Ink (14 page)

The family never attended the annual block party; they were quiet and kept to themselves. And wasn’t that what Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbors said? The old stereotype—he seemed like such a nice kid. The bicycle-riding, gum-chewing kid didn’t fit that bill, though. He was odd, yet odd didn’t mean he was into magic tricks.

Poof, watch the kitty disappear.

Jason could imagine it, if he summoned up the courage to pay them a visit. “Hello, I live across the street and I think your son is playing doctor with the neighborhood animals. Oh yeah, he also likes to peek in windows.” They’d slam the door in his face. And wouldn’t he in the same situation? Watching crime dramas on television didn’t make him an expert in anything but a Hollywood construct of crime scenes and lab work.

He took a sip of beer and shifted in the chair, wincing at the pain in his left arm. He’d woken up with it tucked under his body, and until the pins and needles started, it hung at his side, nothing more than a lump of dead flesh, as if Dr. Frankenstein had snuck in during the night, removed his real arm and replaced it with the inanimate limb of a corpse.

The wind picked up, blowing rain across the porch. He finished his beer and went inside.

13

Jason woke up at 3:30 a.m. with a shout caught in his throat. He sat up in bed, beads of sweat cooling on his brow and trailing down his spine. His mind tried to shake off the hands of sleep, but the dream didn’t want to let him go. A vague sense of chaotic movement hovered in the back of his mind, a remembrance of being dragged him by his arm to an unknown, hostile place of heat and stone, some unpleasant place where his struggles meant nothing.

The dream lingered, beckoning him back down into the deep. He fought against it, but his eyelids slid shut, his chin dropped down, once, twice and—

The horrible smell of smoke, ash and cinder. Distant, pain-filled screams. His feet burned as they scraped across rocky ground. Sweat from the heat stung his eyes. A voice. A scream. His own? Heat. Fire. Wind. Angry, flapping wings. And so much—

Jason’s eyes snapped open. No. He was not going back. He stood up on shaky legs and stumbled to the bathroom. His hand missed the light switch but found the cold, porcelain edge of the sink, then the curved faucet. He ran the cold water for several long minutes and splashed his face until the dream retreated.

As the water bubbled out of the sink, he turned on the light. Dark purple smudges shadowed the skin underneath his eyes. The left side of his neck hurt, stiff where it curved into the shoulder, and he rubbed it hard. His fingertips found a hard little knot under the skin, and he pushed it, gritting his teeth when discomfort turned to pain. When the knot finally released, his shoulder sagged in relief.

Heading out of the bathroom, he flipped the switch with his left hand and stopped. He took a step back and turned the light on again, walking backward until his body reappeared in the mirror over the sink, with eyes as wide as a carousel horse.

Several dots of dried blood marred the skin on his left arm only an inch above the crease of his elbow. Small specks so dark they appeared almost black. They weren’t horrible. A bug bite, or scratches made by the edge of sharp fingernails in the midst of a dark dream. No, they weren’t horrible at all, but his skin… His skin was horribly wrong. No gaping wounds or torn flesh. No signs of violence but wrong nonetheless. He made a sound in the back of his throat. The beginning of a what? A yell? A scream? Maybe the dream still held him tight. That would make sense. Asleep and dreaming. And maybe in his dream world he didn’t have a tattoo because the skin on his arm was as ink-free as it had been the night he met Sailor in the bar.

No tattoo. Geryon, Frank, or otherwise.

Jason couldn’t tear his eyes away from the mirror. He grabbed the edge of the sink with both hands, holding tight to the porcelain as if it were a talisman or a totem of good luck and reappearing tattoos. He closed his eyes and counted to ten.

Tattoos don’t disappear. It’s just my eyes playing tricks.

No matter what, he wouldn’t say a word, and he definitely would not yell. He held onto the sink hard enough to make his fingertips ache while the exhaust fan whirred overhead. A faint, metallic smell wafted up from the drain. The smell of coins piled up at the bottom of a fountain filled with scummy water. The smell of a man killing time.

Jason opened his eyes.

He looked in the mirror first, then down at his arm. His heart gave a heavy thud. No trace, no suggestion, of ink at all. His right hand lifted. Stopped. Lifted. Stopped. He raised his hand again and turned off the light. His fingers itched to turn it back on and check again, but his mind refused. Tattoos, nothing more than ink drawings, did not get up and walk away. A very loud voice in the back of his mind shouted in protest. It called him a wimp, an idiot, a fool.

He wasn’t going to turn on the light again, not for all the money in the world. The bathroom rug felt warm under his feet, too warm to be anything but real. He could accept the fact he wasn’t dreaming, but he would not accept an ink-free arm. It didn’t work like that.

It’s there. It has to be.

He walked back into the bedroom, his steps slow and heavy. He’d left the light on, and it bathed his room in a soft bluish glow, low lighting but bright enough to see the socks he’d tossed on the floor. Bright enough to see a tattoo or a lack of one.

The compulsion to look down at his arm felt like a strong hand on the back of his head, pushing it down.
Look. Look
. The kid in the back room at the party with a joint in his extended hand.
You know you want to. Come on, it won’t hurt.

No. Not for a second, not for a half second; it was better to be a fool than a madman. If he looked and saw bare un-inked skin he might not be able to hold in a yell. He might scream out loud. If he saw its absence again how could he convince himself of a dream, a daydream, a hallucination? It wasn’t worth the risk.

And anyway, there’s nothing to see. Move along, nothing here.

A smell lingered in the room, an odd, musky scent like an animal’s fur—a feral, hungry smell—and the voice in his head shouted things that did not (and could not) make sense. He shoved back at the voice until it choked on its own words and gave up.

Dream trickery, that and nothing more.

He climbed into bed, burying his face in the pillow, and the smell of Mitch’s coconut shampoo kept him company. He thought of her face, her smile, the soft noise she made in the back of her throat when he kissed her neck. He did not think about ink or skin.

14

When Jason woke up, his eyes protested the sun’s invasion of his bedroom. The curtains were wide open, and the overcast sky had gone on holiday. He moved on autopilot into the bathroom. The sun turned the walls into panels of luminosity so bright they sent a searing pain through his temples.

He gripped the edges of the sink, the porcelain cold on his palms. The metal smell drifted up again, and he fought the urge to go back in his room and grab a coin. Heads, he looked. Tails, he didn’t. Near the very bottom of the sink, a single hair curled into a small, backwards C. Too short to be Mitch’s and anyway, it was dark, not light and—

Stop being a coward and just look up.

White-knuckled, he did. His hair stood up from his scalp in crazy, porcupine spikes, bruise-colored shadows marred the skin under his red-rimmed, bleary eyes and his arm… He sagged against the sink in relief.

“Hi, Frank.” His voice, ragged at the edges, came out in little more than a whisper.

The tattoo, with all its intricate lines and shading, did not answer back.

A dream. All of it. The illusion of unmarked skin, the panicked flutter of his heart, the strange smell. Nothing more than a late-night subconscious trick, no matter how real his imagination made it.

Of course it was a trick. Tattoos don’t disappear.

15

John S. Iblis stood before the wrought-iron gate surrounding the Washington Monument, staring up at the structure—178 feet of white marble with a standing figure of good old George Washington himself on top. The monument had been built in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon area more than fifty years before the one in Washington D.C., and such a fuss it had created. Rumors of portents in the shape of shooting stars and an eagle landing atop the monument. Or so John had heard.

With a sigh, he gave the sturdy padlock barring his entrance one last tug, then walked away. Such a shame, really. He had always been fond of the view from the top.

Chapter Five

Below the Waterline

1

The bag of ice slapped against Jason’s thigh as he carried it into his parents’ house. His sister-in-law’s distinct laugh, high-pitched with an odd lilt at the end, rang out from the kitchen and, a moment later, his mother’s followed. Ryan slouched on the sofa next to their dad, his lips pressed in a tight line and his eyes shadowed. Problems with Eve, no doubt. The two spent more time arguing, although in quiet, clipped tones, at family functions than not. They did their best to hide it, especially from his mom, but the tension was always palpable.

But Mom just sees what she wants to.

Judging from Ryan’s expression, the argument had already started. Jason knew the rules, though; the problems between he and Eve were off-limits.

“The cooler is on the back porch, as always,” his dad said, after giving Jason a hug. “Can you take the ice out?”

Ryan followed him out the sliding glass door to the porch and lit a cigarette while Jason dumped the ice in the cooler. “I heard the big news about you and Shelley splitting up. Mom told me when she called me the other day. You really shook her up with that one. Maybe you should’ve waited a while, you know, gave her a few hints first before dropping the bomb.”

“Believe me, it would’ve been worse if I’d waited, especially if she’d called Shelley, thinking everything was okay. Did she tell you about my tattoo, too? I think that freaked her out more than the split.”

“You got a tattoo? You?”

“Check it out,” Jason lifted his sleeve, wincing at the ache.

“That’s wicked cool. Damn. I can’t believe you of all people got a tat.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ryan shrugged. “No offense, but you just never seemed like the type, that’s all. So what really happened with you and Shelley?”

“The short version? She was seeing someone else.”

Ryan’s eyes grew wide. “The ice queen had an affair?”

“Yeah, but it’s not a big deal, things were bad long before that.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Anyone could see that. You look a hell of a lot happier, that’s for sure.”

“It’s hard not to. We should’ve split up a long time ago.”

“You lucky son of a bitch.” Ryan took a long drag from his cigarette. “I wish I could say the same thing. I fucking hate being married some days, and today is one of those days.” He dropped his voice low. “Eve is pregnant. We found out this week. We haven’t told Mom and Dad yet, so whatever you do, don’t say anything.”

“No, I wo—”

“There you are.” Their mom stepped out on the porch and gave Jason a hug, holding onto him a little longer than usual. A flare of pain raced up his arm, from elbow to shoulder. “Put that out and both of you come inside,” she said to Ryan. “I thought you were going to quit.”

“Mom, please.”

Voices drifted out through the open sliding door, and her face brightened. “Your brother and the girls. Well, are you two going to stand out here all day or are you going to come in and be sociable?”

Jason followed her in; Ryan followed suit a few minutes later. By that time, Jason had already said happy birthday to Chris and hello to his wife. Chris and Lisa both wore bright smiles, a strong contrast to the strained one on Ryan’s face. He bent down to say hello to his nieces, both toddling over on chubby legs, and Mia tugged on his ear. A heartbeat later, Allison grabbed his nose.

Mia, the elder by three minutes, grabbed his left arm, then pulled her hand away with a frown, her face twisting into the expression his dad called the monkey look—eyebrows drawn close together, chin lowered, mouth turned down—and everyone laughed. The old family photo albums contained many pictures of all three boys with the same look when they were kids.

Allison reached forward and touched his arm, too, and soon enough, her face matched Mia’s. She didn’t pull her hand away, though. She pushed up the sleeve of his shirt and stared at the tattoo, then poked it with one finger. She looked Jason in the eye and shook her head. “Bad,” she said.

Chris and Lisa both laughed.

“Yes, you keep thinking that way, baby girl,” Chris said. “No ink for you.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Your kids have no taste, that’s all I can say.”

When Mia reached over and pulled Allison’s hand away, Allison tipped her face up to Jason, her lower lip trembling and tears shining in the corners of her eyes.

Great. My nieces are scared of my tattoo. Nice job, Frank.