Standing outside the tattoo parlor, Sparrow hesitated before she went in. She studied the artwork in the window, intricate Celtic knots and the sort of tangled designs of animals and nature one saw on the pages of illuminated manuscripts. There was nothing in those designs that suggested the maliciousness of the knotted sprig now inscribed on her neck. Self-consciously, Sparrow placed her hand over the tattoo and felt the dark lines throb beneath her palm.
She had healed in three days, which struck her as a long time, considering her nature. But at least the tenderness was gone, and the oily redness of the fresh tattoo had finally faded. Yet the last three nights she had been awoken by a stampede of continuous nightmares only to discover the tattoo oozing drops of blood on her sheets and pillows. Still, in the morning, the raw wound would heal as soon as sunlight crept through the windows.
What have I done to myself? she wondered. What has he done to me?
Angrily, she thrust her hand away from her neck and shouldered her way into the tattoo shop.
“Can I help you?” A red-haired woman at the counter looked up from her magazine. She was big and full figured, and her strapless top barely concealed the prominent tattoo across her chest—a black-horned Japanese oni with fierce red-rimmed eyes glaring above the edge of the fabric.
“Yeah,” Sparrow said, shifting uneasily. “I need to talk to Hawk.”
“Get in line.” The woman shrugged toward a row of seats, most of which were occupied by women.
Sparrow glanced at them over her shoulder, noting they all had the same harried look, the same anxious pale face she saw when she stared at herself in the mirror.
“I’m not here for a tattoo,” she said, turning back to the red-haired woman.
“I don’t care why you’re here. You’ll have to wait.” The woman returned to reading her magazine.
Anger drummed in Sparrow’s veins and she resisted the urge to grab the magazine and strike her. But she knew the woman was only a gatekeeper demon designed to shuffle victims quietly into their seats. You don’t have to take this, Sparrow told herself. She clenched her hands into fists and rested them on the pages of the woman’s magazine.
The red-haired woman looked up, annoyed, and Sparrow knew by her appraising stare that such defiance didn’t happen very often with Hawk’s clients.
“Get him, or I swear I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” a low voice interrupted.
The red-haired woman straightened up, her expression apologetic as she gazed over Sparrow’s shoulder. Behind her, Sparrow heard the soft, murmured sighs of the women waiting in their chairs.
Sparrow turned to face Hawk, grateful for the distance between them. It allowed her not to feel so intimidated . . . Or seduced, she thought, her resolve weakening in the sudden warmth of his gaze. That’s it, she realized. That’s how he does it. She set one hand on the desk, its firmness allowing her to resist the subtle pressure to move closer to him. From there she studied him, trying to discern his true nature beneath the handsome face.
He was wearing a tight, sleeveless black shirt tucked into a pair of old jeans that showed off his muscular arms and lean waist. His sand-blond hair was pulled back into its ponytail, revealing the delicate shape of his jaw and high curve of his cheekbones.
It was hard to see past the glamour of beauty he wore, but from her distance, Sparrow understood two things about him: his own skin was pure of any tattoos, and, although he smiled at her, his eyes were cold, the obsidian pupils sharp as knives in the green iris. His smile faded beneath her appraising gaze and his fingers curled into fists at his side. But his voice was still inviting.
“Why don’t you come back to my office,” he said.
“No.” Sparrow’s instincts alerted her to an unnamed danger. It was the only thing she had to thank the nightmares for—the foreboding, the sense of being hunted. The tattoo on her neck prickled and burned, as though her body fought to reject it.
“Then what can I do for you?” The soothing voice was growing edged.
“The question is what did you do to me?”
He laughed, slowly stroking one hand up the length of his bare arm, and Sparrow’s heart skipped at the memory of those agile fingers, stroking her neck.
“I only gave you what you asked for,” he said. “Don’t you like it?”
“No. It’s . . . ugly,” she said.
“Let me fix it for you,” he offered. “No charge. What do you want, roses?”
Sparrow’s heart was pounding now. The pull toward him was a commanding current. She struggled to resist, digging her heels into the ground, gripping the desk’s edge more firmly, and biting her cheek. A burst of pain followed, then the taste of blood. She closed her eyes to clear away the vision of Hawk, opening them again quickly, as she felt him suddenly near.
“Who are you?” he whispered sharply and reached out a hand to grab her.
Sparrow twisted away, shouting, “Don’t touch me, you freak.”
The parlor erupted into a brawl as the red-haired woman lunged across the desk to strike at Sparrow. Sparrow ducked, grabbed a ceramic jar of pens and pencils, and threw it at her. Hawk stepped back, getting out of the way as the other women rose out of their chairs, and physically shoved Sparrow out of the shop’s door and onto the sidewalk.
“Fuck you,” Sparrow shouted back at them. “Fuck all of you. You deserve whatever he’s doing to you, you stupid bitches.”
The door to the tattoo parlor slammed in her face, leaving Sparrow panting with rage outside, surrounded by a group of curious onlookers.
“Get out of my way,” she growled, elbowing her way through the crowd. She drove her body down the city streets, trying desperately to get as far from the tattoo shop as she could. The bright sunlight glancing off the shop windows and cars hurt her eyes and she had to squint against the piercing pain. After three blocks, she ducked into a delivery alley and vomited. She waited there, a hand braced against the wall until the spasms stopped and she could breathe again. Why did I go to his shop? she wondered. What did I hope to gain?
Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Sparrow stumbled out of the alley again, and slowly made her way home.
* * *
BY THE TIME SHE’D REACHED the house, she was shaking with fever. Tears poured down her face as she turned the key in her front door. The apartment was empty as Marti had gone to work. Like I should, Sparrow thought.
But she just needed to rest a while first. She’d call in sick before her shift at the bookstore. Lurching down the hallway to her bedroom, she threw herself down on the unmade bed, and piled the coverlets over her shivering body, clutching pillows tightly around her head to try to ease the pounding headache. Lily jumped onto the bed and tried to lick her face but Sparrow pushed her away. Undaunted, Lily stationed herself at the bottom of the bed, her head lifting with a worried glance every time Sparrow turned over with a groan.
It’s much worse than a hangover, she thought. It was like withdrawal from a powerful drug. There was nothing to do but ride it out. Ride it out and hope for the best.
* * *
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, SPARROW woke to find herself coiled on the floor, mouth parched from the heat of the fever, eyes burning as though scrubbed with sand. She was shaking with chills, every muscle in her back and legs contracted and screaming with pain. She swallowed four aspirins but they did nothing to ease the agony.
“I can’t take this anymore,” she croaked, and wrestled her body to a sitting position. “Think girl, think.” Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine what might offer relief that didn’t involve killing herself. And then she remembered Marti’s wisdom teeth surgery. Marti had prided herself on using plain aspirin, hoarding the Vicodin the doctor had handed her for a future “just in case” moment.
“Well, it’s just-in-case time,” Sparrow said aloud.
Staggering into Marti’s bedroom, Sparrow ransacked the closet, pulled open drawers, but found only clothes. She peeked into the little baskets beside Marti’s bed. There were condoms, hair ornaments, vials of body oil. But finally, in Marti’s jewelry box, Sparrow found an envelope and when she opened it, almost cried seeing the long white pills. She quickly swallowed two without water, and stuffing the envelope into her jeans, returned to her own room.
As the opiate coursed through her veins, the pain in her muscles gradually subsided. She uncurled her legs and stretched out, relieved at last. For a quiet half an hour, she thought she was through the worst of it. Until she started to cry.
She couldn’t stop herself; the sobs rose in her chest, issuing forth like the cries of a wounded animal. What’s happening to me? she thought. She was very afraid, but she had no idea of what. Exhausted, she still forced herself to get up and start pacing with staggering footsteps around the room.
Lily whoofled her concern once, then just watched from the foot of the bed.
Sparrow didn’t want misery and grief, she wanted the razor-sharp edge of rage. But the sorrow wouldn’t leave her. What to do? What to do? As she paced for a third time around her room, she suddenly understood what her body had already known: she had to walk off the nameless sorrow that threatened to drown her. And she must cry it out until there was nothing left of it. Only then would she figure out what had been done to her. And only then could she make Hawk pay for poisoning her. Pay deeply. Pay endlessly. Pay well.