Pepper / INK /

Manhunt

Daniel Emmett unlocked the front door of that tattoo shop, flicking the inside lights on and going to start a pot of coffee. It was always the first thing he did so by the time he was open, the coffee was done.

He stepped away from the coffee pot and flicked on the lights outside, telling the people that the Illustrated Man Tattoo Parlor was open for business. He opened the blinds and flinched a bit. The light was very bright against his skin. He’d have to sleep again soon.

Daniel poured himself a cup of coffee and checked his planner for today. He had a young man coming in today getting his first tattoo. "A simple script." The note read. He always took down notes when people called in. That way he knew more or less what he was doing. The second one bore the note of "Memento Mori." Those always bothered him. He couldn’t help it. The Ink always wanted justice. So he listened to the stories, and he gave them ink that helped soothe their fears, and he took some of the pain of the trouble that made them come here.

He set up for the morning and then retired in the back room to draw and limber up his hands. As far as tattoo artists go, there wasn’t anything strange about him. Daniel was tattooed from the top of his feet to the jaw line. But surprisingly he had no face or head tattoos. It was part of an Inkwalker’s rules, they could not obscure their face, they had to be recognizable.

His tattoos were amazing, they looked real. As if they could just pop to life if he wanted them to. Of course people didn’t know how true that was. You see, the thing about Inkwalkers was, their tattoos moved and changed. And on occasion, they could leave his skin entirely. And each one had a reason.

They were his guardians, his protectors created from the living Ink itself, they kept him alive far beyond normal human years, and helped him judge the guilty and the innocent. The trinity of The Inkwalker, Charon, Azrail, Cerebus, he usually covered with a shirt, mostly because he didn’t want to frighten others. But they could see almost all of his other tattoos. The birds on his shoulders, the snake around his neck, the hourglass and sword on his right wrist, and he was always willing to strip his shirt and show his tats.

He was drawing an ancient sigil for justice when the chimes on the door tinkled. He stood, pulling on a black tank top to cover death and his friends on his chest. The man who had walked into the shop looked young, and scared.

Daniel smiled. "What can I help you with?"

"I want the word "kiddo" and this date tattooed."A note fluttered to the counter bearing a date. "My wife and I were supposed to have our first child but she lost the child. And--" He shrugged. "She has all the grieving classes and everything and everyone is saying how sorry they are and everything, and--"

"It just doesn’t feel real." Daniel said softly. "I am sorry for your loss."

The young man nodded. "So I want my nickname for him and the date on it so I have a way to remember."

Daniel nodded, it didn’t take long to surmise the boy was a tattoo virgin. "You’ve never had work done?"

"Is that a problem?"

"I’d suggest above the ankle, above the wrist on the forearm, or the back of the shoulders, those are less painful spots."

The young man thought about it for a moment. "How about right leg, above the ankle?"

He nodded. "Lets get you signed, and then I’m going to go work on the script, we’ll make a transfer when you are happy and then I will tattoo you. Have a little coffee and you can sit here for a few minutes while I draw something up."

It didn’t take him long to do a masculine script, and a small baseball. He brought it out for approval, and when it was approved, made the transfer and then, when everything was ready, he began to tattoo.

"Why don’ you tell me what this means while I tattoo." He found that asking them their stories kept their minds off the pain.

"I’ve wanted to have a kid ever since I was young. I married at eighteen, high school sweetheart, and we started trying for a kid. But two months ago, my wife got sick, really sick. And when she went back to the OBGYN, she said the kid had no heartbeat. They had to induce and the little boy was stillborn. Her body had used so much energy trying to keep her alive it had been unable to keep the baby alive."

"You aren’t angry at your wife?"

"Why would I be?"

"She was too weak to keep the baby alive." His questions were to see what sort of person he was. And how he answered would affect the tattoo.

"It wasn’t her fault. She got medical help. And she really is a little bit of a thing." He smiled. "We want to keep trying. But the doctors told us to take some time to give her time to build up strength. We said we would wait a year before we start trying, but if it happens by accident before then we ain’t gonna complain."

Daniel nodded. "I’m done." He put the cooling salve on it and then wrapped it up. "Don’t pick, don’t scratch. No swimming." He said, as the man admired the tattoo in the mirror. "Don’t forget to follow the after care instructions. The beatific smile on Daniel’s face eased the pain.

"You come back to me when you have a beautiful baby boy and show me some pictures, ok?"

The man nodded.

"And if your wife wants a Tattoo I’d be happy to tattoo her too."

"Thanks, I’ll talk to her about it."

Almost as soon as the young man had left, another man came in, this one was a father. And even before the man opened his mouth he knew the man had a story to tell that was bad. Something that had affected him badly. The older hispanic man thrust a picture into his hand. "This is my Louisa, my eldest."

The tears were fresh, and the pain was so new that it almost hurt to look at him, this man was in despair, and as an Inkwalker he had to do what he could to ease that, and if there was a way to get him justice, he would.

"What’s your name?"

"Raphael." He smiled weakly. "They say you are Daniel, that you can make pain go away with ink and with understanding."

Daniel nodded. He got up and handed the man coffee. "Please, tell me what you want."

"I want a sugar skull for my Louisa"

Daniel nodded. "Come back to my station and I will draw for you." He lit the novena he kept at the end of the hall. It seemed to help a lot of his customers. It was something familiar. As he sat down to draw, he closed his eyes, listening to what the Ink had to say. The ink spoke of a girl who loved certain things, a girl who was killed far before her time.

The picture he showed was a sugar skull, at the bottom it was sitting on an alter covered with violets and snap-dragons, her favorite flowers, offerings of bread and cakes nestled among them. The designs on the skull were in purple, her favorite color, and a pair of her favorite toys were scattered among the violets and snap dragons at the bottom. "What do you think?"

"It is beautiful."

Daniel nodded and set the stencil. He started to ink the back of the shoulder where the man had asked for it to be. "So tell me about her."

Raphael talked as Daniel worked. "She was a beautiful girl. Fifteen. Was on a class trip with some of her friends. She got pulled away from the group of friends and trusted adults. And no one could find her. At first all they found was her purse. And then they found her.

Thrown away like trash, my beautiful Lousia. No one had seen the man who did this, who killed my daughter. Or if they saw it they are too scared to talk."

The Ink told him what the man left out, that it wasn’t just murder, that it was rape and murder. But he couldn’t see the face, not clearly. He couldn’t see who her attacker was. But the ink would remember, he would find the man, and he would make him pay. The smile on Daniel’s face was beatific. "It’s ok Raphael. It isn’t your fault." He inked the last line, using what soothing words he could to try to take some of the pain away.

"I wish there was something that could be done about him." The man said things he had heard voiced more than once.

"He will be found Raphael, I don’t know how, I don’t know when, But some day, he will face judgement for it."

He smoothed down the bandage and handed him the after care kit. "You come back and visit me in November, And we’ll put up an altar for her."

He nodded. "Gracias. Daniel"

As soon as the man had left he rose. The ink was calling for action, and he had to quiet it. In the back room, his office he pulled a giant ledger out of the case it was in.

The ledger was a foot wide, and three feet long, and six inches thick. The thick black cover was embossed with all sorts of Inkwalker designs. He opened the book to one of his bookmarks, and found an empty place near the bottom of the page.

In his firm script he wrote the words "For Raphael and Louisa" And the date the girl had died. He would find the man, the ink never forgot. Ever. The best he could do was put it down here in the book, and wait for fate to bring him or another Inkwalker in contact with him, the ink bore the memory of the story.

He closed the book, banding it tightly and putting it back in the box. He walked back out to the front of the shop. The Illustrated man didn’t often get walk ins, but when it did, they needed special handling, and with his current state, he was hoping that he could rest for a few hours.

#

Unfortunately, he didn’t get his wish. No sooner had he finished writing in his book, then came a ring at the bell, a walk-in he thought. He made his obligations to calm himself and came on out. It surprised him to see Max. He hadn’t set foot in the shop in years. He hadn’t really even been sure if Max remembered any of him. Beside him was Jessica, Max’s new partner. And she took the lead in the investigation.

He started to reach out for Max in the age old greeting of a hand to his shoulder, but when he saw no recognition there he pulled his hand back. The spell must have worked better than he thought.

"I give you greeting by the moon and stars." Daniel said, he used the Alchemish greeting in the local language, because it was habit and he was fluent in both. He spoke Alchemish like a first language, and for those who knew his secret, they knew it practically was.

"What can I do for members of the cog-bound today?"

"I wanted to know what this was doing at the scene of a crime." The words were clipped, accusatory. She put the ink down on the counter with a solid thump. Daniel stared for a moment, from one to the other. And then he stepped up to where the ink was.

He picked up the box, it was heavy. Full. He frowned. There was only one place outside the shop he had used a box of these. "And I wanted to know why you desecrated a shrine." His mouth twisted. It was an unhappy look that made his sneer worse.

"We were looking for witnesses." Her reply was even, but she wasn’t sure why this man made her so afraid. No, not afraid, uneasy and ashamed. As if she knew that taking the ink was something she shouldn’t have done.

"So that gives you the right to steal from a shrine of Ay Dede?" He looked hard at Max. The spell must have stuck if that was ok with Max. Though he did look uncomfortable. He’d told them to take pictures and return everything.

"I left this box at a shrine when I made my obligations." Daniel finally explained.

"An Inkwalker shrine?" Max asked. The word was slow in coming, practically forced out. There were many on the crew who thought that maybe Max was slow, so often he had trouble with words, but the reality was, the amount of Magic warring against itself made talking a chore sometimes.

Daniel wondered how much those words cost him. "If you want to call it that. It is a shrine to ay Dede, that is dedicated to the guardian of justice, whom, if I remember the speech properly, you are charged with arresting."

"If he’s an alchemist we wouldn’t be able to hold him."

"Alhadid albarid " Daniel said quietly. "You know some of your lore, but not all of it. You are the only people in the city who can hold him against his will." Daniel smiled tightly. "Cold Iron." Daniel repeated in the Mortal language. "That’s the translation for those who don’t speak." ’Those who don’t speak’ was the common way of referring to those who don’t know Alchemish.

"It’s the reason the jail is still old school, iron cages. The only magic that works on iron is blood magic. Neither moon nor sun will touch it, and by that I mean that there is not enough moonlight or sunlight in all the world to destroy Cold Iron. So I dare say if you caught him, he’d never be able to leave unless some righteous man let him go." He frowned "And from what I understand there aren’t many of those left." He said pointedly. "And you would be responsible for killing the guardian of justice. So, no, thank you. Even if I knew who he was, I would not say."

"Killing?"

"That is certainly what the ’one who lived,’ your services officer, wants. "The Inkwalker, being denied the use of his office, the seven would die. Not right away, but without the ink to sustain his life, and health, he would die. That is why the sevens judge their own."

Max had wondered off to look at the paintings on the wall, some of them were tattoo flash, but others were woodcuts painstakingly drawn from reference images that seemed familiar to Max.

"You keep saying ’he." Jessie asked. "I thought there were female."

"There are, or rather were. There was a calling out, six years ago, the night after Nightmare Night. We buried the only female Inkwalker in the city. She was a friend of mine."

Something settled in Max’s brain. "This tattoo flash looks a lot like the victim’s."

"I can check to see if he was here."Daniel offered, though he knew the man hadn’t been. But Inkaru’s style mimicked his own, because it was Inkaru’s magic and his skill.

"Do you ever use magic to set your tattoos? To help in healing?" Max asked.

"Not in this shop, no. That takes a lot of moonlight." He smiled. "I should know I’ve used it a couple times on myself to set a tat so I could work. And you’d get all the pain from the time it was supposed to take to heal, all at once." He frowned. "That’s heavy magic. If he’s not the Inkwalker and he’s doing that then he is using the dark magic, because no one else in their right mind would."

It wasn’t a lie, he didn’t do it in the shop. He simply wasn’t going to volunteer that he was the Inkwalker. They both had the Lily, he knew that, but the spells, one his own, one not, still hung around both of them.

"So what is the purpose of leaving inks at the shrine?"

"It was a promise that if the Inkwalker ever called me to do a tattoo, I’d do it. Tattooing is what I have. I don’t make a ton of money," It was, true, most of the money he made at the shop he donated, living instead off the money his family had made over the centuries. "I don’t have a lot of things, I live simply and tattoo. So I gave what I had. Now that you have found me, I suggest you take that, and anything else you took back to the shrine, light the candles and say an ’ana Asif."

"Ana Asif?" Jessie asked.

"An I’m sorry." Max said. "The prayer of forgiveness. Since the lines start or end with Ana Asif, that is what its usually called."

"I’m sorry I didn’t realize you weren’t a practitioner." Daniel said. "You still carry yourself like one."

"I used to be, but something happened." Her hand clenched at her side, and for a moment, just one, she thought she smelled the scent she had smelled as a child, the one that told her she was safe. The one that came with the cold air and the nice voice... but maybe she was just kidding herself.

"Medical or magical?" Daniel asked. He knew without being told she bore a lily, he could just tell. Just like he knew Max did.

"A little of both. I was attacked, or so they say. And my-- my caretaker said that my magic was broken. But they used to make me take pills. I stopped taking them a couple years ago. They just made me feel bad."

"Well, Then I hope whatever happened, you re-learn your abilities, because you would have been quite spectacular."

"How would you know?"

"Gift of the moonlight, I’m good at reading people." He smiled, hiding his slip. Actually Inkaru had told him so. It wasn’t technically a lie as Inkaru used moonlight to survive and sustain his magic.

"Can you read anyone?"

"Just about." He said with a smile. "But I really don’t like doing it. I only know you are because you broadcast." That was an honest truth. She broadcast loudly as most Alchemists did when blocked, and somewhere, in the fog of his past, she seemed familiar but he couldn’t place her yet.

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Next Chapter: On the Ground she Walked (judged reprise)