Nightmare Ink (16 page)

“Where would you run to that you wouldn’t endanger anyone?” he asked.

She blew out an unsteady breath. “I don’t know.”

“If you have to fight, do it where you have allies,” he said. “I’m going to hang here until you’re done. I’ll be right outside the door.”

He was right. There wasn’t anywhere Isa could go where no one would be endangered by her presence.

They need me.

The clang of metal on metal when Troy closed the door pulled her out of the words circling in her brain.

She shut away everything but what she’d come to do. She couldn’t light candles, but she could still cast a circle and complete the rituals that would center her.

Murmur crowded into her eyesight to survey the studio.

She squinted at the ache settling into her temples, but she grounded. Then she reached down into her center, seeking power. It shimmered there, darker than she remembered, shot through with squiggling black lines that bled darkness into the liquid gold of her magic.

Could she still use this tainted power for her purposes? Should she?

Only one way to find out. She called up energy.

Razors sliced through her hands. She choked back a cry, waited for the hurt to fade, and tried again.

Magic rose in answer to her call.

She thought she heard the dry-twig
snap
of bone breaking.

Her concentration shattered. She cursed. How could six weeks of conditioning undo over a decade of intense study?

It couldn’t.

It wouldn’t.

She closed her eyes.

Years ago, Joseph had given her a simple task. Sort the yellow kernels of corn from the blue. Use magic. Don’t let anything stop her.

She’d started the job full of confidence. Then Ruth had thrown a bucket of water over her. Isa spilled both bowls of corn in the mud. All three teachers had howled with laughter so contagious, Isa could only join them, even as she’d realized how difficult they intended to make the assignment. She’d tried again. For days. Eventually, she’d learned. And what she had learned could be remembered and built upon.

She descended into her center, sinking through the river of magic into the desert she hadn’t visited since she’d last seen it while in Daniel’s cage.

Spider Woman was gone. The doorway and the road she’d taken to escape had vanished. Only sand, pale sky, and shimmering heat remained, perfumed by sage and pinyon.

Isa breathed deep and noticed she could. In this place, she was alone. Murmur, it seemed, could not follow. Here, she was unmarked. Unchanged.

Here, she could call magic unsullied by his touch.

She drew energy and power from the sand beneath her feet, gathered it into her body from the heat and light surrounding her. Energy flooded her interior.

She wanted desperately to burn the tattoo away with the heat of sunshine, but he hadn’t been able to follow her here. Instead, she concentrated on turning her power to healing her injuries.

From far away, pain lashed her. It washed through her physical body, and then drained away, scorched by the light she focused. She directed power to her hands, trying to remember what they’d looked like before Daniel had destroyed them.

Heat pulsed down her arms in waves. Her fingers tingled—a pleasant, warm buzz that set hope aflutter in her chest.

She returned to the studio, opened her eyes, and using her teeth tugged free the gauze wrapping.

Disappointment burned hope alive. Her hands hadn’t changed.

They did.
Murmur sounded amused. Condescending. But also ever so slightly intrigued.

She brought her hands before her face. Still twisted. Still misshapen—but they didn’t hurt. The constant throb of outraged nerve impulses and blood pulsing past healing bone had evaporated.

“Brilliant,” she muttered. “Try to straighten everything out and end up healing the bones exactly as they’d been broken.”

Not enough power.

Bitterness clogged her throat. Daniel had seen to that. She’d been able to focus enough to summon a fraction of the power that should have answered her call. The bastard had crippled her on far more than a physical level.

For that, she’d rip his heart out with her teeth and use his arteries for straws.

Muted appreciation filtered through Murmur’s lift of her eyebrows. He tamped down the feeling and urged her attention around to the recliner she’d last used to ink Zoog.

It had been flattened out to a table. She gasped and took an involuntary step back.

What is that
?

Magic outlined the shape of a man on the surface. Greenish fox fire winked and faded like the batteries running down in a flashlight.

She let her hands fall to her sides and stared. “Too big for Zoog. Kelli Solvang?”

He’d been the only other person in the studio, and he’d died on that table. Why hadn’t she seen or sensed it while she’d worked on Zoog?

Heart racing, she sidestepped and looked at the spot on the floor where she remembered Solvang’s blood mingling with her broken vial of binding ink.

Nothing.

No. Not quite nothing.

Glimmers of magic traced the path his blood had dripped. Why was there no puddle of magic on the floor? The grounding properties of the basalt?

If she could see the magic imprint—the memory of Kelli Solvang’s death in this place—could she detect and follow his tattoo’s path to freedom?

She spun.

Murmur competed for use of her eyesight.

“Ow!” she said. “Stop it. I won’t block you out if you’ll stop making me sick with headache.”

He snorted.

The pain in her head spiked. Nausea sloshed through her middle.

Anger handed her the will to shove him off her optic nerves or possibly her visual cortex, assuming that his access actually had a biological analogue. She shunted him into an eddied backwater in her mind, tore down the bridges, and stranded him there.

When Isa blinked and surveyed the studio, every last flicker of magic had dissipated.

Murmur swarmed back into her consciousness radiating icy shards of fury and contempt.

His interference had cost her the dragon’s trail.

Isa found Steve waiting in the shop when Troy walked her up from the basement.

Still blinking her eyesight back into this world, she caught sight of a sunny, blue-sky glimmer surrounding Steve. She bit back a laugh. Magic. Of course.

“I’ve got an Ink death,” he said by way of greeting. “My people tell me there’s still magic buzzing around the room, but they can’t read it. Too confused.”

Murmur shifted, interested.

Isa frowned. Troy had been right, in part. He’d said that people needed her to do her job. But it was more than that. Was she power tripping because helping Steve steadied her? Made her feel stronger?

She needed that. “Let’s go. I’ll do what I can.”

Steve drove north past Bitter Lake into a residential neighborhood one block off of Aurora. The neat Craftsman-style cottage stood out on the block. The rest of the homes were bigger. Newer. Cop cars lined the curb.

They pulled in as rain began spattering the windshield.

Murmur rose within her. Since he offered a unique perspective on Ink, Isa didn’t attempt to shut him out, despite the renewed ache in her head.

She caught a whiff of varnish as Steve ushered her through the polished front door. The remains of flat, stale magic inside stopped her cold.

A circle had been inscribed on the satin-finish hardwood floor. Symbols she didn’t recognize lined the interior. Inside a second, smaller circle at the center of the room, a body sprawled, hands outflung.

A tremor of black that hadn’t originated from her shook her body.

“What?” she asked the Ink.

No reply.

Police littered the room, measuring, photographing, collecting specimens and evidence. Steve waded into the thick of the activity, asking questions.

She’d sensed something she couldn’t put a finger on. Normally, she’d be willing to plow through so subtle a warning, but anything that gave her tattoo pause warranted a second look. She opened to magic. The scent of sun-warmed sage caressed her cheek. It carried a hint of leather and sulfur.

Pain sank razor-sharp teeth into her hands. She gasped.

Her magic collapsed.

An impatient, ebony tendril of power, steeped in smoke and leather, commanded her magical eyes open. Murmur crowded into that tier of eyesight as well, as if he required her biology to sift the layers of reality stacked in the house like a cake frosted with death.

He snorted at the analogy.

A rainbow of energy signatures from the investigators crisscrossed the room. Frosty pink magic glittered in the air above the outer circle.

The Ink victim had cast the circle. Had the young man also drawn the symbols? To what purpose?

No. Look.
Murmur tried to pull her eye muscles, to direct her gaze into tighter focus on the body.

Headache spiked, then subsided as his grip slid free of her visual control. She studied the dead man.

Go closer.
He shoved her.

She stumbled closer to the line. The hair at the back of her neck stood on end. “No way. I can see the tattoo from here. It’s the Infernal.”

An Infernal.

Isa frowned.

He shoved again.

Growling at him as she tottered another two steps, Isa threw his grasp from her motor control. Her toes crossed the outer circle.

Jagged yellow and red power slammed into her like a tidal wave, punching through her sternum and setting burning hooks into her will. Breath hissed between her clenched teeth.

The attack knocked Murmur out of her head. He fell, sinking through her consciousness and out of any kind of sight.

Dimly, she heard shouts, and knew her back hit the door when the thud resounded through her rib cage.

Daniel’s magic sank into her flesh and soul, tightening here, prying apart there, separating the two. She recognized the attack. She’d fended off something similar the last time Zoog had been alive in her tattoo chair. Bait in Daniel’s trap.

This time, Murmur had fallen for Daniel’s lure.

Fury starched her spine. Golden magic seethed beneath the surface of her skin. The bubbles of liquid amber broke black.

Her magic. Tainted by Murmur.

She couldn’t care.

“Take cover!” she ordered aloud. With physical eyes, she saw cops sprint out of the room as if Sheetrock could stop magic. It couldn’t.

That was her duty.

Insulated from pain by the potent chemicals anger had unleashed within her system, she whispered a command. A shield coalesced around her as Murmur climbed, talon over talon, up the pillar of her rage.

She smelled leather scorching.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer demon.

Gathering a roiling mass of energy, Isa slammed Daniel’s fishing hook out of her body and shattered it.

“Return from whence you came,” she said. “And I hope the backlash lights up that son of a bitch like a Christmas tree dipped in gasoline.”

Murmur narrowed her eyes as if he studied her and realized that what he saw surprised him.

“And you,” Isa said to the tattoo.

He’s intent upon opening a portal between your world and mine. You and I are to be the key.

That pulled the plug on her temper. Power drained through the soles of her feet, taking her strength with it. The shield winked out.

“Key?”

Your magic, blood, and life force to open the door.

“Where do you come in?”

I take command of the legions of Infernals and other creatures that would pour unchecked into this plane.

“To what end? Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven?”

He imagines a world ruled by magic. The Infernals are meant to hunt those without it.

Isa gaped. “People without magic far outnumber those of us with it. That’s genocide!”

Murmur leaked a twinge of discomfort. It registered as a cold lump behind her solar plexus. The moment she noticed it, he ripped it down, leaving her with the impression of her innards scraped and bloody.

Her knees buckled.

Steve caught her and tried to bundle her out the door.

“No,” she said. “I’m okay. I stumbled into a booby trap. It’s gone, now.” Now that Murmur had triggered Daniel’s trap and she’d burned it into oblivion. Heartening to know she still could.

She waded in to study the circles, the symbols, and the corpse.

“Daniel did the Ink,” she said, studying the dead man’s tattoo. “It’s recent. It hasn’t healed. Looks like it tried to come off. See where the edges are torn?”

Steve had photos taken as she pointed out the information.

“Know anything about these circles and symbols?” Steve asked.

“I don’t. If I can have copies of the photos, I’ll see what I can find with my resources.”

Isa waited until they got back in Steve’s car to tell him about the frosty pink magic. She told him what had happened, and what Murmur had said.

He shook his head. “Just what we need. I have a pile of Ink deaths, Ice. Not the least of which is Anne’s marshal.”

“Why didn’t you tell—”

“Because sometimes, you’re more important than the job you do,” he snapped. “Sorry. Running on too little sleep.”

She’d hit capacity on handling feelings. Hers. His. Murmur’s. At least work made sense.

“How many Ink deaths?”

The tattoo listened intently.

“This one makes nine.”

“What the hell is going on? Until you sent Kelli Solvang to me, I’d never seen a single Ink death.”

“I know. I checked. US wide, verifiable Ink deaths per year number in the few hundred. Seattle had plenty in the early days, but since the Acts of Magic laws went into effect thirty years ago, our death rates plummeted. We still get a call once in a while from a Live Ink hack because someone codes on his or her table, but this . . .” He shook his head. “We don’t even see Ink going bad all that often. Maybe once a quarter, and most of those come from out of state. Even assuming our records aren’t complete and that the occasional John or Jane Doe dead body that turns up is an Ink death, we’ve never seen anything like this.”

Murmur shifted inside her skin.

She thought she heard the leathery rustle of wings. The sour slime of uneasiness crawled up her throat.

Was it safe to assume they both suspected Daniel was connected to the sudden rash of Ink related deaths?

Murmur nodded her head.

“We’ve got to find Daniel,” she breathed.

Steve’s brows lowered and his lips thinned as rage suffused his face.

“The bastard is gone,” he said, his voice pressed into iron. “His offices are cold and dark, the records of his phone and Internet usage wiped clean for the past two months. Official records show him leaving the country shortly after the snowstorm in January. He’s not in the city.”

Isa scowled and, without thinking, cast her senses out into the etheric city. Sharp pain stabbed both hands, and she had to force the tension out of suddenly rigid muscles.

Murmur uttered a malicious chuckle, but he accompanied her out into the cool, blue-gray symphony of Seattle’s aura. Splashes of counterpoint melodies in a rainbow of colors rose and fell against the backdrop of the city’s magic.

Out of the melody, a discordant jangle of yellow and red magic lodged in her soul, snapping her concentration and dumping her back into the confines of her overcrowded, shuddering physical body.

Both she and the tattoo hissed at the pain.

“He’s still here,” they said in unison through her single voice.

Steve shied closer to the driver’s-side door before conquering the impulse.

“All right,” he said. “Whatever happened to make you both sound so certain, I doubt I can use it to secure another search warrant.”

“Even if you could, I couldn’t tell you where to look. Not yet.”

“Meaning you might be able to provide a location given time?”

“It’s not that easy,” she countered. “It’d be directions based on my impressions of the magical aura of the city. Turn left at the purple that sounds like a melancholy choral mass might not be any use to you.”

The skin between Steve’s brows crinkled when he glanced at her. “I—no. Is there a way to correlate that with physical landmarks?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to find a connection between my perception and the actual physical streets, buildings, and people.”

Could she?

When they pulled up in front of Isa’s apartment building, Patty lounged against the bricks outside the door. Dressed in a plunging pink satin bodice, a dark purple lace skirt gathered over strategically torn silver petticoats, pink and purple striped leggings, and a pair of mile-high pink pumps, she opened the car door and leaned down to offer Steve a nod.

Murmur twitched, claws scraping across the chalkboard of Isa’s awareness. He crowded into her eyesight and hearing, then backed up what felt like a step, even though he was bound by her skin and bones. Odd sensation.

What the hell?

“You coming up?” Patty asked Steve.

“Not if you’ll walk her up.”

“Best offer I’ve had all day,” Patty replied, grinning.

Steve retrieved a laptop case from the backseat. “Reports on the other eight are there.”

“Is Zoog one of them?” Isa’s voice shook.

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll take a look,” she promised. That sounded better.

Patty took the case when Steve passed it across.

“I’m out of options, Isa,” Steve said when she got out of the car. “We’ve searched for where you were held. Rain messed up the physical trail, and my magic trackers insist you left no trail of power to follow when you escaped. If we’re going to find it, I need your help.”

A wave of numbness assailed her. She stumbled.

The damn tattoo all but rubbed her hands together in glee.

Patty hooked a huge hand beneath her elbow. “Deal with it tomorrow, Ice. Come on upstairs.”

Of course. What had made her think that Steve’s trackers would have been able to follow her magical back trail? That they’d already turned Daniel’s prison inside out?

Patty took the keys Steve handed over and ushered Isa to the apartment.

“Don’t blame his trackers,” Patty said as if she’d read Isa’s mind. “They don’t have the power to do the job.”

Isa glanced at her. She knew that how?

Patty hesitated on the threshold, shifting her weight back and forth on those nosebleed heels. She pinched her bubblegum pink lips tight in her pale face. Her rouge stood out in stark relief against her wan complexion.

“Patty, are you . . . ?”

“I need a word, Ice,” she muttered.

“Come in, please. Have a seat.”

She minced into the apartment and closed the door gently. Her heels clacked on the stone entry.

Isa peeked into the bedroom. Nathalie and Gus laid curled up, sound asleep in the middle of the bed. Isa caught the edge of the door and pulled it to, relishing the lack of pain. The hand still didn’t work properly, but it wasn’t dead useless anymore.

“I saw the excitement last night,” Patty said as she slipped off her shoes, set Steve’s laptop on the dining table, and then parked herself on the edge of the worn sage and rose sofa. “Police everywhere and a stink I will never forget. Couldn’t help overhearing that Nat took sick from whatever happened up here. Don’t suppose you want to tell me about it?”

“No.”

Patty chuckled. “Nice of you to let Nathalie crash here while she recovers.”

“Nice? She and Troy have me under round-the-clock guard,” Isa said. “If either of them stays much longer, I’m going to start charging rent.”

Patty had relaxed, Isa noted. Ikylla had joined her.

“Ikylla, tabby fur clashes with purple,” Isa said.

The cat twitched her whiskers and closed her eyes in smug, feline satisfaction.

Patty grated a laugh as Isa rounded the couch to sit down facing her. “I’m flattered.”

The drag queen blew out a long breath and left off petting Ikylla. Tension gathered in her shoulders and in the flexing of her jaw muscles.

Isa sat down facing her. “Patty, what’s up?”

“What you did today—with your power,” Patty said. Her eyes reddened. “Never do it again.”

Murmur and Isa started. “What?”