Wicked Ink (8 page)

“For Christ’s sake, Jackson.” Garrett came off the couch, looking ready to pounce.

One glance from Dory, though, and he sat right back down. “Start talking,” she said as Jackson left the apartment, closing the door behind him.

His hand made a track down his face. “I really don’t know how to start.”

“I’m not going to say at the beginning, because I don’t think that’s really what is important. Start with the chair and everything I saw up there and move backward.”

He blew out a breath. “You’re not asking for a lot.”

“Yes, I am, but I expect you to give it to me.” She fisted her hands on her hips to keep herself from wrapping them around her ribs. She wanted to project a no-nonsense attitude, not fright.

“Can you at least sit down? I can’t do this with you towering over me.”

“At a whopping five foot five, I hardly think I’m towering over you.”

“Please, Dory. This is hard enough. Just sit.”

After their gazes locked together for a brief yet intense moment—he looked away first—she stalked over to the small table tucked into the kitchen and brought the lone chair out into the living room. She was so not sitting on the couch with him.

“Now, talk.”

“I know this is going to sound weird.”

“No weirder than seeing you strapped into a chair that was going to electrocute you.”

“Point for you. I can’t start at the chair, though, because nothing will make any sense if I tell it backward.” He sucked in a deep breath. “I have the ability to soak in darkness and evil from the people around me and use it to make weapons from my tattoos. When I’m done with the darkness, the only way I can purge it is by electrocuting it out of my body. Fighting dark with light.”

Her mind spun, and she was pretty sure she was about to topple out of the chair despite her death grip on the seat.

* * *

“I don’t know how it works precisely, but the tattoos are made from real ink, and they coalesce in my hands to be whatever I need them to be. The weapons all come out black, and they’re as real as anything tangible. I have to absorb them back into myself when I’m done or the tattoo gets ruined. Same thing happens if the tattoo is mangled on my skin. When that happens, I have to go see Lissa, who is not always very nice about having to fix me up, and she has to re-ink the tattoos so I can use them again. But it all comes with a price…” He trailed off when he saw the way she was sitting in the chair, her back ramrod straight. He’d been babbling in his desire to get it all out. The last thing he wanted was to see disgust and pain in her eyes when she looked at him. Who in the hell would believe him? Certainly not her.

“So when you’re done electrocuting yourself, all this darkness is out of your body and you can function again?” He cringed as her frank gaze assessed him.

“On the most basic of levels, yes. It’s something I’ve been able to do for years, but electricity is the only antidote I’ve found that reliably saves me from sinking into the darkness and exalting in it. I have a cop to thank for accidentally hitting me with a stun gun, or else I never would have known.”

“You’ve exalted in it before, haven’t you?”

He had really hoped she wouldn’t ask him that. Of course, it was the first real question to come popping out of her pretty mouth. Her hair was up in a soft ponytail, and she had changed from the business suit she’d been wearing earlier into soft jeans and a T-shirt. Until this morning, he’d never seen her in anything but the suit. He liked all of her looks, but this was the most appealing. And he was stalling if he was thinking about her fashion choices instead of looking into her eyes and answering a question he knew the answer to better than he knew himself.

“Yes.” He folded his hands around each other, only to watch them twitch in his lap. He would never be able to face her again. He’d have to leave this building and start over somewhere else. He’d done it more than once, but he’d hoped this would be the last time. He might not have made friends of the real variety, but he liked the people in this building. They were easy to get along with, and they stayed out of his business. Well, everyone except for the beautiful woman sitting across from him.

But it just wasn’t meant to be. And though that didn’t surprise him, it did sadden him.

“How long have you not been exalting in it?”

The question took him off guard. Why wasn’t she asking what bad things he’d done? Surely she’d want to know more about the monster he’d become before changing into something better but not good? “Almost eighteen years.”

She sat and stared at him until he became more uncomfortable than he already was.

“So how old are you? Don’t tell me you’re really three hundred years old and immortal… I don’t think I could take that kind of info.”

She startled a laugh out of him at the weirdest moment. “No, I’m thirty-five.”

“So you couldn’t have been truly evil when you were a little kid, and you changed yourself around at seventeen. You’ve been good longer than bad?”

“I’ve never truly been good, Dory. I don’t know how to be. I can’t give you any more answers right now. I’m doing my best to look out for the tenants of this building. I’ll continue to do that for a little while longer, but then I’m going to have to leave. And you need to go back to your apartment now. There are things I need to do.” He searched his body and soul for any trace of darkness and found nothing, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t lurking.

“I’m not leaving if you’re going to go back and strap yourself into that chair again.”

He struggled not to lose his temper. He wanted to be sure, goddammit! But Dory didn’t need to be yelled at. It wasn’t her fault he was a mess. He could promise her this, at least. “No, I won’t strap myself into the chair again tonight. You have my word.”

“And we’ll talk more later?”

He wouldn’t lie to her. “I doubt it. Now, I really have to go. You know the way out.”

She didn’t move from her spot. She sat staring at him, again, until he thought she might have fallen into some kind of trance. He was able to do that when he was meditating—it was another method he used to gain control of himself.

“Dory.”

Nothing.

“Dory? You have to go. I can’t have you here.”

She still didn’t even blink an eyelash. “Did you find Marta?”

He sighed. So she was going to keep asking and he was going to have to keep answering, if for no other reason than that she’d saved him from the chair for the second time. He still didn’t get what it was about her that eliminated the need for him to jolt an electrical current through his every cell, but he owed her a debt of gratitude nonetheless.

“Yes, I found her today, that’s why I wasn’t able to jog home next to you on your way back from work. I wanted to, but I was in a bad place after I saved Marta from the warehouse where they were keeping her.”

“And did you kill anyone there? Did you hurt them for taking someone who was important to you?” Her eyes narrowed.

What was he supposed to say to that? He’d hurt Bert, and he’d enjoyed it more than he should have. But he’d do it all over again with Marta’s sobs ringing in his ears and her hands gripping him hard enough to make him wince. “Yes, okay? I hurt the guy. I broke a couple of bones and left him to the mercy of whoever paid him to draw me out. I don’t know who’s targeting the people around me, but it has to be because of me. They know my name, something about what I can do. So I promise I’ll stay around long enough to figure it out and stop them. But then I’ll disappear. I won’t make you all suffer.”

“And what about me?” she whispered. “I’m the only woman left in the building who hasn’t been taken or hurt. What are you going to do about that?”

Her whisper hit him in places he shouldn’t think about, not when he was planning on leaving this place. His gut tensed as he wished things were different. How he would love to just sit here with this beautiful woman, enjoying her fragrance, the way her soft hair looked, thinking about something other than death and destruction. But there was no arguing with reality, and the faster he got her out of here, the faster he could go back to bringing about justice and moving on.

“I’m going to watch over you and track down the people who are after me. Then I’m going to make them stop. Now, please leave, Dory. I can’t do this while you’re sitting there like a visitor at the zoo, staring at a new exhibit.”

He knew the second his words hit her like a slap. When she got up and went to the door, her arms were wrapped tightly around her ribs, her whole body seeming to collapse around itself like a protective shell. “I don’t need your protection, Garrett. Now that I know what these people want, I know to be even more careful. I can take care of myself. I’m not being stupid or stubborn, but I will not let you save me if it means you have to electrocute yourself again.”

Chapter Eight

Dory stood under the spray of the shower long after the water turned cold. Her thoughts were chaotic as she tried to process the fact that, for all intents and purposes, she lived next to a superhero. She’d read all the comics when she was younger, devouring the stories about a way of life that was good and pure, where the bad guys always lost and good guys always came out ahead.

She’d already washed her hair and her body, but still she stood there in the streaming water. How could this be possible? How could she live next to a superhero and not know?

Eventually she shut off the water when her skin turned pruny and her teeth started chattering. She didn’t need to get sick right now. Tax season would be upon her before she knew it, and sick days were not a luxury she could afford.

But an honest to God superhero. Crazy! And yet, so very cool. She had a crush on a superhero. It was like she was Mary Jane and Lois Lane all wrapped up in one.

And now she was giddy. This was serious stuff. Superman had never felt the need to almost kill himself every time he helped someone. No matter what Garrett said, there was no way the electricity running through his body was not hurting him in some way on a permanent basis. She might not know anything about medicine, but she knew enough to know he was killing himself, no matter how he saw it.

Well, if he thought he was getting rid of her, he was in for quite a surprise. He couldn’t just up and leave now that he’d shared his story with her.

She toweled off her hair as she walked out into her living room. Knickknacks abounded; books lined the walls. She had a couch and two chairs, along with an entertainment center and a few potted plants in here. So different from Garrett’s basic setup. It made her sad to think that other than the art, he had nothing personal in either of his spaces.

Darn it, she’d forgotten to give him the very plain peanut butter and grape jelly she’d made with the pita from his bread box. She’d just go right back over there to make sure he ate something. Creating weapons and using them, even if they came from his body, had to be hungry work. At least she could do something about that.

She stepped into a pair of sneakers to go with her ratty pajamas and figured there was no need to try impressing him anymore. He was so far out of her league it was funny. She pulled her wet hair into a sloppy ponytail and called herself done.

Opening her door to the hallway, she saw a brief shadow out of the corner of her eye before something dark descended over her head. Her entire world went black as her body arched at the feeling of a needle being stuck into her arm.

* * *

Slamming his fist into the wall did not help Garrett’s mood at all. In fact, it only made it fouler because now his hand hurt. He went looking for something to eat and found almost nothing in the refrigerator. He guessed he could brave something from the freezer, though his stomach rebelled at the thought.

But when he pulled the door open, he saw that the whole thing was empty. Well, damn. She must have found everything in there and taken it out. Now she knew what a liar he was. She
already
knew, but this felt worse somehow, no matter how ridiculous that was. He shook his head, his gaze landing on a pita puffed up with…something. Peeling the edges apart he saw that it was peanut butter and grape jelly. What were the chances she hadn’t added hot sauce to it? Or sprinkled it with garlic powder?

He took a bite and found it as plain as plain could get. He devoured the whole thing and then peeled an orange. So Dory was capable of making palatable food. Somehow that set him back on his heels.

At least now there was no need to save her feelings anymore by pretending to eat her food. He’d already done far more damage by insulting her when she had only been trying to help.

“Shit.” He placed his palms on the wall that connected their apartments, leaning his forehead against the paint. Her touch had healed him again, without any need for the chair. Then, like an ass, he’d kicked her out as if she was some kind of irritating groupie.

He should strap himself into the chair for that alone. He had sat up there for the past hour, staying close to it in case the darkness reared its head. But nothing had happened. No rage, no blood lust, no craving for chaos. He’d used the time to try to make links between himself and someone who wanted him badly enough to traumatize others to get him. For some reason, the warehouse where he’d found Marta kept coming to mind, so he’d decided to find any info he could about it. The only thing he’d come up with was the name of the corporation that owned the building and the fact that it wasn’t for sale like everything else in the area. People wanted that portion of the city revamped or at least torn down. But that one warehouse wasn’t on any market.

It was owned by a bogus company that was owned by another bogus company. As the sun had sunk in the sky, he’d followed the trail on his computer until it had petered out into nothing but a listing for something called Macha’s Antiquities. But that, too, had been a dead end. The phone number for the company was disconnected with no forwarding number. But when he pulled up the name in a search engine, he found that it was yet another Celtic goddess of war.

There had to be a connection, some way to preemptively strike. He just had to find it. This was so much more involved than his norm. On an average day, he went out, fought evil and called it done. This was different and not in a good way. He tried to shunt his guilt about Dory aside to concentrate, but he wasn’t getting anywhere.