A cold wind pushed through the walls of the shop, washing over Lin with an inescapable chill that momentarily made her body think she was already dead. Every muscle spasmed and tightened, nearly taking her to the ground.

“I thought the seven magi locked that wind up!” She opined to no one in particular. Astra had already finished up her closing tasks and headed home for the night. Lin knew that it’d be best to follow, but she knew what would be waiting for her when she left the relative safety of the shop.

Though, considering that even wind could bypass walls these days, just how safe was she really?

Walking out, Lin was unsurprised to lay eyes upon a melting ink man using a telephone pole to create leverage against the mounds of bodies attempting to rip him to pieces.

“¡Finalmente! ¡Ahora debes liberarme de esta maldita existencia!”

“Yeah yeah, the sooner we start, the sooner we’re done. I don’t have a gun, so we’ll have to hope Grizz’s is still there.”

As she led the way to the deceased devil’s apartment, it occurred to Lin that she was about to rob from the dead. A grin split across her face. Odds were that Grizz would have preferred it this way.

Reaching his apartment, she was both relieved and terrified to discover his door unlocked. It made the process simple, but it also meant she had no easy excuse to bail on the entire thing. If that weren’t enough to make her regret how things had turned out, the wall of stench awaiting her certainly did the trick. It was as if a fist made of farts, rotten flesh and pure bad vibes had inserted itself inside Lin’s eyes and nostrils with the force of a gunshot, sending her reeling backwards.

As she stumbled back, Lin dropped her head, bringing the decrepit form of Cortez into view alongside her reasons for this foray. If she didn’t get Grizz’s tattoo gun, she might never get rid of this monstrosity. (And risk suffering the same fate as the late demon.) A part of her knew these all to be nothing more than excuses. The idea of tattooing again and exploring her untapped potential was as intoxicating as it was terrifying. She just needed a reason.

Taking a deep breath (so that she wouldn’t have to inside the apartment) Lin dashed inside, making for the black box of tattoo supplies, still out on the table where she left it. Grabbing a bottle of ink and pack of needles, her lungs began to scream in protest, prompting Lin to turn and sprint from the forsaken room. There was no world in which she would be giving tattoos in there. There was no choice but to do it at her apartment.

It wasn’t until she was at her front door that it occurred to Lin that showing the tiny murderer where she lived might not have been the best of plans, but there wasn’t much she could do about it now. The moment her door opened a crack, Cortez wriggled his slimy body inside as if he owned the place.

Typical.

Shooting the flame spirit floating in the center of the room a winning smile, Lin set up at the dining room table. It took her a while to figure out where the multitudinous number of plugs and cables went, but eventually she had a fully functional tattoo machine ready to go. Gesturing for Cortez to take a seat across from her, she dipped the gun in a small well of ink and moved to place it on Cortez. That’s about when a gooey ink hand slapped her in the face, stunning her enough that she couldn’t say exactly when the screaming started.

All she knew for sure was that she came to as a burning light descended around her. Cortez was shouting “No” over and over, which was as universal a message as she could have desired. It didn’t tell her what she was supposed to be doing though… The light got brighter.

“Wait! Stop!” She shouted, leaping to her feet and waving the flame spirit, Avalar, away. It was buzzing angrily as it crept nearer and nearer to Cortez’s seat. She couldn’t say why she didn’t just let it burn the interloper to a crisp, but for whatever reason, Lin couldn’t allow that to happen.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The flame spirit froze, obviously as surprised by Lin’s protestations as she herself was, and it took a moment of awkward pause before the spirit ceased its bee-like buzzing and settled into a calmer pattern. It didn’t move away from Cortez, however. That would have to be enough, Lin thought as she sat back down.

“So, you want me to tattoo you… Like put you on someone else?” She asked, miming out the question to Cortez, who nodded angrily as if this should have been obvious from the start. Lin wanted to protest. She wanted to point out that there was no one here for her to tattoo. But she knew all those complaints to be empty. A part of her had known Cortez’ intentions from the beginning. A tattoo wanting a tattoo? Ridiculous. But a tattoo wanting a new home?

And she couldn’t ask anyone else to house the monster. He’d killed his last host, what was to stop him from doing it again? There was only one person who should take the risk, and that was the monster’s creator. Lin didn’t like the idea, but a part of her loved the idea. The chance that she could actually make a difference and stop a monster? That was too tempting to pass up.

“Okay so do I just…?” Lin gently jabbed the tattoo needle into Cortez, sucking up some of his ink and eliciting an unsettling sigh from the ink man. Lin froze with the tattoo needle hovering over her thigh. Was this really a good idea? There were so many problems with it. What if-

“¡Apúrate! No hay mucho tiempo. ¡Apúrate!” As the words struck Lin’s skull, eliciting unasked for translations, she thrust the needle into her thigh. The pain washed away any unwanted thoughts. Besides, this wasn’t the time or place for hesitation. She hadn’t bothered to make a stencil or even the barest form of outline, which felt reckless but right. As she made a curving line that would eventually be the head, Lin looked up at Cortez with something resembling anguish bubbling to the surface of her mind. Was this horrid man really going to be her first tattoo?

As she stabbed Cortez for more ink, a realization dawned upon the ailing artist. She was making a tattoo made of Cortez’s ink on her body. It wasn’t as if she was slapping that exact tattoo on herself, she was just using the same ink. So, who said it had to be Cortez? (Cortez probably would, but his words didn’t count for much in her eyes.) A dozen options flashed through Lin’s mind. Someone to offset Cortez’s destructive legacy felt fitting. Perhaps Cesar Chavez or Gloria Anzaldúa, Mexican American Social activists that Lin remembered studying in school. However, she was forced to quickly discard them as she only knew the barest outline of their life and something about that seemed wrong. If she was going to tattoo a person, the image had to represent them. It had to know them.

There really was only one option, wasn’t there? Lin was doing this to fix her mistakes, and that meant returning life to that which was dead.

Talking more black ink from Cortez’s hair, Lin began to form the outline. Cortez was quiet at first, making some grunts of approval as she detailed the thick and well-formed muscles at the legs and arms. These grunts became consternation and confusion as the long, aged fingernails wrapped around a corded handle began to take form. That was nothing compared to the gasp and cries of frustration when she started building out the tail.

“¡No! ¡Soy humano!” This was followed by several words that Lin didn’t know but could guess were more aggressive in nature. She didn’t bother responding, instead simply reaching out to dip more ink from Cortez’s rapidly shrinking body. His loss in mass was not symmetrical with the amount of ink that she was using, as if his body were made as much from the idea of him as the ink itself.

The blood at his joints became red, scaly skin. The brown of the ropes ripping him to pieces became a whip and horns. The marred whites of his eyes became the devilish grin of Grizz’Bluk, the murdered demon that had started all of this. Lin gritted her teeth as Cortez desperately smacked at her and the tattoo gun. It would have ruined the art had the little ink man not been irreversibly weakened by his loss of ink and soul. Avalar seemed to recognize the feebleness of Cortez’s attack and did not interfere. It trusted in Lin to handle this as she needed.

Cortez let out a final, sorrowful cry as Lin made the final touches on her Grizz tattoo. She looked up only to see an empty chair in front of her. Inspecting her tattoo, Lin felt unhumbly proud of her work. It was a notable improvement over her last piece, and without the use of a stencil or any sort of preparation. It struck her that it wouldn’t always be this easy. It almost felt as if the ink were guiding her hand. It wanted this form just as much as she wanted to make it.

Lin sat there staring at her leg for who knows how long, but nothing happened. Cortez was gone and so, it seemed, was Grizz. Finally, as the hour crept into her bones and presented itself as exhaustion, Lin rose with a massive yawn, wrapped her fresh tattoo in plastic film, and went to bed.

A dull light fell upon her as she lay down, filled with an exultant emptiness that she could not quite explain. Moments later, the flame spirit, Avalar, settled over her like a blanket. She expected the flames to burn, but they did not, instead emitting a soothing warmth that lulled her into a deep, peaceful sleep.