Dark Ink Tattoo: Episode 2 (3 page)

I did. I knew I did –
but
– I forced a smile for her sake. “Thanks, Mom,” I said, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Now I gotta get to work –“ I whirled for the door.

“Stay outta the prisons and the pool halls!” she shouted after me, like she always did.

Good thing she didn’t know I’d already been to prison once today. 

* * *

I drove to Dark Ink and fought the urge to thumb through my phone for window shops at every red light. I knew Mattie would have the parlor cleaned by now – hopefully it wasn’t completely freezing with just taped tarp where the window’d been – how expensive would just a plain window be? We could paint the “Dark Ink” and “24/7” on it ourselves, later, everyone I employed was an artist, including me. But every minute the shop was too cold to work in – or looked too trashy – was more walk-in clientele we’d miss. It didn’t matter so much for me and the other established artists, but the new kids needed cash for flash to stay alive.

I pulled up in back, hopped out of my car, and ran around, remembering to change to a more boss-like stroll just in time to see a completely new window where the old one had been.

Our name was even bigger on this one – as was the claim that we were Vegas’s only “All-Nite Tattoo”, in tasteful silver cursive below. 

I walked up to the window and stared at it, afraid to touch what must be very fresh paint. Inside Mattie saw me, and started waving.

As if in a dream, I walked over and through the door. Two artists had active guns, one was doing a consult, and I heard the muffled yelp of someone being pierced in back.

“Nice work, boss!” Mattie shouted, the second I was through. He pulled his hand out of its glove and brought it up to his lips for a wolf whistle. The other artists looked up, saw me, and whooped or shouted.

Mattie said something to his client, then dismounted the chair he sat on, and started patting the pockets on his leather vest as he came over.  “They installed it this morning, and left this for you,” he said, handing me an envelope.

I took it from him. I didn’t dare open it on the parlor floor.

“That’s, uh, good thing, right?”

I ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah. Of course.” Unless it’d been bought with Pack blood-money as some sort of perverse apology or way for Gray to make me think I owe him. I folded the letter and put it in my back pocket and scanned our current clients. None of them looked rough enough to run with the Pack, but a lot could change in seven years. So I kept my chin high and walked over to my station – I’d been in such a rush yesterday, I hadn’t put my inks back, and I needed to do some sketches, one of my regulars wanted a tiger on her right shoulder. It was just about the only blank skin that she had left, and it needed to flow with all the other the work she had.

Jack’s station was on the way to mine. He’d left out a half-drawn picture of the rising sun. It was beautifully rendered, you could almost feel the sunlight radiating off the page, gentle smears of pink and orange. I knew on the right skin, pale enough, he wouldn’t even do any outlining, he’d make it look like watercolors. Jack had some devotees due to word of mouth – Vegas was a 24/7 town, and night-shift workers didn’t want to wake up early on their off days for tats – but not a lot of them, not after 3 AM. I’d offered him more lucrative daytime slots – more lucrative for us both, since I kept a slice – but he’d always rebuffed me in his devil-may-care way.

I traced a corner of the sun he’d drawn with one finger. I had pale enough skin. And I had space, right over my hip. I imagined Jack touching me with gloved hands, felt things best left quiet stir and – my eyes caught sight of a used condom in his trashcan.

Because of course there was.

I brought a hand up to rub my temple. If he was shooting porn here, I would kill him.

I made my way to my station and gave up on worrying if the Pack could see me, opening the letter as I sat down. It was a crisp sheet of official cream stationary, carefully folded. I unfolded it slowly, and for the first time in weeks got something good in the mail:

Can’t wait to see you tonight.

M

Chapter 4

“I’d remind you that you can stay, but I already know that you’re going, aren’t you,” Paco shouted at me from his living room.

He’d heard the shower stop – and I came out with an amazingly plush towel around my waist. Paco’s boyfriend had as excellent taste in couches and towels as he did in boyfriends.

“Yeah, sorry –“I apologized. I had to go, while Paco’s blood was still singing inside me. There were some things I could only do after a fresh feed.

“Yeah, I know,” Paco said, with a tease.

I dried myself off and swung the towel out to him. “You missed a spot –“ I said, swirling my hand over my stomach, where his was still sticky with cum. 

He swatted it away. “I’m waiting for the Oreo’s to give me strength.” He’d retrieved them from where they’d landed earlier.

“You just like smelling like me.”

“Like
us
,” he emphasized. “Although I’m glad we didn’t make it to the bedroom. I might be too tired to change the sheets. As it is –“he looked at the disarray of couch cushions behind him, “I’m going to be tipping Imelda extra tomorrow.”

I grinned. “Hey, so –“

Before I could say another word, he jumped in. “Here it comes.”

“What?”

Paco set the Oreos aside and stood, and I appreciated him anew. He’d put on forty pounds of muscle since we’d first met – he’d been a scrawny club kid, and I’d been looking for easy prey, when he’d awakened a different hunger in me I hadn’t known I’d had. Over the years, Paco’d become one of Vegas’s most sought after bodyguards, and now he had a long-term contract with the Fleur de Lis, Vegas’s newest, classiest, casino. From here, with the tasteful lighting from above, I could see the puckered scar where a bullet had found his shoulder instead of a client’s heart.

And me? I hadn’t changed. At all. 

“You’re a proud asshole, you know that?” he told me, falling back into drill sergeant mode.

“The proudest,” I said, laying claim. Proudest that I was Paco’s only, ever, top. I could go either way in the right situation, but I was the only one that ever saw that man face down.

“So now that we’re agreed – yeah, I’ll ask my friends on the force about Bella for you. There aren’t violent murders in Summerlin too often, my curiosity’ll seem natural.”

“Thanks, Paco. And….”

* * *

I walked out of the magician’s house, holding keys to Paco’s car and wearing one of the magician’s long sleeved shirts.  

* * *

I drove Paco’s dark sedan to Summerlin and parked a few blocks away from Bella’s house. My car was nothing but noticeable, and there was a chance its engine’d woken a few people up the prior night coming and going – I didn’t want anyone thinking I’d returned to the scene of the crime.

I made sure on my way in to be unseen, which was easy, Paco’s willing blood had my powers flowing at full blast. The magic that made you a vampire -- it was like always being lucky. Beautiful women would angle across a room to you. Dice would roll in your favor. And what you weren’t already given you could most often charm.

Someone, cops or a neighbor, had tacked some wood up over where Bella’s door had been. I took some solace in the fact the lock I’d set hadn’t had a chance to work – the door’d been ripped off its hinges and flung aside, pressing down a square patch of clover in the yard.

I looked around again then set my fingers against the plywood they’d replaced it with and tugged and the nails unsealed from the surrounding wood. The second it was wide enough I slunk in.

I could smell the fight before I saw it, my eyes adjusting to the darker space indoors. Bella’s fear, her blood – blood I’d always wanted to know, and held back from – and the scent of her attackers. Someone – someones, at least two of them, but they smelled the same. Grease, like from a car shop, and something else, more animal and musty.

I made careful not to touch anything, although as a vampire I didn’t have fingerprints – almost like the magic that ruled us knew we were destined for lives of crime – because if there was something the police could do, I wanted them to be able to eventually do it. I only wanted to do it faster -- because the punishments I could dole out were ever so much more just.

There were signs of a struggle, strewn tarot cards, shattered crystal skulls. Her laptop was gone, and I didn’t know who’d taken it, the attackers or the police. And in the bedroom, where I’d fucked her less than a day ago, a massive blood stain and a sense of death.

I walked over the line she’d drawn, her ritual spell meant to trap me – and now, with Paco’s blood on board, I could feel its pull. I knelt down beside it and waved my hand out and it tugged me every time. My little witch had been magical after all – just less magical than me. 

So had she seen the future? Hers – and mine? My black aura, my evilness? I waved my hand across the spell one more time, then stood. There was nothing else for me here, and it was time for some magic of my own.

* * *

I got into Paco’s car and drove out of Summerlin. Vegas wasn’t that big a city and I had hours left till dawn – it was time to cruise. I drove for downtown, intent on Bella, the scent of her blood still fresh in my nostrils. If her killers were still in Las Vegas tonight, there was a good chance I’d find them.

How? By being me – and full of blood. It was some sort of psychic dowsing – the same thing that pulled innocent creatures into my path to bleed could pull other people toward me, or me to them. So I drove east on 515 and waited.

Just past downtown, I felt a tug. Like someone was pulling a string tied around my chest. I flipped my turn signal on and followed it.

The dowsing pulled me away from the strip and further out, into the endless suburbs on Vegas’s other side, until it led me into a parking lot and faded. I was circled by off brand restaurants, used clothing stores, cash-checking places -- and a dive bar with all sorts of motorcycles parked out front. Hogg’s Heaven, with the image of a happy pig – like it used to be a BBQ joint, except now the ‘hog’ referred to all the bikes parked outside. I got out of Paco’s car and walked in.

I was plenty used to these kind of places. But I’d borrowed a shirt for the sleeves, I didn’t want to make identifying me later any easier than it was, and the magician’s starched collar made me look a little stuffy. Maybe that was a good thing and I should go with the whole tourist shtick. So instead of my usual swagger, I paused at the outside of the line of motorcycles and swallowed nervously, appearing to gather my strength before I pushed through.

My nose told me this was the right place, as soon as I walked in. The scent of a working shop and that animal undertone hovered in the air. How would I know who it belonged to? One of the people casting me glances and pretending not to, or one of the people giving me outright glares? I couldn’t go around sniffing people, so I walked over to the bar, where the bartender ignored me.

I knew he could see me, I was the only person here not wearing some sort of leather, and I might’ve been the only person to put on deodorant. The men around me, in conversation with one another and/or their beers, ranged in age from early twenties to late fifties, but the one thing they all had in common was that they all looked muscled and angry. The fewer women present had the same age range as well, only they went from nubile to weatherbeaten. Sunscreen was clearly not popular among this set.

One of the younger women broke away from a crowded pool table and walked over. “Can I help you?” Paco’s blood just kept on giving.

“He was on his way out,” answered the bartender for me. There was an angry scar from his eye down to his neck.

I turned toward her and smiled like I’d won the lottery, letting all of my magnetism beam down. “I was actually looking for a friend. About this tall? Dark hair? Curvy?” I used my hands to show the space Bella would occupy. “I met her, and she said she comes here.” I did my best to sound missed-connections, not stalkery.

A frown crinkled her face. “Yeah, um, I haven’t seen anyone like that in a while now.”

She was pretty by Midwestern standards, shoulder-height to me, petite all around, perky-breasts under a patterned-T, with a denim mini and low-cut cowboy boots to show off all the leg in between. There was something earthy about her though, a little too weary and a little too wise, and I knew she was lying about seeing Bella.

“You’re sure?” I pressed, positively glowing at her. I saw something flicker in her eyes, some doubt or uncertainty, but then the bartender answered.

“She’s sure.”

“I’ll have to drink her away then.” I sank against the bar dramatically, playing the mortally wounded tourist. “She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Present company excluded, of course.”

The girl’s eyebrows rose and she laughed, turning back to the bartender. “Come on, Wade. Let him have just one beer.” Wade’s leather vest had a patch that said Davis on it – so clearly he and she were on a first name basis.

I came forward, wallet at the ready. “Only if I can buy one for my champion too.”

She bit her bottom lip for a second. “Any of these guys here can buy me beer anytime,” she said, gesturing to the surrounding men, several of whom were keeping an eye on us. “But you can only buy me one if you go to the jukebox and pick the right song.”

And that…was something the blood likely wouldn’t help me with. I gave her a tight smile and tried to sound at ease. “Sure. Wait right here.”

I walked over to the jukebox – it was one of those electronic numbers with an infinity of songs to choose from. And unless the magician’s shirt had actual magic in it – I put one arm up against the machine, and used the other to flip through the screens. I was a fan of The Black Keys. Sinister Kid felt a little too on the nose, given what I was – but I’d always loved Howlin’ for You. I ran my card through, punched the numbers, and returned to find a beer of unknown origin waiting beside the woman for me. I took a sip, glad I was immortal and likely immune to whatever the bartender’d poisoned it with, and watched the girl’s face as the current song faded, and Howlin’ for You came on.