"Now, now, Dakota, as a tattooist you know the importance of proper hygiene," he said, pointing at the kettle. "Why don't you wash your hands before we get started? Dunk them deep-we wouldn't want you to miss a spot."
I stared into the huge kettle, swallowing. It was filled with something black, hot and steaming, running down over the edges of the vessel in dripping, frozen streamers. Some kind of disgusting potion? I looked back at him, and he raised the clippers to her ear- then her eye.
"It's only getting hotter," he said. "And my imagination is just running wild-"
I thrust my hands deeply into the kettle.
Like gloves made of liquid fire: I screamed, jerking backward, pulling back hands and forearms dripping with black, scalding pitch. The sticky goop coated my hands like paint, like glue, cooling and drying so fast that half my fingers were already stuck together. With effort I forced my left hand opened, seeing no marks, no skin, only black sticky goo.
"You-you bastard," I said, shaking. "I'll-"
"Do nothing," he said, pocketing the clippers and pulling out a syringe filled with a clear liquid. I cried out and tried to lunge around the table, but he slid it into Cinnamon's arm with practiced ease and emptied it into her bloodstream. "And neither will she. Just a little medicine to help her sleep, and some silver nitrate to help it along-"
"You bastard," I said, shaking.
"So you said," Transomnia said, slapping Cinnamon's head back and forth with his free hand, watching her sag until her head lolled with each blow. "But keep standing right there, or I'll exercise my imagination."
"Why should we need to do that?" the hooded figure said, with a touch of amusement. "Let's get straight to why I came here-to see the goods. Strip, Miss Frost, and let's see what you've got that I can add to my collection."
Oh, God. Exactly as I'd feared: the robed monk was the tattoo killer.
"You're the third person to tell me to strip in as many days," I said, shaking. "Go to hell."
The killer snorted. "Strip, or we start with the stray-"
"No, no, she's right," Transomnia said, tossing Cinnamon aside like an old gym bag. "There's no need for you to do that, Dakota. After all, it's something I'd prefer to do myself."
The table and vat flew aside as Transomnia leapt on me with blinding speed, and then threw a punch straight into my face.
When I was a child I used to play on an old squad car my dad kept in the back yard. I think he meant to fix it up and get it running again, but my dad was always more interested in police work than puttering, and so the car just sat there and rusted-until the day, when playing atop it with Savannah and Jinx, I tripped over the light bar and fell backwards off the car.
I thudded solidly on my back, vision erupting in a bright flash of light, all the air whooshing out of my lungs at once. I never lost consciousness, but scrambled immediately to my feet, gasping, unable to speak, unable to breathe, while my mother screamed at my father "Get that damn rust-trap out of here!" When I was older I realized I had bruised my diaphragm, but at the time all I could think of was the pain and being unable to breathe.
That's what it felt like when Transomnia threw me through the door into Hell.
There was the same thudding impact, accented by the sound of splintering wood. The same flash of light accented by a tremendous vertigo. And the same whoosh of air out of my lungs, accented by a dizzying pain spreading over my back. I stumbled away from the door, gasping, away from Transomnia, until I hit the rail around the sunken the dance floor and pitched over. I fell flat on my back again, gasping uselessly like a beached fish for air, but no air came.
Transomnia stepped up to the rail and looked down at me, elegant and cruel in his long black coat. "Oh, come now, Dakota," he said, hopping up onto the rail. "After your performance outside I'd hoped you'd have more fight left in you."
I rolled aside as he dropped, stumbling to my feet, stumbling away-but he whipped round me, vampire fast, grabbed my pitch- covered wrist, and pulled it up behind my back.
"Now, now," he breathed into my ear, wrenching my arm painfully, "see how much trouble little girls get into when they don't do as they're told?"
"F-k," I gasped, "F-k hyu."
"Now, now," he said, even more patronizingly. "We both know I'm not supposed to do that-but if I were, I'd need to get rid of this, wouldn't I?"
And he hooked one clawlike finger into the back of my sportsbra.
"Shine, solar radiance!" cried a triumphant voice, and white-hot light burned across the dancefloor of Hell. Transomnia cringed and screamed, dropping me, and I fell back to see Jinx, guided by Alex, standing at the entrance of Hell. He carried a sword dipped in fire, and she held her spirit cane raised high in the air, its tip blazing with the brilliance of a miniature sun.
Transomnia scuttled sideways onto the handicapped ramp and sprinted up towards them, ducking low to use its wall as a shield from Jinx's light. Alex whipped his fire sword round and sent a bolt of multicolored flame down the ramp. Transomnia dodged, leaping up into the upper VIP section in a crash of tables and chairs.
Alex advanced towards him, swinging the sword to bathe Transomnia in flames, but the vampire picked a table up like a shield and the wave of flame boiled away into the air. Alex struck again, but Transomnia rushed him through the fire, tackling him with the table and knocking him past Jinx, all the way back down the stairs onto the dance floor.
Jinx stood there frozen, head canted, listening. I croaked and tried to warn her-but Transomnia just grinned back at me, and advanced.
Jinx abruptly swung her cane backwards in a full arc, sweeping into the table with a crack of thunder. The table burst asunder into a thousand splinters and Transomnia flew all the way across the dance floor and to the opposite raised bar, shattering the back glass and slumping behind the counter. Jinx smiled, tilting her head, feeling for me.
"Dakota?" she said, twisting her cane until it brightened like a sun again.
"Beh-behindyou," I croaked.
The dark hooded figure I had seen in Purgatory stepped up behind her and stretched forth his hand, and simply said: "See."
Jinx screamed and held her hand in front of her eyes, tossing her cane away as if blinded by its light. She whirled, and the hooded figure stretched out his arm and clotheslined her, and she fell back to the ground in a little heap.
I tried to get to my feet, as the hooded figure stepped to the rail.
"Let's simplify this problem," he said, stretching forth his hand. "Sleep."
40. SACRIFICIAL LAMB
Icy cold water splashed over me, and I screamed, bucking. I was awake, cold, and in pain, hunched over in a kneeling position, my head pressed to a stone surface before me. I tried to sit up, and found my hands bound together with wire, fixed tight to a steel ring set into the stone. My legs pulled apart by something similarly tight and sharp. And as the water ran down over me, I realized in utter terror that but for my steel collar, I was completely naked.
"Oh, God," I said, looking up to see a box covered in tattooed skin.
I was on the main stage of Hell, tied to a flat stone disk. I'd never seen it at the Masquerade before; it was new. Before me, the dark hooded figure stood, vigilant, one hand resting on the box, that horrible box covered with tattoos ripped from their owners. His other hand held a silver knife. Beside him Transomnia stood, glowering, a little worse for wear but angry and alert, holding the pruners.
"Oh, God," I said. I cringed, and my terror intensified as I realized they could rape me in this hunched-over position. Then I looked again at the box, and I realized the real reason I was tied like this was probably to harvest the Dragon from my back. "Oh, God-"