Anyone who thought death warmed over didn't look good had never seen this guy. I nodded in acknowledgment as we both sized each other up. He liked what he saw and wasn't shy about it.
I was a little more reserved myself. He was attractive but the past occupation was a bit off putting. Orgasms are hard on the heart already. An orgasm delivered by death just didn’t seem like a good combination.
“Fate,” I yelled, “your company is here.”
Lars placed his bag on the table in between us. He sat down on the couch across from me as we continued to size each other up.
He obviously already knew who I was. I knew who he was too, and yet we both sat there saying nothing.
“Lars.” Fate came and sat next to me on the couch and I wasn't sure why I found that comforting. Maybe I figured Fate didn't want me dead. I didn't know what this other guy was about.
“You say anything?” It was the second time I’d heard Lars’s voice and it fit his appearance perfectly.
“No. I figured I'd let you do the honors,” Fate said as his arm went around the back of the couch where I sat.
“It's always such a pleasure.” Lars’s attention swung back to me. “What I have to do isn't agency approved. It’s a two-step process. I need to tattoo you. The tattoo will block the universe from picking up on the next order of business.”
I looked at his arms now, covered in tattoos. “Is that what yours are for?”
“Not these,” he said indicating his arms. “And I wouldn't ask any other questions, if I were you. I'm taking a risk with this, and pretty girl or not, I don't like risks.”
I was used to people with secrets but that didn’t make me comfortable trusting them. The bigger and badder the secret, the less I trusted. I knew Fate had his share and I thought this guy might have even more.
“You can't tell anyone about this. You understand, right?” Fate asked.
“Not even Ha—”
“Don't say any names. Not yet.”
I didn't exactly like Harold, or have any desire to confide in him, but being told I couldn't tell him didn't feel exactly right, either.
I looked at the two of them, Lars and Fate. I could see why they’d be friends. This is who I’d thrown my lot in with? What did I even truly know about Fate? He worked for the same company I did, and that didn't inspire any confidence either when I thought about it.
Really, what did I even know about the company or Harold? I'd been going on the assumption that we were the good guys, keeping everything in line, but what if that wasn't the case? Or not completely, anyway?
At least I knew I'd helped that man. I knew I'd helped the woman, too. Whatever the rest of them did wasn't my problem. People always talk about how you die alone. They don’t talk about the one benefit to this. When you do die alone, you've only got your sins to contend with. I only had to live with myself and I didn't feel bad about any of those choices.
The two of them were sitting there, waiting for some acknowledgement or acceptance.
“After the tattoo, if I want to stop, can I?” I asked Lars since he had the supply bag and I assumed he be doing the tattooing.
“Yes.”
“Nothing we do will carry over, will it? To my next life I mean.”
“This magic is strong, so there will be a residual left. But the only reminder you might have in your new life is a birthmark where the tattoo once was. You won't remember anything about it, though, and it won’t leave any other residual effects.”
If I wanted out, this was probably the best time, before I even dipped my toes in the water. I looked at Fate. I couldn't read him anymore. I didn't know why or what, but something about him just kept screwing with my antenna.
I'd have to base my decision on Lars. He wasn't trying to sell me on this, but the best sales people don't do the hard sell. Yet, he truly didn't appear to care—maybe a little but he wouldn't be upset if I declined. Just in the time it was taking for me to decide, he'd already started to get distracted by the TV, and he wasn't faking it.
“What does the tattoo part do? Can you tell me that?” I turned to Fate, thinking he’d be more likely to tell me than Lars.
“It's a shield, of sorts. Right now, everything you do as part of the agency is relayed back. Essentially, right now you can't have a secret.”
“Certain people know everything?”
I didn’t think I was a bad person but we all have secrets and I wasn’t immune. I wondered what else was in the fine print that I wasn't aware of. I opened my mouth to say more but Fate’s fingers brushed my lips.
“It doesn’t matter what you think but watch what you say.” He moved his fingers away. “They can’t pick up on me or what I’m saying and Lars shielded the house before he came in, but that doesn’t mean some of it can’t leak out. Names are especially bad.”
Seriously? They could track everything I did? Case closed. “Somewhere hidden.”
“It's got to be, anyway,” Fate said.
“Where do you think?” Lars asked, returning his attention back to me.
“What about here?”
Fate pointed to a spot slightly inside my hipbone that would fall right below my bikini line.
“You good with that?” Lars asked.
“It'll work. How big will it be?”
“About two inches in diameter.”
I nodded and he started digging through his bag.
“I'll clear off the table. You might want to throw on a pair of sweat pants.”
“I don't have any here.”
“Take a pair of mine. Top right drawer.”
I went in Fate’s room and was thankful of the moment of privacy to think out my decision alone for a second. Was I doing the right thing? I didn't even really know what it was I was doing? But if I didn't, and the killer went free, what was this all for? Would they ever get him? I needed this all to be for something: the death, watching my parents grieve, seeing Charlie. It couldn’t just be for dumb luck and then I moved on. I had to make this count for something.
I pulled his large sweat pants on and rolled the top down several times and the ankles up. Not exactly a fashion plate, as I walked back out, but at least I wouldn't get blood on my clothes.
“Hop up,” Lars said from his seat at the table.
I lay down and tugged the sweatpants a few inches lower on my hips.
“What is it going to look like, anyway?”
He held up a tattoo stencil of a ying-yang sign.
“Karma?” It was fitting. When I first started this, I’d hated the name, and despised the job, but I found it was growing on me a little. Not enough to want to stay on, but I didn’t hate it anymore.
“It's what you are, so the symbol will yield the most protection,” Lars explained.
Fate turned a chair around and sat on it backwards, resting his forearms on the back. “And also a dead giveaway. Remember that. Harold can’t see this.”
“Well, I guess it's a good thing I don't find Harold attractive and therefore have no intention of dropping my pants for him. Huh?”
Lars pressed the stencil onto my skin.
“You want to see it?”
“Nope. It won't be there long anyway.”
“Then I'll get started.”
I heard the buzzing before I felt the sting. The tattoo gun felt a little like getting stung but nothing as painful as I'd imagined.
“So, what comes next?” I asked.
Lars stopped tattooing just long enough to hold a finger to his lips.
Fate edged his chair down closer to my head from where he’d been watching the tattoo.
“We can't tell you until he’s done,” Fate spoke quietly by my side. “Nothing about this is a normal tattoo. The ink, the way he is applying it, everything is steeped in heavy magic.”
I leaned my head against the pillow Fate had laid on the table for me, as I listened to a baseball game being played on the TV. My thoughts wandered, occasionally broken by the cheering for a score or by the irritation of Lars moving the tattoo gun over the same area repeatedly.
I felt a cloth wipe over my skin again and then Lars leaned back, taking in his work.
“Done?”
“With the tattoo, yes.”
Fate stood up and leaned over me, peering at Lars's work. His fingers grazed over my stomach and sent tingles through me, making me feel flushed like I had in the elevator earlier today.