Power unfolded like flower petals against the inside of her skin and bone. It cradled the picture in her mind’s eye of what Zoog’s tattoo needed to be made whole. Fixing the visible manifestation of the tattoo would be easy. The magic and spirit of it? That was the great unknown.
To put a Live Ink tattoo on someone, Isa drew the picture the client described, and she then summoned a spirit that wanted to embody that aspect. The concentration, the magic, the sacrifice of blood on the part of the client, and the spirit volunteering to enliven what Isa created with Ink, art, and magic brought the tattoo into being.
On Zoog’s skin, she had someone else’s magic and a spirit she hadn’t called. She had only a vague idea of how to weave her magic into Daniel’s. They’d apprenticed together for years. Even if she didn’t know Daniel anymore, she knew his magic. She knew his art. Maybe that would give her a leg up.
She brought her attention up and out of herself so she could focus on the tattoo with more than her physical eyes. And there they were; wriggling lines of magic hemorrhaging life energy away from the tattoo and from Zoog.
Daniel hadn’t closed the spell.
What had so distracted him that he’d made such a fundamental error in the inking process? She’d never known him to be sloppy. Daniel was too invested in his art for that. At least, he always had been. Had he done this on purpose?
A pang jabbed her. What if something was wrong with him? She weighed the wisdom of calling him, then dismissed it. She’d given up the right to worry about his well-being when they’d broken up.
Forcing herself to focus on the tattoo, she picked a line at random and speared it with the needle of the tattoo machine. An echo of Daniel reached her—the signature of his red/yellow energy vibrating in the thread she’d picked up. She couldn’t match his magical pattern. That was as unique as a fingerprint.
A fingerprint digging into her flesh, cutting, and spreading out in a spiderweb pattern beneath the surface of her skin. Vivid red barbs bit into muscle. Angry yellow thorns pierced her blood veins.
She flinched. Breath hissed in between her clenched teeth.
Now she knew why Daniel had refused to fix Zoog’s tattoo.
Zoog was a trap.
“Defend yourself, girl,” Joseph had ordered, battering her with magic that struck like lightning. “You will be tested. You will be attacked by those envious of your power.”
Isa had reeled, blinded, her ears ringing.
“Learn here or die,” Henry had added from the sidelines, shoving her with his purple/white energy. “If you cannot learn to control your magic and defend yourself, those of us who love you will be obliged to destroy you before you destroy another.”
Rage and sorrow pulsed through her.
They should have destroyed her.
Instead, she’d destroyed them. She’d be damned before she’d dishonor their teaching. Again.
The yellow/red tendrils wriggling into her skin and bone tightened. She couldn’t draw a full breath. Fueled by sorrow and memory, Isa pulled power into her center, forming it into a seething amber bubble. She fed the bubble, saturating the roiling ball with magic.
Daniel’s magic reached her throat and squeezed. Pain lanced from her neck to the arch of her right foot. Her control over the ball faltered. It exploded outward, propelled by sorrow and anger.
The energy couldn’t burn away Daniel’s. That wasn’t how her magic worked. Instead, it solidified, as if it were, in fact, liquid tree sap hardening to stone. It formed a shield that pushed the hooks and barbs out of her aching body. With effort, she reinforced the shield and shoved the last grasping tendrils of Daniel’s attack away.
Zoog’s hand on her wrist brought her back to awareness. “Ice? What’s wrong, babe?”
She sucked in a shaky breath and awarded him a glance.
Concern creased his forehead, beading up the sweat gathered there. From the guileless look in his eyes, she could tell he didn’t know what had happened.
Her certainty faltered. Suppose this hadn’t been a trap. Or at least not one that had been purposely set. Tattoo etiquette said that you didn’t mess with someone else’s work. With flat ink, there were obvious exceptions to the rule. With Live Ink, it had been all but codified into taboo. Could it be because working on someone else’s magic always resulted in an attack like the one she’d faced? Why shouldn’t the magic on someone’s skin defend itself?
She blew out a slow breath, relieved she could. She nodded at Zoog before she was certain she was okay and wiped the back of her gloved hand across her damp upper lip.
The purple glove came away smeared with blood.
“Nose,” Zoog noted. “It’s stopped.”
“Thanks,” she breathed. It took a few seconds of concentration to find her way back into the tattoo. She would finish what she’d started. The attack pissed her off. And while she might have given up out of doubt before, now she’d power through just to prove she could.
A surge of liquid amber rose beneath her skin, assuring her that this would work. If she kept a shield up, she could force Daniel’s energy to blend with hers enough to close the wound killing the tattoo and, by extension, Zoog.
She opened the pathways to magic and directed power down her right arm, through her palm, and into the tattoo machine and the Ink. The magic stored in the Ink danced back along the line to her fingers, providing exquisite feedback. She could feel what she was inking as she applied the needle to Zoog’s skin.
Her focus intensified as she reclaimed the tendril of magic she’d first speared. Applying the needle to Zoog’s skin, she sewed Ink and magic into him. Her vision expanded and sharpened until it was as if she peered at her canvas of human skin through a magnifying glass. The task encompassed the whole of her vision and whatever sense vibrated in sympathy with magic. The whir of the engine filled her ears.
The vision of what the tattoo wanted and needed to be filled her. It took every ounce of concentration to keep her focus on Zoog while cracking open the doors inside her mind so the creature could witness what she did to close the wound on its back.
On Zoog’s skin, that meant extending the outline of the creature and then filling that in with black shading. Simple. Except that magic had to go in with every prick of the tattoo needles. Added to that, each dangling, hemorrhaging thread of Daniel’s magic had to be tied down into Zoog’s skin and blood as well.
The hippogriff swarmed into Isa’s awareness, leaving clumsy gouges in her psyche.
Pain lanced her temples.
The creature’s sibilant hiss rolled around the inside of her skull, urging her to keep working. On Zoog’s skin, the hippogriff’s eyes rolled as if it wanted to watch her progress in fixing the hole in its back. The creature flexed its claws.
“Whoa, that feels weird,” Zoog gasped.
The scent of sun-warmed sage and pinyon competed with the sour smell of Zoog’s fear-sweat. As she worked, the earth and rainwater odor of the Live Ink enveloped her.
She picked another loose magical thread and sewed it with Ink and her own magic into Zoog.
Blood welled up from where she worked, the final lynchpin securing the tattoo and the magic in place.
Without lifting her head, she murmured, “I’m to your ribs.”
As she inked over bone, Zoog winced and breathed, “I hate this part.”
“Sorry.”
“You, I believe.”
She smiled down at the combination of black Ink and blood consuming her field of view. “You’ve been tattooed by artists who like hurting you?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Hell of a profession for a psychopath. Some of ’em are incredible artists, but even I have standards. I’d never let a psycho do Live Ink.”
Was it stupid to be obscurely reassured by that? He’d gone to Daniel for Live Ink. Was she willing to trust a two-bit hoodlum’s estim
ation of Daniel’s mental state? Or of her own for that matter?
“You’re saying I’m not a psycho? I’m touched. No more talking. I need you to take slow, even breaths, okay?”
“Sure, Ice.”
Power pulsed in easy, warm waves, up through her feet and legs and into her torso, where it glittered and shimmered like heat waves on the desert. It fed through her into the tattoo machine, streaming through the silver ink reservoir into the silver alloy needle and into Zoog’s skin.
He had his own magic. So did the creature. Zoog’s power was a color she’d only seen in photos of icebergs, a combination of ice blue and green, so pale that it didn’t surprise her she’d never sensed it before. She wasn’t in the habit any longer of judging whether or not the people walking through her door carried magic of their own.
The hippogriff, if that’s what this tattoo was, carried razor-edged magic in dark red. Even without being under attack by the creature, that thread of dried blood power made her uncomfortable inside her own skin.
They were well matched. Zoog’s deceptive, barely perceptible power and the knife blade of the tattoo’s magic. The tattoo would augment Zoog’s power. Zoog would temper the tattoo’s.
She looked for another thread to weave into the fabric of Zoog and his Live Ink. There were no more.
She swabbed the section she’d been working on, then straightened to survey the image before her eyes, comparing it to the one wrapped around her brain. Contentment eased through her. It was right. She stopped the machine and put it down.
Zoog shifted.
“Cleaning up,” Isa said. She barely recognized her voice. It sounded relaxed, throaty. Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. Elated but exhausted, she sprayed dilute soapy water on the areas she’d worked. As she wiped them dry, she spent more magic sealing the work and the joining of spirit to flesh, blood, and bone already occupied by Zoog’s life force.
Her head rang empty.
The creature had gone.
On Zoog’s skin, the hippogriff’s eyes gleamed. She thought she saw them close, then open again in acknowledgement.
Whispering a final word of thanks to the spirits of her teachers and to the power she’d used, she closed her eyes, and dispersed magic into the ground.
When she opened her eyes, Zoog studied her as if he wanted to see whether he could watch where and how the power left her.
“All done,” she said, turning to clean Ink from the machine.
The awkward, perpetually desperate Zoog Fairbanks she’d known had vanished. He peeled himself up off the recliner, new confidence in his movement and a sly, cunning gleam in his eyes that didn’t belong to the man Isa’d known.
The hair at the back of her neck stirred.
“How do you feel?” she asked, fighting the urge to retreat a step.
He straightened slowly, as if testing out a new body for the first time.
For one of them, at least, she supposed it was true.
“Amazing,” he drawled. His voice had lowered in pitch and taken on a rasped edge that felt like a threat. “I feel amazing. We both do.”
So did Isa.
Chapter Five
He tossed her a sideways glance. “You’re wasted on binding Live Ink, Ice. You know that, right? I’d never have sold my soul to Daniel had I known what you can do.”
“‘Sold your soul?’” Isa echoed. A shudder walked up her spine. “I knew Daniel’s prices were high, but that’s—”
His laugh, a razor wrapped in velvet, cut her off. It sounded nothing at all like his usual bark of amusement.
“To get the tattoo, I agreed to—what’s that called? Slavery that you work your way out of?”
There. In that brief flash of confusion, she caught a glimpse of the Zoog she’d known.
“Indentured servitude,” she said.
“That’s it. We have to do what he says now, until I’ve paid him back.”
“At least now, you’ll both survive the night to take your first orders.” If Daniel had been the one warning her off helping Zoog, then she’d defied him. She hoped firebombing her shop wouldn’t be among Zoog’s orders. She crossed her arms to hold back a shiver.
“How do you want me to pay you back?” Zoog asked. Insinuation and amusement threaded through the smooth voice he’d acquired.
“A few hundred dollars should do the job. I’ll figure up an invoice for you. We’ll come up with a payment plan.”
“Money?” he said, the amusement deepening. “We’d both willingly do so much more for you. Not to mention that Live Ink is ten times that. You’re underpriced, babe.”
“You’re asking me to put a price on your life,” Isa snapped, annoyed by the sudden switch in their statuses. How was it fair that he was suddenly so much more self-assured? “I’m not interested in high-rise condos and fancy clothes, Zoog. Not like Daniel. My job is keeping people alive. Should I price that so no one could possibly afford to darken my door?”
He shrugged, watching her with a gaze that felt like it could see right through her as she opened the studio door. “You’ll get every hopped-up Live Ink hopeful within miles beating down your door.”
“Not if you keep your mouth shut, I won’t,” she said. “Daniel did your Ink. Everyone knows he’s the best. Leave it at that.”
“He’s going to know something’s changed, babe. I’ll have to tell him,” he countered as he followed her up the stairs.
“No, you don’t.” She opened the door to the upstairs shop. “His only involvement with the Ink would have been when he put it on you. So you had a rough integration. You did integrate. Now you’re fine.”
“You’re forgetting the message you said was being delivered,” he said.
“I’m not,” Nathalie interrupted from behind the reception desk. “It’s all over voice mail. ‘Do not interfere.’ I finally had to unplug the phone.”
“Do you recognize the voice?” Isa asked.
Nathalie shook her head. “Coming through a distorter. Can’t even tell whether it’s male or female. Will you call the cops now?”
Seeing Nathalie paler than usual made something tighten in Isa’s gut. She didn’t like the feeling. “I’ll see if Steve can get anything.”
“Tonight?” Nathalie pressed.
“Toss me my cell? It’s late,” Isa said, clapping her hands on the phone Nathalie had lobbed. No kidding. The Felix the Cat clock above the shop door said it was past midnight. “Steve won’t be there, but I’ll leave a message. Go on home. Both of you. Get some sleep. It’s what I’m going to do.”
“You sleep if you want,” Zoog said. “I’m going to find me some action.”
“No, you’re not,” Isa countered, sure of her footing on that point. “You’re going home. You and that Ink you’re sharing skin with barely avoided going up in smoke. You’ve had a shot of magic that’ll have your head ringing like a bell come sunrise if you don’t get some shut-eye. Integration is going well. Don’t mess it up now. Give yourself time to rest and you’ll find most of your wounds healed by morning. Then you’ll be ready for action.”
He stared at her. A rush of ire lowered his brows and stained his pale cheeks, but, a piece at a time, calculation cut the anger away.
“I have Live Ink,” he said, awe in his voice. “Real Live Ink.”
“Yes, you do.” Despite the fact that Live Ink augmented magic and life span, as well as healing injury and illness ultrafast, he now shared his body with something else. She hoped he wouldn’t come to regret the fact.
“Thanks, babe. From both of us. You’ll be seeing me around.”
Isa strode to the front door and unlocked it for him. Cool air flooded past, smelling like the first sweet breath of life. The rain had swept in.
Zoog tilted his head to glare up at the dark sky. “I liked snow better.”
He ducked out int
o the night.
She closed and locked the door behind him.
“You did Live Ink?” Nathalie asked, incredulity in her tone. “For him?”
“He was dying. I had to do something.”
“That’s why you do binds! Why didn’t you bind this one? My God, Isa, that’s not Zoog anymore.”
Isa shoved her hands into her jeans pockets, guilt pinching her breath. “That’s not just Zoog anymore.”
“I know. I know,” she said, brushing a hand over her hair. “You warned me when I joined the shop that Live Ink changed people.”
“It’s one thing to know intellectually that Live Ink changes someone and another to actually see it happen to someone you know?” Isa offered.
“Creepiest damned thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” she confirmed.
Pin prickles of uneasiness walked across Isa’s skin in agreement.
“He’s for real now.”
Isa met her gaze and lifted an eyebrow. “For real what?”
“Dangerous. How could you turn that loose on the rest of the city?”
Rolling her head to break up the tension in her neck and shoulders, Isa heard recrimination echoing not just in Nathalie’s words but also in the voices inside her own head.
“I couldn’t stand and watch him die,” Isa said. “It’s a dodgy set of ethics, a little like doctors. It doesn’t matter who comes through their ER doors. Criminals or victims. They work on everyone the same. I’m not sure I’d like the kind of person I’d be if I hadn’t tried to save Zoog’s life. And the Ink’s life.”
Nathalie, her brow furrowed in concentration, rounded the reception desk, parked one hip against the wood, and crossed her arms. “‘The Ink’s life?’ It isn’t really alive, is it?”
Isa drew up short for the space of a breath, then confessed. “I am beginning to wonder.”
Nathalie straightened, gaping. “‘Constructs of magic, intent, and the client’s will!’ Isn’t that what the LIA says?”
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