The Seven: Four tales of passion, danger and love (43 page)

“Inks? Are you an artist?”

“A
horishi
.”

“Ho-RHEE-she? What’s that?”

“A tattoo artist of the
tebori
discipline.”

“Tattoos? Where’re your chair and tattoo gun and stencils?”

“Not that kind of tattoos.”

“Is there another kind?”

This time Nyah chuckled. “Many.”

“So how is this te—”

“
Teh borh ree.”

“Yeah, how’s it different than American tattoos?”

“There are no machines. Our tools are simple. A long thin handle to which needles are attached. The needles are dipped into the ink and pushed into the skin.”

“Sounds painful.”

“It can be.”

“Do you do a lot of tattoos?”

“No. I’m quite selective.”

“What do you mean? Don’t people just come in and tell you what they want?”

“Why so many questions, Grace?”

Grace looked down at the mug in her hands. “Did you see what happened out there?”

“Yes, my dear.”

Grace looked up with eyes wide, her chest hurting from a mixture of fear and disbelief. “What did you see?”

“The gentleman who ran his vehicle into the back of yours.”

Grace’s mouth opened and closed. God help her, she
was
losing her mind. Or drugged. But she didn’t feel drugged. Just scared.

“That’s all?”

“Why yes, dear. What more was there to see?”

“Nothing.” Grace lowered her gaze. She couldn’t let herself think about what happened. She had to focus on things that were solid and real, things that didn’t scare the life out of her. Nyah’s profession seemed a safe topic. At least it kept her talking and the sound of Nyah’s voice was soothing.

“So, about these tattoos. Are they expensive?”

“Yes, very.”

“Then someone like me couldn’t afford it, huh?”

“I believe you could afford it, Grace. If it’s what you really wanted.”

Grace had often considered it, but was never sure. What if she had it done and hated the way it looked, or wished she’d chosen something else? And would having a tattoo make a difference? She’d still be Grace, the loser.

“I guess that’s the problem. I don’t know what I want.”

“I think you do know, Grace. You’re just afraid to admit it.”

“It wouldn’t make a difference.”

“Are you so sure? Words are thoughts put into sound. Thought and sound, broken down into basics are merely energy. Energy affects that which it touches. What would you say if you discovered that what is holding you back is not that you dream, but that you refuse to let yourself dream? See yourself as a failure and a failure you’ll be. See yourself as more and become more.”

“Sounds like a bad army recruitment commercial.”

Nyah laughed and Grace thought she’d never heard a lovelier sound. It was like music, full of grace and light, as silly as that seemed.

For a long time, there was silence. Grace finished her tea and set the cup on the small table beside the flickering candles. “What if I asked you to tattoo me?”

“What if you did?”

“Would you do it?”

“That depends.”

“Oh what?”

“On whether you know what it is you really want.”

“I want to be something besides just a girl who works in a bar and struggles to make ends meet. I want to matter.”

“Ah, yes. Of course.”

“Well?” Grace asked when Nyah said no more and the silence stretched into almost a tangible thing, hovering around them like a mist.

“If you want to discover your true self and become what you are meant to be, then come here tomorrow morning at ten sharp and we will begin.”

“Really?” Excitement flared but was immediately smothered. “But what about money?”

“It will be well within your range, Grace. You have my word.”

“My range is really low.”

Nyah stood, setting aside her mug. “It will be within your range. However, you must be sure this is what you want. Once done, it cannot be undone.”

Grace nodded. “I understand.”

“Very well. Come, let me summon a conveyance to transport you home.”

The idea of leaving the safety of the shop brought the fear rushing back. Outside this haven of serenity was fear and confusion. If she left, she’d have to face what happened, try to make sense of it. She couldn’t do that. Not yet. Not alone.

“Could I just stay here? I can sleep on the floor and I promise I won’t bother anything.”

Nyah looked at her for several long moments then nodded. “The chair cushions should make for an adequate pallet. Sleep well, Grace Jennings.”

“Thank you,” Grace said gratefully.

It wouldn’t occur to her until much later that she’d never told Nyah her last name.

Chapter Two

Ellis Walker suppressed a grunt of annoyance as the shapely blonde woman seated beside him squealed. “Oh. My. God. It’s you—the Fire Walker. The one from the news. Oh, my god … where’s my phone!”

Walker looked up at Ted, the bartender who stood across the counter from him. Ted smirked, rolled his eyes, then smiled at the pretty blonde as she shoved her phone at him. “Would you take a picture? You don’t mind do you? Just press that round button at the bottom. Oh my god!”

She squeezed up against Walker, one arm over his shoulders so that her breasts pressed against his arm.

“Ready?” Ted asked.

She nodded and smiled. A flare of light had Walker blinking.

“OMG, the girls are going to die—just die—when they see this!” The woman grabbed her phone and started typing away on it, all the while yakking. “I can’t believe it. I've seen you all over the news. Everyone has. This time they tried to stop you from going into that building for that old woman and… and OMG, that shot of you coming out of that building carrying that old woman and your clothes are burned. I nearly died.”

Apparently, finished texting or posting to a social network or whatever she was doing, she put her phone down and smiled at him. “I’m Debbie. Debbie Eldridge.”

Walker nodded. “Ellis Walker.”

“I know, oh my god, I can’t believe I met you. Do you come here a lot? I’ve never seen you here before, but my friend Amy—she told me about it. Said all kinds of good-looking firemen and policemen hang out here.”

Walker didn’t see any need to comment. She was doing fine on her own. In fact, he stopped listening. He just turned his attention to the television mounted behind the bar as she chattered on.

Just his luck, the newscast played the footage again. Him carrying the old woman from the burning house. Damn. He wished they’d move on. He didn’t want the attention. As it was, he was already being scrutinized. He shouldn’t have walked out of that building, out of any of them.

A rash of arsons over the last three months had the entire fire department stretched thin. Each instance was the same. The same accelerants, same set-up. And each time, there was at least one person in the home that could not make it out alone. An infant, disabled, handicapped, or elderly person who would surely perish.

Unless he went in. He was starting to think whoever was doing it was testing him, playing some sick game to see just how far he was willing to go to save someone. Each time the rescue was more perilous, more impossible. Each time it raised more questions.

He should not have been able to get the victim out, shouldn’t have survived. It was a miracle. No one else could come up with a better explanation. He and the victims should have died. But they hadn’t. He’d saved them.

His mood darkened further when the news reporter went on to elaborate about the other instances when he’d taken impossible chances and survived. He had been dubbed the Fire Walker, hailed as a hero.

Bloody hell. That was the last thing he needed. The more people that paid attention, the stronger the chance his secret would be revealed. He had to be careful. There was no way he could explain how he’d survived those fires. At least not in a way anyone would believe.

Walker pulled out his wallet and put a ten on the bar. “Keep it,” he said as Ted picked up the bill. Ten was much more than his one beer had cost, but he didn’t want to wait for change. He just wanted to go home.

The air outside was thick with humidity, the promise of an evening storm strong. Walker got in his truck and rolled down the windows, despite the heat. Traffic wasn’t heavy so the drive home took less than ten minutes.

His was one of the smaller houses on the street. Old oaks shaded it from the worst of the sun, but made grass a bitch to keep alive. Not that he was what you might call talented at landscaping. Aside from the oaks, the only thing flourishing in his yard were the azaleas planted around the house that had probably been planted by the original owner nearly a hundred years ago.

Walker loved the house. It had only a thousand square feet—one bedroom and one bath—but it had character. Walls built during a time when a two by four was actually two by four inches, with lathe and real plaster.

He let himself in the back door and stripped down in the laundry room. After putting his shoes on the rack by the door and tossing his clothes into the washing machine, he padded naked into the kitchen, grabbed a cold beer from the refrigerator, and proceeded on to the bathroom.

Walker popped the cap from the bottle, took a long pull, then set the bottle on the edge of the sink. His eyes moved to his reflection i.

The man who stared back had no happiness in his expression. Eyes the color of burnished gold, framed by dark lashes and topped by thick dark brows were set in a face of strong planes and angles. Some might consider him handsome, but he didn’t see himself that way.

His hair was short, midnight black and thick. He never let it grow much longer than half an inch, even though he’d been told quite a few times that it might make him appear less severe.

Walker’s eyes moved lower. As always, the first thing he saw was the face on the right side of his chest. A dragon’s head—eyes the color of fire and scales that rivaled even the most spectacular sunset. The neck curved up, over his shoulder.

His back bore the most of the ink. The dragon appeared almost as if it had attacked him, the claws of its forefeet digging into the tops of his shoulders and wings wrapped around the sides of his body, covering his ribs and torso to mid-abdomen.

The feet of the dragon’s hind legs gripped him at the hips, designed to appear to pierce the skin, and the tail swept across his left buttock and around his thigh, circling it completely, then down so the tip of the tail stopped just short of the crease of his knee joint.

It was beautiful—a work of art. One intended to hide ugliness.

That thought sent him rocketing back in time. August 12, 2008.

The day it all had turned to shit.

His was one of the first brigades on the scene. It was something from a nightmare, hard to wrap his mind around  Were it not for his best friend Utah, he would have been overwhelmed by the enormity and seeming hopelessness of the situation. But Utah had slapped him on the back and reminded him they were there for one reason. To save as many people as possible.

Walker’s throat constricted as he thought about it. They had. They’d worked like men possessed, taking chances they knew were foolish. And they were making a difference. Until Utah talked him into going one floor higher.

They could hear the screams, the sounds of terror ripping from raw throats. No matter that it was suicide, when Utahsaid, “We have to bro. If we don’t, they die,” Ellis agreed. No matter what, he had Utah’s back.

“Let’s do it.”

So up they went. It took both of them to axe their way through the door in the stairwell, and the wider the opening became the more noxious the smoke. They were both having a hard time seeing through the smoke by the time they entered the floor.

Walker saw them. Three women and a man, trapped between two tangled infernos of debris. “We’ll never get them through it.”

“The hell we won’t.” Utah gave Walker a grim smile. “We can’t let them die.”

Walker met his friend's eyes and nodded. Utah took the lead, working his way through the fire with Walker on his heels. Walker could hear the building groan, the hiss and sizzle of the fire as it ate away at everything in its path and the constant screams and moans.

He felt like he’d just fallen into hell. Please god, let them get to those people and get them out. It was all he could think as they made their way inch by inch closer.

It probably only took five minutes but felt like a week passed before they could see the survivors. Two of the women were sitting; the third was on the floor, unconscious. The man could not stand; his leg appeared to be broken.

They all started crying and jabbering at the same time, their fear prompting them to grab at Walker and Utah.

“It’s going to be okay,” Utah promised. “But you have to let go and calm down. Please, we have to move quickly.”

They quieted and Utah looked at Walker. “I’ll get her.” Utah indicated the woman on the floor.

Walker nodded and went to the man with the broken leg. “Put your arm over my shoulder.”

Once he had the man fully supported, he looked at the two women who could walk. “My partner’s going to go first. You follow him and we’ll bring up the rear. Whatever my partner tells you to do, do it. No hesitation, no questions. Got it? Okay, let’s move.”

It took longer to make the return journey. The fire had spread, and the cracks and groans of the supports above them sounded more frequent, louder, and more ominous. Walker moved as fast as he could, but it was slow going, having to support the man who was nearly unconscious. When he saw Utah and the two women reach the stairwell, he nearly sagged in relief. It was only a few more yards to safety.

That relief was short-lived. A screeching, tearing sound, followed by a loud whoosh had him dropping the man to the floor and diving over his body to shield him. The ceiling collapsed.

He could feel the fire on his back, eating at his protective clothing. He tried to push himself up but something had him pinned.

This was it. He was going to die.

Then he heard it. Utah’s voice. “Walker! Bro, can you hear me? Walker? Can you hear me? Answer me, bro.”

That was all it took to bolster his courage. “There’s something on me. Can’t move it.”

“I’m coming. Hang on.”

Walker forgot about the danger—the imminent collapse of the floor above that was inevitable. Utah was there. Together, they would make it.

Utah made it to him. There was a beam pinning Walker to the man he’d been carrying.

“He’s dead,” Utah announced. “I’m going to try and pull him out. When I do, move like greased lighting. You got it?”

“Yeah.”

Ten tense seconds later, he felt the body beneath him shift. Walker braced himself as if executing a pushup and gave it all he had. Just as his strength started to falter, the body beneath him moved.

Walker dropped and belly crawled from beneath the beam.

Utah grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. “Okay, let’s bolt, bro.”

Walker nodded and together, they turned in the direction of safety.

A sound like nothing he had ever heard caused his heart to jump in his chest.
Sorry bro
was all he had time to think before the building came down on top of them.

Walker’s eyes moved back to meet his own reflection. That moment had changed everything. Changed his life. Changed him. He had been saved, but at a cost too high. Utah was gone. He’d sacrificed himself for Walker and Walker hadn’t even gotten to grieve the loss with the rest of his brigade. It had been two weeks before he was conscious again, and nearly three months before he could go a full day without the pain meds.

His entire back had been charred by the time help reached him. He would be forever disfigured, and maybe that was fitting. He should bear the marks of shame. They had lost Utah because of him. He didn’t deserve to be alive, be hailed a hero. He was nothing.

His life had spiraled down, days blending one into the other in a haze of pills and booze
.
He didn’t care. Life had nothing to offer him and he had nothing to offer it. He might as well take a long step off a high building.

Fate apparently had other plans. Six months after he was released, he’d walked into an herb shop out of curiosity, having been told that there were herbs to sooth anxiety. The doctors weren’t going to give him any more prescriptions for pills and without them, it felt like ants were crawling under his skin. He had to find something.

The woman he’d met was not just an herbalist. She was a horishi, a tattooist of the ancient arts. She’d given him some herbs and instructions on how to prepare teas with them.

A week later, feeling miraculously better, he’d paid her another visit. This time, they’d talked about her ink work. By his fourth visit, he’d told her about his life, about what had led to his disfigurement.

Walker would never forget what she’d said when he’d finished his tale.

“Given the chance to be anything you desired, to accomplish any goal, what would be your wish Ellis Walker?”

“To be able to walk through fire.”

She’d nodded as if she understood. If he’d been able to walk through fire, he might not have lost Utah. And unless he could find a way to go back to what he did and save every threatened life, how could he ever hope to pay back what he’d taken from his friend?

“If that is truly what you wish, then come back tomorrow and we will begin. But know this. Once done it cannot be undone.”

Walker shook his head, trying to dispel the memories. If only he could go back in time, say no when she’d asked if he was sure. Having the ink done had seemed like salvation at the time—a way to cover his shame, to try to reclaim the man he’d once been. She’d said it would define him, reveal his true nature and his destiny, and make him whole again.