Frost Moon (2 page)

“Taller than I expected, Miss Frost,” Balducci said, not moving to greet me as I sat down. My long leather vestcoat
shhhed
against the tile as I settled into the chair, but after that, the only noise was the hum of the air conditioning.

Rand was seated at the edge of the table, naturally, easily, like an Armani model dressed on a police officer’s salary, but losing none of the class. Finally he seemed to lose patience with Balducci and said, “Show her.”

“This is pointless,” Balducci said. “She can’t tell us anything that—”

“Chickening out?” Abruptly Rand flipped the manila folder open and turned it towards me, then stood and staring at the glass. “What can you tell us about this?”

Curious, I stared at the picture: it was a bad photocopy of a circular design, some kind of braided wreath with a chain and a snake eating its own tail. Big black blotches covered the upper quarter of the design, but after a moment I puzzled out what I was looking at. “This is flash,” I said. At Balducci’s puzzled look, I explained: “A tattoo design, or a part of one.”

Balducci nodded dismissively. “Told you,” he said to Rand.

“And?” Rand asked.

“And… you need to tone the contrast down on your copier?” I said. It was half blotted out… but then I realized it wasn’t a photocopy, but some kind of printout of an image, posterized to the point that it was almost illegible, with large-brush black blotches of a digital pen redacting some of the details. But it still had that distinctive natural look that meant it had started life as a photograph, not a drawing.

“This isn’t flash,” I said. “It’s an actual tattoo.”

“Told
you,”
Rand said.

As my eyes studied it I became suspicious. The reproduction was terrible, but something about the wreath and chain had the flavor of a magical glyph. What if it
was
magical? These mundanes would have no way of knowing. But how could I tell from this printout? “Do you have a better picture? No—a
different
picture?”

Balducci sighed, and slipped another piece of paper out of the folder. A similar shot, similarly degraded, but… I put the two next to each other and planted my hands on the table, staring down upon them. After a moment I saw it: the head of a snake in the design was three links past the belt of the chain in one, and five in the next. It was moving.

“This is magical,” I said. “This tattoo is moving. It’s a magical mark.”

“Told
you,” Rand said triumphantly.

“Holy—” Balducci breathed. I looked up, and saw him not looking at the flash, but at my hands. “Hers are doing it too. I swear the fucking butterfly
flapped.”

“What, did you think they only moved
after?”
Rand asked.

“What do you mean, after?” I asked. No one said anything, and my stomach suddenly clenched up. “What do you mean,
after?
You don’t mean, like, after death—”

“I can’t discuss the details of an ongoing investigation,” Balducci said.

“Why did we bring her here if not to discuss it?” Rand said.

“It was
your
idea,” Balducci said. “She’s your old partner’s daughter—”

The side door opened.

The dark-suited Fed I had seen in the hall walked out. His crisp goatee and short wavy hair made him look more like an evil Johnny Depp than a laid-back agent Mulder. One hand was in his pocket, the other still holding the cup of coffee. In his dextrous fingers, the Styrofoam cup looked like alabaster.

“Show her,” he said, with unassuming authority. “Or quit wasting our time.”

Balducci looked up, at a loss. “You’ve got ‘it,’” he said.

The Fed just looked at me, mouth quirking into a smile, at which point Balducci touched his head in a “senior moment” gesture, then hit the intercom. “Rogers,” he said. “You got ‘it’? Yeah. Bring ‘it.’”

After a moment, a tall, drawn man stepped out of a back door I hadn’t noticed, gingerly holding a large, white plastic envelope with the same Fed logo on it. The cadaverous man paused in the white light of the doorway for a moment, eyes twitching as he saw me— not unfriendly, but… in pity? Then I noticed a long plastic tray in the man’s other hand, and saw the padded envelope bulging with something.

I suddenly didn’t want to see ‘it.’

The Fed touched his left ear for a moment, then turned to go. “Aren’t you going to stay?” I asked nervously. I wasn’t quite sure why I was asking
him
for reassurance, but there it was.

He paused. “I’ve seen ‘it,’” he said, and stepped into the blackness.

The tray clattered against the table, shockingly close to my hands, and Balducci and I both leaned back a little. The evidence technician, if that’s what cadaver man was, put on a pair of blue gloves before opening the envelope and withdrawing a smaller, plastic-wrapped object. “Even though it is wrapped,” he said, putting it in the tray, “it would help if you do not touch ‘it.’”

My skin grew cold.

‘It’ was a ripped piece of human skin pinned to a stained wood board.

2. GODS FINEST CANVAS

I stared in horror at the scrap of human skin, stretched across the board like so much canvas. The braided wreath curved across the flesh, marred by a few small cuts that had been blacked out on the print copy. On most sides the skin curved over the board, but at the upper left, the skin was torn away, revealing both the bloodstained wood and a set of torn holes in the skin that indicated it had been stapled underneath, like a leather seat cushion.

Without another nod to Balducci, Rand took over, channeling Joe Friday.

“Do you know what this is?”

“It’s a tattoo,” I said, unable to take my eyes off it.

“Do you know what it means?”

“It’s a… magical ward.”

“To protect against evil spirits?”

“No, it’s… like a capacitor. It collects, or deflects, magical power,” I said. “Which depends on the intent of the wearer.”

“Do you know who inked this?”

I’d have to look closer at the design to tell that. I really didn’t want to do that. I looked up at Rand, eyes pleading. His face had gone cold, a bit stony; not unfriendly, but all cop. I leaned forward, looked through the clear plastic bag, at the wreath, the inking. The board exposed through the rip was smoothly polished and finely worked, despite the bloodstains. Suddenly I knew.

“Yes, I know the artist,” I said. “Not, I mean, personally. It’s Richard Sumner.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Buried in Cincinnati,” I said. “Sumner was famous, but he died in… 2005, I think?”

“Hell,” Balducci said.
“That
rules out a suspect—”

“Do you know who this was inked on?” Rand asked.

“No,” I said, closing my eyes at last. That piece of skin had come from a living human person. I’d
really
been trying not to think of that. My mind cast around for
anything
else. “Sumner did thousands of people. You could email the
Lancing Dragon
in Cincinnati, though. Sumner took extensive pictures. They’re stored there.”

Rand smiled. “We’ll do that.” His smile faded. “Do you know of anyone who had a grudge against Sumner, or against any of his subjects?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, I don’t know anyone who has a grudge against
anyone—”

“Really?” Rand said. “What about against other tattoo artists? Especially magical ones?”

“According to our newsletter,” I said sarcastically, “ ‘there are over two hundred licensed magical tattoo artists in the United States,’ so it’s a pretty big list—”

“Could we get a copy of that newsletter?” Rand asked.

I thought about it for a moment. “Yes.”

“Is there anything you would like to add?” Rand said.

“Yes,” I said, nodding at the skin-covered board. “I would like to add a
what the fuck is that thing?
“

“Tell her about the box,” Balducci said.

“What about the box?” I said, eyes drawn back to the thing on the table.

“We had a witness,” cadaver man said. “He didn’t live long enough to tell us much, but he mentioned… a box. A box covered in scraps of tattooed skin—”

“Don’t tell me more about the box,” I said, getting up. “Oh, God, it’s a fucking
lid—
“

“Dakota,” Rand said, motioning to cadaver man. “You don’t need to stay any longer, Dakota, though our friend the Fed there may have more questions for you later—”

“Why did you bring me here?” I said, watching cadaver man slip…
it…
back into its opaque envelope. “Is this some kind of cruel joke, some kind of arrangement with my dad to get me to come home—”

“Dakota,” Rand said. “I didn’t lie. We
did
need to see you, and not just for your expertise—”

“Rand,” Balducci warned. “She’s just a civilian. And just a kid—”

“She’s got to know,” Rand said, staring up at me with the same sad eyes I remembered looking up to as a child. “Dakota, this just fell in our lap, but our ‘friends’ tell us they have had a dozen killings over the past five years where magical tattoos were taken, almost always on or near the full moon, moving from state to state each time. This last one was in Birmingham, and our ‘friends’ tell us all the signs point to an attack here in Georgia… soon.”

“And the full moon is next weekend,” I said. “Just after Halloween.”

“So you see, Dakota, I needed to talk to you,” Rand said. “We don’t think you’re a specific target but… Kotie, stay safe. Your Dad and I are very worried about you.”

My childhood nickname rang in my ears as I watched cadaver man carry ‘it’ back through the door of white light.

“That makes three of us,” I said.

I said my goodbyes to Rand and then got the hell out, escorted by the black-and white twin officers who’d picked me up. Tweedle-White and Tweedle-Black turned out to be Horscht and Gibbs, old buddies of Rand’s, who were doing him a favor by scooping me.

Gibbs was a sexy beast, like a younger version of Rand himself, but after staying for the show with the lid, Horscht turned from stony Aryan Nazi to protective den mother. After some arguing, they agreed to take me back to Mary’s to pick up my Vespa. But as we started to pull out of City Hall East’s garage the colorful lights across the street gave me a better idea.

“Wait,” I said. “Drop me at the Borders.”

“Are you sure?” Horscht said. “It’s a long way to East Atlanta.”

“It’s… nine fifty-five,” I said. “I can take care of myself in a brightly lit commercial fortress, and call on a fare-slave to cab me back to Mary’s for my Vespa. I never leave before midnight, anyway.”

“But after seeing that—”

“The full moon is like, ten days away,” I said, with false bravado. “I’m not worried.”

“The lady can take care of herself,” Gibbs said, smiling. “Anything else we can do?”

“Sure thing,” I said. “Next time you give me a ride, I want to do it in cuffs.”

Horscht was befuddled, but Gibbs whistled low. “Sure thing, girl.”

“But if she hasn’t done anything wrong—”

“Damn, Horscht, you never got a Sunday morning call?” Gibbs said, punching my raised fist gently. “I’ll explain it to you later. You’re all right, girl. Later.”

I started sniffing around the bookstore for something on Richard Sumners. It was hopeless—I hate bookstores and this one was a brightly lit warren. I ferreted around their computer kiosk for a minute, browsing for any of the books I knew:
The Craft of Ink
—no.
Flash, Ink, Flash
—out of print. Anything by Richard Sumners—yes! One, titled
Richard Sumners
, three in store, shelved improbably in
Art & Architecture | Photography | Photography Monographs,
where I had absolutely no luck. Finally I collared a pimply-faced teen manning the Customer Service kiosk, whose end-of-day funk brightened considerably as soon as he saw my breasts.

“Oh, yes,
that,”
he said, staring straight at the bulge in my top. In fairness, my breasts were about level with his head, and he seemed scared to make eye contact. “Right over here.”

In Bargain Books:
Richard Sumners
by TASCHEN - $7.99. Right between
Sicily in Pictures
and
More Amazing Kittens!
I wanted to pop a blood vessel, but just stood there, seeing Sumners’s life work end up in a bargain rack. Finally I picked it up, thick little brick, thumbing its thin but curiously heavy pages.

“At least it’s selling,” I said.

“Anything else?” he asked, eyeing my breasts again.

“You got an almanac for 2005?” I asked, but he shook his head.

As I turned to go, finally his eyes darted upward.
“That,”
he said, “is one cool-ass shirt.”

I looked down. Edgar Allen Poe stared upside-down at me between the lapels of my coat-vest. I’d sewn glitter and sequins onto the shirt to jazz it up, and his sparkling eyes had ridden up over the ridge of my breasts. “Thanks,” I said, but by that point the kid had fled.

I grabbed a maple mocha and camped out in the cafe. There in the
ghetto library,
as we affectionately called it, I started flipping through this glossy tombstone to Richard Sumners’s work, looking for clues to who might have worn the tattoo.

Richard’s magical inking began before I was born, back in the 60’s, but the wreathed snake had a modern flair to its design. I started to see some of the distinctive elements that made up the tattoo crop up in THE EARLY NINETIES section, but it wasn’t until EVE OF THE MILLENNIUM that I hit paydirt.

At first I thought I had it: a man covering his eye with a tattooed hand bearing a mark nearly identical to the one on the lid. But it was too small, and I remembered Sumner didn’t design his own flash: he had graphomancers do that for him, just like I did, which meant he ended up reusing the same design. Sure enough, there were three other people with similar tattoos, ending with a full-page shot of a young woman with the mark just above her breasts.

The tat was close—really close: the same size, on a flat piece of skin, sans belly button or the curve of a shoulder that would have shown up as a wrinkle on the lid. I stared at her — she had sharp, punkish hair like I did, and a sexy, come-hither smile. Automatically, I checked out the curves of her breasts, pressed beneath one delicate hand—they were full and luscious and looked quite lickable. Then my eyes drifted up to the tat, and I felt queasy. Had I just seen this woman in the flesh—flesh torn from her chest and stapled to a board like a seat cushion?