Nightmare Ink (7 page)

Whispering a final word of thanks to the spirits of her teachers and to the power she’d used, she closed her eyes, and dispersed magic into the ground.

When she opened her eyes, Zoog studied her as if he wanted to see whether he could watch where and how the power left her.

“All done,” she said, turning to clean Ink from the machine.

The awkward, perpetually desperate Zoog Fairbanks she’d known had vanished. He peeled himself up off the recliner, new confidence in his movement and a sly, cunning gleam in his eyes that didn’t belong to the man Isa’d known.

The hair at the back of her neck stirred.

“How do you feel?” she asked, fighting the urge to retreat a step.

He straightened slowly, as if testing out a new body for the first time.

For one of them, at least, she supposed it was true.

“Amazing,” he drawled. His voice had lowered in pitch and taken on a rasped edge that felt like a threat. “I feel amazing. We both do.”

So did Isa.

He tossed her a sideways glance. “You’re wasted on binding Live Ink, Ice. You know that, right? I’d never have sold my soul to Daniel had I known what you can do.”

“‘Sold your soul?’” Isa echoed. A shudder walked up her spine. “I knew Daniel’s prices were high, but that’s—”

His laugh, a razor wrapped in velvet, cut her off. It sounded nothing at all like his usual bark of amusement.

“To get the tattoo, I agreed to—what’s that called? Slavery that you work your way out of?”

There. In that brief flash of confusion, she caught a glimpse of the Zoog she’d known.

“Indentured servitude,” she said.

“That’s it. We have to do what he says now, until I’ve paid him back.”

“At least now, you’ll both survive the night to take your first orders.” If Daniel had been the one warning her off helping Zoog, then she’d defied him. She hoped firebombing her shop wouldn’t be among Zoog’s orders. She crossed her arms to hold back a shiver.

“How do you want me to pay you back?” Zoog asked. Insinuation and amusement threaded through the smooth voice he’d acquired.

“A few hundred dollars should do the job. I’ll figure up an invoice for you. We’ll come up with a payment plan.”

“Money?” he said, the amusement deepening. “We’d both willingly do so much more for you. Not to mention that Live Ink is ten times that. You’re underpriced, babe.”

“You’re asking me to put a price on your life,” Isa snapped, annoyed by the sudden switch in their statuses. How was it fair that he was suddenly so much more self-assured? “I’m not interested in high-rise condos and fancy clothes, Zoog. Not like Daniel. My job is keeping people alive. Should I price that so no one could possibly afford to darken my door?”

He shrugged, watching her with a gaze that felt like it could see right through her as she opened the studio door. “You’ll get every hopped-up Live Ink hopeful within miles beating down your door.”

“Not if you keep your mouth shut, I won’t,” she said. “Daniel did your Ink. Everyone knows he’s the best. Leave it at that.”

“He’s going to know something’s changed, babe. I’ll have to tell him,” he countered as he followed her up the stairs.

“No, you don’t.” She opened the door to the upstairs shop. “His only involvement with the Ink would have been when he put it on you. So you had a rough integration. You did integrate. Now you’re fine.”

“You’re forgetting the message you said was being delivered,” he said.

“I’m not,” Nathalie interrupted from behind the reception desk. “It’s all over voice mail. ‘Do not interfere.’ I finally had to unplug the phone.”

“Do you recognize the voice?” Isa asked.

Nathalie shook her head. “Coming through a distorter. Can’t even tell whether it’s male or female. Will you call the cops now?”

Seeing Nathalie paler than usual made something tighten in Isa’s gut. She didn’t like the feeling. “I’ll see if Steve can get anything.”

“Tonight?” Nathalie pressed.

“Toss me my cell? It’s late,” Isa said, clapping her hands on the phone Nathalie had lobbed. No kidding. The Felix the Cat clock above the shop door said it was past midnight. “Steve won’t be there, but I’ll leave a message. Go on home. Both of you. Get some sleep. It’s what I’m going to do.”

“You sleep if you want,” Zoog said. “I’m going to find me some action.”

“No, you’re not,” Isa countered, sure of her footing on that point. “You’re going home. You and that Ink you’re sharing skin with barely avoided going up in smoke. You’ve had a shot of magic that’ll have your head ringing like a bell come sunrise if you don’t get some shut-eye. Integration is going well. Don’t mess it up now. Give yourself time to rest and you’ll find most of your wounds healed by morning. Then you’ll be ready for action.”

He stared at her. A rush of ire lowered his brows and stained his pale cheeks, but, a piece at a time, calculation cut the anger away.

“I have Live Ink,” he said, awe in his voice. “Real Live Ink.”

“Yes, you do.” Despite the fact that Live Ink augmented magic and life span, as well as healing injury and illness ultrafast, he now shared his body with something else. She hoped he wouldn’t come to regret the fact.

“Thanks, babe. From both of us. You’ll be seeing me around.”

Isa strode to the front door and unlocked it for him. Cool air flooded past, smelling like the first sweet breath of life. The rain had swept in.

Zoog tilted his head to glare up at the dark sky. “I liked snow better.”

He ducked out into the night.

She closed and locked the door behind him.

“You did Live Ink?” Nathalie asked, incredulity in her tone. “For him?”

“He was dying. I had to do something.”

“That’s why you do binds! Why didn’t you bind this one? My God, Isa, that’s not Zoog anymore.”

Isa shoved her hands into her jeans pockets, guilt pinching her breath. “That’s not
just
Zoog anymore.”

“I know. I know,” she said, brushing a hand over her hair. “You warned me when I joined the shop that Live Ink changed people.”

“It’s one thing to know intellectually that Live Ink changes someone and another to actually see it happen to someone you know?” Isa offered.

“Creepiest damned thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” she confirmed.

Pin prickles of uneasiness walked across Isa’s skin in agreement.

“He’s for real now.”

Isa met her gaze and lifted an eyebrow. “For real what?”

“Dangerous. How could you turn that loose on the rest of the city?”

Rolling her head to break up the tension in her neck and shoulders, Isa heard recrimination echoing not just in Nathalie’s words but also in the voices inside her own head.

“I couldn’t stand and watch him die,” Isa said. “It’s a dodgy set of ethics, a little like doctors. It doesn’t matter who comes through their ER doors. Criminals or victims. They work on everyone the same. I’m not sure I’d like the kind of person I’d be if I hadn’t tried to save Zoog’s life. And the Ink’s life.”

Nathalie, her brow furrowed in concentration, rounded the reception desk, parked one hip against the wood, and crossed her arms. “‘The Ink’s life?’ It isn’t really alive, is it?”

Isa drew up short for the space of a breath, then confessed. “I am beginning to wonder.”

Nathalie straightened, gaping. “‘Constructs of magic, intent, and the client’s will!’ Isn’t that what the LIA says?”

“Yes.” Disagreeing with the Live Ink Association on that count couldn’t destroy Isa’s standing with the organization any more than binding Live Ink already had. She wasn’t popular at the yearly professional conference. How would her fellow Live Ink artists have responded to the last two clients who’d walked through her door?

“Talking about Ink as if it’s alive is convenient shorthand,” she temporized. “Look. For all Zoog’s longing to be a big, important man on the streets, through his rash of burglaries and drug busts, he’s never hurt anyone. No assaults. No extortion. I know stealing other people’s stuff isn’t exactly a victimless crime, but he’s never lifted a finger against another person or animal. I couldn’t condemn him and his tattoo based on what the pair of them might do once they integrated.”

Slowly, as if reluctant to agree, Nathalie said, “I’ll never see a can of spray paint in his hands again, will I? Damn it. You’re right. He brought Patty coffee last night. Then, before he went to Daniel, he stopped in here to see you.”

“Me?”

Nathalie shrugged. “Said he wanted to say good-bye to his few real friends before he went to Daniel. I guess he appreciated you riding his ass about his art. Even if he was too chickenshit to do anything with your advice.”

Isa drew breath to respond, then finally let it go. “You can lead a mule to water, I guess.”

“Horse. Isn’t that the expression? Lead a horse to water?”

“Is that how you’d describe him?”

Nat barked a laugh. “No. But mule is too generous, too.” Grinning, she spun and strode into the back hallway for her coat. “You in the Live Ink business again, Ice?”

“No.” Not just no. Hell, no. “I didn’t really do Live Ink. Zoog already had Live Ink. I tweaked it.”

Nathalie frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It was incomplete.”

“So you completed it.”

“I did.”

“How is that even possible?” Nathalie marveled. “That’s someone else’s magic, isn’t it? Live Ink artists are notorious for not being able to hang out with other magic-sensitives. I mean that’s why you leased to me, right? And rented shop space to Troy? Because we’re both dull as river rocks when it comes to magic and that’s why you can stand to have us around?”

Isa choked back a laugh. “I prefer to think of it as the two of you being restful to have around. And I have no idea how it was possible for me to complete someone else’s creation. Until I tried it, I wouldn’t have believed it. I’m still not sure I do.”

She glanced around the shop. The computer screen on the reception desk caught her eye—dark because of the message that had popped up. “Do not interfere.” Prickles minced down her spine.

“I will ask you not to mention anything about this to anyone,” she said to Nathalie.

“Jesus H. Christ, Ice,” she grumbled. “After the evening I’ve spent dodging ‘Do not interfere’ messages, you think I’m going to blab? My sense of self-preservation is better than that.”

Of course. Isa rubbed her forehead.

“Everything’s done,” Nathalie said, her tone still annoyed.

Isa looked at her.

Nathalie shrugged. “I don’t like being bored. I like being scared even less. So I got busy.”

“You should have gone home,” Isa said.

Nat’s tentative smile fell.

“Not that I don’t appreciate you doing my shop chores,” Isa amended in a rush. “You shouldn’t have to put in these insane hours.”

Shaking her head, Nathalie pulled her coat down from the row of hooks in the hallway behind reception. “You’re welcome, Ice. I’ll wait while you lock up.”

“Don’t. I have to put a few things in the autoclave downstairs.”

“They’ll still be there tomorrow morning,” Nathalie said. She paused in pulling on her jacket and scowled. “Sorry. Of course you can’t leave it. That’s magic Ink. Anything I can help you do?”

“I wish,” Isa said as she unlocked the front door for her, “but I can’t expose you to stray bits of magic and energy.”

Nathalie shrugged into her coat, zipped it high under her chin, and nodded. “See you tomorrow.”

“You bet.” Isa opened the door.

Nat dashed out.

The rain-drenched dark swallowed her whole.

Isa closed and locked the door before going back downstairs to clean up.

Everything that might have been touched by magic Ink got bundled into a bag for incineration. It was the only way to pry the magic out. Most people thought in terms of destroying magic, and maybe it amounted to the same thing, but burning magic Ink freed the energy she’d put into its making.

She disinfected the work cart and the parts of her tattoo machine that never actually touched a client. For good measure, she sprayed and wiped the capped Ink bottle she’d used, then unlocked the storage cabinet on the bottom of the cart to put the Ink away.

It sent a surge of electricity into her fingertips even through the crystal, as if it were a long lost lover, as desperate for her touch as she was for—
No. Damn it.

She wasn’t desperate for anyone or anything.

Still, the charge flooded heat through her lower belly. Isa gritted her teeth. She’d forgotten what a good Ink session could do to her composure.

She’d always wondered if the flood of after-Ink energy had made her susceptible to Daniel’s seduction. Maybe it had. He’d made it more than worth her while. Briefly. All too briefly.

Shaking away memories that only spun up the pressure in her lower belly, she put the Ink away and locked the door on it.

Once she’d packed her gear into a sterilization packet, she dropped it into the waiting autoclave. She’d turn that on in the morning. The sterilization cycle took an hour, and she had plenty of equipment if she opened shop to find Live Ink hopefuls lined up around the block.

She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She’d hate to have to hunt Zoog down and kill him for failing to keep his yap shut.

All that remained was to sweep and mop the floor in the containment studio. The number of cobwebs her broom swept from the room accused her of neglect. She hunched her shoulders against a surge of guilt. Stupid reaction. Steve’s “clean team” should have done a better job.

She dumped her dustpan of debris into the burn bag, folded over the top, and carried the bag out with her. It would go into a sealed, granite-lined container that sat just outside the alley door.

Isa hated opening that door after dark when she was alone in the shop. Her imagination insisted that something waited to grab her. Never mind that nothing ever had. Her runaway imagination, the same one that drew pictures that came to life, added
yet
.

She stalled by opting to mop first.

Weary, she finished up, turned out the studio lights, dumped dirty mop water down the industrial drain, and then squared her shoulders to face whatever imagined horror waited outside the basement door.

The padlock on the bar across the door creaked as she turned the key. She lifted the bar out of its bracket, trying not to notice that the door looked like something that belonged in an asylum—one of the old, horrifying places that were mere holding cells for the mentally ill, the sane but inconvenient, and the criminally insane.

Imagination never presented her with rational fears about what might lie beyond. It was never a drugged-up gangbanger wanting to toss the shop. Instead, creatures with puce fur, crimson claws, and razor-sharp fangs dripping slime crouched in the dark outside, waiting to grab her the instant she peeked out.

Maybe she shouldn’t have watched that ancient black-and-white version of
The Omega Man
. She’d had recurring nightmares about milky eyes gleaming from the dark ever since.

The sensible thing to do would be to dry her damp palms, pretend her pulse didn’t sound like someone running for her life, and plan to oil the padlock in the morning.