“I’ve had more fun, but I managed. The pants-wetting terror helped.”
The next corner we rounded announced our destination. On the lowest floor of a high rise, a sprawling shop with flickering neon signs announced The Mad Tatter, We’re All Inked Here. He shoved into the shop, bell jangling over our heads, and bypassed the counter. The bored girl perched on a stool behind it kept reading her magazine as he led me to a cluttered office tucked against the far wall.
The low thrum of necromantic magic brushed against my skin, too powerful for the practitioners at their stations. Residual maybe? Magic was in the blood, and while Clorox might bleach away any crimson stains, power was harder to erase. “We’re here to meet Mary Alice?”
“Yes.” He tapped a finger on the particleboard desktop. “She’s around here. Somewhere. She practically lives here.”
“This is an expensive corner to set up shop,” I observed, curious about this mentor of his. “She must be very good at what she does.”
“Oh, she is, just not tattooing. She can’t draw a stick figure, but Mitch—her husband—was a master.” A wry twist bent his lips. “Mary Alice is an information broker. The shop is her cover.”
“Tatter is some kind of black market hub?” And the potentate of Atlanta was elbows deep in its secrets.
“Mary Alice is High Society without a drop of magic in her. She married into the Low Society, but she has valuable connections through her family. Without magic, she had to carve out her own place in the world. Mitch was happy to help. He saw it as a team effort. He kept their noses clean enough for anyone who looked, but the real action was always in the back room.” He nudged me toward a chair opposite the battered desk. “I went to her for information once, months after I moved to the city, but she refused to sell to me. I was High Society, and the law, and she wanted to protect her sources. I kept going back until Mitch accused me of scaring off his clients. He joked that I might as well work for him since I spent so much time there.” He smiled. “I took him up on the offer.”
“I wondered what drew you to tattooing.” I should have known that his reasons would be multilayered.
“You could have asked,” he pointed out. “I can’t tell you everything, my position won’t allow it, but I could have told you that.”
Shame, that was shame curling through me for not being more interested in his life, his past. Friends asked questions, and they paid attention to the answers. So far, I had done neither.
“I’m asking now. You started an internship to get street cred and make your own contacts. Smart.” According to TV, cops brokered with snitches all the time. For a man with deep pockets like Linus, I could see the information trade being lucrative. “But you liked it, or you saw its potential applications, and you stayed on to claim a chair.”
“No,” he corrected me. “I loved it from the moment I put needle to skin.”
“Is that why you covered yourself in art? Or was it camouflage?”
“I’m one of the few necromancers dabbling in permanent sigils anchored on the body. Mitch introduced me to a field where I can break new ground with each discovery, and that’s exhilarating.” His cheeks flushed as he warmed to his topic. “Every sigil on my body is designed for a purpose. I try to make them beautiful, to create art, but it’s secondary to my goal.”
The brutal planes of his stomach, all lean muscle and ink, flashed in my mind before I could slam shut whatever mental vault stored such memories. My curious fingers had traced those smoky whorls, those shaded loops, and his cool skin had pebbled beneath them.
“You succeeded on all counts,” I assured him, blinking clear of those images.
“Wait here.” He reached for the door. “I need to find Mary Alice.”
“Now that you’ve parked me, I’m not moving.” Feet, calves, knees, and thighs all burned. “I’m all out of gas.”
Linus paused on the threshold, one foot in the shop, but rocked back inside the room with me.
“I’ll be fine,” I promised. “I’ll scream bloody murder if I need you.”
With a tight nod, he strolled out at a clipped pace, rounded a corner, and vanished from sight.
Through the open door, I glimpsed yet another of his facets, this one the least expected of all.
The gleaming black-and-white-checkerboard pattern to the linoleum floor reminded me of a retro diner until I spotted the lobby, where leather couches and chairs had been upholstered to resemble giant white-capped mushrooms with red spots. The toadstool footstool was my favorite piece.
Artists’ stations lined two walls opposite one another, each with segmented chairs that reclined. They called to mind dentists’ offices and popped in the same bright red. The few clients lounged on those, a mix of college-aged kids and seasoned ink collectors, necromancers and humans. The walls behind each station depicted a different scene from Alice in Wonderland. Some drawn, some painted, some color, some black and gray. All lovely and original pieces of art.
Despite the ache in my limbs, I was drawn to one of the empty stations and the colorful mural behind the chair.
A garden scene spilled over this section of wall, stylized, yes, but as familiar as the back of my hand. I had played in that garden throughout my childhood. And peering around an arbor wreathed in climbing roses, a young girl with wide eyes and a sharp chin watched as a white rabbit thumped his hind leg on the grass.
The girl…was me. Dressed as Alice. At about six or seven years old. The likeness was stunning.
Forcing my hand to lower before I touched the paint, I examined the rest of the space.
A drafting table of some kind filled a nook obscured by my previous angle. The surface was backlit and glowed softly, illuminating the face of a teenager as he doodled absently, his head bobbing along with the music pumping into his ears through an electric-blue headset. The cord was in his mouth, and he was rolling it between his lips. When he paused to trade out for a new paper, a huge smile spread at whatever he saw. He spat out the cord, tossed the headset, and leapt to his feet.
Linus approached from a different direction than when I last saw him, and the teen trotted over, all gangly limbs and enthusiasm. He must be the Oslo to the Mary Alice he was hunting.
Mary Alice.
Clearly someone had a sense of humor.
This shop must be her own private wonderland. Well, that or a clever marketing ploy.
Oslo initiated a complicated handshake that I could never reproduce but Linus kept up with just fine. Having passed some test, the boy leaned in. “Did you bring them?”
“I did.” Linus shoved his hands in his pockets. “I left them at my place, though. I’ll have a courier deliver them Monday.”
“Why did you come if you didn’t bring the drawings?” The teen laughed awkwardly. “Let me try that again—I’m glad you’re here, but why the visit?” He blasted out a sigh. “You know what I mean. I fail at social interactions. Don’t make me keep going. It’s only going to get worse from here.”
“Official business,” he said smoothly. “I need to speak to Mary Alice, if she’s around.”
“She stepped out back for a smoke.” He mimed taking a drag. “It’s going to kill her one day. Statistically speaking.”
Linus patted the boy’s shoulder, met my eyes, then left out the back.
The glance didn’t go unnoticed. The boy followed his line of sight, spotted me and then waved. “Hey.”
“Hi there. Oslo, right?”
“You must be… No clue. Linus keeps his private life private.”
“I’m Grier.” His candor made me laugh. “I’m a friend of his from Savannah.”
“Visiting the big city?” His grin widened. “How does it compare?”
For me, it didn’t. “I won’t be packing up and moving here anytime soon, if that’s what you mean.”
“Eh. It’s not for everyone.”