Ink (34 page)

Jason dropped his phone and whipped his head around.

“At this point in time, police are not calling his disappearance suspicious. Alex suffers from depression and has run away several times over the past few years.”

A photo of Alex replaced the newscaster’s face. A school photo, featuring unsmiling lips and sullen eyes.

I warned him. Why didn’t he listen to me?

“I could help you kill it,” Alex had said.

Had he tried to kill it on his own?

Three hard knocks sounded at the front door and Jason froze. Had Alex been found? If so, maybe the police were back. Maybe they’d found parts and linked it to Shelley’s death. It didn’t take a lot of stretch to the imagination to realize the common denominator was Jason—ex-wife, neighbor, strange animal bites, and, ”Mr. Harford, we’d like you to come down to the station.”

The knocks came again and Jason edged over to the door, his heart thudding in his chest. When he looked through the peephole, he laughed. His pizza had arrived.

3

Jason’s cell phone rang after he’d thrown out the pizza uneaten. The display read
Unknown Caller
, and he smiled.

“You rang,” Sailor said.

“Yes, I did,” Jason said. “I know what you want.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps you do. You should come down to the shop so we can discuss it.”

“How do I even know you’ll be there?”

“I will be here. You have my word,” Sailor said, then chuckled and the phone went dead.

4

The door to 1303 Shakespeare Street hung open; Jason took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the tiny wallpaper hands as they brushed against his arms. The door to Sailor’s shop also stood open, revealing nothing but darkness. He took a deep breath, swallowing his fear (Sailor could simply kill him, he was sure of that, but he was also sure he wouldn’t, not yet), then stepped inside.

The lights of the bar were low, and shadows lingered in the corners. The neon signs in the front window flashed primary colors in regular intervals. The faces of the patrons all wore the same vacant expression. Dull eyes. Slack jaws. Hopelessness and despair.

Jason sat down in the closest empty booth; the slick vinyl seat gave an almost human sigh. He wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t expected Sailor to play fair. Music played in the background. An unfamiliar tune. No fine women at all.

Right where we started.

The sad fates of the unwary mixed in with the stale smell of beer. It should have given him comfort to know he wasn’t alone but it didn’t. Anger bubbled up. Futile, perhaps, yet it burned deep. The knot inside the anger twisted even tighter. He needed it here.

Sailor rolled in the bar, wearing a bright blue Hawaiian shirt, with a smile on his lined face. On anyone else, the shirt would appear whimsical. On Sailor, it looked macabre. He rolled over to Jason, and the patrons he passed shied away with terror in their eyes. When he slid into the seat opposite Jason, his green eyes sparkled with good humor. A great deal of it.

“Bartender,” he called out. “A round for everyone. On me.”

A patron in the corner lowered his head, sobbing.

“Well, well, well,” Sailor said in his gravelly voice. “So you know what I want.”

“Yes. I do.”

The bartender brought two bottles over to their table. He kept his face downturned, but not far enough to hide the fear in his eyes. Taking a step back, he ran his hands over his protruding belly. His round face gleamed with sweat, his nose reddened with broken veins. The edge of a tattoo—a cartoon cat—peeked out from underneath his sleeve, and Jason bit his lip to keep in a laugh.

Did it kill all the mice in his neighborhood? Or did it hunt down the dogs first?

“Anything else, sir?”

“Just make sure
everyone
gets a drink,” Sailor growled.

The bartender scurried away, wringing his hands. Sailor lifted the bottle to his lips, drained half the bottle with one swallow, and set it down with a loud clink. He belched and a cloud of air, stinking of beer and ash, rolled across the table. “Enlighten me. What do you know?”

Jason lifted his hand. “I know this place isn’t real. This room is whatever you want it to be.”

And I know if I don’t hold it together, I’ll end up screaming in the corner, ready for an extended stay at Club Sedation. I need to hold on tight to that Alpha knot like I’m a five year old and it’s my mother’s hand.

Sailor laughed, and the other patrons cringed in their seats. Jason put his hand back down on the table and fought the urge to grab the edge.

“You came through the door, did you not? Several times, if I am not mistaken. I would say that is real,” Sailor said. “But you did not ask me here to talk about my place of business, did you?”

The cultured professor voice in the worn face was wrong. Horribly wrong.

“I know what you want.”

You are remarkably calm, all things considered. I mean, look around. Does anyone look happy to be here?

Sailor leaned over the table. “Do you really?”

“Yes. I want you to take it back.”

Sailor threw back his head and roared. He slapped his hand down on the table, and the bottles skittered across the surface; when he stopped laughing, he pulled a handkerchief from his shirt pocket.

Lift. Dab.

“That is a good one. Take it back,” he mocked.

“Why not? You have plenty of others. You don’t need mine.”

I am not going to grovel. I am not going to beg. But I am not giving up my skin.

“Perhaps not, but you signed your name. It was all there in the fine print. You are mine. Your skin is mine.”

“The fine print was a trick.”

“They all say that. Sometimes life is not fair.”

“You never play fair.”

Sailor chuckled. “True. Never have, never will, but I have your signature.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and shook it open. “See?” He pointed to the bottom of the page, where Jason’s signature was scrawled below a long column of spidery handwriting. Jason reached out his hand. Sailor shook his head and pulled the paper away.

One of the patrons, a man with thinning hair and an overbite, scrambled out of his seat and ran for the door. Sailor turned his head. “Sit back down.”

The man turned and raised his hands. “You lied to me,” he said. His voice quavered but he held his chin high.

“Sit down.”

“No, I won’t. You lied.”

Sailor flicked his hand, and a thin trail of gray smoke snaked out from his fingertips. The man backed up.

“Please, no.”

“I said, sit down,” Sailor roared.

As the smoke wrapped around the man’s shoulders, he shouted and tried to pull away, but it pulled him closer and closer. He screamed and struggled, but the smoke held him in a vise.

“Are you ready to beg?”

I won’t beg. Not ever.

“No, I, no, no,” the man stammered.

“Then sit,” Sailor said. His words were calm, made all the more terrible by the rasp in his voice. He flicked his hand again. The smoke unwound and sent the man spinning into one of the tables. He landed with his legs splayed and his head against one of the legs. He did not get back up, just sat with a slack jaw and heavy-lidded eyes. Sailor turned back to Jason and pulled out his handkerchief again.

Lift. Dab.

“Now, where were we? Ah yes, we were discussing my methods.”

“Take it back.”

“No.” He leaned over the table and patted Jason’s left arm “Cheer up, boy. You will have plenty of company.”

“You can’t have it.”

“Yes, I can and I will. Eventually.”

“No,” Jason said. The knot slipped, just a little.

Sailor took another swallow of beer. “We could sit here all night. The end result will be the same. Now, you look like you have discovered a few painful truths. You are going to have a hell of a scar on your arm. Just try not to damage it too much. Please.”

Jason gripped the edge of the table.

Sailor tipped the bottle in Jason’s direction and grinned. “I take it your griffin has not been quite what you expected. A shame. It really was my best piece.”

“It’s a monster,” Jason said.

“You chose it. I just gave it something extra. With your permission, of course.”

Jason laughed. “My permission?”

“Perhaps the griffin will take your mother next. Or your brothers. Or those cute little nieces. They will make a nice snack. It does have a healthy appetite.” He leaned forward and gave a lecherous, wet laugh. “Or perhaps, just perhaps, it will take that pretty little blonde. That would be tragic. Tell me, is she as good in the sack as she looks?”

You son of a bitch.

“Leave her alone.”

Sailor waved his hand. “I do what I want. I think you have figured that out. The griffin will consume everyone you care about until you beg me to take it away.”

“I didn’t care about Shelley. Your griffin got that wrong.”

“It is your griffin, boy, not mine. Consider your ex-wife a warning. I could tell it who to take next, but I will let it make that choice. I wonder how long it will take. I wonder how many will die a terrible, painful death. Imagine their fear, their absolute terror.” He smiled. “You
will
beg. On your knees, preferably.”

“I won’t,” Jason said.

“You will. I promise you. You will beg me to take the griffin away, and I will. Along with your skin, of course, but you know that already, yes?”

I won’t.

Jason laced his fingers together to hide the shake in his hands. “Why skin?”

“Why? Why not?” Sailor grinned. “Humans like to wear fur. I like to wear human. Perhaps they are not Gucci, but some are quite nice. Yours, for instance, will come in quite handy. You have a face anyone would trust.” He spread his arms wide. “‘And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stol'n out of holy writ, and seem a saint, when most I play the devil.’ Shakespeare. Such a brilliant fellow. I do wish I had possession of
his
soul.

“Are you perhaps wondering about the whole soul thing? I have plenty of them, boy. More than enough for even my lifetime.” He laughed and slapped his hands against his thighs. “They all sit around, moaning about my tricks and lies. Tiresome, boy, they are tiresome. And so easy. Everyone wants a million dollars or to be famous. Many people would give just about anything to make that happen. This is more fun. The same old, same old gets stale. When you have lived as long as I have, you have to come up with something new and exciting every few hundred years. I do think this is my favorite game so far. Much more inventive than convincing people I do not exist, and that in itself was sheer brilliance, if I do say so myself.

“And the best part of this game is that I get to walk around. It is far more pleasant topside, even for me. The weather in my own neck of the woods is so predictable. Hot one day, scorching the next. It is bad for the skin, no pun intended. I rather enjoy the chaos my artwork provides.” Sailor smiled, then spoke with a British accent. “It is a good bit of sport, after all. Jolly good. Tell me, would you want to wear the same thing every day?”

He stood up and the bar shifted, walls melting into puddles of molten brick. The patrons screamed and shrieked as the center of the floor fell away, revealing a deep chasm. Heat, reeking of rotted flesh and burned hair, poured from the gaping hole. Jason scrambled out of the booth and stood as far away from the chasm as possible. The heat burned his lungs with every breath.

Sailor opened his arms. His laughter vibrated through the room, alive and cruel. Strands of smoke flew out from his fingertips, curling around the patrons and lifting them up. He dropped them into the chasm, one by one, and laughed as they fell. Flames roared up from the pit, but the sound could not muffle the screams.

When only he and Jason remained, he turned his back to the chasm and rubbed his hands together. “I believe it is time for your griffin to go hunting.”

Jason clamped his fingers over his arm.

“Fool,” Sailor said. He snapped his fingers together, and Jason staggered as the griffin exploded from Jason’s arm in a golden-bronze blur. It flew in lazy circles, its wings making long, graceful arcs. The room filled with its musky smell.

“Leave us,” Sailor said. “Enjoy your freedom. Enjoy your hunt.”

The griffin flew over Jason’s head, gave a lethal hiss, then disappeared through the space between the window and the frame.

“It is a beautiful creature. You chose well. Now, let me see your arm.”

“What?”

Sailor sighed. “Your. Arm.”

Jason shook his head and stepped back. Sailor cocked one eyebrow and reached forward. He grabbed Jason’s right arm, just above the wrist; his fingers dug in, and heat burned all the way up Jason’s arm. Fire ants, chewing at his flesh. Flames, charring his skin. Sailor laughed again and let go.

“Much better. No more of this nonsense, please. I prefer my skin unscarred.”