Indelible

by Dawn Metcalf

  She screamed a thin, animal noise, tasting the burning of her own skin in the smoke. Her mind went nova, nerves raking, clawing, scrabbling. Denial. Disbelief. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t!

  She barely grunted when he yanked the brand free, blood and melted poly-fibers caking the end of the quill. The world was somewhere beyond a haze of red pain. Joy twitched with hot spasms, sparklers of shock.

  Briarhook slapped a fistful of slush onto the wound. She whimpered, hoarse from screaming. There was a crackle of branches. A small hum of approval. Hasp hissed in the dark. Briarhook tossed her loose arm aside.

  “Put back,” Briarhook grumbled, sticking the brand in the snow. The quill sizzled as it died. “Message for Ink.”

  The aether sprite picked her up and slung her over its back. Joy stumbled backward in her head and everything snuffed out.

  * * *

  Joy hit her bed and felt the snap of cold in her room. A shadow moved and disappeared. She was left wet and shivering. Alone.

  Her arm! She wanted to cut it off and throw it away. The pain spread sweat over her whole body. Every hair hurt. She shied away from thinking too much about why. She said the first word she could think through the agony: “Mom...?”

  Her voice whispered through a raw, frightened throat. Joy’s fingers shook, barely touching her shoulder, feeling the crispy, sharp edges of either her nightshirt or her skin. She woke up a little more, remembering who she was, where she was, and who was no longer with her where she was. She hadn’t the strength to cry.

  “Dad...?”

  It wasn’t a dream. Wasn’t a nightmare. This was real. She didn’t want to look. She couldn’t look. Jagged images flashed red and black, orange and white.

  Blinking back the roaring tightness in her head, she closed her eyes and hissed the last name like a prayer.

  “Ink!”

  Although it came out in a shudder.

  “I-I-I-I-I-nk!”

  She rolled onto her left side, the constant flashing in her marked eye a strobe keeping her awake. Joy moaned softly, curling as tight as she could, trying not to touch anything while she smeared her runny nose against her pillow. Smothering her face in the familiar scent of fabric softener, Joy tried to escape the sickening smell of her own charred, blackened skin.

  She became aware of him when he brushed her hair out of her eyes and she focused on his face, piercing and intent. She opened her eyes, glaring hate and hurt and blame through the tears.

  “I-I-I-I-I-nk!” she chattered again and started shaking uncontrollably.

  “Joy,” he said and scooped her up in his arms. She whimpered and strained her neck against the awful wrenching pull along her skin. He lifted her easily. “I have you.”

  She didn’t see how they went, didn’t feel the change happen, but he lowered her into the wingback chair and the musty smell told her where they’d gone.

  The butler stormed into the foyer holding a gun.

  “Kurt,” Ink said and placed a hand at the back of Joy’s neck. “Graus Claude, please. Now.”

  Without a word, the butler U-turned and ran down the hall.

  “He will help,” Ink said quietly, his voice hard as steel. “May I see?”

  Joy shut her eyes as Ink touched her elbow, right below the heart of the pain. She pushed her forehead against the upholstery and sucked air through her teeth. A thousand smaller pains scattered like bits of hail. She didn’t know where it wouldn’t hurt. She concentrated on not throwing up.

  “Briarhook,” Ink said flatly. “Briarhook did this?” Joy didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. “He’d sent a message to you before? One you did not give to me? It was likely written in the veins of a leaf....”

  “I DIDN’T KNOW!” she screamed.

  Ink nodded, unperturbed. A violent stillness filled the room.

  “I understand. This was done for me, not you.” His voice was slicing, deadly calm. “I will not tolerate it. Joy, I...” Ink stopped, his hand snaking along his silver chain. “But that does not help you now,” he said quietly. “It hurts.”

  “Yes!” she cried. “It hurts!”

  Ink sank to his knees next to her chair, his hand cautiously placed on the armrest near her knees. Graus Claude and his armed butler had appeared in the foyer and hovered in the entrance.

  “Joy, do you want me to stay with you?” Ink asked, his voice dropping low. “Or do you want me to bring Briarhook an answer he will not forget?”

  Joy glared as hot as her skin.

  “Get him!” she hissed.

  “Consider it done,” Ink said and stood, addressing Graus Claude, who hulked resplendent in blue silk pajamas and robe. “Please tend her for me.”

  “Consider it done,” the Bailiwick said and inclined his head.

  Ink nodded, flicked his razor and sliced the world free. With barely a step, he was gone.

  “Vicious,” Graus Claude rumbled, nostrils flaring. “I approve. Now let us see if we can’t clean you up.”

  Graus Claude gestured to his butler, who silently lifted her up. She screamed again.

  “Gently, Kurt,” the great toad cautioned as he led the way down the amber-lit hall.

  Joy’s vision throbbed. Dirt and blood caked her crispy clothes. Her body shivered violently and her face radiated heat and sweat. She rested her head against the butler’s shirt and felt guilty about the stain. She couldn’t help it. She could barely keep her head up. She could barely...

  They entered a wide room of cool, pale pinstripe wallpaper, brass fixtures and ivory porcelain, dominated by a claw-foot tub. Kurt placed her on a satin fainting couch, which she thought appropriate considering she felt like blacking out. He swiftly opened an inlaid chest, removing tinkling glass-stopper bottles, metal aid kits and a tray. Graus Claude settled himself onto a fringed ottoman and bent his great head to hers. He sniffed the wound like a delicate hound.

  “Briarhook, indeed,” he said. “Sent his message loud and clear, the vagrant. While marks are given voluntarily, I am afraid that they are not always received that way. If he’d gone through proper channels... Ah, well, no need to hear all that again.” The Bailiwick lifted one of his four hands to raise Joy’s chin, inspecting her neck. Two of his other hands braced on his knees. “You’ve a new necklace. Looks like a fine choker of jellyfish pearls. Aether sprite, correct? That would be Hasp, most likely. Stings, does it? Beastly creature.” He let her chin droop. “Hasp answers to Briarhook over kin and clan. Can’t buy loyalty like that, no—that comes with leverage. Promises. Threats.”

  Kurt looked up from his silver tray of bandages, ointments and oddments, and gave only a twist of his lip as commentary.

  Graus Claude chuckled deep in his gut. “Yes, well,” he acknowledged and glanced at Joy. “Not all such indentures are dishonorable. If it was merely a matter of loyalty, Kurt would speak his mind, but his alliance is deeper. Yet deeper still is Hasp’s devotion to Briarhook, but we know not why. He cannot be held by his name—his name is useless now.” Graus Claude gestured with his four hands. “We are all beholden to someone, somehow. Being a lehman is perhaps more pleasant than most.” He cocked his head sympathetically. “Most of the time.”

  Kurt snipped the seam of her sleeve with a pair of long-handled scissors and dropped them in a tall glass of rubbing alcohol. The smell made Joy wince.

  “Any medical conditions?” Graus Claude asked casually.

  “I’m...h-hypoglycemic.” Joy stuttered.

  “I am unfamiliar with the term.”

  “Low blood sugar,” she said. “I have to eat...a lot.”

  “Fascinating,” Graus Claude said while placing her hand on the carved edge of the settee. “Here, hold on to this.”

  At the first touch of antiseptic, Joy catapulted off the couch. Graus Claude himself
held her in place with his four arms—something that struck her as an honor of sorts, as he didn’t seem one to normally get himself dirty. His stern strength gently but firmly gave her permission to weep. She couldn’t follow the things that happened to her, no longer caring whether the instruments looked old or if the syringe was sterile. Monica’s communicable disease and drug warnings rang deaf in her head. Sometimes the giant toad would instruct, “Swallow these,” and she did, or “This will undoubtedly hurt.” And it did.

  Kurt worked silently and efficiently, although Joy finally became aware of his hand gently cupping her cheek as he slathered a sharp-smelling balm on her neck with a long cotton swab. It felt careful and somehow motherly, not at all like his burly muscleman exterior. Kurt washed her face with a cool cloth and Joy blinked up at him, focusing on the long scar at his throat. The high mandarin collar nearly hid it from sight.

  “You can’t talk,” she whispered.

  Kurt met her eyes and looked away.

  The world felt more lucid under a blanket of painkillers and clean gauze. There was something oddly calming about the smell of antibiotic cleansers and the flowery, sweet scents of crushed marigold and calendula. Joy admired the Edison sconces with a carefree interest buoyed on drugs.

  Graus Claude coughed politely and Joy swam to focus on him. Even his mottled gray-green skin was strangely gentlemanly in the muted gold light of the salmon-pink room.

  “I can advance the healing, but I cannot undo it. You have been branded. Do you understand this, Miss Malone?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Very well then,” he answered uncomfortably. “Kurt, please apply this over Miss Malone’s injury and secure the bandage so the new skin may breathe.” There was the faint clinking of glass stoppers and thick pipettes. A smell of mint or pine, clean and spiky, filled the room. It felt good—soothing and cool.

  “It will take approximately one or two days to callous. If the skin grows red or swells with pus, leave a message for me. You retain my number, I trust?”

  Joy nodded. Even nodding felt good. “Yep.”

  Kurt cleaned up the mess, gathering everything onto the silver tray. She didn’t like how much of the white cloth was stained red or black. He carried it out of the room. Joy watched him go, wondering what had happened to his throat.

  Graus Claude pushed back on his haunches, his low-slung head bobbing in approval. “It is masterfully done in some ways. It may please you to know this and bring you small comfort.”

  Joy frowned, feeling the skin of her forehead pinch.

  “What?” She struggled against the tide of sluggish fuzz.

  “Briarhook’s brand,” Graus Claude said deeply. “A rose fletched in thorns—his insignia, his signatura. It suits you. A wildflower with bite.”

  Joy tried to look at her upper arm and grimaced.

  “Screw you.”

  The Bailiwick chuckled. “I may have forgotten to mention that the medicines I gave you might lower your otherwise polite and cautious inhibitions. Be careful what you choose to say aloud, Miss Malone. Knowing this, I will grant you a certain leniency in your current state.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Joy said. “Well, I thought you said I’d be protected, that I couldn’t get hurt.”

  “Rightful claims cannot be covered by the Edict,” Graus Claude said without apology. “Briarhook’s auspice is finding those lost in the woods, and indeed, that is what you were. Hasp brought you to an unfamiliar grotto, following Briarhook’s instructions in order to let him lay claim. It was a legitimate action by illegitimate means.” He pursed his lips. “The same will hold true for Ink regarding whatever he is doing to Briarhook at this moment. The devil put himself in Ink’s path by crossing you.”

  “Well, good,” Joy said as her eyes slid over the mini-chandelier. “What is it with this bathroom? You’d never fit in that tub in a million years.”

  Graus Claude smiled, a shark’s grin, as his four arms spread wide in an elaborate shrug.

  “Who claimed that this is where I make my toilette?” he asked. “My apartments are upstairs. This suite is for guests.”

  Joy gave a goofy grin and touched the pink satin chaise longue.

  “Your female guests.”

  “Indeed.” The Bailiwick inclined his head as if pleased that they understood one another. “I do not garner much company outside of my home and I entertain only select individuals who do not have trouble with teeth.” He clicked his jaws together as if to emphasize the point. Joy laughed a little, but it hurt her ribs.

  “Ow,” she said and swallowed painfully. “My throat?”

  Graus Claude waved off the question imperiously. “Hasp’s scales only pricked you. The skin will heal clean. I’d be surprised if it is still noticeable by morning, given the balm. But do try not to cross him. Aether sprites aren’t particularly fond of humans.”

  Joy frowned. “I guessed that much on my own.”

  “Oh, it’s not you personally. Aether sprites have suffered under human industrialism more so than most. It’s the pollutants, you see,” Graus Claude said, settling back. “There are many who believe that our rightful place and time is being hampered by human domination, that when the Age of Man passes, ours will rise. Yet there are equally as many who believe that without humans we would cease to exist. Aether sprites tend to favor the former philosophy, that humanity is a scourge.” He sighed. “It is a perilous line, treading on the politics of entitlement, but the Council believes that balance is essential, which is why I’ve placed myself at its axis.” Two of his hands meticulously arranged brushes, combs and cosmetic pots as he spoke. “Not many choose to barter between your world and ours, but it must be done.” Graus Claude grinned. “And many years ago, I determined that it should be done by me.”

  “And the pay’s not bad,” Joy added.

  The Bailiwick laughed his barrel-chest laughter.

  “Indeed. That is also true.”

  Joy fingered the tiny threads of color in the upholstery—rose and gold, orange and cream.

  “There was someone else,” she said. “Someone besides Briarhook and Hasp in that ravine.”

  Graus Claude wiped a finger along the gilt mirror frame. “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Someone orange.”

  There was a knock, and both Joy and Graus Claude turned. Kurt stood in the open door, allowing Ink to pass. Ink’s eyes were flat as plastic chits, his arms soaked with blood up to the elbows, his silken shirt spattered and dotted in spray.

  “May I use your sink?” Ink asked.

  “Of course,” Graus Claude said. Joy stared. Ink walked to the basin and turned the ivory-handled knobs, leaving crimson smears on the porcelain. Graus Claude raised a single hand to halt Kurt’s motion to protest or clean. Everyone waited, watching the water run red.

  “You may want to remove your shirt,” Graus Claude suggested. “Better yet, find a new one.”

  Ink wordlessly pulled his shirt over his head. It peeled wet and sticky off his arms. He tossed it into the bathtub and stuck his hands back under the water. Kurt gathered the ruined material and draped a towel pointedly on the brass hook nearest Ink. The Scribe continued scrubbing his arms with pink-frothed soap.

  Joy watched the play of muscles on Ink’s back and limbs. She knew Inq had shaped him, and he, her. It was strange to think of it—their flawless hands on one another. But they weren’t really siblings. They weren’t really...anything. Joy wondered what that must have felt like, shaping their flesh soft as clay or hard as marble. That’s what Ink looked like: a statue in motion. She watched his neck and shoulders move.

  Something caught the light, slithering just under his skin. A faint shape moved clockwise over his back. When he shifted, it winked like a galaxy of stars drawn over his shoulders, circling half the length of his spine. She thought maybe it w
as the drugs, but its shape became clearer when she looked out of the corner of her eye—Flash! Flash!—it was a curling whorl of scales and a vaguely oblong head. It rotated, slowly, like a paddlewheel on his skin.

  “What’s that?” Joy asked.

  “Payback,” Ink said into the blank mirror.

  Graus Claude raised his brow.

  “No,” she said. “On your back. That.”

  Ink glanced over his shoulder. His hands stilled in the sink.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  Graus Claude looked at her, too, curious.

  “Swirls,” Joy said, “like an Olympic circle. With a head.”

  Ink smiled slightly and turned back to the sink. “It is my signatura. An ouroboros. A dragon swallowing its tail.”

  “Immortal,” Graus Claude acknowledged. “Infinite.”

  “Indelible Ink,” Joy said thickly.

  Ink nodded, eyes on his hands.

  “I cannot see this thing,” Graus Claude complained.

  Ink dried his hands on the towel and wiped off the sink. “No one can.” He turned to Joy, clean and open. “Or so I thought.” He dried the surface of his chest and stomach. She stared longer than she should have.

  “There is more to you than meets the eye, Joy Malone,” the Bailiwick murmured as he struggled to his feet. Ink dropped the towel over the back of a chair and leaned close to Joy.

  The smell of rain filled her head.

  “I can take you home now,” Ink said softly, like a question.

  Joy nodded. “Please.”

  When he lifted her this time, it was through a cloud of unfeeling, a furry notion of where her body went from one moment to the next. Joy thought she might slip through his hands and puddle on the floor, which would be fine. The bath mat looked comfy. The tile looked comfy. Graus Claude looked comfy.

  She placed a hand against Ink. He was perfect, lean and supple, but something was off. She squinted through mental fog, trying to figure it out. Her head wobbled on her bandaged neck. She touched his chest lightly, her fingers sliding on the surface of his skin. No nipples. Joy laughed—she couldn’t help it. It hurt. The sound slid perilously close to weeping.