Stamps, Vamps & Tramps (A Three Little Words Anthology)

by Rachel Caine

  “I cannot carry my work everywhere with me, sweet wife. Please give me back my bonnet and stop beating me with it.”

  “You hate me!”

  “Not at all, honey-love. I model Kate’s docile sister Bianca upon your sweet self. And stop that.” A loose ribbon slashed his face. “Or you will put out my eye, and then where will you be for a bread-winner?”

  Later, he would name a prostitute in one of his plays Bianca, but if Anne noticed that, he would pretend it was but jest.

  He always loved a woman with spirit.

  And then their son Hamnet was murdered. Will blamed himself a thousand times over, and in his grief had no anodyne. Some two years later he expressed his anger and grief in a play where a son mourned his father and sought his killer, just as Will mourned his son and tried to find who had killed Hamnet.

  The play was a huge success: themes of murder, suicide, regicide, despair, madness resonated with the London of his time.

  And, acknowledging his own eminence, but sorrowing that his young son was not alive to continue his name, he sat for his likeness to be made.

  He’d sat for his portrait before, but this was special; a friend wanted to paint him.

  A fine portrait. His company had pooled funds to commission it, and it looked enough like him to suit. But—

  “The hand,” said Will.

  Nicholas looked up from his work, and swabbed his brush on his palette.

  “I would you would show my hand from the palm, not the back.”

  “But then tattoo will not show—the dragon—”

  “I do not flaunt my dragon, Nicholas. And dear as it is to me, I think some might think me gone over to the side of savages if the image were seen.”

  Hamnet’s sweet young ghost haunted him, not in the way of a furious spirit, but always there, always the torment of what might have been had the lad grown to adulthood. Will blamed himself for the boy’s death: if he had resided in Stratford-upon-Avon, he might have seen the danger.

  He thought of lost children, and wondered if Mawar had born him a child. It would be a daughter, she somehow knew. Called—well who know what Mawar would call her? He would call her Miranda, and make her the centerpiece of a play about a distant island, one not so different from the Island of Diamonds he had visited with Sir Francis.

  He sat scribbling, his secretary copying sides, until the whole thing was dazzling and done. A shipwreck, for did he not remember the horrors of the raging sea? Traitors, men who dealt in thievery and murderous plots, like the one against his own son. Counselors, lords, treacherous brothers, jesters, sprites. One he would call Ariel, who could command the elements at his master’s will. A witch who had imprisoned Ariel. A young man in love, Ferdinand. A scholar and scientist, a master of the elements, deprived of his just position as Duke of Milan. He would call the hero Prospero!

  And best of all, the magician’s daughter, Miranda. She was the portrait of his daughter, living in that island country, Molluca.

  He himself would play Prospero.

  And at the end, he would beg the audience to “dwell in this bare island” and free him, who commanded all the charm of the stage, with the clapping of their hands.

  His audience adored it. And they adored Prospero, maybe seeing Will and Prospero as the same person, the man who mastered the elements for the short hours of the play. And then, he mostly retired, scribbling only a bit for his own amusement, or to add a touch of fire to some upstart’s effort.

  But then the sickness took him. He had lived hard, and loved many women, and lost what was most precious to him: an island wife, and an English son. The true cause of his illness was a broken heart.

  After many months he knew this was his end. He had been a sinful man, betrothed to two women, and really, wasn’t he truly married to that woman he had loved on the Island of Diamonds? He had lusted, he had written some words that the pious might called wicked. So he was shriven, and if the minister noticed the strange pagan dragon marking on his right hand, he made no obstacle of it.

  After he was shriven, he unclenched his hold on life, as if he were floating in a calm sea in the wake of The Golden Hind. And then he washed up on a beach, and walked further. At last, he came to a dark river, guarded by a creature taller than any man, decorated with all the animals Will had ever seen, both real and faerie. He knew this was the spirit of the river, Maligang. And the spirit would not let him pass, though Will took from his mouth the penny his daughters had placed there.

  This was the Lake of Blood.

  “You are unmarked. No man may approach the Bawang Daha without the mark of passage.”

  And Will saw thousands of Englishmen and women wandering in the darkness beside the fatal river. But he held up his hand and showed the marking to Maligang/Charon.

  “But you have not killed a man in battle,” said the Maligang. “Your markings are on but one hand.”

  Will spied the bodies of warriors underneath the water’s surface, and, looking closer, he saw that maggots ate at their flesh.

  “With this hand,” said Will, “I have slain hundreds. They lie on the stage of the great Globe, and when the people have applauded and left, my dead stand up and live again.”

  And the Maligang smiled slightly, for after all, a great magician may equivocate with a god. And the spirit took his hand, put him in the barque, and rowed him to immortality.

  SUMMER NIGHT IN DURHAM

  By Cat Rambo

  (for Ann Kakaliouras)

  Some supernaturals have trouble adjusting to the human world.

  I keep telling the vampires that tattoos are just a bad idea where they’re concerned, but still I get two or three of them in a night, more on the weekends. They want the same clichés the living do: Celtic runes and cartoon devils and names of loved ones mostly, but the daring ones ask me to etch them with religious symbols and then giggle. Tonight, a pleasant evening when the summer heat lingered in the air and everything was sweat and locust-buzz, one vampire told me he’d never seen a lady tattoo artist before.

  I said, you haven’t seen any since you Turned, or they would have told you what a bad idea this is.

  He blinked at me as though he didn’t understand what I could possibly be saying. He had this puzzled look on his face under all the stubble and the little bit of eyeliner around his eyes. Most vampires wear jewelry, but this one didn’t have anything precious on him other than a gold hoop in one ear and a possible filling or two.

  I could tell he expected me to be scared of him. Instead I was just tired. It was almost the end of my shift, and I’d already explained this to three other vampires.

  Look, I said. Vampire flesh doesn’t tattoo the way human skin does. It keeps bleeding, keeps seeping fluid, and never heals. I don’t think that’s what you want.

  He blinked at me again and seemed about to say something when a sound from the doorway made us both turn our heads. His girlfriend stood there, a human woman with skin like cream and roses, not a tattoo visible on her. Her hair was like spun gold, with a hint of red, as though fire lurked in its heart.

  He said somebody should get a tattoo. Glenda, how about you?

  She sneered. She said, that’s not why you want me. It’s because I look unsullied. Virginal.

  He shrugged and mumbled something.

  What’s that, she demanded.

  Folks, I interrupted, did you want to get a tattoo or did you want to move along? Because I get paid by the hour, not counting tips. I stressed that last word in case they didn’t get the point.

  He drew himself up like a movie Dracula, puffed his chest, which would have been more intimidating if he’d been dressed in formal wear rather than jeans and a t-shirt reading “The dead do it all night long.”

  You don’t dictate to the likes of me, Missy, he said. Behind him, his girlfriend rolled her eyes so wildly I thought that they would pitch out of her head.

  I’m not dictating, I said. I just think we could all save ourselves valuable time if the va
mpire community would learn that tattoos are a human practice they may wish to forgo.

  I could tell my lack of fear put him off. He sized me up, trying to figure out whether I was predator or just deluded prey. I stared back and let a bit of fire show in my eyes.

  Maybe it was that, or maybe it was just that dawn would be coming in a few hours, but he shoved twenty bucks at me with an apologetic shrug and nod and sauntered out the door with girlfriend in tow.

  The receptionist put her head in through the doorway. Your next one’s here early, she said.

  This is a shitty way to earn a living, I told her, and she just looked back at me.

  If that leprechaun hadn’t taken all my gold, I said louder.

  Lucky you had a trade to fall back on. She shrugged.

  At least the next one wanted something pretty, koi all up and down her leg. That I could do, so I drew them in blue and green and orange and white, details so fine you’d swear you could see the fins ripple, and in the water between them, coins falling, copper pennies and silver denarii and soft, shiny, delicious doubloons.

  When I finally took a break, I went outside to smoke. The vampire was waiting, lingering despite the hints of false dawn sizzling across the parking lot gravel.

  They told me I shouldn’t fight you, he said. His look was angry but there was question in it. He was smart enough to know that there’s always a bigger fish.

  You’re very new, I said. Or you’d know that there’s plenty of non-humans around, hiding in ordinary skins. I smiled and let a hint of tooth show.

  It was wrong of me, because I knew he’d take it as a challenge, and he did. He came at me in a rush of fangs.

  I would have swallowed him whole, but that would have been wasteful, so I just yawned fire and watched him burn. They go up fast, vampires, and when they’re gone, it’s just ash and gleanings.

  No gold fillings in his teeth, but the remnants of the earring remained. I picked the tiny puddle of melted metal up and held it in my hand. Every little bit helps when a Dragon is rebuilding her hoard.

  HIS BODY SCATTERED BY THE PLAGUE WINDS

  By Adam Callaway

  Grimshaw’s mind was torn through the tunnel connecting dream to reality by the sound of chimes. His eyes fluttered opened as he tried to figure out where the crashing noise came from and where he was. He turned on his side and looked at the framed sketch of a beautiful woman that lay on the pillow next to him. She had blue-white hair the color of glazed porcelain, eyes like inkwells, and a small, smiling mouth.

  Naveana, he thought, I’m in my bed and that chime means someone is at the door.

  Grimshaw got up, smoothed the wrinkles from his black coat and trousers, and walked into the bookshop proper. Someone stood in front of the door, silhouetted against a white blizzard.

  He unlocked the door and opened it just a crack, then jammed his foot behind it. Vagrants often tried to push into a warm shop during these storms.

  “What do ya want?” Grimshaw asked.

  “I got books to sell,” the man on the other side said. Only his voice betrayed his gender. All other distinguishing factors were encased in layers of coats, cloaks, and mantles.

  Grimshaw stuck a hand through the door. “Gimme.”

  The man on the other side reached into his mantle and brought out two slim volumes. Grimshaw took the books and paged through them. One was a collection of legends of the Fiend. Interesting, but not popular or in good condition. The other was an anatomy primer with some decent diagrams of plague victims.

  “Three chars for the lot,” Grimshaw said.

  “Worth at least a nova,” the man said.

  “Four chars is all they’re worth.”

  “One full nova.” The man’s voice was old, tired, even a bit frantic. Where his eyes weren’t bloodshot, they glowed as softly as new snow.

  “Look,” Grimshaw said, brandishing the books, “these are outdated, late editions, and in poor condition. If you think you can get a better deal at another bookshop at this particular time of the dead of night, be my guest. I will give you five chars for the both of them, and that’s only ’cause I’m cold.”

  The man paused for a moment before sticking out his hand, palm up. Grimshaw reached into his pocket, grabbed five copper coins, and deposited them into the man’s outstretched hand.

  “Looks mighty warm in there,” he said.

  “It is. Goodnight,” Grimshaw said, then slammed and locked the door. The man tested the knob and left.

  Grimshaw tossed the books onto his ebony counter. One stuck, but the other overshot and landed behind the counter. Grimshaw swore and walked to the backroom of the shop.

  A bottle of sleep syrup sat empty on the nightstand. Grimshaw picked it up and watched thick, honey-colored liquid roll along the sides of the bottle. Hardly a dewdrop’s worth remained. It wouldn’t even make him light-headed.

  Grimshaw set the container on the table and placed Naveana’s picture next to it, and then went to set a kettle to boil. It still had yesterday’s tea in it, but it’d do to wake him up a bit.

  “Fiend knows I won’t get back to sleep without that bitter syrup.” A ring of paper circled the little finger on his right hand, and he spun it as he waited for the tea. It was bone white, and felt of soft down.

  The kettle whistled. Grimshaw poured himself a mug and went to have a look at what he had bought.

  “Where’d you go, you bastard?” he asked the book. Even with a lump of feuerglas glowing like a handful of embers, the space behind the counter was dark and cluttered. Old, forgotten stock sat piled, ready to collapse at the slightest breath.

  Grimshaw thrust the fist-sized piece of warm, glowing glass into a tent-like crevice under two massive atlases.

  “Ha! Hide from me will you?” Grimshaw said, setting the feuerglas down and reaching for the book. He could just feel the cover under his fingertips. The leather was smooth. Perhaps of a higher quality than he had originally thought.

  He slid the book out and stood up. A large lump of feuerglas sat in a dish on the counter, appearing more bonfire than embers, and nearly as hot as an iron stove.

  “Let’s see what I wasted good copper on today,” he said, studying the book. Someone had spent hard money getting it rebound in calf’s skin, and the remnants of a brass lock hung from the cover.

  “That’s different,” he said, opening the book. He knew the Church banned books on the Fiend all the time, going so far as to burn entire stores for stocking them, but he had never heard of someone going through the trouble of locking an old book of legends.

  “A cautious parent, maybe,” Grimshaw said.

  He paged through the table of contents. All the usual legends were included: Torn from a Paper Womb; His Tattooed Body; Mistress of the Fiend; Magic of Dark and Hollow Places; The Final Death of the Inked Man; Skull Born; A Thousand Lives in Fire. No forbidden lore or signatures or anything to distinguish this copy from ten thousand like it.

  He bent the pages into a curve and flipped through them at speed. A scrap of yellow-brown paper, jarred loose by Grimshaw’s haste, floated down like a dead leaf.

  “What’s this?” he asked, catching the scrap in his hand. People left bookmarks in the books they sold to him all the time. In Lacuna, bookmarks were a sign of wealth and respect, separating those who ate with silver from those who ate with their fingers. Grimshaw had found ribbons of gold with woven silver tassels, magnetic clips inlaid with pearl and jet, and even sheets of feuerglas shaved so fine that they could be bent and rolled like leather.

  The bookmark that had floated into his hand, though, was disgusting: the color of a diseased limb, puckered like scar tissue, bearing single word written in black.

  “Together,” Grimshaw muttered, looking up in thought, not noticing that the word now glowed a faint white.

  “Why would someone write that on a bookmark?” he looked back down. The paper seemed to have flattened out while he was thinking. Grimshaw reached to flip it over, and clapped his
hands.

  “What the Fiend?” he said, scratching his hand where the paper had been resting—where the paper was now stuck. When that didn’t work, he started to shake his hand back and forth, like it had fallen asleep and he was trying to wake it up.

  Oi! You’re making me dizzy.

  Grimshaw stopped shaking and slowly looked around. Someone was in the shop with him.

  That’s better. I forgot what a bother senses can be. Hey, what’s your name?

  He dashed through the stacks, searching, paper-palm forgotten.

  “I know you’re in here. Show yourself! I have a blade.”

  Down here buddy, and I don’t think you’ll take a blade to your own hand.

  Grimshaw stood still and opened his hand. The word “Together” had faded to a pale white.

  “Hello?”

  There ya go. How ya doing? Name’s Chernyl.

  He looked around one more time, then raised his hand to his face and slowly uncurled his clenched fist. The bit of paper was now marbled with wisp-like arteries. No longer the color of half-tanned leather, the bookmark now had a healthy, peach hue.

  “You’re that scrap of paper,” Grimshaw said as if stating a fact.

  Yessir, that’d be me, but it’s actually scrap of parchment. Paper’s made’a wood.

  “You’re that scrap of parchment.”

  We’ve already established that, or is you some sorta mockingbird?

  Grimshaw backed up until he hit a stack and slumped to the floor.

  “You used my blood.”

  Just a bit. For the iron you see. I’ve been anemic lately.

  “I-I’m Grimshaw.”

  Grimshaw. Good name. Lotta power in a name like Grimshaw.

  He ran his finger over the parchment, trying to separate the wrinkles in the parchment from the wrinkles in his hand.

  That tickles. We’re buddies, but not like that.

  “How?” Grimshaw asked.

  That’s a mighty big question. Why not make it smaller?