6. Tat, Too
6
Tat, Too
I debated going home. Not because of the ribbing I was due to receive from Vinton and Avery or even to avoid the questions Donovan would not have forgotten in the ten minutes I’d been gone. It was selfish to consider bailing, but I had a bad feeling about this so-called party. It could have been as advertised: toasting Donovan’s coming of age, giving speeches, then falling into bed with whoever hung around after the bar closed. But I suspected it would be more than that.
The Bloody Hex predated me, so the only initiation I’d been part of was my own. I’d been told then that membership was strictly one out, one in. As in, if you wanted into the gang, you needed to forcibly—permanently—remove one of its members. We’d had our share of would-be usurpers but, in the last twelve years, none had succeeded. Bristol would have been the first dethroned if he’d been killed by someone outside the gang.
Hence the mock execution, to simulate Donovan’s triumphal entry into our ranks. It was very theatrical, very forced, very fake, and I’d yet to hear a convincing argument about why it had to happen at all.
After the cold finally got the better of me, I dragged myself back into the bar where the festivities were in full swing. Donovan sat in the middle of the room, swarmed by gang groupies. Each of them took turns dumping Nash’s assortment of shots into Donovan’s mouth. He laughed and sputtered, soaked from the onslaught and swallowing as fast as they could pour.
Grimm occupied a corner booth, flanked by Avery and Vinton like devils on his shoulders. I caught his gaze as I walked past. Being on my best behavior, or at least giving the illusion of it, required me to stay as far from them as possible. Vinton wasn’t so much a problem, having no use for me in general, but Grimm would be watching for the smallest slip-up, and Avery was a thirsty brat who thought I looked best in any shade of pissed off.
Edging around the commotion, I returned to the counter where my glass and bottle of whiskey remained undisturbed. I topped off my cup and took a swig before calling Nash over.
“That’s not gonna kill him, is it?” I gestured to the next shot—highlighter yellow and glowing—being spilled as much on my brother as into him.
Nash gave the cocktail shaker he held a swish. “Nah. He might swell up like a blueberry and have to be rolled out of here, though. The unofficial party theme is Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. I borrowed heavily from the source material.”
“Violet, you’re turning violet!” I gasped, feigning shock.
Nash chuckled. He pulled a highball glass and rimmer from under the bar. Sugar, salt, and slices of citrus fruit piled up in divided dishes.
“What’d Grimm want?” Nash asked.
“Hedging his bets.” I shrugged and grabbed an orange wedge to nibble. “Trying to make sure I’m a player in this weird, ritualistic game he’s got going. And giving me hell about the Reeves job, of course.”
“Of course.” Setting the shaker on the counter, Nash rubbed a slice of grapefruit around the lip of the highball glass, then dipped it in salt.
His warm, brown eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Are you, though?”
“Am I a player?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
With raucous frat party antics raging behind my turned back.
“That doesn’t mean anything.” Nash uncapped the shaker, then put the strainer on top, pouring a filmy pink drink into the prepared glass. He slid the highball to the edge of the counter for Pippa to retrieve.
Nash was unconvinced, but that didn’t mean it was a good idea to tell him I’d moved on from debating my brother’s initiation and was currently plotting how to stop it.
The cheers and shouts had slackened off, but I didn’t notice until Donovan slammed into the counter beside me, drenched and glowing like he was under a black light. He panted rapid breaths, and his eyes were wild. Not drunk—alchemy wasn’t meant for that. More likely his sampling of Willy Wonka’s wicked wares had made him high as fuck.
“Fitch,” he stammered, “Fitch, you gotta come with me. There’s a couple girls. They just got here, and I thought…”
He stabbed a finger at a pair of twenty-somethings in minidresses on the opposite side of the room. A blonde and a brunette. They slid into a booth down the row from where Grimm, Vinton, and Avery sat. Seeing they’d caught our attention, both girls beamed white- toothed smiles and tossed their hair like show ponies.
Getting my brother laid was as fine a birthday gift as I could offer, but I had more pressing matters on my mind.
“You know, that’s a great idea,” I began, “but can I borrow you for a minute first? Maybe somewhere private?”
I tipped my head toward the balcony overlooking the bar area. A private lounge with sunken round booths jutted from one wall like box seating in a stadium. I joked that it was Nash’s Red Room of Romance since I often took girls up there to enjoy the solitude and the view. It was also nearest to the speakers, ideal for muting conversations best kept from the general public.
Donovan frowned. His head wobbled with the signs of a definite high as he looked from the girls to me and back again.
I grabbed his arm. “Come on.”
I should have done this last night or weeks ago when time wasn’t so short. Honestly, I should have taken care of it years ago. But I’d been selfish. And afraid. I didn’t want to face the Bloody Hex and all the shit that came with them on my own. I thought I could keep Donovan from it, and I had… until now.
Dragging my reluctant brother across the room made more of a scene than I anticipated. Not surprisingly, it drew Grimm’s attention.
He rose from his seat in the corner booth, shooing Avery onto the floor in his haste to stand.
“Donnie!” His booming voice managed to make everything else seem quiet. “Fitch!”
Donovan stopped in place like a dropped anchor.
“Meeting,” Grimm announced. “Upstairs. Now.”
“Gentlemen.”
When Grimm raised his drink in a toast, I felt profoundly left out. I was far too sober for pep talks, team huddles, or whatever this bullshit was supposed to be.
He took a sip of wine and set the glass down before continuing, “We gather tonight to celebrate the induction of one of our own. Donovan has been exceptionally patient, waiting over half his life for this occasion.”
I yawned from my seat in the round booth adjacent to the one occupied by the rest of the Bloody Hex members. The five of us squeezed in would have been pretty chummy, so I helped myself to a private table. Plenty of room to lean back and kick my feet up next to the flickering oil lamp centerpiece.
My decision to separate prompted Grimm to abandon the booth, as well, dragging over a chair he now stood atop like a soapbox preacher.
“I will address Donovan’s initiation ceremony in detail, but first I’d like to discuss our plans going forward,” Grimm said.
I glanced over at my comrades. Avery dealt solitaire to himself while Vinton sat bolt upright like a guard dog awaiting his master’s command. Sandwiched between them, Donovan looked shaken and a bit green but engaged, nonetheless.
“As you all know, we are at a critical time in the history of this organization.”
Grimm was the only person who refused to call the Bloody Hex a gang. To him, we were vigilantes, activists, or visionaries. To everyone else: mercenaries, thugs, and terrorists. It was all semantics and made very little difference to me, but I got a laugh out of our leader’s efforts to sanitize our public image.
“The vote to open our city’s gates has been stalled—thank you, Fitch.”
The scarce compliment, and my thumbs-up in response, made Avery snort.
“But it will come up again,” Grimm continued. “So, we must be thinking ahead.”
I was starting to itch. Too many hours had passed since my last cigarette.
I leaned over the seatback separating me from the distracted conjurer, who really needed to move his queen stack to that open king.
“Hey, you got any smokes?” I whispered to him.
Ours was too small a class to be passing notes in, but Grimm’s pointed glare didn’t stop Avery from murmuring back, “Only if you give me a kiss.”
My nose wrinkled. “Fuck off.”
“Suffer, then.” He returned to his cards while craving nagged at me.
It couldn’t have been more than a minute before I found myself poking his shoulder again.
Rather than speak or even look up, he turned his cheek toward me and tapped it with one finger.
“You’re a bastard,” I muttered, then bent in and put a quick kiss above his jaw.
His smirk made me bristle as he dipped into his vest pocket and produced a gold cigarette case. He handed it to me, then fixed his attention on his solitaire game once more.
Popping the tin open revealed metal clips penning in loose cigs—hand-rolled—a matchbook, some folded bills, and a tintype photograph of a man and a dog. I took a cigarette and a match to strike against the engraved side of the case.
A few puffs got the cig blazing, and smoke billowed out. It went down smoothly, reminding me that Avery had primo taste in tobacco. He’d tried to convince me to switch to shag a while back, but rolling trays and papers were a hassle when I could barely remember to stop by the corner store and buy a pack.
“The path forward has been heretofore unclear,” Grimm attempted again, visibly flustered. “We lack the numbers to make a large-scale impact using force, so I think it’s time we try precision.”
I passed the case back over the booth seat, cigarette nipped between my teeth as I peeked at the solitaire game once more.
“Move your fucking queen, man,” I told Avery, mentally lifting the card stack and sliding it to the open king of spades.
The conjurer swatted at me, still engrossed. He may have dodged Grimm’s dagger glare, but I didn’t miss it as the older man asked, “Are we ready to continue?”
“Go ahead,” Avery muttered.
I took a drag off the cigarette.
The older guys could get away with things I couldn’t. Grimm treated them more as equals, by virtue of seniority as much as anything. According to human standards, I was a young man but, by magical ones, practically a child. Powerful witches could live for hundreds of years. Grimm, Vinton, and Avery were all at least a century old. It didn’t help that they’d all known me since I was a kid; they never learned to see me as anything else.
“Donovan, will you join me?” When Grimm beckoned to my brother, I perked up.
Donovan scrambled into action, climbing over Vinton’s lap to take his place at Grimm’s side. The older man got down off the chair to stand only an inch or so taller than Donovan, who looked so suddenly grown it startled me.
Stubble dotted his jaw and cheeks long devoid of baby fat. His dark eyes were sharp, his nose slightly upturned like our mother’s, and his hair brown like hers, too. She’d given him every bit of herself: appearance, personality, and purely human blood.
While I stared, Grimm carried on.
“I’ve often said I intend to run the Capitol one day, and I believe I’ve found a way to do exactly that. It begins with you, Donnie-boy.” He patted Donovan’s back. “For your first act as a member of the Bloody Hex, I want you to eliminate Jacoby Thatcher.”
“Who’s that?” Donovan asked, his voice soft.
Jacoby Thatcher was the bookish brown-noser who had attended Maximus Lyle’s right hand for as long as I’d been alive. He was a nondescript kind of witch. Technomancer, maybe? All computers and bookwork. Nothing dangerous, which gave me a sense of relief on Donovan’s behalf.
“You want him to ice Maximus Lyle’s PA?” I frowned. “What good will that do?”
Grimm faced me, unblinking. “I intend to take Thatcher’s place.”
Avery must have finished his game because he had swept up the cards and was bridging them noisily between his hands. “So, you’re gonna fetch Lyle’s dry cleaning and daily coffee order?” He chuckled. “That’s rich.”
A vein bulged in Grimm’s forehead. “I am going to study Maximus Lyle in close quarters. And, when the time is right, I will become him instead.”
A ripple swept up Grimm’s form. His clothes changed—blue jeans and bomber jacket swapped for a business suit. Waves of brown hair shortened into a salt and pepper buzz cut, and his face lost its hard, grizzled edge in exchange for the soft, smooth countenance of Maximus Lyle.
Silence fell.
Grimm’s magic was less obvious than some. Rather than flashy conjuration, like Avery, or forbidden necromancy, like Vinton, Grimm created illusions. He could project images, or fully-formed objects like speeding cars that seemed they could run you off the road. He could cast disguises on himself or others, a treacherous talent when properly applied. Masquerading as the leader of our government was ambitious, but—and I hated to admit this—it was borderline inspired.
Vinton stirred in his seat. “Sir, this sounds risky to me—”
“Agreed,” I cut in. “Thatcher’s house is a fucking bunker. It’s deep water. Not a good place to teach someone how to swim.” I motioned to Donovan, whose expression soured.
“What the hell, Fitch?” he hissed. “I can handle it.”
Too late for that. I was the designated failsafe. This job was mine as much as it was Donovan’s. More so since I intended to keep him clear of it.
Grimm shifted back to himself and paused to dust off his shoulders before speaking. “He isn’t going alone. This will be a group effort. And, yes, surveillance is a given, but Avery can handle that. Not all of us have such difficulty avoiding security cameras.”
He pinned me with a narrow look, a wordless warning to sit down and shut up. I rolled my eyes and flicked cigarette ash onto the table.
“I meant the risk of disguising yourself as Maximus Lyle, sir,” Vinton tried again. “At the Capitol, you would be surrounded by enemies and without protection. If anyone realized…”
Grimm walked over to the big, bald man and laid a hand on his arm. “Your concern is appreciated. Don’t worry, though. I won’t leave you all behind. You are my soldiers in this war, and I will take you into battle.”
His confidence was almost palpable, sickly sweet. I glanced at Donovan, who caught my eyes long enough to give a fleeting scowl.
If this was any indicator, it might have been a good thing I didn’t get to talk to him. It would have been a waste of breath. But I had alternate plans.
Footsteps on the stairs brought the conversation to a stop. I wished it was Nash or Pippa bringing drinks, but they knew when to stay out of Grimm’s airspace. He didn’t take kindly to interruptions, or worse, eavesdroppers. Judging by his smile as the footsteps drew nearer, this was neither.
“Enough talk of the future,” Grimm said. “Let us return our focus to the now.” He swept a hand toward the landing, where a woman emerged toting a shiny steel case. When she gave her ebony hair a toss, my breath caught.
Isha?
She smiled as she approached, dressed impeccably in a scarlet saree with gold embroidery. I wasn’t used to seeing her outside the Blooming Orchid. In fact, I wasn’t sure I ever had. There was hope for this night after all if we could pick up where we left off earlier. Red Room of Romance, indeed.
I slid out of the booth, standing as Grimm took Isha’s free hand and kissed it.
“Good evening, madam,” he said warmly. “I trust this space will suffice?”
She glanced around, her dark eyes ringed in kohl liner. “Yes, it’s fine.”
Donovan stepped back to allow her room to pass, but she turned to him next. “Get comfortable, Donnie. We’ll be here a while.”
Realization dawned on his face the same moment it struck me. “You mean I get my Hex mark?” he asked, beaming. “Right now?”
Her head bobbed affirmation. She ushered Donovan toward the chair on which Grimm had first stood, then dragged over a seat for herself. When she set her case on the floor, it opened to reveal a full tattoo kit: ink pots, gun, and all. A thin sheet of transfer paper laid atop the rest, drawn with the same design she’d put on my hand years ago.
Still standing, and suddenly slack-jawed, I caught her gaze. She quickly looked away, lining up supplies on the nearest table.
Had she known about this earlier today? When I was in her bed giving breathless confessions about my fears for Donovan’s future when my head wasn’t between her legs? If she’d known then, why hadn’t she told me?
“Shall I take that to mean we’ll all be here awhile?” Avery didn’t bother to keep the complaint out of his voice.
Grimm didn’t respond. Instead, he returned to the booth and sat beside Vinton, retrieving his neglected glass of wine. Avery sighed and started dealing another game of solitaire.
The cigarette burned down between my fingers while the other men settled in. Isha and Donovan chatted quietly.
After a moment, Donovan waved me back. “Sit down, Fitch, you’re making me nervous,” he said with a laugh .
From the adjacent booth, Grimm’s chilling eyes bored through me. He, too, wanted me to relax. To applaud this defining moment. Doing anything else put a target on my back because why shouldn’t I be thrilled to see my brother succeed? What was best for the gang was best for everyone in it. So I’d been told over and over for the last twelve years.
“I’m gonna get a drink,” I said. Or several. Enough to forget the way Grimm glowered at me as I walked past on my way downstairs or the fact that Isha wouldn’t look at me at all.
They could make their own assumptions about whether or not I would return. I had no intention of doing anything that would make it harder to ignore the voice in my head begging someone to stop this or to deafen the sound of the tattoo gun as it drew the first line on my brother’s hand.