Nightmare Ink (22 page)

Isa made damned sure she wasn’t making the same mistake.

“On my way,” Steve said, sounding grim and triumphant.

The line went dead.

“The police are en route,” Isa said. “The lead detective on the case is interested in having a word with you. Please, make yourselves comfortable. Have a seat. Tea?”

The woman spun on the lawyer. “Fix it.”

The man met Isa’s gaze. A gleam of amusement lit his hazel eyes.

She wondered what it was he found so enjoyable. The fact that she’d ruffled his client’s feathers or the fact that Daniel, via the association, so clearly meant to hang Isa out to dry.

“Ms. Romanchzyk, your allegations against Daniel Alvarez constitute defamation,” he said. His even, matter-of-fact tone brooked no argument.

She and Murmur snorted in derision.

The lawyer lifted an eyebrow but went on. “Until the facts of this case are established and charges brought, you are hereby advised to cease making unfounded accusations . . .”

Troy appeared in Isa’s line of sight as if he’d teleported. “Get out,” he ordered, dropping his voice into his lowest register. The glass windows buzzed in sympathy with his growl.

Margot started and backed up a step as Troy rounded the reception desk. Her lawyer scowled, but he, too, retreated in the face of Troy’s rage twisted expression and clenched, blue-gloved fists.

“You come into our place of business,” Troy gritted into the lawyer’s face, “with an amateur who can’t even control her power, and you attempt to intimidate the victim of a violent crime?” He pointed out the video camera trained on the waiting area. “It’s on video and audio.”

The lawyer’s eyes widened. “That is a clear violation—”

Troy stalked to the window, snatched up the cardboard sign she’d never seen before, and shoved the sign into the man’s face. “What does it say, asshole?”

You make no attempt to blunt his rage,
Murmur noted.

Isa started, suddenly realizing that Murmur watched with her. She hadn’t felt him join her in looking out of her eyes. Gods. Did that mean she was getting used to him being in there? Itchy prickles raked her skin.

“He’s in control,” Isa answered.

Murmur narrowed her eyes and studied Troy, who towered over Margot and the lawyer. He’d backed them up against the door. Murmur drilled her gaze in on Troy’s flushed face and lowered brows. Troy’s scowl put razor-sharp creases at the corners of his eyes.

Isa tugged at her eyesight. Murmur allowed her to turn her gaze to Troy’s hands, gripping the
PREMISES UNDER SURVEILLANCE
sign so tight that his knuckles showed white through his gloves.

They looked. A tendril of Murmur’s confusion pulled the corners of her mouth down. “His hands are steady,” she pointed out inside her head. “Yes, he’s pissed, but he’s in control of his anger.”

“That sign says, ‘Premises under surveillance,’” Troy snapped. “We got you on tape trying to intimidate a witness to a crime. You’re insane as well as stupid. Get out.”

“Ms. Romanchzyk called the police,” the lawyer countered, drawing himself upright as if bracing himself with the assurance that Troy wouldn’t really lay hands on him.

“Wait for them outside,” Troy said, “until your little dog learns not to piss on the floor.”

Margot snarled. “How dare you—?”

“Fuck off, lady,” Troy said, “and don’t let the door hit you in your undisciplined ass on the way out. I’m a flat ink artist.”

“It’s not your property!” Margot snapped.

“It’s as much his as mine,” Isa drawled, resisting the urge to applaud. “He and Nathalie are my equal partners in the business. Anything happens to me, Nightmare Ink is theirs.”

Bless Troy’s poker face. Though it was the first time he’d heard her say that, he didn’t even blink.

Murmur’s interest piqued as he watched. Something like memory snaked through Isa’s veins, sinuous, tantalizing, and as tenuous as smoke.

He’d once been as controlled as Troy. Ruthless and infinitely more dangerous. He wanted it back.

Margot’s magic flared. A hint of yellow and jagged red outlined her blue.

It sliced straight through Isa’s sternum and through Murmur. They recoiled.

Fury exploded through her. Her own. More than her own.
Crush her,
Murmur commanded.

“Contain her,”
she countered, glancing out the front window at the pair of grinning young mothers pushing strollers down the cracked sidewalk in the silver and orange light that preceded a cloud-strewn Seattle sunset.

Isa opened to magic. Warm amber flooded into her body. Shadows moved through her power, the echo of Murmur’s presence. Hot sunshine and shadow puddled in her hands.

She whispered a command.

Murmur echoed it.

Her power, tinged with his, exploded so hard and so fast, the plate glass window bowed outward, then rebounded with a sound like a jet breaking the sound barrier.

Their magic snapped into being as a bubble big enough to contain everyone in the reception area. Margot’s magic wouldn’t escape. Isa sliced her right palm through the air in front of her. A gold wall, shot through with Murmur’s black, rose in front of her.

She caught Troy’s eye and jerked her chin at the reception desk. He backed away. Out of the line of fire.

Isa stalked Margot and her lawyer, pressing the wall closer and closer, isolating them and Margot’s magic from Troy, Oki, Nathalie, the customers in the back of the store, and from any innocent passersby outside the front door.

“Get hold of yourself!” Isa barked at Margot Herman. “Now!”

“Ms. Herman,” the lawyer said. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

“Shut up,” the woman snarled, the blue intensifying in the air around her.

Isa tightened down her containment bubble. Her. Murmur. Their wall. Margot. The lawyer. The front door. If Margot went off, she might get a few hooks in Isa, but she’d nail her poor lawyer. Did he have any idea? From the whites of his eyes showing, and from the way he clutched his briefcase to his chest as if that might shield him from a magical blast, Isa gathered he did. Isa drew breath to talk her down.

Steve slammed through the front door, straight through the wall of Isa’s shield, into range of Margot Herman’s burgeoning power.

The woman’s knife-blade smile and the triumph lighting her eyes told Isa she’d played into her hands.

She intended to take the lead detective out of the equation.

In a flash, Isa saw how she’d spin it.

Tragic accident. Lawyer present. All on tape. She’d make a case for assault. Poor little Margot feared for her life with that big, bad tattoo artist threatening her. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. Certainly not the poor detective who happened to be investigating Daniel Alvarez.

“Steve!” Isa croaked. She didn’t have time to shield him individually. She reinforced the spot in her shield that Steve had plowed through.

Margot flung a palpable command into her magic.

Isa shoved the wall she’d used to herd Margot and her lawyer hard against Steve, squashing him against the door. He splayed backward, pinned to the glass.

Margot’s magic burst, spraying in all directions. It bounced harmlessly off the inside of the bubble and off the wall protecting Steve.

The lawyer’s eyes rolled up into his head. He dropped to the worn hardwood floor.

Needle-sharp fragments, blue, yellow, and red, stabbed through Isa’s skin, and through Murmur’s Ink, penetrating both of them on a level far deeper than skin and bone.

Poison!

His cry of warning snapped her bubble and wall out of existence. Acid seeped into her psyche.
Not on my ground.
Whose thought was that? Hers? His? Theirs?

Power flashed into being at her center. A complex, darker blend than anything she’d ever called. In concert, they hardened the edges and expanded the glow of magic. It shoved Margot’s poisoned needles back out the way they’d come.

“Crush her,” Murmur commanded aloud.

“Gladly,” Isa answered.

Margot started.

Isa smiled.

“Using uncontained magic in public is against the law, Ms. Herman,” she said. Calling on the rage still burning behind her breastbone, she palmed a bolt of magic that she made damned sure didn’t show anywhere but in the etheric. Isa swung with all her might.

Margot’s eyes widened a moment before Isa slapped her hard and released the bolt into her head.

It went off like a firecracker inside her skull. Her magic winked out. She spun, tripped over her lawyer’s body and fell unconscious atop the man.

Steve stared at the prone pair for a moment before he called for paramedics and backup. Only then did he look at Isa. “What did I walk into?”

“Long story. We’ll pull the tapes.”

“Is it safe?” Nathalie squeaked from the doorway to her piercing room.

“Ish,” Oki answered.

“Can your client hang on until the paramedics clear the doorway?” Isa asked, knowing Steve wouldn’t want anyone walking through.

“If he can’t, can I take him out the alley door?”

“Of course.”

“Isa,” Steve said, “are these the people who’ve been talking to Daniel?”

“The lawyer’s either dead or memory-wiped,” Isa said, nodding. “That little drama you walked into bore a hint of Daniel’s magic.”

Steve blinked. “Is that even possible?”

She heard the doubt in his voice. The assumption that she was seeing the threat of Daniel in everything around her. Maybe she was.

You are not,
Murmur snapped.

She drew a bracing breath and nodded. “What other explanation is there for these two to show up at my doorstep to tell me to stop implicating Daniel when they could just as easily have mailed a cease and desist order?”

“That’s a good point,” Troy said, his voice still a low rattle of warning. “These two were tools. In more than the pejorative sense of the word.”

“Daniel’s lawyer showed up at the precinct an hour ago. I met him on his way out,” Steve said. “He delivered documents proving Daniel is out of the country. He insinuated that you were playing a vengeance game.”

“I am now. He’s put me out of business.”

“What?” Oki barked. When Isa glanced at her, concern crinkled the skin between her brows.

“I am out of business.” Repeating the words brought a rush of heat to her eyes, and Isa covered her face with twisted hands.

“Live Ink artists have to be affiliated with a professional organization in order to be licensed,” Steve said. He sounded tired.

“So join another one,” Oki said.

“There isn’t another one in the US,” Troy said.

Isa scrubbed her sleeve over her face, not surprised by the moisture she rubbed away. She looked at Troy’s client, a young woman with teal hair, a roller derby T-shirt, and black combat boots. “I apologize for the interruption and for the soap opera.”

“It was intense,” she said. “You want a witness when you press charges, and I hope you do, I’m right here.”

“Thank you,” Steve answered in Isa’s stead. “I’ll take you up on that.”

Approaching sirens reversed Steve’s course around the reception desk to take the woman’s statement. He returned to the door to hold it for the paramedics.

“If there’s not another professional org in the US,” Oki said as the aid car pulled up and the sirens died, “I know one in Japan that would be glad to have you. Can you do that?”

The paramedics jogged up and began conferring with Steve.

“Legally?” Isa asked. “I don’t know. The LIA got the professional accountability phrasing written into the law when Live Ink was legalized, but no way could they specify that artists had to join their club in order to work.”

Troy snorted. “Since they were the only game in town, it amounted to the same damned thing. You’d need a sponsor.”

“Dad’s friend,” Oki said.

Thinking of the letter she’d found on the flash drive Oki’s father had given her, Isa nodded.

“I don’t think anyone cares what country’s Live Ink org you pick,” Steve said, joining them at the counter. “But then I’ve never heard it of it coming up.”

Oki closed out the spreadsheet she’d been working on and rose. “I’ll go talk to Dad since you’re going to be up to your eyeballs in police reports.”

“You’re a witness,” Steve said.

“And you know where to find me,” Oki replied. “Nat’s got rehearsal tonight. I’m bringing a bunch of stupid chick flicks and a gallon of rose plum ice cream to Isa’s as soon as I get Dad to call his buddy.”

Troy unlocked the basement door. He took Oki, Nathalie, and Nathalie’s piercing customer out the alley door before returning to his client.

Steve took her statement first.

Leaning on the reception counter, Troy said, “Was that for real? What you said about us being your partners in Nightmare Ink?”

“Called the lawyer about the paperwork this morning,” she said. “I got to thinking about what you said about Nightmare Ink being your home. Nat’s, too. I should have asked first. It’s a bigger financial risk, and you have a family now . . .”

“No,” Troy said. “I’m . . . It’s great.”

“I hadn’t meant for you to find out like this.”

He chuckled. “Thanks. I mean it. Don’t worry about the Live Ink stuff. You do amazing flat ink, too. We’ll do fine. You could always convert the basement into a sound studio and rent it out by the hour.”

Steve came for Isa’s statement. Troy went to finish his client’s tattoo. “Sorry about the additional paperwork,” she said to Steve.

He shook his head, watching his tracker, Neal, reading the scene. “We’ll catch him, Isa. Daniel can’t hide forever.”

Neither Murmur nor Isa saw any point in mentioning that Daniel didn’t have to hide forever. He only had to evade the police for as long as it took Murmur to win his freedom by destroying hers.

A black ice smear of uneasiness coated her interior.

She returned to her experiments in the basement when Steve finished asking questions.

Murmur reinforced her circle when she cast one inside the containment studio and then watched with an interest that matched hers as she uncapped the dozen vials of paper slurry they’d mixed up with the herbs she used to make her Ink.

Master Masatoshi’s diaries hinted that the secret to stasis paper lay in finding a paper recipe compatible with the artist’s magic.

Live Ink artists blended their own Live Inks. They needed Inks that could take and hold a magic charge, Inks that could transmit and transmute energy. Some people added botanical elements attuned to their particular flavor of magic. Others added tiny amounts of crushed crystal. One guy Isa had heard of used minute amounts of precious metals. Most artists kept their formulations secret. Not out of any kind of cover-your-ass job protectionism. It was that Inks were personalized, attuned to each artist in a unique fashion that would have no meaning to anyone else.

So Isa approached building a paper recipe the same way she’d formulated her Live Ink and her binding ink recipes, by using herbs that worked with her magic.

She put a drop of Live Ink into the first vial.

The magic in the Ink and in the slurry exploded in her face. They jerked back and froze, stunned.

“Oops,” Isa said. “You okay in there?”

I should kill you now.

“Probably.” At least she still had eyebrows, even if she bore a few psychic scrapes. “Sweet woodruff equals bad. Check. Next sample.”

Though none of the other samples self-destructed, none of them would support the magic of the Ink. Isa cleaned up the failures, started another batch of slurry, doled it out among the clean vials, and then went home.

Oki handed her a rose plum milk shake when she walked in the door of the apartment.

“Troy texted when I left the shop, didn’t he? You guys are going to make me paranoid,” Isa said before she took a sip and let the rich floral taste roll through her head.

Both Ikylla and Gus danced at her feet, begging.

Murmur remained unmoved, though he watched through her eyes, curiosity in his internal posture.

“This kind of paranoid is worth it,” Oki said. She lifted her own glass and came up wearing a pink mustache. “Stupid movie?”

“Thanks. I’d like that.” Isa finished all but the final few drops of her shake, which she poured into Ikylla’s and Gus’s dishes.

“Dad called Mr. Masatoshi,” Oki said while she fiddled with the DVD player. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“Great. Thank you.”

Isa fell asleep a quarter of the way into the movie. Oki nudged her. “Sorry,” Isa mumbled and yawned.

“No worries. See you in the morning.”

Murmur didn’t comment when Isa climbed into the bed and propped her back against her pine headboard.

Augustus leaped to the bed and shoved his snout under Isa’s arm. He gazed up with adoring eyes. His tail thumped a syncopated rhythm against the bedspread.

He wants you
, Murmur noted.

“It’s not just that. See how his ears are down and he won’t quite meet our eyes? He’s submitting. He’s acknowledging you as higher rank. This is Gus accepting you into the pack,” Isa said.

Murmur didn’t back away, didn’t deny it. He took control of her twisted hands and rubbed the dog’s ears.

Ikylla hopped up on Isa’s other side.

Will she submit?

Isa snorted. “Felines are the highest form of life. She views us with distain and pity.”

She pulled in a deep breath. Something warm and living and green blossomed within her. It hummed a symphony of burgeoning possibility. And maybe, just maybe, sneaking, momentary happiness.

Even though Gus and Ikylla took up their positions on either side as if she hadn’t been gone for weeks, Isa couldn’t sleep. She stared at the shadows of tree branches cast by the streetlights shining through them.

Murmur shifted. Infected by her sense of restlessness? Or his own?

Where does magic come from in this plane of existence?

“When I gather power for a spell, you mean?”

Yes
.

“I pull from within, but that reservoir is filled from everywhere,” Isa said. “The universe is energy that can’t be created or destroyed, only transformed. That’s what magic does. On this plane, anyway.”

He pondered in silence for several seconds.
Magic feeds Live Ink.

“Magic creates the Living Tattoo,” she said. “The Ink feeds on the host’s blood and will. What are you thinking?”

Blood,
he echoed
.
The image of a seed popped into her head.

She frowned at it. “You’re thinking of embedding a seed of blood, like a nutrient, into the paper? That is an interesting idea.”

Working in concert for most of the day didn’t appear to count for anything when she finally did fall asleep. Murmur kicked over the baskets of memory, and she replayed the same tired nightmares. Daniel. Zoog.

But while they were still solidly nightmares, she didn’t wake screaming. She didn’t even disturb the animals. When she woke with a gasp, drenched in fear-sweat, Gus and Ikylla still curled tight against either side of her. Sunlight, reflected off the building across the alley, reached yellow-orange fingers through her window.

They’d slept late. For once.

The animals grudgingly let her up and waited for her to shower. She managed to dress herself until it came to fastening the button fly on her black jeans.

Oki, already frying leftover rice, spicy chicken breast, veggies, and eggs for breakfast, did up the buttons while Murmur jeered Isa’s helplessness. Oki buttoned the white cotton blouse Isa had pulled on over a black tank, then handed over a mug of tea.

They discovered Isa could hold a spoon clamped between her thumb and palm. Small victory, maybe, but Isa relished the tiny restoration of independence. Even though Oki had to comb and braid her hair.

Animals fed, Ikylla’s box scooped, and dishes washed, Oki handed Isa Gus’s leash and opened the door. Once again, Isa walked her own dog, but this time, by mutual accord, they headed north, toward the marina. The opposite way they’d walked the day before.

The sun shone in the sapphire sky, and even though the air was cool, she had plenty of dog walking company. The appearance of blue sky in March in Seattle brought everyone blinking and squinting out of winter hibernation.

She and Gus paused beside a stone wall to absorb the rare solar radiation. They both closed their eyes and lifted their faces to the touch of the sun. The black Ink at her throat warmed.

Murmur started and shrank back.
What is that?

“Sunshine.”

Tense, emanating caution, he eased back into contact with her skin. A piece at a time, he relaxed into the touch of light and warmth. His eyes closed, and she got the impression that he, too, lifted his face.