Tattoos

I’ve always been intrigued by tattoos. I think the best ones tell a story or convey a message of some sort that is never immediately evident until one takes the time to really look at them and reflect. One day I got to wondering what would happen if a tattoo aficionado received a tattoo he didn’t bargain for, one that would make him the target of kidnapping due to the reputation and collectible nature of the artist. My original idea was to end the story with the image of the main character’s tattooed hide, tanned and treated by preservatives, mounted on a collector’s wall.

That didn’t happen. Instead, the story morphed into something else entirely. I’d been reading the updated edition of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos when I was struggling with that earlier version of this story, when inspiration struck. I sat down, rewrote the story, and the result is what you are about to read. This novelette is linked to “The Watcher From the Grave” by way of Justin Grave, the fictional pulp author who appears in the piece that closes this volume. More stories concerning Justin beckon to be written.

John Pelan almost bought this story for his Children of Cthulhu anthology, but it was too long (a very different, shorter, non-Lovecraftian version of this story appeared in John’s anthology Dark Arts). “Tattoos” wound up appearing in an online men’s magazine, and later appeared in Maternal Instinct. It’s a favorite among my fans (and some heavy hitters like Bentley Little sent me nice emails and letters about the story too), and I’m please to give it new life in this appearance.

*   *   *

When I walked into our motel room that night I didn’t expect to find my husband missing, his blood drenching the walls.

The sudden shock was immense; like being sucker-punched in the stomach. This feeling was similar, yet with my husband’s blood all over the room it magnified the feeling of dread to immense proportions. With such a wide feeling of darkness looming in front of you, there’s not much chance for escape.

It seemed that all I remembered in the first two hours of flight from the motel, was all that blood. The room reeked with the coppery smell of it, along with the underlying aroma of stale sweat and a heavier scent, almost a death smell. I probably gaped in shock as I stood there in the room for a good minute, before the realization of our predicament came rushing back. I blinked and stepped back, reality in full focus. Out along the two lane main drag of the town we had holed up in, the hum of scant traffic was faint amid the background noise of neighboring tenants watching TV, talking and laughing, splashing in the swimming pool. It was that which snapped me back to the harsh reality of what had just happened.

I was out the door and down the steps to our little Volvo without even bothering to look back and see if I was being followed. The only clothes I had were the ones on my back, my only belongings stashed inside my purse. I peeled away from the motel, down Interstate 5, heading south. Not looking back. Putting the distance between Nicholas’s obvious death and my sanity.

I drove without resting, stopping only to refuel and head back out on the road. I drove for hours at a time, not caring that I was speeding. Distancing myself as far away from the nightmare as possible was the only thing on my mind.

As I drove I could feel the tattoo on my back itch and burn as it sought new virgin territory.

I still haven’t found the nerve to expose my back to a mirror and watch the designs taking shape. Just feeling it, knowing it’s taking place, is driving me mad.

What happened back at the motel is quite simple: Nicholas was alone in the room while I was out getting groceries. We were planning on staying at the little dive for another week before heading farther east, toward northern Nevada and points beyond. The unknown killer, or killers, who had knocked off Ashley in Los Angeles and had come after us, had somehow tracked us there. How, I don’t know, for we used every trick in the book to make sure nobody was on our tail; we didn’t use our credit cards, we used false names, and most importantly, we saw nobody on our tail throughout the drive. How they found us will be something I will probably always grapple with. Whatever happens in the end, though, all boils to the same conclusion: they found what they wanted. And simple means of obtaining what they desired was not in their vocabulary.

They bashed the front door in (it was the first thing I noticed upon arriving back from the store). What my frantic mind picked out in the few seconds I stood gaping in horror at our refuge, was enough to tell me that Nicholas had been taken by surprise. Our suitcase, still bearing the rumpled clothing of our hurried packing, remained on the dresser. His jeans and white cotton shirt lay sprawled over the chair. A sock lay on the floor at the foot of the bed. From the angle of the blood drenching the sheets, he must have been sitting on the bed, perhaps getting dressed. The wall directly behind the bed was stained with blood and the cheap oak headboard was broken.  The mirror that sat above the bureau was shattered, and the reading lamp immediately to the right of the doorway was knocked over. From the amount of blood on the walls, the bed, and the ceiling, I surmised that Nick fought hard. I was afraid they had taken what they wanted right then, judging by the amount of blood in the room. Fortunately for my sanity, they hadn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to stand seeing Nicholas in the state they would have left him in.

I can’t stand to see it in my mind now. His face is superimposed there forever. It’s an image I can’t banish no matter how hard I try.

And through it all, I think about what we heard on the news in the past few days.

Renewed civil unrest in Asia…

Increased volcanic activity throughout the world…

A violent hurricane season in the Caribbean and the eastern seaboard of the United States…

A recent report that the melting of the polar ice caps have accelerated by as much as thirty-five percent…

An increase in violent crime worldwide…

In short: chaos.

The hum of tires on the asphalt and the rushing scenery don’t provide much comfort as I drive and try to dispel that image of Nicholas from my mind.

*   *   *

What started our life as fugitives on the run was a small article in the Los Angeles Times three weeks ago.

“Have you read the paper today?” Nick asked me from the white-walled kitchen. The shakiness of his voice made me look up from my coffee and last Spring’s issue of Carpe Noctum.

“No, I haven’t.” I pushed large, black-rimmed glasses up from the tip of my nose and peered at Nick over the top of the paper. “What’s up? Another gang shooting? Another political scandal involving married men and young female interns?”

“No, something worse.” His words in unison with the pale pallor of a normally tanned and slender face made me put the magazine down and regard him more strenuously. I picked up the coffee cup and held it to my lips, sipping carefully. Nicholas knew the stance. I was waiting for him to go on.

“Geraldo Montivaldi died last night,” Nicholas said, tapping the paper with his index finger. For the first time since I’d known him, I saw that he was scared. His features appeared mottled beneath the early morning sun slipping through the French windows. His red satin robe hung loose over his slender, but toned body as he thrust the paper at me. An unseen weight seemed to have settled in his bones.

He stared at me with nervous green eyes, forever penetrating in their pools of bottomless pain and fear. “He died and he never got to finish…never got to finish what he started.” He stared at me and I stared back, knowing full well what he meant.

Geraldo Montivaldi had been one of the most prestigious artists to emerge in the last twenty years. Always controversial, always breaking the rules and setting new limits, Geraldo was this generations answer to Goya or Rubens or Bosch, with perhaps a touch of Hannes Bok. Unlike many artists who are held in high regard in the field of fantasy, Montivaldi was a favorite among mainstream critics as well. He won a European Art Festival for a painting—“A Day in the Life Of…”—that depicted a young, pregnant Negro woman hanging clothes on a sagging clothesline in the backyard of a New York Brownstone. Pterodactyls swarmed overhead, dropping large, white eggs that exploded in what appeared to be a noxious, green gas whose mist trailed into a huge mushroom cloud exploding off in the distance. Long reptilian fingers with razor sharp claws parted their way through the opening between the woman’s legs as she almost nonchalantly went about her chores. Clustered around her, and seemingly oblivious to her presence, are four children, presumably hers, screaming in rage. The children’s eyes are a deep, blood red, and the faint nubs of horns can be seen slightly beneath their fine, silken hair, just shy of the hairline.

When we first saw the piece at Brannigan’s gallery in Encino, Nicholas immediately said that it disturbed him. It didn’t have the same effect on me; I’ve always thought it was a beautiful piece of work.

Of course my favorite painting was “The Traveler.” It was the portrait of a figure of indeterminate sex, seated in a large, oak chair. It was thin and emaciated, dressed in shabby clothing. The background of the painting was a dark green, the outer edges growing darker until it became black. The features on the figure’s face were withered and sunken, the mouth open and drooling. Its hands were long and bony. It looked up toward its left, as if gazing at some unknown object off to the side. The eyes in its maddened face were completely white.

As far as Nicholas and I knew, Montivaldi’s rendering of a horror story—that of a tale by Justin Grave from his now out-of-print collection Cloak of Darkness and Others (Mythos Press, 1977) was the artist’s first and only sojourn into the so-called Cthulhu Mythos. Come to think of it, it was the only piece directly inspired by a piece of horror literature.

Despite this, the themes in Montivaldi’s art always centered on images of pain and fear, sex and death, eternal destruction and chaos. Equally beautiful and terrifying, the emotions one felt while looking at one of his pieces would often move you to tears or provoke a feeling of utter revulsion, sometimes both feelings rising from the same work. Despite the effect “A Day in the Life Of…” had on Nicholas, he became enamored with Montivaldi’s work.

We bought a book on his work and poured over it, adding it to our collection of art books in our book-shelved study (a corner of the living room, actually). Despite our love for the man’s work, neither of us could afford a Montivaldi original. Ditto for the prints, which were always limited, numbered and signed, and eagerly grabbed up by collectors.

Despite our inability to afford the man’s work, our obsession for him didn’t wane. Nicholas continued to bring home magazines and books containing articles and pictorials on the man and his work. The only way to see his work was to pick up the two coffee-table books with photographs of his better-known pieces (Works of a Dark Dreamer Volumes 1 & 2; Overlook Press). Our dream was to some day be the proud owners of a Montivaldi original.

Then one day, a little over two years ago, Nicholas discovered in an interview in Modern Art magazine that Geraldo Montivaldi had taken up body art and modification as a hobby.

And it was at that moment when the idea first began to blossom.

*   *   *

“Wouldn’t it be just incredible?” Nicholas exclaimed after he read the article of Montivaldi’s new passion. We were sitting up in bed, the lamps turned on for our evening reading. “Imagine being the sole possessor of a Montivaldi original. And nobody would know about it.”

I nodded. I had placed the paperback novel I was reading on my nightstand as Nicholas read the magazine piece aloud. The mere thought of it was exciting. “Yes, dear, it would be wonderful. The more I think about it, the more I like it.”

“Let’s speak to Ashley about it,” Nicholas intoned, his eyes riveted to mine. Ashley Gray ran Brannigan’s gallery on Ventura Boulevard and knew the reclusive artist casually; some years before Nicholas and I moved to Southern California, Brannigan’s had hosted a Montivaldi showing. “Maybe he can…arrange something.”

“You’ve got my vote,” I whispered, sliding into his embrace.

Strangely enough, it was Ashley who approached us.

He cornered us on the subject when we were browsing through Brannigan’s late one Friday evening. Nicholas was wearing a ground sweeping black leather trench coat—the one I’d gotten for him last Christmas—and I was dressed in a black leather mini skirt with a matching black blouse and pumps. Ashley left his spot at the information desk when he saw us saunter in, and immediately ushered us into his private office in the rear of the gallery. “I don’t want to keep you here for very long, but I do have a proposition to make.” His gray eyes twinkled as his grin became merry, obviously thrilled about something that he just couldn’t wait to spill.

“Sure thing, Ashley,” Nicholas said, leaning on a chair. “What is it?”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve read that little tidbit in the latest Modern Art, haven’t you?”

We nodded.

“And I know that you,” Ashley nodded at Nicholas, who remained transfixed behind the chair, head cocked, expression pensive as he listened to Ashley’s monologue, “are very interested in Montivaldi’s work. Both of you.” He smiled a secret smile as his eyes worked from Nicholas to me. “I’m also aware of Nicholas’s growing collection of tattoos, yes?”

“Yes,” Nicholas said. The way his eyebrows were cocked gave away his curiosity. “That’s true. What do you have in mind?”

“I’m also aware that they aren’t just your normal, er, biker tattoos.” Ashley smiled, ignoring Nicholas’s question. “You’ve never seemed to be the type to walk into the neighborhood tattoo parlor and walk out with a naked bimbo etched on your arm to join the others.” Ashley’s grin revealed too many teeth for such a small man.

“What exactly are you trying to tell us Ashley?” I couldn’t contain it anymore.

“What I’m saying is that Geraldo Montivaldi’s going to be in town next week. His practice of body art has only been performed on one person since his recent interest in it: himself. He’d like to start branching out onto other…ah, canvases, so to speak.” Ashley smiled a wry smile.

Nicholas’s face boiled over in surprised shock and awe. “You mean…”

“Yes, Nicholas,” Ashley moved around the paper cluttered desk, stopping in front of Nicholas. Ashley was of medium height, five foot six or so, but a dwarf when put next to Nicholas. Ashley gazed up into Nicholas’s slowly dawning mug of joy, his own gray eyes a misty cloud of excitement. “Montivaldi wants to work on somebody, and he asked me to find him a suitable subject. And I immediately thought of you.”

“This is fantastic,” Nicholas whispered, still shocked by the news. Ashley nodded. Nicholas placed his hands on the smaller man’s shoulders, confirming his gratitude. I could have wept at the sight of Nicholas’s boyish features so lit up in such utter happiness. As it was, good vibes were lulling me, warming my being. I felt numb. Intoxicated with relief.

“When?” Nicholas whispered.

“Tuesday,” Ashley said, looking at us the way a dog will when it knows it has performed some good deed for its master and was waiting for the inevitable treat. He ushered us to the door. “Six p.m. And not a word to anybody, not even your mothers.”

Nicholas turned to Ashley. He clapped the smaller man’s shoulder. “Ashley, my man, I don’t know how to thank you.”

I leaned in close to Ashley and planted a kiss on his dimpled cheek. “Thank you, Ashley. You don’t know what this means to us.” Ashley blushed slightly, and bid us good evening.

*   *   *

When I first met Nicholas he was already graced with seven gorgeously rendered tattoos. A bat silhouetted against a blood red moon on his upper left bicep was his first, followed by a black rose entangled in cobwebs with blood dripping off the thorns on his right bicep. A serpentine dragon intertwining a mean looking dagger marked the underside of his left forearm, while a helter-skelter mirage of demons and skulls emblazoned in fire occupied the underside of his right forearm. A dozen ancient looking keys with Celtic symbols were engraved on his right chest. His right ankle bore a heart and a rose with an old girlfriend’s name. A pair of red lips were poised over his groin, as if some woman had given him a lingering kiss there. His most recent was a banner over the black rose on his right bicep with my name inside it. He got it four months after we met.

Unlike the black-inked dragons and scantily clad women that graced the skin of bikers and spike-haired punk rockers, Nicholas’s markings were etched out of utmost care. The designs were rendered with precision and skill; not some back alley tattoo parlors work here. Nicholas demanded the best in everything, and that included the markings he chose to decorate his body with. I knew he wanted to decorate his flesh with more than what he had, but full body tattoos often come out looking, at times, unattractive and unnatural. Only the most exquisite of designs would be allowed on Nicholas’s body. Of that I was certain.

Ashley’s proposal was both a solution and a godsend. With Montivaldi doing the honors of gracing Nicholas’s skin with his brilliant vision, the solution to our problems would be solved: owning a priceless Montivaldi original without the hefty price tag. Montivaldi was doing the honors for free, for the benefit of practice (I know that sounded scary at first, but Ashley showed us photographs of the work Montivaldi had performed on himself and they were brilliant). Wearing it on his skin would be an added bonus for Nicholas.

And because it was a secret session, it would go no further than the four of us. Being that Ashley and Montivaldi were lovers whenever the famed artist was in town confirmed our trust in him. Any friend of Ashley’s was a friend of ours.

And now we were finally realizing the fruits of our dreams: the chance to own a Montivaldi original in a highly original state. Not to mention meeting the Master himself.

We set off for the studio early on a Tuesday evening. The air was brisk and warm. A mild breeze blew in from the coast and as we walked along Ventura Boulevard hand in hand, I couldn’t help but marvel at the scores of couples and young lovers out walking the night as we were. The atmosphere was perfect. It felt like we were in the midst of some dark secret that only we would share.

Ashley ushered us inside and up the stairs to a small room that overlooked the main gallery. It resembled a waiting room or makeshift office. An oak desk, a couple of chairs, an end table with several magazines piled on top of it. Nothing fancy. Directly behind the desk was a door. I heard the click of a lock as Ashley went through it, telling us in that warm, effeminate way of his that he would be bringing us right in to meet Montivaldi shortly.

When Ashley emerged twelve minutes later, he beckoned us to come inside and we rose. I know Nicholas must have been shaking because I certainly was. We followed Ashley into the room beyond and there, seated primly on what resembled a dentist’s chair, was Geraldo Montivaldi.

Geraldo Montivaldi was tall, lanky, and very thin. He had a hard edge to him that sort of reminded me of Keith Richards, without the corpse-like appearance. His long black hair was speckled with gray, framing his sunken face. His eyes were encased in blackened pits of bony eye sockets. His skin was leathery, parched. His thin form was clothed in billowy slacks and a white, long sleeved shirt; the sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, showing a multitude of gorgeous designs on his left forearm. Evidence of his work. A single gold ring adorned the pinkie of his left hand.

Montivaldi’s kind, gray eyes rested on us, lingering longer on Nicholas. “Please. Come in.” His voice was strong and even. A commanding voice.

We sat together on a velvet sofa. Nicholas’s hand reached out and found mine. Our eyes were fixed on Montivaldi; a god in our midst.

Montivaldi leaned forward, his eyes assessing Nicholas’s slim, muscular form. Sizing up the canvas before him. “Now, what precisely can I do for you?”

I didn’t think Nicholas would speak. For a moment I was afraid that he’d become so tongue-tied over the shock of being in the same room as his idol that he would remain frozen. I was halfway right. What I didn’t realize was that he was taking his time to properly explain to Montivaldi what he wanted done to him.

The wait wasn’t as eternally long as our wait in the outer office. When Nicholas began to speak, he did it slowly and carefully. Montivaldi nodded, stroking his chin as Nicholas spun his dreams.

*   *   *

The process in its entirety took almost eight months.

Once non-disclosure agreements and other paperwork were signed (as well as furnishing proof from a board-certified testing center that Nick was HIV free) Montivaldi completed the first session in a little less than four hours that first night. Using a high quality tattoo needle, he worked while the strains of Puccini filtered through the gallery’s stereo speakers. Nicholas sat in the dentist’s chair, nursing a ginger ale. He was shirtless, his right arm propped out for Montivaldi to work on. Nicholas kept quiet the first half-hour, his face giving away the awe he still felt, but soon giving in to idle relaxation. Ashley breezed in and out, more fluidly when the gallery closed for the evening. He brewed a pot of strong coffee for me and allowed Montivaldi one cup. “Wouldn’t want you too high strung,” was the explanation for his refusal of a second. Montivaldi sighed, the realization of his error flickering beneath hooded eyes.

Nicholas remained calm throughout the first session. The night passed rather slowly. Normally, tattooing is a pretty fluid procedure. A simple rose takes less than thirty minutes to complete. But the scope of the detail of Montivaldi’s work on himself, and on Nicholas, convinced me that if Nicholas ever decided to go all the way—a full body covering with Montivaldi as the artist—it could take several years. Such fine detail in art demanded time and precision.

When Montivaldi was finished for the evening he leaned back, surveyed his handiwork with a smile. “Ahh, yes. Beautiful. And I can make you so much more beautiful, yes?”

“You got it, my friend,” Nicholas said, rotating his arm, which now bore the elegant design of the major Arcana of the Tarot covering his entire right shoulder and upper arm. Montivaldi had tattooed the design over my banner. A slight jolt of jealousy erupted within me for a moment until Montivaldi soothed me with his calm voice.

“Don’t worry, my sweet,” he said as he began to pack up his equipment. “For you, I have big things in store. Many big things.”

Montivaldi patched the fresh tattoo in gauze and bandaged it up. “Saturday. You come in the back way, yes?”

“You can count on it.” Nicholas held out his hand, his features firm and strong. Montivaldi smiled and they shook hands. Ashley emerged from the back room and ushered Nicholas and I out into the night, chattering gaily as we said our good-byes. Their voices echoed after us on our walk home.

The next few months were filled with careful trepidation as we returned to the studio. Montivaldi was always calm, always charming. A perfect gentleman. During his sessions, as the electric hum of the tattoo needle stung the air he would rattle on about his life, his work. The sights he had seen from extensive traveling. The people he’d met, the experiences treasured. I know it held Nicholas in absolute fascination, for as Montivaldi’s skilled hands wove their intricate patterns across Nicholas’s arm I couldn’t detect a single flinch. Nicholas’s face was devoid of pain. Even when work was begun on the fleshy underside of his bicep, an area that is always tender, I caught no sign of discomfort. Instead I saw what might be pleasure. The work that was blossoming along Nicholas’s arm and chest was both a sight to behold and an intoxicant to the eye.

During the sessions we had some interesting conversations. One of the most interesting was Montivaldi’s interest in the occult.

The topic came up during a casual conversation on horror fiction. Nicholas mentioned Montivaldi’s rendition of “The Traveler” and Montivaldi nodded. “Yes. My only stab at tackling a Lovecraftian subject. You are aware of the story, yes?”

“Very much.” Nicholas said. The subject of the painting represented the main character in the story, who was obsessed with uncovering a race of people older than man, a race of people that, it was strongly suggested, were descendants of the Old Ones. They’d been living within the bowels of the earth and were waiting for “when the stars were right” to ascend to the surface to meet the Old Ones and, once again, rule the earth. One who is well versed in Lovecraft would recognize this as a familiar plot device. At the conclusion of the tale, the main character descends into a cavernous underworld in search of the eldritch dwellers.  He sees something so horrifying that the mere sight of it renders him a blind, cataract-ridden mad thing doomed to spend eternity traveling the countryside in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the creatures he’d originally set out to discover.

“Lovecraftian concepts fascinate me,” Montivaldi continued. “Since discovering his work, and the work of his contemporaries, I have been fascinated by his cosmic landscapes. My rendering of ‘The Traveler’ was my first attempt at committing to canvas what my mind was trying to picture. I would like to be able to repeat the process using something of my own creation.”

“I think if you did, it would be a fantastic piece,” Nicholas said from his chair.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if we try something with you?”

Nicholas grinned. “I’d be honored.”

And so it went. For the next few weeks as Montivaldi finished Nicholas’s arm, the two discussed plans for the Lovecraftian design. It would be something horrifying and fascinating. Something to plunge the viewer into a dizzying world of cosmic wonder and fear. As the conversation centered on Lovecraftian themes it eventually turned to the occult. “Thanks to the inspiration of Lovecraft, I’ve done much exploring in the realm of the occult and magic. I’ve discovered many sources of ancient lore, much of it so fascinating I could spend weeks talking to you about it. In fact, I’ve spent much of the last ten years scouring the globe, searching for lost texts and ancient manuscripts and books containing ancient wisdom. You’d be surprised to find that such things do exist. There are things Lovecraft merely hinted at that I am finding are turning out to be quite true.”

The conversation ended on that note as Montivaldi’s timer went off, signifying that the evening’s work was done. Since he had another appointment immediately after, neither Nicholas nor I could question him further on this. And during further sessions, whenever the topic came up again, Montivaldi never fully explained himself as to what he meant. Just that he’d done much exploring in the dark arts and that he was connecting things, that he was “getting messages from beyond.” These cryptic references caused Nicholas and I to wonder silently if our favorite artist wasn’t perhaps a full-fledged lunatic, but then Montivaldi would burst out laughing and change the subject drastically. The tone of his laughter suggested he was joking. But I wondered…

The days and weeks passed quickly into months. Through it all, Nicholas and I didn’t speak of what we were doing to anybody. We slipped past people on the sidewalk as silently as ghosts as we entered the rear of the gallery. From the serene expressions on the gallery’s patrons, I don’t think any of them were even aware that the master was in their presence.

When the first part of the process was finally finished on a late September evening, Montivaldi stepped back, wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his thin hand, and beamed down admiringly at his handiwork. A warm, pleasant sensation ebbed through me at the sight of it and I forced myself to erase the face splitting smile that wanted to erupt on my features. Some things are easier said than done.

Nicholas’s right arm, from just above the bony ridge of the wrist, all the way to the uppermost part of his shoulder, and then snaking down and blending over his right pectoral just above the nipple, sported the most glorious display of artwork I had ever seen. Carefully structured, blended, and color schemed, it was a never-ending river of pastels that portrayed the widest range of emotions: love, hate, mirth, rage, pity, fear. Save for the small circular area of bone at the elbow, there wasn’t a trace of skin on Nicholas’s right arm that had gone untouched. Everything was smooth and even. Wickedly beautiful.

Nicholas surveyed the final touches in a full-length mirror behind the dentist’s chair. The look on his face was of absolute joy.

“I can’t believe this,” he whispered. “I can’t believe this. It’s so…beautiful.”

Montivaldi clenched and unclenched his fingers, loosening the joints. His smile was one of content. “There is more where that came from, my friend. Much, much more.”

Nicholas turned to look at his idol. “You aren’t finished yet?”

“Far from it.” Montivaldi stepped toward Nicholas and laid a hand on his left shoulder. “When I am finished with you, you will be a living masterpiece. A rarity in the world of art.” His voice had reduced to a brittle whisper. It sounded like the rustling of drapes in a cold, empty room.

A look of rising excitement surged behind Nicholas’s green eyes. I’m sure the thought that was racing through his head was the same one that was making tracks in mine: You will be a living masterpiece.

The sense of thrill behind that voice didn’t sit well with my rising apprehension. “But suppose this leaks out?” I blurted, unable to contain my concerns and feelings anymore. “Suppose somebody finds out what you’ve done to him?” I moved to Nicholas and slipped my arms around his waist, hugging him. Nicholas held my hands, the two of us facing Montivaldi. I kissed his back, peering over Nicholas’s shoulder at Montivaldi. “I know and trust that you won’t say a word to anybody. And I know Ashley won’t let out a word as to what we’ve done.” My eyes flickered over to Ashley, who’d been observing mutely from his corner perch. His grave features seemed to match my feelings and he nodded. I turned back to Montivaldi, who seemed to be regarding us with calm interest. “Granted, I realize that Nicholas could probably walk shirtless down Venice beach and not a soul would recognize your style on his body, much less care. Even if the most crazed collector were to see Nicholas, I don’t think they would really see it. People don’t really see tattoos. They don’t see them for what they are…what they could be.”

“Precisely, my dear.” Montivaldi raised a forefinger tentatively. He looked like a shriveled, eccentric professor detailing the wonders of life. “You have just provided the answer to your own question. Nobody really sees tattoos for what they are. And people don’t seem to realize, or care for that matter, what they could be. After all, this is the dawn of the twenty-first century now, is it not? Tattoos aren’t just crude designs for sailors and bikers. Tattoos aren’t just displayed to show masculinity the way they were when I was a young man. You aren’t branded a thug, or a social deviant anymore, if you get tattooed. Tattooing has regressed back to its original state of being: an art form.”

“Yes,” Nicholas said, his voice low and smooth. “The ancient Egyptians used to tattoo each other, as well as the ancient people of the Pacific Islands. In some of those cultures, tattooing was a form of religious expression; paying homage to certain pagan gods. Some cultures even consider tattooing as marks of beauty.”

“That is correct.” Montivaldi walked over to a small sink set against the wall and washed his hands. “Japanese and other Asian cultures have regarded it as an art form long before Western Civilization picked up on it. Some of the most elaborate tattooing was done, and is still being performed, by primitive cultures.”

“And now it’s closed to a full circle,” I said. I hugged Nicholas closer to me, feeling his hot skin on my cheek. “There’s always a rebirth in everything, always a circle.”

“Precisely!” Montivaldi began drying his hands on a fresh, white towel. He mopped his tired, strained face as Ashley rose and began shutting things down for the evening. “No longer is it a custom practiced by soldiers and derelicts. Tattooing has gone out of the back alley and into the main thoroughfare of Beverly Hills.”

“Which is exactly why I’m a little bit worried.” I couldn’t help it, but I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. The image of Nicholas being hunted down like an animal for his pelt by crazed collectors sprang to my mind. You might be thinking why this hadn’t crossed our minds before we committed to having Montivaldi etch his work permanently to Nicholas’s skin, but then if you’ve seen his work you’ll know why common sense took a back seat in the decision. “I just don’t want anything to happen.” I accented my concern by giving Nicholas’s midriff a gentle squeeze. He responded by patting my hands affectionately.

Montivaldi stepped forward and touched both of us. His bony, callused hands were smooth, yet strong. Reassuring. “I guarantee you, my friends, that nothing will happen. I will resume my work with Nicholas in approximately six months. Your friends and acquaintances will notice your new tattoos, will marvel at them, admire them. Some will find it disgusting that one so young will want to mar his body in such a seemingly unhealthy way. But they will not suspect that these markings are the work of a real artist. If you were walk into this gallery with a sleeveless shirt on tomorrow, art aficionados wouldn’t give you a second glance. I know how they are.” He swiped the air in front of them, as if banishing some unseen and unwanted insect. “I know what a lot of people think of fantasy art, especially art depicting dark themes. I know what most people think of body art. If Munch were to have come back from the dead and render The Scream across your chest in stunning detail, the elite in the art community would be unimpressed.”

Ashley joined him, a blue denim duffel bag in tow. Time to leave. “He’s right. I’m in this gallery every day, and if it’s one thing I despise its snobs.”

Montivaldi harrumphed. “Yes. Know-nothings who lack the talent to produce anything themselves but would rather choose to attack and ridicule anything they can’t, or refuse, to understand. I know their type. They’re everywhere.”

Nicholas and I nodded. We knew it too. When you lived in the real world you ran across them every day of your life.

Ashley stepped to the light switch near the door. “Well, I think we should call it a night.” Montivaldi sighed, and stooped down to gather his belongings. Nicholas moved to the sofa where his shirt lay and put it on. We moved out silently, each of us absorbed in our own thoughts of self-satisfaction and personal joy. Outside, we parted with hugs, handshakes, and good-byes, with promises of meeting again in six months. Montivaldi was off to New York for two months, then Paris, and then London. Most of his engagements were for art festivals and other artistic endeavors, but he was also traveling to Iran to follow up on his occult studies, something he’d mentioned casually the week before. When he returned he would begin work on Nicholas’s left arm and perhaps his back. In the meantime, he told Nicholas to begin formulating ideas of what he wanted. He even told me that if I wished, he could do one for me. “We could perhaps start with something on your back, or above your breast. Something along the lines of the themes we were talking about earlier; something dark and cosmic. Maybe something relating to the work we will be doing with Nicholas next time we meet.” The invitation sounded so alluring that I tucked it away in the back of my mind for future reference. Just in case.

The temptation stayed in my mind for the next six months.

*   *   *

Nicholas’s new glorious display of eye-catching designs was an immediate hit. His clients at the photo studio were impressed. He got curious stares in public: when we were dining in restaurants; when we were walking along the beach, or along Ventura Boulevard window-shopping. We even took Montivaldi up on his dare that those in the gallery wouldn’t give Nicholas a second glance. None did. We walked in and spent half an hour in front of a Montivaldi original, admiring it while people stopped to scrutinize the painting, not even giving Nicholas’s arm a glance. Stereotyping in action. It was proving to be our best shield.

During the next six months I formulated ideas as to what designs Montivaldi could imprint on my flesh. I had several, but none inspired me as much as Nicholas’s next one. When Nicholas first proposed the idea to me I didn’t like it. It sounded too risky. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. When I stopped to consider what Montivaldi could do with those visions and mix them with his own, the idea seemed more attractive to me.

When Montivaldi returned six months later it was like a family reunion. We dined at a small, but intimate, Italian restaurant on Ventura Boulevard that first night and talked aimlessly. Montivaldi shared his past month’s travels and experiences, which I’m sure Nicholas soaked up. After the meal, when we were safe within the haven of the gallery, Montivaldi popped the question. “So, what will it be?”

Grinning, Nicholas unveiled his ideas. Montivaldi nodded, soaking it all in. When Nicholas was finished, Montivaldi clapped his hands together once. “Fantastic. I love it. What you want dovetails perfectly with the inspiration I got on my trip to Iran. It will work perfectly! You shall have that and more. Much more.”

Nicholas and I turned to each other, excited.

The limits of our fantasy were endless.

The next evening Montivaldi let the dreams run wild.

*   *   *

The news of Montivaldi’s death from a heart attack came as a crushing blow to us. But what became even more ominous was the series of strange events that followed it.

If Montivaldi was sick we surely didn’t notice it. That first meeting after not seeing him for six months was a reunion of old friends. The next time we saw the artist was at the gallery, after hours, during Nicholas’s first session. If he seemed unusually hurried I figured it was because he was feeling rushed. Nevertheless, he did a splendid job that first session on Nicholas’s left bicep. He followed it up over the course of the following day by adding color, tint, and background. Montivaldi appeared preoccupied, as if there was something on his mind, though I thought nothing of it.

Three weeks after starting on Nicholas’s left arm he asked if he could temporarily abandon that and start a new piece on his back—he had a vision he wanted committed to skin, one that was true to his portrait of “The Traveler” in its cosmic spirit. Nicholas agreed; they talked about it, and Montivaldi gave him an idea of what he was trying to accomplish. Nicholas was excited at the possibility, and gave his go ahead.

Montivaldi began working on Nicholas’s back. I watched as the design took shape. As it burst forth amid its vast array of dark colors, I felt a mixture of excitement and dread. The image Montivaldi was etching into Nicholas’s back was the conjuration of dark nightmares from the abyss, punctuated by a section of parchment-like designs with some hieroglyphic writings. Between his sessions with Nicholas he turned to me, rendering a similar design over my right breast; Nicholas could only take so much per session—the more Montivaldi worked along the top of his shoulder blades, the more it would hurt. But that’s only natural.

Every night we would go home and examine our new tattoos. I was excited by mine, as was Nicholas, but for some reason I began to feel a slight sense of regret. It began subtly. It would soon grow stronger as the days passed into weeks.

Montivaldi’s ramblings on the evening of what was to be our last session with him were startling to me. He seemed nervous, and kept muttering that his studies and his recent trip to Iran had given him a sense of wisdom that he did not desire. “I must write it down,” he said at one point as he worked on Nicholas’s back. He muttered as he worked, and as he muttered Nicholas and I traded worried glances. I only remember certain phrases that he kept repeating between other bits of conversation. One of them was, “I must write it down lest I forget, and I must do it quickly.” Another phrase that leaps into mind is this: “But I am afraid that if I don’t get it down right, if I don’t get it down quickly, they will come in and finish it for me. Only they will seek the opportunity to write down the formula that will throw open the gate.”

Nicholas and I had looked at each other with worry. Montivaldi had been working on a very small portion of the small of Nicholas’s back, and my first impression was that the man was drunk. I asked him if he was feeling okay and he finally stopped his work. “No,” he said, his eyes fearful and haunted. “I am exhausted. Please forgive me…”

We both insisted that he stop the work immediately. Nicholas further insisted that Montivaldi get some much needed rest. The artist nodded, then said cryptically, “Perhaps if I get away they will leave me alone.” Nicholas and I glanced at each other again, wondering about our newly found friend’s mental stability.

We made tentative arrangements to continue our sessions a week later.

And then came the Sunday morning we learned of Montivaldi’s death.

The real nightmare started with a slight itch over my right breast a few days after we learned of Montivaldi’s passing. It hit Nicholas at precisely the same time, on his back. It was so subtle that I wasn’t even aware Nicholas was afflicted with it. With me, it started in the area immediately surrounding my new tattoo, which lay above the swell of my right breast. It trickled down to my right nipple, then blossomed to the valley between my breasts. At first I thought it might be the signs of a rash, but when none came and the itch died down, I forgot about it. It was around then that the phone calls started coming.

I got the first one. I picked up the phone on the first ring one night when I was up late working, hoping it would be Nicholas. Nicholas was working late at the studio.

“Hello?”

There was a strange sound over the line, like a hollow echo. “Hello?”

The echo intensified. It sounded like the rushing of the wind.

I hung up.

Ten minutes later the phone rang again. “Hello?”

The same sound came out of the receiver. Only this time the rushing of the wind sounded like something else. It sounded like the wailing of the damned, coming out of a deep abyss. I don’t know why I felt this, but I had the feeling that this sound, whatever it was, was traveling across a vast abyss of time and space to reach me.

I hung up again, dread filling me.

My thoughts flashed on Montivaldi’s obituary in the paper and our newly acquired tattoos. I thought about the artist’s state of mind during the last few sessions. I began to wonder.

The phone rang again. This time I let it ring into the answering machine.

I pressed the PLAY button a few minutes later, after it reached the end.

That echoing of the damned boomed out of the tiny speaker of the answering machine, filling my living room with its awful sound. I jabbed at the STOP button and rewound the tape. Now I was terrified.

Nicholas came home an hour late, reporting that he’d also received phone calls in which nobody spoke on the other end. He said it sounded like voices of the dead. He also had the vague feeling he was being watched.

“Let’s pack up and get out of town for a few days.” Nicholas began removing clothes from the closet, throwing them in a large suitcase he’d brought down from the closet. I moved closer to him, unable to understand what was going on.

“Nicholas, we can’t just leave!”

Nicholas looked at me. “Don’t you feel it? Your tattoo?”

My response stuck in my throat. It was happening to him, too. It was then that I went into the bathroom and looked at my tattoo.

The scream shattered my nerves. Nicholas burst in and took me in his arms, trying to calm me down. By the time I regained control of my senses I realized that it was I who had been screaming.

That tattoo Montivaldi had inked over my right breast had started to inch its way outward, spreading down toward the nipple and reaching up toward my collarbone.

After our things were packed and we were nearly out the door, Nicholas got the idea to call Ashley at his private number. There was no answer. “We’ll drop by his place on the way,” he said, placing an overnight bag in the hall. “He’s off tonight, and he usually spends his time at home in front of the TV. I’m surprised he didn’t answer the phone.”

“Maybe he stepped out.” My voice sounded strangely hollow to me. What I really wanted to say was, maybe Ashley got the same phone calls we got and was afraid to answer the phone.

The drive to Ashley’s apartment in Encino was made in funereal silence. My body felt weak, my mind on the brink of madness. Everything felt distanced; as if I was viewing it from a distorted, surreal point of view.

We pulled up in front of Ashley’s modest apartment complex and made the walk up to his place. Nicholas rang the doorbell. No answer.

From within we could hear the sound of the television.

My heart hammered in my chest just then, and now I was more scared than I had ever been in my life. My body felt numb and I closed my eyes to fight back the sudden rush of dizziness that swooped over me. The disengaging of locks as Nicholas fumbled with the door snapped the feeling away, and I opened my eyes to what Nicholas had stumbled on as he opened the door and stepped inside.

I choked back the scream that threatened to spill out of me.

Ashley sat on a single chair in the middle of the room in front of the TV, his hands tied behind his back, his feet tied to the legs of the chair. His head was tilted back, dead eyes gazing at the ceiling. A second smile had been engraved below his chin, and it had vomited forth a great cascade of blood down his chest where it stained the white carpet a deep red.

Nicholas emitted a coughing gasp as he stood in front of Ashley’s prone body. He brought a hand up to his mouth, stifling back the cry that I knew was threatening to bubble its way out of him. As it was, I was having a difficult time keeping my screaming inside for I saw what Nicholas was seeing. They hadn’t taken Ashley easily.

You could tell by the ripped fingernails lying like bloody, discarded scraps of paper.

Bloody stumps of teeth decorated the floor amid the fingernails.

There were no visible bruises on Ashley’s face that would indicate he’d been beaten, but his teeth had been pulled out. A pair of bloody pliers lay on a small end table next to the chair Ashley was tied to.

I don’t know how long we stood there in shock, hugging each other, trying to fight our way out of the sudden devastation of what we’d just stumbled upon. By the time I finally gained control of myself, I realized the sudden implications of the dilemma we were in. Ashley’s tortured, mutilated body and the smell of death that permeated it woke me up. I grabbed Nicholas’s shoulder and he turned toward me, his face filled with horror. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he whispered.

We left, leaving Ashley’s ravaged body behind. And we never once looked back as we fled that bloodbath. I was half-crazed out of my mind with fear by then. I was afraid that if I looked back that I would see somebody following us, and I didn’t want to admit to the fact that we were being pursued. To look back and see somebody tailing us, to even imagine it, would only confirm it. Therefore I looked on at the unwinding road in front of me as Nicholas drove.

And drove…

*   *   *

Even now it’s the same road it was when Nicholas and I originally fled Los Angeles. The only difference is the scenery.

The Arizona desert bears the same scenic landscape in the winter as it does in the summer. Barren. Dry. Wind-blown tumbleweeds flutter across the bleak landscape like dry finger bones playing a daddy long-legs dance. Tall silhouettes of cacti stretch curved arms to the sky. The scarce foliage of sagebrush dots the landscape with the occasional beady eyes of a jackrabbit, or a badger, hiding beneath its shelter. Sometimes I felt that the eyes of the natural inhabitants of the desert were watching me as I drove down the highway and that they were whispering to each other, relaying messages to each other, and to others unseen. Despite the buffeting howl of the wind creating a whistling cry through the desert floor, confirming my isolated state, the feeling that I wasn’t alone continued to hound me. It got worse every time a car passed me on the highway, or when a vehicle materialized in my rearview mirror.

I tried to use a phone once, about a few hours after our initial flight. We’d pulled into a roadside diner and I attempted to place a call to my mother, just to tell her we were going away on a vacation for a few weeks. When I picked up the receiver in a little phone booth somewhere in some rest stop in central California, I heard that howling, echoing chanting sound filling my ears, the same sound that came with those phone calls Nicholas and I received.

I don’t go anywhere near a phone now.

But I still feel like I’m being watched.

Our initial flight from Los Angeles took us to the California Sierra Mountains where we holed up in a little motel off the main drag of a sleepy little town called Oak Run. There we lived like convicts on the run, hardly venturing out of our room. We lived on cold cuts I bought from the local country store and water from the kitchen faucet. I OD’d on episodes of Friends and Seinfeld until I thought I was going to puke. When the cold cuts ran out, I ventured out once more to pick up some nourishment, preferably something different, along with some skin ointment to help cut down on the painful itching the tattoos were creating on our tender skin. I was gone no more than thirty minutes.

I came home to an empty motel room, with the exception of Nicholas’s lifeblood decorating the walls and bedsheets.

I’ve tried to put the pieces together, arrange them systematically so they could make some kind of sense. At first I tried to tell myself that everything that was happening was logical—that we were being stalked by some fanatical collector who somehow found out about our newly acquired tattoos. It made sense; being that Montivaldi was a highly collected artist when he was alive, you can imagine the rise in value his works must have taken after his death. They probably soared to more then double and triple their price shortly after his passing. But then when I thought about the phone calls we’d received, the feelings of being watched that overcame me at almost every moment, Montivaldi’s obsession with the occult and the things he was hinting at toward the end, and the tattoos that were finishing themselves—

Whatever it was Montivaldi was working on, it must mean something. I remember looking at it one night while Nicholas lay in bed on his stomach in our motel room. I looked at the half-finished design on his back, marveling at the cosmic image. Starting from the top of his back was an array of wispy images merging together into a Lovecraftian nightmare of tentacles and odd, symmetrical shapes. Beginning at the middle of his back, amidst this design, was the beginning of strange symbols that looked like they could have come straight out of the Necronomicon. These designs were not there when we first fled Los Angeles; they came later. When I first looked at this design—still not finished—my mind flashed to one of the things Montivaldi had muttered at that last session. I must write it down lest I forget, and I must do it quickly.

Somebody—or something—knows this.

I think about the things we’d heard on the news in the past few days during our flight; I think about how these certain news items have accelerated in the days since my husband’s death. I feel that, in some way, some great cosmic force is at work. I fear that something from beyond the outer reaches of time and space sensed that what Montivaldi was doing would help it gain a foothold into our world. I believe that it was this force which was somehow responsible for the artist’s death, and that once out of the way, began to work at finishing the formula that was being tattooed on Nicholas’s back…only a different formula than the one Montivaldi originally intended. I’m not an expert in languages, but suppose this unseen force sensed that with a simple manipulation of the right words, it could change the outcome of the message Montivaldi was trying to write?

And suppose, once the first part of that incantation was complete, it set off to the next canvas?

Me.

That’s why I am always on the run.

I am afraid that if I don’t get it down right, if I don’t get it down quickly, that they will come in and finish it for me, only they will seek the opportunity to write down the words that will throw open the gate.

I try to avoid the curious stares I receive when I stop at convenience stores to gas up, or roadside diners to catch a quick bite to eat and all the cups of coffee I can drink. I recognize the scrutinizing glances; I recognized them ten years ago when I shaved my long black hair into a Mohawk, traded the frilly, fashionable clothes so common with upper-middle class preppy high school girls, for leather jeans and a matching black leather jacket, and became a punk. The looks I received back then were the same as I was receiving now; I was being regarded as a freak for being different. The only thing that branded me different now was the elaborate designs that had snaked down my arms to touch the bottom of my elbows. And people thought men with heavily tattooed bodies had it bad. Try being a woman in the same position.

I watch the progress of the designs every night when I check in to the next motel. I look in the mirror as they spread from my breast, to cover my upper back, to snake down both shoulders and down my biceps. I try to make out the designs, the same hieroglyphics that had been etched into Nicholas’s skin by Montivaldi as he attempted to deliver the messages he was receiving from the Old Ones, messages they were now finishing themselves.

Messages somebody else wants. So they can act on them.

I think about Montivaldi and wonder, why he had a heart attack. Had the strain been too much for him? Did he know that he was unwillingly being directed by great, cosmic forces, and as a result went into cardiac arrest because of it?

What will happen if whoever is pursuing me gets what they want? What horrible fate awaits the world if the gates are thrown open?

All I can do now is drive, gas up the car, and stop for food. Sometimes I stop at a motel for a night of restless sleep, and sometimes I even stay a couple of days or so. It’s been this way for three weeks now, and it won’t be long before the limit on my credit cards run out, or my pursuer, whoever he or she may be, catches up to me. For now, all I can do is drive.

The tops of my thighs itch, and I reach my left hand down to scratch them. It’s going to be hell when the designs snake down between my legs, the inside of my thighs. Already my ass is starting to tingle with numbness, and it won’t be long before I won’t be able to sit down for a while. I drive and the itch intensifies slightly and I scratch, wondering if the crazed visions of the late Master artist, culled from the dreamless sea of beyond the spheres, will someday cease.

I’m sure my pursuer won’t give up until he can slice the skin off my body, cut the unmarred sections away from the spots that Montivaldi graced, and put them together with what he took from Nicholas to complete whatever incantation the Old Ones directed Montivaldi to etch into our skins.

They will seek the opportunity to write down the words that will throw open the gate.

For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot about that story “The Traveler,” the one Montivaldi illustrated. I think about the illustration Montivaldi did for it; I think about that nameless, sexless character, and its white eyes.

I’ve been getting tired more lately, probably from the twelve hours a day of driving I’ve been putting myself through. My limbs are heavy; my vision has grown blurry with fatigue.

I think of that illustration and I shudder.

I haven’t looked at myself in a mirror these last few nights. I’m afraid of what I might see staring back at me.