Inked Magic
Jory Strong
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF JORY STRONG
“The world is gorgeous, the characters are fantastic, and the plots will draw you in!”
—Errant Dreams Reviews
“Intriguing from the start and deliciously erotic.”
—Darque Reviews
“Jory Strong will leave you hooked and hoping for more of this dark world.”
—Romance Junkies
“Urban fantasy readers will relish Ghostland and look forward to more escapades in Jory Strong’s new California (and beyond).”
—Genre Go Round Reviews
“Jory Strong writes an enthralling story, which will quickly immerse readers in a futuristic fantasy.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“A beautiful, passionate story . . . Tender, loving, erotic, and consuming.”
—Joyfully Reviewed
“Strong’s terrific tale should win her many new fans. Really good stuff!”
—RT Book Reviews
Titles by Jory Strong
GHOSTLAND
SPIDER-TOUCHED
HEALER’S CHOICE
INKED MAGIC
Anthologies
PRIMAL
(with Lora Leigh, Michelle Rowen, and Ava Gray)
Titles by Jory Strong
GHOSTLAND
SPIDER-TOUCHED
HEALER’S CHOICE
INKED MAGIC
Anthologies
PRIMAL
(with Lora Leigh, Michelle Rowen, and Ava Gray)
Inked Magic
JORY STRONG
HEAT | NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2012 by Valerie Christenson.
Cover photo by Tony Mauro.
Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.
Cover art direction by Rita Frangie.
Text design by Laura K. Corless.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
HEAT and the HEAT design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Heat trade paperback edition / February 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Strong, Jory.
Inked magic / Jory Strong.—Heat trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-425-24537-8 (pbk.)
1. Women tattoo artists—Fiction. 2. Changelings—Fiction. 3. Elves—Fiction. 4. Rape—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.T777I55 2012
813.6—dc23
2011019141
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my parents.
A thousand acknowledgments wouldn’t be enough to adequately express how much your support means to me.
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
About the Author
One
Fog turned the cemetery into shades of black and gray. It lay on those gathered around the grave, a wet, heavy shroud muting the sounds of grieving as the priest spoke his final words and mourners moved toward the immediate family.
Cathal didn’t cross to offer his condolences, though his mother did, resplendent in designer black and tasteful jewelry. He remained in place even as his father and uncle departed without a word.
They glided through the fog like a pair of ravens, black coats shiny with moisture. Harbingers of death, he thought, knowing that scattered among the mourners were police as well as FBI and ATF agents.
He lingered, trying to recall the dead girl’s face, to dredge up personal memories of Caitlyn, something beyond the smiling photographs present in the funeral home. He failed. All that came to him were thoughts of his cousin, Brianna, and with it, guilt over how seldom their lives intersected.
In the span of a year Brianna had lost her mother and brother.
And now this.
Drugs and gang rape and the death of a friend.
Insanity and murder, if not by intention, then by end result.
He should have made more time for her. He should have . . .
With an acknowledgment of failure, he left the gravesite, returning to the long line of automobiles parked against the curb, transport back to everyday life.
Two heavily muscled men emerged from the gloom as his father and uncle neared identical dark-windowed Mercedes. The men opened back doors, then stood, waiting at attention like the soldiers they were.
Words passed between the brothers. Icy intensity rather than heated argument, accompanied by a glance in his direction before his uncle climbed into a car and was driven away.
A sense of foreboding settled around him but he didn’t slow his footsteps or refuse when his father indicated with a wave that he was to get into the back of the remaining Mercedes. He surrendered his cell phone, a precaution against being listened in on by the authorities, then got into the car.
The doors closed, walling off sound and the possibility of being overheard. His father’s eyes locked on to his. “The animals responsible for this can’t go unpunished.”
Despite knowing his father’s idea of justice involved a shot to the back of the head and an unmarked grave, he said, “I agree.”
“Good.”
The tension left
his father. “Good,” he repeated. “A source passed on a name at the funeral. There’s an artist who can help us identify the guilty parties. But there’s a complication.”
The sense of foreboding deepened. “What complication?”
“She might be related to a cop. The guy who passed on the name didn’t know whether it was true or not. All he could say for sure was that she’s got a freaky way with victims.”
“So call in a favor. Have a case file opened. There’s enough about what happened to Brianna and Caitlyn to force an investigation. Let the police make arrangements with the artist. Let them handle it officially and prosecute the guilty parties.”
His father tilted his head toward the empty parking place in front of the Mercedes. “This is personal business. Something your uncle and I need to take care of ourselves. The sooner the better. If you were around more—and I’m not saying you should be, I understand your reasons and I respect your decision—then you’d know Denis isn’t thinking straight. First losing Margo, then Brian. Now this.
“He’s hurting. And a man in that much pain is capable of striking out, damn the consequences. That’s why I’m asking you to run interference here, to minimize the collateral damage by approaching this woman. Pull the right strings to get her to visit Brianna and come up with pictures of the responsible parties.
“Maybe it’ll be simple. Cash for services rendered. Maybe she wants to be a rock star and you can make it happen for her. Maybe she’s lonely and you can convince her between the sheets. Show her a little love so she’ll want to help out here and be willing to keep quiet about it afterward. If you set your mind to it, you can get it done.”
“And if I don’t? If I can’t?”
His father shrugged. “Then my conscience is clear. I’ve tried to do the right thing, walk the line as much as I can given the situation. But I’m not going to stand between Denis and the animals responsible for drugging and raping his baby girl. I’m not going to turn my back on family. Justice will be served on behalf of those two girls, regardless of whether you involve yourself in this matter or not.”
Cathal curled his hand into a fist and fought the urge to answer the verbal jab. He looked beyond his father, at the mourners moving through the fog, leaving Caitlyn to be lowered into her grave.
After a lifetime of keeping his distance, of staying clear of his father and uncle’s business, he wondered if he was about to take the first step on a slippery slope that ended in prison or violent death for most of those who took it.
“How much time do I have to convince her?”
“As much as you need as long as you’re working it steady. I got Denis to agree to that much. To hold off acting. Brianna . . . Well, you’ve seen her. She’s not going to get any worse in the time it’ll take you to come back with an answer.”
His last visit to Brianna played out in his mind, bringing rage and despair at how a vibrant, talented girl now had to be kept heavily sedated and constantly watched. “What’s the woman’s name?”
“Etaín.”
“Irish?”
His father shrugged again. “Don’t know. All I have is the first name and where she can be found. She’s a tattoo artist. Works at a place called Stylin’ Ink.”
“In San Francisco?”
“Yeah, in the city.”
Guilt. Regret. Misgiving. They clawed at him, tearing him up inside and creeping into his guts.
His choice to open a club where people with money traded on their looks and names as they played hard and fast, his involvement with musicians, all of it was an ongoing test of himself—that he could be around vice without becoming what his father and uncle were: criminals.
He saw his mother approaching and knew he had less than a minute before it would be out of his hands. His father glanced over his shoulder and saw the same thing. “You’ll do this for the family?”
The question hung between them, tense with time running out. Heavy with choice and consequence. Innocence and guilt, and the ominous weight of lives already shattered and those that might end the same way.
“I’ll do it,” Cathal said as his mother reached the car. “For Brianna and for Caitlyn.” And so he could live with his own conscience when it came to them, and to the artist Etaín.
Desire hummed through Etaín, piercing the layer of purple latex separating her skin from Salina’s as if the barrier was nonexistent. It coursed through her, stirring an echoing need, though for a man instead of a woman.
It’d been too long since she’d had sex.
She paused to wipe the excess ink off Salina’s back, and to give the hand stretching the skin a break. “You’re thinking about doing the nasty.”
“And you can tell how? I’m not even looking at you.”
“You don’t need to be.”
She didn’t need the visible signs. Salina’s emotions spiked through the gloves like a needle plunging in and hitting a vein, dumping something foreign into her bloodstream.
Skin didn’t lie, not to her. It was her gift, sometimes her curse, to feel what others felt when she touched them, especially when she worked, and afterward, to catch glimpses of their memories.
Tattooing forged a bond, and to give it up would be to give up living. She’d been doing it since she was thirteen, her first tattoos the stylized eyes on her own palms. They’d haunted her dreams and turned into a compulsion she couldn’t escape. It was the same with the elaborate, multicolored vines twisting around her forearms and growing upward from wristbands her mother had inked on her when she was eight.
“One night is all I’m asking for,” Salina said. “Come to the club. Hear Lady Steel play and party with us afterward. I’ll show you a good time. And it’s not like I’m asking you to give up cocks.”
Jamaal snorted without looking up from the row of butterflies he was outlining at the base of his client’s spine. “Dildos aren’t as good as the real thing.”
“And you’ve had both so you know for sure?” Etaín asked.
“I don’t swing that way, baby, you know that. Spend a night in my bed and I’ll show you what I can do.” White teeth flashed against mocha-toned skin. “But I’m warning you, once you’ve had black, you ain’t never going back to those pretty white boys you go around with.”
“Yeah, and if I take you up on your offer, I’ll be looking over my shoulder for DaWanda.”
“There’s enough of me to go around, baby. Besides, DaWanda’s a church-going woman. She’s all about forgiving my sins.”
“More like she’s desperate,” Salina said.
“That was low, and you wearing a shitload of my work. I broke a sweat on your tits and it wasn’t because there were mountains to climb and nice big peaks to camp out on and explore.”
Etaín laughed, familiar with the scene on Salina’s chest. “If you were sweating, it was because you were picturing an X-rated unicorn-and-virgin scenario.”
“Probably comparing his cock to the unicorn’s horn and seeing he comes up short,” Salina said.
“Freud would back you on that.”
“You two are some mean bitches, doing me like this. Don’t think I’ll forget it the next time you come around asking me to put some ink on you.”
“As long as you remember payback’s hell,” Etaín said. “It’s going to take another session to finish the work on your upper thigh. One little slip . . .”
“I ain’t no fool, soon as I get home I’m going online, see if I can find myself an iron-plated jock. Extra, extra, extra large, so I can keep all my essential equipment safe.”
Salina made a choking sound. “Hello. Delusional.”
Etaín dipped the needles of the shader into a cap of gray ink. “What do you expect? When’s the last time you saw a pack of condoms labeled small?”
Salina snickered. “Or extra small.”
“Makes a dildo start looking good in comparison.”
“Damn straight.”
Etaín paused to study the big-breasted mermaid she was work
ing on before placing her hand on Salina’s skin to stretch it. Desire slid into her bloodstream again, a warm pulsing that didn’t bother her even if she didn’t reciprocate it.
The shop went quiet except for the hum of tattoo machines and the sound of U2. She was putting the final touches on the mermaid’s tail when the door jerked open and Derrick stalked in wearing a skintight fuck-me dress and high-heels.
“Don’t let me keep you from your business,” he said, sniffing for effect. “Life goes on.”
The outfit and thick mascara were enough to clue Etaín in, but when he headed directly to the player and changed the tunes to John Mayer she knew he’d been fighting with his boyfriend again.
Jamaal’s machine crashed down on his work stand. “No fucking way! I can’t work to that. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever again after last week.”
Two-hundred and fifty plus pounds of muscle headed toward the player with all the determination of an NFL linebacker. Derrick stood taller, thrusting his chin out. “Go ahead. Strike out at me because I’m in touch with my feelings. Everyone else does.”
“Knock that shit off, you two,” Bryce said, coming around the privacy screen and halting at the sight of Derrick. His eyes widened and his hands went to his hips. “Nice of you to finally show up for work. Now go home and change clothes. Either that or call and reschedule Orlando.”
“Since when do we have a dress code?”
“Since I got finished getting things set up for your client, then came out and saw you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Then sue me. After you get out of drag and stop channeling your inner diva.”
Derrick huffed. “Well if that’s the way you feel—”
“I do. I’m not having my shop trashed by Orlando when he walks in to get his ass worked on and sees you waiting for him like that.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“I’m the boss. It’s my privilege.”
“I’ll change, but it’s under protest.”
“That works for me.”
“Fine. I’m leaving.”
Derrick flounced his way around the counter separating the workstations from the waiting area. He stopped at the door and added, “If I don’t make it back in time, you spread Orlando’s ass.”
