Ink (36 page)

Jason pressed his palm to his arm. Red seeped out between his fingers, and the kitchen filled with a rich, metallic smell. Bright and sharp. Frank moved under his skin, a mad shift of position, the talons pressing against Jason’s skin for one quick moment, sharp even under the layers of flesh binding them together and separating him from the outside. Pins and needles, spikes and razors, raced from under his palm down to his dancing fingers.

A huge chunk of concrete replaced the knot inside his chest. Jason pulled his hand back and slid down to sit on the floor, staring at the ragged, round hole in his arm. A gaping mouth of pain and gore. And on the inside—raw flesh, bands of pink muscle, yellow globs of fat, and a slight shimmer of bronze fur. A mere suggestion of shape, faint but there. Hiding within the tendons and bone.

Very slick, Frank. Good thinking.

Jason had pushed the spike into the center of the tattoo, but he hadn’t injured Frank at all. Frank had moved out of the way, connected by flesh, but protected by the same. Spots of light danced in front of Jason’s eyes as he pulled himself up to standing with his right arm. Blood flowed down his left and dropped to the floor in small, dark puddles. He pushed the gardening spikes out of the way.

Connected by flesh, but bound together by ink.

He picked up the propane torch.

I can do this. I will do this.

The Alpha knot wasn’t his father. It was him. The new improved Jason Harford. The old Jason would have been crying in the corner, staring at the propane torch in horror. He might not be a real Alpha now, but he felt hard enough. Strong enough. Strong where it counted.

And mad. Don’t forget that. A little dash of craziness sprinkled on top.

Maybe, but performing a little self-surgery in the kitchen was no worse than watching Frank climb out of his arm. No worse than tossing Shelley’s hand in the Chesapeake Bay. A little more painful but no worse. He didn’t care how much it would hurt. Sailor would not win.

“Do you hear that, Sailor? You will not win.” He lit the torch and turned the knob until the flame glowed a small blue inch. “Here we go.”

Jason brought the torch close to his skin. The fingers of his left hand kept their rhythmic tremble. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. The torch slipped a little in his hand, and he gripped it tighter. Destroy the ink and slay the griffin? He hoped. With his lips pressed together in a thin line, he touched the flame to his skin.

A thick, roasted stench filled the entire kitchen. Charred flesh and heated blood. Smoke rose in gray spirals. The Alpha knot shouted in pain, but it kept the pain locked inside and urged him on. He moved the torch along the edge of the inked wing.

Roasting meat. It’s just roasting meat. Barbecued Jason with a side of griffin.

The skin sizzled and bubbled and turned black. Inside the hole, Frank shifted and hissed and retreated deep inside. The flesh of his arm rose and fell with the griffin’s crazed path as it avoided the flame. Jason shoved the flame inside his skin.

“Got you now. Got you now. Got you now.”

The Alpha knot slipped. Pain flooded in from his arm and his back, just below the shoulder blade. Jason shrieked and pulled the torch away. A tendril of dark smoke rose up from his ruined flesh. He turned off the torch and let it fall to the floor. The skin throbbed and ached and burned; underneath the char, it bubbled and melted. Jason collapsed onto the floor, his mouth and nose filled with the smell, the taste of it. He rolled onto his knees, scrambling to grab the torch.

Frank, not so good old Frank anymore, roared under his skin, and twisted. Tears, stupid, weak tears of pain raced hot trails down his cheek. He grabbed for the torch. His skin rose with an ink blur until it became a foreleg, and Frank shrieked in poisonous anger, the sound emerging with distorted amplification from the hole in his arm. The talons swiped across Jason’s cheek, but he didn’t stop. Blood ran down, warmer than his tears. A huge peal of thunder shook his house. He screamed in rage and frustration as his fingers slipped off the torch. The foreleg swelled and grew.

I have to get it before it comes out.

From kitten size to cat size to dog size and still, it kept growing.

Almost, almost, almost.

His fingers slipped and slid, then grabbed. And the foreleg, impossibly large now, reached out and up and swung. The torch spun away from his hands. A bolt of pain shook Jason from head to toe, brighter than the throbbing pain in his arm. Dark spots blurred his vision, gray specks of storm. The waves rushed up and pulled him down. Down into the dark. Down into nothing at all.

8

Swirls of gray. A distant voice. A hand shaking his right arm. The darkness gathered him back up, his eyelids fluttered, but the hand shook his arm again. “Jason, wake up.”

He opened his eyes and blinked. Gray clouds, pale and ghostlike, moved overhead. The sky shimmered with a dull haze. Not blue but yellow. Sickly, sad yellow. Hospital yellow.

“It always was a pain in the ass to wake you up, son.”

“Dad?” Jason whirled around. His father stood several feet away, draped half in shadow, half in the dingy light. A blue cooler sat open on the dry, brown grass, next to a grill with hot dogs sizzling on the grates. “Am I…”

His father shook his head. “Dead? No, you’re not.”

“Then where am I? What is this place?”

“It’s nowhere. Just someplace you made up in your head.”

“But you’re here.”

“Never mind that. We don’t have much time. Things are pretty bad, but I’m sure you know that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll remember soon enough. Just stay focused, okay? Stay strong.”

“I’d rather stay here with you,” Jason said. Because something horrible waited for him beyond this place. Something sharp and hurtful. And there would be blood. Lots of it.

His father sighed, and his breath smelled of old dirt. “I wish you could, Jason, but that’s not how this works. You need to finish what you started.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Of course you can. Just be careful with that arm.”

Jason looked down. A thin tendril of smoke curled up from the blackened skin. Underneath the char, the flesh appeared pink-raw and oozing. A sick feeling climbed up to the back of his throat, and he looked away.

“I saw it, you know. I saw it come out of your arm. It looked right at me.”

Jason put his head in his hands and remembered. “I know. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t—”

His father held up one hand. “What’s done is done. You need to forgive yourself. You didn’t know. How could you? But now you need to go back and finish it. Don’t give up. Don’t let him win. Do whatever you have to do.”

His father shimmered; his skin paled and turned gray, translucent, like smoke.

“Dad, wait.” Jason took several steps forward, arms outstretched, closing the distance between them.

“Whatever you have to do, okay? And don’t forget about the fine print.”

Just as Jason reached, so close, his father’s voice faded to a faint whisper. Then he slipped away, leaving behind a vague shape, like dust motes drifting in a patch of sun. Then that, too, vanished. Jason grabbed the empty air. “Dad, come back. Please,” he said.

The hot dogs burned, pushing out a thick smell.

No, it’s me. My flesh. My skin.

A cloud of smoke rose from the grill and moved toward him, alive and angry. Jason scrubbed the tears from his eyes as it whirled around him, tornado fast with a rushing noise like a scream.

“Son, go. Go

9

now.”

Pain, like acid eating into the flesh of his arm, brought him out of the dark. A weight on his shoulder like a stone—his Alpha knot. No, it wasn’t the knot. It moved and hissed and blew hot, stinking breath in his face. The griffin. Halfway out, halfway in, the space between the two a blur of ink and scorched flesh.

Jason opened his eyes, blinking away the tears, and rolled on his back, dislodging the griffin from his chest. Fresh pain exploded in his back, below his shoulder, and he rotated his body. He reached inside for his knot, but it didn’t help. Too much pain.

He turned his head and laughed, harsh and brittle. “Good old Frank, not so good anymore, are you? You’re not even supposed to be out yet.”

The cat-sized griffin struggled to break free, too hurt to climb all the way out, too angry to hide back inside. The head, chest and forelegs pressed their weight on his arm. It hissed again. One of its ears was black and smoking. His skin stretched, the skin turning to feathers as the wings emerged, one whole and healthy, the other charred and ruined. As ruined as his arm. Black, stinking skin riddled with cracks. Clear fluid oozed out between the cracks, like tears. Pieces of his skin broke away under the griffin’s talons. Ripped away.

Jason sat halfway up, and pain stabbed through his skull. A wave of dizziness poured over him like rain, teasing and threatening to pull him back down.

No.

He tried to flex the fingers of his left hand; they didn’t move, but another bolt of pain shot from shoulder to wrist. The griffin glared at him with green eyes gone dark with pain. Its breath came in ragged gasps.

The propane torch rested at the base of the cabinet below the sink, a million miles away. He used his right arm and dragged himself across the floor, now slick with blood. Pain screamed in his back, and something warm and wet ran down his spine. His arm was a column of sharp, stinging pain.

The griffin shifted and grew, its weight tugging his shoulder down. Jason pulled himself another six inches, and the griffin hissed in his ear, its breathing labored. Another swipe of its talons sent fresh blood down Jason’s neck. The torch, only four feet away, beckoned. He pulled again, and his palm slid in a small puddle of blood. His right shoulder bloomed with pain as he fell to the floor. The dizziness came again, stronger.

No. Can’t pass out, can’t pass out.

He rolled onto his hands and knees, dragging the griffin with him, like a hell-born tumor, small but malignant; his left arm buckled at the elbow and he pitched forward. His head met the tile with a loud thump. Stars doubled his vision—two cabinets, two torches, two Franks.

He raised himself up with his right arm. The griffin dug its talons, like small knives, into his left, and Jason shrieked. He pulled himself forward another few inches. The griffin grew again, heavier on his arm; it twisted the talons in his skin. Fire screamed in his arm. Hot and stinking. Pieces of charred flesh dropped to the floor, like black rain. His vision darkened, and he dropped down onto his right shoulder. More pain.

His eyes fluttered shut, then a loud crash of thunder filled the kitchen. He pushed himself back up and pulled. He dragged his burned, useless arm and the griffin behind him like a gruesome toy on a pull string. Everything turned to a blur in front of him, but it didn’t matter. His elbow buckled again, but he stayed up. He dropped his head down, and the griffin stretched itself a little larger. Somewhere Sailor was laughing. He knew it. The griffin moved and shifted.

“Come on, Sailor. Don’t you want to see what I’ve done?”

Frank hissed and shifted, then slid back into his ruined arm. Outside, the storm raged on. Jason struggled to his feet. He staggered to the table and sank down in the chair. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey, took a large swallow, and winced as it burned its way down. His stomach clenched and twisted.

Dutch courage. Just a little Dutch courage.

Another drink. The pain in his arm and back receded, turned from agony to dull throbs. A horrible smell seeped out of the burned flesh. Rot and ruin. He pushed the whiskey bottle out of the way, next to the blue propane canister, lifted the axe and balanced it on the edge of the table. He’d never chopped wood, but it couldn’t be hard. He couldn’t live with Frank forever. Their partnership had definitely crossed into hostile territory.

You’re stuck with him unless you do this. Unless you want to go back to Sailor and beg.

Jason had the feeling Sailor would make him beg for a long, long time, and it wouldn’t matter; he’d lose his skin in the end anyway. Sailor would put on the Jason suit and toss the rest of him in the pit. The smell of the room rushed over him, a horrible memory of screaming faces. Pain. Fire. No, he did not want that at all. The axe was razor sharp. It would take one swing. He hoped. Jason grabbed his left arm and stretched it out across the table. The pinkie finger twitched. Once. Twice.

He sighed and lifted the axe as high as he could without moving his left arm. He couldn’t swing it, so he’d have to let it drop on his arm and have faith it would hit hard enough. Hope again. Was it enough? The knot of ice in his chest thought so. His arm shook under the weight.

“Shit.”

The handle. He’d bought it because it had the biggest blade, but the handle was too long. When it dropped, it would bury itself in the table, not his arm. He dropped his arm and the axe and shimmied his hand up. Too much of the handle stuck out at the end, throwing off the weight, and it shook in his hand.