Chapter 3 – Cassini
CASSINI
At this unholy hour, there are only two types of people who come into the tattoo shop: drunken fools looking to make their next bad choice, or creatures of the night who prefer the uneasy embrace of darkness. As a nocturnal beast myself, I have a preference for the latter.
I recline in my chair and kick up my boots, fingers idly working on the sketch I started at the bar—the woman at the window. I smudge at the edges with my graphite-stained fingertips and feel a pang of satisfaction.
I never wanted to be a tattoo artist, but I’ve always loved to create art, and it’s the sort of job where you can move from place to place without raising too many eyebrows.
The blood complicates things—it always does—but there aren’t many vocations suitable for a vampire in exile.
Cocktail waiter at a beachside resort, for example, isn’t a job I’ve ever considered.
Still, I enjoy the work, and it’s important that I fit in here. They need to trust me.
Trust. What a fragile concept, especially when tested in a nest of paranoid, criminal vampires.
It becomes more brittle. Despite living and working in Austin for half a year amongst my kind, keeping the peace, flying under the radar, the Sixth Clan has only ever grown more suspicious.
I see it in the way they watch me when they think I’m not looking.
I hear my name on their lips, dropped to a whisper.
I notice the way my possessions move around when I’ve been away, like someone’s searching my things for clues about my true identity.
For the other vampires, the Sixth Clan is family.
One sworn in blood that demands absolute loyalty.
When the bonds run this deep, you’ll do anything: dedicate yourself to their every need, kill for them, even lay down your fangs and your life to protect a bond so sacred.
It’s pure love and belonging that fills our veins and twists itself around the arches of our minds. It’s a thing of beauty and magic.
But I don’t have a family. Not anymore.
If they knew where I was—knew that I had been taken in like a stray animal by the rogues of the Sixth—they would hunt and eviscerate me. Tear my limbs from my body and scatter the pieces like confetti across the four corners of the earth. I intend to leave here before they come and find me.
But first I have to finish what I started with Beau Fontaine.
The trill of the doorbell cuts through the peace, and I crane my neck over the front desk to get a glimpse at the college kid in an oversized UT Austin sweatshirt who’s just ambled in.
“Yo, you guys open?” he slurs, spittle flying from his mouth.
“Tegan, you have a customer!” I shout.
My colleague, Tegan, has been flicking through a tattoo magazine on the other side of the shop. She lifts her head from the pages and rolls her eyes at me.
“Fine.” She presses her lips into a thin line.
“But you’re doing the next one.” She shakes her head as she passes, loud fire-engine-red hair swishing down her leather-clad back.
“You’re a lazy piece of shit, you know that?
” she hisses before plastering on a sarcastic smile and leaning over the desk to examine the half-pickled patron.
“Woah,” the drunk says. “You’re like…really fucking hot.”
“I know, and you look like an unwashed asshole. What can I do for you, handsome?”
The drunk is bewitched by her, checking her out like she’s a piece of meat.
His drooling face slack-jawed and starry-eyed as she leads him to the back of the shop.
He tries to flirt, like most men do, but she shuts it down.
I’ve never tried. To flirt, I mean. She tested the waters when I first started here but gave up when I didn’t return the favor.
Tegan is beautiful, but any woman who gets close to me is signing her own death warrant.
Even dead men cast long shadows, and mine has a habit of falling on anyone I care about.
When the drunk’s clumsy hands come within inches of Tegan’s tits, she grabs him by the throat, pins him to the couch, and threatens to ink the word “predator” into his forehead with her tattoo gun. After that, he sits like a rock and stays real quiet.
Tegan isn’t a vamp, but she’s tough and knows our kind well.
In old-world terms she’s a familiar, but in reality, she’s one of a handful of humans tasked with running the shop during the day.
Occasionally she does the night shift with me or one of the other vamps.
We trust each other, I think. But I know she carries silver spray in her purse, and I sometimes see her watching me closely when I’m working on someone who’s bleeding more than normal.
The bell above the door chimes again, and I notice a pink-cheeked blonde in hospital scrubs hovering in the doorway like she’s not sure she wants to commit to coming inside.
She’s carrying that nervous energy of someone doing a thing they’ve never done before—blue eyes wide and glassy, a pink phone case clutched in her fidgeting hands.
She’s captivating. Stunning in an ethereal sort of way—the kind of girl you take home to meet your mama.
Not mine obviously. My mother would destroy her.
There’s a luminescence to her. A glow that radiates like the morning sun on a warm spring day. Bathing everything in her brilliance.
She doesn’t belong in a place like this.
“We’re open,” I call out from behind the partition, instinctively softening the edge in my voice.
The frightened girl takes a tentative step toward the counter, her azure eyes darting around the shop before landing on me. “Hi, um, I was hoping to get a tattoo? Tonight, if that’s okay? I know it’s late, but—”
“What do you need?” I say, moving into the fluorescent beam toward her. She takes half a step back when she sees me up close. “Are you looking for a custom design? Or do you want some flash? We can do anything on the walls for you.”
She shakes her head, then hesitates. “Actually, I have two things. First, I want a tattoo—laurel leaves like this.” She holds up a picture on the phone screen. “Nine leaves, not eight. For my mom.”
I study the image. “Nine leaves would look off balance. Better to go for an even number, like eight or ten, otherwise it’ll just look strange.”
She juts her chin out stubbornly. “No, it has to be nine. And I want it on my chest. Under my breast. Near my heart.”
When she says breast, I imagine them. Picturing her milky, soft skin with marbled veins running through it.
Fuck.
I drag my mind out of the gutter.
“All right, it’s your body. Your rules.” I pause, watching her fidget with her phone. “You said two things. What’s the second?”
Her demeanor shifts, becomes more clinical. “I’ve been seeing some people around with a specific tattoo—a stylized ‘6’ just like your shop logo. Same design, same placement.” She studies my face carefully. “Do you know what it means?”
The air in the shop suddenly feels thinner. This isn’t just some girl wanting ink—she’s asking dangerous questions. Questions that could get her killed.
“Look,” I say, keeping my voice level, “if you’re not here to get tattooed, I can’t help you. This isn’t an information booth. You want to ask questions? Get the laurel leaves, and we can talk while I work. Otherwise, the door’s right behind you.”
Her face contorts with concern as she cranes her neck to glance behind me. “Um…what about her? Will she talk to me?”
“Tegan?” I say, gesturing behind me, my mouth quirking into a smile. I’m not offended—quite the opposite. It’s amusing how scared she is.
Tegan doesn’t even glance up from the oh-so-original Texas longhorn tattoo she’s inking on the drunk’s ass. The gun buzzes in her hand as she smacks her gum. “No, honey. This is my last of the night. It’s him or nothing.”
The girl weighs this for a moment, then nods with grim determination. “Fine. Let’s do the tattoo.”
As I lead her back to my chair, she gives her name. Lily, like the flower. When I offer mine in return, she says it slowly. Drawing out every letter as if she’s tasting them like a fine wine.
“C-a-s-s-i-n-i. That’s original. Like the space mission? That kinda Cassini?”
I’m impressed. Most Americans can’t even pronounce my name, let alone know its origins. “Kind of. He was an Italian astronomer. You like that stuff?”
"I was really into astronomy when I was a kid. I used to read all about the missions to space and obsess about finding life on Mars—that kinda thing. I've just never heard Cassini used as a name before. It's so unusual." She smiles. "It's kinda beautiful."
“Lily is a beautiful name too,” I offer. “Lillies are lovely flowers.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Lilies are funeral flowers. They make people think about death.”
By the time I’ve finished sketching up the design, Tegan is done inking the drunken frat boy and has gone home, leaving me and Lily alone in the shop.
The thick heat of the Austin air, loaded with silence, swirls around us, pushed around by the three shitty oscillating fans that buzz and whir in harmony.
“So how do we do this?” she asks, leaning back on the leather tattoo chair. “Do I take my shirt off?”
Fuck. Her veins.
“Depends on how high you want it. I can cover you up with tape, or we can go under your bra?”
She doesn’t respond. Instead, she pulls her shirt over her head and dumps it at my feet. Not a hint of embarrassment despite sitting in nothing but a pair of scrub bottoms and a radioactive-pink bra.
I was right. A tangle of exquisite blue veins twists just under the surface of her skin.
The sound of the blood rushing through them is all-consuming—a steady thrum that drowns out the music from the speakers in the corner of the shop.
The fluttering of her heart masks the distant chaos of the Sixth Street traffic.
My mouth waters, and I have to force my fangs from descending.