Inked

“He bought pretty regular,” Dieter admitted, his eyes on the bright swirl of ruby liquid. “That’s how I knew him.”

“But you didn’t sell him this?”

“Are you kidding? That’s Fey wine!”

“Isn’t that your stock in trade?”

He rolled his eyes. “I sell punch, okay?”

“What’s the difference?”

He picked up the glass and held it next to the other. “That.” The contents of the second glass were pale pink, the color of rosé. The liquid in the one I’d handed him was a deep bloodred.

“Punch is cut,” I guessed. A lot, judging by the color.

“Hell, yeah. Full strength, that shit’ll make a vamp drunk!”

“What would it do to a human?”

Dieter shrugged. “Depends how long he’s been using. You build up a tolerance after a while. But I don’t know any human who uses it straight. By the time you get that far in, you’re usually gone.”

“Gone?”

He made the circle around his temple that was the universal sign for crazy. Great. The guy I needed to question might be passed out somewhere, or worse.

I tipped the contents of the uncut glass onto the dirt floor and scraped my boot across it. Dieter’s face fell. “Aw, man! Do you know what that was worth?”

“About ten years, assuming you don’t have any priors. You need to find a new line of work.”

“Maybe I should start making wards,” he said sullenly. “This guy must be doing okay to afford the pure stuff.”

I followed his gaze downward, to the case the glass had been sitting on. It was full of small gold wards. Nice ones.

A chill ran up my back.

Dieter slid open the back of the case and picked one up. It was more like a chain than a charm, consisting of six ants linked together in a golden line. “Hey, what do you think this one does?”

“I don’t know.” I was more concerned about why the case hadn’t been spelled shut.

The blanket covering the door into the next room fluttered slightly. I pulled a gun, moved carefully around the case and snatched it open. “Auggh!” Dieter let out a screech, and I almost shot him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Look!” He stuck out his right hand. The ants had done what they were designed to do and melted into his skin. They were roaming around, checking out the territory, crawling over his fingers and down to his wrist.

“You shouldn’t pick up powerful wards without knowing what they do.”

“Now you tell me?” He started jumping around, shaking his hand uselessly. The ants ignored him. So did I.

A walk-through of the next room yielded nothing of interest, except that a cabinet full of expensive supplies was unlocked and unspelled. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. There was also no third room where the wardsmith might be taking an ill-advised nap. He was simply missing.

I went back into the front and found Dieter half naked. He’d torn his shirt off and was slapping at his chest. The ants had crawled up his arm to his torso, where they were roaming around like dogs on a scent.

I felt around in my pocket for the numb stick, and looked up to find Dieter glaring at me. “Do something! You got me into this, you crazy bitch!”

“That’s witch,” I said mildly, and left the numb stick where it was.

The glass case contained a few dozen wards, mostly smaller ones that you could buy in any shop. But a few were outstanding, including a large elk, a popular Native American totem for stamina. I shielded my hand and picked it up. A smooth, steady energy throbbed under my fingertips.

I couldn’t figure out what a wardsmith this good was doing in Tartarus. Even with a drinking problem, most shops would take him on, or at least buy his work—and for more than he was likely to get here. Wards like this were worth their weight in gold these days, and those that could be used as weapons were even more—

Dieter suddenly thrust a long, pale foot onto the display case. He was down to a pair of faded blue briefs, so the movement gave me more of a view than I liked. “Look! Look what they’re doing!”

The ants had congregated around a bruise on his ankle and appeared to be nibbling away at it. Every time one of them took a bite, a tiny piece of the bruise disappeared, replaced with unblemished skin. “Cool.”

“They’re eating me!”

“They’re healing you,” I told him. “Shut up.”

I glanced down at the case, and noticed something strange. All the wards were totems associated with things like healing, stamina or defense. I knelt and checked out the under stock, and it was the same story. Not a single one was for combat, despite the fact that those were the ones bringing the most money these days.

I stared down at the gleaming menagerie and it stared back, unable to tell me if I was onto something or if I’d started off on a wild-goose chase. I was begi

It wasn’t unusual for a bunch of outcasts to stockpile weapons. The war had a lot of people paranoid, and vargulfs had no clan to back them up if they got into trouble. And a bunch of Weres might prefer those weapons in the form of wolves.

As for the wardsmith, he was probably passed out somewhere, courtesy of too much wine. Waiting for him to wake up and stumble back wasn’t too appealing when he might not have anything useful to tell me. Barring more clues from Cyrus, my best option was old-fashioned police work. I needed to know where he’d been seen last, who he’d talked to, who had been with him. I could circle back and question the wardsmith later, assuming he ever showed up.

“Get dressed,” I told Dieter. “We’re out of here.”

I checked my phone, having some questions for Jamie or Caleb, but I didn’t have any bars. And then I didn’t have a phone, either, because one of Dieter’s flailing arms ripped it out of my hand. He was dancing around again because the ants were on the move. They’d finished with the ankle, leaving only pale skin and coarse black hair behind, and were crawling up the inside of his leg.

He brushed at them frantically until they disappeared beneath the edge of his boxers. And then he lost it. He tore the shorts off, slapping at his butt and various other things while I went for my phone. And found something a lot more interesting.

Dieter’s dance had disturbed the rug, revealing a line in the sand covering the floor. I retrieved my phone, tossed the rug back and found a trapdoor. And a second later, I found the wardsmith.

Chapter 8

He’d been folded double and wedged into the small space so tightly that it took me several minutes to get him out. But it was obvious from the start that there was no real rush. A cigarette still dangled from his lips, but there were no lungs left to smoke it with. They’d been torn out along with the rest of his chest.

It had been a Were attack. The claw marks were clearly visible, but I didn’t really need them. Few things kill a man so fast that he doesn’t even have time to look afraid.

I heard an odd, choking sound, and looked up in time to see Dieter’s bare ass heading out the door. I threw a lasso spell after him, but only got it around one leg. He went down, scrabbling for purchase in the dust. A few people stuck their heads out of nearby tents, attracted by the noise, and wasn’t that just all I needed.

“Cut it out!” I told him, irritably, but he either didn’t hear or didn’t care. He turned over onto his back and started kicking his leg, trying to shake the spell off, but only succeeded in tightening it further. “He can’t hurt you,” I pointed out, reeling him in.

“It’s not him I’m worried about!” He leaned back, trying to use his weight against the spell, but that just resulted in him getting yanked down the street in little hops, one leg stuck out straight in front of him. I gave a final heave and he fell through the door, his nose landing maybe a foot from the corpse. “Auggh!”