by Jane Kindred
After he’d relieved himself and put his clothes back together, he stared into the mirror over the sink. “What the hell did you do?” His reflection blinked back at him without answering.
“Leo?” Rhea tapped on the door. “You okay in there?”
He must have been staring at himself, resisting the urge to put a fist through the mirror to get to his alter ego, for some time. “Yeah, I’m good.” He washed his hands and face and his pits and came out to find Rhea pacing in front of the counter, hands in her back pockets accentuating the curve of her ass.
She turned at the sound of the closing door. “I can explain. Nothing happened. Mostly.” Her face was flushed.
“We don’t have to talk about it.” The last thing he wanted to hear was what “mostly” meant.
“Of course we do. I violated your trust.”
“You did?”
“I kissed him. And then I almost let things get out of control, but I realized it wouldn’t be fair to you to take it any further because you wouldn’t remember, so you couldn’t exactly consent. So I stopped.” Rhea took her hands from her pockets and scrubbed them over her face. “This sounds so awful. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have started anything.”
“And he was completely innocent in the matter, was he?”
“Well, I—”
“Let’s just forget about it. I don’t want to know what he does with you.”
“He’s you, Leo. And we didn’t do anything, I told you. Just kissed.”
Just kissed with his pants undone.
“Would you have told me if I hadn’t noticed anything?”
“I...am so sorry, Leo. It won’t happen again.”
“That was a nonanswer.”
Rhea looked down at her feet. “I don’t know. I doubt it.” She glanced up again. “Because this is so awkward. Which is precisely why I stopped. I realized how awkward it would be if we...” She didn’t need to finish the sentence. The idea of her being with the other Leo—it didn’t matter that it was his body—or maybe it mattered more—caused him actual physical pain.
Leo looked around and found his glasses, pulling them on and adjusting them to buy time. “I think maybe I should get a room tonight. I don’t think this was such a good idea.”
Rhea’s face fell. “You’re quitting? Again?”
He smiled despite himself at the added word. “Just finding someplace else to sleep. But to be honest...” He glanced around at the empty shop. “It doesn’t look like you need me for much of anything else. I mean, the place looks ready. Have you considered opening the shop early? Why wait until the New Year?”
“You may have noticed the clients aren’t exactly flocking in.”
“What about the one you just booked?”
Rhea gaped at him. “Brock Dressler? Are you suggesting I actually tattoo that creep?”
“You could use your pictomancy to find out what he’s up to. You said you could read people without them knowing. I could be here to make sure nothing happens, stay out of sight.”
“What are you going to do, hide in the bathroom?”
“Why not? You could call him and tell him you have an earlier opening available. He doesn’t know I’m aware of the appointment.”
Rhea considered. “I suppose I could. But I’d have to get him in here tomorrow. Monday’s Christmas, so I wasn’t planning on being open this weekend.”
Which meant tomorrow was the solstice. He’d been so wrapped up in his angst over Rhea’s intimacy with his alter ego he’d almost forgotten. He just had to get through two more nights.
“In the meantime, I think I’m going to need a little time to myself, so unless you need me to do anything to set up for the appointment—?”
“No, it’s fine. You go ahead.” Rhea looked slightly wounded. Well, too bad. She’d wounded him first. “But you’ll be back tomorrow?”
Leo managed a reassuring smile. “Definitely.”
* * *
He eventually found a room for the night, though it cost him more than he’d planned. He hadn’t figured in the effects of the holiday season tourism on the prices of even the most modest accommodations.
As dusk approached, he considered the usual setup for the restraints—the headboard of the bed in his room was essentially a piece of stuffed vinyl with nothing to secure them to, and the frame sat flush with the floor, so nothing usable there. There was a chair at the writing desk, but it was flimsy. He could see ramming the chair against the wall to break the supports and easily getting free. The only other options were the plumbing behind the toilet or the surprisingly sturdy metal shower rod permanently fixed to the wall instead of sitting in a bracket. Neither seemed a comfortable option for spending more than fourteen hours. Then again, why did the bastard deserve comfort?
He took perverse pleasure in pulling the restraints tight as he locked the two together over the shower curtain rod. It was oddly positioned, high enough that his arms were raised above his head—not painfully high, but high. It was probably part of the infrastructure, a piece of steel piping conveniently placed to double as a curtain rod. He supposed he’d regret it in the morning when the consequences became his, but the potential discomfort was worth knowing the other Leo would be miserable for a night.
* * *
The bastard had left him in the dark. Leo took a deep breath. The first in the absence of the miserable little hugr was always the sweetest.
What the hell? His arms were stretched above his head. Not the first time Leo had left him this way, but usually he’d been left with some kind of comforts. His eyes adjusted to the darkness. A goddamn bathtub. The son of a bitch had shackled him over a curtain rod in the bathroom like some damn hand-washed socks left to drip dry.
Despite the indignity, it brought a dark smile to his face. Leo had obviously leaped to conclusions after finding Rhea passed out in his lap with his pants undone. He supposed he could have nudged Rhea after she’d nodded off and asked her to put his clothes back together. But it was more fun knowing Leo would wake to the apparent evidence of how they’d passed the time.
The consequences of getting under Leo’s skin were bittersweet, though. He had only a single night left after this one to see her—if Leo allowed it. Who knew where he’d wake up in a year? He was heartily sick of being Leo’s bitch to be chained and imprisoned. And it made him more determined than ever to find a way to get loose before dawn came on the twenty-third and put an end to this game.
With Rhea’s evocation of the word Valkyrie having jogged his memory, he now had an inkling of how long the game had been going on. It was difficult to piece together an accurate picture of the time after he’d lost his hand—and evidently had it restored by the Fates—since, with it, had come the fracturing of his mind. But before that, when he and Leo’s other selves had been fully cognizant of the curse, he had been with Kára for more than three centuries. His death, which she had bargained with the Norns to forestall, had occurred in the year nine hundred and sixty-eight. He’d retained enough bits and pieces of memory over recent years to know it had been more than a thousand since.
He couldn’t remember when Kára had marked him with the bond of Jörmungandr, but Leo was obviously stupid enough to have done it at her bidding without question. Judging from Rhea’s comments about him being at a woman’s mercy, he could just imagine the circumstances under which it had been done.
It meant that when he did escape, he would be confined to Leo’s skin. Not a terrible hardship—especially knowing the hugr would be doomed to wander the Night Realm forever. Without the skin, the hugr would never know what it was like to be with Rhea. And that was an experience this Leo had no intention of letting pass him by.
As the evening wore on, Leo tried to find a more comfortable position, but there was no give in the link between the restraints. His arms ached a
nd his fingers had gone numb. And he needed to take a goddamn piss. Not for the first time, he wished he could step outside the skin—not only now, to escape, but in general, so he could strangle the miserable little shit for stringing him up like a lutefisk.
The allrune tattoo itched something fierce beneath the suede backing of the cuff. Having the restraints rubbing against the healing tattoo couldn’t be doing it any favors. The itching became intolerable, and Leo twisted in the shackles, cursing Leo the Dull. He let out a bellow of rage, not caring if the manager came and had him arrested for being a pervert. It would serve Leo right to lose the game that way.
The discomfort lessened with the expulsion of sound, but a tickling sensation remained. In the mirror across from him, barely visible in the black-and-white hues of night, a thin shadow, like a darkening vein, crawled down his arm.
Leo glanced up. The tattoo was bleeding from one corner. Rhea would probably have to repair it once it healed. And he might not even be aware the touch-up had happened for another year. They would be far away from Rhea by then. He cursed and kicked the back wall of the shower stall, and the heel of his boot stuck in it, cheap plaster crumbling into the stall as he wiggled it out. He laughed out loud, angry and yet feeling a strange sense of release. Fuck Leo.
The blocky shapes and angles of the bathroom had become a shade grayer. Dawn was coming. One more night left. One more chance to act on desire. One more chance to break loose once and for all and be free of Leo the Dull forever.
* * *
His arms felt like they’d been pulled from their sockets, and it took forever to work the link loose from the D rings on the restraints. Leo dropped to his knees in the shower stall and lowered his head to his knees.
“Son of a bitch.” His alter ego had taken revenge on him by pissing his pants.
Chapter 15
She’d tattooed at least a dozen people, a few of them more than once, and never had a complaint. But her first official client had her feeling like an imposter—and not just because she was planning to spy on his nefarious plans through pictomancy.
Rhea glanced at the clock on her phone. Leo hadn’t arrived yet and it was almost noon. She was beginning to think he wasn’t coming back, that last night had been an excuse to split once and for all. If she was going to have to be alone with this creep, maybe she should rethink the whole thing and cancel. And maybe she should just give up this stupid idea of having her own tattoo shop since no one but some alt-right jackhole had expressed the slightest bit of interest, and she was going to die homeless and penniless and twenty pounds overweight.
The door jingled as Leo finally made an appearance. “Hey. Sorry I’m late. I had to do laundry.”
“He’s going to be here in half an hour. You decided to stop and do laundry first?”
“I had kind of a bad night.”
She wasn’t sure what constituted a bad night when one wasn’t conscious of how one spent it, but she hadn’t slept well herself. After heading home, she’d been restless and jittery. She hadn’t seen any sign of the Hunt or Vixen and not even a glimpse of the black wolf-dog. How weird was her life that she’d been disappointed by that? She’d ended up elaborating on her tattoo design, adding some delicate filigree around the Black Moon Lilith symbol. It hadn’t prompted any visions, but her dreams had been odd and dark—literal darkness, where she couldn’t find anything or anyone and kept going in circles—and she’d woken up feeling more tired than when she’d gone to sleep.
“I thought maybe you’d decided not to come back.”
“I considered it.” Leo peeled out of his coat, revealing that the black long-sleeved shirt had been his choice today, but he left his knit hat on as though he’d forgotten it was there. “But then I realized I was making a big deal out of nothing. He’s going to be gone after tonight, anyway. Then we can get to know each other without him in the way. Maybe even go out on an actual date or something.” Leo gave her a tentative lopsided grin. “If you still want to, that is.”
“Of course I want to.” The other Leo was going to be gone after tonight? Somehow, she’d thought he had a few more days, despite knowing the time frame of the Hunt.
Leo glanced around awkwardly. “Anyway, I should probably make myself scarce.” He disappeared into the bathroom not a moment too soon. Brock was early.
As the door opened, Rhea noticed Leo’s plaid hunting jacket lying on the couch. There was no time to stash it, so she put it on. It was hip length on Leo but the hem hit Rhea mid-thigh.
Brock gave her a big smile. “So glad you were able to fit me in earlier. I really appreciate this.” She hadn’t noticed before, but his hair was cropped close on the sides, with a sort of pompadour-esque floop of longer hair hanging over it, oiled and slicked. God, how had she not pegged him for a Nazi?
Rhea resisted an automatic gag reflex as she shook his hand. “No problem. I realized I was going to be away for the holidays and I might not get back in time, so this works perfectly for me. Come on back.” She led him through the curtain, casting an eye at the bathroom door to make sure it was shut. “You can hang up your coat on the rack.”
“Looks like you have two,” he observed as he removed his to hang it up.
“Oh, this?” Rhea lifted her arms at her sides, the sleeves hanging under her arms like flannel wings. “It’s kind of my lucky work smock. It belonged to my dad. It gets pretty drafty in here. I wasn’t expecting such cold weather this early.”
“Yeah, this snow has been something, hasn’t it? So much for those global warming gloom-and-doomers.”
Rhea resisted the urge to tell him he was confusing climate with weather. “So, you said you have a mock-up of what you want?”
Brock handed her a piece of paper with the words I am. I think. I will. in a sort of retro serif typeface with fuzzy edges and missing spots, like it had been typed on an old typewriter. “Ayn Rand,” he said. Rhea repressed the urge to roll her eyes. At least it wasn’t Hitler.
“Is this the size you want it?”
“A little smaller.” He took off his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his pin-striped shirt. A little overdressed for getting a tattoo. “I want it right here, on the inside of my arm, starting below my elbow and heading toward my wrist.”
Rhea reduced the image on her photocopier and copied it onto the transfer sheet once Brock approved it. “All right. I think we’re ready to go.”
She shoved Leo’s jacket sleeves up to her elbows and had to roll the cuffs several times to keep them there, but she managed to act like it was part of her artistic ritual. Brock’s skin was unusually taut, with an almost leathery quality to it, requiring a lot of pressure to pierce. She supposed he must get a lot of sun.
As Rhea worked through the outline, she let her arm above the glove rest lightly on the upper part of the tattoo, skin to skin, and concentrated on reading without “broadcasting” the reading to him. She’d done it deliberately once or twice, and the key was focusing on images close enough to the client’s surface thoughts that they didn’t intrude.
Rhea put out a little “feeler” question as though it were his own thought: Did I eat enough before I came? A clear image came to her of a bowl of muesli. How exciting.
She glanced up to see if the image had intruded on his thoughts. “How are you doing so far? Okay?”
Brock smiled a little nervously. “So far so good. It’s both not as bad as I expected and a great deal worse.”
Rhea laughed. “Sounds about right. Some areas are more sensitive than others, too, so it might feel like it’s no big deal then suddenly become a big deal. Let me know if you need me to take a break. The endorphins should kick in pretty soon, though.”
Time to try a little more specific test. She kept her thoughts focused on how do I feel about this? and then led him toward a loaded topic to see if she could pick up on what
he really felt regardless of what he said.
“It’s great to have someone breaking in the chair. I can’t wait for the official opening, but getting this place ready has been a challenge. Some kids keep spray-painting graffiti on the walls. I swear, I’ve cleaned it off half a dozen times in the past two weeks.”
“That’s a shame. Have the police had any luck catching them?”
“I haven’t called the cops. Hopefully, I won’t have to. It seems pretty harmless. They’re obviously doing it for kicks. Trying to impress their friends and act like badasses. Although, the other day, they added a swastika to a tag. Who knows what motivated that? Actual hate? Or just, ‘Ooh, look how edgy I am’?”
“Really? I wonder if they belong to a gang. Have you seen any of them?”
So far, his mental imagery was surprisingly blank. At least, she wasn’t getting much of anything equating to how do I feel about this? Maybe she should try a different tactic.
“No, just the graffiti. I doubt they belong to any organized group, though.” Like the Nazi Party, she thought deliberately and pictured a goose-stepping SS squad.
Brock flinched, and she took her foot off the pedal.
“Did I hit a nerve?” She was taking a chance with the double entendre, but what the hell.
“Yeah, it kind of took me by surprise when you got between the bones.”
“Sometimes it’s the spots you least expect to be sensitive. Tattooing over bone can be extra painful, but you never know what’s going to be a trigger.” She blotted the blood on the fresh part of the tattoo, letting their arms touch again, and projected the question with specificity: How do I feel about Nazis? This time, she picked up his own image of shouting skinheads and a white supremacist rally. It was pretty stereotypical stuff, and the feeling that accompanied it was a definitive wave of disgust.