by Meg Jackson
The other reason was that it served as a decent front for Damon’s fighting career. Damon, besides being an expert in cheese, a decent guitarist, a cinemaphile and purveyor of bad puns, was a lifelong brawler, a fairly big name in the underground scene. He liked to host rather than spectate, preferred fighting on his own turf to driving across the coast making money for other people.
“Alright,” Cristov said. “Well, Damon wants me to spot him, I’ll be back in a half hour or so, just to check in before heading to the parlor.”
Damon had been working out more and more in recent months, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by the Volanis siblings. But Kennick, Cristov, and their sister Mina knew Damon enough to trust him with himself; of the four, he always exhibited the most self-control and patience.
The three brothers may have shared their father’s green eyes, but the similarities generally ended there. Kennick’s long brown hair and red scruff bore no resemblance to Cristov’s blonde locks and unshaved face, or Damon’s black hair and full lumberjack beard.
And while Kennick was naturally gifted with a muscled body, Cristov and Damon bested him when it came to sheer strength. Cristov was the leanest of the three, but his smaller frame was ropey and toned by years of working out with the massive, bulky Damon, a powerhouse of a man.
Even their tattoos, covering their chests and arms, came from totally different worlds: Cristov’s biceps were decorated with elaborate Japanese forms, Kennick’s chest boasted spiraling geometric mazes, and Damon’s torso was illustrated in a bold, slapdash arrangement of traditional American tattoos.
Together, they were powerful, each taking from each other’s strength and compensating for their weaknesses. Mina, the youngest and only girl, shared their love but was also apart from it, sometimes seeing things the brothers missed, her eyes trained for a different light. They’d always been that way, linked by blood, ink, and tradition.
3
“You look like shit,” Ron said as Ricky slithered into her squeaky, half-broken office chair. She glared up at him, feeling about as shitty as he said she looked.
“You know, you’re only supposed to edit my articles, not my appearance,” she snapped. “Keep that red pen of yours where it belongs, or it’ll end up in your ass.”
Ron laughed; normally, you couldn’t talk to your boss the way Ricky talked to Ron, but he didn’t mind. It was par for the course in their line of work. It actually made her a more desirable journalist, compared to someone mousy and quiet who would be too afraid to ask dirty questions in an interview.
“I want you to go down to the Hutchins’ farm today,” he said, looking at his phone while he spoke to her. Ricky groaned.
“Why? Did Clem finally get a stag to mate with one of his fillies and get a unicorn out of the deal?”
Clem Hutchins and his wife Martha were certifiable kooks. They were friendly, lovable, amusing old kooks, sure, but kooks nonetheless.
“No, they had a break-in,” Ron said, his brows furrowing as he studied something on the tiny screen in his hand. He glanced up to look at Ricky once more before bustling back to his office. “Just get some quotables and write it up, I forwarded you the police report.”
Ricky stifled the groan rising in her throat when she realized the drive out to the Hutchins’ farm was thirty minutes both ways. It had taken enough out of her just driving to work that morning. White line fever usually only strikes when you’ve been driving for hours on a highway late at night, but the hangover crinkling Ricky’s brain made her as susceptible as any long haul trucker. She rubbed at her eyes and took a deep breath before slamming the rest of her coffee, making a new cup to take on the road, and setting off.
As she drove, she didn’t think about Ron telling her she looked like shit. She couldn’t think about that, because if she did, she’d have to agree with him. And then she’d have to think about why she looked like shit. She’d promised herself she was going to take the night off from drinking, but then 7:00 rolled around and the allure of the bar had overcome her. If she was being honest, the lure of the bar was overcoming her a hell of a lot those days. And it kept getting stronger.
But she didn’t have a problem. People with drinking problems had them for a reason. Because their wife died or their Dad beat them or they were victims of sexual assault or they had done something unmentionable in their past that they wanted to forget. They had issues. Ricky didn’t have any issues.
Sure, she had started drinking young, in high school, and had partied her way through college, but so did everyone else she knew. And, after all, she was a journalist. It came with the package. Hell, Hunter S. Thompson did a lot worse than drinking, and he was one of the great journalists of his time, or any.
But then why, when she drank, did each drink leave her feeling less fulfilled than the one before it? Why was she becoming a regular at the town’s pubs? Why, even when Kim and Tricia and her other friends declined the invitation, did she find it suitable to go out alone? Why did she drink sometimes by herself, in her apartment? Why was she so damn hungover on a weekday?
Those were the sort of thoughts that Ricky dismissed as soon as they entered her brain, which they did more often than she could admit to herself. She always had an answer in her back pocket to her own mental interview: because I’m young, because I can, because I’m a reporter, because being at the bar is a great way to get hot gossip, because I’ll stop soon, because I’ll stop in a year, because I’ll stop when I’m thirty…
So, as she drove, sipping her coffee and humming along to the radio in an absent-minded sort of way, she let her mind drift to different matters. More manageable matters. Deadlines and meetings and everything Ed Kerry had told her at their weekly gossip session the day before. Kim’s win in the town’s recent special election, and all the work she was doing for the town, even with a wedding likely looming in the not-too-distant future. To Kennick Volanis. Brother of Cristov Volanis.
And that wasn’t a manageable thought at all.
She grunted in frustration at herself for letting her mind roll to him. Again. Why couldn’t she just forget him, forget their night together, forget his stupid charming smile and those damn emerald eyes? What was it about him?
Sure, he was funny, and their constant back-and-forth had engaged her, mentally, more than most of the guys she found herself around. Sure, he seemed to have something sweet and true inside him that was impossible not to like. Sure, he had shown her the best time in bed she’d ever had. The way he’d taken control of her, made her want to obey him…most men were pushovers, and preferred to let Ricky take the reins when it came to sex. Not Cristov. He’d seen the fiery defiance in her eyes and took it as a challenge. And the feeling of succumbing to him…
She’d felt, strangely, liberated.
But so what? Great sex didn’t mean anything, not in the real world. She could let him into her bed again if she wanted a good time, but she had a feeling that it wouldn’t take too many more good times before he became a bad habit. If he kept doing all those things he’d done that night, she wouldn’t be able to let go.
That would mean she was trapped.
And if there was one thing Ricky James wouldn’t abide, it was feeling trapped.
She was relieved when the Hutchins’ farm came into view over a hill that made her stomach turn, bitter coffee crowding her throat. She pulled into the long, dirt drive and rode up to the little farmhouse, making sure to bring her tape recorder and notebook with her when she exited the car.
“Well, it was damn strange,” Clem Hutchins’ said, drumming his fingers on the ancient wooden table in their kitchen-slash-dining room. He and his wife had welcomed her heartily, having expected someone from the paper to come out. Kingdom was a small enough town that littering could make the paper, so a break-in was juicy.
Martha slipped a mug of coffee, overloaded with cream and sugar, in front of Ricky, who took it with a grateful smile even though the coffee she’d brought in with her was still half-full
. The room was large and warm from a wood-burning stove, the red-and-white checked linoleum tiles sticky and faded from use. The house hadn’t been renovated since the 50’s at the latest. A very loud kitchen clock hung over the old refrigerator, which had to be older than its owners.
“Me and Missus were out yellin’ at the chickens ‘cause they ain’t been layin’ as many eggs,” Clem continued, his accent a peculiar mix of Southern and Northern that was indicative of rural Delaware. Ricky resisted the urge to cock an eyebrow at the idea of yelling at chickens. Sensing her amusement, Clem nodded sagely. “Those girls get the best of the best, and they owe it to us to give back in turn. Sometimes you just gotta remind ‘em.”
“Oh, Clem,” Martha interjected. “You know as well as I do they respond better to compliments.”
“You’re too soft, Martha,” Clem said, and Ricky could sense the beginning of a domestic dispute brewing. “Always were, even with the boys!”
“So did you hear the intruders, or…?” Ricky prompted, wanting to nip the argument in the bud. Let the old couple bother each other after Ricky had left.
“Ayup,” Clem nodded, giving his wife one last look before turning back to Ricky. “Heard glass breaking and got all froze up. Was a time I woulda come runnin’, but I’m not so young anymore, and the boys ain’t round to be young for me. It was ol’ Martha here who went off stridin’ towards the house. Damn fool of a woman gonna get herself killed…”
“Better’n living here with you for another ten years,” Martha scoffed. She looked across the table at Ricky and noticed the still-untouched coffee. “Go on and drink, Ricky, it ain’t poisoned.”
Ricky offered her a wan smile and took a sip of the too-sweet beverage. The milk felt like it was curdling in her stomach.
“At any rate, the batty old broad was lucky, ‘cause we’re thinkin’ they weren’t tryin’ to get into the house at all,” Clem continued. “Just wanted us to get to the house so they could do whatever they were doin’ out in the barn.”
“So you both went to the house and saw the window broken, yeah?” Ricky said, “But you didn’t see anyone there?”
“Nope,” Clem said. “I was thinkin’ maybe some kids were throwin’ rocks or somethin’, but there wasn’t any rock anywhere. Then as we’re standin’ round puzzlin’, Martha sees somethin’ sneakin’ round by the barn. Got eyes like a hawk.”
“Never needed glasses a day in my life,” Martha crowed proudly. “I seen shadows ‘round the barn and we said, ‘well, maybe they’re runnin’ cause they didn’t know we were ‘round.’. And Clem gets his gun and we go out to the barn, but they’re already gone. Don’t know what they wanted in the barn anyhow, nothin’ in there since we let the horses go to sale. Just some ol’ tools too rusty to even sell on the Ebays.”
“And then I swear I heard some giant racket out on the road, maybe a mile down, like a helicopter, but that was it. We go out to the barn, look ‘round to see if anything’s missin’, and then the damn noise and that was it.”
“So there was nothing missing, nothing at all?” Kim asked, cursing Ron in her head. Kids messed around in small towns. There wasn’t much else to do. This wasn’t the sort of reporting she wanted to be doing.
“Not a thing,” Clem said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair. “Well, now, not a thing that I can think of. You wind up with a whole lotta stuff, though, when you live someplace so long. Possible they took somethin’ I plumb forget we ever even owned. But nothin’ important.”
“Hmm,” Ricky said, closing her notebook but leaving the tape recorder running. “Strange.”
“Ayup,” Clem said.
“I don’t like it one bit,” Martha piped up. “Makes me think we should stick out the winter.”
Martha and Clem went to Florida every winter, where Martha had a sister. They took the chickens and cows, the last of the farm’s livestock, every November and came back every April with stories about crazy Floridians, surfer punks, and alligator encounters.
“Now, Martha, I told you I ain’t doin’ any more winters in this damn state, and they was probably just kids foolin’, like the cops said,” Clem growled. Ricky sensed another argument coming and figured she had gotten enough out of them for the article. She beat a hasty retreat, thanking Martha for the coffee and leaving the two senior citizens to their bickering.
The drive back was easier than the drive there, because Ricky could begin composing the article in her head. She did some of her best work when she wasn’t working at all; driving, running, doing chores around her apartment. Having something to keep her hands and body busy allowed her mind to produce its best stuff. By the time she got back to the office, she had half the article memorized in her brain and had forgotten all about Cristov Volanis.
4
Cristov had one appointment on the books that day. Guy who left his name as Rig. Something told Cristov that was not the man’s actual name, but what did that matter? As long as he showed up and paid, he could call himself Twinkletoe McGinty for all Cristov cared.
Cristov had two other artists working at the shop, neither of whom had appointments until later that day. He had the parlor to himself when he entered. He put some Dylan on the stereo, set up his area, and waited for his client to arrive.
The little bell over the door jingled and Cristov wasn’t surprised at the man who entered, though it did make him think that Rig might actually be his name. He was clearly a biker; the sound of a motorcycle approaching and then dying off preceding his entrance gave that away. His leather cut, helmet, and boots would have done just as well.
“Rig, yeah?” Cristov asked, crossing the room to meet his client with a firm handshake. The man’s eyes were cold blue, the lower half of his face totally covered in a salt-and-pepper beard, a hardened set in his jaw that made him look like he’d been born on a motorcycle and raised to do wrong.
“Volanis,” the man responded, his voice all gravel and smoke. “Heard good things ‘bout your work.”
“Appreciate it,” Cristov said, slapping Rig on the back as he led him back to his station. The man made quick work of his jacket and shirt, moving with a sort of brutal power that made each muscle tense and flex even doing the simplest of tasks.
Cristov admired the tapestry of ink that covered the man’s chest and arms. Most of it was old-style Americana, lots of black ink outlining eagles, pin-up girls, hearts with knives through them and lucky dice in skulls’ eyes. A snake coiled across his biceps in vivid green.
“What’ll it be, buddy?” Cristov asked, and Rig offered a salty grin as he turned around. Emblazoned across his back were the words “Steel Dragons” over a portrait of a babe on a motorcycle; only, where her head should have been, there was a dragon’s scaly, whiskered visage. Cristov’s view of the picture was cut short when the man continued the turn and raised his arm, offering Cristov his side. There was a single space on his ribcage, no bigger than a pack of cigarettes.
“Think you can do me a scorpion there?” Rig asked, pointing to the bare space. “Something real classic.”
“Sure thing,” Cristov said, grabbing his sketchbook. He didn’t love doing traditional tattoos; his style ran more modern and artistic, but they were good money and he had a deep respect for the art form. Minutes later, he’d worked up a good bit of flash: a black scorpion, barbed tail raised high and ready for stinging. He showed it to Rig, who nodded his approval.
Cristov got to work transferring his picture to the onion-thin paper that would act as a stencil, preparing the tiny area, and getting his ink in order. When the tattoo gun buzzed and hit skin, Rig took it like a pro, even though the ribs were among the most painful areas to work on. Cristov hadn’t expected anything less from the man, who clearly knew what to expect when it came to tattoos.
It was a quick job, and a silent one. Usually, Cristov’s clients had much larger work done, which meant hours of labor hunched over on his stool. And, they often wanted to talk through the pain, which Cris
tov appreciated but sometimes made it difficult to focus. Plus, the chattiest ones usually proved to be wigglers, as well, and that was never fun.
The worst were the girls who came in packs of three or four, all wanting butterflies or yin-yangs, Chinese words or fairies, or some other cliché. They’d giggle and titter and act confident until the needle broke skin. Then they all wailed and shook like they were toddlers wanting their Mom to pick them up after Girl Scouts. More than one over-sensitive client had personally blamed him for all the pain that ever existed in the world, and called him a heartless bastard. So a client like this was something of a dream.
When it was all over and done with, and Cristov was wiping the area down and gathering plastic wrap to cover it, Rig admired the work in the shop’s large mirror.
“Good,” the man said, the single syllable feeling like high praise.
“It’s easy working on someone who knows what they’re in for,” Cristov said with a smile. That smile faded fast when he caught sight of Rig watching him in the mirror. Something in his eyes unsettled Cristov to his core. The grin on his face was like Death offering you a ride in his carriage. Cristov gulped.
“You as good at tattooin’ as you are at growin’, I expect,” Rig said, his gaze only turning darker as the two men stared at each other’s reflections.
“What?” Cristov said. “What are you talking about?”
“This is your side business, ain’t it, boy?”
Cristov’s stomach flipped, but he struggled to compose himself. Maybe this was just an interested buyer. The way the man’s eyes never left Cristov’s reflection in the mirror hinted otherwise, but Cristov was determined to look at the bright side.
“Don’t know what you mean, dude,” he said, offering a crooked grin that was less convincing than he’d hoped. He busied himself with wrapping the ink, happy to drop the weird, indirect staring contest they’d been engaged in.
