Ink

by Sabrina Vourvoulias

  “You stupid fucker. Even if you’ve killed Neto, the gavilanes still have a first,” I say. I steady my shaky hand by wrapping my other one around the wrist.

  He laughs, but I can read what’s running through his head as clearly as if it were code. Before he can bring his gun hand up, I put a bullet through his wrist. As his gun drops and he lunges for me, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and without thinking, turn to it. There’s nothing there but another of those dreadful dwarves, already disappearing back where it came from.

  The mistake costs me. Carlos grabs me as I’m turned and straps his arms around me. He wrests the gun from me, then crushes my hand as if he intends to fuse the bones together.

  I fight going to my knees.

  “I don’t get off on the scars,” he says, “but when I’m first, there’ll always be a place in my gavilanes for women who are willing to kneel.”

  Fury straightens my back.

  “You’re never going to be first,” I say as I shift all my weight to the foot I slam down on his instep.

  It does just enough to let me break out of his grip. He catches and twists my hair and I feel it rip out of my head as I jerk away. But the momentum spins me around so I’m facing him again.

  Over his shoulder I can see Neto has pulled himself to standing. Blood pumps from the hole in his shoulder as he brings his other arm up to shoot. He blows out the back of Carlos’ knee with one shot, then as his cousin starts to fall, blows out the other.

  Even on the ground writhing and moaning in his rapidly pooling blood, Carlos reaches for something in his boot. Neto kicks the knife out of his hand without seeming to look, on his way over to me. He pulls me, one-armed, to him and kisses me. It’s like no kiss he’s given me before and when I come away from it whatever I had thought to say is gone and my mind is blank.

  “You did good, America,” he says.

  A shiver runs down my back, and not only because he’s called me America for the first time since Toño’s death.

  “Now, go,” he gives me a gentle shove in the direction of the parking lot. “I don’t want you to see what I’m going to do.”

  “Neto,” I say. “Wait. Don’t.”

  But the love I’ve seen in his eyes retreats behind the hard surface again. “This is who I am,” he says, then turns his back to me.

  There are still a few shadowy dwarves dancing between the large jaguar and the small as I stumble back and sit hard on the pavement near Neto’s limo. Soon I see another gavilán limo pull in and six traditionals pour out of it, guns drawn.

  “Where’s Neto?” Ana asks when she reaches me.

  I nod toward the dumpster. She takes off at a clip, running without notice through the etheric carnage to where I imagine a more earthly one might still be in progress.

  I feel a hand drop on my shoulder and look up at Remi.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “Define okay,” I say.

  She sits on the ground next to me. “You were smart to leave your limo where you did. We had to take out most of Southden before turning in. Figures that dishonorable wannabe gang would be involved in something like this.”

  I meet her eyes. “We’re involved in this. Does that mean we’re dishonorable too?”

  She gives me a wolfish smile, then turns to look to where the four junior traditionals have met up with Ana. She seems to be issuing instructions and soon the juniors tuck their guns into their waistbands and follow her behind the dumpster. When they disappear from sight Remi turns her eyes back to me.

  I see empathy in them, but also the iron that got her to the top of the top corps so young.

  “Did you think it’d be easy to love him?” she asks after a moment.

  “The love showed up by itself. As soon as I saw how he was with Lucy,” I say.

  “Yeah, but that was then, this is now,” she says.

  When I don’t say anything Remi’s eyes go to the etheric cats’ final moves against the dwarves on the asphalt.

  “You see them,” I say.

  She nods. “Chato says I have some kind of magic. Or maybe that’s just his way of letting me know he wants to hook up.”

  She tears her gaze from the jaguars to return it to me. “You know today wouldn’t have gone down any differently if it were Toño, don’t you?”

  She waits until I nod, then she gets up, holds a hand out to me and when I take it, pulls me to standing.

  “Don’t dick around,” she says quietly. “What you do next means everything.”

  “You talk like that to all your firsts?” I try to make a joke of it.

  “No,” she says. “Only the one who doesn’t know whether she’s staying or going.”

  Then she joins the other gavilanes and I’m alone on the tarmac.

  Del: Cold press

  1.

  When it happens, we’re nowhere near prepared.

  We get a day’s advance notice because Mari’s tipped off. The executive order is to be as Francine imagined it, only somehow worse.

  Troop transport planes will be deployed for the mass deportation of black and green tats to centralized locations within regions where mutually agreeable compacts have been forged. As citizens, blue tats will not be deported. But neither will they be restored to full citizenship. Instead, the extent of rights accorded will be determined on a state-by-state basis.

  What’s more, blues who can provide information leading to the successful detention of green or black tats will be moved to the front of the line for near-full rights.

  “And it’s all predicated on the assumption that the scanners out there are working 100 percent accurately,” Francine says. “Which we all know is malarkey.”

  “Also at the press conference tomorrow, they’re making known the existence and proliferation of multiple variants of synthetic skin,” Mari says, as if she hasn’t heard her mother-in-law. “Civil liberties will temporarily be suspended for non-inks as well as inks, since everyone will be subject to wrist swipes with a solvent to expose concealed tattoos.”

  “Christ,” I say, envisioning what this is going to mean to the inks already sequestered on my land. We each sign off the conference call without other comment.

  By the time paratransit drops me at St. Adalbert Church all the old coots from the group are there. And more. Dozens of inks who’ve been living in the tunnels under the Math buildings swarm the parking lot. I don’t know who’s told them, or whether the underground ink network is so plugged-in that they’ve caught wind of the plan even before it’s gone public. Grace, Father Tom’s parish secretary, refuses to unlock the doors of the church for them.

  Father Tom is nowhere to be seen.

  I wheel myself into the fracas. In the panic everyone’s speaking in Spanish, or other languages that the old coots insist on hearing as Spanish because that’s what they expect. I zip from one end of the lot to the other trying to tell people to be patient. That there’s a plan in place. At least that’s what I think I’m saying. My Spanish is pretty basic.

  Fifteen minutes in, three sleek unmarked limos try to pull into the parking lot. Father Tom hops out of the lead car. He ushers the crowd to the lower church meeting room while his secretary shoots worried glares in his wake.

  When the limos are parked, a man with long, black hair pulled into a neat ponytail, a stud with a diamond chip winking from a piercing under his lip, and the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen, gets out of the lead vehicle.

  “A mess,” he says when he catches my eye. “I thought Father Tom said there was already a plan in place.”

  “He exaggerates a lot,” I say.

  The guy grins, then his eyes shift to my wheelchair. “It looked like you were trying to get things organized. You need a hand getting down to the meeting room?”

  “No. I thought maybe I’d let the worst of the panic cycle through before I venture down.” What I don’t tell him is that these days I can convince those particular three steps to temporarily turn themselves into a ramp fo
r me.

  “Smart.” He leans against the limo. A tall woman with dark hair and a shorter one with bleached blond hair get out of the other limos and join him. They’re pretty, but with their too-thin eyebrows and dark-rimmed lips, they come off really tough too. The three talk quietly in Spanish much too rapid for me to figure out.

  I look around the church’s parking lot. People keep arriving, alone, or in small groups. As soon as they try the front doors of the church and see they’re still locked they head over to the lower church.

  “I wonder how they know to come?” It’s just a question I ask myself. But I slip up and let it actually come out my mouth like I do when I’m around Satchel. I don’t expect an answer.

  The guy comes to stand at the side of my chair. “Everyone underestimates how wired the inks are. Tell one, you tell them all,” he says, watching the stragglers.

  “Yeah, but who told the one?”

  “My wife,” he says.

  “She routinely monitors certain channels and servers,” he adds after a moment. “The government’s are, apparently, an invitation to hack so the communications she traced weren’t even much of a challenge. Anyway, she told Mari as soon as she had a complete picture, and there you go.”

  I look up at him. “I thought you were part of a gang.”

  “I am. The gavilanes are a full service organization.” He gives me a mocking smile. “My side works the more traditional avenues. My wife’s side, the newer trails. We’re a small group, but quite effective. Cutting edge, you might say.”

  “Who knew Hastings was so far forward?” I say cautiously. However amiable, the guy’s gang and probably has a few cutting edges on him as we speak.

  “Oh, we’re not based in Hastings,” he says, then sticks his hand out in introduction. “Neto Gavilán. A sus ordenes.”

  I know what that means. At your service. Not frigging likely.

  “Delevan Ellis,” I say while we shake. “Del. I guess I’m part of Mari’s network. I’m married to Finn’s sister.”

  He nods. “I know. Gustavo talks about you.”

  “You know Gussy?”

  “Mari brings him up when she comes to visit. He’s already decided he’s going to marry our Lucero. I tell him he might want to wait; if she takes after her mother she’s going to be a handful.”

  “We should go join Father Tom,” Neto adds after a moment. “I’m guessing he’ll need some reinforcements just about now.”

  I nod, then bite my lip when I realize I’ve blithely assumed he’ll be okay with my magic. Because he looks a bit like Chato. It’s hard sometimes to keep from falling into one-ink-all-inks kind of thinking even when you can see all around what kind of havoc that wreaks.

  He keeps pace with me, even when the steps turn themselves into a ramp, and doesn’t say anything, but I see his eyebrows shoot into his forehead and later I catch him giving me an appraising look.

  He’s right about Father Tom. Francine may be an accomplished scholar but neither she nor any other member of the group of old coots has any idea what to do. Father Tom’s swamped by people, everyone talking at once.

  Neto pushes his way over to the priest, puts his fingers in his mouth and lets loose a blasting whistle.

  The room falls quiet as the last long note dissipates.

  “Find a seat,” he says in English. “And shut the fuck up already.”

  They do.

  I make my way forward to where Francine slumps onto one of the seats attached to the cafeteria-style tables. “This is a wreck,” she says to me.”We’ve so screwed it up. And, have you even seen Mari anywhere?”

  I shake my head.

  Father Tom’s voice pulls us back.

  “We only have so much time to get this together,” he says. “The news’ll likely leak out a couple of hours before the press conference. Once that happens, moving to any hideaway will be near impossible.” A wave of sound makes its way through the crowd, growing more alarmed as it flows.

  Step up, Father, I think at the priest, or this’ll fall apart right quick.

  But it isn’t the priest.

  “The way the gavilanes see it, the minute the news goes public every underground ink will start trying to find a place to hide out or get away,” Neto tells the crowd. “Roads will be clogged, gasoline will run out. And the National Guard will already have been deployed in anticipation of exactly that. So, what’s that give us? About 20 hours free and clear of trouble to get to the sanctuaries and safe houses we’ve lined up on the way to the northern border.”

  “But I don’t want to go north.” A plaintive voice from the crowd.

  Neto shrugs. “That’s the only route my gang holds. You want to go south, Efe is working out of the Costco warehouse on City Ave. and C-30 will be at New Hope Assembly on Bainbridge whenever they get there. You want to go west, there’s Shi at the terminal market on Tindall. Reciprocals are in place. For a while anyway. And all bets are off when you hit the point where gangs turn to cartel.”

  Some twenty people get up.

  “Take cash,” Neto says. “The fare’s running about a grand a piece for instate. The further south you go, the steeper it gets.”

  “And here?” The woman who asks has four children standing next to her.

  “It’s not an issue here. But numbers are. The limos each fit ten. With the two clear runs we might get that means 60 people, tops,” he says. “I believe the Father’s Gang of Five are also driving people free of cost. With four cars and a van, I think that’s about 22 per run for them.”

  Just over 100 slots and there have to be at least 200 people gathered already. And no telling how many more on their way.

  “That’s not enough.” Another voice from the crowd.

  “No,” Father Tom pipes up. He looks pained. “It isn’t. Which means you’ll have to pick who to send through today. Tomorrow… well, I don’t know what we’ll do, but we’ll figure something out.”

  “Or you can stay put,” Neto says, something like sympathy in his voice, “and take your chances. At least if you end up on a deportation transport you’ll be together with your loved ones.”

  “You’ve got about a half hour,” Neto adds quietly when he turns to Father Tom. “The limos will need to load up then and your volunteers ought to also.”

  The priest nods, moves into his ersatz congregation with most of the old coots in tow. It is horrible to witness. The inks tell him the number and ages of their family members, which ones will go, which will stay. In the end, some sort of boarding list will be compiled. Nobody wants to break up families, but that’s the only way this is going to work.

  But not necessarily for me.

  Not that many inks believe in magic, but some do. I wheel myself from family group to family group offering to make their current residences in-between places. Even those who agree to my “house blessing,” as they’ve chosen to call it, don’t seem eased. And none of them want to leave for the in-betweening until Father Tom is done with his tally. No matter how I argue that the tally’s immaterial if they choose to be in-betweened, they will not be moved.

  Mari and Gus finally show up, and as soon as I head back to where they sit with Francine, Gussy launches himself onto my lap to give me a hug.

  “Uncle Del,” he says. “I’m going on a trip with my mommy. She says I’m not going to come back for a while.”

  I nod. I’m strangely choked-up when I look in his eyes. What makes him old beyond his years has retreated and all I see is little boy.

  “But who’s going to keep you painting your stories when I’m gone?” he frets. “Satchel’s just a baby and won’t know how.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” I say.

  I meet Mari’s eyes over Gus’ head.

  “You could stay,” I say. “You’re a blue, things should ease up a bit for you. Isn’t that what the latest FedEx Brigade missives counsel anyway? Of course, it probably makes a difference that most of the Brigade members are blues. They don’t want to see the
ir numbers drop.”

  “If you were me, would you want to stay?” she asks.

  “No.”

  She smiles, but like so much these days, there’s grief and anger underlaying the fleeting sweetness of it.

  “But since I am a blue, Gus and I don’t have to go on the first run, or even the second,” she tells Francine, “we can wait.”

  “Gussy doesn’t have to go at all. He’s not tattooed, he can stay with me.” I’ve never heard Francine plead before. “I am officially his guardian.”

  Mari doesn’t even have to say no, the smile she flashes Francine is that feral.

  The old woman goes pale and averts her eyes, but when she speaks it is in her usual hard, clipped tones.”If we don’t take you up on the first or second run, we’ll run out of safe houses. And I don’t think anyone’s going to be willing to risk a third run.”

  “Neto will, you’ll see.”

  Francine gives her a nod, gets up and walks away. I can tell she’s angry from the set of her shoulders.

  “You sure?” I say to Mari.

  Who is ever sure? Not even we are given that gift, says her twin.

  Almost a quarter of the adults in the room decide to turn themselves over for deportation. They hang on to the infants and the children too small to survive hardship without them, but really cling to the ones they’re letting go. The list Father Tom ends up with is mostly children anyway, the ones just old and young enough to have a chance at a future if they can hide and outwait policy.

  Two of the families I’ve talked to about in-betweening come to me straightaway. They don’t live far, but even so, I almost miss the goodbyes at St. Adalbert.

  Neto comes over, ruffles Gus’ hair. “You coming up to visit Luz?” he says, but he’s really asking Mari.

  “Third run, if you’re game,” she says.

  “Why not?” He grins. “What’s a little added deportation risk among friends? You should see if anyone else is willing to risk it. Might as well have a full limo.”

  She nods. “I’ll ask around.”

  He turns to me. “Will you still be here when I get back?”