Ink

by Jonathan Maberry

  Raynor looked down at the empty place on his chest. “Last one faded out on me a couple of days after I came here to Pine Deep. That was—let me think—it was in the middle of summer. There was a carnival and I was cruising the edges of it, you know.” He rubbed his thumb and fingers together in the time-honored symbol for money. For him that meant panhandling. “And I picked up some extra money sweeping up and collecting trash after everyone went home. But I slipped on some ice cubes someone dropped. Hit my head and they brought me right here to this same hospital. Just the ER then. Wasn’t a concussion, nothing broken, so they didn’t keep me. Hitchhiked back to the carnival and finished cleaning up. Took most of the night because I wasn’t feeling very good. When I was done it was still early and no one was around yet, so I stripped down to my boxers and hosed off. Felt great, too. It was hotter than hell and that hose water was so cool. But then I happened to look down and saw that Mama was gone. So were some other little ones I had. Lucky charms, and some saints. Gone.”

  He stopped talking and just shook his head.

  “I never tried to get the chip put back. What’s the point? I was cursed, I guess. Damned, maybe, for what I’d done to my friends. I ain’t walking toward anything anymore except maybe hell. Yeah … guess that’s where I’m going, with all those troubles on my back pushing me.”

  With that he turned away and did not say another word.

  99

  Jonatha Corbiel-Newton had Monk go through it all again. Every incident, every conversation down to the tiniest detail. She’d come to Pine Deep in the days leading up to the Trouble, invited by a local reporter named Willard Fowler Newton who had recently broken a huge story.

  To most outsiders, the Trouble started when a gangster and murderous psychopath named Karl Ruger, fleeing from a deadly gunfight with a Jamaican drug posse, had crashed his car in the town. That seemed to ignite a series of calamities that included mass murder, missing persons, arson, poisoning, brutality, and—ultimately—an attack on the Halloween Festival by white supremacists. Those events made Newton a huge star in journalistic circles and, later, in the darker side of pop culture when his nonfiction book on the violence became a runaway bestseller and then a hugely popular movie. The movie went into the lurid direction of suggesting that the white supremacist violence was merely a front for an attack by a horde of the living dead. Vampires. Naturally that version of the story was universally derided by all official channels. Vampires were absurd, fictional, at best echoes of older and since discredited folk beliefs.

  The harder the government hammered at that version of the story, the stronger the rumors on the conspiracy theory whisper chain grew. Even now, a decade and a half later, papers and websites across the country ran DID YOU KNOW…? stories every Halloween, and in the towns around Pine Deep the movie, Hellnight, was played on a twenty-four-hour cycle. Few people openly admitted to believing in monsters, but in anonymous polls the number of believers was at least equal to nonbelievers.

  Ask anyone in Pine Deep the question and they either sneered or changed the subject. Few locals ever directly gave an answer.

  Jonatha and Newton—an incredibly unlikely couple—had met and fallen in love during the Trouble, and later married. It was a relationship on a par with Beyoncé falling for George from Seinfeld. Nevertheless, it worked. They got rich off his movie, and the subsequent spin-offs and a highly fictionalized Netflix series.

  Jonatha once told Monk about the Trouble, but even she had been a bit vague, playing up the fact that the town’s water supply had been laced with LSD and other hallucinogens. When asked if she’d been high, Jonatha was evasive.

  Now, she queried him. “Monk,” she said, “go back to the part where you said some smartass local cop grilled you about Patty. Tell me, was his name Malcolm Crow?”

  “That’s the guy. Little SOB, but he looks like he might be almost as tough as he thinks he is.”

  “He’s tougher,” said Jonatha. “Believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to get on his bad side.”

  “Lot of people have bad sides,” said Monk quietly.

  “Hey, I know you’re all scary bad. Patty’s told me stories. But Crow is in a different league.” She paused. “Have you met his son? Well, adopted son. A very big young man with red hair.”

  “No, why?”

  “He’s even scarier than Crow.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “No,” she said flatly, “you can’t. Maybe—and only maybe—with Crow, but not with Mike Sweeney.”

  There was such certainty in her voice that it gave Monk serious pause. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll make sure not to piss on their shoes. But at the same time I’m going to look into this and they better not get in my way. I’d take that amiss.”

  “This isn’t a penis-measuring thing,” she said. “Crow is dangerous because he’s actually one of those really high belts in jujitsu, and he has a lot of very practical experience.”

  “Noted,” said Monk. “Same with the Sweeney guy?”

  “No,” she said sharply, “Mike’s different.”

  “Different how?”

  She paused. “Different in the way that I define it, and by that I mean as a world-class expert on the paranormal and supernatural. Mike has … gifts. Not the right word, but it’s the best I can phrase it without breaking any confidences. But hear me, Monk—don’t cross him and don’t get in his way.”

  “I’m a licensed investigator and a professional bounty hunter, Jonatha,” he countered, “that gives me a certain freedom of action.”

  “Sure, and you can use them however you like when it comes to conducting an investigation through channels. What I’m saying is about what would happen if Mike thought you were a bad guy. Someone getting in the way of him finding out who hurt a woman in his town.”

  “What exactly would happen to me?”

  “You’d die,” she said. “Badly.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Monk looked down at the remains of his meat loaf. The cheese had long since congealed.

  “Well … fuck,” he said.

  “Look,” said Jonatha, “I know Mike and Crow. We … bonded during the Trouble. Like family. Let me give Crow a call and tell him you’re okay.”

  Monk sipped his coffee, which was tepid. He winced. “Sure, vouch for me,” he said, “but you can’t tell him everything. You can’t tell him about my tattoos.”

  She thought about that. “Okay. Look, try to get to know him. Crow’s one of the good ones. Don’t be fooled by his jokes. There’s a lot more to him.”

  “He wasn’t all that funny yesterday.”

  “Let me call him.”

  She hung up and Monk sat there, moody and confused. He ate the rest of the food but didn’t have much appetite for it anymore. When Brenda came back to fill his cup Monk didn’t even glance at her. He sat there staring out the window, watching the rain. Then he paid his check and stepped outside, pulled his collar up and trudged to his car.

  100

  Owen Minor was very afraid.

  That tattoo he’d stolen from Monk Addison had shaken him all the way down to his marrow. It punched a hole in what had been a thrilling few days, and polluted his enjoyment of the Tuyet memories.

  Owen was also pissed off that he could not get all of Patty’s memories of Tuyet. She’d done something to prevent it.

  “Fucking witch whore,” he said aloud every time his rage surged up past the fear. No one was ever able to stop him before.

  He debated sending a fly to her, to take control of the witch and make her do something really bad to herself. Maybe stab herself with her own tattoo needles.

  The thought drifted around in his thoughts, taking shape, feeling right.

  It would also eliminate a possible threat. Not Patty herself, but her friend. That big oaf Monk. Owen’s victims always forgot his name and face. That was part of how it all worked, and it’d kept Owen safe all these years. Now, though, the process had fractured. With Tuyet’s tatto
o still partly on Patty’s hand, could he ever be sure she’d forgotten his face and name?

  No. He couldn’t be sure of that at all.

  “Witch,” he spat.

  And what about Dianna. She was a goddamn psychic, after all. He had hoped feeding on her memories would give him some kind of doorway into her clients’ memories. A cascade of goodies. But that had been a big freaking mistake. What at first had seemed like a great opportunity now felt both foolish and a stupid risk.

  She was another witch. Maybe she’d gotten way too much insight into him.

  “Whores,” he snarled, but there was fear in his voice and he could hear it. So could the flies. They flew erratically and too fast, their flight paths warped by agitation.

  And as for Monk … the face Owen had stolen was similar to all of the others inked on Monk’s ugly hide. Were they the same kind of thing? The faces of ghosts? The faces of murder victims? How was that even possible? The fact that Owen stole tattoos and fed on memories was totally natural to him now, but whatever Monk Addison did was unnatural.

  What did that make the man? A male witch? Or was it a warlock? Owen wasn’t sure. He racked his brain for something that would explain Monk and surprised himself by remembering a reference in one of Jonatha Corbiel-Newton’s books. Something called a varð-lokkur, a word that was either Old Norse or Old English—he couldn’t remember which—that meant “caller of spirits.” Was that what Monk Addison was? Some kind of medium?

  He wasn’t sure, but thought it might be close to the mark.

  All of these thoughts raced through his head while he stood in the bathroom of his old house. The buzzing of the flies was constant, and that, at least, soothed him.

  Witches and spirit callers, he mused, then he met his own eyes in the mirror. Flies crawled over his eyelids and nose and lips. The temptation to send the flies out, despite his trepidation, was very powerful. But the risk was too great.

  On the other hand, he thought, the flies don’t have to land on them. No. No, sir, they did not. There were other ways to use the flies. Other people they could land on, people who would do whatever Owen wanted. He’d done it many times before, starting with the Cyke-Lone biker Slider—though never exactly like this.

  Not like this.

  In his mind he could hear the roar and thunder of a whole army of motorcycles.

  Would it work?

  Owen chewed on that.

  He noticed his reflection beginning to smile.

  101

  Dianna sat in one of the chairs, openly weeping, while Patty stood holding her arm. The delicate tattoo work of vines and roses was as faded as a painting left outside for a dozen winters. The richness of the colors was gone, turned to thin cheapness; the precision of line and the curve of the buds and blooms looked traced and phony.

  Without letting go, Patty leaned forward and kissed Dianna on the forehead. Then she released her and stood, panting slightly, shaking.

  “It’s more than the tattoo,” she said, watching distress turn to fear in Dianna’s eyes. “You lost some memories, too.”

  “What…? How—?”

  “You have, haven’t you,” said Patty softly. “Memories tied to that image. Tied to what it means to you. About your identity as a woman, as a lesbian, as free and strong and whole. Some or all of that is gone, too, isn’t it?”

  Dianna recoiled from the words as if they were the vilest accusations. Vicious protests rose to her lips, but died there. Patty watched the fight Dianna had with her own emotions, with her terror, with the truth. She knew that fight probably felt like being beaten and savaged to the woman, but it was heroic to watch. And heartbreaking to see. She gave her as much time as she needed, and Dianna needed a lot. Finally, after nearly two full minutes, the woman was able to speak in a nearly normal tone.

  “I was with someone last night,” said Dianna. “A woman. Someone I just met at Tank Girl. Gayle. Gayle … something. She came to my house. To my … bed. We made love and then she left.”

  Patty waited.

  “I know this because of texts on my phone. I called Juana at the bar and she confirmed it. She joked that I must have been more drunk than I looked because how else could I forget such a pretty woman? I laughed at her joke and made up some lie and hung up. Then I sat down on my living room floor and cried. I think I’m going crazy, Pats. I came here because the tattoo you did is fading along with that memory, and with a lot of other things. All I have are some pieces. Women I’ve known. Women I really cared about, or loved. Or still long for. Places I’ve been while I’ve been breaking away from what my family tried to make me and become who I really am.”

  Her dark eyes were fever bright and there was such desperation in them despite the calm way she spoke. That amount of control was beautiful but also frightening, because Patty knew powerful oak trees break if the storm winds blew hard enough.

  Dianna took a breath, her fists balled on her lap so that the knuckles were pale against the warm brown of her skin.

  “Patty … how did you know I forgot some things? How?”

  “Because it’s happening to me, too.” Patty pulled off the fingerless glove and peeled back the bandage, then held out her fist, palm down. Dianna looked at the faded tattoo and the crude stick-figure face over it and her eyes slowly grew wider. She looked up at Patty.

  “Tuyet?” she whispered.

  “My … my baby is nearly gone,” sobbed Patty. “Someone is stealing her from me. They took her once and killed her body. Now … God help me, Dianna, I think they’re trying to kill her soul.”

  102

  Crow and Mike drove over to the Scarecrow Diner and settled at a four-top. They brought their case notes and spread them out, careful not to get coffee on them.

  “At the risk of being obvious,” said Mike, “but what the actual hell?”

  They’d gone back to Raynor’s room to take an official recorded statement, and Gertie—under protest—had typed it. Statements by Andrew and Corinne Duncan and the hospital statements by Patty Trang lay overlapped with Crow’s own detailed notes from his interview with Monk Addison and his conversation with April Chung. They also had a preliminary report from the coroner about the dead homeless man, Lester Mouton, and Agent Richter’s notes—also courtesy of Chung—on the woman named Tink and several similar cases. Chung had forwarded photos of the victims, focusing on the areas of missing tattoos. Those were on Crow’s iPad.

  All through a long lunch they went over every single detail, creating a chronology of incidents.

  “We have more than we had this morning,” said Crow.

  “We have more information but no actual insight. We don’t know what this is.”

  Crow sipped his coffee, leaning into a corner of the booth and staring at a point above Mike’s shoulder. He sipped, stared, sipped until the coffee was gone, then signaled the waitress for a refill. Once it was poured he leaned forward and his eyes found Mike’s.

  “Make a statement,” he said.

  “What kind of statement?”

  “Whatever comes to mind. Tell me what we know for sure. Lay out the facts, okay? Big or little. Let’s start there.”

  Mike took a big piece of carrot from his salad, chomped a piece, chewed as he thought, and eventually said, “The obvious stuff first. Including Agent Richter’s notes and the four people here in town, we have eleven possible victims. Each apparently has or had missing tattoos. From those victims able to give a statement there seems to be a consistent phenomenon of missing memories.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Joseph Raynor claims to have pieced together memories of what his missing tattoos were, or probably were. Kait and Gertie are making calls to places where Raynor believes he may have gotten those tattoos. So far we have corroboration on two of the missing images, Raynor’s mother and his six-month sobriety chip. Each was done by different artists from different states, respectively Coney Island in New York, and Cape May in Jersey. The Jersey one was done at a convention, though,
at the Cape May tattoo artist’s booth. The reason these were easy to find was because those same artists had done some of the ink on Raynor’s back, too.”

  “So, where does all this leave us?”

  “I really don’t know,” said Mike, shaking his head. “Not even sure this is a case. I mean … what’s the actual crime? Theft of tattoos? How is that even possible? And before you give me the ‘this is Pine Deep’ stock reply, this isn’t ghosts or monsters. This is missing tattoo ink.”

  “Is it?”

  Mike blinked. “Of course, that’s what we’re talking about.”

  “O young Padawan, you are actually in danger of missing a key element of crime detection. Something that’s pretty much page one of the Crimestoppers’ Handbook.”

  “Then enlighten me, O Jedi master.”

  “Let me ask you a question … if we got a call to investigate three downtown businesses with their back doors kicked in, should we assume the intent was to damage doors and locks?”

  “Ah,” said Mike. “Assumptions.”

  “Ah,” agreed Crow. “Ass. U. Me.”

  Mike took another bite of carrot and chewed thoughtfully. “The fact that the tattoos are missing is only an element of the crime—if it’s a crime.”

  “What is the more important element?”

  “Three of the four victims have lost memories.”

  “Yes. And can we form any theories about why the fourth victim committed suicide?”

  “The loss of an important memory?” suggested Mike. “Something he couldn’t live without. Or didn’t want to live without?”

  They thought about that for a moment.

  “Yes,” said Crow slowly. “Imagine what might have happened to Ms. Trang if Monk Addison hadn’t come by.”

  “Glad he was there.” Mike ate a piece of cucumber. “You still thinking of him as a bad guy in this?”

  Crow shook his head. “Nah. He’s bad news for someone, but not for us, and I don’t think he’s bad news for Ms. Trang.”