Silver Kiss (4 page)

Inked’s manager and star tattooist, Calvin,
was polishing the table when I pushed open the front door. A bell
tinkled as I did and Calvin glanced up to give me a welcoming grin.
Despite his profession, he was free of body art and piercings and
looked more like he should be helping you pick out curtain fabrics
than slamming metal bars through your tongue.

“
Hey, Ayla,” he greeted me.
“How did last night go?”

“
It was okay,” I yawned.
I’d crashed out on the sofa for a few hours after getting home and
now I wished I hadn’t bothered. Napping just made me more tired. I
slipped past Cal into the tiny staff room. A TV blared in one
corner, coffee brewed in the coffeemaker on the side. I hung my
jacket on the coat stand in the corner and helped myself to coffee.
“Same as every Lupercali, really.”

“
Which of course means
nothing to us mere humans.” He leaned in the doorway, flicking his
polishing cloth at a cobweb strung across the corner. “When I was a
kid, my brother used to tell me that you guys hunted humans down at
Lupercali. He used to scare me shitless telling me you’d steal
little kids and chase them through the woods on full
moons.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “My
granddad used to tell me that human hunters went after us on full
moons.” I sobered quickly, thinking of Alpha Humans and Adam’s
battered body. “Well, honestly I think you’d find Lupercali
underwhelming. It’s basically a barbeque and a piss-up.”

We fell into casual conversation as Calvin
continued cleaning and I set up the till for the day. We didn’t
open for another half hour and the other two staff members—Kaye and
Lawrence—would roll in just before opening. Kaye was the piercing
specialist, Lawrence was Inked’s other tattooist. I adored Lawrence
and tolerated Kaye, who wasn’t keen on lesbians or werewolves.

Dead on nine, Lawrence clomped into the
shop, heavy boots slamming on the wooden floor, cigarette smoke
clinging to his faded biker jacket.

“
Yeah, yeah, don’t give me
that look,” he addressed Calvin, who frowned at the roll-up in his
hand. “Too hung-over for breakfast. Got to have something in my
system.” Lawrence stubbed out the cigarette on the staff room table
and flicked the dog end into the bin. The scent of metallic smoke
clung to him and I sneezed as he ruffled my hair.

“
Ayla, babe, you won’t let
Calvin oppress me, will you?”

I drew back from him. Lawrence, an aging
biker, always smelled of motor oil and hot rubber. Today that was
masked by the smell of the roll-up. It reminded me of the stuff
Oscar had been smoking last night, just slightly less acrid. “Are
you smoking Silver Kiss?” I asked.

“
You better not be!” Calvin
warned. “I don’t want any funny shit in my shop.”

Lawrence held up his hands
in a
who me?
gesture. “It’s not
funny
shit
. It’s not even illegal. Just a little
herbal high, that’s all.”

“
It had better be,” Calvin
said sharply. He disappeared into the basement section of the shop,
where the tattooing was done. Lawrence gave an exaggerated
sigh.

“
It’s like working with my
ex-wife sometimes.”

“
What is in Silver Kiss?” I
asked. “Some of the kids were smoking it last night.”

“
Herbs,” Lawrence replied.
“You know, cloves and stuff.”

I wrinkled my nose and carried on emptying
change into the till. A few seconds later Kaye strolled in, along
with a man who apparently couldn’t wait another second to get his
frenulum piercing done.

It was a quiet day and I split my time between manning the till and
flicking through the TV channels in the staff room. I sent Shannon
a text to check in and see how her meeting had gone, but got
nothing back. That wasn’t unusual—she was pretty strict about not
dealing with personal messages during her office hours. Too
distracting, she said. It never stopped me from texting her
though.

I had a couple of bitchy messages from Vince
about how busy work was and how many people had called in sick. I
was replying to him when Kaye sashayed in, stiletto heels clicking
on the wooden floor. She snatched the TV remote up from the coffee
table and put the news on.

“
Anyone catch the tennis at
the weekend?” she asked. “My new boyfriend kept me busy all
afternoon and I missed the results.”

Kaye had a new boyfriend every week. I
wasn’t sure she always got rid of the old ones first, but I didn’t
care enough to ask. I focused on my phone, not wanting to be drawn
into conversation with her.

Lawrence joined us, flopping down into the
chair next to mine. “Don’t watch tennis. Not really a man’s game,
that. Now boxing, that’s a proper sport.” He nudged me. “Right,
Ayla?”

“
I don’t watch sports at
all,” I said. “I don’t see the fun in grown men hitting balls at
each other.”

“
Well, presumably that’s
why you hook up with women,” Kaye purred. Lawrence cackled like it
was genuinely witty and I glowered at the pair of them. As much as
I liked Lawrence, he and Kaye together was an unpleasant mix. I
suspected her skin-tight trousers and plunging necklines were to
blame.

I sent my text to Vince and
glanced at the TV, watching the highlights of the tennis flick by.
A yellow band scrolled along the bottom of the screen, displaying
breaking news headlines. Stock market crashes, celebrity scandals
and football scores flashed by, totally uninteresting to me;
although I was sure Shannon would want to know her favorite actor
had been caught drink-driving. Then the final headline went
past:
Teen werewolf still missing in
Yorkshire
.

“
Oh shit,” I said, a little
pang of sadness tugging at my heart. “They still haven’t found that
kid.”

“
It’s been two weeks now,”
Lawrence said, stroking his greying beard. “They’re not going to
find him, are they? Runaway kids don’t really come home safe and
sound.”

“
Maybe he went feral?” Kaye
said. Now that the tennis highlights were finished, she was
rearranging her corset, jiggling her boobs about with a frown of
concentration. In about five minutes she’d be complaining about how
hard it was for her to find tops that fit her cleavage. “You guys
do that sometimes, don’t you?”

Yeah we did, but it wasn’t that simple. Not
that Kaye really wanted to know. The doorbell tinkled and I went
back into the shop to greet a young girl who was after a new belly
ring. Over the blabber of the TV I could hear Kaye moaning about
how she was sure her breasts had grown since she bought her
corset.

***

Shannon was cooking a stir-fry when I got home that evening. The
smell of pork and ginger permeated the house, making my mouth
water. I came up behind her at the stove and wrapped my arms round
her waist, kissing her neck. “How was your day?” I asked.

She prodded a few mushrooms around the wok
and shrugged. “I met the client, Tina Brady. It was…difficult,
actually. I mean, I was all ready to refer her, you know? I
explained how I didn’t do missing person cases and probably
couldn’t help her.”

“
Hmm.” I pinched a piece of
pork. It wasn’t cooked yet, but I loved the fleshy feel of raw meat
in my mouth. “So?”

“
So then she burst into
tears and said I was the only person who could help her because of
my ties to the wolf community.” She shrugged again, shaking me off
so she could turn and face me. “Because of you,
basically.”

I frowned. “I don’t get it. What do I have
to do with it?”

“
She’s a wolf. Her daughter
ran away just over a week ago and she’s convinced I’ll be able to
help her because I’ve got an
in
with the wolves through you.”

I sat down at the kitchen table to take off
my boots. “The police aren’t doing anything yet, I suppose? And the
Pack?”

“
Tina filed a report with
the police, but there’s not much they can do. Molly is a wild
child, according to Tina, and this isn’t the first time she’s
pulled the vanishing act. She’s got a criminal record
already—vandalism, assault—she’s only fourteen, for God’s sake!”
Shannon shook her head as she turned back to the food.

I racked my brains for the name Brady, but
I’d been away from home too long for it to ring any bells. “Well if
the police can’t help, the Pack should,” I said. “We look after our
children. This Tina should know that.”

“
It’s a delicate issue,”
Shannon said. “She’s an outcast.”

“
Oh.” That was delicate.
Tina had done something somewhere down the line to get herself
kicked out of the Pack. It was different to my situation—I’d chosen
to leave and therefore could choose to return. Tina didn’t have
that choice. “Even so, when it’s a child involved… What did she do
to get made outcast anyway?”

“
She didn’t say and I
didn’t ask. It wasn’t really relevant.”

“
So will you take the
case?”

“
I shouldn’t.”

Which meant she would. “Well, I can ask
around if you like,” I offered. “Vince and Joel might know
something useful.”

“
I’d appreciate it.” She
smiled sweetly at me over her shoulder, a gesture belied by the
tight set of her shoulders. “Although, if she’s been outcast a long
time, people might not remember her.”

“
Someone will.” I tapped my
nails on the tabletop. There were all sorts of reasons a wolf might
be made outcast, none of them pleasant. I suddenly felt bad for the
missing girl, Molly.

Shannon dished up the stir-fry and joined me
at the table. “It’s probably a good thing,” she said.

I looked up from a mouthful of mushrooms and
frowned at her.

“
Not the girl being
missing,” she clarified. “Me taking on something new. There’s only
so many nights you can spend tailing cheating husbands to strip
clubs before you start to feel a bit sleazy.”

“
Always good to challenge
yourself,” I agreed. “I can’t wait to get out there on the streets
and start dispensing justice.”

She laughed. “You’re going to be a community
support officer. Don’t get overexcited.”

“
Alright, so it’s not
saving the world.” I rose to grab a bottle of white wine from the
cupboard and poured us a glass each. “But it is making a difference
and it’s more worthwhile than being a cashier in a tattoo
parlor.”

“
You loved working in Skin
Deep back north,” she said, accepting her wine.

“
I like working in Inked
too. But...I don’t know, it just feels a bit pointless now.” I
sipped at the crisp peachy wine and poked my noodles around my
plate. “You help people, don’t you? You go on and complain about
the sleazy husbands and benefit cheats, but you make a difference
to people, don’t you? I don’t. I want to.”

“
You make me sound like a
superhero,” Shannon teased, but there was a hint of concern in her
eyes.

“
What?” I asked.

“
Nothing. I just...I know
you’re still upset about Adam. And I understand that. But I don’t
want you running off and joining the police on some quest for
revenge.”

“
It’s not about that!” I
paused and reconsidered, remembering the Alpha Humans symbol
splashed on the wall at the scene of Adam’s murder. I couldn’t
pretend that didn’t still haunt me, not to Shannon. “I just don’t
want to waste my life,” I said finally. “I feel like I should be
doing something more than I am.”

She reached across the table and laced her
fingers with mine. “And I’m proud of you for doing it. I just worry
about you.” She shrugged. “Silly, really, all things considered.
You could snap me in half without breaking a sweat and I worry
about you getting hurt by some homeless druggie.”

I raised her fingers to my lips and kissed
them. “I’ll take care of me for you. Promise.” My wolf rumbled her
agreement.

THREE

Inked was dead the next
afternoon. For
whatever reason, Tuesdays were always quiet. Lawrence was down in
the basement tattooing a dragon onto a punk rocker’s back. The even
buzz of the needles was just audible under the current of music
pumping through the shop. Calvin combed through the magazines
looking for fresh design ideas, while Kaye sat in her piercing
booth at the back of the shop, hidden away behind a white curtain.
I had no idea what she was doing back there, but it probably
involved adjusting her bra straps. I was rearranging the various
hoops and spikes in the display counter, shifting all the plain
stainless steel jewelry to the back to show off the sparkly,
gem-encrusted stuff.

“
Ayla, you want to learn
body piercing?” Calvin asked suddenly.

I glanced up. “You’ll show me?” I’d been
strictly a cashier back at Skin Deep. At the time I’d longed to
become a tattoo artist, but I had no artistic flare whatsoever.
Stick men were about my level. Body piercing didn’t really require
any creativity: you just shoved the hoop in the chosen hole.

“
Kaye will.” Calvin’s blue
eyes gleamed, as if he took pleasure in the grimace I couldn’t
quite suppress. “Kaye, you’ll give Ayla a crash course, won’t
you?”

Kaye peered out from behind her curtain.
“Yeah, I suppose. If she really wants to know.”

“
Why not?” I abandoned my
glittery earrings to squeeze into the booth with Kaye. It was a
small space, just big enough for the dentist-esque chair and
cabinet of piercing paraphernalia kept there. Kaye frowned at me as
I entered. “Hands where I can see them, Ayla.”