Ink (37 page)

Don’t worry about the weight. Just let it fall. The weight will help.

He wasn’t sure.

I should have tested it out. I should have tried it before.

He didn’t raise the axe, just let it hang from his hand.

But you didn’t. Suck it up. Stop this shit and drive on.

He lifted the axe, and a key turned in his kitchen door with a quick metallic snick. The axe slipped from his hand and dropped to the floor as he whirled to his feet. He stumbled, grabbing onto the edge of the table to stay upright. His left arm slapped down against his side, and a hot spike of agony pushed him down to his knees. The door opened. Mitch walked in and all the color drained from her face.

“Jason? Oh my God, what happened?” She raised her hands and took one faltering step forward.

He held up his right hand. “Don’t come any closer, Mitch. You have to go. It’s not safe.”

“You’re hurt.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

“No,” he yelled. He lurched to his feet and swung his hand. Her phone went flying across the room and shattered against the counter. “You have to go.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re hurt.”

Frank gave a soft little thump. Jason took a deep breath and tried not to think about the pain.

“I’m fine. You need to leave.”

She looked down at the axe and back up to his face. “You are not okay. Are you drunk? What the hell’s going on? What happened to your arm?”

Frank pushed again. The pain swept up and black flakes of burned skin fell down.

“I’m not drunk, but you have to leave. Right now. Go.”

“Bullshit,” she said crossed the distance between them. She touched the side of his face. “What happened to your arm?”

“There’s no time to explain. You need to get the hell out of here.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

He laughed and his words flowed out in a rush. “Fine. The devil lives in Baltimore. Not just a guy who thinks he’s the devil, but the original badass himself. He likes to play games, see?”

Mitch staggered back against the counter. “Jason, stop—”

“And one of those games is with ink. His tattoos aren’t just ink, though. They’re real and they come out after dark and eat things. This one ate a few of my neighbors’ pets. I thought it was the kid across the street, but—”

“Stop—”

“It wasn’t. He told me tattoo removal was a specialty and it is, except I have to beg him to remove it. When he does, he takes my skin, too. He likes to wear them around. I mean, he can’t exactly go outside as himself. He showed me what he looks like underneath. It’s not pretty—”

She stepped forward, shaking her head. “This is crazy—”

“You wanted to know. I’m telling you. I’m not going to beg him to take this away. I’m going to do it myself. You really need to leave so I can finish it. Frank isn’t going to stay inside much longer. I can feel him, underneath. Inside me.”

But not just inside. A part of me, too. Twins born of darkness, trickery, and ink.

“Jason, I—”

His skin bubbled up, and the griffin exploded from his arm with a blur of ink, feathers, flesh and fur. It roared, the sound swallowing up Mitch’s scream, and landed, cat-sized, with a heavy thump on the table.

“Get out!” Jason yelled.

She stood immobile, her hands raised. The griffin hissed as it jumped off the table; true to its nature, it landed with grace, its muscles rippling under the amber-gold fur. Jason grabbed the axe and moved in front of Mitch. If he had to kill the griffin and himself to protect Mitch, he would. The griffin lifted its head and roared again. It expanded and grew. The scent of its dark animal musk covered the smell of burned flesh completely. The size of a small dog, then larger. German Shepherd-sized. It flapped its good wing. Frustration flashed in its eyes as it lifted its chest.

It can’t get any bigger. It’s too hurt.

It moved forward, dragging its ruined wing and swung one taloned forelimb. It sent the axe spinning out of his hand and hissed in triumph. The good wing flapped and pushed air against Jason’s face. The bad wing hung at an odd angle, the dark bronze a mess of black and char. It cocked its head and looked at Mitch with blazing eyes of green fire. It opened its beak and hissed again. It stalked closer, then away with hate in its eyes. Its back paws thudded on the floor.

It’s playing with us. It can’t kill me either, but it wants Mitch. I see it in its eyes.

The propane torch sat close to the edge of the table. Closer to them than to Fr—

the griffin.

It’s not Frank anymore. It never was.

“Mitch, when I move, get the torch from the table and light it.”

He moved toward the griffin. It raised one talon and growled. Mitch grabbed the torch and lit it, lightning fast.

“Hand it to me,” he said.

He lifted the torch and turned the lever to adjust the flame. Mitch stiffened against his back as the griffin advanced with a hiss.

“Stop,” he said.

The griffin turned its head and fixed one eye upon them. It took another step forward, flapping its good wing, and Jason lowered the flame close to his arm, close enough to feel the heat. The griffin growled but did not move closer.

“Can you reach the axe?”

She bent down behind him. The griffin moved closer. Too close. Its rancid, hot breath burned Jason’s eyes.

“No, I can’t reach it,” she said.

“Shit.”

“Okay, give me the torch back.”

“What?”

“I’ll distract it.”

“No way.”

The griffin moved away, flicking its tail. The ruined wing twitched.

“There isn’t another way,” Mitch said. She stepped around him, grabbed the torch with both hands and wrenched it away from him. “I don’t know what you’re going to do, just do it fast, okay?”

She took two steps forward. The griffin lifted its chest and hissed. It advanced. Jason turned, grabbed for the axe. It lay on the floor, half under the kitchen table and half out, close to the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. He bent under the table, pushed a gardening spike out of the way and reached out.

Mitch shrieked in anger, and pain flooded his left forearm. Huge blisters appeared on his skin. He reached out again. Too far away. Mitch yelled again. Blisters broke out on the first two fingers of his hand. The axe was too far away.

No. Please, no.

Mitch cried out in surprise and stepped back into him. He banged his head on the edge of the table. The griffin was too close now; he couldn’t reach the axe. Mitch bumped into him again, and he came down hard on his right palm, his thumb touching cool metal—the gardening spike.

Mitch cried out again, in pain. Jason picked up the spike. The griffin growled, and another bite of pain gripped his back. Deep pain accompanied by the thick smell of roasting meat.

Jason shoved the spike in his arm just above the elbow and dragged it across to the other side, using it like a knife. Blood poured down his arm and pain, brighter than sunlight, screamed in his skin. The rich stink of char and blood rose up and out of his arm.

“No, no,” Mitch shouted.

Sailor will not have my skin. He will not wear my skin.

Jason moved the spike faster, tearing through skin and muscle like a knife through softened butter. All the way to the inner edge of his arm, then up, through the charred skin. Harsh grunts slid past his lips, dark, animal noises, but he didn’t stop. Another flare of pain, on his leg. His hand shook, but he didn’t let go of the spike. It tore through the skin. Almost to his shoulder. Over and then down. Down to the first cut. A rectangle.

Mitch sobbed. “Jason.”

He threw the spike down with a shout and reached his fingers in the top cut. The skin slipped out of his grasp. He dug his fingers in hard and tugged. Pain like fire. A wet squelching noise. He pulled. The skin lifted. He ripped it down.

Tearing fabric. That’s all. Just fabric.

All the way down to his elbow. Mitch shouted incoherencies. The griffin roared. The last bit of skin caught and held, and with a shriek of his own, he wrenched it free.

“You want my skin, you son of a bitch. Here, have it,” he shouted.

The skin dangled from his hand like a wet glove. His arm screamed fire and razor blades and barbed wire. A wave of gray flickered across his eyes and he shook his head.

No, not yet. It’s not done yet.

Jason turned and rose. Mitch held the torch out like a gun. “Give me the torch and get behind me,” he said.

The griffin staggered from side to side. Its eyes rolled wildly back and forth, but it advanced. Its hiss held wild fury. Jason held out the dripping skin and lifted the torch. The griffin raised its head and opened its beak. No sound emerged. He held the flame close to the bottom of the skin. It blackened and charred, sizzling as it burned.

Jason dropped the skin on the floor but didn’t take the torch away. The skin blistered and shriveled. A thick, noxious smell poured into the room. The smell of war. Of a thousand bodies trapped in a burning building. Jason gagged but didn’t stop. Mitch covered her mouth and nose with her hands. The griffin writhed from side to side with its beak open. Its talons flailed, the tail whipped back and forth in frantic arcs and its eyes dulled to a green haze. The griffin shrank down smaller and smaller until it was the size of a kitten. It turned in on itself and flattened, quivering and shaking on the floor like a possessed playing card. The kitchen filled with the sound of rushing wind, a high-pitched scream that built up and out and ended with a loud tearing noise. Then silence.

The griffin was gone.

10

“Well, well, well. You have made quite a mess here.”

Jason dropped the torch; he and Mitch whirled around in unison. Sailor stood in the doorway, dressed in his sailor skin, the doorknob a misshapen twist of metal with a trail of smoke rising up from the keyhole. “You do not mind that I dropped by without calling first, do you?” He shook his head. “Did you really think you would win this way? Others, many others, have tried the same. I like the torch, that was clever. Unfortunately, not clever enough.”

“I don’t need you to take it away anymore. The game is over.”

Sailor held out a piece of paper. “I still own you, body and skin. You signed the contract of your own free will. Those are the rules.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I might, however, consider a trade. Perhaps I could take this lovely woman in your place.”

“No.”

Sailor threw back his head. Mitch covered her ears as his laughter pealed out. Sailor crossed the room and grabbed Jason with both hands. “I told you I prefer my skin unscarred,” he said. Heat pushed its way inside; Jason’s arm burned as the skin knit itself back up. “Perhaps I should try it on for size.” The sailor skin slipped off into a pile of fabric and flesh, Mitch screamed and Sailor drew one finger from the center of Jason’s neck down to his groin. Jason collapsed to his knees as pain radiated out from his arm to every inch of his body—horrible, tearing pain. He looked up.

His own face looked back.

Two images—a whole Jason with wrong-colored eyes, a bleeding, raw Jason with right-colored eyes. Mitch backed away from both of them, her hands over her mouth, muffling her shrieks.

The wrong Jason, a Sailor-Jason, turned his head in her direction and grinned, then a gravelly voice emerged from his lips. “Nothing quite like the feel of a new suit. How do I look?”

The right Jason watched in horror; Mitch screamed again behind her hands. Sailor-Jason stepped to her side with short, awkward steps. “It will take a bit of time to break this one in,” he said and stroked Mitch’s cheek with a hand that rightfully belonged to Jason.

Sailor turned around. “Oh dear, that must be terribly painful. Here, try this one. You cannot keep it forever, of course, but it will keep you warm.” He flicked his hand, and the sailor skin flew up and over—around—the not-Jason.

Jason recoiled and fell back into the table. A stench poured over him in a wave—ashes, scorched earth, rotten flesh somehow still alive, and underneath it all, the salt tang of the ocean. He took a step forward and stumbled. The skin hung loose on his frame, an ill-fitting coat of horror.

“Be careful, boy,” Sailor said. “That is one of my favorites. At least it was. I could get used to this one.” He touched Mitch’s cheek again.

Jason took another step. “You can’t have her.”

Sailor grinned, an expression turned macabre as the skin stretched across inhuman cheekbones. “Are you still clinging to a pretty fantasy that you have any control, boy? I will do what I want, when I want.”

Jason stepped forward; the skin bunched at the ankles like a father’s suit on a child’s frame, and he fell. When he put out his hands to soften the impact, his raw flesh

no, not flesh, but what’s underneath—unflesh

slid against the sailor skin. He moaned aloud behind lips that tasted of smoke and despair. As Sailor’s laughter rang out again, Jason tried to pull off the terrible skin, but it wouldn’t budge. Then his