Ink Witch

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  It took me a moment to realize I could see the dome of At clearly, not through a shimmering, unearthly silver mist.

  “Where’d Dom go?”

  Nik’s face was ghostly pale. “I’m pretty sure he’s in there,” he said, reaching out and tapping the side of the dead phone.

  I stared at the image etched on the surface. At first I thought it was a trick of the eye, but ever so slowly, I watched the image of Dom’s face move. His lips parted. His mouth opened. And he let out a silent scream.

  “He doesn’t look too comfortable,” Nik said dryly.

  “I did it.” I looked from the phone—from Dom—to Nik and back. “I really did it.” I held up the phone like I was taking a selfie. “Can you hear me, Dom?”

  Ever so slowly, the etched likeness of him shut his mouth. The rough copies of his eyes seemed to be seeking without seeing.

  “I promise I’ll make you more comfortable soon, and I swear to all the gods who’ve ever existed, I will make you whole again.” I tucked him back into my pocket, then met Nik’s eyes. “Don’t tell anyone about this yet,” I whispered. “I don’t want them to get their hopes up.”

  Nik said nothing for long seconds, just looked at me with those pale, guarded eyes. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll keep your secret,” he said. “For now.”

  24

  Nik and I burst out of the Columbia Center to the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue. My helmet was gone, likely stolen by some enterprising passerby, but the Ducati was still parked there, illegal as ever. I’d feared it would already have been towed. But, after everything, I’d only been in the building for maybe twenty minutes. I’d have bet a tow truck was already on its way. But it wasn’t here yet.

  “Can you ride?” I asked Nik as we sprinted to the bike.

  He looked at me, You’re kidding, right? in his eyes.

  I snorted. “Good, because you’re too tall to ride behind me.” I handed him the key and waited for him to mount before kicking my leg over the seat behind him.

  The Ducati Monster is not a bike designed with multiple riders in mind. Sure, it’s got a narrow little extension behind the main portion of the saddle for a passenger and two tiny little kick-down pegs on either side, but the crunched-up position isn’t comfortable for the passenger, and the rider has to deal with the annoyance of being top-heavy and having the passenger leaning on them, due to the passenger’s raised seat. But damn, in all black with just a hint of candy-apple red, the bike is sexy as hell. And it can move. To say I loved my motorcycle was putting it lightly.

  “And Nik, if you crash this bike . . .”

  Nik kicked the bike to life like he owned it and, fingers gripping the handlebars, waited for me to wrap my arms around his waist from behind before putting it in gear and turning the throttle. We’d never sat this close together before—not ever. I was pressed up against the back of him, our bodies touching from knees to shoulders. I’d ridden with other people a few times, but it had never felt this intimate.

  “Relax,” Nik said over his shoulder. “I know what I’m doing.”

  But the tension coiling through my body had nothing to do with the bike or his riding ability and everything to do with him. With his body, snug between my legs.

  Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, Nik and I shared a kiss. It was back during his possessed-by-a-god days, and the god, Re, had flipped out almost the moment our lips touched. It had been a breaking point for Re, forcing him to wrest back control from his host. It had had the feel of a last-straw moment. A shattering of a pact between the two beings sharing his body.

  We’d never talked about it, about any of it—the kiss, the explosion, Nik’s increasingly tenuous relationship between himself and his now-former resident god. Considering Nik’s arm’s-length attitude, I doubted we ever would. But sitting there, my legs straddling his, I couldn’t help but wonder what if?

  Nik braked at a stop sign, placing his feet on the pavement on either side of the bike, and turned his head so he could see me. “Where to?” We were at a literal fork in the road—right would take us to the hospital, left back to my shop. But there was nothing left for us at the hospital. At least, nothing urgent.

  “Back to the shop?” I said, resting my chin on Nik’s shoulder. After the events at the Columbia Center, I had no doubt that the police would eventually find their way there, but I figured we had at least an hour or two. I was planning to head back to Bainbridge—finally—where I would give the Dom situation my full attention, but there were things I needed to grab from my place. Things I didn’t want the cops or anyone else to find, my tarot cards and the At ink chief among them.

  Plus, I stank. I reeked of mildew and seaweed, thanks to my dip in the waterway and the slow dry that had followed. The smell was strong enough that I couldn’t ignore it; it had to be overwhelming to Nik. “I could really use a shower.”

  “You said it . . .” Nik turned the throttle, launching the bike forward before I could smack him.

  We arrived at the shop less than ten minutes later, parking in the back alleyway, right near the shop’s back door. It felt like weeks since I’d been home, though it had been less than a day. So much had happened. Too much. I didn’t want to think about it all.

  The shop would be opening in a couple hours, and I needed to be far from there when it did. I had to clean up and clear out—or clear out as much as I could as the place’s owner. It was too risky to hang out there, and the cops paying me a visit was the least of my worries. Mari was a loose cannon, and I was a loose thread. I didn’t know if anything she’d said was the truth, or if had all been a lie to ease her getaway. Would she come after Nik again? How badly did she need him? What kind of bargain might she try to strike next—either Nik helps her or she kills me? Lex? His mom? None of those were acceptable possibilities.

  I unbuckled my sword’s shoulder harness as I tromped up the stairs to the apartment ahead of Nik. I unlocked the door and shouldered it open, already shrugging out of my stinky leather coat. “I’ll be quick,” I told Nik as I crossed the living room to the kitchen. I set the coat and sword on the table, then pulled out a chair and sat with a groan, bending over to untie my combat boots. Salt had crusted into the laces, making the knots insanely stubborn.

  “Looks like you had to go through a regeneration cycle,” Nik said from just behind my chair.

  I froze while untying my boot, peering at him out of the corner of my eye. I hadn’t noticed him draw so close. He was looming over me, his gaze scrutinizing, eating a piece of cold pepperoni pizza.

  I finished untying the right boot and moved on to the left. “Will you grab me a piece? Or just pull out the whole thing?”

  His shadow moved away from me. “Mari wasn’t sure how bad she got you with that knife.” I heard the fridge open, then close, and Nik set a ziplock bag of cold pizza slices on the table near the edge. “Bad enough for you to look like you just escaped from a prison camp.”

  I tugged my left boot off. “Gee, thanks.” I pulled off the other boot, then straightened and grabbed a piece of pizza. “So what happened to you, anyway? Garth barely survived . . .”

  “But he did?” Nik pulled out the chair opposite mine. It wasn’t a large table, so it didn’t put him more than four feet from me. “I wasn’t sure he would.”

  Chewing, I nodded. “He’s in ICU at Harborview. I visited him while we were waiting for Dom—” The words caught in my throat. I took another bite of pizza, then set the half-eaten piece on the plastic bag and dug around in my coat until I found my phone. Dom’s eyes were closed, but at least he was still there. I’ll fix this, I promised him silently. I retrieved the piece of pizza. “Garth said a Nejeret attacked you guys and knocked him out, and when he came to, you were gone.”

  Nik nodded slowly, nibbling on pizza crust. “The fucker jumped us. Hopped right off the overpass and landed on my shoulders, knocking me out cold for a few seconds. I came to my senses and managed to shove him off the cop before, well . . .” Nik laughed under his
breath. “Not soon enough. I’m just glad the guy’s alright.”

  I leveled a steady stare across the table on Nik. “And the Nejeret—what happened to him?”

  Nik met my eyes, then looked away, a wry grin on his face as he shook his head. “I don’t know. Mari showed up before I could finish him. She would only agree to take me to you if I let the little shit live.” His pale eyes returned to mine, shining unexpected emotion. He smirked, ruining the moment, and said, “I couldn’t let you fade into nonexistence, now could I, Kitty Kat?”

  I’d have been flattered that he cared if I didn’t know that he was even more attached to this world as it was now than Mari was. If I were to be erased from the timeline, millennia of Nik’s life would be altered, thanks to the complicated tangle of time travel. I’d never considered that the ramifications of my life might be so far-reaching. But they were.

  I looked at the Eye of Horus tattooed on my palm. Maybe Nik and Mari would’ve returned in time, before the anti-At infecting my body erased me completely, and maybe Mari would’ve released Dom’s ba, allowing it to return to his body. Maybe Nik would’ve listened to Mari, agreed with her logic about saving our people, and gone to work with her at Ouroboros of his own free will. Maybe. But maybe not. We’d never know.

  I pulled another slice of pizza from the Ziploc bag, then tossed the bag across the table to Nik. “Do you think she’s right?”

  Nik raised his eyebrows.

  “Mari. Do you think she’s doing the right thing?” I rolled my eyes. “Trying to ‘save our people’?”

  Nik took a big bite of pizza, inhaling and exhaling slowly through his nose while he chewed. The way his squared jaw worked, defining the contours of his face that much more, made him almost irresistible. Finally, he swallowed, then spoke. “I think Mari thinks she’s doing the right thing.”

  “Nice non-answer.”

  Nik shrugged one shoulder.

  “Do you think it would really be so bad . . .” . . . if the world knew about us? It sounded so ridiculous in my head that I shoved the thought away, shook my head, and stood. “Never mind.” I didn’t have the energy for what-ifs right now. I headed into the hallway. “I’m showering. I’ll be out in a few.”

  “Yes,” Nik said. “It would be so bad.”

  I paused, my back to him and a hand against the hallway wall. “But if they see that we’re not evil . . .” They being the humans.

  “It’s never about good and evil, Kitty Kat. I’ve seen countless civilizations rise and fall, and in the end, it always comes down to two things—us versus them, and power.”

  “In this case, are we ‘us’ or ‘them’?”

  “We’re ‘them’—the other—and we have power. The humans can’t help but want to take it from us. It’s in their nature.”

  Hanging my head, I trudged into the bathroom. But I wasn’t convinced he was right. I wasn’t convinced the humans were our enemies—or that we were theirs. I wasn’t convinced we couldn’t all live together, peacefully, out in the open.

  One day, maybe . . .

  But not today. Today was for the enemy within. The Senate. Or the shadow Senate. We had to eliminate that threat before we could even think about a world filled with hand-holding and kumbayas.

  After I no longer smelled like a dried-up seal carcass.

  25

  By the time I emerged from my bedroom, clean and in fresh jeans and a black tank top, Nik was gone. It hadn’t even been ten minutes, but I wasn’t surprised, exactly. At least, not by his absence. I hadn’t really expected him to stick around, not when he’d been in the wind for years. But I was surprised by the disappointment I felt at finding the apartment empty. Specifically, empty of him.

  As I stuffed clothes into a duffel bag, I wondered where he’d gone. Off to return to his lifestyle as a wandering nomad? Or was he joining up with Mari’s mission to save the world, one human-turned-Nejeret at a time? My motions became jerkier and jerkier as I crammed only the essentials into the bag—underwear, socks, jeans, tank tops and T-shirts, a zip-up hoodie. The bastard could’ve at least said goodbye.

  I hooked my arm through the bag’s handles and carried it into the kitchen by my elbow. Setting it on the table, I added my sword, knives, and other weapons and gear, then zipped it up. A quick trip into the office and I carried out a sturdy leather messenger bag packed full of sketching supplies and cash from the safe, the red leather jacket I used to wear on hunts slung over my arm. It had been in the weapons closet, and I hadn’t worn it in ages. Donning it was like stepping back in time.

  I could feel myself becoming her, the girl-assassin I’d been desperate to become at the start and had, by the end, loathed being. As the jacket settled on my shoulders, hugging my back and fitting perfectly around my arms, I realized I would always be her—just like I would always be the girl my mom raised, and the woman I’d become during my years of self-inflicted isolation from my people. Whatever else happened to me, those three personas would always be a part of me.

  Jacket on, I tucked my tarot deck into the front pocket, grabbed the last piece of pizza from the ziplock bag, and put it in my mouth, holding it by the crust with my teeth. I picked up both bags, settling the messenger bag across my body and hoisting the duffel onto one shoulder.

  I headed downstairs as I chomped on the piece of pizza, dropping my duffel on the table in the back room and going into the shop to grab my tattoo machine, a handful of sealed needles, a couple bottles of black ink, and Nik’s At ink. I placed everything in the padded carrying case I used for off-site jobs. The case looks a lot like an old-fashioned doctor’s kit and was actually my mom’s old apothecary case. She’d never been a fan of tattoos, but I doubted she’d have minded me using it, even for this.

  I set the case down by my duffel bag on the table and stopped by the counter to scrawl a quick note to Kimi on a sticky note.

  Kimi—I have a family emergency and will be out of town for a while. I’m not sure how long. I’ll call later today to check in, but please alert any clients I (or Nik) have this week. Thx!—K

  I stuck the note to the face of the register, where I knew Kimi couldn’t miss it, then crouched down to retrieve the spare key to the upstairs apartment that I kept duct-taped to the underside of the counter in a tiny manila envelope. On the not-so-off chance that Mari or Ouroboros came after me here and ransacked the place, I didn’t want them gaining easy access to my apartment. The door was reinforced and quadruple-locked, and I’d slowly renovated the windows and walls over the years, replacing and reinforcing for the highest security I could afford.

  Someone knocked on the shop’s glass door.

  Fingers still searching the rough surface for the key, I peeked over the top of the counter. “Shit,” I hissed, ducking back down immediately. The police had come sooner than I’d expected.

  Two cops stood at the door, one peering in, hands to the glass over his eyes, the other leaning back, scoping out the storefront. I didn’t recognize either of them from Garth’s station or the ICU waiting room, so I assumed they weren’t here to bring me news about Garth—not that I really thought I’d have warranted such a visit, but still. It was a possibility. But not the most likely one.

  No, these cops were here because of what happened less than an hour ago downtown. Back at Ouroboros, Nik and I had left the male cop locked on the roof terrace with the Ouroboros guards, and we’d made it down to the bike without encountering his partner. It would’ve been a breeze for them to ID me—either by security cameras or by taking down the plates on my illegally parked motorcycle. However they’d done it, they’d tracked me back here. I’d expected as much, just not this quickly.

  I stuck my whole head under the counter to find the damn key and tore the damn thing free of the underside of the counter, then crawled into the backroom, sliding under the beaded curtain to avoid creating movement that would draw the officers’ attention. The longest strings of beads ended not quite a foot off the ground, giving me just enough room to w
iggle underneath.

  The cops rapped on the door again. “Police! Open up!”

  I grabbed my duffel bag and the carrying case and rushed down the short hallway to the back door. It led to the alley driveway, where some of the other shops and the single cafe on my block received deliveries. I fully intended to make a quick getaway on the Ducati, bags and all, then ditch it in some other neighborhood to catch a bus to the ferry. Reprehensible as the thought was, the bike was too recognizable to take with me for farther than a few miles.

  I yanked open the door and sucked in a breath to let out a startled scream.

  Nik’s hand clapped over my mouth, and he stepped in through the doorway, shoving me back against the hallway wall. “You’ve got visitors,” he said, his face inches from mine, and I nodded.

  This close, I could see the whitish, almost iridescent flecks interspersed throughout his blue irises, giving them that eerie, pale hue. I’d never seen them so up close, and I wondered if the iridescence had grown over time, evidence of the increasing power of his sheut. He was the oldest of our subspecies, Nejerets with sheuts, and he’d had the most time to develop his otherworldly power, to hone his skills. Had his irises been bluer, once upon a time? One day, would the blue fade away completely?

  Nik’s hand fell away, and he took a step backward. His other hand held up a tray with two coffee cups, and a grease-stained paper bag lay on its side on the asphalt in the alley behind him. “Now might be a good time to make like a tree and get the fuck out of here.”

  Again, I nodded.

  Nik backed through the doorway, doing a quick scan of either direction, and held out his hand. “Give me your bag.”

  There was no question that he meant the duffel, and I didn’t argue. He was bigger and stronger, and me carrying so much would just slow us down. I dropped the bag to the floor and kicked it to him while I readjusted the messenger bag’s strap on my shoulder.