by Lee Isserow
A guilty feeling started to bubble away in her gut. If she leaned in to read it, he'd know it was there and pull up his collar, try to hide it. She was of two minds, whether to invade his privacy by reading it or not. But there was no rush, the condition wasn't going anywhere. Not yet.
“Come for a walk,” she offered, all too aware of how long he had spent with his nose in books, getting nowhere. Ana could imagine the frustration that must have been building up as a result. She would have been frustrated at the notion of one book, let alone a library section full of them.
“I should really stay and―”
“Read books about cities?” she mocked, looking at the title of the latest book he had picked up, 'Mystical Morphology of Metropoli”
“Living cities. . . It could be related, a white cell reaction, like how Teloah spores infect a host to reproduce until they're under attack, at which point they turn into―”
“A zombie horde, yeah, who can forget. . . except this is an ailment, a disease, a transmutable curse or something. It's nothing to do with damn cities! You're getting myopic, so focussed on finding a damn cure that you've forgotten what you were looking for in the first place!”
Rafe grimaced. She was right.
He slammed the book shut, slotted it back on the shelf and followed her back down the spiral staircase to the ground floor, walking in a loop around the massive expanse of cracked paving. Moss and plants were breaking through beneath their feet, trying their very best to grow and bloom, as if to make up for all their tree brethren that were slain to make the paper for the thousands upon thousands of books that lined every wall of every floor of the library.
“You best not be doodling on my books!” the librarian shouted as they passed her desk. “I see your skin, boy. Doodlin' on it is one thing, but a drop of ink on my books, and I'll have your guts for garters.”
“I've never understood what that phrase meant,” Ana whispered. “Who'd want a garter made of guts? That's just going to be messy.”
“You'd wash it first,” Rafe suggested, with a smile.
Ana was glad to see him smile again, it seemed almost genuine. “And you'd have to treat the organs. Guts alone wouldn't make for a good garter, but if it was treated properly, cured? Is that the expression?”
“You're thinking of meat.”
“You cure leather. . .”
“I don't think you'd cure guts, leather wouldn't be stretchy enough for a garter.”
“That's probably why guts are preferable, they're all squishy, but the stretch is probably good for holding them in place. . .” She trailed off. Rafe's smile had faded, perhaps at the use of the word cure.
It was only then that she saw the librarian's expression. Wide eyes, fixed in a stare at Rafe.
“What?” Ana asked. “He told you he isn't going to write in your books. . .”
“I know. . .”
“Then what are you looking at?”
“It's. . . It can't be.”
“What?” Ana followed the librarian's gaze, circling Rafe to look at the side of his face that the old woman was staring at. The ink was coalescing, coming to the surface one pinprick at a time. But it wasn't creating words, it was drawing features over Rafe's own.
The librarian got to her feet, taking slow, frail steps towards them, her mouth dropped as she neared, eyes getting wider and wider, if that were even possible.
“What is it?”
“Can everyone stop staring at me?” Rafe mumbled, to a loud “Shh!” from Ana.
“It can't be. . .”
The closer she came to Rafe, the more ink came to the surface.
“Close your eyes.” Ana instructed.
“What?”
She blew a full breath straight into his eyes, forcing him to close them. Ink irises were drawn on his eyelids.
“My gods. . .” the Librarian gasped, as the irises on Rafe's eyelids glanced in her direction.
“What the hell is going on?” Rafe asked, opening his eyes, obscuring the ink eyes in the process. He reached to his tear ducts, feeling something wet, and his finger came away with ink on the tip, a single black tear shed by the eyes drawn over his .
“Close your eyes!” Ana shouted, slapping him on the side of the head.
Rafe didn't need to be told twice, and as he did so, the ink eyes reappeared. Ana took a step back, focussing not on Rafe's features, but on those drawn on top. It was a completely different face, a different man, inscribed on his skin.
Ana grabbed Rafe and turned him to face the librarian, the inky eyes made contact with her gaze, tears making leylines on the old woman's cheeks, mirrored by thick black crosshatches on Rafe's.
“You know him?” Ana asked.
The librarian tried to speak, but her body betrayed her, a lump in her throat choking out the words, quivering lips stuttering them into oblivion. The old woman lifted a trembling hand and her thumb brushed Rafe's cheek.
“This is really uncomfortable. . .” he muttered, sensing his partner's scowl and shutting the hell up before she shouted at him all over again.
“Who is he?” Ana asked.
The old woman swallowed hard, trying with all her might to gain control of her faculties, let alone her body, that felt like it was in a state of shock. And rightly so. She hadn't seen that face for over a century.
“Hildebrandt.”
Chapter 44
A gift
“Martin, Martin Hildebrandt. That was his name, not his real name, but that's what he went by. When I first met him, before the war, he went by Marldé Brandtin―you know how magickians can be with their names. . . Squiggling up all the letters to make something that still vaguely sounds like a name, but is, well, not actually a name. Some of us, the oldies, just get smart to it and don't bother with names any more.
“He had a gift. A gift that was accentuated by the magick in his blood. He weren't no adept, not in the classical sense. His gift was for art, pulling images forth from the minds of those his needle touched, and bringing them out on their skin exactly as they imagined them. Of course, he did the old 'mum' and anchor and what have you, but when the guy in his chair had something in mind that they couldn't put into words, he could replicate it perfectly. He was a legend right off the bat. And as a girl of an impressionable age―don't ask how old, I ain't telling―I was enamoured with him from the moment we met.
“To call it a whirlwind romance would be an understatement. . . after all, I'm a bit of the ol' adept with wind. He was the love of my life, I knew that then, and still know it to this day. No man could ever live up to the joie de vivre that he expelled from every pore, every moment of every day. He filled me, made me whole. I had never realised how alone I was until I met him. . . And then the war came and changed him. . . As wars are wont to do. . .
“The Union recruited him, pulled him out of the life we had together, away from the shop he had, and sent him into battle.
“He was an artist. Wasn't suited for war, let alone war against his fellow countrymen. Brother against brother, that's what they called it, and they weren't wrong. . . His talents lay fallow until his commander―or general or whatever―decided to put his skills to use in the most facile way possible. . . marking the men with his needle, so their bodies could be identified.
“When he returned, he was different.
“He had seen things in the war. Stared right into the face of death. Watched his friends, and his art, ripped to shreds by the weapons of their neighbours. . . And what we had couldn't be reclaimed. Even though his body walked right back into my life, the man I knew, the man I loved was left on the battlefield.
“I heard he married, had a son. Grapevine is like that, y'know? Gives you all the information you don't want, at just the wrong time. I had moved back here by then, started working in the library, because where else was I going to go? I wanted out of the world, but was too much of a coward to do myself in. . . So I settled for living with the only other love of my life: literature. These books
have been my friends, my partners for the years since Martin stopped being Martin.
“I saw him again, years later. One last time. He called for me, begged me. I should have known better, but it sounded like the old Marty, the man I knew, from before the change. . . He asked me to visit, asked me for a favour, and before I knew what I was doing, I took a door.
“He was in an asylum. Locked up by his own damn son. All he did was try to explain the magickal world to the boy, and he was put away for trying to lay out the legacy to the child, his own flesh and blood. Boy probably did it out of spite, I reckon. Didn't have a drop of magick in his bones, and was so angry at his father for dangling a carrot of possibility ahead of him that he decided to do the old man in―but in lieu of killing him all by himself, he decided to let the sanatorium do it for him. The little rat. . .
“When I saw him, despite the wild hair and crazy beard, let alone the stench in the damn place, I knew it was him. The Marty I knew. I could see it in his eyes. He had been there close to five years at that point. Five years of hating himself, blaming himself for every mistake in his life, every wrong choice, prodding and picking at the mental scars. . . He wanted to apologise, needed to apologise. I should have known it then and there that is wasn't him trying to find peace between us and start anew, but clean the slate.
“He said pushing me away was the biggest mistake of his life. What he meant was that it was the last mistake he needed to set right. . .
“After he apologised―and of course I accepted, because how could I not―I gave him what he asked for. . . his tattoo equipment.
“He took my arm, and began to draw. His eyes never looked down once at the skin. He was staring at me the whole time, never looked away, not for a moment. Felt as if the spirit of our love flowed through to the needle into the ink on my skin.
“He told me to go, to leave, and promised that whatever happened, whatever I heard, the words on my arm were true.
“I couldn't bare to look at it, bandaged it up as soon as I got home, and kept it bandaged for months.
“Finally, I gave in, looked at the last gift he gave me―Marty always gave the worst gifts. . . And you know what it said?
“Love never dies.”
Chapter 45
Trying to get back to you
“That's. . . A lovely story,” Ana said, trying to ignore the rheumy sensation in her eyes, “But. . . where does this come in?” She indicated to the ink on Rafe's skin.
“It's him. . .“ The old woman said, smiling through tears at the face drawn over Rafe's. The face that was smiling right back at her with unblinking eyes.
“It is killing people.” Ana asserted. “This thing has been transmitted via sexual contact, blowing bodies up when it's done with them. . . All because. . . he's trying to get back to you?”
“Oh Marty.” The old woman took Rafe's hand, ink coalesced across the skin, etching fingers over fingers, as if the spirit inside the ink was trying to feel her touch. “You did always do things a little arse-backwards. . .”
“How do we get it out of me?” Rafe muttered, the lips drawn above his distorting as he spoke.
“I can think of a way. . .” Ana offered. “But I don't think you'll like it.”
“I am most certainly not sleeping with him!” the old lady declared.
“If you think about it, you'd be sleeping with your long lost love. . .”
“Would you please stop trying to make people have sex with me?” Rafe grunted.
“I'm trying to save you life!”
“And I appreciate it, but I don't think that's going to work here.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Rafe said, taking a deep breath. “What we've got here is a haunting. Not your usual haunting, that's why the books that do mention it peg it as a disease. Martin obviously isn't your garden variety spook. . . but the solution should be the same.”
“Turn him into a terrifying glass monster?”
“No need to bind him. He wants out. Wants to get back to the woman he loves, and probably doesn't even intend to hurt anyone. . . It might just be a side-effect. If he's been in a body too long, the 'ink' remains after he's moved on and. . . maybe it tries to become corporeal, has an adverse reaction.”
“Could you sound less convinced? There are too many 'probably's and 'might's for my liking―you sure the two of you can't just sleep together?”
“Bugger off,” the old woman grunted.
“Ink will probably do the same thing to her as it's done to everyone else. It's not going to stop because it's got to the person he's been looking for all this time. . . We're going to need something of his to draw the spirit forth.”
“Do you have anything of his?” Ana asked the librarian.
“His tools, specifically.”
“Dear, you understand Marty's been gone for over a hundred years? Look at this place, does it seem like I have a lot of possessions?”
“Well. . . you have a lot of books. . .” Ana muttered.
“Only books.”
“What about clothes?”
The old woman shook her head.
“Where do you sleep? Wait, where do you wash?”
“Can we get back on track here?” Rafe asked.
“I have a thousand questions about this woman's bathing habits―”
“They can wait.”
“Fine,” Ana said, with a huff. “Can Reva track this guy's tools from the ink?”
“Not from the ink on me. . . It's not 'ink' as such, just a representation of him, his skillset. But your ink. . .” he signalled to the librarian. “That's straight out of his needle.”
The librarian glanced at the tattoo on her arm.
“Please,” Ana begged, “come with us, help us find Martin's tools. . . So we can give him the peace he deserves.”
The librarian glanced up to Ana, to Rafe, then to the man drawn on Rafe's skin. She agreed, with a tear in her eye and solemn smile on her lips.
She would do it. Not only to help Martin, but because she saw the same love between the two of them, that she had shared with the man haunting Rafe's skin.
Chapter 46
Soup
“This is the stupidest thing you've ever asked me to do,” Reva muttered, as she made the librarian hold her wrist in a pot of water, and dropped in pinches of various ingredients to flavour her soup.
“Come on Reva, I've asked you for much stupider things.”
She ruminated for a moment. “You're right. I should definitely stop letting you in.”
“If he's banned, can I still come round?” Ana asked.
“Only if you don't need idiotic things. Why can't you just want to find missing cats like normal detectives?”
“Missing cats don't pay the bills. . .” Rafe sighed.
“Although,” Ana added. “They'll rarely try to kill you or my friends.”
“You're obviously not meeting the right cats. . .” Reva grumbled.
As Rafe began to put plastic down and unfold a map on the large coffee table, Ana sat down on the couch. He was occupied, busy flattening out the folds in the paper, distracted enough for her to take a good, long look at the words on his neck. Her brow furrowed as she read the inscription.
'If I'm going to die, I need to tell her. . . everything'
Rafe turned to her, “Can you give me a hand?”
Her eyes darted around the room wildly, guilt engraving itself in her expression. She felt a quiver of embarrassment, and hoped he didn't notice that she had begun to read the thoughts written on his skin.
As Ana moved over to the table and laid her palms on the folds of the map, straightening it out to make a smooth surface for the soup to glide over, she hated herself for thinking it, but she was hoping there would be more to read.
She tried to realign her thoughts, because something was nagging at her about Rafe's attitude. There was a vibe hanging in the air around him. Doubt―that's what she was feeling from him. He was doubting that this would w
ork, doubting that he would survive.
“I've got another theory,” Rafe said.
“What was wrong with the old theory?”
“It's basically the same theory, but with an addendum.”
“That this 'disease' is let out by the guy using Martin's tools?”
“I. . . Yes.”
“Obvious addendum. It can only spread so far if it blows people up. . . for a hundred years it's been appearing in spurts because that's when the tools swap hands.”
“I don't like that you're a better detective than me. . .” Rafe muttered.
“That's not much of a compliment, you're a pretty awful detective.”
Reva interrupted the banter, walking over with the pot. The soup had simmered down into a thick sludge, and she poured it over the map. The goop began to swim around the streets, looking for the tools that created the tattoo on the librarian's arm.
“Thank you,” Rafe said to her. “Do you want us to call you a door back to the library?”
Ana cleared her throat.
“Do you want her to call you a door. . .” he said, correcting himself.
“Bugger off,” the old woman grunted, resulting in a cackle from Reva. “I'm bloody coming with you.”
“But―”
“I want my Marty's tools back. And I want to kick the snot out of whoever's been making people blow the bloody hell up.”
Chapter 47
End the cycle
The door took the three of them into a small, dark room, with barely any space to spare.
“Are we in a closet?” the old woman scoffed.
Rafe grappled around in the darkness, trying to find a door handle.
“Never been here before,” Ana said, in her own defence. “Do you know how hard it is to work out where to stick a door when you've never been somewhere before? Be glad we're in a closet and not walking straight off the top of the building.”