Cat Tats Part 7
Posted By Faith on August 2, 2010
The knife and rasp made the work of chipping and shaping stakes much easier, and by nightfall, Rick had six good stakes, two short ones and four well-shaped, well-balanced ones, that hefted nicely in his hand. And he had the knife, which he had carefully honed with the rasp, though the edge wasn’t particularly sharp; the rasp wasn’t manufactured with the goal of smoothing steel and his efforts had been laughable at best. It also wasn’t plated with silver to kill a vampire. But it was a bladed weapon, and having the weapons had improved his chances of saving his hide. Rick knew that fighting a pissed off vamp, naked, weakened, hungry, and sick as he was, wasn’t likely a survivable endeavor, but he had decided that going down fighting was better than submitting.
Mid-afternoon, he showered in the cold water, ate the small plate of food left by Loriann, and took a nap on the dusty floor, curled on the folded sheet, hoping to garner some strength for the night.
And he woke with a vampire’s jaws at his throat. Drinking.
His body reacted instantly, sexually, to the attack, one of Isleen’s hands holding his nape, the other playing him. He couldn’t scream, he couldn’t fight. He couldn’t stop her. And with the vampire saliva entering his bloodstream, he didn’t want to. He was aroused, chained by the ankle, and drunk on vampire. But resisting was all he had left.
One hand wound into her hair, holding her. His head fell back, his spine arched up, closer to her. His other hand found a stake under the edge of the sheet. He curled his fingers around it.
Isleen pulled away, her body moving so fast he couldn’t follow, seeing only a wisp of movement, and the vampire standing in the shadows at his feet. He’d missed his chance. Rick laughed, a biting bark of sound; he could almost see the laughter float around the barn, bitter as the taste of weeds and ash. Cold as the vampire’s lips on his throat. Colder than the feel of her dead fingers on his flesh.
She held his eyes with hers, her blond hair falling around her face like a veil. To the side, he heard a click and a lamp lit the barn. Isleen was revealed out of the dusky shadows, dressed in a white lace dress. It was stained with blood, crusty brown overlaid with fresh blood, scarlet, and damp. The fresh blood was his, he figured. The old stuff was probably from some other poor bastard she had trapped and chained up. Isleen’s eyes seemed to close around him, holding him as surely as her hand and fangs had only moments before.
In the distance, he heard the roar of a generator. The sound of wind in the foliage outside. The twitter of birds nesting in the rafters overhead. He’d missed his chance. And he laughed again, once, the sound crazy, harsh as graveyard sobs.
Loriann handed Isleen a small cup. Isleen spit into it. His blood. She was spitting out his blood. With one sharp canine tooth, the vampire pierced her finger and held it over the cup, allowing her cold, dead blood to drip into the cup, into his own blood, mixing them. The drops echoed into the barn, flying like bats’ wings, darting into the shadows.
Isleen handed Loriann the cup. Licked her finger and then her lips, still holding his eyes. With a poof of sound she was gone. His arousal drained away. Tears he had hadn’t known had fallen dried on his face.
Loriann turned on more lights and he could see clearly. He should have been embarrassed about Loriann watching while Isleen… But he wasn’t. He couldn’t seem to care about much tonight except his failure to stake the vamp. He turned his head, watching the witch as she moved around the small space, setting out her tools. She knelt at his side and handed him a plastic bottle of water. He drank. His throat ached with the movement. Isleen hadn’t been gentle with him. When the bottle was empty, he said, “Is she gone?”
“Yes. She’ll be back at midnight for me to finish the spell. And she’ll bring Jason. It’ll be your only chance.”
He sat up slowly, belly muscles protesting, bringing the stake with him. “You didn’t mean for me to stake her just now?”
Her eyes widened. “No. No, not until Jason is here.”
“Mighta been nice to know that.”
“I didn’t think— Oh my God.” She turned away, holding herself around the waist, her hair sliding forward, hiding her face. “Okay,” she said after a moment. “Okay. Never mind.” Her tone said that she was forgiving herself and him for the near miss. She stood straight and went back to work. “We don’t have much time. Do I have to chain you to the stone tonight?”
“No. I’ll be a good little human vamp-snack.” He could hear the bitterness and anger in his tone, but the hopelessness that had settled on him like a grave shroud had lightened. He had another chance. “Speaking of which, I smell food.”
“I brought you some Popeye’s chicken, biscuits, and sides. A gallon of tea. Hope you like it sweet.”
“Yes. I’m starving. Can I eat while you work?”
“No. So eat fast. And we have to talk. I need to tell you how the spell works so you can pick the right time to … to kill her.” She placed a bucket of chicken at his side and he dug in, listening, wondering at himself, and at the way he could plan the death of an insane, undead monster with such enthusiasm.
***
Loriann was almost done with the tats. Around his right bicep was a circlet of something that looked like barbed wire, but was really twisted vines in a dark green ink. Interspersed throughout the vines were claws and talons—recurved big-cat claws and raptor talons, some with small drops of blood on the tips—blood from Isleen and his own body, mixed with some cat blood and scarlet dye, the mixture meant to bind his body to the vampire once the spell was complete. On his left shoulder, following the line of his collar bone, across his left pec, down his upper arm, and almost to his spine in back, was a mountain lion. He was a tawny beast, with darker markings on his face, body, and tail, amber eyes staring. He was crouched as if to watch for unwary prey, the clubby tail curved up around his shoulder blade. Behind his predator face peeked a smaller cat face with pointed ears and curious, almost amused eyes, lips pulled up in a snarl to reveal predator teeth, a bobcat, snuggled up to the larger cat. It was beautiful work. But it was a spell woven into his body.
“The gold in the eyes is pure gold foil, mixed with my grandmother’s inks. It shouldn’t infect or cause you trouble. And as long as you kill her before the spell is finished, the eyes won’t glow. If the binding is completed, you’ll know it, because the eyes, all four of them, will catch the light and glimmer just like gold jewelry. Either way, the tattoos won’t fade, not ever. And you probably can’t get them lasered off. Not with the dyes my grandmother used—” She stopped and stood, unmoving, her body almost vibrating with fear, exhaustion, and excitement. She met his eyes, hers dark-ringed with fatigue and blood loss from feeding the vampire. “You’ll save Jason?”
“We don’t know where he’ll be. In a stall. Hanging from the rafters in a cage. I’ll kill Isleen. Whoever is closest will save Jason.”
“Okay.” She licked her lips. “One last thing. I called Katie. A guy answered. I told him about you. About Isleen and Jason. He was pretty pissed.”
Hope shot through Rick. He could feel his own heart thud in his chest. His Uncle Tom answered the phone at Katie’s Ladies. “And?”
“I told him to expect a text message with directions. And I programmed the message with directions how to get here.” She pulled a cell phone and snapped it open. “It’s in my phone, waiting. If I can send it just as Isleen arrives I will. I don’t know—”
With a pop of displaced air, Isleen appeared. She held a small boy in the crook of her arm, his long legs dangling. The boy was asleep or unconscious, but breathing. Isleen had fed again, and the front of her dress was soaked with blood. Rick had no idea how much of it was the boy’s.
Loriann made a helpless moan of fear and longing and horror, one hand outstretched to the child. With her other hand, she pressed a button on the phone and sent the text message. Rick closed his eyes a moment, hiding his relief. Help was coming. If he could keep them all alive until it arrived.
Rick focused on the vampire. Her hair was up in curls and waves, and little hat with a scrap of netting perched on top, like something a woman from the eighteen hundreds might have worn. When she set the boy down, he saw that the lace dress had a bustle in back. And she wore pointed lace shoes. Strings of pearls were around her neck, crusty with dried blood. She looked like a parody of a horror movie, dressed for a wedding, covered in blood. She patted Jason on the head and Rick saw the pinprick holes in his neck. She had fed from the kid. Recently. It was all he could do to lie there and watch as Isleen positioned Jason on the dirt of the barn, curling him into a fetal position and covering him with blanket she must have brought with her.
Rick was stretched out on the black stone, spread eagled, his hands and feet appearing to be manacled, but really free. The sheet was bunched at his side near his right hand, and beneath it were two stakes. Beneath his back was the knife and two more stakes. Hidden in the dust at the base of the black stone to his left and to his right were the two short stakes, his last-ditch-if-all-else-fails weapons. But help was coming. Help had to come.
“Begin,” Isleen said to Loriann, standing above Jason like a threat from the grave. “If you do it right, your brother will live. If he is not bound to me when you are done, the boy will die while you watch. Then you will die.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Loriann sat his side, above his shoulder, so his right arm would be unimpeded, her most delicate tattoo needle in her hand. On the stone near her was the pot of mixed blood. She had woven her spell into his flesh with the blood on the tips of the cat claws, leaving only parts of three to be filled in.
“Sit beside him on the stone, there,” she pointed with the needle, “in the crook of his left arm. I’ll speak the ritual words while I fill in the last globules of blood on the cat’s claws.” Loriann met his eyes, telling him that she was ready.
All they needed was to put Isleen at a disadvantage, cause her to focus on something else just long enough for him to react. And if the help came after the vampire was dead, he’d have a ride home. If the help came before, well, he’d have a weapon to protect the kid. “When I say, ‘For all time. For all time. For all time,’ you have to bite him on his wrist and drink from him. One sip. And then you say it back, ‘Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. I claim you as my own. For all time. For all time. For all time.’ And it’ll be done.”
“How long?” Isleen asked, her fingers trailing down his face, cupping his cheek. He smelled old blood and something sweet and parched, like dried lilies. The smell of the vamp herself.
“The last globules will take about half an hour. I have to chant the whole time. If you talk, if you move, if you cause me to loose my concentration, it will break the spell.”
“And the child will die.” Isleen flashed her fangs. “Never forget that. Begin. Now.”
Loriann closed her eyes and ducked her head, as if to pray. Then she opened her eyes, placed the needle into the pot of blood. “Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one.” She pierced his flesh with the needle. “Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one. Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one.”
The needle pierced him again and again as Isleen stared into his eyes, hunger in hers. He knew that she was trying to roll him, to do what vampires did to get free blood meals, and to bind blood-slaves and blood-servants. He could feel her compulsion tickling at the edges of his mind. If needles and fine blades hadn’t been sticking into him, he might have succumbed. But the pain kept him alert. Ready. The minutes trickled by. His blood trickled around his bicep to pool on top of his dried blood on the black witch stone.
Loriann changed the chant when she started on the second globule. “Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one. Time and time and forever. Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one. Time and time and forever. Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one. Time and time and forever.”
Rick regulated his breathing, keeping himself lose and relaxed. Letting Isleen believe that she was succeeding in rolling him. He slid his expression into a goofy smile. Let drunken love fill his face.
Loriann started on the last drop of blood on the last claw. Again her chant changed. “One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever. One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever. One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever.” The phrase was like a drum beating into his mind. His heart stuttered and found a new rhythm, meeting and following her words. “One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever. One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever. One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever.”
And then she said the words Isleen had been waiting for. “For all time. For all time. For all time.” The tattoo was complete.
Isleen bit. The pain was instantaneous. An electric shock. Rick gripped the stake. And rolled. Fast. Faster than he had ever moved. He plunged the stake into her Isleen’s back. The point slamming through skin and muscle and cartilage.
Isleen screamed and ripped her teeth from his wrist. Twisted her body in a snakelike move no human could have duplicated. The stake missed her heart. Claws slashed down his abdomen. Struck at his throat. He scuttled away, the blade in his right hand. But his left hand had been injured by her teeth cutting their way out. He couldn’t grip a stake. It rolled across the black stone.
Isleen attacked. Moving so fast she was a blur. Her fangs slashed into his throat. Ripping. Tearing. Her claws pierced his chest. He threw back his head and screamed.
He missed what happened next. Missed it entirely. Loriann told him about it later, much later, in such vivid detail that it was almost as if he witnessed his rescue. His saviors.
Katie and Leo. The two master vampires blew the doors off the barn. And walked inside. Katie staked Isleen. Leo cut off her head. Loriann cradled her brother. His Uncle Tom lifted them both and carried them, curled up together, out of the barn. The last thing he saw was a spray of blood. And the vamp-black eyes of the Master of the City, Leo Pellissier.
***
Rick woke up in his own bed, clean, sore, and sleepy, just after dawn. Sprawled in the chair at the foot of his bed was his mom, her eyes open, watching him. Tom sat in a kitchen chair beside her. When his uncle realized he was awaked, he said, “What do you want most? Dinner or sex?”
Rick raised his head, surprised that there was no pain. No pain anywhere. He touched his throat, finding no scars, smiled, and stretched. “Neither. Breakfast would be good.” He looked at his mother. “Blueberry pancakes?”
She blew out a breath so hard and deep it sounded like a mini-explosion. Uncle Tom grinned widely, a big toothy grin. “He’s still himself. The binding didn’t take.”
“Pancakes it is,” his mother whispered, blinking back tears. “But your father is going to have kittens at the idea of you with a tattoo.”
Rick sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at the tattoo on his shoulder, studying the eyes of the mountain lion. They didn’t glow or sparkle like gold jewelry. They were just amber, the eyes of a mountain cat. “I can live with that,” he said. “I can live with most anything now.”
He tilted his head to his uncle. “Thank you. I owe you. I owe you big time.”
“Yeah, you do. We’ll talk.”
“After the pancakes,” Rick said. He looked at his mom. “With blueberry compote and whipped cream?”
She wiped a tear from her cheek and nodded. “You got it son.”
THE END …
Well, until he meets a Big Cat named Jane / Beast.