when Agent Grey’s voice pulled me from the memory. “Sorry. I was remembering something.”

  The agent leaned in even closer, leaving barely a few inches between us. I felt my blood rushing through my veins at his proximity, and my dead heart pumping furiously. Contrary to popular belief, even though we're dead, our hearts still beat, yet in an unnaturally fast rhythm. It was going a mile a minute at feeling the exposed flesh of his arm touching mine. The reaction my body was having to him rattled me to my core.

  “He was there. The night I tattooed Viper. He came with him to watch,” I replied in a whisper, my voice almost shaking. Whether it was from the fear of him being so close or the elation of his touch, I couldn't tell the difference. My phone started vibrating over and over in my pocket, but I dared not answer it.

  “And did they mention anyone? Someone who was a higher up to them?” His quiet question sent a shiver up my spine. His lips were barely an inch from my ear.

  “Y-yes,” I stuttered, wringing my hands in my shirt as I tried desperately not to close my eyes at the feel of his tone washing over me like a caress. My phone began to vibrate a second time, but again, I left it alone. “He mentioned recommending me to his boss. Though, he didn't say who this boss was.”

  “That’s good,” he pulled away from me, shifting so his back was now plastered to the back of the stool.

  I exhaled, yet another time I felt the need to breathe. My shoulders relaxed now that he wasn’t so close, but I was confused as to why he had any hold over me like that. I was attracted to him
for sure, but the idea of doing anything with him seemed too far fetched for even me. Human STF agents never fraternize with vampires, so why was he so fascinated with being extra close to me? Whatever the reason, I really needed to get my shit straightened out.

  “You’ve been very helpful, Miss Bryant. I appreciate it more than you know,” he said smoothly.

  “Call me Lucy. I feel weird that you keep calling me Miss Bryant. I may be slightly old in human years, but I still feel as young as I was the day I was turned.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Well then you can just call me Hollis, as I'm sure I’ll most likely need your help again someday soon. Would that be alright?” His gorgeous sideways smile appeared again, looking almost smug. He knew how he was affecting me.

  Not knowing what else to say, I simply nodded my head yes.

  He was about to say something else, but was interrupted by a thundering voice growling out my name.

  “LUCY!”

  I jerked in my seat at the sound of Sloan, who was now barreling into the place looking more pissed off than I’d ever seen him.

  “What do you think you are doing cornering her here like this!” He shouted as he came and stood in front of Hollis, his eyes flashing, nose flared and body heaving with undiluted anger.

  I shot up from my seat and got between him and Hollis, knowing that he couldn’t come back from it if he decided to attack an STF agent unprovoked. Shit, even provoked he’d be locked up in a cage of silver or worse; killed.

  “Calm down, Sloan! I’m fine! He was just asking some more questions about Viper.” I pressed my hands to his chest, feeling his burning skin beneath the cotton shirt he was wearing. I knew he was close to shifting and needed to defuse the situation before it got ugly.

  “I didn’t corner her and I have every right as STF to come here. This is none of your business, werewolf.” Hollis was not in the least intimidated by the raging Were standing in front of me, who could move me out of his way as easily as a sack of potatoes at this stage in his pre-shift.

  “She is my business, scum! I don't take agents stalking what is mine lightly!” I gaped at Sloan, surprised that the word mine was coming from his wolf, not him. Fuck me, Claudia had been right. This was not good.

  “I don’t think a vampire like Lucy could be owned by anyone, mutt. She has been more than welcome to turn down helping me, yet she hasn’t. Maybe you should take this up with her and not me.” Hollis was now pressing into my back as he moved closer, squishing me between him and Sloan like a vampy-sandwich.

  It would be a total lie if I said I wasn’t in the least bit turned on by having two sexy-as-sin men fighting over me, but someone had to do something before shit hit the fan.

  “Okay, boys! You two need to chill out,” I yelled bravely between them, giving Sloan a shove with all my strength. He only moved back a fraction, but at least he moved. His eyes never strayed from glaring at Hollis behind me, so I knew I had to get his attention off the agent.

  “Sloan!” I shouted at him, clapping my hands in front of his face.

  His eyes snapped to mine.

  “There we go. Now, I need you to slow down your breathing.”

  He inclined his head just barely, then began breathing in and out of his nose and mouth. After a minute, the glow in his eyes faded out and his shoulders released a bit of the earlier tension, but his facial expression said he was still under the control of his inner beast.

  “Good. Now, I need you to hear me when I say that I am perfectly fine. He didn't hurt me. Alright?”

  He inclined his head again and his shoulders relaxed more.

  “I’m good now, but I'm still pissed.” He grated out.

  I sighed and bobbed my head. “Yeah, I know. You should leave though, Sloan. Get back to work before Ricky fires you for running out of there. I’ll call you when I'm home.”

  His brows dipped inwards, obviously not liking the idea of leaving me alone with Hollis, but he knew I was right. He glanced back up at Hollis who was still quietly standing behind me.

  “If you lay a finger on her, agent, I won't hesitate to kill you,” Sloan sneered out through clenched teeth, “Consequences be damned.”

  Hollis grunted behind me. “I had no intentions of hurting her. So, your threat is empty to me.”

  Sloan growled one last time, looked back at me, then walked away. Claudia, who had been standing on the sidelines of the fiasco, ran to me and grabbed my arm.

  “I’m so sorry. It was my fault he rushed over here. He called me asking why you didn't answer your phone and I told him your agent came back and he hung up before giving me a chance to explain it was all fine. I should've just not answered it.”

  Her saying my agent set off the butterflies in my stomach. Why did that sound so damn good?

  I patted Claudia’s hand and groaned at the mess my life was becoming in such a short time. “It’s fine. He worries too much and would've stormed over here if you hadn't answered anyways.”

  Sloan’s reaction still had me on edge. I’d never seen him so angry before. It was as if he saw Hollis as a threat to someone he deemed as his territory. Worse yet, he had said I was his in a room full of snooping vampires. That was definitely bad.

  I wasn’t sure if I liked this side of him, or if it terrified me.

  Chapter 5

  “Stick out your finger for me. You know the drill.”

  It was another night at Under the Skin, and I had one of my return clients in the chair tonight.

  He was another vampire that skulked around the wasted streets and back alleys of New York, but he always came once a month for a tattoo, and he always paid in cash. His name was Larry. Yes, Larry the vampire.

  I didn’t necessarily have to tell him to hold out his finger for the pre-set-up before a tattoo, but I was impatient to get started. When I put a vampire in my chair, I do the usual set up like any artist would for a regular human client. But just after I filled the plastic caps with an array of colors, I pricked their finger using a long, thick needle that resembled a letter opener.

  It was made of silver to keep the wound open long enough to draw all the drops of blood I needed for each capsule, and had the tiniest of indentions in it that collected a single drop of blood at the tip.

  The issue with using blood in the ink, however, was that the blood would sometimes change the color of the ink; depending on how light the color was. That was always the problem when I came up with the concoction while in test phases.

  After time and time again of it messing up my inks, I came up with one last solution. I had been thinking about how, even though our skin heals rapidly, our flesh is technically still dead. Dead made me think of embalming fluids. My mind decided formaldehyde was what I needed to try.

  Surprisingly, it worked.

  Now the blood drops go into capsule filled with formaldehyde. It diluted the color minutely enough that it wouldn’t change my colors. A dip in the color then a dip in the chemical and blood mixture gave me the miracle of vampire tattoo ink.

  As I sat there etching the tattoo of a traditional style pin-up girl permanently into Larry’s inner bicep, I couldn't help marveling over what I had accomplished with this perfectly ridiculous mixture. How I had perfectly created a tattoo that would literally last forever.

  My eyes almost glazed over as I finished with the dark colors and moved in on the light ones. I used a Sunflower Gold for the pin-up girl’s hair, slowly moving my machine in circular motions as the tips of the silver needles submerged and withdrew from his pale skin over and over. The silver of the needles cut through his tissue like melted butter, singeing and cauterizing the wound as it went.

  The humming of the machine put my derailed mind at ease, lulling me into an unconsciously oblivious state. The vibration going through my hand sent goosebumps up my arm. The overwhelming scent of the green soap and alcohol combined were giving me a high that not even the strongest opiate drugs could give a human.

  This was my safe haven.

/>   As long as I had the machine in my hand and The Cranberries song Zombie playing through my headphones, I was at peace. Nothing could take this away from me.

  “You missed a spot!” Sloan shouted over the music playing in my ears.

  Remind me why I said nothing could take this away from me?

  I stopped my machine and threw off my glove so I could pull my headphones out. Sloan stood there rocking on his feet with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face like a dog that got the bone, buried it, then dug it back up again like he was the master locator of the universe.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now?” I raised my brow in challenge.

  Sloan smiled wider. “Awe, you can't still be mad at me for last night. I can't help it, vampy babe. You bring out the beast in me.”

  I turned to Larry and sighed. “Take a break Larry. I'm going to take the doggie for a walk.”

  Sloan huffed at my remark as I grabbed a cigarette from my purse and walked out the front of the shop, lighting up my vice just before exiting. I was, in fact, a bit upset with him for the way he’d acted the night before. I got why he was being protective, seeing as how Hollis was a rather persistent STF agent, but he knew better than to be like that in front of a club full of vampires. Our friends and co-workers may have known or had an iota of what we were to each other outside of work, but having the wrong vampire at the club seeing the way he acted could have spelled disaster.

  I hated that this was how it had to be, but we had no clue what would happen if the vampires in this territory found out I was sleeping with a werewolf. I've seen vampires staked to their coffins by other vampires for less.

  Sloan joined me, leaning against the brick wall of the shop with his leg perched up and arms crossed over his chest as his eyes lingered on my face.

  “You’ve barely said two words to me since you called last night then came in today. Why are you so angry with me?” The sadness in his tone was like ice water being thrown over my anger.