The cards were so old that paint flecked off them as Loriann worked. The edges were rounded and worn from long use. Despite himself, Rick was intrigued. It was almost as if he could sense meaning in the cards, but it seemed to be just out of reach or around the next corner. As if all he had to do was reach out or take a single step, and he would understand. But the significance was elusive, fragmentary.
On the layout of cards in a cross pattern to the side were the Major Arcana. The Wheel of Fortune was in the middle, with animals racing on the wheel—a wolf, a big black cat, a flying owl, an alligator, a spotted dog, and a bear. Around it in a cross pattern was the Devil—a horned, wolf-headed beast with owl’s wings, a horse’s legs, and cloven feet. The Devil had bloody fangs, and claws hidden in the wing feathers. The Hanged Man was an American Indian chief in full feathered headdress. He had been tortured before the hanging, and a black leopard was curled up on the hanging branch above him, sleeping. At his feet were a small wolf, or a coyote, watching him and salivating, and a grouping of turkey buzzards staring at his head. A card called Strength was painted with an angry mountain lion, screaming, clawing the air, sitting on a dead vampire, both with fangs bared. The last card was the Tower. It was on fire, and people and animals were falling out of it.
Loriann studied the tarot placement for a while, while Rick tried to read something—anything—in the cards. “Animals,” Loriann muttered. “Vampires. Change everywhere.” And then, “Ahhh. I see.”
“Well, I don’t.”
She gathered up the cards and put them away, then brought her needles and tattooing equipment closer. “Your future is both set and undecided. There are two moments when you will be allowed to choose, and both moments will change the course of your future. One is now, with the tattoo and the blood I’ll use to bind you to Isleen. You may choose canines, equines, or felines. Which do you desire?”
He almost said horses, but the word that came from his mouth was “Cats.” He stopped, surprised, because he detested his sisters’ cats, and preferred dogs and horses. He shook that away and asked, “But why me? Isleen said something about revenge on Katarina Fonteneau. Is that Katie of Katie’s Ladies?”
Loriann nodded. “Katie did something bad to Isleen a long time ago. I’m not sure what. But she can use this spell to get back at her through your bloodline.”
“How?”
Loriann looked at him in true surprise. “Because Katie is your mother’s great-great-something-or-other-grandma.”
“N—” Rick started to disagree and stopped.
The memories of some weird things returned. Money for his education, deposited into his account, a gift from a distant cousin. His sister’s medical bills for leukemia, the huge ones not covered by insurance. They had amounted to nearly four hundred thousand dollars. Paid in full by that same distant cousin. His mother disappearing on Christmas Eve every year for an entire night. The strange French-accented voice on the phone several times, calling for his mother. At night. Always and only at night.
Son of a bitch. He was related to one of the city’s most powerful vampires. And the cops had sent him in undercover to find out about her—
“I can tell you don’t have tats,” Loriann said, drawing him back from his past. He turned his face to hers, trying to hide his shock. She shoved her hair behind an ear and almost smiled. Her eyes flickered down his body and back up, lingering at the V of his legs before she returned to her work. “This may hurt.”
The first needle pierced his skin.
? ? ?
At dawn, Loriann put away her torture implements. Rick was sweating, shaking with the continual pain. He had no idea how people could go through this over and over, getting full-sleeve tats, tats on their necks and throats. Under their arms, on their privates, on sensitive, tender skin.
Loriann sighed, and he felt fatigue move through her and into his own skin, a shared exhaustion. Over the course of the night, he had become deeply aware of the little witch, pain bringing them close, making him conscious of her breath, alert to the slightest shift of her posture and position, sensitive to her ever-changing emotions, responsive to her intense concentration. It was as if they were two parts of one creature, sharing energy, breath, and his pain—one part administering pain, the other part enduring it. His blood had sealed the deal, trickling several times across his shoulder to the stone beneath him.
He shuddered as his tormentor unclasped the shackles on his right arm. She stepped to his left arm and unclasped that restraint as well.
He tightened his muscles as he had done over and over in the night to relieve the pain of immobility, contracting and releasing. He dragged his numb arms up and shoved his elbows under him. Groaning, he forced himself upward, reclining on his elbows and forearms. Loriann moved clockwise through the dim dawn to his legs.
“I’m going to let you relieve yourself now,” she said softly. “Eat something. Drink. Shower off.”
“Clean up my blood on the stone?” he said, mocking.
“No,” she whispered. “It stays.”