Inked Destiny

She swallowed against the tightness in her throat, thinking about his coming by Stylin’ Ink with his wife and a brand-new baby. Just checking in with you, he’d said, to let you know your work’s still good.

They reached the intensive care unit. A uniformed officer stood nearby, as if there was concern a masked gunman would show up to finish the job started at the bar. He let them pass without asking questions, but his face held curiosity.

Melinda Hughes didn’t turn her head when they entered the room. She sat, hunched forward, her husband’s hand clasped in hers. A monotonous beep marked what remained of life, along with the forced respiration of equipment meant to sustain it.

Etain squeezed Cathal’s hand then allowed it to drop away as she approached, tears stinging her eyes at the remembered feel of a baby in her arms and the panic that had accompanied it, the laughter at her expense and merciless jibes by her coworkers as well as Kelvin.

“I’m sorry,” she said, stopping next to Melinda.

“Etain.”

Melinda reached out and Etain took the hand, the other woman’s grief slamming into her, joining her own and driving her to a crouch. Voice thick with emotion, she asked, “Why was he there? Why?”

“Fool.” Tears slid downward, dropping onto the white sheet. “I told him not to go around there. I told him to give up on Toney, that nothing he said was going to stop his brother from hanging with the Curs and selling dope with them. But he wouldn’t listen and look where it got him! Now Ayana is going to grow up not knowing her daddy.”

Wrong place, wrong time. But there was no comfort in that.

“Was this over drugs?”

Melinda jerked her hand from Etain’s, taking her grief but leaving the sting of anger and betrayal. “Is that the only reason you’re here? To get answers for the police? I already told them what I knew. Kelvin was done with that kind of trouble. I thought you believed in him.”

“I didn’t know it was him until I got to the hospital. I would have come anyway. I’m sorry, Melinda. Sorry for you and him and Ayana. Sorry this happened.” She braced herself against the bombardment of emotions but still reached out and covered Melinda’s hand with hers. “I’m here to do what I can to help.”

“How?” Melinda asked, hope, that traitorous emotion, sliding into Etain where their skin touched. “He’s already in the arms of the Almighty. The doctors say he’s gone, only his body doesn’t know it yet.”

Etain glanced at one of the monitors, saw the flat line of a brain with little activity and guessed that beneath the bandages covering most of Kelvin’s head and face he’d taken a bullet to the brain. There was no good way to handle this, no good way to honor her promise to the captain without further exposing herself, something she hadn’t wanted even before Eamon and his revelations.

“You know what they’ve been saying on the news about me?”

“That stuff about you being psychic? That same stuff the police have been denying?”

“Yeah. That stuff. That’s why I’m here.”

Hope dissolved into the raw hunger for justice. “I’m not leaving this room.”

“You don’t have to.”

Etain stood, grateful Melinda was predisposed to believe because Kelvin had believed in the transformative power of the tattoo. She glanced at Cathal standing with the captain and Ordones.

She’d known by the lack of a handshake or a question about why she didn’t have a sketch pad that the captain had clued Ordones in, giving him a ticket to the show. Right now she didn’t have enough energy to get mad over it, and at least the three men served a purpose, blocking anyone else from seeing her use her gift.

She moved to the opposite side of the bed. Taking Kelvin’s hand between hers, she felt an immediate connection, would have known blindfolded that he wore her ink.

Her forearms tingled. The eyes at the centers of her palms woke in a way they hadn’t previously, sending her heart into a skittering near-panic.

Concentrate. Just concentrate and get this over with. Kelvin couldn’t be harmed by her gift, not now.

“What happened at the Curs hangout?” she whispered, just once as she used the knowledge she’d gained from Eamon, her focus razor sharp, a camera zooming in on the relevant scene.

Cigarette smoke filled his mouth and lungs. Damn but it felt good, even if he was trying to quit on account of the baby.

He took another drag, savoring it the way Toney was savoring the weed. Melinda was gonna kill him if he came home smelling like reefer.

One more draw and he felt the heat against his fingertips, the burn of paper at having smoked all the way down to the filter. Man, what a pussy he’d become. Used to be he’d roll his own, not worrying about lung cancer. Not worrying about nothing. And now…

He had a wife and baby girl, a good job in times when a lot of folks couldn’t find work. He dropped the butt, grinding it into the asphalt behind the bar with his foot. Smiling inside at what he had in his life. Not this and he didn’t miss it. This was nothing compared to life with Melinda and Ayana.

“What the fuck!” Toney said, reaching for the gun he packed, body jerking and going down.

A glimpse of a masked figure. No! No!

Inky blackness served as transition from the memory, and across the screen of it, gold lines formed, taking the shape of script, I shall overcome, the words chosen by Kelvin but interlaced with the hidden symbols she’d dreamed before using the hand needle and tattooing them across his chest.

Wasssteful. The sound of the sibilant voice accompanied a burst of pain in Etain’s chest, followed by nothingness and then light so bright it was blinding.

Etain opened her eyes, wondering if this was dream or afterlife.

She stood in sunshine filtered through ancient trees. It was like the forest she’d often imagined, never sure if it was forgotten childhood memory or something else altogether.

Magic. If it had a smell, it was in the air in this place. In the very soil she touched, bare feet against rich loam.

It took her a moment to notice the absolute silence, and with that silence came a nameless fear. She moved, afraid she couldn’t, and felt only the tiniest of relief when she discovered she could.

Turning, she expected to find fire in the center of this forest, as she always had in the strange imaginings. Magic’s primordial birthplace, Eamon had called it, though there were differences here, not the least of which was the milky green lake now in front of her.

It looked as if someone had ground up emeralds and saturated the water with them. But even as she thought that, what had been diffuse became an infinite number of particles coalescing in the center of the lake, freeing the dark blue of water until the surface was nothing but, and then that surface was broken by an emerald-green Dragon’s head, and that head was followed by neck, by a winged torso, though the entirety of the creature didn’t emerge from the water.

You arrive early.

This was the same voice she’d heard before.

A wassste if I allow you to remain.

As if she had any fucking intention of staying.

Disresspectful.

Nostrils flared and Etain saw the fire she’d expected to find here. It burned across the water, its heat reaching her though the flames stopped just short of her feet, a warning, a lesson. She could suffer in this place, perhaps even die in it. Fear trickled in, making her aware of the silence again, the absence of a heartbeat.

Yesss. You understand now.

“What do you want?”

You will soon discover your purpose. Pupils narrowed. Sooo your mother saw true about the need for the bond with a human.

Old, old pain came to life with a vengeance, nearly smothering her in the questions of a child abandoned at eight. “And when was that?”