by Jenn Stark
“Got to be a trap,” I agreed. “But why? These poor souls aren’t strong enough—they can’t be augment slaves. And Gamon wasn’t here. Nowhere near the place, in fact. But his mark is all over these people.”
“His isn’t the only one.” Nikki gestured me over to where a man lay muttering against the wall. He was Asian, and he spoke with rapid words, sentences spilling out though he never opened his eyes. I shrugged at Nikki, and she pointed to the man next to him, who was holding the victim’s hands. The EMT looked up, giving us a grim smile.
“I can’t make out a lot of it,” he said, “Just the name Soo or Soup, a plea for help, a number of some sort that gets garbled, and the whole thing over again. I don’t know what that means, other than the plea.” He scanned the traumatized group. “That’s easy enough to understand.”
“Soo,” I said, frowning at Nikki. “Gamon has been stealing Soo’s own people? For how long?” And does she know?
Even as I thought the words, I grimaced. Of course she knew, somehow. Soo’s hatred of Gamon was rooted in family. She might not care about a drug accusation, but her people were a different story. If they’d been taken by Gamon, she would have done anything in her power to find them and free them. And now, if they turned up in Vegas—she would come here too. Personally. To help them recover, to ensure their safety, to bring them back into her family.
“This guy seems kind of new.” Nikki’s words cut across my thoughts. “Ink only a couple of months old.” She grimaced. “About that too. Those are long, ugly marks. The trauma of those tattoos are going to be pretty significant even after these people’s minds heal. Too small to hide. Too in-your-face to ignore.”
“I know.” As I spoke, though, I pressed back at the Magician’s inexorable presence. He wanted to hang out in my brain while I was too busy to fully block him, fine. But he could do something for me while he was at it. He could call someone who could help—help these Connecteds recover in a way no mere mortal could.
I sensed the moment Armaeus understood what I was asking and braced myself against his laughter, amused and cold. Then he was gone.
Relief skittering through me, I nodded to Nikki, once again fully in control of my mental faculties. “I know,” I said again. “But we have to get them checked out first. They could have far bigger problems than ink to deal with.”
“Most of them, no, so far,” Nikki said. “But it’s a lot to process.”
“We’re shipping them all to Vegas East,” the EMT said. “New acute care facility opened this month, big enough to take this crew. We’ll triage there, take those who need to hospitals, or psych wards. From the looks of it, we’ll have a little of both.”
I lifted my brows at Nikki. “Vegas East?”
Nikki shrugged. “We’re thinking the same thing. But in this case, roll with it.”
Hours later, we sat in front of the newly minted facility, a lab run and serviced by none other than Dr. Margaret Sells, in affiliation with all the major hospitals and care units in the area. The good doctor had seen us when we entered, but she hadn’t stopped working. None of them had stopped working except for us, finally. Brody had left to do paperwork, and now Nikki and I squinted into the sunlight as it finally crept over the far horizon.
“So, spill, sister,” she finally said.
I had my elbows on my knees, but I managed enough energy to peer over to her. She was still rocking the Emma Peel look, elegantly unmussed despite the night’s demands.
“Spill what?”
“Your little mental throw down with Armaeus has been pretty much blasting my brains into the next zip code tonight. Why’s he so cranky?”
I blew out a long breath. “He… I told you this.”
“Tell me again. Because clearly I missed something.”
I sighed, thinking of all the easy answers I didn’t want to share. I thought of the truth. In that moment, it was harder to lie than it was to simply put things plainly. “That woman Armaeus loved for all those years, he still loves. When I sort of acted like I was going to kill her, he knew he was being manipulated, but not why exactly. Not until I staked him in the chest.”
“And that’s when he became immortal. He stopped you with magic, and that magic set him free.” She eyed me. “He seems way too pissed for that, though.”
“Yeah, well. He’s… He’s different. Something’s changed about him. I can’t figure out what, exactly. I don’t know what he left behind in Hell, or what he brought back with him, and I don’t know who to ask.”
“You could hit up Kreios.”
“I could, but I think Kreios is in on it.” I shook my head. “The Devil’s not the leader of Hell or anything, that much is true, but there’s some connection there that I missed. Somehow I trusted when I should have doubted, zigged when I should have zagged. And now…” I shrugged. “Now it’s too late to go back to the way things were. I broke something, somehow. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
We fell silent then, and for a long time listened to the sound of the rolling carts and rushing bodies behind us, as the sun inched higher in the sky.
Eventually, the sound of a motor broke the silence. Not the soft purr of a car, but the angry roar of a motorcycle, open at full throttle.
Nikki and I watched as the rider blasted into the hospital parking lot, the bike screaming around the corner. Additional trucks appeared on the horizon, rolling fast. Then the motorcycle screeched to a halt in front of us, the rider swiveling her head to take us in with her dark-eyed glare as she cut the engine and sat back hard on her seat.
“You called?” Death asked.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Death wasn’t the most unusual member of the Arcana Council, but she was right up there. And when she didn’t go by her Council role, she was known simply as Blue. Proprietor of Darkworks Ink Tattoo shop and internationally famous automotive airbrush virtuoso.
Tall, muscular, and rangy, Blue sported platinum-blonde hair that was cut in a severe shave up one side of her head, while flopping in a ragged slash over the other. She was dressed today in what I’d come to recognize as her usual attire, faded jeans and a muscle shirt that allowed the tattooed sleeve that decorated one arm to glisten in the morning light. She swung her leg over the bike and pushed the machine up beside us on the sidewalk. I was pretty sure no one would bother it there.
I sent Armaeus a silent thanks for summoning her, but received nothing in reply.
“How many of them, and what condition are they in?” Blue asked. Behind her, at a distance, a paneled Darkworks Ink Tattoo Shop van bounced into the hospital parking lot, followed by a line of cars and SUVs and another handful of motorcycles.
Nikki let out a low whistle. “Bring on the cavalry.”
“Close to a hundred,” I said, taking in Blue as she blocked the sunlight, surprised at the difference in temperature from sitting in her shadow. I wanted to stand, I truly did, but I remained riveted to the chair for another moment as she watched me. “They’re in pretty bad shape, most of them. Some sedated, some sleeping it off, all of them in the throes of severe PTSD. I know Armaeus told you what I wanted—for you to somehow fix the tattooed glyphs on their arms, change them to something else, but…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “I have no idea how they’re going to handle that, especially since they can’t guide it.”
She snorted, lifting an arched brow. “You don’t think I can read the thoughts of a mortal and know its truth?”
“Ah…well, I guess you can.” I finally got up the guts to stand. I was surprised at the trembling in my legs, the gritty feeling of my eyes. I’d been through far worse than this, but for some reason, under Death’s regard, I felt unreasonably weak.
“Don’t worry about it.” Blue’s gaze had never left me. “I understand you’ve been through Hell and back.”
I coughed a short laugh as the rest of her team parked their vehicles and piled out onto the lot. From the paneled van came the rolling carts and guns, and the extra boxes of ink.
Jimmy Shadow, the manager of Darkworks Ink and Death’s right-hand man, wheeled the biggest cart over the handicapped ramp and up onto the sidewalk.
“They expecting us?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Not exactly.”
“This is how this will work,” Blue said, her voice not lifted so much as penetrating, causing all the volunteers as well as Nikki and me to stand a little straighter. “You touch no one until I’ve had a chance to touch them first. You work fast and clean, with a goal of getting out before your clients either wake up or understand the pain. They’ve had a lot of pain to deal with already. Most—” She quirked her head. “Some of them will be unconscious, so use a partner if you need to. Better to do it right than slip. I don’t want to be cleaning up your messes.”
That caused a ripple of laughter to flow through the tight group. I looked over them, not recognizing most of the artists. I sensed immediately they weren’t all Connecteds, though, and Death shifted her gaze to me.
“They’re solid,” she said. “They know the deal.”
It wasn’t anything I could worry about. “Then let’s go.”
Nikki and I led the small group in through the front doors. The security guards immediately balked until Blue lifted a soft hand, then they relaxed in place and nodded. Same with the doctors and the orderlies, and the additional guards.
“You ever think about going into prison security?” I asked.
She smiled grimly. “What drives most people is fear, followed by anger. That’s it. Douse the fear, cool the anger, and you have a lot fewer problems to deal with. It’s the truth in the inkshop, and it’s the truth out here too.”
The main ward of the hospital was a maze of makeshift walls and hospital carts, an endless warren of beds. It smelled antiseptic and, Death was right, filled with the latent fear of its inhabitants. That fear oozed toward us with a pale, sour odor, and she wrinkled her nose.
“Jimmy, see what you can do about getting these rolling walls out of here. If anyone wakes up, I want them to be able to see that they’re not alone.”
Jimmy peeled off and Death pivoted as Dr. Sells strode up, somehow managing to look fresh despite the fact that she’d been on her feet the entire night. “I’m sorry, I can’t allow you to introduce a new substance—” she began, then faltered as Death lifted her tattoo gun. This was a portable model, but still as big as my arm.
“Nothing I do today will damage your tissue samples or blood draws, Doctor,” Death said, her tone flat—almost antagonistic. Dr. Sells didn’t back down.
“Mr. Bertrand told me I had full authority to run this clinic specifically how it needed to be run.”
“And you do. But Mr. Bertrand also told you I’d be coming, didn’t he?”
Blue stared at the doctor, and the woman blushed, color rising in her cheeks.
“Not in so many words.”
“What did he say, then, specifically?”
“He said Miss—you, Sara.” Dr. Sells swiveled toward me. “You would be coming, and you would bring whatever you knew to be right and good for the patients. And I was not to stop you.” She grimaced. “Nor was I to test you.”
My brows shot up. “Test me?”
“Take your blood, your tissue. For research.” She sighed, glancing over the room of trauma victims. “There’s so much research that must be done to understand all this.”
“There’ll be time.” Death nodded to her team, and they flowed through the room quickly and efficiently, setting up stations as the wall partitions were wheeled to a far corner of the room. The security guards and orderlies started helping, and Death turned to me. “Anywhere I should start in particular?”
I scanned the space, my gaze falling on a young boy who’d been in the first set of slaves up on the auction block. He was awake and staring at Death with his too-wide eyes, and his mouth was moving in a silent plea. Whether he spoke to his God, his mother, or himself, I didn’t know. But I didn’t need to know.
“Him,” I said, gesturing. Blue turned, and when the boy saw her, his lips stopped moving, his eyes growing impossibly wider. He lost what color he had, and she nodded, her own face taking on an aspect I’d never seen before. She seemed suddenly…younger. Kinder. The sharp blades of her cheekbones easing, the harsh slash of her lips softening.
“Him, I will do myself. Jimmy?” Though the thin man had been nowhere near us, he trotted over quickly as Death stood contemplating the boy. “Prepare my gear at that bed. I’ll be a couple of minutes, going through the rest of the room. Let him know I won’t hurt him.” She tilted her head. “You speak Spanish, right?”
Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, boss. I speak Spanish. Which maybe you’d remember since you ask me about once a week.” But his voice was easy, relaxed, and he went to the boy with his own carefree gait, reaching out toward the shimmering vulnerability in the kid’s eyes without drawing attention to it. They’d done this before, I’d realized. This kind of work. This kind of healing.
“Tag with me,” Death said, and she set off. Wherever there was a station already set up, the artist in place, she paused and drifted a hand over the forehead of the sleeper if they were out, or simply picked up their hand if they were awake. She didn’t close her eyes, but her voice was soft and sure as she spoke to the artists at each bed. “Flowers—Lilies of the Valley,” she said for one young woman. “Ironman,” she said for another. “Religious—Catholic, but nothing too dark, okay?” she said for the third, a woman in her twenties whose mouth was soft and trembling. “Madonna and Child?” she asked, and tears sparked behind the woman’s eyes. Blue squeezed her hand.
“Pregnant,” Death said to me as we walked on, and I blinked in surprise, but she kept going. Men, women, teens alike, one a kid barely older than thirteen, passed beneath her gentle hands.
“Will they remember you?” I asked as she made her way back to the young Hispanic boy. Jimmy stood by his side, chatting with him as the boy rattled off quick words in Spanish, his manner wholly changed.
“Not me, specifically, not most of them,” she said, shaking her head. “They’ll remember that this happened, the face of their techs. They’ll remember that they gave their consent and that they chose the images that will mark them. They’ll remember why it was done and what it means. They’ll remember that they could be tracked before, and now they can be free. It’s enough.”
She strode up to the bed and hooked her foot around a rolling stool, drawing it close. Jimmy joined us, and she glanced at him.
“He’s ready.” Jimmy grinned, clearly enjoying himself a little too much. “He wants an image of Death.”
“Death?” Blue blinked at the young boy, who nodded, his eyes wide. He looked between her and Jimmy, his broad smile undimmed as he chattered.
“Death. The whole deal. Swooping cape, scythe, the more skulls the better.” Jimmy paused as the child spoke rapidly. “Happy skulls, like the Day of the Dead. Men and women who lived good lives and died good deaths.”
Blue laughed, and the sound made all the techs in the room pause, their heads coming up and swiveling toward her as if there’d been some disturbance in the Force. She waved them back to their work, then considered the boy.
“Death,” she said again, but the smile remained on her face. “I think we can work with that.”
She leaned forward, and her needle spun to life. Only then did I realize she wasn’t connected to the fancy array of bottles and inks next to her. She gave all the illusion of a traditional tattoo artist setup, but she worked strictly unplugged. As I watched her, my own tattoos flared to life on my own skin—not painfully, but with a heat that made me glance down to my right arm. So far, there were two, both inked by Death. The slashing path that had carried me to a demon’s bolt-hole in an alternate dimension, where I’d first encountered Warrick and the Syx…and a sinuous, snaking glyph that had led me to Atlantis.
Atlantis. I blinked as I suddenly recalled an image I’d buried in my mind, an image from Hell which I had no idea was fact or
fiction, illusion or real. I’d stumbled onto a floor that displayed a bursting constellation of stars, each of the heavenly orbs picked out in mosaic tile. The entire round room had been covered in rich paintings from the baseboards to the enormous curved ceiling, all of it leading to a center oculus of glass, which had filled the space with light. It wasn’t the beauty that had flummoxed me, though. Not completely. It was what was depicted in those paintings. And perhaps more importantly, who.
None of the current members of the Arcana Council could tell me what I needed to know, before. Eshe was by far the oldest, but she’d ascended to the Council around the time of Caesar. The Devil had ascended in the 1900s, as had the Emperor. The Fool had joined the most recently in the 1980s, I was nearly certain—although he wasn’t talking—and Armaeus, of course, had joined the fight in the twelfth century, leaving behind the woman of his dreams.
But now there was Michael. Michael, who’d thrown a dragon to earth to usher in an age of immortals on the planet, where angels and demons walked among humankind until the gods became too strong and were banished by the very people they believed they could rule. Michael had been there for that, and he’d been there for Atlantis as well. He would know the meaning of the paintings on those walls.
Michael was with Armaeus, though. That seemed not the best place in the world for me.
“Yo, dollface, heads up. Detective Dishy is back.” Nikki snapped her fingers in front of my face, and I blinked back to awareness. Sure enough, Brody was standing at the front of the room, scowling as he spoke to Dr. Sells. I hadn’t briefed him on my plan with the victims, but his CSI techs had already taken their pictures and written their notes. These people could get on with the job of living now. Of healing.
Brody wasn’t alone either. Standing next to him, her blonde hair perfectly coiffed despite the morning hour, her soft pink jersey dress and high-heeled sandals somehow exactly right in a hospital filled with sharp angles and discordant clanging, was Dixie Quinn. The two of them seemed right together too, and I smiled, surprised to find I didn’t so much care anymore about the long-ago crush I’d nursed for Officer Brody Rooks.