Poison Ink (25 page)

Sammi fell on her then, driving her to the floor on her side. She swung the tray a second time, and a third, and this time Katsuko couldn’t reach to interfere.

The metal thudded against her skull.

16

S
omething had snapped inside Sammi. She screamed a torrent of verbal abuse at Katsuko as she hit her. The girl tried to buck her off. Sammi hit her in the face with the metal tray. Katsuko twisted under her, throwing her off balance, and struck her across the temple with a backhand.

“Sammi, stop!” Zak shouted.

Rachael tried to pull her off Katsuko, but Sammi shook free and tried to hit her again with the tray. Her plan would be ruined if Katsuko left right now, if she knew what Sammi had done to T.Q.

Zak grabbed Sammi’s wrists, and Rachael tugged the tray out of her hands. Panic shot through her.

“No!”

“Bitch! I’ll kill you!” Katsuko screamed, and again she bucked.

Sammi spilled off her, dull pain flaring in her ribs. Scrambling, she got to her feet, but by then Katsuko had risen. Zak reached for her, trying to prevent the vengeance that burned in her eyes. Katsuko went to kick him in the balls. When he twisted to avoid the attack, she grabbed his hair in one hand and scratched his face with the other, drawing blood. Zak roared with pain and lashed out, knocking her away.

But Katsuko had wanted that.

She spun toward Sammi.

“Quit it! Just stop! You guys are insane!” Rachael screamed.

Katsuko lunged at Sammi, slammed into her, and took her to the ground. Her nose bled from the blow Sammi had delivered to her face with the metal tray. A small rivulet of blood dripped from her upper lip, and a drop fell onto Sammi’s cheek.

She tried to stop the descending fist. Katsuko aimed for her face, where her cracked cheekbone was still healing. Sammi twisted, and the blow struck the other side of her face. Pain flared in her ribs. She tried to buck Katsuko off her, but though she must have weighed thirty pounds more, the petite girl was much stronger.

Sammi punched her in the face with the cast on her left hand. She struck Katsuko’s already bleeding nose. Still Katsuko wouldn’t let go. With a powerful hand she gripped Sammi’s throat and began to squeeze, cutting off her air.

“Get off of her, you crazy bitch!” Zak snarled.

He picked Katsuko up with both hands. When the girl tried to attack him again, he threw her across the room. Katsuko pinwheeled her arms but couldn’t keep herself from crashing into the wall. A whole shelf of knickknacks and a small painting fell to the floor with a crash.

Sammi spared one glance toward T.Q., who tried to rise from the floor, eyes heavily lidded, but collapsed as though she’d had far too much to drink.

“Stay there!” Zak screamed at Katsuko, pointing down at where she crouched on the floor amid the rubble of knickknacks. Then he spun on Sammi. “Have you totally lost your mind?”

Sammi saw Katsuko move. “Zak, watch her!”

Zak started to turn. He would have been too late if Rachael hadn’t been there. She grabbed Katsuko’s arm, yanking her back. Katsuko pulled herself free, but by then Zak was ready. He grabbed her by the wrists, tripped her, and drove her down to the wood floor, sitting astride her to pin her in place.

“Just stop!” he shouted.

Sammi started toward them and Zak whirled around. “Goddamn it, Samantha, you too! Just stay right there.”

Katsuko writhed beneath him, snarling and panting like an animal, her eyes beginning to roll up in her head.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Zak screamed into her face.

But Rachael’s expression had gone slack and pale. She stared at Katsuko, and as Sammi moved a little nearer, she saw what had captivated Rachael’s attention. The girl’s shirt had ridden up, exposing her belly.

“Zak,” Rachael almost whispered.

A wave of icy cold swept through the tattoo shop. Zak looked at Rachael, saw her expression, then looked down at Katsuko’s bared stomach. Neither of them would have seen anything like it before, but Sammi had. Once.

The black tendrils of ink that made up the spreading poison of her tattoo covered her belly like intricate calligraphy. But as they all stared, and as Katsuko spat at Zak, the tattoo vines were moving beneath her skin, slowly twisting like a basket of vipers.

“Holy shit!” Zak shouted, and he started to get up.

“Don’t let her go!” Rachael snapped.

Zak looked at her and nodded, gone quite pale himself. Both of them turned to look at Sammi.

“You better tell us what’s going on here now, Sam. Don’t leave anything out. And you better start with what the hell you did to the redhead over there,” Zak said, nodding toward the unconscious T.Q.

Sammi took a breath, forcing herself not to think about the setbacks she might have suffered because of her struggle with Katsuko. As unnerving as it was to see the tattoos moving and to see Katsuko go almost mindlessly feral, it had given her the opening she needed.

This could still work.

“I drugged her. I powdered four of the painkillers I had left over from the hospital.”

“Oh my God,” Rachael whispered.

“I had to,” Sammi said, staring at her. “And I’ll tell you the story, starting right now. But while we’re talking, there’s something you’ve got to do.”

“What’s that?” Zak asked, incredulous.

“Rachael needs to destroy their tattoos. Katsuko’s first, then T.Q.’s.”

“Why?”

“Are you blind?” Sammi asked. She pointed at Katsuko’s exposed stomach. “Have a look. Use that ink. The stuff that they brought with them. If I’m right, that’ll work better. Go to the center of the tattoo, the original tattoo, before it started to grow. Fill in the hollow. Color in around it, where the waves were—where those lines start. I don’t care if it’s just a blotch or a square or whatever. Just do it. You’ve got to ruin the original design.”

Zak and Rachael stared at her.

Katsuko had begun to hyperventilate and to make a low keening noise with every swift breath. Her eyes were focused now, though, and she glared at Sammi with a hatred that made her recoil. Being looked at that way made her feel hideous, but one look at the twisted ugliness that Katsuko’s face had become also served to remind her why she had done all of this.

“Why?” Rachael repeated. “You want me to do this, Sammi, you have to tell me why.”

Sammi pointed at Katsuko’s belly. The black vines of the tattoo had almost completely stopped writhing. It might have just been ink on the skin now. But it was impossible to miss that those lines were not entirely still. One would shift, just slightly, and then another, as though they were attempting to go unnoticed.

“That’s why.”

“Sammi—” Zak started.

“Listen to me. There’s this guy, Dante. You heard them talk about him. That’s his ink. He’s the one who did the tattoos. He’s done something to them, don’t you get it? With the tattoos. He’s controlling them. Maybe you think that sounds crazy, but your own eyes aren’t lying to you. I’m not asking you to kill her or even hurt her. Just blot out that tattoo, using that ink—I think that’s important, because if they brought it for you to use on me, it’s got to be a part of the…”

“The what?” Rachael asked.

“The spell,” Zak said.

Frowning, Rachael turned to look at him. Sammi stared.

“Not you too,” Rachael said.

Zak took a breath and let it out. “I read about something like this. I did this paper on African tribal magic. Tattoos were a part of it.”

“So what did you learn?”

He laughed. “Not a lot. I got a C. But there was something about ritual tattoos. And Sammi’s right. Whatever this is, the ink on this chick is severely not normal.”

Rachael looked from one to the other, over at T.Q., then back at Zak. “I am so going to jail.”

Sammi started toward her. “Rachael—”

But the diminutive tattooist held up a hand. “Just get her on the table, the two of you. And try not to trash any more of my place than you already have.”

Rachael shot a dark look at Sammi. “And you. Talk.”

So Sammi talked. She and Rachael stripped off Katsuko’s pants and Sammi lay across her legs while Zak pinned her shoulders. And Sammi talked. She told them the story from beginning to end, and from time to time she glanced up and saw the horror in their eyes. If they hadn’t seen evidence for themselves, she knew they would never have believed her, even having been witness to the way Letty, Caryn, T.Q., and Katsuko had beaten Las Reinas in a fight and then stomped the crap out of Sammi.

But they’d seen it. They could never unsee it. They had to believe her.

“Rachael?” Zak said when Sammi had finished.

But his girlfriend didn’t raise her head from her work. She had started, as Sammi suggested, by filling in the hole at the center of the tattoo—the hollow in the world, Dante had called it, though surely it served some other purpose. Then Rachael had moved out from there, using that ink to broaden the central circle, working out toward what would have been the edges of the original tattoo.

“I can’t—” Rachael said.

“Can’t what?” Zak asked.

“I can’t think about it.”

She lifted the needle from Katsuko’s skin. Half the time they’d had to wait for pauses in her cursing and spitting and bucking for Sammi to continue her story and for Rachael to continue eradicating Dante’s original design. The work went slowly and the tattoo needle moved a lot. The work Rachael had been doing would not be pretty. There were lines where the ink had striped Katsuko’s skin when she had tried to twist away.

“What do you mean?” Sammi asked.

Rachael looked up at Zak. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to think about it. I just want to get it done. Mostly, I’m afraid it won’t work, because then…what happens to us? What’s this guy going to do?”

She shook her head and looked over at where T.Q. lay mumbling blearily on the floor, disoriented but no longer unconscious. Sammi had planned for her to be the first to have the tattoo destroyed, and that would have been so much easier. But Katsuko hadn’t left her any choice.

Rachael glanced at Sammi. “I mean, what even makes you think this will work? We don’t have enough ink to cover her whole body, and if the tattoos are spreading…” She shrugged. “You don’t know anything. You’re totally guessing. Why didn’t you take that book from this Dante guy’s place, figure out what the hell he did to them?”

“Do I look like some kind of witch to you? What the hell do I know about this stuff? I had to get out of there, and I didn’t want him to know it was me. That grimoire or whatever wasn’t even in English.”

“So this is all just a guess!” Rachael said.

“What do you want from me?” Sammi cried. “I’m sorry I got you into this, but I didn’t know what else to do. You saw what he did to them. You saw what
they
did to
me.
”

Zak lifted one arm to reach for Rachael and Katsuko grunted, tried to get up. He forced her back down, cursing at her. Then he glanced at Rachael.

“Just get it done. I get what Sammi’s saying and I know you do, too. If the design’s the thing, if it’s such a part of this guy’s magic, then screwing it up is the only thing I can think of. If you’ve got a better idea, Rach, I’d love to hear it.”

Rachael’s hand shook as she lowered the needle again.

A few minutes later, Sammi noticed that the twisted black lines on Katsuko’s body had stopped moving entirely. She frowned, staring at them, waiting for movement, but there was none.

Then she saw the tears sliding from the corners of Katsuko’s eyes and the wretched humiliation on her face.

“Oh my God,” Sammi whispered.

Rachael set down the needle. Zak stepped back and Rachael got up, sliding into his arms. They stared at the girl on the table, holding each other. Rachael shook a bit, fear and relief and this final bit of evidence overwhelming her.

“It’s all true,” she said.

Zak said nothing, but Sammi saw the terrible truth of those words settle on him. They had been frantic before. Now the reality had created a new fear in them.

“Katsuko,” Sammi said. She sat on the edge of the table.