Indelible, page 15
Kurt looked up from his silver tray of bandages, ointments and oddments, and gave only a twist of his lip as commentary.
Graus Claude chuckled deep in his gut. “Yes, well,” he acknowledged and glanced at Joy. “Not all such indentures are dishonorable. If it was merely a matter of loyalty, Kurt would speak his mind, but his alliance is deeper. Yet deeper still is Hasp’s devotion to Briarhook, but we know not why. He cannot be held by his name—his name is useless now.” Graus Claude gestured with his four hands. “We are all beholden to someone, somehow. Being a lehman is perhaps more pleasant than most.” He cocked his head sympathetically. “Most of the time.”
Kurt snipped the seam of her sleeve with a pair of longhandled scissors and dropped them in a tall glass of rubbing alcohol. The smell made Joy wince.
“Any medical conditions?” Graus Claude asked casually. “I’m…h-hypoglycemic.” Joy stuttered.
“I am unfamiliar with the term.”
“Low blood sugar,” she said. “I have to eat…a lot.”
“Fascinating,” Graus Claude said while placing her hand on the carved edge of the settee. “Here, hold on to this.”
At the first touch of antiseptic, Joy catapulted off the couch. Graus Claude himself held her in place with his four arms— something that struck her as an honor of sorts, as he didn’t seem one to normally get himself dirty. His stern strength gently but firmly gave her permission to weep. She couldn’t follow the things that happened to her, no longer caring whether the instruments looked old or if the syringe was sterile. Monica’s communicable disease and drug warnings rang deaf in her head. Sometimes the giant toad would instruct, “Swallow these,” and she did, or “This will undoubtedly hurt.” And it did.
Kurt worked silently and efficiently, although Joy finally became aware of his hand gently cupping her cheek as he slathered a sharp-smelling balm on her neck with a long cotton swab. It felt careful and somehow motherly, not at all like his burly muscleman exterior. Kurt washed her face with a cool cloth and Joy blinked up at him, focusing on the long scar at his throat. The high mandarin collar nearly hid it from sight.
“You can’t talk,” she whispered.
Kurt met her eyes and looked away.
The world felt more lucid under a blanket of painkillers and clean gauze. There was something oddly calming about the smell of antibiotic cleansers and the flowery, sweet scents of crushed marigold and calendula. Joy admired the Edison sconces with a carefree interest buoyed on drugs.
Graus Claude coughed politely and Joy swam to focus on him. Even his mottled gray-green skin was strangely gentlemanly in the muted gold light of the salmon-pink room.
“I can advance the healing, but I cannot undo it. You have been branded. Do you understand this, Miss Malone?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Very well then,” he answered uncomfortably. “Kurt, please apply this over Miss Malone’s injury and secure the bandage so the new skin may breathe.” There was the faint clinking of glass stoppers and thick pipettes. A smell of mint or pine, clean and spiky, filled the room. It felt good— soothing and cool.
“It will take approximately one or two days to callous. If the skin grows red or swells with pus, leave a message for me. You retain my number, I trust?”
Joy nodded. Even nodding felt good. “Yep.”
Kurt cleaned up the mess, gathering everything onto the silver tray. She didn’t like how much of the white cloth was stained red or black. He carried it out of the room. Joy watched him go, wondering what had happened to his throat.
Graus Claude pushed back on his haunches, his low-slung head bobbing in approval. “It is masterfully done in some ways. It may please you to know this and bring you small comfort.”
Joy frowned, feeling the skin of her forehead pinch.
“What?” She struggled against the tide of sluggish fuzz.
“Briarhook’s brand,” Graus Claude said deeply. “A rose fletched in thorns—his insignia, his signatura. It suits you. A wildflower with bite.”
Joy tried to look at her upper arm and grimaced.
“Screw you.”
The Bailiwick chuckled. “I may have forgotten to mention that the medicines I gave you might lower your otherwise polite and cautious inhibitions. Be careful what you choose to say aloud, Miss Malone. Knowing this, I will grant you a certain leniency in your current state.”
“Oh, yeah?” Joy said. “Well, I thought you said I’d be protected, that I couldn’t get hurt.”
“Rightful claims cannot be covered by the Edict,” Graus Claude said without apology. “Briarhook’s auspice is finding those lost in the woods, and indeed, that is what you were. Hasp brought you to an unfamiliar grotto, following Briarhook’s instructions in order to let him lay claim. It was a legitimate action by illegitimate means.” He pursed his lips. “The same will hold true for Ink regarding whatever he is doing to Briarhook at this moment. The devil put himself in Ink’s path by crossing you.”
“Well, good,” Joy said as her eyes slid over the minichandelier. “What is it with this bathroom? You’d never fit in that tub in a million years.”
Graus Claude smiled, a shark’s grin, as his four arms spread wide in an elaborate shrug.
“Who claimed that this is where I make my toilette?” he asked. “My apartments are upstairs. This suite is for guests.”
Joy gave a goofy grin and touched the pink satin chaise longue.
“Your female guests.”
“Indeed.” The Bailiwick inclined his head as if pleased that they understood one another. “I do not garner much company outside of my home and I entertain only select individuals who do not have trouble with teeth.” He clicked his jaws together as if to emphasize the point. Joy laughed a little, but it hurt her ribs.
“Ow,” she said and swallowed painfully. “My throat?”
Graus Claude waved off the question imperiously. “Hasp’s scales only pricked you. The skin will heal clean. I’d be surprised if it is still noticeable by morning, given the balm. But do try not to cross him. Aether sprites aren’t particularly fond of humans.”
Joy frowned. “I guessed that much on my own.”
“Oh, it’s not you personally. Aether sprites have suffered under human industrialism more so than most. It’s the pollutants, you see,” Graus Claude said, settling back. “There are many who believe that our rightful place and time is being hampered by human domination, that when the Age of Man passes, ours will rise. Yet there are equally as many who believe that without humans we would cease to exist. Aether sprites tend to favor the former philosophy, that humanity is a scourge.” He sighed. “It is a perilous line, treading on the politics of entitlement, but the Council believes that balance is essential, which is why I’ve placed myself at its axis.” Two of his hands meticulously arranged brushes, combs and cosmetic pots as he spoke. “Not many choose to barter between your world and ours, but it must be done.” Graus Claude grinned. “And many years ago, I determined that it should be done by me.”
“And the pay’s not bad,” Joy added.
The Bailiwick laughed his barrel-chest laughter.
“Indeed. That is also true.”
Joy fingered the tiny threads of color in the upholstery— rose and gold, orange and cream.
“There was someone else,” she said. “Someone besides Briarhook and Hasp in that ravine.”
Graus Claude wiped a finger along the gilt mirror frame. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Someone orange.”
There was a knock, and both Joy and Graus Claude turned. Kurt stood in the open door, allowing Ink to pass. Ink’s eyes were flat as plastic chits, his arms soaked with blood up to the elbows, his silken shirt spattered and dotted in spray.
“May I use your sink?” Ink asked.
“Of course,” Graus Claude said. Joy stared. Ink walked to the basin and turned the ivory-handled knobs, leaving crimson smears on the porcelain. Graus Claude raised a single hand to halt Kurt’s motion to protest or clean. Everyone waited, watching the water run red.
“You may want to remove your shirt,” Graus Claude suggested. “Better yet, find a new one.”
Ink wordlessly pulled his shirt over his head. It peeled wet and sticky off his arms. He tossed it into the bathtub and stuck his hands back under the water. Kurt gathered the ruined material and draped a towel pointedly on the brass hook nearest Ink. The Scribe continued scrubbing his arms with pink-frothed soap.
Joy watched the play of muscles on Ink’s back and limbs. She knew Inq had shaped him, and he, her. It was strange to think of it—their flawless hands on one another. But they weren’t really siblings. They weren’t really…anything. Joy wondered what that must have felt like, shaping their flesh soft as clay or hard as marble. That’s what Ink looked like: a statue in motion. She watched his neck and shoulders move.
Something caught the light, slithering just under his skin. A faint shape moved clockwise over his back. When he shifted, it winked like a galaxy of stars drawn over his shoulders, circling half the length of his spine. She thought maybe it was the drugs, but its shape became clearer when she looked out of the corner of her eye—Flash! Flash!—it was a curling whorl of scales and a vaguely oblong head. It rotated, slowly, like a paddlewheel on his skin.
“What’s that?” Joy asked.
“Payback,” Ink said into the blank mirror.
Graus Claude raised his brow.
“No,” she said. “On your back. That.”
Ink glanced over his shoulder. His hands stilled in the sink.
“What do you see?” he asked.
Graus Claude looked at her, too, curious.
“Swirls,” Joy said, “like an Olympic circle. With a head.”
Ink smiled slightly and turned back to the sink. “It is my signatura. An ouroboros. A dragon swallowing its tail.”
“Immortal,” Graus Claude acknowledged. “Infinite.”
“Indelible Ink,” Joy said thickly.
Ink nodded, eyes on his hands.
“I cannot see this thing,” Graus Claude complained.
Ink dried his hands on the towel and wiped off the sink. “No one can.” He turned to Joy, clean and open. “Or so I thought.” He dried the surface of his chest and stomach. She stared longer than she should have.
“There is more to you than meets the eye, Joy Malone,” the Bailiwick murmured as he struggled to his feet. Ink dropped the towel over the back of a chair and leaned close to Joy.
The smell of rain filled her head.
“I can take you home now,” Ink said softly, like a question.
Joy nodded. “Please.”
When he lifted her this time, it was through a cloud of unfeeling, a furry notion of where her body went from one moment to the next. Joy thought she might slip through his hands and puddle on the floor, which would be fine. The bath mat looked comfy. The tile looked comfy. Graus Claude looked comfy.
She placed a hand against Ink. He was perfect, lean and supple, but something was off. She squinted through mental fog, trying to figure it out. Her head wobbled on her bandaged neck. She touched his chest lightly, her fingers sliding on the surface of his skin. No nipples. Joy laughed— she couldn’t help it. It hurt. The sound slid perilously close to weeping.
“My thanks to you, Bailiwick,” Ink said, holding her close. “I am in your debt.”
“I believe there are no debts between us and you have brought me more than one riddle tonight,” Graus Claude demured. “There is so little that excites the mind nowadays, and Sudoku bores me.” His voice held only the lightest tinge of sarcasm. “Be well, Miss Malone.”
“Thank’ll…” she slurred.
When Ink swung aside, they appeared in her room, dark with night and cold and the familiar smell of home. Ink settled her onto her bed and shut the window. Joy saw him traced in blue against the black-and-purple dim.
No belly button, either.
Of course—he’d never been born.
Joy’s head sloshed against the pillow, loose and wobbly. Ink pulled back her covers, taking care not to set them near her bare and bandaged arm. Joy realized her pj’s were ruined. Maybe she could cut off both sleeves? Would Dad believe it was a new fashion statement? Did pajamas have fashion statements? Where was Dad, anyhow? Shouldn’t an attentive parent be aware of stuff like this? She’d been kidnapped. And burned. And there was a guy in her room.
As if he read her thoughts, Ink placed a hand against her lips.
“Shh,” he cautioned. “Quiet, now. Your father is asleep. Take these.” He placed a plastic bottle by her clock. “Graus Claude said that they will help you through the night.”
“I don’t want to—”
“Joy, please.”
In the dark, he sounded vulnerable, undoing her completely.
“I’m scared,” Joy said and saying it made it real. She started to cry and Ink held her, solid and warm.
“It is over,” Ink said. “No more harm will come to you. No one will hurt you again.”
She shook her head against a bat-wing flurry of thoughts, against his naïveté or her own. “I didn’t know what was happening or what to do,” she said, feeling that she somehow had to explain. “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t say anything. I—I couldn’t say your name.” She stuttered, wringing her sheets in both hands.
“Ink,” she said urgently, squeezing her eyes and chanting loudly: “Ink. Ink. Ink.”
“Shh.” He placed his hand gently on hers. “Joy, I am here.”
She opened her eyes and nodded. “Yes. You are here. You are very, very here.” She looked at their hands next to each other, blinking back tears, muzzy and scattered. “You have no knuckles,” she said. “Or fingernails. Or belly buttons. Belly button. Singular.” Joy fumbled and lifted her nightshirt, showing the flat of her stomach. “Like this.” She smoothed a hand over her innie and shook her head sadly. “You don’t have one. That’s just wrong.”
Ink gave a tired twist of a smile. “Is it?” He looked tender, relieved.
“Oh, yes. Belly buttons. Very important,” she said. “And you should speak with contractions,” Joy added. “You sound like a robot.”
Ink straightened the blankets, both solemn and amused. “Do I?”
“Don’t make fun,” she said. “Graus Claude warned me that I’m not supposed to say anything, because I could say anything. I have to be careful because it just slips out. Like the fact that you’re stunning, like a statue or a photograph, or a photograph of a statue. A naked, old one. Like the Greeks. Not that I think of you naked, because I don’t, but if I did, I shouldn’t.” She took a breath. “It’s not real and it’s not fair. You’re freaky and dangerous and I can’t stop thinking about you.”
His hand stopped moving and rested against her pillow. His voice was overly casual.
“Is that right?” he said.
“I know—it’s ridiculous. You’ve been horrible to me and kind to me and all sorts of weirdness is now in my life, but I can’t imagine going back to the way it was before,” she said in a rush. “It has to be this way and it has to be with you, but I can’t seem to concentrate on anything else. And now that you’ve been in my room, I think it will be hard to think of you being anywhere else,” Joy confessed. “Nowhere is safe.” She blinked as her words slowed, growing quiet and mopey. “I’m gonna totally fail school.”
Ink stared at her with those fathomless eyes, saying nothing for a long time—long enough for Joy to wonder what, exactly, she’d just said. She couldn’t quite remember, but was too exhausted to ask. It couldn’t have been too bad, whatever it was, because the way he kept looking at her felt okay. Joy studied him in the half-light for a clue. She gasped.
“Your ears!” she said, raising her hand to touch one. Ink froze under her fingertips. Joy ignored his distress. “They’re perfect! They look so real.” She marveled at the change. His ear gave and bent like cartilage and skin. She giggled. “I mean, they are real, right? They work like ears. They look…” Then it hit her. “They look like mine!”
“They are like yours,” Ink said. “I studied them. Remember?”
She shuddered, not unpleasantly. “Yes. I remember.”
There was a question. Permission. Would he touch her again? Did she want him to? Did he want to? She trembled. Where? How? Her heartbeat jumped at her throat. Could he see that? Could he hear it, being so close? Her vision swam on delicate fins through warm water. Ink leaned over her, naked to the waist.
“Was I wrong to do that?” he asked.
“What?” Joy asked. “No.”
“Do you wish me to leave?”
Joy quivered. “No.”
He saw something in her eyes that made him wonder. “What is it then?”
Her fingers twisted the edge of the sheet.
“I’m afraid.”
“Of me?” He almost stood.
“Yes,” she admitted. “But it’s more than that. Stay.” Ink paused. “Are you asking?”
“No. Telling,” Joy said. “You owe me. Stay.”
He settled back, almost reluctantly.
“A message may come,” he cautioned.
“Then tell them to wait,” she said. “Your lehman is injured. You have to stay. I’m your responsibility.”
Ink’s face formed a question, but he quietly rose from the bed and rolled the desk chair near her nightstand. He sat, crossed his arms and gazed down at her, his silver chain spilling off the edge of the chair.
“I suppose you are,” he said.
“Yes.” She nodded against the pillow. “Remember, you have a reputation to maintain.”
“So I am told.”
“Have to keep up appearances.”
“Yes,” he said. “That, too.”
They almost smiled. They almost said something more. She wanted to keep talking, but the words were fading on her tongue. She wanted to sleep, but she couldn’t close her eyes while he was there watching her. She wanted to match him, second for second. She wanted to stay awake. She wanted to sleep. She was pinned by his stare. She was anything but invisible.
The way he tucked his hands close to himself, no part of him near her, made it all the more obvious that he wanted to touch her. She wanted him to want to. His chest rose and fell, but Joy wasn’t entirely certain that he needed to breathe. He was watching her breathing. She needed to breathe. She needed to know.
