Relationships will be challenging.

Family. Friends. Lovers.

Especially lovers.

You can take their pain away. Their injuries. The memories that haunt them. They can hand themselves to you before they die, if they choose to. You can hold their persona and keep their voice with you.

I don’t know what that means. Is it really them or is it some kind of echo of who they used to be?

Are you keeping them from going somewhere better (or worse) or are you saving them from disappearing forever?

I always ask myself before I take something from another person whether I am doing it for them or for myself.

I rarely find a satisfying answer.

I wake up at Anje’s place.

The layout is different every time I come over. Mismatched chair beds and squat wooden sleeper benches crowd the living room. There are stools around an island in the kitchen and a dining room table with more chairs. Both of the smallish bedrooms have two futons that convert into seating when not in use.

Anje’s home is a tiny, informal shelter disguised as an apartment.

She’s the only one who lives here permanently, but even when no one is here, the place is dominated by people. The walls are dense with the photographs of her students and other people who are important to her. There are hundreds of faces overlooking all those empty chairs and beds that are waiting if they ever need them.

There’s almost no technology in the place. No TV, no radio, just a single printer with a cell phone dock setup on the island so she can print out photos. There is a basket near the door where cell phones go when you enter, no exceptions. When you come here, you entertain yourself by talking to other people.

Right now there’s only one phone in the basket. Mine.

An entire wall of the dining room has shelves filled with books. Whenever I am here I scan the titles to remind myself what’s important to Anje. Rising Out of Hatred. The Distance Between Us. Know My Name. Just Mercy. The Boys in the Boat. The Boys of Riverside.

People bring Anje books when they visit. One of the kids from the gym who goes by Merch likes to count the books. Last time I saw him, he said there were now ninety. Merch recounts every time he’s here. Seriously, every single time.

There’s a journal on a stand next to the bookshelf where you can sign your name and take a book home. Everyone returns the books when they are done. Not because Anje can kick their ass, but because of the words she wrote on the front of the journal:

“Return it, someone else needs to read it after you.”

I flip open my bag and retrieve Unbroken from atop the clothes I threw in last night. It goes on the shelf before I mark it returned in the journal.

I don’t see my favorite book, Tattoos on the Heart. Someone must have taken it home with them. Good. All of Anje’s kids should read it.

I asked Anje her favorite book once. She said she didn’t have just one until she met me, but now she does. Wear Your Dreams.

And just like everything else she owns, it’s there on the shelf for other people to borrow.

There’s a note written on the dry-erase board hanging on the inside of Anje’s front door.

“Went to gym to hit something. A lot. Coffee made.”

After Madelaine’s we came here. I returned her memories about us, half the accumulated feelings and everything that went with them. Most everything.

Then we talked and decided touching would have to wait. Adia and Dahlia and Mathild must come first. It was easy to decide. It was also very much not easy to follow through on, tu connais?

I also want to hit something. I guess coffee will have to do.

I know Dahlia is coming. She will absolutely try to kill Anje when she gets here. I just don’t know if I’ll have time to prepare Anje first. Anje will choose her people over herself. So it’s my job to choose her.

But first, I have to take care of my own people.

I’m not one for cross-legged monk under a waterfall meditation. Separating my mind from my body and the world around me is the opposite of my Art. I need connection.

I stand and strip. Briefs stay in case one of Anje’s students wanders in.

Then I kneel and put my palms together as if in prayer, thumbs touching my forehead, fingers pointing toward the sky. This begins the Wai Kru.

I surface the Monkey tattoo on the back of my left hand and bow to touch the floor.

“I honor you, Kru Anucha.”

“A-roon sa-wat, my student,” says Anucha in my mind.

I return to center, surface the Hummingbird Eye on the back of my right hand and bow to the floor again.

“I honor you, Shifu.”

“Good morning, Cassius,” says Vivian.

“I honor my family.” The third bow.

I tuck my toes under me and begin to rise as slowly as I possibly can from kneeling, my hands straight out in front of me where I will see the tattoos appearing.

“Jai yen,” says Anucha. Cool heart.

I call the submerged tattoos, surfacing them two at a time on my palms.

The Bull Moose. The Husky Team. Their dayloads surge into my muscles, hours of stored potential released at once.

Two down, two hundred to go.

“Jai pen nai, kai pen bao.” The heart is the master, the body is the servant.

I rise to a deep squat.

The Lock Pick. The Rifle Sight. Dayloads from skills are stranger. Muscle memory and mind memory intertwined. The urge for the click of the tumbler or the trigger fights my focus.

“Cha cha dai phra lem ngam.” Slowly, slowly, you get a beautiful blade.

I uncoil upwards.

The Seagull. The Cobra. My muscles strain to react, but I stifle them for now. The first four tattoos are crowded further up my arms.

Strength, stamina, agility, dexterity, sight, touch, enhanced for what’s to come.

I am the cool, slow, beautiful blade.

“You certainly are beautiful. Lord have mercy, if I were fifty years younger...” I can almost hear Vivian fanning herself in my mind.

“And also not dead. Very important.”

“Shush, jealous old man.”

Standing position. Arms straight in front of me, palms to the sky.

“You are now prepared to fight. Choose not to,” Anucha says.

“Slowly. You must clearly see each thing before you can master it,” says Vivian. “Shou yan shen fa bu.”

Hand, eye, body, method, step. Especially the eye.

I begin the first form of Regarder Doucement. The slow regard. A ritual Vivian created from her family taijiquan, named in French for her only student.

I let the tattoos surface randomly. Choosing would take too long.

The Bull Snake. The Blowfish. Self-loathing. Deathwish.

Phillipe’s right. I do not deserve this much power. No one does. I could create a tattoo to collect all my heartbeats. Perhaps I should? Wouldn’t the world be safer?

Pushed by the arrival of the new tattoos, the first ones are now wrapping around my arms.

“Cloud Hands,” Vivian says.

I am still except for my hands drifting over and over, slow as weather, describing a sphere in space before me.

The Razor Blade. The Spiked Chain. Self-harm. Violence.

If I release the dayloads of all of my tattoos at once it would take only a few seconds. The damage would be spectacular. Like swallowing a grenade.

Four of the worst, back to back and I’m weakened from dying yesterday. It’s too much. I need a counter.

The Brick. Once again Anje saves me as I tame the Chain’s violence with her discipline.

Some mornings the draw is kinder. They’re behind me now, and I let the rest come faster. Brushstroke motions anchor me against this maelstrom of ink.

“Golden Rooster.”

I raise one knee, the foot a pendulum beneath it, and gather my entire weight over the narrow country of one sole, my calf tensed like sculpture.

The Floating Spores. The Weeping Sore. Disease. Injury. Marks of suffering flow from my palms, collected from those unable to carry them longer. Bile rises and the heat of sickness fills me.

“Sky Spear.”

I pull one leg up vertical beside my head, my hand gripping the raised foot, eyes on toes pointed to the ceiling. My hamstring screams louder than any tattoo.

The Abacus. The Third Eye. Abilities. Memories. Gifts left behind as inheritance for others’ benefit. I recall a wedding I wasn’t at. My hands know a violin I never learned. People I don’t know smile at me in recognition and I smile back.

“Sword Bridge.”

My leg swings out to the side until my heel hangs at eye level. I hold it trembling, untethered in the air, as I sweep my gaze the long distance from thigh to ankle.

The Screaming Mouth. The Dark Tear. Terror. Despair. Dozens more burdens taken in part or whole stream from my hands after them, crowding other tattoos onto my face and chest.

Ink invades my throat, my nose, leaking out again from my eyes and ears. Choking me. I am going to drown in it...

“Horse Stance.”

I drop to a solid foundation, legs spread wide to opposite sides, knees bent. The imagined ink recedes.

The Footman’s Shield. The Laughing Child. Courage. Loyalty. Joy. Peace. I can breathe again. The earliest tattoos I summoned now swirl around my waist towards my legs.

“Heron Glides.”

I become a horizontal line, from my fingertips to outstretched toes, all poised above a single foot.

The remaining tattoos stream forth two by two. Enhancements and debilities, physical, mental and spiritual.

“Snake Creeps Down.”

I sink towards the floor, arms now a diagonal line, one angled to the ground, the other to the sky. One leg is folded beneath me, the other pushed forward to meet my down-thrust arm.

Finally, the other tattoos that hold people, like Anucha and Vivian, emerge. But they are quiet, as they always are until I speak to them. All except for one. The Gardener.

“I will escape and destroy you, Cassius. It is inevitable.“

“Tornado Kick!” Vivian responds.

Slow becomes fast. I leave the floor sweeping my right leg to head height and turn a full circle in the air. The tattoos swirl as I do.

“Dragon Coils!”

I land and drop low, threading my free leg behind and then beneath the supporting leg, pointing forward while never touching the ground.

The Caged Tiger is last. Shame and Rage. It must always be last, its fury safely spent against my other tattoos.

The shame is never spent.

“You cannot contain much more,“ says Anucha. “You must choose what to pass on.”

I uncoil my leg and rise to my feet.

Standing. Still carrying everyone.

“Until tomorrow, my friends.” I think, feeling Vivian and Anucha’s regard. Then I fade them all.

My skin is my own again, except for the six that are always there. Fuck meow, that was real work.

There is one last thing that I skipped last night. In my defense, I had a lot on my mind. The room glows white as I collect a single heartbeat into a tattoo of a cartoon rabbit that I create over my heart. Thumper.

I fade it to join the rest.

“If you wanted your heart to skip a beat, I could have helped you with that.”

I have no idea how long Anje has been standing in the door, but the look on her face isn’t helping with the not touching.

I need that coffee now.

You’ll need a conceptual model for what you are able to do.

It’s useful to think about it like you are using a word processor.

You still have those wherever and whenever you are? Maybe. Maybe not.

Here in today, people use software to write things. Emails. Letters. Stories. Suicide notes.

The software always has some standard way of moving content. You select some text, you cut it out of one document and you paste it into another.

I think of people as text documents. The words are who they are. What they can do. What they feel. The hurts they’ve accumulated.

In between, the text is stored inside a buffer. That’s us.

That’s how I think of the tattoos. Cut & paste.

And this is très important.

You never copy. You never delete. You can only cut and paste.

As I see it, I have six immediate problems.

One. There are seven dead bodies in my kitchen.
Two. A Kin Slayer named Josi will certainly be hunting me soon.
Three. My heart just stopped and I’m not exactly in stable condition.
Four. My youngest sister Adia has been kidnapped to Austria.
Five. My other sister, Dahlia, will show up soon and she’ll be pissed.
Six. Anje wants me to explain things that will have…consequences.

So. Priorities.

“I need whiskey and gumbo.”

To give Anje credit, she doesn’t argue.

“Madelaine’s?”

“Madelaine’s.”

Two damp washcloths from the bathroom and clean t-shirts take care of enough of the blood and sweat that Madelaine’s won’t kick us out. Anje does my back and I hers, all professional like locker room buddies. We’re not back to the other stuff yet.

Problem two takes care of problem one. Whoever this Josi is, they’ll come here to see what happened once their team fails to check in. Leaving bodies behind isn’t how the Kin has stayed mostly secret for all of human history.

Problem two will also take care of us if we’re here when they show up, so I pack a bag. We’re out of the flat and headed down the inside stairs less than five minutes after Mathild vanished.

I don’t want Josi searching the building and running into my crew by mistake. Once we’re in the parlor, hot-press paper and a brush give me a “Closed for Renovations” sign which I slap on the door with masking tape before we step outside. The guys know that means to find another chair to use for a bit.

Outside it’s beginning to get dark. But darker doesn’t mean cooler in these parts. Madelaine’s is a fifteen-minute walk from here, but I don’t ask Anje about a car. Anything thirty minutes or less and she wants to move, usually a jog or run. Tonight she walks. She’s thinking about problem three.

Our unspoken rule: we walk in silence after bad shit goes down. Think first, talk later. So I think about four and five. Adia and Dahlia.

Anje knows all the stories about my sisters. Everything that words can say. But if I’m going to ask her to risk her life to help Adia, I have to go deeper than words. She needs to know her. She can’t choose unless she knows.

Dahlia will find us when she wants to and Anje will figure her out quickly enough. But I have to protect Anje from Dahlia first. I should have already.

Understanding Adia is different. That’s about people and places. About Montgomery. We’ll need to take another walk tomorrow. A much longer walk.

Madelaine’s is a special place. All close-whispers and lipstick-smiles and cologne-clouds. The food and liquor are better than decent, but it’s the décor that makes you feel like you’ve discovered something you’ll be coming back to.

Again.

And again.

There are no direct sight lines in the place. Everything is cubbyholes and curtains, kerosene lamps and smoky wood. There is a burning wick glow in the air, but this glow soothes me. The tables are crisp red linen, silver and glass. Every staffer in the place looks like they know a secret. One they’ll share if you just ask.

Madelaine’s is a place for love. Or for memories of love.

This is where it happened the first time.

We’re shown to a private curtained booth in the back.

“Welcome back, Mr. Beton. Ms. Ray. Your usual?”

It is a testament to management that Anje and I are able to order drinks and food with a single nod each and we won’t have to speak a word to our waitress the rest of the evening. Vaillant.

We’re quiet until the bottle of Hibiki and two glasses arrive. It’s a drink you savor. We both empty our glasses in one go and I repour.

Hibiki means echo. We take the echo straight. It’s the only way.

“Tell me,” Anje says.

“Ten years ago you were raped.”

She never denies this. Somewhere inside she knows.

“I don’t remember because you took it.”

“Because you told me to take it.”

Anje takes a drink, anticipating she’ll need it for this next part.

“Are you carrying it, like you carry Anucha?”

“It’s not like Anucha. It’s your memories and emotions, but not you. Not the person.”

“So, can you...remember it right now? Experience it?”

“Not all of it.”

“Explain.”

“I have some of it. Part has been passed on to someone who wanted it.”

“Who?”

“Dukaine.”

“Your friend, the actor? What did he want?”

“The suffering.”

“Was that my...I mean, her choice?”

“No. Once something is mine, it’s my choice. That’s the deal.”

“The deal she made. Cass, I’m not really certain that she and I are still the same person.”

“I won’t break a deal with her, even for you.”

Anje slowly runs her hand through her hair, the short red stubble rippling under her fingers. This is what she does when she’s deciding whether or not to test something. “What did you keep?”

I turn over my forearm and surface the Caged Tiger tattoo. “I kept the rage.”

I can’t tell her I kept more than that. The guilt and the shame. That ends with her wanting to take the Tiger back, me saying no and us fighting.

“Do I want to know the details?”

“You thought you should know them.”

Anje takes a long pause.

“Cass. I trust you. But...convince me.”

“In the orphanage you broke a boy’s nose.”

“I never told you that. I never told anyone that.”

“She told me.”

“You took my memory of her telling too, so you could use it as proof.”

Echo. In answer, I take another sip of Hibiki.

“Okay, tell me about the rape.”

“You know when it was.”

“The first hole in my memory. Before the months in the hospital. While I was at Pulaski Home back in Little Rock.”

“You used to sneak out of the orphanage with the other girls to go to a bridge underpass. There was a Department of Transportation construction depot there that shielded the area from the cops.”

“I remember. Friday nights, after midnight. The security guard at the home, Amos, let us go because he wanted to get with Jemma.”

“The bridge was a hangout for local teens. Drug dealers and gangs too.”

“It wasn’t any of them though, was it?”

“No.”

“It was the boys from the orphanage. The cops said they put me in the hospital.”

“They followed you and the other girls.”

“Jemma. Darla. Keysa. Charlene.”

“Younger girls you’d been protecting from the orphanage boys. And that you protected from them that night.”

“Because I was bigger than any of the boys. They were all punks.”

“Yes. But punks are dangerous in a pack.”

“So the hole in my life that I think was a concussion, it’s more.”

“You did have a concussion. Also two broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and internal bleeding. You were in a coma in ICU for six weeks.”

“Memory loss?”

“No. Afterward, you remembered it all.”

“And now I don’t, but you do.”

“Anje, once they thought they’d broken you, just as one of them was...”

“Raping me.”

“Yes. You went berserk. You got out of the grip of the boys holding you and you started breaking things. Breaking those boys. You crippled three of them from what you told me, probably for life. The rest started beating you with boards and pipes until you stopped moving. Then they ran. They thought they’d killed you. Your friends brought the police. Nearly too late.”

“When did you take this from me? It was one of the other holes in my past.”

“Yes. It was that first summer after Phillipe introduced me to you at Noi’s Gym.”

“Right after I got to Montgomery and Phillipe’s church took me in to the women’s shelter. The summer of lub,” she says using the joke her teacher used to make. Her smile as she says this is grim, but at least it’s a smile.

“Yeah. Anucha said he’d never had a student sleep so much.”

“I needed all the lub I could get. My body was still healing and Kru’s training was brutal. And my mind needed a break from him teaching me Thai.”

“We spent a lot of time together that summer.”

“You were my first friend in Montgomery.”

“Phillipe asked me to meet you because you started having episodes. Hyperviolent ones. Mostly when you slept, but sometimes when you were awake. Sometimes in the ring while sparring with other fighters. Anucha tried to teach you to control it, but it wasn’t working.”

“So Phillipe thought you could fix me with a tattoo.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve always liked your brother.”

“And he’s always...liked you.” Different conversation for a different time. “During the summer, I told you about my tattoos. About everything I can do.”

“I remember that. You didn’t take everything.”

“Only what was necessary. Near the end of the summer, there should be another hole. That’s when you asked me to take the rape away.”

“What exactly did you take?”

“I thought I got all of it. The memory, the physical and emotional trauma, the rage. And I had to take away your memory of asking me to do it. It was the most difficult tattoo I’ve created.”

“Thought? You left something behind?”

“Not intentionally. But I’ll get to that in a minute. The important thing is you immediately stopped having violent episodes. It changed everything for you.”

“What if I asked for the rape back? You shouldn’t have to carry that.”

“You promised me that you’d never do that. That you’d never ask for it back. It was my only condition for doing this, and you agreed.”

“Why do I have more holes? There are a lot of them, Cass. One or two a year since that summer. Are all of the holes in my memory from you?”

Now it’s my turn for a drink. “Yes. We’ve done this a lot of times.”

“Why?”

“Before I took the memories, we’d known each other for four months. In that time we’d never touched. The only time you’d touch a man was in the sparring ring.”

“So?”

“A few months after I took the memories there was a night when you decided we needed to start touching. So we did. A lot.”

“Why...why don’t I remember that?”

“Because afterward, after you fell asleep, something snapped and it came rushing back. Not the memories, but something worse. It terrified you and you didn’t understand what was happening or why because your framework for understanding was gone. Pure terror without a source.”

“So. You took the memory of us?”

“You asked me to. And it worked. Until...”

“Until what?”

“Until the next time you chose to touch me.”

“How many times, Cassius? How many times have you erased...us?”

“Fourteen times.” I’ve never erased us. But I understand what she’s asking.

“Why didn’t you do something? Reject me?”

“I can’t. I’m carrying all of my feelings for you and all of your feelings for me. And every time I take your new memories of us, those feelings grow.”

“Leave me.”

“If I give you all of your feelings back, and then leave, it would destroy us both. Yearning and guilt. I’ve seen what concentrated emotion can do.”

“I could leave.”

“Yes. If you decide not to take your feelings back. But you could never be with anyone else because I won’t be there when the terror comes again.”

“Then it’s a trap. For both of us.”

I surface the Cage without the Tiger. The Cage has fourteen bars.

“It’s a beautiful trap.”

“You should have told me beforehand. Let me choose.”

“What do you think we’re doing right now? I always tell you. Usually here at Madelaine’s. And you always choose the same thing. The fourth option.”

“What is the fourth option?”

“You’ll figure it out. And it has to be your choice. After that neither of us ever chooses to stop it.”

“One night. Then the terrors come,” she says slowly.

“Yes. And the cycle repeats.”

“I tell you to take the memories and feelings from me. The terrors stop. I forget we were together.”

“For a while we’re friends again. At least you are. Four months, maybe six.”

“I get to discover it over and over again. But you...”

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Anje. I get to watch you find your way back to us. It’s...intense. I wouldn’t trade it.”

“Are you afraid I’ll choose different?”

“Ça me hante.”

Anje goes quiet. “Liquor thoughts,” she calls them.

“What’s the Cajun word for fated?”

“Destinés”

“What about the compass rose?”

“Don’t ask me to justify that, knowing what you know now.”

“We could just stay like this. Me knowing but not taking the memories back.”

“We’ve done that too. More like not choosing to choose. It’s torture.”

“For me or for you?”

“Yes.”

The waitress chooses this moment to appear. Ignoring the food to gaze into each other’s eyes isn’t an option. I nearly died, so my body’s contribution to the conversation is “calories, asshole.” We’re eating the fucking gumbo.

Anje doesn’t say a word while we eat. Neither do I.

“Is one night worth it?” she finally asks.

“It’s all we have. It has to be.”

She locks eyes with me. Then she pours the last of the Hibiki, splitting it evenly between our glasses. She drains her glass in one go. I echo her.

Anje reaches across the table and takes my right hand. The one with the curled finger. She’s figured out the fourth option.

“Okay, Cass. Give me half.”

Flash #7: Hummingbird »»»

You need to know about La Parentèle. They’re the people who’ve taken it upon themselves to govern the use of the Art around the world.

They’ll take an interest in you. Some will be curious, some afraid. Some will try to recruit you. There will also be Kin who will try to kill you because of what you carry.

And believe me, they can kill you.

I was an idiot. I thought I could ignore them and live the way I wanted, out in plain sight.

I’m not suggesting you should hide from them. You don’t want to be alone and ignorant when they find you.

Learn everything you can about them. Then, when you’re ready, seek them out. Find allies before enemies find you.

I left you people who can teach you. Listen to them.

Eight cowled intruders just stepped out of the shadows into my kitchen from...somewhere else.

Their hands move in sync like a dance troupe.

One says, “Sever Locality,” and sweeps a gesture around the entire room. The walls, ceiling and floor turn transparent and ghostlike. Beyond them is darkness.

Another puts his palms together, fingers toward the floor, and says, “Sever Proximity.” He then sweeps his arms apart like a swimmer doing a breaststroke. Nobody moves, but everyone and everything spreads apart as the floor expands beneath them. My kitchen is now an arena.

The remaining six make an identical motion: an overhead hand-chop down to the floor. “Sever Passage,” they say in unison.

The two closest are facing me from opposite sides of the kitchen.

A transparent wall of light appears in front of each, stretching from ceiling to floor. The walls speed forward to cross just in front of me, then continue past either side of me, ending in the ghost walls at my back.

The walls form an inverted V around me. Anje is beyond the wall to my left. I reach for her, but my hand stops in midair. I throw my shoulder into the barrier with the same result. The sensation is strange—less like hitting something than running out of space to move within.

“Sever passage...the wall?”

The remaining four have boxed Mathild inside walls of light stretching from floor to ceiling. She’s still holding her cigarette, and the enclosure is filling with smoke, but none of it escapes.

Sever? They are cutting...separating things from each other.

Mathild takes a drag of her cigarette and smiles at me.

The intruder with Anje in the partition to my left turns toward me.

“Tell us where Adia Beton has been taken.”

I’m not helping people called Kin Slayers find my little sister. “Get out of my home.”

He tips his chin toward Anje.

“Tell us, or we kill the normal.”

“The fuck you will,” Anje says.

That’s their first mistake. Anje is anything but normal.

She leaps toward him. She’s faster than he expected. He hesitates.

Their second mistake is thinking it’s eight versus two. With apologies to Walt Whitman, I contain multitudes.

I summon the Monkey tattoo. A presence fills my head. A second pair of eyes and ears sharing mine. A second mind inside my own sharing what I know. And what I’ve seen.

“Kru Anucha, we need guidance.” I think to the presence.

“To win we must understand. To understand we must test.”

A word I didn’t choose leaves my lips.

“Mǔn!” The voice is mine, but also Anucha’s—the man who taught Anje to fight.

“Dâi khâ, Kru!” she answers. Yes, Teacher! Then she starts spinning forward.

The intruder holding the wall passing from my left to right points at Anje’s legs.

“Sever—”

He pauses mid-command, tracking her movement with his eyes.

“They can maintain one severing while using another,” Anucha says in my mind. “Unfortunate. But spinning worked. Perhaps they must clearly see a thing to sever it?”

Anje turns through one rotation, then another, constantly changing which leg leads and which is hidden. He tracks her, hand raised, mouth open around the word. On the third turn she leaves the ground and whips a kick into his head. She lands behind him and spends the rest of her spin driving an elbow into the base of his skull. He folds onto the not-ground. She plants one finishing strike to the back of his head. The wall he’d created as half of my prison goes out like a switch.

“It is evident that Anje’s teacher was a transcendent master.”

Now my path is open to the intruder on my right.

Now the other six can reach Anje.

“Anucha, guide her,” I think as I split my focus.

The one to my right is too far away for me to interrupt him as he points at my right leg.

“Sever Mind from Leg.”

All sensation of my leg vanishes. I collapse awkwardly to the floor. The not-feeling only lasts a moment.

“Some severings are temporary. Why?”

Anje doesn’t hesitate. She charges the nearest of the four holding Mathild’s cage. He turns to face her and says, “Release.” His section of the cage vanishes, and the remaining walls snap into a triangle. Mathild’s cage has only three sides.

“Ah. A severing lasts only if its maker holds it—and each of them is already holding one.”

“Sever Mind from Leg,” whispers my opponent as he points at my other leg.

Awareness of my left leg disappears and I begin to fall the other way just as I’m struggling to stand up again.

I throw my head and torso forward into a roll and get both feet back under me just as the not-feeling in my left leg dissipates. This isn’t going to work, so I pause in a squat with my legs out of view for a moment.

The intruder who is now free from holding Mathild’s cage steps forward to challenge Anje. The other five hold position and raise their hands toward her.

“She will not be able to overcome six skilled opponents.“

I create a tattoo to collect the pain and damage from overcharging my body earlier. It appears as a Tombstone. The tattoo flares incandescent, the glow blinding everyone looking at me—including the intruder I’m fighting.

I also buy Anje time as all six of her opponents flinch from the light.

I fade the Tombstone. The glow dies and the pain just stops. I can’t keep it submerged long or it will kill me when I bring it back. Every second I keep it buried compounds the eventual payload. I’ve got seconds. I charge my opponent while he’s still blinking the flare from his eyes.

“Anje, Bagua!” Anucha says through my mouth.

“She will understand. Now, she will win you time.”

“Dâi khâ, Kru!” Anje’s straight-line charge slows, her motions becoming liquid as she begins to move laterally to his advance. She orbits his position, her shoulders and hips rotating as she circles, changing what she presents to her enemies with every step: front, side, back, side, front.

He attempts to engage Anje, but she retreats. Each time he advances, she adjusts, keeping her opponent between herself and the other five, breaking sightlines whenever she can.

The other five recover from the flare, point toward her, and speak in an overlapping chorus:

“Sever Leg from Mind.”

Nothing happens. “Her movements confuse their aim.” Anucha is pleased. “But they will adjust.”

I’ve reached my target. I’m inside his reach now and too close for him to gesture and speak an activation phrase. Instead he abandons the Art and brings his forearms up into a high cross, lead hand checking, rear hand cocked at his jaw. Anucha recognizes the martial style.

“He is a Kali master. His martial discipline mirrors his mystic Art. He is still deadly.”

Anje’s opponent changes tactics. He bends his legs, points at his own feet and says, “Sever Gravity.” He then leaps with tremendous momentum, tucking into a ball and rotating to hit the not-ceiling feet first.

Sightlines restored, the others have a clear target.

Two “Sever Will from Leg.” Anje stops in place.

Two “Sever Arm from Will.” Her arms drop to her side.

One “Sever Mind from Sight.”

The one in the air speaks “Release” as he kicks off and rockets back down, driving his shoulder into Anje’s unguarded torso and knocking her prone.

My pain and damage are gone, but I can’t risk surfacing any more physical enhancements. But I have the Fist tattoo, which I never fade. The tattoo I gained when I was fifteen from an elite young boxer whose skill I stole...along with his life. The reminder.

Anje has control of her arms and legs again, but repeated strikes hammer her head and upper torso, keeping her pinned to the not-ground.

“We must hurry,” Anucha warns.

I know, old man. Don’t think I don’t know.

Our joined minds agree on the counter to my opponent. Three moves: a jab to clear his guard, a feint to get his momentum headed where we want it and a hook into the path of where his head is dodging.

The jab goes out, and his lead hand isn’t checking—it’s hunting. Knuckles into the nerve of my forearm and my jab arm drops dead to my side. Kali can sever connections too.

I whip my left arm forward, showing an all-or-nothing haymaker as a feint. He does what he should and dodges hard toward my useless right.

My body glows as I form a tattoo to swap the nerve damage from one arm to the other.

His eyes widen at the glow, suspicion arriving too late.

I am waiting with the hook loaded in my “dead arm” which meets a dodging, unprotected head with bone crushing force. Something in his neck cracks. The second wall blocking me from Mathild’s cage dies.

“Glaeng taai!” Anucha shouts through my mouth. Play dead. He’s banking on the intruders not knowing Thai. Anje goes still.

I surface the Tombstone. It’s only been a few seconds, but the compounded pain hits me like a bomb.

My heart seizes. Stops. I collapse on top of my opponent. My consciousness spins.

I surface my most desperate tattoo: a picture of the rabbit from Bambi.

Thumper.

ba-DUMP.

One perfect heartbeat I borrow from myself every night and bank for exactly this. Now returned.

There is nothing for the span of a breath.

“They are coming,“ Anucha warns.

Then—

ba-dump... My heart picks up the rhythm.

I plant my hands and start to rise. The pain and damage are back in full, and now my chest is suffering too.

“Sever Will from Body!”

Anje’s attacker gets me from where he stands over her unmoving form. My body collapses again, suddenly bereft of its pilot.

He holds the severing to keep me incapacitated.

So I hand the keys to my co-pilot.

“Ton née!” Anucha shouts, and Anje and my body are both back in motion.

Anje sweeps the legs of her guy and moves to grapple him on the floor.

My body heads for the triangle of walls holding Mathild.

“Sever Will from Leg!” the five unengaged intruders shout together. Nothing happens. Again. The will they’re cutting my legs off from isn’t the one driving. Apparently they can’t visualize that the will moving me belongs to a ninety-year-old Thai man who died three years ago.

This must be getting frustrating for them.

But I have one more problem to overcome. My body is spent. Anucha gives me fighting skill, not strength. His final gift was from a body that could hardly lift a glass of water, much less throw a punch.

I have no choice but to use what I took from Anje.

I call the Caged Tiger tattoo.

The rage and strength flooding into my body also bring a tidal wave of fear and shame. If I weren’t cut off from my body, I’d be curled up in a fetal position, screaming and sobbing. Anucha isn’t so much driving anymore as he is riding a berserk beast.

My body surges toward the nearest intruder holding one wall of Mathild’s prison. There is no skill or fighting style to what happens next. I simply drive him to the floor and pummel him without mercy. Blood sprays from every impact, painting bright crimson fans across the not-floor.

The third wall of Mathild’s prison collapses. Her smoke gushes forth, seeks out the eight intruders and envelops their bodies in grey cocoons.

I fade the Caged Tiger and collapse on the not-floor, unable to move.

“You are not a particularly sane man,” Anucha observes. “Remind Angelique to smile as she fights. It unnerves opponents.”

Then I fade the Monkey tattoo as well.

Anje is at my side when I regain consciousness I hadn’t realized I’d lost. Bruises cover her forearms and shoulder. One colors the right side of her jaw.

“Fucking meow,” I rasp.

“She killed the rest of them. All but one. Suffocated them,” Anje says as she helps me sit up.

“I didn’t suffocate them as much as make them believe they couldn’t breathe,” Mathild lilts.

The flat is back to normal except for the seven bodies in my kitchen and the surviving intruder sitting on my couch, staring blankly off into nothing.

“I couldn’t convince her to stop,” Anje says. “I should have forced her to.”

“Dear me. You think those meat-hooks of yours can solve anything?”

“I should have tried,” Anje says, looking down at her hands.

“She would have killed you, Anje. If there’s a debt to be paid, she’ll pay it. Not you.” I want to reach out and take her hands, but mine are covered in a dead man’s blood.

“Now, Cassius, I made an oath not to harm her. And she did so well against the Kin Slayers.”

Anje’s eyes boil with hatred. “You led them here on purpose.”

Mathild leans down as though sharing a secret with Angelique. “Did you know that when he was younger, your Cass was quite the nerd? Anime. Comic books. He loved one comic in particular. The X-Men. I flipped through some of it. Silly children’s notions of good and evil. But there was one idea that I quite liked: how they trained for battle.”

“You put us in a fucking Danger Room.” I finally find the strength to stand.

“You should be grateful, Cassius. Now you know how your enemy fights and you have experience dealing with their Art. You’ll certainly run across Delineators again if you recover Adia. And these weren’t the dangerous ones. Their Captain, Josi, would have casually killed you both.”

Mathild moves to leave the kitchen. I step in front of her. “You could have broken out of that cage any time you wanted and helped us.”

“Dear. I was never in their cage, now was I?”

Suddenly Mathild is behind me, standing next to the surviving Kin Slayer. Everything is different. Her outfit is a sensible black skirt suit, heels and sunglasses. Her hair is pulled into a bun and her jewelry is gone, replaced by a single jade-and-silver hairpin. She’s now in her mid-forties. She looks like she’s just come from a charity fundraiser.

She snaps her fingers at the Kin Slayer, who is now dressed like a bodyguard...or a man-toy.

“Come now, Reginald.” She offers him her arm, which he takes obediently. “Don’t you think he looks like a Reginald?” She beams at me for an instant. “Regi and I have a date ahead of us. I expect to hear every fascinating detail of his entire life story.”

“You’re going to torture him for information and then kill him.”

She looks the man over appraisingly. “Nothing of the kind. I can guarantee Regi is about to have the most extraordinary night of his life,” she says as she affectionately tousles his hair.

The fear I buried during the fight grips me now. For the Kin Slayer or me, I’m not certain. Maybe both.

“Find Adia, Cassius.”

Mathild turns and blows Anje a kiss. “Ta-ta, meat-hooks.”

Then they simply disappear, leaving nothing behind except cigarette smoke.

I turn to Anje.

She looks at the seven bodies and the crimson sprays on the floor, then at my blood-spattered fists.

“Don’t think this gets you out of your promise.”

She sits cross-legged in the middle of my kitchen. She waits for me to join her, which I do. Slowly. Painfully.

“Now, Cass, I want you to explain everything.”

Flash #6: Cage »»»

The form of the Art that I, and now you, use is le symbolisme.

It has been the specialty of my bloodline all the way back to the time of the First Word, long before the Beton family existed.

There are other disciplines of the Art. All are held in higher regard than Symbology. Know that for every other discipline but one, this belief is fatally wrong.

You will be most at risk from others who understand this truth.

Keep your friends close. Keep your family closer.

At least Angelique doesn’t kick the front door off its hinges when she enters my flat. But she does put her shoulder into it and charge in like she’s ready to deliver a beatdown.

What she’s not prepared for is a nubile young woman wreathed in cigarette smoke with her legs spread wide. Anje skids to a halt on the other side of the living room and slowly lowers her fists to her sides.

“Huh.”

Then she turns to me with a cocked eyebrow and a hint of a smirk on her face.

“Why is there a crotchless lingerie goblin sitting in your kitchen, Cass?”

“Angelique, that’s Mathild,” My voice comes out too much as a growl. I need to get my feelings under control, or my grandmother will have me right back in her grip.

“That’s your Mémère?” Anje takes an involuntary step backwards. I’ve told her the stories. More importantly, it’s now clear she heard them.

I know the smoke is already inside Anje’s head, working on her senses. I just don’t know what Mathild plans to do with that and I can’t afford to wait and find out. Every second is a risk.

“Oh, Cassius, you’ve brought me a plaything to—”

“NOT ANOTHER WORD!” I scream at her as I manifest every physical-enhancement tattoo I carry.

I’ve lost count but there are over a hundred and there’s not enough space for all of them to surface at once. My skin becomes a canvas of hotly glowing moving images boiling in and out of view. A nimbus of light surrounds my body, dispelling Mathild’s smoke patterns wherever the two intersect.

My skin bulges outward and steam rises from it as my body struggles to compensate for the sudden explosion in muscle mass. The boards creak dangerously beneath me.

I am doing real damage to myself and it will become irreversible within minutes. Whether or not I can hurt her is almost beside the point.

“Mathild, if you harm Angelique, I swear on Phillipe’s Bible, one of us isn’t leaving this room alive.”

The cigarette haze dissipates from the room instantly. Mathild demurely crosses her legs and reaches for another strip of licorice. “Men. Always getting puffed up over the slightest things. Fine, I won’t harm your little friend.”

“For the next twenty-four hours. On Phillipe’s Bible.” It’s a strain to get the words out through the swollen muscles of my face.

“Yes, yes...I swear on that silly book of fables he carries.”

Even oaths made in mockery have true power. I release my tattoos and my muscles and skin begin to shrink to normal size. The pain from massively overcharging every muscle in my body hits me. It takes all of my willpower not to scream. I settle for grunting and panting like a dog. My twin, Dahlia, might overlook a bleeding head wound, but she’s not going to ignore this. She’ll certainly make me pay later.

Angelique raises one of her hands. “If we’re all friends now, I have questions.”

Intentionally or not, Anje has already zeroed in on Mathild’s biggest weakness. Curiosity.

Mathild smiles. “This will be interesting. I am feeling generous. I’ll grant you three questions.”

To Mathild, interesting and dangerous are the same thing. I hope Anje understands that.

“First question, can I have that last beer?”

Bemused, Mathild nods at Anje, who moves to the table, takes the bottle from the carton, twists off the cap, and drains about a third in one pull. I wouldn’t be surprised if she belches in Mathild’s face.

She doesn’t. I have learned to be grateful for the small things.

“Second question, how many ‘greats’ belong in front of grandma? This will help me decide whether I want to murder your incestuous ass or just gab with you about your skincare routine.”

“Forty-three, though the Beton family has never been especially reliable about paternity,” Mathild says, turning to me. “Oh, I do want to play with this one now, Cassius. Threesome?”

I ignore her. “Mathild is over a thousand years old. She won’t tell us exactly when or where she was born.”

“Dearest, there is vulnerability in the moment of birth and there are Artists who can reach back and harvest you if they know the exact time and place.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before? Are my sisters and I at risk? The hospital has our birth records.” It’s possible she’s making all of this up to fuck with my head. Possible.

Mathild instantly looks bored. “You need not worry, Cassius. You and Dahlia are petits poissons. I do not think anyone would make the considerable effort required to spit and roast you.” It’s subtle, but I see this affect Anje in exactly the way that Mathild intended.

“And what about Adia?”

“We will speak of your younger sister soon. But this one gets one last question first.”

Anje’s pissed. “Did she just call you a ‘little fish’?”

Mathild answers for me. “Tiny fish. Barely a morsel. Something you’d put on a cracker.”

“Didn’t ask you. So that doesn’t count.”

Whatever Anje had planned to ask next, I can see her mind working on a new idea now.

“Cass, is she bound to answer my questions? By your Art or something else?”

“Dear me, where did you find this girl, Cassius? Is there a catalogue I can order one of my own from?”

I ignore Mathild again and answer Anje. “Yes. Three questions is its own sort of oath. All the fables and fairy tales you’ve read are based in truth.”

“That’s what I thought. Is it like genie wishes or monkey’s-paw shit where she can bend what I ask to screw me over?”

“No. She’s bound by the promise her words actually make. Spoken words are symbols and symbols have power. She has to answer truthfully.”

“Good.”

I’ve seen that look on Anje’s face before. What she’s planning is absolutely not going to be good.

“Okay, Grandma, question three. Exactly when and where were you born?”

Mathild doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe for well over a minute. Then she blows a single wisp of cigarette smoke out of her mouth. It stretches towards Anje without thinning and silently wraps itself around her neck twice before Mathild finally speaks.

“You do not want to force me to answer that question, girl. I will erase you and accept the punishment for oath-breaking.” There isn’t a drop of anger in her voice.

“Then another bargain. I will release you from my third question if you swear to teach Cassius everything he needs to know to protect himself and his siblings from the birth harvesting you spoke of.”

Mathild wraps one hand around the weave of smoke hanging in front of her face and forcefully pulls it down to her waist. The smoke goes taut and Anje’s neck jerks forward slightly before she sets her weight to resist it. Not literally harming her. Not yet.

Anje isn’t going to give in. She is incapable of it. The thing is, she has an issue with being restrained.

And Mathild has the power to pull Anje’s spine out of her body if she decides it’s worth the oath-cost. What she does instead is to look at me and smile sweetly. “I’ll submit to the girl’s blackmail, Cassius, if you agree to take her on a little quest.”

“What quest?” Even across the room, I can see the trembling start in Anje’s hands.

“To recover your sister Adia and the other heirs of the Old Blood families.”

“From where?” Adia is missing. And Anje’s trembling is getting worse. I need this resolved now. But getting her involved in family business with the Old Blood? That’s a non-starter.

Mathild is visibly disappointed in me. “Why do you think I’m here? I know you put a compass rose tattoo on your family, so you can locate them whenever you want. I’m surprised you didn’t give one to your pet here.”

“Cass...,” Anje says, but it’s not a plea for help. It’s anger.

“Remember you gave me one too, right on my inner thigh. Such a pretty mark. I’m sad I had to remove it. But what woman would want to be tracked like livestock? So paternal.”

“A compass rose, Cass?” Anje has a thousand-year-old teenager tightening a rope of cigarette smoke around her neck, and yet she’s pissed off at me.

Mathild looks like she’s about to giggle.

“Anje, can we talk about this after we get the noose off your neck?”

“The noose is the only thing that’s keeping me from beating your ass right now.” The trembling is gone from her hands and she’s staring directly into my eyes. It’s almost like she’s consciously ignoring Mathild...

Sometimes I can be slow on the uptake. Anje’s anger is real. She’s also using it to hold off the fear. The least I can do is use the opening she’s created.

“Mathild, why do you want Anje involved? What does that accomplish?”

“It accomplishes my amusement.”

Mathild is the ur-hedonist. There’s no arguing her out of her fun. There are nooses around both our necks now.

“You win. Set her free. I swear I’ll bring Anje with me if she chooses to come.”

“Which she does,” adds Anje. “Your turn, Grandma.”

Mathild sighs. “All of these oaths are likely to attract...attention. But that is a problem for later. I swear I will teach Cassius everything he needs to know to protect himself and his siblings from birth harvesting. You see? I’m not a monster. Well, not that kind of monster. Now you, girl.”

“I release you from the third question.”

The smoke around Anje’s neck dissipates. But the other noose feels tighter now.

“I have questions, Cassius,” Anje says as she moves toward me. It’s funny when she does that to other people. It’s not funny now.

“I’ll tell you everything later, but what’s important now is I can find Adia using my tattoos.”

Mathild is lighting another cigarette. “I want you to find her now. Time is not our ally.”

“I don’t give a shit what either of you wants. I want an explanation.” Anje hooks two fingers into the left side of her neckline and pulls it down, exposing the compass rose tattooed just above her breast. “I thought this was just art, Cass. Needle and ink. Can you use this to track me?”

“Yes. Find, not track, but yes.”

“Save the semantics, Cass. Who the fuck gave you permission to put a baby monitor on me?”

“You did.”

“Then...you took the memory, just like the Brick?”

“Yes.”

“Also my choice?”

“Always.”

This is how it starts. She unravels things. It means we’re going to have to have the talk again soon. Tomorrow. But not now.

“Anje, I will tell you everything, je promets. But I need to find my sister now. Okay?”

She glances at Mathild and then does the count-to-five-and-breathe thing she teaches her students. Afterward, she gives me a single, solid nod.

I retrieve a plastic map tube from the old wooden chest in the living room. Just opening the chest is excruciating because of the muscle damage from earlier. I move to the kitchen and replace the empty beer bottles and licorice on the table with a sheaf of maps I pull from the tube.

Mathild leans over the table, her cigarette forgotten. “I’ve always wondered how you accomplished this. As far as I know, you’re the only living Symbologist with this ability.”

I turn off the kitchen lights. Shadows fill the room, but enough ambient light spills in from the living room for me to see what I’m doing. This particular working benefits from semi-darkness.

“The idea came from understanding that maps are symbols of locations and the Art doesn’t distinguish between a thing and its symbol. The Art can be made to treat the symbol as the place.”

I use the world map first. I spread it across the table, close my eyes, and surface the two Needle tattoos, one on each palm. I hold my hands open over opposite sides of the map and then use the Art to connect the Needles to Adia’s compass rose.

Both Needles spin on my palms. Each settles on a different bearing. Their glow tightens into two hair-thin lines stretching across the map from opposite sides.

The lines intersect over Austria. The Needles can only be as precise as the map beneath them.

I replace the world map with one of Austria and call on Adia’s Rose again.

She’s in the Austrian Alps. I’ll need to print more detailed local maps before I can pinpoint the exact location, but I have enough information for now.

“She’s in—”

“A moment, child.” Mathild waves me quiet. “We have guests.”

Eight grey-cowled figures silently emerge from the shadows around the edges of the room.

“Kin Slayers,” Mathild says as the air around her rapidly fills with cigarette smoke. “Took long enough. I was starting to get bored.”

Flash #5: Monkey »»»

You’ll think you need to keep what you do hidden.

Maybe a secret identity if you want to fight the bad (or rob the rich...).

Maybe a publicist to spin you into mundane.

Maybe a spiritual advisor to frame you as divine.

Nah. Too nuff. Tell everyone. Most won’t believe you.

But there will be those who need to believe. Who deserve to believe.

You’ll want them to be able to find you.

The front of the hospital is a riot of noise and light, with people rushing up to me as I exit the building. These people weren’t here thirty minutes ago. Neither were the microphones.

“DO YOU CLAIM TO BE A FAITH HEALER?”

“HOW MUCH DID YOU MAKE HER FATHER PAY YOU?”

“WHAT’S THE TRICK BEHIND THE GLOW?”

There are about forty people gathered outside Baptist Medical. Ten or fifteen of them are waving iPhones in the air while a handful have tripods set up with legit cameras and press creds.

The rest of the crowd is a bit further back and looks like mostly curious normies. A few of that bunch stand out as neither curious nor normal.

I don’t know the preacher by sight, but I know his type. A faux zealot who throws collection plate money around to get tipped off about the next outrage, so he can get filmed being outraged in public.

Behind him, a slightly pudgy nurse, whose gaze adores him and rejects me, tells the story of how the ambush was so perfectly timed.

The preacher raises his voice an octave to reclaim everyone’s attention.

“MANY WILL FOLLOW THE DEVIL’S DEPRAVED CONDUCT AND IN HIS GREED HE WILL EXPLOIT YOU WITH FAKE NEWS.”

I step into the middle of the reporters and address them directly. They aren’t here for the preacher anyway. “Fake news? Don’t you good folk think Saint Peter will object to Chinese AI being used to dumb down his words?”

“That’s not...I would never...I use Grok!”

Dealing with the press is like surfing Tres Palmas. You ride the waves. Especially the ones you create. While he’s still sputtering in outrage, I point to one of the reporters who gets paid for the job.

“Timothy Tate, WSFA 12 News. Mr. Beton, some are claiming that your family practices voodoo and that you are a witch doctor.”

Thank you, Mr. Tate. I haven’t had a setup this easy since t-ball at the Y.

“My parents are both tax attorneys, which I suppose is a kind of voodoo. And I only play doctor in private. No offense, Tim, you’re cute, but not my type.”

Laughs. Good. Vipère qui rit mord pas. Charming Cass gets some time to play.

“MR. BETON!”

A thirtyish blonde in an extremely tight pantsuit who’s filming through an iPhone shoots her hand into the air. She tuff. I point to her next.

“Vera Shine from the Morning Miracles podcast. Two questions: Did you heal the girl and was it with faith healing? And am I your type?”

“That’s three questions. Yes. No. And it depends if you like Midnight Miracles.”

More laughs, groans, and a blushing giggle from Vera which is as much for her podcast audience as it is for this one. Vipère en amour, aussi.

“BLASPHEMER!”

A huge blob of spittle from Father Grok lands on my cheek, undermining whatever sex appeal I’ve banked with the crowd.

“THE RIGHTEOUS WILL BE SAVED WHEN THEY BATHE THEIR FEET IN THE BLOOD OF THE WICKED.”

It’s a signal.

The first bottle arrives, popping like a gunshot on the wall of the hospital as I dodge to keep it from hitting my head. Then I dodge a second.

Most of the crowd scatters, but there are about a half dozen who weren’t surprised. Three continue throwing things at me. Three bigger ones are coming for me with blunt tools in their hands; pipe, crowbar and wrench.

I see a familiar form in Muay Thai sparring gear shoulder through the fleeing crowd on a line to intercept the tool guys. Close-cropped red hair, a sweat-darkened rashguard, fight shorts and shin guards buckled to the calves. Hands wrapped and held high fronting a mouthguard-chewing grin that’s just a tiny bit on the feral side.

I’m in for a show. I’d cut in on the dance, but I’d never be forgiven if I did.

Before he even reacts, Pipe gets a kick to the mid that folds him over, followed by a palm strike to the back of his head that rudely introduces his face to the sidewalk.

Wrench gets one swing off, connecting with nothing but air as the fighter steps inside, traps the weapon arm and lifts a straight knee between the guy’s legs.

Crowbar decides maybe he’s out of his weight class and starts backing up fast as the fighter turns to close on him.

That’s when the brick connects heavily with the side of the fighter’s head.

“ANGELIQUE!”

I sprint to where she’s fallen in the hospital’s manicured grass, as sirens announce the police and the remaining thugs make a run for it.

Her head is a mess. The brick clocked her right in the temple above her left eye and blood is pulsing out in sheets from a two-inch gash. She’s conscious, barely. Rocking gently back and forth, eyes drifting upward every time she tries to find me.

“Angelique, listen to my voice. It’s Cass. I’m going to put my hands on your face. It’s okay, it’s a friend.”

I could give a shit about the glow right now, but this kind of work doesn’t like moving quickly because of the complexity of the Art involved. So, I take my time and the nimbus stays concentrated around my hands, like I’m cupping a light bulb next to Angelique’s face.

The tattoo that starts to form is a brick, because...yeah.

I feel the trickle of wet begin above my eye. My memory of the first kick divides into near and far, sensed and felt. Stickiness clouds the lashes of my left eye and a sharp pain splits my skull as I inflict what has to be far worse pain on Wrench’s groin, watching her/me drive the knee home from twenty feet away. Then the spins start and I fall back on my ass in the grass losing my connection to Angelique.

A few seconds later our roles are reversed. She’s torn a strip off my t-shirt and is using it to staunch the blood on my forehead as she kneels next to me.

“Midnight Miracle. Really Cass?”

“You heard that huh? I was workshopping it to use with you.”

That earns a real slug to the shoulder. “Fuck me. Ooooow.”

“You just said Fuck Meow.”

Angelique’s smile says she’s fine. Better to be sure though.

“What do you remember?”

“Coming from class. Charging the guy with the pipe. Then blank tape until I saw you sitting next to me with that tattoo glowing on your palm. What did I lose?”

“A brick to the head and you unloading on a couple of lightweights.”

“Aw, Cass. You couldn’t have left me the fights? You know I like collecting scalps.”

She reaches out again to touch my forehead, this time without the makeshift rag. I like the feel of her fingers brushing my skin.

I can hear someone approaching us from behind me. “Ma’am, you want me to haul this guy away for bleeding on you?”

Angelique stays put, but looks up and squints. “If you hauled away everyone that bleeds on me, I wouldn’t have any students left, Officer Kendrick.”

Rodney Kendrick steps into view and stares down at me, both of his thumbs hooked into his belt. “You okay, Ink? Someone unhappy with their tat? Should I get my chalk out of the car?”

“No, he’s fine. Cassius has a few more quarts where this came from.”

Rodney is a regular in the neighborhood both on and off duty. Early 50s and something of a legend in the local black community for his ability to de-escalate problems when the badge is on and privately re-escalate them later when it comes off.

“Rodney, how many times have I asked you to stop calling me Ink?”

“It’s what the whole department calls you now, and you know I’ve always been a guy who doesn’t rock the boat.”

“More of a sink the boat kind guy, right?” says Angelique.

Both of Rodney’s hands go to his heart. “You wound me, Angelique! Speaking of wounds, I have a new guy who could use some off-duty polish.”

“Send him over and I’ll break him.”

“Break him in, you mean right?”

“Sure. Maybe. No promises.”

“You two take care. I may stop by your places later for statements.” Rodney touches his hat and then heads towards the front of the hospital where his men are clustered.

“Thanks for this.” Angelique takes my left hand, which is still ringed in faint light, and flips it. The tattoo of the brick is there, but visibly fading along with the glow. “But next time leave me the good bits.”

“Pas de quoi.” Ironic. She always ends up begging me to take the good bits away. The best bits at least.

Her eyes flutter a bit and it’s like a puzzle piece just snapped back into her memory. “Oh, shit, I left class for a reason. Cass, one of the neighborhood watch kids saw someone go into your flat from the back alley. They went in the way you do.”

I try to stand. It takes Angelique’s help. Then she offers more. “I’ll go with. You aren’t fit for a fight.”

“No. I’ll be fine in a minute.” It’s true. The physical effects are reduced because of the ouroboros tattoo on my wrist, linked to my twin sister. If Dahlia’s on a date, the sudden gushing head wound will be fun to explain.

It’s the double perspectives from the memories that take time for my brain to integrate. Dahlia doesn’t get those.

“Cass, I’m every bit the man you are and twice the woman. Let me help you.”

I look her in the eyes and the world swims a second, for a completely different reason. “I appreciate it, Anje, but if they’re a real threat, they wouldn’t have let themselves be seen.”

“Or they’re strong enough that it doesn’t matter.”

“I’ll be fine in the first case and I won’t risk you in the second. I’ll come see you after.”

“Fuck that. I’m coming even if I have to fight both of you.”

“Fine. You can take the inside stairs and I’ll go in my way.”

Anje will lose time unlocking the parlor and climbing the stairwell, so I’ll beat her to my third floor flat by a minute or two. The back alley of my building is empty and I don’t see anyone on my balcony.

It takes me a second to call on the sixteen tattoos I need. A combination of strength, balance and skill. They appear across my skin, do the glowing thing and then I bend my legs and leap thirty feet up and over the rail to land perfectly next to the door.

The door is cracked and the smell of sweet tobacco and burning autumn leaves transports me back a decade. I know exactly one person who smokes Black Russians.

Fuck meow.

The tobacco scent is supernaturally rich. She’s using the smoke. She’s already weaving compulsion with the Art and it doesn’t matter one bit that I know.

I step inside and my senses magnify and combine. Sight sparks scent. Sound stimulates taste. And it ALL triggers touch.

The next five seconds are an eternity that I need to escape, but never want to end.

Her legs are impossibly long and slim, wrapped in black lace gartered stockings rising to mid-thigh. She’s wearing a knife-pleated black satin miniskirt over layers of green underskirt. Her midriff is bare beneath a sheer black lace halter top stuffed with breasts so perfectly proportioned that Angelique would call them “uncanny valleys”.

Her hands, wrists, neck and ears drip with silver and emeralds. Her hair drapes down over her shoulders, jet black with jade accents mirroring the gems and underskirt. Black and green liner accents her huge gray, slightly tilted eyes. Her skin and facial structure read as Japanese, Nubian or Egyptian depending on which excites me most from moment to moment.

Her body looks 18. Her eyes look 180.

She is sitting on one of the cheap chairs at my kitchen table with a black Sobranie gold tip cigarette in one hand and a Bud Light longneck in the other. Four empty bottles are in front of her, the last survivor of the six pack still in the carton on the table.

She’s using a piece of my watermelon licorice as a straw and makes a show of puckering her black-glossed lips around the candy. She sucks out the last drops of beer, sets the empty bottle on the table and gives it a good spin.

Of course the bottle ends up pointing directly at me.

“Oh, Cassius, mon chéri. You know the rules.”

Her voice drips with the Art. She smiles, turns to face me directly, then slowly spreads her legs and leans back enough for me to see there’s nothing on under the skirt.

“Now you have to come over here and give us a kiss.”

My body almost moves in spite of me. Angelique will be here any second. I let my jump tattoos fade away. I summon back a different tattoo in their place.

The Brick. Angelique.

Now I really just want to kick her ass.

I cross my arms and root my feet to the hardwood floor of my flat.

“Why exactly are you here, Grandmother?”

Flash #4: Needles »»»

Read Chapter 1 »»»

You’re going to want to keep the pain. C’est la nature de l’art.

I’m not going to tell you not to, because you won’t listen to me.

What I will say is don’t carry the burden alone. Don’t keep it secret.

Tell someone you trust.

Someone who will scream at you when you are being stupid.

Someone who loves you, even if screaming is the only way they can show it.

There are three people in the hospital room. A middle-aged white man, a Black Baptist minister and a six-year-old girl in heart failure.

I know the girl has heart failure, because my brother told me. It was the first time he’d asked me for help in years.

I know the minister is Baptist because he’s my brother.

“Blessings Phillipe, it’s good to see you.”

He ignores me and gestures at the man and girl with the King James Bible he always carries. “This is Edmond Simmons and his daughter Allison. Both are beloved members of my congregation.” He then hugs the Bible to his chest and nods at me. “This is...my brother...Cassius Beton.”

I smile at the girl before anything else. She smiles back. Then I extend my left hand to her father. “Mr. Simmons. I’ve had your daughter in my prayers.”

Simmons hesitates and looks at my curled right hand and then at my brother before awkwardly shaking my left hand. “Yes sir. Thank you for that. Every voice raised in prayer is a blessing.”

“What happened to your hand?”

Allison’s voice is breathy and muffled by the oxygen mask she’s wearing. But her eyes are bright and interested.

I look at Simmons and ask, “May I?” He nods almost shyly, so I walk over to Allison’s bedside and settle onto a nearby stool.

I force the palm of my right hand open until she can see the image there, a bundle of dark lightning bolts that looks like an unplugged neon sign. “This is an injury I took from a man who asked that I fix his arm so he could play baseball again.”

Allison examines the lightning for a few seconds and then her eyes dart to my left hand. “You have a picture on your other hand too. I saw it when you shook with Papa.”

I turn over my left palm as well. “Yes, it’s a heart.”

“Is it sick too, like mine?”

I shake my head. “No, it’s strong and healthy.”

“Is that heart for me?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Mr. Simmons steps to the other side of his daughter’s bed. “Isn’t that the whole reason we’re doing this...whatever this is?”

My brother moves to place a hand on his shoulder, but his eyes are on mine. “Cassius, it’s time to explain what it is you do.”

“Mr. Simmons, I can move things from one person to another. Pain. Health. Life. Other things too.”

I can see Edmond’s mind working. He looks at the heart in my open left palm. Then at the claw that’s my right hand. Then at his daughter and then finally...slowly...back at the claw.

“You mean to give that to my Allison?”

“The damaged hand is the price of a healthy heart. Who pays that price remains to be seen.”

Edmond’s eyes go wide and his jaw drops in horror. “I thought this was a faith healing, not some deal with the devil!” Then to Phillipe. “I’d heard the whispers about your family, but I never thought none of them were true.”

Phillipe’s voice is soothing, but heavy with authority. “Edmond, my brother is not a devil. And I am as certain as my faith in Jesus that God intended Cassius to have this ability.”

“If he ain’t a devil, then why do you look at him like he is?”

My brother starts to say something but then pauses for an uncomfortably long time. His eyes lose their focus on me and drop to the floor in front of him.

“Because any man with this power could easily become one.”

I can see the jolt of panic this sends through Mr. Simmons.

“Edmond.” I wait for the man’s eyes to find my own. “You have questions for me. It’s okay to ask them.”

He nods slowly, his mouth slightly open. Then he decides. “Why... Begging your pardon, but why should I trust you?”

That’s a useful question.

“You shouldn’t trust me, Mr. Simmons.”

This gets my brother’s eyes off the floor.

“Cassius is right, Edmond. This is a decision you must make in communion with God. I will pray with you if you wish.”

Mr. Simmons nods vigorously, relief flooding through his features. He and my brother move close and take each other’s hands, close their eyes and bow their heads slightly.

It is a quiet prayer, devoid of the theatricality so many churches trade in these days. When they are done Phillipe squeezes Edmond’s hands.

Edmond looks at peace for the first time since I entered. “I believe that God wants my daughter to live.”

“I’m glad, Mr. Simmons. But God doesn’t get the final say in this matter. Allison does.”

“Dammit, Cassius!” My brother is immediately livid. “She’s a six-year-old girl. She can’t understand what’s at stake. It’s her father’s responsibility to make this decision.”

“Brother. Everyone in this room has had the opportunity to choose. You chose to ask for my help. I chose to come. Mr. Simmons chose to put his trust in you and in God. Every choice was difficult or painful, but arrived at honestly.”

Mr. Simmons finishes for me. “Everyone chose except for my Allison.”

“Yes, Mr. Simmons. And to choose, you must first understand.”

He barely pauses before he gives me a sharp nod.

“Honey, do you understand what Mr. Beton is offering you?”

Allison turns her head to face me and studies my face for a second. Then she drops her gaze to my hands.

She points at my left hand.

“Heart.”

She then points at my right hand.

“Hurt.”

Then she looks back up at her father.

“How exactly will this work?” It takes an effort for him to get these words out.

I open my left palm so they can see the heart image.

“I will touch your daughter and this tattoo will move from my skin to her skin.”

“And that will fix her heart?”

“I cannot guarantee anything, but it could give her twenty-five more years.”

“That’s thirty-one! College. Maybe a husband. Maybe kids.” Edmond raises his hand in front of his face and his shoulders begin to shudder.

After a few seconds Allison reaches up to tug her father’s other sleeve. “Daddy, I don’t like pink.” When he realizes she’s talking about the tattoo, he summons up a weak smile and wipes his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

“Does it have to go on her arm?”

“No. It can go anywhere and be as small as she wants.”

Allison reaches toward my right hand, stopping just short of touching it. “Where does that go?”

“You can take it. Or your father. Or I can keep it.”

My brother’s response is immediate. “You are not the Savior, Cassius. Taking on the suffering of all mankind is not your responsibility.” There is something almost hysterical in his voice.

“It’s not all mankind, Phillipe. It’s one girl.”

“It’s one girl today.”

Edmond says softly. “I can’t ask another to suffer for my daughter.”

“Mr. Simmons, what do you do for work?”

“I’m a handyman.”

“He does maintenance for the church,” Phillipe says. “He is responsible. We’re lucky to have him.”

“It sounds like you are a man who understands responsibility.”

He doesn’t answer. I’ve set two absolutes against each other in his mind, provider versus protector. I can see the conflict raging across his face. It’s a battle Edmond cannot cleanly win.

“I’ll take the hurt,” the little girl says.

Edmond’s eyes snap to his daughter. He begins to speak, but then stops.

“Allison, I won’t give this to you unless I know you understand how it will change your life.”

“How much will it hurt?”

“Pretty bad sometimes. But there is medicine that can help.”

“Will my hand look like yours?”

“Yes.”

“Will it ever get better?”

“Probably not.”

“I won’t be able to play piano.”

“Not like before, no.”

“I just learned how to play Chopsticks.”

“Do you still want the heart?”

She thinks, then she nods one time.

“Yes.”

“Where do you want the tattoos?”

“On my hands, like yours.”

To spare Allison the tedium, I decide to use the Art quickly, even though that means the glow will arrive all at once and take longer to fade.

I tell the three of them to close their eyes, but none of them do.

The glow rushes from my hands and the room instantly goes bright white as Phillipe, Edmond and Allison briefly appear to me as photo-negative ghosts.

Touching Allison’s arm, I will the tattoos to move from my body to hers. First the heart and then the burned-out lightning. I shrink them as I mentally slide the images along her skin to the palms of her hands.

As the lightning tattoo leaves me, my right hand unclenches and Allison’s hand curls inward sharply. I hear her suck in breath under the mask, but that’s all. Brave girl.

I can see both palms, one open wide and the other through a cage of rigid fingers. The heart is vibrant. The lightning has faded slightly in the transfer.

But not that much.

I see awe on Edmond’s face. Maybe he’s decided I’m an angel after all.

I see revulsion on my brother’s.

I am not sure which is worse.

As I’m heading to the hospital entrance, a young boy sitting on a bench next to his mother leaps to his feet and points at me.

“Mom. MOM. That man is glowing!”

The woman doesn’t even look up from her phone.

“Mind your own business, Jamal.”

“But, I want to glow too!”

“I’ll make your backside glow if you don’t SIT DOWN.”

I’m laughing for the first time all day as I push through the entryway, right into an ambush.

Cameras click, voices buzz and fingers point. Above it all a voice cuts through, performing righteous contempt:

“For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”

Instinctively, I raise my right hand to ward off the flashes. One finger doesn’t straighten as well as the others.

Read Ink: Flash #3 - Brick, here »»»

Sak pase?

If you are experiencing this it means you have inherited everything I am, everything I know, everything I can do.

All of my suffering.

And the thousands of other people who became a part of me.

You have inherited my final tattoo.

I don’t know who you are. But if you are going to carry this power, you need to understand exactly what it is. What it will demand of you.

You need to get intimate with the mistakes I made, and how I broke all the wrong rules for the right reasons. How the universe didn’t give a shit about my reasons.

Let’s start with home. Montgomery, Alabama; population 210,000. The land of cotton and college football. One of the most churchgoing cities in America. Every one of those churches believes I should be in hell.

It’s mid-August and it’s hot-hot, yeah?

Sitting in my parlor is Antonio Rojas. He’s wearing the Cartier Panthère sunglasses he’s famous for, indoors, and a gold chain that weighs more than most cars. His right arm is worth forty million dollars. A year.

“Tonio the Red”. He’s baseball royalty. But he’s sitting in my throne.

And right now that arm ain’t worth shit.

A web of six-inch surgical scars above his wrist makes it look like he tried to open himself in a bathtub. And his hand, which used to release unhittable 103-mile-per-hour heaters, is now a shriveled claw.

“My boys swear to me you work miracles, Cassius,” Antonio says. He’s sweating and it’s not just the heat. “You can fix things doctors can’t, right?”

“What I do isn’t medicine.” I roll my artist’s stool next to him and wipe down his bicep with an alcohol pad. “How much you drop on those sunglasses, Tonio?”

“160 Gs.”

“You’re a man who knows that things have a price. Valuable things demand le prix fort.”

“Yeah, I feel ya. You fix my arm, I’ll gift wrap ‘em for you.” Antonio smiles, but there’s no heat behind it.

“I don’t want your shades, Tonio.”

“Oh, you angling for the big bills. I’ll give anything for more time in the show. You give me back my hand and I’ll pay whatever price you want.”

“I can give you what you want, but your money’s no good here. This requires a trade.”

“What we trading?”

“Time. For every extra healthy year I put back into that forty-million-dollar arm, you give me five years off the end of your life.”

“Fuck me, man. What are you some kind of crossroads devil?”

“Just a man, Tonio. But the price is the price.”

“How?”

“Two tattoos. One I take that pulls beats from your heart and one I give that puts the spark back in your hand. You pitch like a god again for a time. Then your heart will fail, years before it should.”

He doesn’t even blink. “Do it.”

“Not yet. You have to convince me.”

“Convince you? Fuck man, you ain’t just a devil. You’re the beast himself.”

I position the machine and press the needle to Antonio’s skin. My hands shed a faint glow as I start to work. The glow I fucking hate.

“You have until I finish the art. Prove to me you understand the cost.”

“Okay. Man, you know the biggest high you’ve ever had? Drugs? Sex? That ain’t shit next to taking the mound in front of forty thousand fans...”

“No. That’s the prize. Show me you get the cost.”

To his credit, Antonio shuts his mouth for nearly a full minute before he begins again.

“My grandfather...el viejo...he died right after my rookie season. He was un hombre de pelo en pecho, you know a man you wanted at your back when shit got real.”

His eyes have closed and Antonio no longer seems to be speaking to me. He’s telling this story to himself. The needle buzzes beneath his voice.

“He used to tell me stories about fighting the military in the streets of Santo Domingo during the Civil War. And he kept our family safe and together during el huracán David. He built shelters for our family and neighbors with his bare hands using twigs and shit.”

“It sounds like you respected him.”

“Yeah. He earned that every day of his life until...”

Blood begins to bead along the needle marks. “Until?”

“When he got older he started wasting. His muscle. His mind. Some degenerative disease with no cure. He kept encogiéndose. You know... shrinking. He was smaller every day. But he always said he wasn’t going to die until I pitched in the big leagues. Just like every promise he made, he kept it.”

I wipe away excess ink and blood mixing around the needlework.

“My father brought him to a game. I dominated. A complete game shutout. Fourteen strikeouts. After the game el viejo didn’t remember any of it. He just wanted more popcorn. He liked the salt. He died later that year.”

Antonio’s eyes are open again and he’s looking into mine. All the macho bullshit is gone.

“I don’t have kids. Don’t plan on having them. But I do have 27 nieces, nephews and little cousins. I know I’ll miss a hundred birthdays and graduations and weddings. And they’ll miss me. I know that. Some will hate me for choosing baseball over growing old with them. Maybe they’ll be right.”

“But they won’t have to watch me shrivel up and become useless like my hand. Like el viejo. I want to be remembered for having lived. Not for having died.”

I pause the work for a moment.

“Antonio, how many years?”

“Five. I want five more years bringing the real heat. Five more years in the sun.”

Afterward he closes his eyes and is quiet for the three hours it takes me to finish the art. The tattoo glows a faint, unnatural pinkish-white. It is a heart, but not the chain-wrapped version that tough guys like Antonio prefer. It’s simpler, delicate. It’s out of place on this man’s arm.

Of course this tattoo isn’t meant for him.

I set the needle down and cup my hands on Antonio’s arm around the new artwork.

“Keep your eyes closed a moment, Tonio. We’re nearly done.”

This time the glow is more intense. It chases away every shadow in the parlor before peaking and starting to fade again. When I remove my hands, the heart is gone and a bundle of lightning bolts is in its place.

With the lightning comes pain. And healing.

Antonio gasps, his back arching off the chair. He rips his sunglasses off with his healthy hand, tossing 160 Gs across the room to bounce off the far wall. He stares at his right hand as the muscles twitch with new strength and the claw slowly uncurls.

“Dios,” he whispers. “I can feel it.”

He leaves a stack of hundred-dollar bills that I didn’t ask for on the counter and walks out into the Alabama sun without his shades.

I look down at my left hand. The heart I pulled from Antonio’s arm is still glowing on my palm, waiting to be used.

And my right hand has curled into a claw.

Fuck, it hurts.

I head to the door. I have to get to the ICU at Baptist Medical. There is someone waiting for me, and her heart is running out of time.

Flash #2: Chopsticks »»»