Bound by Ink (A Living Ink Novel) (26 page)

“Wash. Dress,” Jaiden commanded. “I’ll be back.”

They obeyed.

Murmur dressed, then picked up his leather jacket. He fished the folded stasis paper holding his griffin from the inside pocket and gave it to Isa. “Guard him?”

Her heart caught in her throat. The only reason he’d give the creature up would be because he didn’t intend to survive.

“I will protect him and you,” she said. “With my life.”

His eyebrows lowered.

Dressed in pale jeans and a wine red shirt, Jaiden summoned them from the room. A length of yellow cloth tied around his forehead kept his hair from his face. Silver and turquoise cuffs adorned his wrists.

Isa felt grubby and childish in her rumpled T-shirt and sweatshirt.

She and Murmur shielded, clasped hands, and followed Jaiden to the elevator.

A group of people waited in the lobby of Daniel’s offices when Jaiden ushered Murmur and Isa inside.

Steve appeared to be single-handedly holding off a giant of a man and one woman, both of whom seemed intent on gaining access to the containment studio.

“Damn it, Steve!” the woman said in a familiar voice. “We’re here to help!”

“Oki?” Isa squeaked.

The woman spun on the heel of her sensible black pumps. “Ice!”

The man turned.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Isa demanded of her friend. She didn’t recognize the mountain of a bearded Japanese man studying her.

Oki grinned and smoothed the charcoal fabric of her pencil skirt. “It’s called a suit. Some people even call it professional.”

“Better you than me. What are you doing here? It isn’t safe.”

Oki rolled her eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know it. I have learned a few things in the past few weeks.”

“Me, too,” Isa grumbled.

Murmur snorted.

“Please tell me your parents are safe,” Isa said.

“In my tiny apartment in Tokyo,” Oki said, “still telling me what to do. It’s like I never left Seattle. Look. Ice. I’m serious. They’re okay. Dad and Mom were on a flight within hours of you sending Troy to warn them.”

Isa blinked. She hadn’t.

“Oh. Hey. Getting to see you, it’s like I reverted to being twelve,” Oki said. “Isa Romanchzyk, may I present Ink Master Tokoro Masatoshi.”

Isa gaped.

Oki reversed the introduction; at least, Isa assumed she did. Oki switched to speaking Japanese.

A broad, brilliant grin split the man’s grizzled, graying beard, nearly crinkling his twinkling, dark eyes closed.

Isa bowed.

He returned the gesture.

She straightened a moment after he rose.

Master Masatoshi’s gaze moved to her left.

Murmur.

“Put me back,” Murmur commanded, shadow curling out of the confines of Daniel’s skin.

“Irene doesn’t have the four to six weeks that kind of tattoo would take,” Jaiden said. “Neither do you.”

“Who’s Irene?” Oki demanded.

Isa flushed and raised her hand. “Irene Sinquah, what I was named when I was adopted.”

Master Masatoshi said something to Oki in a surprisingly gentle baritone.

“He says there may be a way,” Oki said. “The matrix of magic and Live Ink still exists in Isa’s skin.”

“What does that mean? And why are you not freaking out about Daniel?” Isa asked.

“Master Masatoshi suspected he was Murmur,” Oki said. “Then I saw the eyes. As for the Live Ink thing, I may get this part wrong translating what Master Masatoshi told me, but the short story is when Ink comes off, the spells that put the Living Tattoo on you get left behind. They remain in your blood and magic. They’re a huge danger, in fact. Master Masatoshi can explain it better, later. We came to get you out of here. Both of you. We’re evacuating you to Japan.”

“What?” Steve yelped.

Jaiden stepped into the middle of the group and held up a hand. “Not possible. Come into the containment studio. Isa and Murmur have a momentary hold of their magic. It won’t last. They’re deteriorating.”

Oki’s eyes widened. She translated.

Master Masatoshi nodded. “
Hie.
”

He turned and marched past Steve, leading the way into the containment studio as if he’d owned the place his entire life.

The rest of them trailed in his wake.

Steve waited until Isa drew even with him. Stubble shadowed his jaw. His hair stood on end. “You look like you feel better. Are you okay?”

No. She wasn’t okay. Guilt lodged in her chest, setting hooked barbs into her flesh and bones.

He’d been up all night, watching Jaiden sprinkle sand across the floor. On her behalf, he’d gone without food or sleep while she’d spent the night in Murmur’s arms.

She hoped he’d settle for a sheepish nod.

“Jaiden’s powerful,” he said as they filed into the white stone containment studio. He paused at the door. “This is going to work.”

He shut the gleaming metal door and locked it.

A cold, silvery razor sliced through her insides. Gooseflesh erupted on her skin and she hugged her arms tight around her.

Master Masatoshi spun to stare at her. He barked something.

Bubbling, clear power, refreshing as a mossy mountain spring, filled the room, submerging her, pressing against her. As if she’d sunk into the sea of the Ink Master’s energy, the atmosphere bearing down on her increased.

It didn’t change the cold assailing her. The razor still traced the outlines of her soul, but contained by Master Masatoshi’s magic, the cold couldn’t escape the confines of her skin.

“He says something seeks escape,” Oki said, frowning.

Isa flinched.

Murmur hissed, “Uriel.”

“What?” Isa squeaked. “How?”

“Explanation later! Ceremony,” Jaiden commanded, “now.”

“I’m not dressed for ceremony!” she protested.

Silence.

Isa broke first, uttering a laugh that shook with an undercurrent of hysteria.

Murmur took her hand. Black smoke curled up the magical pathways, tracing her anatomy like veins. Even the heat of his presence unfolding inside couldn’t dig the silver blade out of her psyche.

She flashed on the vision she’d won from the dread lords of Xibalba. Uriel carving a door from the cage of her chest.

“Nothing about this situation conforms to expectation,” her cousin said. “I don’t think the Holy Ones will begrudge you coming before them wrapped in bandages.”

She definitely came wounded to the prayer Jaiden had painted on the floor of Daniel’s containment studio.

The air above the painting shimmered.

She smelled the new sage. It eased the tension from her shoulders. She led Murmur to the center of the painting, sand scattered beneath their feet, blurring the figures and releasing the first glimmers of power beyond Jaiden’s own. Isa sat cross-legged facing into the center of the painting.

Murmur mirrored her, their knees touching.

Master Masatoshi spoke.

“Master Masatoshi would be honored if you would allow him to lend his magic to your ceremony to be directed as you see fit,” Oki said to Jaiden.

“Oki, my cousin Jaiden. Jaiden, Oki,” Isa said.

“I welcome your master’s contribution,” Jaiden said. He lit a bundle of sage and smudged them all.

At the scent, Isa’s head buzzed. Old home week. She slid into trance.

Magic shifted in the room.

Jaiden’s.

Steve’s.

Oki’s and her dragon’s.

Masatoshi’s.

Murmur’s.

Hers.

And still more. Indefinable. Almost imperceptible.

When Jaiden knelt and settled into chant, Isa tumbled through her interior, into the desert at her center. Until it had frozen, it had been her sanctuary. She loathed what it had become. What she’d become.

Except that, in the face of Jaiden’s ceremony, it had thawed. Frost crunched beneath her sneakers, but she stood on sand. Silver-blue new growth dotted the tips of the sage. Spicy, sweet pinyon sap perfumed the chilly air. The sun hung golden in her internal sky.

A crunch of a footfall brought her around.

Murmur, she’d expected. He’d once had unfettered access to her inner landscape.

Jaiden, certainly. He’d been trained to follow his patients into the spirit world, just as Isa had been. He should feel right at home.

Master Masatoshi? Maybe she’d expected him, too, since no barrier she could erect would ever bar the kind of power he wielded. Magically, she was a child still drawing stick figures in the sand in comparison to the Ink Master.

Oki, Isa hadn’t expected. Nor Steve. Nor the silver snaking around their ankles—indication of Uriel seeking a weakness to exploit.

Fear thumped her between the eyes.

It could be worse.

Raven flew in on a breath of sweet-smelling air.

Tiny claws dug into the skin on the back of Isa’s hand. Lizard smiled up at her when Isa glanced at the boulder she used for support.

Rough, hoary fur brushed the fingers of her other hand. Coyote.

Oh, yes. It would be worse if still
more
of the people she loved were involved.

Cold stuck a knife through her chest.

She croaked a protest and fell to her knees.

Masatoshi spoke, words hurried, voice raised.

“She’s the portal!” Oki translated. “Her magic is the key!”

On her hands and knees in the sand, Isa struggled to block the ice sawing through her breastbone. Silver magic, pure, unblemished, spilled like blood from her, as yet, intact chest. Bastard. She’d kill Uriel with her own two hands. Grimacing, she summoned magic.

“No magic!” Murmur growled. He yanked her against his chest, his forearm at her throat. “No opening the door.”

Wheezing, she squeezed her eyes shut and struggled to release her grip on the run of energy deep within her. She’d learned to control magic, which meant handling it. Consciously. Every moment. She’d never learned how
not
to do it.

“Watch them,” he said at her ear. “Watch your Ink Master.”

Sipping air, she subsided against him.

Masatoshi wove a spell so intricate Isa marveled at the interplay of spoken word, gesture, and mossy, spring water energy.

She couldn’t follow where the spell led without swimming in the suddenly toxic river of her own power. She had to trust. Again. Something she wasn’t at all good at. Unless Murmur’s forearm pressing against her windpipe enforcing it counted.

Jaiden’s chant and his silvery-blue sage flower magic beat across the landscape. Distant thunder answered, picking up the rhythm.

The ground beneath her knees trembled. Sand grains vibrated. Settled. Then jumped again.

Isa struggled against Murmur’s grasp, wanting to scan the horizon, desperate for the lift of hope the approach of her adoptive family’s deities would bring. Who would answer Jaiden’s call?

Spider Woman?

Changing Woman herself?

Starlight, shot through with vibrant shimmers of green and gold, brushed Isa’s awareness. Oki and her tattoo, integrated and working in harmony. Steve’s blue sky magic eased past Isa. She hated that he’d had to learn to handle his magic because he had to defend himself from her.

“Murmur,” Master Masatoshi said, the word accented, but comprehensible. The rest followed in Japanese.

Murmur loosened his grasp and urged Isa to her feet.

“Ready?” Murmur asked. “You can put me back?”

Oki drew herself up, her potent, tattoo-augmented power resting against Isa’s chest like a bandage, stemming the flow of silver.

“Master Masatoshi asks that you stand here,” Oki said to Murmur. “You will be in the center of his circle.”

Murmur squeezed Isa’s shoulder and met her eye. His expression was placid, but the tip of his tongue ran out to moisten his lips. In that simple gesture, Isa saw uncertainty.

“Yes,” she said. Yes, she wanted him. No matter how it happened.

A fleeting smile came and went on his face. He strode to the spot Oki indicated.

Ruth’s raven form cackled beside her.

Reassurance?

Isa rested her hand on the rock where Henry perched. The lizard’s tongue flicked against her wrist.

She offered him a smile and murmured, “No magic. No door. That evil doesn’t get through me.”

Joseph sat on his haunches, his back to her. He yawned. The first vote of confidence from her teachers.

Cold burned the inside her sternum. She grunted and sank to one knee.

“Fuck off, Uriel,” she gritted. “Ow, that hurts.”

Jaiden’s chant surrounded her. The tremors of something large approaching increased, rattling her bones.

Out of the shimmer of Jaiden’s and Masatoshi’s magic, a glowing young woman wearing a jaguar’s face walked. The Mayan moon goddess. Spider Woman strode at her side.

Two cultures answering the prayer of one Navajo Singer in order to heal one—what was she? A bridge of some kind between the two? Isa only knew what she didn’t intend to be. Uriel’s door.

A voice that threatened to burst Isa’s skull with its rain on corn leaves tone took up Jaiden’s chant. Spider Woman.

The moonlight glow of the Mayan goddess’s power enfolded Master Masatoshi’s spring water spell. The combined energy buffeted Isa. It speared up from the sand beneath Isa’s feet and shook her like a dog with a toy.

Masatoshi shouted and gestured as if shoving Murmur at Isa.

Murmur swayed.

A wall of magic slammed Isa. Moonlight sharp enough to cut glass combined with Masatoshi’s mossy water pounded smoky shadow into her physical form.

Pain carved Isa open. She cried out. The river of gold at her core boiled, dissolving the vital portions of her will that bound body, soul, and magic together.

Another filament of shadow twined into her body. Internal pressure intensified. Agony sliced the breath from Isa’s lungs. Her watery gaze touched Steve. Pale. Surrounded by blue sky.

Oki had vanished in the brilliant glow of green-gold star shine.

Jaiden, flanked by goddesses, knelt in a vortex of energy that encompassed every color of the rainbow.

All of it prying her limb from aching limb.

Murmur. His true form stood out in silhouette against Daniel’s smaller physicality. He shuddered.

Only Masatoshi remained unchanged. No magic obscured him, as if he were too solid, too peaceful for even this sacred place to unsettle him.

A sword blade of pure silver erupted from the sand in front of Isa.

She couldn’t scream.

Her teachers could. Raven and Coyote raised the alarm. Raven cawed, her wings beating. Coyote lunged at the blade, snapping. His snarl rumbled deep in his chest. The Lizard that was Henry inflated his hood and hissed, flinging fiery embers of magic at Uriel’s weapon.

Henry’s attack forced the blade to retreat from Isa.

Uriel’s silver magic wavered, turning to mist on the ground. The ground that was a part of Isa, the manifestation of the magic propping up her soul the way her bones propped up her physical form.

She managed a croak as the mist floated within reach of Oki and her tattoo. He’d prise them apart just to spill their lives and blood into the sand.

The mist curled back upon itself, hesitating.

Isa tasted smoke and caramel. Murmur’s emerald gaze met hers. The insubstantial mist brushed Murmur’s shadowy form. Murmur started.

Silver light exploded from the ground, tracing the path of Masatoshi’s spell designed to shoehorn Murmur back into Isa’s psyche. Uriel’s magic climbed Murmur, wrapping his chest, and then flared. The ground beneath Murmur sundered. Uriel yanked Murmur through the opening.

A bellow of anguish hung in the shadowed sky.

The portal slammed shut. Swallowing Murmur as if he’d never come into her world at all.

Not a grain of sand in Master Masatoshi’s circle had been disturbed.

Rolling like thunder, the roar of the door slamming rippled across the spirit world and dwindled to silence.

The Mayan moon goddess hissed.

Isa settled to her feet. She stared at the spot where Murmur had stood. Even the imprint of his feet had been erased.

When she couldn’t look any longer, she glanced at Ruth, Joseph, and Henry. Rage stood out in Coyote’s raised hackles, and in Raven’s spread wings. Lizard’s hood deflated in slow motion.

Trust Henry to regroup first.

“I can do no more,” Jaiden said. Livid purple streaks of regret bruised the air. “None of us can.”

“No,” Isa said. “You can’t. I should have realized long ago this isn’t your fight. It never was. I imagined I could be made whole with a ceremony, rather than by facing and destroying the monsters myself.” She shook her head at her own foolishness.

Master Masatoshi spoke.

Oki, shaking, tears on her face, said, “He begs your forgiveness. It is because . . .”

Isa waved off the apology. “It is because I’ve been a coward.”

“You have not,” Steve growled.

“I have,” she countered, her voice sharp. “I thought I could be a passenger. That’s been the problem all along, hasn’t it? Me. Not taking responsibility for my choices or my actions. Or facing up to the spiritual heavy lifting required of me.”