Soul Ink (6 page)

“You think he’s okay in there with that thing?” I put one hand on the door. Not like I had much hope of contributing.

Ari attempted her version of the boss stare. Her eyes narrowed, she glared at me.

I resisted the urge to laugh at her and give her a hug.

“We need to mop up the cherubs at these other locations and come up with a plan. I don’t know if you noticed, but Haniel is way out of our league.”

I put one ear to the door to listen, right as Liam shouted, “That was my favorite shirt, you sorry, sad sack . . .” His shouting trailed off into incomprehensible growls and roars, which confirmed two things:

First, I felt sorry for the demon. I’d seen this happen before, and the first few minutes were all dragon, all the time.

Secondly, my boyfriend would be down for the count for a while. According to Liam, if all he did was skulk along in lizard form, like he had in the sewers, he could manage to stay awake when transforming back. If he had to breathe fire, or Kingdom help him, fly, the result was total exhaustion.

From inside the apartment came a sound I classified as “Demon being mangled.” I’d never heard the sound before, but this was fairly unmistakable.

“Cherubs. We have to deal with them.” So, with much trepidation, I left my boyfriend destroying the top floor of an apartment building, and followed Ari off to do a job animal control should have handled.

It took the next four hours to clear all them out. At every location, we found the same evidence. A headless body in various states of consumption. Three or four smiling, burbling cherubs eating fistfuls of flesh, and no Haniel, thank Kingdom.

We’d caught a cab back to my apartment when the rearview mirror glowed, and Grimm’s eyes filled it. If it were possible, even more wrinkles surrounded the edges of his eyes. “Ladies, why do I get the feeling you haven’t been taking a night out on the town?”

“We’ve been dealing with more”—I glanced to the driver—“pigeons.”

Grimm closed his eyes and nodded.

“Also,” said Ari, “there’s Haniel.”

“Not our problem, ladies. You will avoid any situation which might bring you into contact with that entity.” Grimm’s tone said the conversation was done. He’d failed to realize that didn’t work with me.

“So he just does his ascension, stops killing people, and we go on with life? And what exactly does ‘bear witness’ mean he wants?”

At the word “ascension,” Grimm’s eyes grew wide. After a long minute, he finally spoke. “I suspect, ladies, that Haniel may be more of our problem than I thought.”

“Because you just figured out that letting him kill people is bad?” asked Ari.

“No, princess.” Grimm heaved a sigh born from eons of worry. “Few witnesses survive the ritual they have agreed to observe, and I’d rather not let him kill you.”

We went home and slept in spite of the “deranged angel is going to kill you” threat. This wasn’t some supercharged sense of invulnerability; it was common sense. You can only hunt cherubs, encounter a demon, and get threated by an archangel so much before you need food and rest.

By the time I got home, I had a voice mail from Liam. He’d woken in the ruined remains of a penthouse with no sign of the demon and gone home. To his studio workshop, where he forged wrought-iron art.

I wanted to call and explain. To tell him about Grimm’s statement. But I didn’t want him involved any more than he’d already been. After seven years as an agent, I expected crap like this. And Ari, she had the princess thing going for her.

Liam mixing it up with an archangel could only end badly, and I wouldn’t risk it ending badly for him. So I crawled into bed after inhaling Chinese takeout, and dreamed of smiling cherubs floating just out of reach, waiting with hungry eyes.

•   •   •

The next morning, under broad sunlight, the whole demon-angel-threat thing no longer loomed over me. I made a pot of coffee, risked Ari’s wrath by rousing her, and sat down to read the newspaper.

Except that Grimm was waiting in the makeup mirror on my table. “Marissa, I trust you had a good rest?”

Wary of a verbal trap, I only nodded.

“Would you mind explaining what part of Aiyn’s Press is doing in my office? Or why there’s a theft report stating that a hideous hag with ragged brown hair and horrible body odor stole it?”

“You didn’t tell me how to use it.” I’d rarely gone toe-to-toe with Grimm since becoming his partner, but this was not the morning for him to pick a fight. “It’s not like you’ve had a problem borrowing magical artifacts before.”

Grimm opened his mouth to give me a retort and stopped. “That’s true. But I expected you to use the most rational method possible. Trigger a fire alarm, then walk out amid the chaos. A great agent models efficiency.”

“Got it. Now, exactly how do I use it? I’ve seen what it does to my tattoo, but how do I actually get the ink out?”

“Simple,” said Grimm. “We cut into your arm while the ink is displaced, and siphon it out along with an unavoidable portion of your blood.”

The hell we would. “Try again. Come up with a better way, or I’m going to keep it.”

Ari’s door opened and she came stumbling out, resembling one of the walking dead more than a banished princess. “Morning, M.”

“Only technically,” said Grimm. “And, Marissa, I suspect the tattoo is simply biding its time until it can take over.”

The thought of the strange, hypnotic ink making it to my brain had me readjusting priorities. “Change of plans, take it out now.”

Ari grabbed my arm and inspected it. “I can finally see magic again. Grimm’s right. This is starting to move on its own.”

“Hmmm,” said Grimm. “The problem with fae ink is that it can only be injected with special needles. I suppose it’s possible one could use them to extract the ink as well. I’ve always had the unfortunate recipient run through the soul sieve.” Grimm looked up and caught the incredulous stare Ari and I were beaming his direction. “I mean, if I had ever used it, that would be the most efficient method.”

Ari sat down at the table beside me and crossed her arms. “What’s an archangel doing with a demon? And don’t try to tell me it wasn’t a demon. I saw what Marissa can’t.”

I thought for sure Grimm would put her off again. “I suppose it’s too late to keep you from being involved.”

I nodded. “It was probably too late when I got a call from someone about your contract. Someone who wasn’t too worried about the people being killed, just the mess left behind.”

“They dared contact you?” The table trembled as Grimm’s image shook in the mirror. “That’s inexcusable. And that, I take it, is how you wound up confronting Haniel again?”

I nodded. “Got it in one. They said as your partner, I had responsibility for your obligations.”

Grimm ran his fingers through his hair. When he spoke, his voice shook. “When I invited you to work with me instead of for me, I didn’t anticipate this. I will be amending my contract to ensure your involvement is proscribed, Marissa.”

“I’m a big girl. Now, about that angel?”

“Since you are both already involved, I speak to you in confidence. Haniel seeks to defect. To leave his station in Paradisia, but retain his might.” Grimm glanced around the room, then continued. “Without a doubt, this is why he seeks willing sacrifices. He will use their souls to stain himself, corrupting his very nature.”

I’d cracked some heads back in the church, or smashed skulls. “I might have busted a few heads the first time we ran into Haniel. So he was replacing the ones I broke. And tonight, at the midnight chapel, he’ll—”

Grimm held up a hand. “How do you know of the midnight chapel?”

“I’ll give you one guess,” said Ari. “Haniel said we’d either bear witness to his ascendancy or die there. I declined to die.”

I had a sneaky suspicion that Haniel had nothing good planned for us. “Do we die if we bear witness?”

Grimm thought for a moment. “Can you be trusted if I leave you alone to perform divination?”

“No,” said Ari and I together.

I mouthed
Yes
to Grimm, then added, “I’ve got an idea. I’m going back to the tattoo shop to see what kind of needles they used. If this ink’s so special, I doubt it gets along with regular steel.”

Grimm didn’t answer. He just disappeared.

And my arm began to tingle right where the Agency bracelet touched me. Liam was calling. I put my hand on it and waited for the sensation of sitting right across from him.

“M? You there?” Liam smelled of wood smoke and aftershave. At least, that’s the impression that came across our link.

The smile on my face spilled into my voice. “I’m here. Are you hurt from yesterday?”

“A few bruises. Grimm stopped in this morning while I was shaving. He find you?” I could almost feel the stubble on his chin.

Find was more a question of waiting until I wasn’t in the bathroom to speak. “He did. I’m going into Kingdom today. Gotta talk to the tattoo artist who worked on us. You want to have lunch?” I ignored Ari’s eyes, which rolled around like she was searching for her brains.

“I’ll meet you at the tattoo shop. I have a piece of steel in the forge right now that I’ve got to finish. You like red-hot steel, right?”

Not as much as I liked one red-hot man, but Ari might gag if I said that. “I love you. See you there.”

•   •   •

Ari and I found our way through Kingdom, dodging two parades, a pack of singing minstrels, and a pack of ragged orphans, at least three of which were likely to discover they were royalty. In fact, in Kingdom, odds were the occasional prince would discover he was actually a long-lost commoner.

We arrived at the tattoo shop just as the neon lights came on, highlighting a dozen different designs. Liam leaned against the brick, his hands jammed in his denim jeans. He gave me a kiss. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Hey, you.” I pointed to the door. “You want to wait here?”

“I’m with you,” he said. And opened it for me.

I walked into a shop I only vaguely remembered from before. Checkered black-and-white flooring shone with red neon glare, and the chairs resembled a barbershop gone bad, with leather restraints for less cooperative clients.

“Come back for more work?” To call the woman who spoke “painted” would have implied there was a bare spot on her skin. From her eyelids to her toes, everything visible was inked. And most everything was visible. “You’re bruise girl. And you’re the one with her name on your crotch.”

“Shoulder,” I said. “It’s on his shoulder.”

“Oh, right,” she said, waving a cigarette. “That was the other girl’s name. I normally don’t do names, but figured he already had one, so another ain’t gonna hurt.”

Ari’s startled “Oh!” competed with the hum of the neon signs as I turned on Liam. “Did I hear that right?”

“It was a long time ago,” said Liam.

“Show me.” I thought I’d seen every inch of that man, but obviously, a few things had escaped my attention.

“It’s not really in a place I can show here. Sort of below the hairline. I used to shave . . .”

Liam’s explanation drained off under my newly discovered boss stare. I’d never managed it before, which I attributed to a lack of proper motivation. “Okay, we’ll save that for later. Tell me how it happened.”

“This ought to be good,” said the tattoo lady, until I turned the boss stare on her.

Liam cleared his throat. “I dated this girl in Art College. She liked ink. I liked her. We wound up in a shop, and she said it was get a tat or call it quits.”

The sheer stupidity of his decision overwhelmed me. “And you
did
it?”

I’d run over deer with better comprehension skills. Liam’s eyes went wide. “You don’t understand. If you’d been there, and seen her . . .” His eyes met mine and his voice trailed off.

I tapped my food. “Yes? If I’d been there, what?”

“Well,” Liam swallowed, “I wouldn’t have made such a mistake.”

I had to give it to him, pulling that out at the last possible moment. And follow up for sure, not because I was jealous, I told myself. Well, maybe because I was a little jealous. To avoid any more awkward discoveries, I turned my attentions on the tattoo artist, whose tank top showed off a tattooed nameplate reading “Cheryl.” “Cheryl, we’re here about the work you did the other night. I want to know where you got the ink, and how you injected Mr. Stone and myself with it.”

Liam winced at my use of his last name. I hadn’t called him that—well—ever. Cheryl, on the other hand, began to sweat in a shop so cold I could hang meat in it.

After an age of uncomfortable silence, Ari piped up. “We’d really like to know.”

I glanced over and caught the grimace. Ari
knew
what she was doing. Your average person couldn’t any more say no to a prince or princess than they could stop breathing. While Ari avoided using her charms when possible, they came in handy every so often. Thank Kingdom I was mostly immune.

“Look,” said Cheryl, “I know I’m not supposed to have this, but sometimes we get hard cases.” She waved for us to follow her over to her wall of supplies. There, she removed a battered metal ammo case and unsnapped it. “I got this from my father. He got it from his father. He got it—”

“We get it,” said Ari. “From your father’s umpteenth father and so on.”

Cheryl frowned, making the tattooed mustache on her lips crease. “No. I was going to say his uncle won it from a stranger in a game of Go Fish.” She opened the ammo case and untied a rag bundle.

“You reuse these between jobs?” said Liam, looking a little pale.

Cheryl shrugged as she splayed the bundle open for us to see. “Not like I can replace them. These aren’t needles. They’re—”

“Thorns.” I recognized them. A long, thin point that swelled to a bulbous base. I’d had several erupt from my flesh when I killed the Fairy Godmother. “How old are these?”

“Four hundred years, at least. And we got a bottle of fae ink with it.” Cheryl held up a brown glass bottle. The contents crawled up the walls on their own, forming fractal patterns which dared me to lose myself in them. “The thorns will pierce anything. And they don’t hurt at all. If you hadn’t been such a wimp, I’d have used regular needles.”

Liam took the bottle and shook it. “How do you replenish the ink?”

“Oh . . .” Cheryl looked toward the door like she wanted to run. “Most folks who get tattooed with this stuff come back wanting it gone. They say it brings bad luck. The thorns are hollow, and I swear, the ink is drawn to them. It siphons out into the knob at the bottom, then we pump it back into the bottle. Doesn’t hurt a bit.”

My memory said the thorns hurt in ways she couldn’t possibly imagine. “We’re going to have to confiscate these. You either hand them over, or I bring in the Kingdom police. I’m guessing that isn’t incense I smell.”

Cheryl cursed in several ways I hadn’t heard before, insulting my lineage (fine by me), my mother (equally fine), and an innocent goat. Ari took out her phone to take notes. Ari considered herself a journeyman curser, but she had aspirations of becoming a master.

I took a thorn and tentatively jabbed it at my wrist. Anytime someone says “it doesn’t hurt,” they are lying. It hurt. And worse yet, the ink remained under my skin. “Hey,” I shouted, interrupting Cheryl’s tirade. “It’s not working.”

She studied my arm a moment, then shook her head. “It wasn’t this size when I did it. Trust me, you wouldn’t hold still long enough. Maybe knead the skin?”

As we exited the shop, Grimm waited in the “Check yourself out!” mirror. “Ladies, I have good news and bad. Which would you prefer first?”

“Bad,” said Ari and I. We’d spent enough time with Grimm to know the good almost never outweighed the bad.

Grimm nodded. “The good news is, as his witness, Haniel is not allowed to directly harm you. That is the purpose of the witness. To spread word of what happened.”

Liam blew out a ring of smoke. “And the bad news?”

“The bad news,” said Grimm, “is that no archangel in history has succeeded in retaining his power when corrupted. At the completion of the ritual, he will go on a rampage. While Marissa and Arianna may be safe, no one else may count themselves so fortunate.”