Bound by Ink (A Living Ink Novel) Read online

  The creature hadn’t attained its feet, either. Nor had it taken wing. It struggled, thrashing like a beetle on its back.

  Isa still couldn’t feel her feet. Holding on to the car, she shuffled sideways, trying to put the car between her and the winged thing.

  Smoke puffed from where the Magic Eater lay. The breeze grabbed the tendril of oily, black smoke. It flagged down the monster’s body toward where Isa leaned against the car.

  The Magic Eater rolled and climbed to its feet.

  Isa’s heart thudded hard.

  Greasy-looking smoke rolled from its face. Orange goo seeped down its snow white feathers. Its beak was wide open as if the bird screamed.

  Isa still couldn’t hear.

  Windmilling clawed wings, it came for her.

  She nearly burst her throat shrieking as she backpedaled on legs taken over by pins and needles.

  In a blur of motion, something dark struck the Magic Eater’s head. Viscous purple blood fountained into the April rain. A burst of smoke tasting like burning rubber coated her tongue. Fire, amber and deeper orange, erupted from the blood, charring white feathers.

  Isa dared to take her eyes off the burning thing flapping in a mud puddle.

  Cold, dark eyes set into a man’s expressionless face met her gaze briefly before jerking back to the creature on the ground. Four teardrops tattooed beneath the man’s left eye glinted in the rain as if they were real and not merely ink.

  Ria, the local gang leader. He had a length of rebar in his hands. He gripped it as if it were a baseball bat and he meant to knock one out of the park. Reversing his hold on the rebar, the gang leader shoved the struggling Magic Eater onto the gravel-strewn pavement with the toe of his scuffed black motorcycle boots. He stabbed the rebar through the creature’s body.

  Wings spasmed, then went limp. Fire flared up around the iron, fizzled, and died. Nothing but ash remained, sinking into a coffee-colored mud puddle.

  Only someone without magic.

  Isa blew out a shaking breath.

  A flash of dusty yellow spun out across the parking lot, sucking away relief. She dove for her backpack and bolted for the man lying facedown where the Magic Eater had left him.

  “Live Ink going bad!” she shouted at Ria as she dropped to her knees beside the body.

  He stopped short.

  Her fingers slid across the wet, slimy surface of a nylon jacket, the smell of blood so strong her mouth filled with the metallic taste of it.

  She touched clammy skin.

  A pulse.

  As she counted, she caught no hint of the man’s red-brown magic. Desperate, howling yellowish power swirled into her bloodstream. His Ink, but no answering surge of energy from the Magic Eater’s victim.

  Isa frowned. Chilly amber magic answered her call. She threw a shield into place, expanding it to contain her, the wounded man, and his Ink. A cold sage-and-pinyon-scented breeze brushed her cheek.

  Isa fed her power into the man’s sluggish blood. Her attempt to nudge the three of them—man, Ink, and tattoo artist—into the etheric dragged at her like sticky, rank mud. They finally fell into the other world, dragged down by the weight of the man’s curiously absent power.

  Gold light flared in the nowhere of the astral. The dusty yellow whirl of Ink manifested before her. Wind buffeted her, rose to a howl.

  Isa glanced at the tattoo.

  A whirlwind? A dust devil, maybe.

  It flung stinging particles at her face and eyes.

  “I want to help,” she said. She dove into the river of power flowing through her. Liquid amber enfolded her and invited her to feel at home. Once upon a time, she would have. Before she’d become addicted to the gold of her magic shimmering through the night of the demon who’d been forced to share her psyche.

  Before Murmur.

  Now, the bright, shining energy struck her as flat. Inadequate.

  In the physical world, she dug in her pack for stasis paper and settled it over the tattoo on the injured man’s skin. The Ink had to have someplace to go if it couldn’t remain on its host. No matter how Isa nudged with power, no trace of magic answered from within the man’s body. Without magic to feed upon, the Living Tattoo couldn’t remain on his skin.

  Isa pressed the paper to the tattoo. Blood soaked into the surface. She wouldn’t get the chance to ease the tattoo off the man’s skin. The Ink was coming off the hard way, tearing free. Sudden weight came into her physical hands, as if she’d caught a buzzing softball. The dust devil had landed in the stasis paper. Assured that it was safe, she turned her attention to the wounded man.

  Forcing magic into him the way Murmur had taught her, she tried to heal his physical wounds. Energy drained out of her. It healed nothing.

  Frowning, she renewed her grip on power and poured it into him once more.

  Nothing happened.

  What? She sucked in a shaking breath.

  Chill air, reeking of gritty mud and charred rubber, burned her nose. Subtle pain crawled her psyche, not quite headache, not quite muscles burning. She opened her eyes.

  A flock of pigeons stood just outside her shield, heads jutting forward, then sliding back, feathers ruffling in the gusty breeze. When she looked at them, the flock cocked their heads in a strange, unified dance as each bird examined her.

  Waiting for her to offer food she didn’t have? Or had they been drawn by the energy of what she’d done? Isa hoped not. If they had been, it meant her shield had leaked. That could and would draw the Acts of Magic police. At best. She’d once been warned about how many worse things could be drawn to unshielded magic.

  With shaking hands, Isa tucked the stasis paper containing the whirlwind into her backpack.

  Why couldn’t she heal the bleeding man?

  The pigeons started into the air, feathers, the musty stink of pigeon dung, and the wind from their flapping wings sweeping her face.

  A hand closed around her upper arm and attempted to urge her to her feet.

  Isa expected Ria and swung her head to glare at him. She started at seeing the boulder wearing a suit instead.

  When her gaze met his, the man flinched.

  She hadn’t grounded.

  Isa’s lip curled. Served him right for barreling straight through her shield.

  His grip tightened. His lips moved. He pulled on her arm again.

  Ears still buzzing, Isa drew her shields back into her body. Her magic responded. What had she done wrong with the healing?

  Ria strode into her line of sight, his Glock in one hand as he approached. He spoke.

  She couldn’t make out what he said, but that he carried his gun openly told her he considered the man trying to haul her upright a threat.

  It occurred to her to heal the damage to her ears. The roar of gunfire that had deafened her would fade overnight, but she needed to hear now. Magic still simmered beneath the surface of her skin, bubbles rising up, and bursting in thick, oozy spatters. It stirred, rising into the damaged cells and cilia.

  The hand on her arm jerked away as if her use of magic had burned him. At least she actually heard the startled cry that accompanied his move. She could heal herself but not the man on the ground. Why?

  Ria snarled at her in Spanish Isa didn’t understand. He angled around to bring up the Glock.

  Aimed at the suit.

  Isa rose.

  “Ms. Romanchyk,” the man in the suit said, “my colleagues and I would like a word. If you’ll come with me.”

  “No,” Ria said, his voice flat. His knuckles showed white as his fingers tightened on the grip, and possibly the trigger, of his gun.

  “There’s been enough shooting for one day, don’t you think?” Isa said.

  “Absolutely,” the boulder said.

  Ria growled.

  “A friend of yours recomm
ended we seek you out,” the man interrupted as if Ria didn’t stand there with a gun pointed at his heart. “George Tollefson. Come with me. I’ll take you to him.”

  Emanuel, Ria’s second-in-command, walked out of the line of parked cars behind the man, put his gun to the back of the boulder’s head, and cocked it. “Señora Ice goes nowhere.”

  “I don’t know you,” Isa said to the boulder, “and I don’t know anyone by the name you mentioned. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “You’re in danger here,” the boulder countered.

  “The guns are pointed at you,” she noted.

  “Walter is down. What’s one body more or less?” Emanuel asked.

  “Not in front of Señora Ice,” Ria said. He held out his left hand. “Isa?”

  She stepped behind him so as not to cross his line of fire. “I won’t touch you. I’m not grounded. And your friend is alive.”

  “Bueno,” he said.

  “Walk away,” Emanuel coaxed the suit.

  “This isn’t over,” the man gritted. He stalked past Isa.

  The SUV she’d passed earlier roared up a line of cars. It screeched to a halt. One of the doors burst open.

  Isa counted the sinister snicks of at least four more guns cocking in the parking lot behind her.

  “Leave it,” the man who’d tried to strong-arm her said as he climbed into the car.

  After a moment, the car door closed. The vehicle powered past. Ignoring the stop sign and the train tracks, it jounced out of the parking lot onto Shilshole Avenue and went east.

  “What the fuck where you doing, walking into a fight?” Ria snarled at her.

  She glanced at him.

  Though he’d tucked his gun away as if he’d never held it, anger spun through the chill air, thumping her square in the chest. “You drew the attack to yourself. What was that thing? Walter could have shot you. How you weren’t harmed . . . Do you have no fear? No sense of self-preservation? You’re no good to me dead.”

  Isa blinked, taken aback by his rage.

  “Ria,” Emanuel said, crouching beside Walter. “Look.”

  Both Ria and Isa glanced at the prone man.

  Disquiet like ice water dribbled down her spine.

  Emanuel had rolled Walter over so he laid face up.

  Walter was awake, but not aware. His wide-open eyes stared, unfocused at the sky. Every muscle in his face and body pulled slack against his bones as if nothing remained of him to oppose the force of gravity.

  Memory dumped her into another of Murmur’s remembrances. Shattered, vacant-eyed men littered a battlefield, every ounce of their vital essence, the stuff that had made them them, sucked out until only a hollow, brittle shell remained. They’d been attacked by Magic Eaters. Like Walter had.

  “Is this normal?” Emanuel demanded. “Because his Ink came off?”

  “No.” She pressed her lips tight to hold back the terrible suspicion that, for Walter, there’d be no recovery.

  Ria cut a sharp look her way. Whatever he saw in her scrunched-up face, he drew himself upright. He pulled his gun and fired.

  Isa stumbled back, throat scratched raw by the shriek of protest no one would hear above the Glock’s report. The magic still fizzing her blood repaired her hearing again while Isa stared at the hole in the middle of Walter’s forehead.

  Blood and material she couldn’t bear to identify trickled like a tear down his hairline. A muscle jumped in his right cheek, pulling his mouth into a brief grimace.

  Flinching, she caught in her breath. What had happened to not in front of Señora Ice?

  Silence settled, save for the breeze flagging the painter’s plastic wrapped around a monstrous fishing boat in the dry dock. And in the distance, a siren wailed, coming closer. Finally.

  Ria studied her, his expression smooth. No compassion. No remorse. “I will need a new tattoo.” He lifted his left cheekbone to the sky. The iridescent ink of the teardrops there shimmered.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she whispered because she couldn’t trust her voice.

  Ria shook his head. “What did you see when you treated him, señora?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Sí. He was a good man. A good warrior. His family will not be burdened by medical bills and false hope.”

  She was breathing too fast, her trembling hands clenched.

  Emanuel, his lips pressed tight and regret shadowing his eyes, picked up her backpack. He offered it to her. Across Walter’s corpse.

  A chocolate brown Crown Vic, light bar in the back window flashing, swung into the parking lot and screeched to a sliding halt on the wet pavement and gravel. The driver’s door opened.

  Steve.

  “Isa!” Tension rode his voice. His short, sandy brown hair was rumpled. Harsh lines showed at the corners of his gray eyes. “What the hell is going on? Troy told me to follow the gunfire.”

  “Ink emergency,” she said, cringing at the wobble in the gross understatement.

  Steve’s gaze flicked to the dead man, to Ria, then back to Isa. “No time for this. We have a situation. I need you now.”

  No time for a killer, still armed with the murder weapon, standing over the body of the man he’d killed? That jolted her. She grabbed her pack from Emanuel.

  Ria shifted. “Thank you, señora. You should know. George Tollefson. You do know him.”

  She frowned.

  “Patty,” Ria said.

  The flamboyant cross-dressing prostitute who’d worked the street in front of Isa’s shop. Patty had helped save Isa’s life after the kidnapping. And subsequently gone missing.

  “Son of a bitch.” She threw her pack in the car and got in.

  “I’ll ask what that was later,” Steve said. “What do you need in the way of gear and what happened to your hands?”

  “The blue is a long story. As for gear, I need a quick stop for more bind ink,” she said as Steve turned the car around and sped out of the parking lot, screeching to a halt in front of Nightmare Ink a couple of minutes later.

  Isa sprinted inside, clattered down the stairs, and grabbed another bottle of binding ink. She took an extra few seconds to fish the stasis paper with the whirlwind tattoo on it out of her pack. She locked it into the containment studio and took the stairs two at a time back up to the street.

  When she threw herself into his car, Steve hit the siren and took off once more.

  Chapter Three

  Isa couldn’t ask Steve for a briefing, not over the siren. Constant chatter filled the radio, and while Steve had it turned up, she caught only the tension and fear in the voices. She couldn’t make out the words.

  It echoed the noise of confusion and conjecture in her head. A Magic Eater. Where had it come from? Her brain threw a visual memory before her for inspection. Pure, inhuman, silver power warped the air around the creature.

  She wrapped her arms around her ribs to suppress a shudder. That energy signature belonged to something she’d thrown out of this world. Hadn’t she? What the hell did seeing it mean?

  And why hadn’t she been able to heal Walter?

  Isa had to brace against her door as Steve whipped the car through the streets and around the traffic stopped on the surface streets leading to I-5. The freeway was jammed with cars. Both directions. Not just slow traffic. Parked traffic. Barely any motion at all. The Department of Transportation had erected emergency barriers, diverting traffic off the 520 floating bridge. The notification signs on I-5 flashed: 520 BRIDGE CLOSED. ACCIDENT MID-SPAN.

  Annoyed drivers didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move out of the way of the police car. The calls on the radio became indistinguishable from the wail of the siren.

  Isa craned her neck as they inched up the crest of the ship canal bridge, peering east even though she knew she’d never get a glimpse of 520.


  A glimmer of hazy, visual disturbance warped the cloudy sky above Lake Washington. Pressure imbued with dreadful, crushing wrong landed on her ribs. Gasping, she slammed up a shield. Not just around her. She shielded the entire car. The weight of whatever was happening would be strong enough to affect any magic sensitive who got close enough to the source. Including Steve.

  Damn, she needed to teach him to shield for himself.

  Once they’d negotiated the narrow shoulders of I-5 to the 520 interchange and edged past the DOT barriers, people who’d made it onto the highway before the barriers went up were abandoning their cars, and fleeing Lake Washington. Some had tears coursing down their faces. Isa detected a pattern in which of the people had little to no magic and which of them had enough to see past the ordinary world. Over half of the pedestrians, while they wore perplexed frowns, didn’t look back. Not once. The rest cast terrified glances over their shoulders as if afraid of what they’d see coming after them.

  Rule six: It takes magic to perceive magic.

  Magic, real arcane power rather than simple sleight of hand, had appeared in the world between fifty and one hundred years ago. Historians couldn’t agree on exactly when. The first obvious evidence had come from seventy years ago. An arcane explosion—overloaded magic—had leveled a town in rural China. To this day, the farmland remained fallow. Not even the birds would fly over.

  More arcane explosions, usually triggered by someone coming into too much power for the human form to handle—or so the theories went—had followed. In those early years, anyone who suddenly developed an affinity for the uncanny found themselves driven out of town, if they weren’t killed outright. Then, as suddenly as they’d begun, arcane explosions had stopped. Either the advent of magic into the world had settled in or the people with magic had learned how to handle it. Or maybe it was a form of magical Darwinism. If having too much magic resulted in death, then power self-selected down—into a form the human animal could manage.

  Whatever it had been, the human race had coped. Was still coping. Some people had magic. Some people didn’t. In order to see the effects of magic—like the shimmer of power warping the air above the bridge—a person had to have power of their own as a frame of reference.