Ink Exchange (5 page)

“Chela, love? Would you?” Irial inclined his head toward a group of faeries who’d been smiling and agreeing with the green-toothed fey. Talk of disobeying him was intolerable, especially when mutiny was simmering in Bananach’s eyes again.

Irial lit another cigarette and waited as Chela sauntered across the room. The knotwork hounds on her biceps snapped at each other as they ran around her arm at a blurring pace. A soft hum emanated from her, somewhere between a growl and a contented murmur. As she approached the table, she grabbed a chair from one of the thistle-fey, dumping him to the floor as she lifted it and settled amidst the grumbling faeries.

Several other Hounds dispersed throughout the crowd. Gabriel had spoken, said that they’d support the Dark King: they’d either need to obey Gabriel or kill him. Had he allied with Bananach, a faery war would be unavoidable, but Gabriel had stood with Irial for as long as he’d held leadership of the Hounds.

Irial resumed: “A mortal has chosen my symbol for her tattoo. She’ll be bound to me within days. Through her, I will be able to feed on mortals and faeries both; I’ll offset your own feeding until we have another option.”

They didn’t react for a moment. Then they lifted their
voices in a beautiful cacophony.

He’d never funneled his nourishment out to them, but he’d never needed to, either. He could. The head of a court was tied to each faery who swore fealty to him. His strength gave them strength; it was simply the way of things. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it would keep them alive until a better solution was in reach—one that wasn’t full-out war.

He exhaled, watching the smoke writhe in the air, missing the dead queen, hating Keenan for defeating her, and wondering what it would take to entice Donia, the new Winter Queen, to become as ruthless as her predecessor. The alliance between Keenan and Donia had swung the balance too far toward a degree of peace that was detrimental to the Dark Court—but war wasn’t the answer either. The Dark Court couldn’t survive on violence alone, any more than terror or lust would be enough. Everything was about balance, and in a court where the darker emotions were sustenance, attending to that balance was essential.

Another squabble in the middle of the room caught his attention. Gabriel’s growl shook the walls as he ground his boot into a Ly Erg’s face, leaving the fallen faery bloody enough that there’d be another stain on the floor. Obviously, the Ly Ergs weren’t being as cooperative as Gabriel would like. They enjoyed bloodshed too much, clustering to support Bananach every time she stirred mutiny.

With a gleeful grin, Gabriel watched the Ly Erg crawl
back to his table. Then Gabriel turned to Irial and bowed low enough that his face touched the floor, presumably to hide his grin as much as to show respect. He told Irial, “Once you collect your mortal, we’ll ride with you to help evoke fear and confusion in the mortals. The Hounds support the will of the Dark King.
That
won’t change.” Gabriel’s gaze didn’t drift to Bananach or the glaring faeries who had gone to her side already, but his message was clear enough.

“Indeed.” Irial ground out his cigarette and smiled at his most trusted companion. The Hounds had a lovely ability to induce terror in faery and mortal alike.

“We could get a bit of fear out of the disobedient in this lot…” Gabriel murmured, and his Hounds grabbed up some of the faeries who’d smiled in support of the earlier mutinous suggestions. “The Dark Court should show a little respect to our king.”

Faeries clambered to their feet and talons and paws, bowing and curtsying. Bananach did not move.

Gabriel caught her gaze and grinned again. There would be no more overt objections or discussions tonight. Gabriel would organize the fey and threaten them if they refused to cooperate with Irial’s precautions. They’d be almost perversely obedient.
For now.
Then Bananach would step up her attempts.

But not tonight—not yet.

“Tonight, we’ll feast in our fallen sister’s memory.” Irial made a beckoning gesture, and several of Gabriel’s Hounds brought in a score of terrified faeries they’d rounded up
from the other courts. None were from the High Court—which wasn’t surprising, as the High Court faeries so rarely left their seclusion—but there were both Winter Court and Summer Court faeries.

Irial folded a trembling Summer Girl into his arms. The vines that clung to her skin wilted under his touch. She was so filled with terror and loathing that he briefly considered sharing her with the others, but he was still selfish enough to want her to himself. Keenan’s special girls were always such a nice treat. If Irial was careful, he could draw enough desire and fear out of them to stave off hunger for a couple of days. A few times, he’d been able to leave them so addicted that they returned willingly to his arms for regular visits—and hated him for making them betray their king. It was quite satisfying.

Irial held the girl’s gaze as he told his court, “Their regents did this, brought us to this when they killed Beira. Remember that as you offer them your hospitality.”

C
HAPTER
4

The tattoo shop was empty when Leslie walked in. No voice broke the stillness of the room. Even the stereo was silenced.

“It’s me,” she called.

She went back to the room where Rabbit would do the work. The paper with the stencil of her tattoo waited on a tray on the counter beside a disposable razor and miscellaneous other items. “I’m a little early.”

Rabbit stared at her for a moment but didn’t say anything.

“You said we could start tonight. Do the outline.” She came over to stare down at the stencil. She didn’t touch it, though, strangely afraid that it would vanish if she did.

Finally Rabbit said, “Let me get the door.”

While he was gone, she wandered around the tiny room—more to keep from touching the stencil than anything else. The walls were covered in various show and
convention flyers—most faded and for events long past. A few framed photos, all black-and-white, and theater-size film posters were intermingled with the flyers. Like every other part of the shop, the room was impossibly clean and had a slight antiseptic scent.

She paused at several of the photos, not recognizing most of the people or places. Interspersed among them were framed pen-and-ink sketches. In one, Capone-era thugs were smiling at the artist. It was as realistic as any photograph, skillful to the degree that it seemed bizarre to see it hanging amidst the snapshots and posters. Rabbit returned as she was tracing the form of a stunningly beautiful man sitting in the middle of the group of gangsters. They were all striking, but it was him, the one leaning on an old twisted tree, who looked almost familiar. The others clustered around, beside, or behind him, but he was obviously the one with power. She asked, “Who’s this?”

“Relatives,” was all Rabbit said.

Leslie’s attention lingered on the picture. The man in the image wore a dark suit like the other men, but his posture—arrogant and assessing—gave him the impression of being more menacing than the men around him. Here was someone to fear.

Rabbit cleared his throat and pointed in front of him. “Come on. Can’t start with you over there.”

Leslie forced herself to look away from the image. Fearing—
or lusting on
—someone who was either old or long dead was sort of weird anyhow. She went to where
Rabbit had pointed, put her back to him, and pulled her shirt off.

Rabbit tucked a cloth of some sort under her bra strap. “To keep it clean.”

“If ink or whatever gets on it, it’s not a big deal.” She folded her arms across her chest and tried to stand still. Despite how much she wanted the ink, standing there in her bra felt uncomfortable.

“You’re sure?”

“Definitely. No buyer’s remorse. Really, it’s starting to border on obsession. I actually dreamed about it. The eyes in it and those wings.” She blushed, thankful Rabbit was behind her and couldn’t see her face.

He wiped her skin with something cold. “Makes sense.”

“Sure it does.” Leslie smiled, though: Rabbit wasn’t fazed by anything, acting as if the oddest things were okay. It made her relax a little.

“Stay still.” He shaved the fine hairs on the skin where the tattoo would go and wiped her off again with more cold liquid.

She glanced back as he walked away. He tossed the razor into a bin, pausing to give her a serious look before coming behind her again. She watched him over her shoulder.

He picked up the stencil. “Face that way.”

“Where’s Ani?” Leslie’d rarely been at the shop when Ani didn’t show up, usually with Tish in tow. It was like she had some radar, able to track people down without any obvious explanation how.

“Ani needed quiet.” He put a hand on her hip and moved her. Then he spritzed something lightly on her back where the ink would go—at the top of her spine between her shoulders, spanning the width of her back, centered over the spot where Leslie thought the wings would attach if they were real. She closed her eyes as he pressed the stencil onto her back. Somehow even that felt exciting.

Then he peeled away the paper. “See if it’s where you want it.”

She went to the mirror as quickly as she could without running. Using the hand mirror to see her reflection in the wall mirror, she saw it—her ink, her perfect ink stenciled on her skin—and grinned so widely, her cheeks hurt. “Yes. Gods, yes.”

“Sit.” He pointed at the chair.

She sat on the edge and watched as Rabbit methodically put on gloves, opened a sterile stick, and used it to pull a glop of clear ointment out of a jar and put it on a cloth-covered tray. He pulled out several tiny ink caps and tacked them down to the drop cloth. Then he poured ink into them.

I’ve watched this plenty of times; it’s not a big deal.
She couldn’t look away, though.

Rabbit did each step silently, as if she weren’t there. He opened the needle package and pulled out a length of thin metal. It looked like it was just one needle, but she knew from her hours listening to Rabbit talk shop that there were several individual needles at the tip of a needle bar.
My needles, for
my
ink, in
my
skin.
Rabbit slid the needle bar into the machine. The soft sound of metal sliding across metal was followed by an almost inaudible
snick
. Leslie let out breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. If she thought Rabbit would let her, she’d ask to hold the tattoo machine, ask to wrap her hand around the primitive-looking coils and angled bits of metal. Instead she watched Rabbit make adjustments to it. She shivered. It looked like a crude hand-held sewing machine, and with it he’d stitch beauty onto her body. There was something primal about the process that resonated for her, some sense that after this she’d be irrevocably different, and that was exactly what she needed.

“Turn that way.” Rabbit motioned, and she moved so her back was to him. He smeared ointment over her skin with a latex-clad finger. “Ready?”

“Mm-hmm.” She braced herself, wondering briefly if it would hurt but not caring. Some of the people she’d seen complained like the pain was unbearable. Others seemed not to notice it at all.
It’ll be fine.
The first touch of needles was startling, a sharp sensation that felt more like irritation than pain. It was far from awful.

“You good?” He paused, taking away the touch of needles as he spoke.

“Mm-hmm,” she said again: it was the most articulate answer she could offer in the moment. Then, after a pause that was almost long enough to make her beg him to get back to it, he lowered the tattoo machine to her skin again. Neither spoke as he outlined the tattoo. Leslie closed her
eyes and concentrated on the machine as it hummed and paused, lifting from her skin only to touch back down. She couldn’t see it, but she’d watched Rabbit work often enough to know that in some of those pauses Rabbit dipped the tip of the needle into the tiny ink caps like a scholar inking his quill.

And she sat there, her back stretched in front of him as if she were a breathing piece of canvas. It was wonderful. The only sound was the hum of the machine. It was more than a sound, though: it was a vibration that seemed to slip through her skin and sink into the marrow of her bones.

“I could stay like this forever,” she whispered, eyes still closed.

A dark laugh rolled out of somewhere. Leslie’s eyes snapped open. “Is someone here?”

“You’re tired. School and extra shifts this month, right? Maybe you drifted off.” He tilted his head in that peculiar way he and his sisters had, like a dog hearing a new sound.

“Are you saying I fell asleep
sitting up
while you were tattooing me?” She looked back at him and frowned.

“Maybe.” He shrugged and turned away to open a brown glass bottle. It was unlike the other ink bottles: the label was handwritten in a language she didn’t recognize.

When he uncapped it, it seemed as if tiny shadows slithered out of it.
Weird.
She blinked and stared at it. “I
must
be tired,” she muttered.

He poured ink from the bottle into another ink cap—
holding it aloft so the outside of the bottle didn’t touch the side of the ink cap—then sealed the bottle and changed gloves.

She repositioned herself and closed her eyes again. “I expected it to hurt, you know?”

“It
does
hurt.” Then he lowered the tattoo machine to her skin again, and she stopped remembering how to speak.

The hum had always sounded comforting when Leslie had listened to Rabbit working, but feeling the vibration on her skin made it seem exciting and not at all comforting. It felt different from what she’d imagined, but it wasn’t what she’d call pain. Still, she doubted it was something she could’ve slept through.

“You okay?” Rabbit wiped her skin again.

“I’m good.” She felt languid, like her bones weren’t all the way solid anymore. “More ink.”

“Not tonight.”