Chapter 6
The tattoo gun buzzed to life, the end digging into the air, warming up to drill into my flesh.
“I thought tattoos were reserved for the blood contracts…” I started, trailing off as my gaze roved over the dwarves and other supernatural beings hanging around the outskirts of the room—intricate markings curling out of their cuffs, their collars, sweeping up their necks.
They were practically covered from head to toe in tattoos.
“Seriously?” Irritation made my voice sharp. “You want me to brand myself? Can’t we just sign a piece of paper and call it a day? I won’t back out, I swear.”
“’Tis our custom.” The Wizard flexed his fingers, the wispy ink on his knuckles bending with the movement. “What’s te matter? Ye afraid of te ink gun, little Nephy?”
“No,” I said, before the insinuation took root and everyone found out how scared I was. My hands balled into fists. “Fine, then. Are you going to do it right here?”
Pushing off the serpentine armrests, he rose from his sleek onyx throne. “We’ll head to te parlor.”
With a flick of his chin, he gestured to the dark, mildewed passage in the corner, guarded by the massive troll. Great.
This time I didn’t flinch when the dwarves grabbed my arms, didn’t shout when they led me to the near-pitch-black tunnel and the troll waved me off with a sinister, stumpy smile. Didn’t fight when we trudged up a snaking, steady incline and reached the ground level.
The light from the parlor cut through the musty air, falling in shafts across the rocky path. My captors released their grip, the skin tender from being pulled and pinched and tossed around.
A single leather chair, bolted to the floor, awaited me in the middle of the room. Thin lines were scratched all over the material—I tried not to think of how they might have gotten there.
The artist prepared her workstation, needles of different lengths glistening in the soft orange light. Dyes, guns, herbs, body parts in jars, all sat atop the metal tray. I did not want, or need, to know what part of the ritual those were for.
“You giving me a tattoo or performing surgery?” I joked, attempting to shake some of the anxiety.
Shoulders tensing, the artist slowly craned her neck, snarling lips protruding between the thick strands of her braided, white beard. I withered at the look, effectively shut up, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
An iron door tempted me from the far side of the room. Through its porthole I could make out the flowered emerald wallpaper of what seemed to be some kind of hall—maybe making a run for it and finding Shanley was an option I really should have considered more.
A metal hand situated below the porthole rapped its silver claws against the door.
I blinked. Obviously, I was just seeing things.
That logic was quickly lost when it then scurried to the handle and with a crude gesture, turned the lock. My jaw dropped. Rude.
“Any thought as to what yer goin’ to get?” a voice asked. It was hardly a whisper, but nonetheless, my palm flattened against my chest.
A dwarf, much younger than the others, one I hadn’t seemed to have noticed, stood at my side. With a vinyl apron and an armload of supplies, he had to be the apprentice.
I cleared my throat, squeaking a bit. “Didn’t think I had a choice.”
“Ye won’t if ye don’t decide before ye get in that chair.” He kept his tone a touch lower as the others in the room only seemed to grow louder. “Otherwise Yudfren chooses for ye.”
I spared a glance at the artist, who was tinkering with the settings on her tattoo gun.
“And she doesn’t have the, uh—” the apprentice continued as his boss began to rattle the tool, “patience to find one ye like.”
“Thanks for the heads-up…”
“We’re ready for ye,” Yudfren bellowed, severing the chitchat.
My heart thundered in my ears, each beat slamming against my rib cage in rhythm with my shaky steps.
The eyes of the previous customers tracked me from their photos on the wall as I crossed the room. Hundreds of missions, memories, forever captured within the gallery of frames.
Most of the beings in the photos were smiling—an expression the outright opposite of whatever was happening on my face.
Hard to tell from where I was standing, but I could have bet money the guy in the picture in the top left corner—his ivory skin, his dark hair contrasting with his bright eyes, beaming with a sort of happiness I had hardly ever seen him wear—was…
“Get in, sister.”
My stomach lurched, but I did as I was told. Sliding onto the worn leather, I squinted at the overhead lamp shining straight into my face. Black spots danced before my eyes, fluttering like tiny, winged insects hypnotized by the warmth. Like moths, or—
“So, what’s it goin’ to be?” The artist put on her gloves, the latex snapping against her tattooed wrist, leaving a red ring on her pink-tinted skin. “Or shall I select for ye?”
“A butterfly,” I stated, the imprints from the bright bulb fading from my vision. “A monarch butterfly.”
Yudfren shuffled through the ink, the bottles clinking together. “Where de ye want it?”
“Um…” I pointed to the inside of my left wrist. “There.”
Someone dragged over a stool, the metal bottoms of the legs scraping across the hardwood floor. The Wizard plopped onto the seat, gray eyes burning with excitement.
“Care to tell me the terms of this contract? It’s not like I’m going anywhere,” I said wryly. The tattoo gun clicked on; I flinched at the shrill buzz filling the room. “And I could use a distraction.”
He threaded his fingers, resting his elbows on the edge of my seat. So laid-back for a king of the underground.
“Been lookin’ for an artifact. Resembles a large pearl—can be shaken like one of those Magic Eight Ball tings. Operates like one too.”
“Why don’t you just go to Target and get the knockoff?” I teased; my saccharine smile met a gruff, blank stare. “Alright, where is it?”
“Natural Bridges.”
The location unlocked a core memory, one I’d buried deep within: my mom and I climbing rock walls and scaling ledges, poking through tide pools and seagrass. “I’m familiar.”
“Tere’s a cave about a half mile in. Te Stalkers have marked it in te rock.”
I didn’t remember any sea caves—and the currents never allowed us to leave the natural bridge of stone and shallow pools against the bluffs.
“Already lost a few men on this mission.”
“Lost?”
“Te others went mad.”
“And what makes you think I can do it?” I couldn’t even get inside the damn Santa Cruz Lighthouse, the watchtower literally dedicated to the Angel of Water. My odds were not looking great here.
“We’ve tried dwarves, goblins, trolls, but none speaks to te water like ye do,” he said. “Ye were made for this—and I’ve run outta Nephilim.”
Yudfren adjusted my arm with a rough twist. I winced and turned my attention back to the Wizard. “I can think of two very capable Night Stalkers off the top of my head who are also part-angel. Why don’t you just ask them?”
He lowered his head, tight-lipped.
“Let’s stop pretending here.” The cool sting of an alcohol pad met my wrist. I waited for Yudfren to finish and dropped my voice. “When are you finally going to tell me what’s going on with your syndicate?”
The hairs on the tops of his ears twitched. Yudfren barked an order at her apprentice. I took the opportunity to slip a few more words in.
“You can try to silence me all you want, but I’m not an idiot,” I whispered harshly. “You knew of the attack. You didn’t order it—but you also didn’t stop it.”
The Wizard tapped the leather cushion.
“You’re taking the fall for them, aren’t you?” I said carefully, his shiftiness, the knowing gleam in his eye, the other dwarves’ confusion, everything falling into place. “Why?”
“S’what family does.”
Family. From the little I knew about Ryder’s, he’d lost his parents when he was five. Leif had naturally morphed from older brother into that father figure role.
And the Night Stalkers… they were more than a band of unruly misfits—they were all they had. Ryder and Leif must be like sons to the Wizard.
Sweat beaded his temples, one of the few parts of his face not covered in ink or hair. “Afraid my boys ’ave fallen into somethin’ much darker than organized crime.”
My nose squinched. “What’s worse than that?”
“Organized warfare.”
I broke out in goosebumps as if the temperature had suddenly dropped. “So, if it wasn’t your Stalkers that invaded Crescent Rock… whose were they?”
“Tere’s a fringe group. Didn’t tink much of it, to be honest. We get a lot of those ’ere. Serve a lot of ’em too.” He met my gaze. “But this one, it’s gainin’ steam. Usin’ my resources, recruitin’ my men, causin’ chaos where we ’ave no business causin’ chaos.”
My stomach sank. “Like tonight.”
Emotion brewed in his visible eye—disappointment? “What kind of leader are ye if yer own syndicate is actin’ behind yer back?”
Yudfren swiveled around.
The Wizard cleared his throat and straightened his spine, slipping back into that gruff, ruthless mask. “So anyway, tere are markings in te stone. Ancient ones in a tongue we cannot read. ’Tis a boundary, spelled to repel certain beings.”
“Or the ones with sticky hands,” I muttered.
The artist hovered over my veins, giving them a tap.
With my wrist clean, she wasn’t going anywhere, which meant I wouldn’t get any more information out of the Wizard.
I sighed.
Aside from the unpredictable magic I was working with, state parks closed at sunset. To get to this remote a location within Natural Bridges, not only would I have to hop the gate and sneak past the rangers, I’d have to scale quite a bit of eroded rock.
Come to think of it, the circumstances around this mission had to be perfect for me to succeed. “Say I meet the requirements and am allowed into the cave… What if it’s just full of water?”
He wiggled his fingers. “Weren’t ye just threatenin’ me wit those special powers of yers? I’m sure ye can figure somethin’ out.”
Well, shit. I’d really dug myself into a hole with that one. “All this for a magical eight ball?”
“Te Pearl of Truth is for a very special client.”
“What happens if I f—” Words tangled on my tongue as a sharp tip dug into my skin.
“Keep talkin’. It’ll help wit te pain.” He gestured to my wrist. “Interestin’ choice, by te way. Natural Bridges bein’ a monarch sanctuary. Looks like it was meant to be.”
Surprise flared through me, numbing the discomfort for a beat. I hadn’t put that together.
Out of the corner of my eye, Yudfren grabbed a sheet of gauze.
“What happens if I fail?” I managed to squeak out between the relentless stings.
But when the needle arced over my vein… every ounce of awareness, every last bit of confidence left me, and I almost passed out. Then I felt it—a small second pulse, beating in my wrist. And an urge, a tug on my intuition, drawing me away from the room…
It was all too much. My eyes fluttered shut. Instead of the steady tick of the tattoo gun, I heard a whooshing, like ocean waves crashing on jagged, hollowed-out rocks.
And then I saw it under my eyelids, clear as day: a pearl, shining like a beacon in the night, lodged within a crevice. It was bigger than I’d imagined—about the size of a softball. The thick outer layer protected a shimmering, iridescent interior that swirled with the steady rhythms of the tide.
“The Pearl of Truth. I see it,” I whispered when my voice finally found me. The vision vanished, as if I’d spooked it.
When I opened my eyes, the unbearable sting was gone. The space around me had grown far less stuffy—the dwarves had actually given me some breathing room, spreading out along the walls.
Filling my lungs with air, I glanced down at my arm. A small butterfly spread its near-translucent orange wings across the upper left corner of my wrist, permanently perched on the tendon. No wonder it hurt like hell.
“It starts wit a pull, a gut feelin’ ye simply can’t ignore.” The Wizard stepped forward, his eyes glowing wild with magic. “’Tis te enchantment of te ink. It’ll lead ye like a compass—no matter what ye do, where ye go, that naggin’ sensation will be tere till ye complete yer mission.”
My insides flopped, as if the butterfly had taken flight in my stomach.
“If ye fail or if ye decide to abandon te task, te pain will start growin’, spreadin’, till it hijacks every one of yer senses.” His words landed like the chanting of a hex. “Nephilim, ye are bound till this is fulfilled. And I want it done tonight.”
I blinked. “You can’t be serious.”
The Wizard shook his head. The sound of my voice seemed to help him snap out of it—from whatever that just was—his eyes fading, the magic dimming. “Yer lucky it’s dawn. Ye got te whole day to plan.”
It’s not like I had sleep to catch up on or friends to check in with or a life to get to…
“Lots of shiny tings in that cave,” he warned. “Don’t be tempted. They say it’s haunted by te souls of those who are lost at sea.”
Disbelief shuttered the funny tingle in my veins. “Great. Are we done here?” I swung my legs over the side of the chair. The Wizard shot back to dodge my knees.
“One more ting. Nemuik!” he barked. “Ye go wit her.”
“What?!” Nemuik stepped forward in protest. “Why me?!”
“Don’t ye ask questions! ’Tis protocol to have a scout for rookies. She’s one of us now.”
Skin flushing a vibrant red, Nemuik went back to his position, toothy glower fixed on me.
Well, at least my plan worked: I was the newest member of the Night Stalkers.