Spirited Words (The Freelancers Book 4)

by Lee Isserow

  “What do you expect me to do with it?” he asked

  “I dunno, sell it at the market?”

  “That seems like a lot of effort.”

  “Alright,” she said with a shrug. She threw it over her shoulder, and with a click of her fingers, a crack opened in reality, and the critter disappeared amongst the reflections and refractions between realms, which sealed up behind it.

  “If you think. . . you're getting paid. . . after this. . .” The manager huffed, finding his breath and words again as he recovered from the violation.

  Ana raised her eyebrows with a wry smile on her lips. “Okay. . .” With a click of her fingers, a foot-wide crack between realms appeared beside her, and she stuck an arm in, rummaging around theatrically. “I guess you want this guy back then. . .”

  “She means it,” Rafe warned.

  “Fine! Just close the damn thing up! Don't want it slipping through and―”

  “Slipping right back up?” Ana smirked, as she pulled her arm back I n and closed the rift.

  He led the way back to his office, and the two of them followed. Ana held up a hand for a high five, causing Rafe to stare at her incredulously. She refused to drop her palm until he conceded, and as their fingers met, he found himself smiling.

  Deep down, he had always kinda wanted to high five after a job well done.

  Chapter 12

  Before the week was out

  Peter sat in a booth at the back of the bar, nursing his fourth beer of the night. He had been drinking alone all week, couldn't bare the thought of having to talk to anyone. It would inevitably lead to him having to explain why he was covered in a mess of bandages, like some kind of bargain basement Halloween mummy costume.

  He was grateful that the tattoo artist wasn't chatty, but feared that anyone else would ask questions―and that would lead him being forced to tell the idiotic tale of why he had consigned himself to wearing a beanie hat indoors. The hat was now a constant part of his apparel when he left the house. It was the only thing he could think of to hide the mess he had made to his head.

  Peter had come out of the shower that morning with cling film wrapped around every bandage. It barely felt like a shower at all, his arms and legs and chest weren't exactly getting clean. . . Then he made the mistake of looking in the mirror as he combed his hair. Thinned by the water, he could see his scalp―and he couldn't believe what he saw on his scalp.

  Letters.

  The first thought that came to him was that it was his imagination, it had to be. And yet, he decided to take a pair of scissors in his hands, and began cutting.

  The more he saw of the letters, the more he cut, until he got right down as close to the scalp as possible. . . And there it was, staring right back up at him. In his own handwriting.

  'Just talk to her already!'

  It was in the same vein of all the other messages of late. Each had the same theme. As if the notes had been browsing his mind for a consistent thread, and as soon as tone had been found, they tugged as hard as they could.

  'Don't just order, ask about her day' was written two words a piece on each finger of his right hand.

  'She seems to like Springsteen...” on his shoulder.

  'What beautiful eyes' and 'Such perfect, kissable lips' on his thigh. And so on, and so on.

  Each of those he had covered with a thick, black bar of ink, the tattoo artist bemused by what she was covering up, but ever silent during their sessions.

  Despite his best efforts to obscure those messages, it felt as though that was just encouraging his skin to birth more and more phrases―as if the ink itself was fuelling them.

  Each of the phrases were things he had thought, absent-minded reflections or observations, all kept to himself, things that nobody else in the world knew.

  This wasn't a practical joke, that was certain now. This was some something. . . supernatural

  It had to be―but he didn't know how to phrase that without sounding completely insane, let alone combat and prevent it.

  All he knew was that at the rate this thing was progressing, he was going to be completely covered in tattoos before the week was out.

  Chapter 13

  Tomorrow-morrow

  Mallory tried her best to keep a smile on her lips as Ana and Rafe sat down at the bar. Another successful job, it seemed, and another excuse to celebrate. There was no denying it now, these were the only times she got to see her supposed best friend. The two of them drinking and laughing and throwing inside jokes back and forth.

  She had given up trying to involve herself in conversion, figuring that if Ana wanted her attention, she'd make it known. Much to her chagrin, she had taken to eavesdropping on exchanges between the two of them, not that it got her anywhere closer to understanding what the hell their job actually involved.

  They'd talk of realms and mirrors, use made-up sounding words like akaname and nanaue and gumberoo.

  Mallory was starting to wonder if Rafe had indoctrinated her best friend into some kind of Dungeons And Dragons group, or convinced her to get into League Of Legends or something.

  Either way, this wasn't the Ana she knew. It felt as if that woman disappeared as soon as she quit her awful job at the Factory. This new person wore her skin, her clothes, had her quirks, but felt as though she was someone completely different. A simulacrum, a refracted image of her best friend―to reuse some of the terms that she heard Ana and Rafe bat back and forth.

  As it looked like Rafe was going to excuse himself for the bathroom, Mallory decided to give Ana a chance to initiate conversation in his absence. She walked around the bar, went table to table, shooting polite smiles to the regulars as she grabbed their empty glasses. Biding her time, she strolled back and forth, waiting for Rafe to disappear before placing the glasses on the bar a little ways down from Ana.

  “How are you doing? Looks like you've got some sadness in your eye,” Ana said, reaching out to Mallory to give her a hug. “I feel like we haven't hung out in ages!”

  Mallory grit her teeth and forced a smile, trying to convince her eyes to acquiesce and play along with the curve of her lips, as she pulled away from the hug.

  “Yeah, I'm okay. Been busy here, y'know.”

  Ana glanced around the room, only six other customers dotted around, nothing close to a heaving crowd at the bar. “Of course. . .”

  It was obvious that something was wrong, but she couldn't work out what it might be. Mallory was usually the light in the room, bouncing around, always making things better and happier―but now she felt as though the light was dulled somehow.

  “We should go for a coffee. Really need to catch up, it's been forever!”

  Mallory's stare conceded to the will of her smile as it became genuine. A glimmer burst to life in her eyes as they became rheumy, despite her best intentions not to give away how much it meant to her.

  “I'd love that, when can you fit me in to your busy schedule with him?” Mallory didn't mean for it to sound bitchy as she indicated to Rafe's empty chair.

  “Oh shut up! You always come first, you know that!”

  Mallory smiled, refusing to reply to the comment. She didn't know that, not any more. But hopefully she'd know it again when they got to sit down and rekindle their friendship.

  “How about tomorrow?” Ana asked, quickly backtracking. “No, tomorrow-morrow, I think we have a job on tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow-morrow?”

  “Yeah, the morrow of tomorrow, y'know: day after next.”

  “Day after next is a much more common phrase.”

  “Well, I'm trying to coin tomorrow-morrow.”

  “What's happening tomorrow-morrow?” Rafe asked, as he returned from his stint in the bathroom and reclaimed his seat.

  “See,” Ana said, with a wry smile. “It's taking off already.”

  “What's taking off?” Rafe asked, confounded by what he had walked into.

  “Morning suit you?” Ana asked Mallory, ignoring him completely. ”D
on't think we've got anything on, could make a day of it.”

  “That sounds good!”

  “Are you talking about the day after tomorrow?” Rafe asked, finally catching up. “We have that thing.”

  “Thing?”

  “Over at the Market.”

  “Oh, dammit. How about tomorrow-morrow-morrow?”

  “You mean Wednesday?”

  “Saying 'Wednesday' is so passée.”

  “Wednesday is fine,” Mallory said, as she walked back around the bar to clean the glasses. She was starting to get the feeling that their conversation was going to be cut short by Rafe's reappearance.

  Her assumption was proven correct, as the two began nattering back and forth in hushed tones. She turned the music in the bar up to try and drown it out a little, but could still hear their laughing intermittently. And on top of that, no matter where else she looked, her periphery seemed to be forcing her to be aware of how much fun they were having. Even though all they appeared to be doing was tracing out shapes with their fingers on the bar.

  “Hey.” It was a voice from somewhere behind her, clearer than the conversation she was trying not to listen to.

  Mallory barely glanced up, briefly catching the eye of one of the regulars. He had sidled up to the bar at some point, a shadow standing at the far edge of her vision, stationary, as if frozen in place as he waited to be noticed.

  “What can I get you?” she asked, non-committally, her thoughts elsewhere, eyes dropping to the glasses in the dishwasher under the bar.

  “Beer,” he said.

  She tried to keep in the sigh at how vague he was, and pursed her lips into a smile as she waited doe him to take the cue and be more specific.

  “Paulaner.” he elaborated. “Pint. Please.”

  She tried once again to make the smile appear genuine and caught his eye as she let out a generic reply of “Coming right up.”

  As she took the glass to the tap and began to pour his beer, a bartender-alarm went off in the back of her head. A reminder her that this was his fifth beer of the night, and that was the point when some of their clientele tended to get a little rowdy. Not that he appeared to be the rowdy type, he looked like he was lonely, maybe a bit weird, but no weirder than any of the other regulars.

  She didn't quite get why anyone would wear a beanie in summer, let alone indoors, but also didn't care enough to ask. It was his fashion choice, his business, and she didn't want to get involved in anyone else's problems. Probably just going bald, she reckoned. To ask about it would just put them both in an embarrassing back-and-forth that she wanted no part of.

  Mallory took his money and went back to putting glasses in the machine. She dropped to her knees to continue, hiding out of view. The hum from the fridges behind her blocked out the titters and giggles from Ana and Rafe, which she very much appreciated.

  Against her better judgement, she found herself thinking about the hat guy. Their eyes met properly as they exchanged money to and fro. He had a sweet face, she reckoned, even with all the tattoos and bandages that looked as though they were covering yet more tattoos.

  She wondered if they were interconnected, his body turned into one big canvas made up of those black bars, or if his skin was just a random jumble of images, like a pin the tail on the donkey of patchwork art. The latter was never her thing, but if he had put thought and love into his ink, she reckoned she could appreciate it.

  Mallory scoffed to herself, smiled at the moment of clear-headedness. It was nice to think about anything other than her lapsed friendship―even if it was mulling on a vague consideration of attraction to one of the quieter, weirder regulars in the bar.

  She rose to her feet and slammed the dishwasher shut, hitting the button to kick off its fifteen minute cycle, glancing around the room for something to do in the meantime.

  Her glance landed on Rafe and Ana before she had a chance to send it anywhere else, but the smile didn't leave her lips. She was glad Ana was happy, truly. But also couldn't help feeling a little jealous. In all the time they had been friends, she couldn't recall ever seeing her so happy. And if that was the case, what did that mean for their friendship?

  Chapter 14

  Sleepwalking

  Another day, another trip, to get another tattoo.

  For the first time in a week or so, Peter woke without the thought in his head. But as soon as he forced himself out of bed to take a shower, he found it inscribed on his chest, and once again the phrase was batting back and forth in his skull

  A few hours later, a needle was rat-a-tating in and out of his skin, the vibrations punctuating against his ribs. He grit his teeth as the tattoo artist ran the gun over the thin skin that was a little too close to the bone, like thousands of microscopic fists were attempting to punch through his chest. This wasn't the euphoric sense he got from the tattoos inscribed on fleshier parts of his body. This was closer to some kind of light torture.

  However, he knew what that euphoria felt like, all too well now. And so Peter closed his eyes, and tried to recreate it in his mind.

  Following that train of thought, he tried to connect it to the idea that maybe this was going to be the last one―the last thought written on his body, and the last tattoo he'd ever have to get to hide that thought.

  He knew full well that these were high hopes, fantasies at best, but attempted to picture that fantasy with every fibre of his being. Peter tried with all his might not to let his mind wander back to the reality, in which, with all likelihood, his dreams would be not only dashed, but thrown on the ground and stamped into a barely recognisable mush.

  His thoughts strayed on, to the smile of the tattoo artist as he walked in. She was happy to see him―probably because he had spent close to three grand in the last week or two. That scepticism didn't stop him from being polite, putting everything he could into attempting to smile.

  In truth, smiling was the last thing he wanted to do. Whatever this damn curse was, whether it be sleepwalking to tattoo places in the night, or some nefarious spectre of ink past playing tricks on him, he needed it dealt with.

  Once again, Peter found himself leaving with yet more new bandages plastered across his body, yet more ink populating under his skin. He huffed and sat at the bus stop, chewing on his lip and tapping his foot impatiently. The bus was within sight, but caught at a traffic light all the way down the street. Then it became caught at the next light, and the next, as if the universe was mocking him all the more.

  As the bus got held up at the final light before reaching the stop, Peter dug his hand into his pocket and scrambled around for his Oyster card. He tugged it out, and grunted as he glanced down. There was another message, a new one. One that wasn't there when he woke up in the morning. This note wasn't made from his thoughts, it wasn't even close to a thought he could recall since this damn thing started to afflict him. And yet there it was, clear as day, as if the ink on his skin was trying to communicate a potential cure.

  'Sex will set you free'.

  Chapter 15

  Tring-a-ling

  “Are we there yet?” Ana grumbled.

  It was not the first time she had asked the question, but Rafe was hoping it was going to be the last. Their footsteps crunched on a blanket of dried twigs and foliage, as they walked through the forest. He had been keeping track of the volume of their steps, the louder the snaps and cracks, the closer they were to their destination.

  Rafe had tried to explain this to Ana, but her response was to stomp loudly on the forest floor, straight up mocking his tracking. She was trying to make light of the whole situation, trying to bring a smile to her own face, if not his as well. After all, the job they were on was a lot darker than their usual fare of late.

  A child had been reported missing, and Slugtrough was certain he knew the culprit―not that he cared about such trivialities as an abduction of a mundane. He was more interested in the magick contained in the creature's pelt.

  The two of them had been walking for
close to three hours, getting deep into the Czech Bohemian Forest, far from the beaten track. So far that the track itself was barely a memory. Ana was certain that they were lost, and even if they weren't lost and were closing in on the critter in question, she had no idea how they were going to find their way back to the ranger's station where she called the door.

  “Can't we just mist over there?” she whined. This was more exercise than she had been forced to do in a long time.

  “Leshi can sense mist.”

  “And it can't sense big ol' footsteps coming towards it?”

  “It can, but they're elemental, tied to nature, and have a massive lung capacity―”

  “He'd. . . breath us in?”

  “If we got too close, yeah. And nobody wants to be inhaled. . .”

  “No. Eww.”

  As they trudged onwards, the trees around them began to look sickly. Deeper still, they were dry and dead, looking as though they might fall apart at any given moment.

  Rafe pointed up ahead to a large mound of dead, decaying foliage, and indicated for her to be silent. She scowled, but cooperated. He gestured to the ground, laying his hand flat in front of him, then raised it two inches. She shrugged, no clue what he was indicating.

  With a sigh, he leaned over to her and whispered in her ear. “Raven's Lodge.” It was intended as an aural reminder of the first and last time she had used the casting, but it didn't seem to be firing off any memories. “No two objects ever really touch. . .”

  Her eyes lit up, a smile crawled across her lips as she cottoned on, remembering exactly what he was referring to.

  In a reversal of roles from that night, months and months previous, she lay her palm on the ground, and manoeuvred behind Rafe, looping her other arm around him.