Bound by Ink (A Living Ink Novel)

by Marcella Burnard

  Love? The knife twisted. She gasped.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Take it easy. Let the concept sink in. I’m not taking it back. Marry me. I’ll prove it.”

  “Ask again when I get back,” she hedged. Did that make her a coward? More of a coward?

  “Deal. Now. Let’s get what you need . . .”

  “No.” Isa pulled away and glared around the room. “I go alone. I need you, all of you, here. Safe.”

  Oki, Nathalie, and Troy stared at her, theirs brows furrowed.

  “Uriel took Murmur,” she said. “He wouldn’t hesitate to take any of you. Every single one of you can be used against me. All he has to do it threaten you. I’ll cave.”

  “We love you, too,” Nathalie said.

  Isa flushed.

  “If you will allow me,” Master Masatoshi said, “I am an old man. Wiry and hard to capture. I will hold your door.”

  Isa gaped at the older man. “You speak English?”

  “I am out of practice,” the master said. Dialect changed the shape of the words and Isa had to listen hard in order to comprehend. “I understand more than I speak.”

  “Your English is better than my Japanese,” Isa said.

  Grinning, he waggled a finger at her. “Never flatter an old man. We’re too vulnerable. Allow me to atone for the mistake that took your tattoo.”

  Isa hesitated. More magic users meant more possible weapons available to Uriel’s hand. And she’d left the only living Ink Master in the world waiting patiently for permission he did not need.

  “Thank you. I’d be honored,” she said.

  He inclined his head briefly. “Then make use of this.” He held up a bottle of her binding ink. “It will serve you where you go.”

  Isa shook her head. “I’ll go physically into Uriel’s world. He won’t be Live Ink. I don’t see . . .”

  Masatoshi sloshed the jar back and forth, uttering a dismissive noise. “This does not bind Ink.”

  “Sure it does. I’ve relied on it too often to do just that.”

  “No,” he said, eyes twinkling, his lips curving as if he kept a delicious secret.

  “Master Masatoshi, it does. It binds the magic that . . .” Isa broke off on a sharp inhalation, hearing what she’d said.

  He put the vial into her hands. “First lesson, apprentice. Learn to see your true gifts.”

  “It binds magic,” she breathed, staring at the black fluid. It had bound the hydra, and the Magic Eater. She could use that. Surely, she could turn it into a weapon against Uriel. Somehow.

  Masatoshi hefted her last vial of bind ink and tucked it into his pocket.

  “Steve?” she said, tucking the bottle into her pack. “On my desk is a notebook. It was stolen from a teenaged girl. She needs it back. She also needs training.”

  “We’ll handle it,” he said. “When you get back.”

  She nodded. “Would you go upstairs, please? I’m going to break a few Acts of Magic laws I’d prefer you not witness.”

  “This is how it starts, isn’t it? My slide into a life of crime?” he quipped, setting foot to the stairs. “I’ll be waiting.”

  She summoned power. Molten gold rose to her hands. Isa whispered a chant similar to the one Jaiden had used to blur her magic. She threaded intention into the shield she erected around herself. If she held it properly, she wouldn’t be invisible per se, but other magic sensitives would fuzz out if they attempted to look directly at her. Cameras and electronic surveillance equipment would pick up static. Not Isa.

  Masatoshi’s crystal clear magic joined hers, buoying her spell so that it floated, weighing next to nothing in her magical grasp.

  Oki nodded and opened the basement door for them.

  Isa and Masatoshi strode into a windy, warm spring afternoon. White rags of clouds scudded overhead. A sodden wad of newsprint dissolving in one of the alley mud puddles squished beneath her sneaker.

  Someone had a panel van backed up to the open loading dock of the self-storage place that shared the alley. Ria stepped into the open door. Without a word, he gestured to the back of the van.

  Emanuel slouched in the driver’s seat, giving no indication that he’d spotted either of them.

  Isa and Master Masatoshi climbed into the van via the open back doors and sat down. Emanuel jerked upright.

  Ria snapped something in Spanish and closed the doors after them. A moment later, the building’s loading door slid shut. Ria climbed into the van’s passenger seat. “Drive. Do not look. Drive.”

  Emanuel aborted a glance over his shoulder, started the van, and pulled out. The potholes in the alley rattled Isa’s teeth.

  Master Masatoshi grimaced.

  They didn’t have far to go. Within minutes, the van slowed to a stop on gravel that crunched and popped beneath the tires. Emanuel backed the van up, put it in Park, and shut it off.

  “No police,” Ria said to the windshield. Without waiting for a reply, he got out of the van, came around to the back, and opened the doors. He grabbed a toolbox.

  Emanuel joined him at the back of the van. Seeming to have regained his composure, he picked up a milk crate piled with power tools, dangling cords, and at least one crowbar. His gaze didn’t waver. Turning away, he followed Ria into one of the marinas that lined the shores of the ship canal.

  Isa hopped out of the van and held out a hand for Master Masatoshi.

  He accepted her assistance.

  They followed Ria and Emanuel, the wooden dock rocking and flexing beneath their weight.

  The fishing boat Isa had last seen when Daniel and Uriel had tried to kill her was moored at the end of the dock, lines creaking as the metal hulk shifted in the wind. Yellow police tape fluttered on deck.

  Ria ducked beneath the police tape blocking the gangway. He stood back, lifting the tape for Emanuel, Isa, and Masatoshi. They replayed the same scene at the door to the hold.

  Isa shivered in the chill of the damp hold. Little evidence of the police investigation remained. She thought she detected a smeared chalk outline beside the door.

  Ria closed the door. Metal clanged on metal, ringing like a hollow gong.

  “Okay,” Isa said.

  Emanuel dropped his milk crate.

  “Sorry, Emanuel,” she said. Relaxing her shield, Isa strode into the center of the hold, studying the floor.

  Masatoshi followed, but halted outside the outer edge of the circle.

  “What has happened?” Ria demanded.

  “Emanuel couldn’t see me,” Isa answered. “Or Master Masatoshi. I suspect he can now.”

  “Yes,” Emanuel said, voice shaking.

  Isa nodded.

  Daniel and Uriel’s circle remained on the steel floor of the hold in thick, dark stains on the chipping pale green paint.

  “Could not see you?” Ria repeated, doubt in the drawn-out question.

  “Master Masatoshi and I used magic to shield ourselves,” she said. “Our intent was to hide from other magic users and from cameras. Can either of you see the circle here on the floor?

  “Don’t cross into the interior,” she warned as they approached, staring where she pointed.

  She didn’t know why Masatoshi had stopped at the edge of the circle, but he’d been practicing magic longer than she’d been alive. With more power than she’d ever encountered in a single human being. She’d respect the fact that he probably had very good reason for staying outside.

  “Sí,” Ria said. “Here and there.”

  Standing in the middle of the inner circle, in the exact spot where she’d been chained four weeks ago, Isa called up power. She directed golden energy into the lines on the floor.

  Motes of light rose from the circles, swirling in the dim light of the hold. “Have the circles changed at all?”

  “Sí,” Emanuel said.
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br />   “No,” Ria said in the same moment. The two men traded a glance. Ria looked at her, frowning. “What?”

  “You have no magic,” Isa said. “Not the slightest bit. It is power in its own right. Because you have no magic, you could see us when Emanuel couldn’t.”

  “You have done magic Emanuel can see, but I cannot,” he finished for her.

  “Yes. Because you have no magic, you were able to kill the Magic Eater that attacked your friend, Walter,” she said. “If I fail, Uriel will break through into this world. Only people like you will be able to battle and kill his Magic Eaters.”

  Ria drew himself upright. “Good hunting, señora. You and I do not want me to be this city’s hope.”

  She met Master Masatoshi’s gaze. The light cast by her magic highlighted the creases at the corners of his eyes.

  “Powerful life force opened this way,” he said, flicking his fingers at the circles and text scrawled around the inside of each of the circles.

  “Yes. I closed it three weeks ago, but it did not lock,” she said. “I didn’t know it required another sacrifice.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t.”

  “Murmur said . . .”

  “When you are on the other side, spilling the life blood that opened this gate will cut your tie to this world. Remember that. This world has a string tied to you. It will guide you home.” He retrieved the vial of bind ink he’d taken from her basement.

  “If I kill Uriel, I can’t come back?” she squeaked as he pulled the stopper on the ink.

  He flung the contents of the bottle into her face.

  Isa gaped, blinking ink smelling of sweet earth and herbs out of her eyes.

  “You will . . .” Master Masatoshi began.

  Footsteps pounded on the metal deck, echoing through the empty ship.

  Emanuel hefted the crowbar from his milk crate, spun on the door, and jammed the mechanism securing the hatch.

  The door rattled.

  “AMBI!” a male voice, muted by the hull, shouted. “You’re surrounded. Come out with your hands up!”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Go!” Ria ordered.

  Cool, clear magic exploded up from the circles and symbols on the floor. It washed straight through her. Master Masatoshi’s energy effervesced through her awareness. Her feet no longer touched the floor.

  She laughed, delighted by the easy duet of power lighting up the portal Uriel had carved into the ship’s deck a month ago. The edges of the outer circle glowed red. Metal stretched like taffy.

  The deck beneath Isa fell into the bowel of the ship.

  She didn’t.

  No sound followed. Not the thunder of metal impacting metal. No more words from the AMBI. Nothing but the rush of hot wind.

  Isa did what she intellectually knew she shouldn’t do. She looked down. And saw neither the engine room nor the bilge of a fishing boat.

  Darkness punctuated by flickering red-orange lay beneath her feet. Acrid, sulfur-y smoke curled around her ankles, tugging. Pulling her down.

  Into hell?

  Still buoyed by her Ink Master’s power, she grinned. Hell was no problem. She’d been to Xibalba.

  Masatoshi’s magic ebbed as she sank through the portal. Out of her world. Into Murmur’s. Into Uriel’s. Euphoria drained, too.

  Isa drew a breath of thick, heated air that stung her throat and lungs. Coughing, she tried to shield. Molten amber crashed through her, searing the pathways that circulated her magic the same way her veins did blood.

  Her feet touched ground. Her body, confused by the change of worlds, declined to remain upright. Croaking a protest, she collapsed. Her backpack pulled on her shoulders.

  Charred, blackened stone crunched under her weight. It stank of old fire and burning hate. The scent of scorched cotton and the pinpricks of fire digging into her flesh made her yelp. She scrambled upright and shucked her pack to pat out the smoking holes burned into the canvas.

  Sweat beaded on her skin. She glanced around, slinging the pack to her right shoulder, then turned a complete circle. Twisted, crumbling stone ruins littered the landscape. Sullen fire ate at the lifeless structures as if gnawing the bones of an old kill. A suffocating pillow of smoke haze pressed the sky down to the tops of the hills surrounding her.

  How the hell was she supposed to find Murmur in this?

  Wiping away the remnants of the ink Masatoshi had thrown at her, Isa tipped her head to look up.

  No portal in the smog. No hint of Seattle.

  Only heat seeping through the soles of her sneakers and fear trailing icy fingers down her spine.

  She turned to what she knew. Magic. Rather than summoning it, though, she turned inward. The river that usually ran so calmly through her core had risen, churning, frothing over the banks.

  She intended to draw up a filament of energy. A flood answered. It slammed into her control, sloshing over the top. Power surged through her body, crashing into bones and piling up against the confines of her skull.

  Isa clapped her hands to her head as if that could keep the top from blowing off. Gasping, choking on smoke, she grounded. Once. Twice.

  The grit beneath her feet burst into gold flame. It smelled like a prairie fire consuming sagebrush.

  Heart pounding, she leaped out of the spreading glow, staring. What did she do when what she’d been taught regarding magic handling no longer applied? Could she shield? Without adding insult to the injury already done this world?

  Where was Murmur? She had to find him. Closing her eyes, she dabbled her fingers in the magic eroding her, and pictured him, concentrated on tasting smoky caramel. The smoke part was easy.

  She fed her desire to find him into the power rushing through her. It ripped her intent from her psychic grasp, and sent it tumbling away on the violent surge.

  Her heart stumbled.

  In this world she couldn’t even trust the most intrinsic part of herself. Clenching her fists, Isa opened her eyes, picked a direction that looked the least obstructed by the corpses of the city, and started walking.

  Which turned into scrambling.

  As the landscape climbed, her sneakers found no purchase on the loose rubble. Panting in shallow sips, trying to keep the grit and burning smoke from the depths of her lungs, Isa achieved the top of a low rise. Her pulse beat in the drum of her head.

  She crouched in the middle of what might once have been a street, hoping that the lower layers of air would be easier to breathe. Cooler maybe.

  The heat emanating from the mortally wounded land dashed her hopes. Eyes watering, she dropped her forehead to her knees.

  She offered up a mental apology to the gods of Xibalba. Terrifying as their realm had been, this was worse. At least she’d had a path through the murderous trials of Xibalba.

  In this dying world, she could wander the rest of her life searching for Murmur without . . .

  Silver flashed.

  She jerked upright. A shining column of light beckoned, a quarter of a mile to her right.

  Uriel.

  Sweet caramel burst across her senses.

  “Murmur.”

  Black power slammed her into a stone wall three feet behind her. Some living thing in the wreckage at her back screamed and fled in a flurry of claws screeching on stone. A rock the size of her head crashed to the charred ground beside her.

  “Ow. Damn it, Murmur.”

  Pain and seething hatred not her own crushed her into the rubble. Inky fear, like clawing tree branches, twisted up through the gold of her magic. Fear for her.

  How did she know that? How had his magic affected her from so far away? Isa struggled to her feet.

  Her backpack lay in smoking tatters. It had taken the brunt of her impact. Crystal glinted, reflecting the red embers still smoldering in the canvas. Her binding ink
. She grabbed it. Her only weapon. Or was it her only defense?

  Where she’d hit the rock wall, stone had melted. It glowed and seeped like tears down the sagging façade.

  Wheezing, chest aching as she fought for breath, Isa fastened her gaze on the pillar of silver lighting up a swath of hell. Her lips lifted in a silent snarl.

  The black talons of Murmur’s concern caught hold of a solid bit of her psyche and began digging.

  She yelped. How in hell was he doing that? Molten gold magic, channeled by a shadow of Murmur’s power, spilled into the fresh wounds. Her breath hissed in between her teeth at the discomfort. Then what he was trying to show her registered. Magic in his world required surrendering control. No taming it or herself. Diametrically opposed to everything she’d ever been taught.

  Shaking, Isa surrendered to the undertow of power. It surged, an unstoppable tide, rising over her head. She floundered. The flood buoyed her upright and snatched her into a powerful current tumbling toward Murmur as if he were the sea to which she returned.

  Gold fire sprang up beneath her every step.

  Satisfaction, seasoned with dark barbs of worry, ghosted through her awareness. Muscles trembling as if her power drew across the strings of her sinews like a bow, Isa strode through the ruins without taking her gaze from the flare of Uriel’s magic.

  As she closed the distance, she caught sight of white-winged creatures circling Uriel’s beacon. They reminded her of oversized barn owls. She knew better.

  Magic Eaters.

  Her mouth went dry. No looking at them. She fastened her gaze on the broken ground in front of her feet.

  “At last.” The mellifluous baritone stopped Isa in her tracks. A shiver wracked her and the uncontrolled flood of magic sank into the barren ground of her fear.

  She wavered on the edge of what might have once been a square marred by what looked like an impact crater. The open space fronted an enormous pile of blasted-down, pulverized rock. The surfaces of the shattered stone gleamed, reflecting Uriel’s spotlight.

  He stood, basking in his own radiance. He’d flung his shining white wings wide, and tipped his beautifully sculpted features skyward.

  Isa’s grimy, ink-stained fingers convulsed on her vial of binding ink. Where was Murmur?