Chapter Two – Jack
Chapter Two
Jack
Mattie saw me walking up to Dark Ink’s and got out of his ride. “Past my bedtime, Jack!” He was kind of a biker-trucker type, wearing a worn denim vest over a black t-shirt, with a six-inch long salt-and-pepper beard.
“Hey Mattie. Glad you’re sticking around.” I opened up the front door for us both then paused, realizing I shouldn’t make assumptions. “You are sticking around, aren’t you?”
“Depends on how late you keep me up,” Mattie said, clapping my back with a grin.
He was the only tattoo artist I knew that kept farmer’s hours, so we sometimes overlapped near dawn.
I got the nightshift workers on their off nights and he got the long distance truckers that were trying to get some ink in when they were supposed to be sleeping. “Know if anyone else is coming?”
“Not too sure.” I purposefully hadn’t looked at the texts the crew had sent me back, after I’d sent mine inviting them here tonight.
If people were happy to return, they would, if they’d texted me ‘Fuck you!’ I wasn’t going to be able to change their minds—tattoo artists were too much like cats to be persuaded.
Charla was the next artist to arrive. She was a woman like a battleship, expansive in all directions, and the best damn portrait artist I’d ever seen.
She was also pissed. “Three days, Jack—some of my clients flew in to see me and I had to work on them in my living room, illegally,” she complained, the second she walked in.
“I know—I’m sorry,” I started apologizing—which set the tone for the evening as other artists joined us.
Some of them just wanted to grab their flash and gear and hit the road—others wanted to start a revolt.
Angela had texted everyone an apology and a good-bye, telling them that I was in charge until further notice, but she wasn’t here to defend me and a lot of the day shift artists had no real idea who I was.
After the carnage I was left with Mattie, Jacob, Merril, Sasha, Z-Bob, Boy Jamez, and Fantasy. Charla was sticking around too, but her presence had a heavy tone of ‘for now’.
“So what the hell happened? I thought this was a solid gig,” Fantasy asked. She was a small Puerto Rican girl who knew her way around water colors—I hadn’t yet seen her do a tattoo with an outline and I didn’t want to.
“Does this have anything to do with the window getting broken recently?” Charla asked.
I couldn’t very well tell them the truth—that Angela had been a werewolf, who’d had to fight her ex-boyfriend who was a werewolf packleader for custody of her son, had finally won, and subsequently left town. “Angela fell in love.” With me. At last, I wanted to add, but I couldn’t.
“That Mark guy?” Mattie asked, crossing his arms.
And him. Too. I nodded. “Yeah. I think they moved to Hong Kong.”
“All of a sudden?” Charla pressed. “She’s not dead, is she?”
“No,” I snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous.” I had to take control of this situation, and now. “Look—Angela trusted me, you know she did—I used to babysit Rabbit. I have the best interests of this shop at heart. We stumbled for a few days, but there’s enough of us here to get back on track.”
Jacob’s eyes narrowed, looking around the crowded lounge and counting. “Enough of us to make dayshift happen, maybe.”
“Let me worry about the nights. I always have.” I turned around, making sure to look each of them in the eye. “Nothing needs to change here. Your station costs will stay the same.”
“Have you looked on the internet? People have been bitching on Yelp,” Merril said, with crossed arms.
“We’ll hang up a sign—I’ll get it printed tonight—under new ownership. And I’ve got some ideas about where I can get new clients.” The local werewolf pack—which was also under new ownership—owed me.
“Good—because I cancelled my appointments for the rest of the week—I thought rescheduling them was better than pulling no-shows,” Z-Bob said, eliciting grunts from the others.
“Well, try calling them back. Dark Ink’s doors are open.”
As I said that, the door did swing in—as Luna entered. “Is everything all right?” she asked.
Mattie gave me a withering look. I knew what he was thinking—that I’d spent the last few days holed up with her, ignoring the shop.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s already been an hour, Jack,” she said, giving everyone present a sheepish grin. Charla rolled her eyes so hard I could almost hear them.
“Yeah, it has been,” I said, trying to retake control.
I walked over to the neon-sign that proclaimed our 24/7-nature, tugging the chain that turned it on.
“So—now I’m on the clock. Your shifts can be the same, or you can renegotiate them with one another.
The full calendar’s still in the back, by the coffee. ”
There was grumbling among them, until Mattie said, “I brought the good stuff to restock us,” patting a bag he held under his arm. We could all hear the coffee beans rustling.
I didn’t drink coffee, but Mattie was a linchpin. “Mattie, if you stay, I’ll get you a Keurig.”
He appeared aghast. “Keurigs are the devil’s playthings,” he said. Charla snickered, and just like that, the tension lifted.
“I want Sundays off,” Jacob said, stalking back to the calendar.
“Dibs on Saturday afternoons,” Merril said. “Except for this upcoming one—and two weeks from now….”
“I don’t care, just sort it out,” I said, waving a hand in the calendar’s direction. As they crowded around it, I let myself inhale.
“You’re going to be down a grand a week on rent, Jack,” Mattie said, coming to stand beside me, knowing his daily 5 AM to noon shift was safe. “This place has six stations, plus the piercing studio. You only have enough staff for three around the clock, maybe four.”
“I know.” Mattie wasn’t the only one that could do math.
“Can I help?” Luna asked, far too perky. Only one of our tattoo artists who also did piercings had returned. Of course, Luna didn’t have any art—or piercings—and in Nevada you needed six months on the job experience, plus a half-dozen tests. Still though….
“Do you know how to answer a phone and take messages?”
Her eyes widened. “Of course.”
I grinned toothily at her. “Then you’re hired.”
After the commotion around the calendar died down, I sent Nikki a text asking if any members of the Pack wanted to book tattoos ASAP, and then it was just Luna and I left in the shop.
She wandered around aimlessly, flipping through the flash, staring into the piercing displays as if the captured bead earrings could form words.
“You’re just going to stay here,” she asked, returning to me.
“Yep. It’s part of the job. Waiting for walk-ins.”
“What do you do with yourself in between them?”
“Draw, mostly.” I’d gone through the stack of mail, sorting out bills. I handed them to her. “These are yours to deal with now. Post office is closed at night.”
“So—you’re keeping me?”
“I am hiring you. To work here, at the front.” I gestured to what would be her chair. “You’ve got the right look. And I can get Jamez to teach you piercing, if you want, which is a good idea—people are oddly good tippers after you cause them pain.”
Her shoulders slumped. “That’s not the same as being a bloodslave, Jack.”
“It’s what I’m offering,” I said with finality.
“It’s not enough. If I’m not someone else’s slave soon, Maya owns me, by default.”
One of my eyebrows cocked up. “How do I know Maya didn’t send you here to spy on me?”
Her expression curdled into disgust and there was an angry glint in her eye that hadn’t been there before—something flintier than the childlike wonder she kept performing. “What?” she protested. I noticed she also did ‘affronted’ very well.
“You left your backpack in my car as you walked off.” Backpacks, bras—I was going to have to have a garage sale soon, with all the items women left me.
“I wanted an excuse to come back!” Her voice lowered. “Are all male vampires this stubborn?”
The bell over the door rang and as we both turned, Maya, looking resplendent, stepped inside.
“Well, well. So this is where you ran off to.” Maya looked as surprised to see Luna as Luna was to be seen. That answered that, at least.
“I’m his now,” Luna said, running through the hip-high saloon doors to stand behind me.
“Sure you are,” Maya purred. Her long red curls were swept out and down, trapped in a net of what looked like diamonds. The rest of her body was hidden by a floor length fur.
I stood. “Dipping into the family coffers, I see.” We hadn’t negotiated last night after Rosalie’s death, so much as I’d just given everything away to see to Paco.
Which meant Maya had taken control of both of Rosalie’s clubs, Vermillion, and the new one they were constructing at the Fleur De Lis hotel, by default. “To what do I owe the dishonor?”
“I need a favor.”
I grit my teeth and both inhaled and exhaled slowly. “No.”
“The Sangre Rojo,” she went on, as though I’d said nothing, “want to meet me. They’re interested in purchasing some of our land.”
“Our land?” I asked archly.
“Well, technically I’m the vampire who is now mind controlling the human who signed for it now that Rosalie’s dead, but it’s mine fair and square.”
“I don’t see how that involves me.”
“Bloodslave, do you mind?” Maya asked, flicking her eyes to Luna. Luna grimaced but then stalked away, hiding herself in the piercing studio past the coffee pot and bathrooms.