Phil's Prius screeched through the knotted traffic of Buckhead. Once, crossing these congested streets at speed would have been impossible-but the block party that was Buckhead was dying, the victim of a hostile business alliance and a colluding City Council that had dialed back bar hours all over the city except at the city-owned boondoggle, 'Underground' Atlanta. So now the traffic was thinner, and had occasional gaps that Philip squeezed through expertly, greased by the flashing blue light he'd clamped atop his car.
So in moments we pulled up to "Storyteller Square", a tiny little triangular park where Roswell forked off Peachtree Road. At the center of the rings of cobblestones that paved the square, a little crowd was gathered, huddled about the metal statue of the Storyteller and his woodland companions. Phil didn't even bother to get a parking space: he just bumped the Prius up onto the sidewalk, kicked open the door and pulled out his gun.
"What the fuck-"
"Stay in the car, Dakota," he said.
"Fuck that," I said, kicking my door open and reaching for the crutches. Then I saw what he saw, and stumbled out of the car without them, limping.
Spleen lay gutted in the center of Storyteller Square, his thin body bleeding out into the concentric cobblestones radiating out from the statue of Buckhead. A ruddy Native American man I instantly recognized as Buck himself squatted over him, cradling his head.
"Black Mayday, Black Mayday," Philip was saying into the air, approaching with his gun out, but pointed to the ground. "D-E-I asset down. Black Mayday, Black Mayday. I need a medevac at the intersection of Roswell and Peachtree, GPS coordinates-"
The crowd parted in alarm, and Philip flipped a badge out of the breast pocket of his immaculate suit. A beefy man stepped forward, nervous, holding a cell phone. "Thank God, Officer," he said, bossy yet uncertain. "This-this man came up holding this other man-"
"Thank you, sir," Philip interrupted, with a quiet voice that just radiated authority. "Remain on the scene and we'll take a statement. Right now, my associate is injured-let her lean on your shoulder." "Sure," the man said, stepping up beside me. "Ma'am?" "I'm all right," I said, but I reached out for his shoulder anyway. "Where did you find him?" Philip asked with tightly controlled rage, staring down at Buck, gun still out but carefully pointed away from anyone.
"A place you cannot go," Buck said. He wore the same breeches and loincloth he had before, with keys and a cellphone now on his belt. His human face was rugged but surprisingly young, and his black hair spilled down onto a proud, bare chest covered in only the barest excuse of a vest. "I brought him here-"
"Ruining the crime scene," Philip said. "We want to catch the guy. Right now it looks like you did this-"
Buck waved his hand over the long, raw gouges in Spleen's abdomen. "We both know what manner of beast did this," he said. "Now the question is, who?"
"I'm cold," Spleen said. His voice was so weak, and my hand tightened on the rough jacket of the man beside me. Philip jerked, then holstered his weapon, took off his thousand-dollar suit jacket and laid it over Spleen's body, patting him gently.
"Medics are on the way," Philip said. "Who did this to-" Spleen reached up and grabbed Philip behind the ear, pulling his head down towards his ratlike face and yellowed eye. Philip just let him do it, listening as Spleen whispered something. Then Philip turned to me and motioned me down.
"Dakota," he said quietly. "He wants you." The Good Samaritan helped me bend. I tried to kneel, but couldn't, so and sat awkwardly in the spreading pool of blood. A second coat-ruined.
"I'm here, Diego," I said.
"Kotie," Spleen said in a whisper. "Nobody calls me that no mores."
Suddenly his hand reached out and pulled my head close. "Kotie, Kotie, you hearing me?" he said. His breath was foul, and I had a close up look of his great, yellowed eye. I'd always thought it was a bad glass fake; now I could see it was real, and diseased. What had happened to his eye? How long had I known Spleen and had never thought to ask?
"Yeah, I hear you," I said. "Who did this to you?"
"A wolf," Spleen said, drawing a ragged breath. "Werewolf. Big fucker-"
"No!" I said. "Not Wulf-"
"Not Wulf," Spleen said, wheezing. "Don't think. Never caught up with him tonight. Wasn't supposed to pick him up for another half hour. Don't think it was Wulf-"
"You don't think,?" I said, my gut sinking. "You mean, you don't know? How could you not know?"
"How the hell could I know, Kotie?" Spleen said. "I never asked the bastard to change into a wolf for me. I just took his money."
"But-"
"Don't matter. Whole thing's got too messy. Stay clear of him. Stay clear of this. Don't let them get you too," Spleen said intensely-and then his grip slipped on the back of my neck, his left eye went as dull and expressionless as his right, and he sagged back into Lord Buckhead's arms-still breathing, but not much.
I looked up at Buck. He shook his head sadly and gently lowered Spleen to the pavement. Philip stood, holding his finger to his ear. "How far away is that evac?"
I stared down at Spleen. How long had I known Diego Spillane, and learned nothing about him other than his nickname? How many times had he been there for me and how little had I been there for him? Had I been scared of him all this time just by a little halitosis and a bad eye? Then I saw the antlers of a stag shifting in the shadows, and looked up at Buck.
It had just been a trick of the light as he stood, a moment where the shadow of his statue form overlapped the shadow of his human one. He stood there, tall, proud, and sad. "He is going. I am sorry," he said. "There's nothing more I can do here."
"No, for starters you can tell us what happened," Philip snapped. Sirens and ambulances were sounding in the distance. "You can help us find who did this-"
"I found him like this in a place he should not have been, a place where you may not go," Buckhead said, with folded arms. "I brought him here for help. That is all."
"That is not all," Philip said. "This is not a fucking joke, 'Lord Buckhead.'"
"You are not ready to learn all of the secrets of the Edgeworld," Buckhead said.
"I've seen things even you wouldn't believe," Philip shot back.
"Guys," I said. "He's… he's going."
A long, low sigh escaped Spleen's lips, and his head slowly slumped to the left.
I stared at him a long time, then looked up to find Philip, Buckhead and our Good Samaritan all standing at attention. Then Buckhead sighed. "I am going," he said. "I am sorry. Lady Dakota, I will pass along anything I learn of this crime."
Then he stepped round the statue of the Storyteller, or into it; because when Philip ran around the statue after him, he emerged from the other side alone.
"Holy fucking shit," the Good Samaritan said.
"Damnit," Philip said. "Stupid Edgeworlders. No offense."
"None taken," I said, staring down at Spleen. "I think both sides of the Edge see me as a citizen of the other."
An ambulance screeched up next to Philip's Prius.
"Oh, Phil," I said. "This looks bad for Wulf-"
"Yeah," he said, staring off into the distance. "Spleen was about to meet our werewolf friend, who told us himself he had trouble with control. That gives him means, motive and opportunity-or maybe Wulf s supposed 'enemies' want us to think that. You heard Spleen- he didn't blame Wulf. A defense lawyer would make hay with that."
"But he never saw him as a werewolf," I said. "So… it still could have been Wulf."
"So Wulf is a leading suspect;" Philip said. "I love that word: 'suspect'. I love its precision. Suspect. That's it, until we get more hard evidence, one way or the other."
"But how are we going to do that?" I said. "Spleen was his contact. We're never gonna know where Wulf was when-"
"Cell phone records. Irritated hospital staff. Rental car records or bus terminal cameras," Philip said. "We'll find out, one way or the other. Eventually, we'll find out-but right now, I have a question for you."
"For me?" I asked.
"Did Spleen ever give any hint that Wulf was hostile to him?" Immediately he caught it in my eyes. "What was it?"
"Before I was attacked, Wulf called Spleen, agitated, asking about his tattoo," I said. "Spleen called him 'a goddamn menace.' "
"'Goddamn menace,' " Philip repeated. "Sure sounds like he was threatened by Wulf-"
"But he met Wulf that night," I said. "That's why Wulf was even there to save me-"
"I remember," Philip said. "But something's just not adding up. Spleen wasn't an idiot-he said stay clear of them. Plural them. But who was the 'them' he was talking about, his attacker and-who? Whoever took a potshot at you? Whoever was messing at Wulf? That vamp? Someone else? There's an awful lot of 'incidents' around you, Wulf and that tattoo."
"You don't think," I said, "all of them are connected?" "What I think," Philip said quietly as the paramedics came up, "is that we'd better find your 'friend,' Wulf-because if he didn't kill Spleen, he may be next."29. WORKING IT OUT
I stomped towards Emory's Student Activity and Athletics Center on my crutches. In the back of my mind, I knew time was running out on Wulf s tattoo, but with Spleen gone the whole picture had changed. First, I now had no way of contacting Wulf; second, I now felt very unsafe in his presence-whether from him or from his enemies, I couldn't say. So it was time to visit the only person who seemed like he really wanted to help me kick ass: Darren Briggs.
You need to buy at least a fourteen-day pass to use the Athletics Center, but I had no intention of paying for that until I'd seen the goods. I'm no Philip; I can't pull his Jedi mind tricks to just make anyone do what I want. But I am a six-foot-two, attractive, largebreasted woman, and that-plus a little preparatory research on Google-usually turns the trick.
"Hello," I said, friendly but firm, propping my crutches over the counter of the Center and leaning down on the tousle-haired college boy behind the counter. "Where can I find Darren Briggs? He witnessed an assault on a police asset, and I need to ask him a few questions."
I started to pull out my Stratton Police Department booster card, which my dad got for me years ago when we were still speaking. It's horribly out of date, but it has the Stratton police shield, my Mohawked picture on it and no expiration date, so it can pass as some kind of official ID as long as I'm showing it off to a complete idiot. But this time it didn't turn out to be necessary; the kid got up immediately and walked around the counter.
"No problem, I'll escort you," he said, a bit too eagerly, while glancing at his counter mate. "Wendy, can you-"
"Fine," she said, rolling her eyes.
"I take it you are the police asset?" he said, eyeing me as he escorted me through the turnstiles and down to the elevator. "And Darren is more than a witness?"
"He was the savior of my ass, is what he was," I admitted.
"The guy is a machine," he said, walking me up to room 211, a large classroom with double doors, beyond which I could hear rhythmic shouting. "I sneak down here to watch his Taido class sometimes-"
He opened the doors to a floor covered in blue mat. In its center was a ring of students in white uniforms, all in a low, wide stance that was practically a squat, punching in unison. Two had black belts and blue jackets-including Darren, who was counting in what sounded like Japanese.
"EEEtch-nee-saan-shee-gOH-rok-sheech-hatch-kyooo-yooo/" he shouted, finishing up with a punch that just seemed to pop from his waist. The whole class stood frozen in that final punch; then Darren's head cocked slightly to the side, as if he saw me. Then he said, "Come back," and the students popped out to a standing ready stance. "Toe-et-tay," he instructed. "Stretch out."
As the class stretched, Darren walked over quickly without running, smiling without grinning. "Dakota Frost," he said. "This is a surprise. Come to check out the class?"
"I have a few questions," I said with a grin. I was surprised how young he looked in his uniform; I hadn't realized a college karate teacher could also be a college student. "I thought this might be a good place to start."
"Sure thing. But I can't let you on the mat," he said, spreading his hands apologetically. "You have to sign a waiver, and Wendy at the front desk would bust my balls if I didn't have one for you. Even then, with you still healing up, I wouldn't let you on the court."
"Aw, come on," I said, miming Savannah. "Surely you could show me a few punches-"
"Rary, Clarence, over here," Darren said, without even looking. Two of the brown belts quit stretching-the woman rolling out of a full split-and came over to join us. "Side stance for punching. Clarence, keep the fist set, but put your feet together, toe-et-tay style."
Rary spread her dainty feet shoulder width, right fist out; Clarence put his huge feet together, looking at Darren quizzically before his head snapped forward to attention. After surveying them a moment, Darren said. "Double punch-go!"
Both popped out their left fists with a kind of twist, then shot the right one out while the left snapped back. Their karate gis made little whizzing motions when they moved. Darren had them do it a few more times, but I could already see where this was going-Rary was solid as a rock, but with his feet together Clarence was wavering, trying to keep his balance.
"Again-go!" Darren said, slipping his hand into a red padded mitt and stepping straight into Rary's punches. He caught her punches and pushed back hard, but she stood her ground, shoving him back with each blow. "Again-go!" he repeated, stepping in front of Clarence-and this time it was Clarence that was shoved back when Darren caught his punch.
"Good, good," Darren said, walking past Clarence to the end of their short little line. "Come back to the same stance." But as soon as Clarence did so, Darren pushed him, hard, and he nearly fell over. He then stepped up quickly to Rary and pushed, and while she got shoved around a bit, she never lost her balance, her legs bouncing around on the mat under her.
"You can't throw a good punch without having a conversation with gravity," Darren said, "and your legs do the talking. If your injured leg was just naturally weak, I'd invite you out here on the mat, help you figure out how your particular body could talk to the ground with the right accent. But since you're healing, all I'd be doing is helping you tear that leg up."
My student escort waved and left us, and I sagged into my crutches. "I know that… it's just… one of my best buddies got murdered last night," I said, trying to piece together all the things running through my head. "And a client took a bullet for me-"
Darren's eyes bugged. "Just since I saw you?"
I nodded. "It's been a busy week, and I'm feeling more than a little vulnerable."
"Sorry to hear all that, but it's even more reason to take it easy, sit back and watch, and see if this is right for you," Darren said. The other blue-jacketed black belt stepped up behind him, and Darren nodded to him. "I'll be there in a second. We've got a lot on our plate tonight-but stick around, maybe we can help you out during family fun time. All right! Brown belts and higher: over there; everyone else: with me-"
After that it was like watching out-takes of a karate movie. The white belts lined up and did standing punches and kicks; the greens and purples did spinning punches and kicks; the browns and higher did weird, funky kicks that seemed to involve throwing one's head at the ground while simultaneously kicking an opponent in the face. My knee throbbed just looking at them, but they still did it.
That's around the time I realized I wasn't ready for any of this.
Sure, my dad had taught me some self-defense moves, and I took two years of tae kwon do in college. But I was woefully out of shape. I hadn't been to a gym in years, hadn't been running in months. And I certainly couldn't perform any of the basic self- defense moves now, much less stretch my leg so far I could scratch my own damn ear from the topside.
The younger instructor came to join me. "So, are you really joining the class?"
"I'm not going to let this stop me," I said, pointing at my knee, "but… looking at you guys in action, my knee sure is going to try to hold me back from getting started."
"You do need to be healthy to get the most out of this," he said. He hesitated, then continued: "And I don't mean just the knee. You've been banged up, and it will leave you with a victim imprint. You may not feel it right this minute, but a serious assault will leave you with a lot of issues. You should do more than just learn some kicks."
"What? Like get my head examined? Find a victims' counselor to help me work through the issues?" I cracked. He smiled faintly, and I sighed and said: "All right. I get it. You guys are big on mind, body, spirit being one, or whatever. I'll… consider it, OK?"
He held up his hands. "All right, no pressure," he said, then rejoined the class.
Then my phone buzzed, a text message from Jinx: «elegant, this watch»
With some difficulty, I thumbed back: «But will it work?»
Jinx texted back, seemingly instantly, all in lowercase: «like a charm»
«What about Wulfs tattoo?» I responded. If I ever did get back in touch with him, I wanted to be able to say we could go ahead and get started.
«marquis still sitting on it» was the quick response.
«Keep on him. The full moon is Saturday,» I replied. For once Jinx didn't reply; I hesitated, then asked: «Should I take Valentine's challenge?»
Another instant lowercase ping: «o, dakota»
I sighed. Oh, Jinx! I messaged back: «Translate, O cryptic one.»
Jinx: «elegant ink + $1M reward? srsly! take'im on»
I grinned. Then I looked at my hand. There were two ugly scabbed lines on the undersides of my first two fingers and healing scrapes all over, but it functioned. I would be able to ink just fine. For all Transomnia had done to me-even knocking out two of my back teeth- he'd still obeyed the rules. I was alive, unspoiled-with two good hands.
It was time to get back to work.
Soon, the class finished with an informal bow and Darren came back to check on me. "So… did we sell you on maybe trying this out, starting Spring Semester?"
"Oh yeah," I said. "But you know, while I've been watching, I've been thinking. Long term-I never want to feel helpless again, so I'm going to have to make changes in my life. I can't waste time waiting."
Darren sighed. "You aren't listening. You aren't ready to start practicing-"
"Who said anything about practicing?" I said, dialing a number on my cell phone. "I need to start working. Alex? This is Dakota. Jinx gave me clearance-I'm ready to do your watch tattoo. How soon do you think the old man will be up for it?"
30. THE Wristwatch Tattoo
Valentine filmed his challenges, so an entire crowd was crammed into the Rogue Unicorn's larger tattooing room. Valentine was in a wheelchair, attended by a nervous-looking, nurse-for-hire type. There were two cameramen and a pair of associated busybodies. And, inside the magic circle that prevented stray mana from infiltrating the design, were my tools, my chair, Alex and me-and a stool with a box containing extra paraphernalia I would use later.
We had started early Friday morning at the ungodly hour of nine, as I had lied and told them it could take up to six hours-even before I knew an hour would be eaten just getting Valentine's wheelchair up the stairs. When you got over the intricacy of the linework, however, the watch was bone-simple to ink and I would be done in three hours, maybe even two.
I'd stayed up late through the night mixing pigments, performing the rituals to purify them, and generally setting up. In that regard, the watch was simple: it used only seven pigments. Some of the magical tattoos I've done have used upwards of fifty.
So… pigments are simple, if a bit repetitive. The hardest part? Preparing the needles. Normal tattoos are done with little needles soldered to the end of a bar that goes into the tattooing machine. Magical tattoos require something a bit… different. Something that will soak up magic and release it on cue, not poison it like iron does. There are crystals that will work and even some new plastic composites from Japan, but the best material is unicorn hornpreferably free-shed, gathered, if not by virgins, by someone wearing blessed rubber gloves. Yes, Virginia, unicorns do exist. But that's a story for another day.
Making the horn into needles takes many of the same tools that a modelmaker needs-magnifying glass and tweezers, files and sandpaper-and I did my needlework myself, which accounted for at least half of the quality of my work. It had taken two and a half hours to chip all the fragments I needed and file them into all the filigreed 'points' needed to ink the design-a one point, a triangular three, a curved five, and even a comblike seven for some of the larger outlines. You can't solder the finished points: you have to glue them into a throwaway prong and clamp them. I tried reusable clamps once and it was a total wash-running them through the autoclave loosened the clamp, so the horn came loose in the client's skin and he nearly ended up with a magical infection. Trust me-you don't want one of those.
With the needles in the autoclave, the next step is the flashprinted on transfer paper so it can be copied to the skin. With an ordinary tattoo, a stencil and eyeballing it are enough, but for a magical design, you have to be more careful; Jinx had given me a list of resonant points, and once I began working on Alex's skin I'd be pulling out a ruler and calipers to make sure the design was right. It can be tricky work-skin does shift and stretch, after all-and it would be a bit trickier since the design was reversed.
But now I had my ink and my needles and my flash and my subjects. All was in readiness-all that remained was to make sure that everyone understood this was my stage and my chair, and that inking a magic tattoo was not a stunt.
"I still don't see why we had to come to you" Alex said, fidgeting in my tattooing chair. "Why couldn't you have brought your equipment to the hospital?"
"First, I need a sterile environment," I said, wiping down his hand. He jumped a little when I did it: I've had a lot of men in this chair and I know the signs when they're stalling for time. "You understand sterile, right? Hospitals are dirty. That's how the old man got a staph infection-"
"Luck of the draw. All hospitals," Valentine said from his wheelchair, "put patients at risk for staph infections. They're filled with diseased people in a confined space constantly being exposed to each other's air, blood and fluids. Emory is one of the finest. Cleaner than most."
"See?" Alex said, still squirming a little. "We could have made arrangements-"
"If James Randi can go on national television on a gurney when he was on morphine," Valentine said, nostrils flaring, "I can survive a few hours in a wheelchair on Tylenol-3."
"So, first, a few ground rules," I said to the lead cameraman. "Hey you, behind the lens."
"I'm the director," a second man said imperiously, stepping forward.
"No, I'm the director in here," I snapped, holding my eyes on him. "I'm putting a permanent magical mark on a human body, which I take very seriously whether you get it or not. I'll try to make it easy on you to get a good shot, but when I'm working, the camera works around me and not the other way around. If I say slide, you slide. Savvy?"
He held up his hands. "We got it."
"Same goes for you, old man," I said to Valentine. "This isn't a stage magic trick you get to expose. You pull some James Randi shit and leap up to start sprinkling Styrofoam chips on me when I'm working, I tattoo you a new working asshole in the middle of your forehead."
Valentine blinked, then his brow furrowed. "Sure, but we'll have to test-"
"The test is that the tattoo will move when it's done," I said. "Normal tattoos don't do that, do they? They're just pigment plaques in the dermis. How could a tattoo move?"
Valentine's mouth just hung open. "Uh… "
"I have never done this particular design before, so as an extra bit of insurance, we're going to do this in two stages," I said. "First, I will ink it on myself and make sure it works-"
"Didn't you have a graphomancer review it?" Valentine asked.
"Did I leap up on stage in the middle of your performance at the Masquerade?" I said, smiling at him. "Give me an allowance for theatrics here. To win this challenge, I need to make it absolutely clear that the tattoo works by magic, and since Alex is not a skindancer, I'm going to tattoo it on myself first and show you. Then, and only then, I'll put the design on Alex."
"Then why'd you wipe down my hand?" Alex asked.
"You're pretty, and I wanted to touch your warm skin." I watched him squirm. "Do I need an another excuse? But seriously, don't go rubbing your hand in mud or anything. It was just convenient for me to pre-prep you; the reasons will become clear later."
Valentine leaned forward. "Isn't it unusual for a tattooist to.. . tattoo themselves?"
"Very unusual," I said, "for normal tattoo artists. For magical inkers, it's practically required. Magical marks can go bad, and when they go bad they can actually kill you or mess you up for life. In the old days, inkers sometimes did that to each other deliberately, leaving their magical competition jinxed. Historically, there's not a lot of trust between magical inkers."
"Charming," Alex said.
"That was the old school, this is the new one," I said, pouring encircling mix into my hand. "I do my work with ethical pride, employing expert graphomancers, and with state licenses, at least in Georgia, California and New York. You have nothing to worry about."
"What is that?" Valentine said, staring suspiciously at the sparkling dust.
"A mix of kosher salt, quartz granules, cinnamon and ginger," I said, "with a little plain old glitter thrown in for visibility. Nothing special-unless you happen to believe in magic."
I said a little prayer over my cupped hands. Someone like Jinx would probably go in with a bunch of Wiccan nonsense about protection from this and invocation of that. I don't believe in all of that stuff. There are spiritual forces of evil in this world, just waiting to take residence in anything even remotely magical, and the 'circle'a blessed ring of crystals layered over a flat plane, preferably of living earth but in this case a disc of cut granite set into the floor-did help to keep them out. But you didn't need elaborate rituals: you just needed to look within, to whatever spiritual force you believed in, and call on it, letting your own aura blossom forth and charge the crystals to life.
My prayer finished, I poured the mix into the circle around us, murmuring. As the circle closed, I could feel our auras mingle with the mana built up in the pigments as a tingling rippled through my tattoos, something I'd never felt when I was unmarked. Some lucky people could feel mana anyway-Alex squirmed in his chair, the nurse looked at us eagerly, and the director with antsy concern. Valentine and the cameraman remained unmoved.
"We're now encircled. This ring will help repel any stray magic or 'evil spirits'," I said, putting my hands up in scare quotes. "Or whatever. Regardless, this is a part of the procedure. No one crosses this line. Not for any reason. Clear?"
When they nodded assent, I began wiping off my left wrist with alcohol, then soap. "Stage two in inking a magical mark is imprinting the design." I picked up the acetate sheet of the flash. A thin stick of blessed pitch rubbed across the design had made it sticky, so all I had to do was press it carefully to my wrist, where Cinnamon's butterfly had once lived, rub it a few times, and then peel it off. "If this was an ordinary tattoo, I could just start inking it. But I'll check the tattoo out against the instructions of the graphomancer to make sure I got the design right."
I pulled out the ruler and calipers and had gotten halfway through the list of resonant points when someone finally noticed the obvious.
"The design is backwards," Alex said.
"You mean, 'mirror reversed,'" I said. The director leaned in with a handheld camera; he was assisting the other cameramen by providing candid shots, and I lifted my hand so both his camera and Alex could see more clearly.
"Yeah," Alex said. "Won't that affect-"
"Yes and no," I said, measuring the distance across the design. "Normally I wouldn't reverse it, but in this case it is necessary."
"But when you start to tattoo it-"
"Do you ink magic, Alex?"
"Uh… no," he said. "But if this works I'd like to learn."
"Good," I said, grinning, making a small correction according to the instructions in Jinx's list. "But until then you're going to have to take my word that I need to reverse it."
I stuck a palette knife into some Vaseline and rubbed it on my wrist, then rubbed it onto my hands. "This will make the machine work more smoothly," I said. I checked over my pigments, the needles, the design, my skin. I inserted the tube holding the seven needle into the tattoo gun and started the machine. It began buzzing. I was ready. "And now, I begin."
I touched the needle gently to my skin, the first sharp prick erased almost immediately by the thrumming vibration of the needle puncturing my skin, forty times a second. The hot, spreading warmth and vibration were sensual, almost sexy, and the noise faded into the background as I began chatting.
"First I'll do the outline," I said, curling the needle deftly round my hand. "On an ordinary tattoo, I'd do the outline, take a short break, and then fill in the linework. For a magical tat, I'll stop when the major outline is done and check my resonant points. A magical tattoo is like a circuit, though it obeys different rules; you have to get all the components right or it won't work. A stray line or too much pigment would be like a short circuit or a bad resistor-"
"What does it feel like?" Alex asked, leaning down over my hand. He was supposed to provide color commentary while I worked, but inking myself had thrown him.
"Feels hot," I said, grinning, my eyes never leaving my hand. "Nowhere near as hot as your firespinning at the Masquerade, though."
I reached the end of an arc and lifted the needle. Alex's eyes sparkled back at me. "Fire is life," he said, "and I love life. It shows in my spinning."
"In other things, too, I bet," I said, setting the gun in its stand briefly, wiping the blood off my wrist, then picking up the gun and returning my eyes to my work. "I'd have sworn that you weren't just spinning-it looked like fire magic. What would the old man say?"
"He knows what I do," Alex said. "Thinks it can all be done with chemicals. In fact he says he'd have challenged me already, except he's afraid he'd set his hair on fire."
"Ah, no big loss, that?" I said, reaching the end of another arc and winking at Valentine.
"You kids," Valentine said, waving his hand feebly.
"But seriously," Alex said, as I started again. "How does it feel on your skin-"
"Kinda scratchy. It's intense, but a manageable intense. I've had worse paper cuts and less intense orgasms." I finished an arc and looked up at him. "Of course, that depends on who's giving me the orgasm."
Alex leaned back with a slightly nervous laugh.
More quickly than I thought, the five main magical components of the watch were inked. I set the gun down, wiped off the blood again, and checked the measurements with my calipers. For good measure I sensed the mark with my fingers; everything was right on the money.
"Everything looks good," I said, slipping the tube out of the machine and discarding the needle in a magical hazards vat. "That's the major outline of the watch. Now I'm going to fill in the rest of the magical circuit. I have marks to make with three more needles and seven total inks-I'll end up with sixteen different combinations, so this will take a while."
"Isn't seven by three twenty one?" Valentine asked weakly.
"Obviously she won't use every combination," Alex said.
"Right enough, and don't be a jerk," I said, grinning. "That's my job."
But Valentine didn't respond, and I looked up to see him leaning back in the wheelchair, eyes closed. I cracked, "Hey old man, aren't you going to even watch me kicking your ass?"
He flapped his hand even more feebly, with a very noticeable tremor. "Wake me when you do something interesting."
The nurse looked at me, anguished, and Alex and I exchanged a nervous glance. Time to get this fucking thing over with.
The rest of the inking went even faster than I expected. I love working my own skin. It's the finest canvas I've ever decorated. It's smooth and soft and holds ink well and heals crisply, with little blurring of the designs. Even better, it's internally smooth-when the designs move, or when I pull little stunts like I did when I transferred my butterfly to Cinnamon, there's no excess pigment left in the skin.
And then, it was over. I wiped my hand clear of blood and stared down at the design, surprised: it was finished-in an hour and forty-five minutes, by the wall clock, and that's with all the inane bantering, plus a few pauses for Alex to talk to the camera.
"That's it," I said.
"That's it?" Alex asked. The director leaned in. Valentine's eyes cracked open.
"Now, it may not work quite right at first," I said. "The skin will be healing and, normally, the tattoo would take up to two weeks to stabilize-"
"Fair… fair enough," Valentine said. He sounded about a thousand years old. "You-you told us-to expect as much-"
"Let me finish, you upstaging old coot," I said gently. "It can take two weeks to stabilize, but we might see a little movement now."
Valentine's eyes shot open and he lurched forward, staring, and everyone's eyes all zeroed in on the watch or the monitors. The two hands just sat there, frozen at twelve.
Alex stared down at my new tat, a little disappointed. "It's not moving-"
I on the other hand, was looking at my real watch, carefully timing it, charging the yin-yang in my palm. "Give it a moment," I said. "It's not noon yet."
My Timex beeped twelve, and I swept my right hand over the watch on my left wrist in a glimmering shower of mana, right in front of Alex and Valentine and the cameras and everybody. And when my hand had fully passed over the design, the second hand on the watch started moving, keeping time as perfectly as a star-based clock could get.
"Would you look at that," Valentine said, staring alternately at my wrist, then the monitor. "Would you look at that."
"See the motion?" I said, looking at him, at Alex, at the director. "Can you see it moving?"
"Yeah," Alex breathed. "It's really moving. But… backwards."
"I know," I said, opening the box on the stool and pulling out the piece of blessed glass that I'd prepared earlier, with the miniature blessed circle inscribed around its perimeter. I scooted the stool closer, like a stand between us, and set the glass upright in the ridge in its box. "But that's expected. Now we're going to transfer the design to your hand."
"Sure," Alex said. "But… you used all the needles. And where's the flash-"
"Won't need it," I said, concentrating mana in my inking hand. Then I passed it over the clock and brought it to life.
The clock glowed. Everyone could see its light reflecting off the cameras, Alex's face, Valentine's eyes. And then… it separated from my hand and floated in the air, coming to rest gently in the center of the magical circle inscribed in the glass.
"Oh. My. Word," Alex breathed.
My hand stung a bit-it would still need a bit of healing, though not as much as if the pigment of tattoo had remained embedded in it-but I had no time to give it more than a quick glance before moving on. It was time to give Alex his tattoo.
"With a stable tattoo, I could have just transferred this through the air," I said. "But with a new tattoo like this one you need a stabilizing plate. Now, hold up your hand."
"What?" Alex said, blinking as I picked up his hand gently and guided it to the back of the glass. "Oh, my, you mean this is it-"
"Yes," I said, positioning his hand carefully. "The design will flow through the glass. That's why I had to ink it mirror-reversed, like a stamp. Here it comes."
Then I guided Alex's wrist in. The tattoo glowed even more brightly, feeling the pull of virgin skin; then it detached from the glass and landed on his wrist, merging with the flesh. In moments the glow faded and the tattoo returned to normal, like it had been inked there-without the long healing period. And, after a moment, the watch hand started up, right on time, ticking out one 'second' for every sidereal second out of each turn of the Earth beneath the stars.
Alex stared down at his wrist, at the magical tattoo that I'd just transferred to him by purely magical means. Then, wordlessly, he proffered it to Valentine, who stared at it, eyes bugged as wide as the lens of the camera recording his reaction.
I leaned back in my chair, folded my arms, ostentatiously displaying my tattooing gun in my right hand. "Let's see you do that, Valentine."31. Time Is Running Out
I swaggered (well, limped) out into Reception, my spirits on top of the world, to find Annesthesia looking straight at the door I'd exited, worried, talking to Kring/L in hushed tones.
"I know, but they're filming,," she said. "I'm afraid if he calls again-"
"Who called?" I asked.
"Excuse me," Alex said, stepping past me to hold the door for Valentine's wheelchair. He sounded worried.
"Is the old man all right? He's not taking this well?" I asked. Valentine slipped past me on the wheelchair, sound asleep, his breathing labored. As she passed, his nurse glared at me.
"If you knew you were going to crush him," she said under her breath, "you could have waited until he was healthy."
I stared after her wordlessly as she and Alex wheeled Valentine out. When he was gone I said quietly, to no one in particular, "If he was that sick someone should have said-"
"Damn fool," the director said. "It's my fault, pushing him to get a few shots in the can in time for the early promos. If I'd known he was so weak-still, an excellent show, Miss Frost. Assuming Doctor Valentine recovers, if he can top what you did here today, I'll eat my camera."
"They're my cameras," the lead cameraman said, dragging out a bag of equipment.
"It's the principle of the thing," the director said, giving him a hand. Then, turning back to me, he added, "We'll be in touch about the followup interview, Miss Frost."
And I was left there, feeling like the world's biggest heel. Somehow the thing that bothered me most was that Alex hadn't even bothered to say goodbye-not even a curt 'Thank you for your time, Miss Frost.' He must be really worried about Valentine, pissed at me for winning so arrogantly-or both.
"Dakota," Kring/L said quietly.
"What?" I said, refocusing on him and Anesthesia. "Who?"
"Someone called Wulf," she said. Her face was terrified. "He was talking about a tattoo, but Dakota, I don't know, this guy sounds pretty fucking angry-"
"Did he leave a number?" I said, pulling out my phone and texting Jinx. I felt a sting of embarrassment that I'd done a tattoo for prize money while Wulf was waiting out in the cold, and the excuse of waiting on the Marquis's approval was growing thin.
"No," she said.
"Well, star-sixty-nine the Marquis," I said, thumbing rapidly: «Good news on Wulfs flash?»
"We can't do star-sixty-nine on this system," Annesthesia said.
"Wait a minute, I think you can get the call log," Kring/L said, picking up the phone and jabbing at it. "You want the number-"
"No, call him and put him on speaker," I said.
Jinx responded: «still waiting 4 marquis»
Damnit, how hard could this be? «Well, ping him,» I texted back. «Wulf is antsy.»
The phone rang, and rang, and rang. Finally Kring/L picked up the receiver and dropped it to disconnect the call. "Nothing," he said.
"Try again. He may be using a pay phone," I said, thumbing rapidly. «Tell him it's urgent – Wulf has the shakes.»
«marquis!= speedy gonzalez» Jinx responded.
"For the love," I said. What did '!=' even mean? «Speak English!»
The phone began ringing, and ringing, and ringing. Nothing. Just as Kring/L was reaching for the receiver, the line picked up and a haggard voice said cautiously: "Yes?"
"Rogue Unicorn Tattooing Studio," Annesthesia said cheerily. "Please hold for-"
"Dakota Frost," I said, picking up the receiver. "Wulf? Is this Wulf?"
There was only static on the end of the line. Then, a guarded: "Yes."
"You called? Sorry, I was doing a tat-"
"And what of mine?" he snarled.
I swallowed. He was on edge, his voice shaking. "I'm still getting it researched-"
"I am running out of time," he snapped. "I tire of these games, Dakota-"
"Wulf," I said passionately, and it halted him. "I haven't known you for a long time… but do you think I would game you?"
There was a long pause. "No, Dakota."
"I am checking with the graphomancers literally as we speak," I said, texting «Hurry!» into my phone. "But I would never do anything to hurt you."
"Then why won't you-"
"You know the tattoo is Nazi, Wulf," I said-and Kring/L's eyes widened.
"I know," he said, voice quiet.
"So I have to know it's safe. I won't risk hurting you." Now both Annesthesia and Kring/L raised their eyebrows. "I can't just take it on faith. I have to know that it won't cause you harm."
"Thank you, Dakota," he said. "I'd never hurt you either-but it's so hard to control myself, so close to the moon. The beast wants out. It wants me to change. It's so old now. So strong. So strong. I would never want to release that savage animal on you-"
"Spleen is dead," I said. "Savaged, by an animal."
There was even longer pause. "It wasn't me," he said. "It wasn't me-"
"I didn't say it was," I said. I heard the panic in his voice and wished I couldn't empathize. But I'd felt that panic of everything closing in on me, of helplessness, of realizing I wasn't in control of anything. Still, I pushed him. I had to. "But if not you-"
"My enemies," he snarled over the phone. "Damn them. Damn them!"
"Wulf…" I said. "Who? Who are your enemies?"
"The Hunters," he said. Even now, even with me believing he didn't kill Spleen, even knowing Philip believed that someone really had made trouble for him at the hospital, Wulf still came off like a conspiracy nut, with his assumed name and vaguely ascribed 'enemies.' "They've been looking so long, so long. They're afraid of me. They never attack me directly. They just make it… difficult. Or attack my friends. Always my friends. All my friends. So I won't let myself have any friends."
My phone buzzed: «marquis sez: "safe, u impatient bitch"»
I sighed in relief. Finally. «Thanks Jinx, and tell him thanks!»
"I'm your friend, Wulf," I said, as convincingly as I could muster. "I just got word from my graphomancers, right now, that the tattoo is safe. And I'm going to do it for you-"
"I can't let you do that," Wulf said. "Not if you're a friend." "But you said this was important. You need-" "That was before I knew Spleen had been murdered," Wulf said, and I could hear him pacing. Well, I wasn't sure I could actually hear someone pace, but his agitation came through loud and clear. "I won't let you become a target."
"I'm not an easy target, Wulf," I said, reddening even as I said it. That was an obvious lie, the old bravado talking. "The evidence says otherwise," Wulf said.
I had nothing to say to that, so after a moment I plowed ahead: "It will take me most of the afternoon to mix the pigments and make the needles. I can do the tattoo late tonight-"
"Not at night," Wulf said. "Not after moon rise. It isn't safe for you then."
"Tomorrow, then," I said. "Come to the Rogue-" "I can't be seen in public-"
"I need a magic circle, Wulf," I said. "I cannot do it in the open. Anything could get in to the marks and you could end up ten times worse off than you are now."
There was a long pause. "I will find you a circle, then, somewhere in the Underground," Wulf said. "And if I cannot find it before nightfall-"
"The full moon is what, two nights away?" I said. "Not 'til Sunday. You have time-"
Wulf laughed. "The moon hits zenith at two minutes to midnight tomorrow, Dakota, and it will be ninety-nine-point-six- percent full," he said bitterly. Then his words began to speed up, tumbling over one another. "Believe me, I know. That sliver of difference between full and not won't make a difference. I know the moon. The first moon of November. It's called a 'Frost Moon', did you know that, Dakota Frost? The frost moon of November. The Frost Moon is always so strong. So strong. If I cannot find somewhere safe… somewhere safe… perhaps it is best I wait it out… wait out the Frost Moon… and hope." "Wulf-"
His voice tightened up again, and he regained control of himself. "I will contact you tomorrow if I find a circle. Don't try to contact me-I can't use this pay phone again, it may be tapped. Be safe, Dakota."
Click. And with that, he was gone.
With me having no way to reach him, no way to find him. And time rapidly running out.
I felt safe. But for him… I felt it was not safe at all.