Chapter One
Sometimes, beneath the bite of her needles, she sees it on the skin.
In the same way she sees it on her own skin. Sometimes.
Jessica Viceroy leaned forward to better inspect the tiny contours of pale flesh illuminated by her Nightjewel. The custom-made, wireless tattoo gun was state-of-the-art. It’d cost a fortune, and she couldn’t really afford it, but the investment was her whole future.
Because, honestly, it felt like a magic wand in her hand.
She curled her fingers around its grip. It gave her the power to see what no one else could see, a glimpse of the ever-after. And whatever this guy had done with his life, well—oh snap.
There it was. Jess dropped her chin to her shoulder. Un-freakin’-believable.
That familiar tautness, the one that always began at her scalp, zipped a faint tingle across her shoulders, down the length of her spine. She shut her eyes against what it was that only she could see and drew in a slow and steady breath. Unconcealed by Jess’ favorite ink-sinker, she frowned at the sallow, thin whisper of yet another poor soul in grave peril. It used to be so rare, to glimpse the searing edges of an eroding spirit, weakening, disappearing. But this was like the second time in less than a month. Flippin’ fantastic. Why was it on her to see such things?
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip.
Geez. She could always pretend she didn’t see it. Stay cool, turn a blind eye. But that wouldn’t be right. Would it? Crap. She pursed her lips. Terrific. It didn’t matter how much she might want to go on as if she hadn’t seen a thing. Too late. She’d seen it.
How could she refuse to help this guy now?
Another client in desperate need of her secret freak-abilities, the very same god-forsaken ones she promised with all her heart to keep on the down low. Because seriously, what normal person can snuff out the fires of inner demons?
Truth was, she didn’t know this man. He could be anyone. She only met him like an hour ago. He seemed nice enough, a regular old codger, if not so terribly sad. If she went ahead and doused that ethereal singe, extinguished the damning blight wasting away his eternal well-being, slayed the aching despair from his lost and lonely spirit, would he know?
Guess rightly—what a freak-show she was?
When the man had stepped into the tattoo parlor, dimly lit by nothing more than her favorite work lamp, Jess, lost in her craft, was knees against the desk, her face buried in the worn pages of yet another sketchbook. Jingling the little bell at the doorjamb, he had stopped short and then just stood there, squinting in the sudden lack of vivid sunlight. No doubt searching for an ink slinger a bit less babe in the woods. A man maybe. Someone older than twenty-five.
But it was Saturday morning, and Jess was the only tattoo artist who came to work early on Saturdays. She put her sketchbook aside and stepped to where the man had stalled, silently crushing his ball cap between meaty fingers.
“Hi.” She reached out her hand. “I’m Jess.”
The man shook it, but his eyes still scanned the spaces behind her.
In that split-second, she studied the set of his jaw, the fine lines that creased his brow, the micro-flutter of thin, wary eyelids. Beneath them billowed storm clouds of sadness and grief, the kind he mightily struggled to ignore. So, she would pay no mind to them either. Instead, she offered a soft smile to put him at ease. Did he think she was judging him? She wasn’t—well, not really. No more than he was judging her.
“Can I help you?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or—um—” Suddenly, he gave the impression he was about to bolt for the door. “Maybe I should come back later.”
“Do you have a particular artwork in mind?”
He might’ve, but the sagging corners of his mouth betrayed that he’d rather chew off his own tongue than admit what was truly on his mind. He shrugged instead.
“I heard this place can help people with scars.”
Yep. Officially, that was her brand. Her whole thing. Carefully crafted designs made to conceal ugly scars, unfortunate birthmarks, unwanted blemishes of all kinds. Her life’s passion—to create the perfect cosmetic tattoo, easing the shame or grief or guilt, the gut-wrenching heartache that often came free and easy with the meanest of skin imperfections. It’s why she became a tattoo artist in the first place. It’s why customers sought her out. It’s evidently why this one did. People shouldn’t have to live with daily reminders of that which make them unhappy. And her distinctive artistry drew a fair number of clients to this particular tattoo shop.
Her smile grew wider. “I’ve got something to show you.”
She opened her portfolio. “This guy’s a firefighter.” She pointed to a picture of biceps with a tattoo of a dragon spewing fire. The flames were a tessellation. The delicate repeating patterns were her hallmark. Buried in them were crossed fire axes. “You can’t really see it anymore, but I designed it this way to conceal a nasty burn there.”
The man bent forward and squinted to better inspect the photo. The creased lines around his eyes softened ever so slightly. She flipped the portfolio to another page.
“This one.” It was a picture of a back tat, a large one. Some of her best work. “You can almost see the scar in this one, under the angel’s wings.” There was no taking in the beauty of that image and denying the skill with which she was able to camouflage so much underlying trauma. “His kid’s in heaven now,” she said. “Car accident.”
She shot the man a quick glance. “He was the driver.”
She hadn’t really needed to say anything more about that. She could tell it’d struck a nerve with the man, like ice-cream hits a toothache. He puffed out his cheeks, then slowly released a long exhale between tensed lips.
“See this?” She flipped to another photo, one at the back. “My mother—thought she could run with scissors.” It was a go-to joke. Not that funny really, but it usually managed to break the ice with her more guarded clients. It almost never failed.
The scar in the photo had obviously been self-inflicted. An old scar on Donna’s wrist and the first tattoo Jess had ever inked. When the full import of that realization hit him, the man glanced back at Jess with wide, knowing eyes. She gave him a shrug and a heartfelt smirk.
He lifted the hem of his flannel shirt. “Can you help me with this?”
The scar was a slash on his lower right side. Jagged, likely very painful. Maybe a knife wound. A fight? A mugging? Something else altogether? What did it matter?
“Scars don’t have to remind us of pain.” Jess had already begun appraising the contours of the gash, imagining the perfect tattoo. “Sometimes, they can be transformed to reclaim the peace.” She spent the better part of the next hour going over design options, sharing images from her sketchbook and portfolio. The man’s shoulders began to relax. His speech fell into a more natural rhythm. Even the flutter straining his thin eyelids had softened, at least somewhat.
“This one.” He pointed to a sketch she’d drawn from a dream. A nightmare really, about wicked shards of jacked ice from a violent shove. Hell, freezing over. “I like the gist of it.”
“Why?” She cocked her head to one side. “What does it say to you?”
“Ain’t nothin’ so ugly as sin.” He shook his head. “But it ain’t no sin to cheat the devil.”
Jess conceded a tight smile. On that, they would disagree. Sounded like a terrible idea. Bad, bad mojonomics. Nothing but trouble, cheatin’ the devil. No, sir.
But, if that’s the tat he wanted, she’d be happy to ink it.
Of course, that’s when she’d seen it—the evidence under his skin of so much soul erosion. There it was. Yep. Right there. The same exact way that it always was, and plain enough for Jess to see, ever since her tenth birthday, she could see it—the numinous wisps of an alabaster glow, weirdly sinister. There was no mistaking it for any ordinary old, run-of-the-mill skin condition, either. No misjudging it when it was there, those cruel embers that slowly purge the tender essence of a wounded spirit—like a greedy candle devours its wax.
Pale asphodel fires.
That’s what Donna had called them. Jess pushed thoughts of Donna away. The woman who raised her was the only other person in the whole world who understood what it was that Jess could see. And Donna was gone now.
Instead, Jess blew from her forehead loose, blonde, pink-tipped hair and re-focused her attention to the seared edges of this man’s afterlife. So much deterioration. Her fingers tensed around the grip of her Nightjewel.
A person’s soul can suffer for a whole host of reasons. And a soul with this much damage, well, that’s a full-up mess of trouble. And what the frak was happening here? For some unfathomable reason, the intricate line work was not setting the firebreak as smoothly as she would’ve liked. Jess raked her teeth across her bottom lip. Stubborn flippin’ flames.
Normal containment was failing to suppress those waxen werewhirls. She sucked in both lips, bit down, and narrowed her focus. Despite an insidious brain cramp, she hustled to lay an effective backburn, hoping to avoid a flashover, but the stubbornness with which her efforts were met was exceptional. C’mon. What the heck? Why was she contending with so much resistance? She pressed fingertips against wary eyelids. This biomystical dowsing was going to take much longer and require a lot more energy than she had anticipated. Because, with every new and needful client, that spectral scorch was getting tougher and tougher to snuff out.
Still, with a jeweler’s eye for detail, Jess was confident she could extinguish those slithering cinders gnawing away at the margins of this living spirit. Even if it required all her metaphysical efforts. Though, honestly, she’d never been able to do as much for herself, despite how hard or how often she’d tried.
Reflexively, Jess cast her glance at the pink heart tattoo on the underside of her left wrist. Always there. Peeking out from between her latex gloves and the pushed-up sleeves of her jet-black hoodie, beneath her leather bangles and the healing crystals she wore—those pale wasting flickers swirled and skirred. She pulled her sleeve past its intended length and rubbed the back of her neck. Whatever she had done to ignite them, to deserve them, to never have the power to put them out like she could for other people—who knows?
She pushed down that last thought, too. That sticky wicket was undoubtedly on her to work out by some other means. And before it was too late. Because, without the magic of her Nightjewel, she’d be rid of those pale fires only one way. Steer clear of trouble. Manifest good karma. Do unto others whatever the blessed thing was that she could do with her secret wherewithals, and save as many souls as she could possibly manage.
What other way was there to improve her sordid outlook?
But for now, with this client, she’d reached the limits of her endurance. This dousing would require more than one dampening down. It was time for a break. He appeared as though he could use one, too. She and the man agreed to schedule his next appointment, on another Saturday morning, when it could just be the two of them. And with his back to her, on his way out the door, he choked out a throaty, “thank-you miss.”
Jess placed her newly cleaned tools back into her kit. Absentmindedly, she reached for the antique firesteel she wore on a chain around her neck. Sparky. An inside joke—a symbol of humanity’s control over fire. She slipped her thin fingers into its grip. Donna had worn the metal curlicue as a piece of jewelry—a special gift, from one of the firefighters in her Ladder. And after Donna had died, the fire chief made sure that it went to Jess. At least she got some’em. Because there weren’t nothing else. No benefits for a ward not officially adopted.
But sour grapes was the wrong kinda kismet. Jess gave Sparky a quick kiss and slipped it back into the neck of her shirt. She collapsed into the recliner and closed her eyes. Letting her shoulders drop, she steadied her breathing and stretched the tension from her neck to ease the now hammering headache that brutally battered the inside of her skull.
Doing the right thing was not too often the easy thing to do.
Chapter Two
With another jingle at the doorjamb, Margaret Waycaster wrestled her way into the tattoo shop. Jess winced under the sudden flood of overhead lights as Maggie flipped the wall switch with an elbow. In a sleek, black leather mini, stylishly paired with a blue satin blouse that perfectly complimented the hue of her dark skin, Maggie was a natural showstopper.
Her new camera slung around her neck, and a garment bag sporting a pink, oversized bow, slipping out from under the same arm that also struggled to balance a cardboard tray of Frappuccino’s, Maggie began losing her grip of two overstuffed paper bags from Jess’ favorite bistro, clutched in her other hand. Jess sprang from her chair to grab the beverages and the hefty bags. Maggie had brought lunch. Because of course she did. Once Jess had the paper sack with her name on it, she peeked inside. All her favorites. And a cupcake to boot.
“Awww, you shouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, probably not.” Maggie laughed. She hung the garment bag on the coatrack and tipped her head to the front window. “Because it’ll have to wait. Your next client just pulled up.”
As the door jamb jingled a third time, Jess wolfed down a soft taco followed by a quick bite of the large chocolate confection. Thankfully, Maggie had taken her sweet time checking-in the preppie co-ed, reconfirming the client’s previous stencil.
A moment later, still chewing, Jess smiled behind her palm and waved the young customer over to her workstation. With some light and breezy chit-chat, she sought to put the girl at ease. Once settled into the reclining chair, the nervous not-yet-twenty-something timidly lifted the hem of her flouncy sundress to reveal the angry, red slash-marks of her inner thigh.
She’d been a cutter, this girl. The scars were obvious. Jess hadn’t asked for any details about the cutting because it was none of her business. It didn’t really matter why this girl had repeatedly cut herself, probably with a straight razor, and for years, by the looks of it. It only mattered that she sought Jess’ help to close that dark chapter of her life.
Jess took her stool and rolled it closer. With the backside of her freshly donned latex-glove, she pushed away a wisp of curly, pink-tipped hair that’d fallen forward from her messy bun. Leaning in, Jess wrapped her fingers around her Nightjewel and put the needles of her tattoo gun to the girl’s tender skin and began to sink some ink.
That’s when she saw it. Again.
Un-freakin’-believable.
Jess reeled in silent surprise. Much like an unexpected flash of forked lightning splits a peaceful twilight low on a distant horizon, those ethereal flames abruptly flickered and incandesced. Dabbing the skin with a sterile wipe, Jess blinked hard.
There it was again. Craptastic.
She froze, a moment of queasy uneasiness. Twice in one day. Holy shitsticks. That’d never happened before. Never in the last fifteen years. Not even once. It was a bad, bad omen. Must be. Whatever it was, it sure wasn’t good. And today of all days.
Her glance darted up to the girl’s face. Jess’ young client sucked in her bottom lip to stave off the welling tears threatening to overtake her anxious and nervous eyes, putting on a brave face against the pain of her first tattoo.
“You’re doing great,” she said to the girl.
Jess offered a tender smile and cast a quick glance at Maggie to judge whether her best friend had any reaction to this girl’s tragic condition. No. None. Nothing. Margaret Waycaster wasn’t so cursed. Maggie’s was a wholesome soul. The game of supernatural I-Spy was but for Jess alone. Maggie simply kept snapping photos of Jess’ work in progress with her fancy new camera. Jess refocused her attention to the tattoo and set her Nightjewel to work.
For this client, she had crafted a special tessellation—a repeating pattern of interlocking butterflies. For nearly three hours, Jess ignored the smarting in her eyes while the buzz of the coil machine hummed in her fingers. But the crawl of this phantasmic rushfire had threatened an ethereal backdraft. She rolled her stool inches closer. The underlying werewhirls were so much tougher to snuff out. Some of the toughest Jess had ever doused.
Worse even, than those of that morning.
Her skull-cramp intensified. Jess straightened her spine. She shook the tense muscles of her long arms and stretched the fingers of each hand into the palm of the other, cracking stiff knuckles. This kind of uber ink-romancing was totally draining. But she’d never yet failed to put out those damning foul flames. Not even once. Except, that is, from under her own skin.
She took a deep breath and narrowed her focus. With the deft and delicate stirrings of her drawing hand, and an extra push of preternatural concentration, she applied all her unique skill to transpose the reactive ink from her Nightjewel. She would not retreat a second time in one day. Not on this day.
