She poked the black web with her finger. Pain radiated from the tattoo. When she woke up the next morning it was there. Right where the man poked his finger. In the mirror, she stared at the series of black webs that appeared on her arm. It looked like a normal tattoo and it hurt, like she assumed, a normal tattoo would hurt. But how did it appear? What did this man want with her? Was he gonna kill her? Was this like some Thieves’ cant saying “young innocent puerile women ripe for the taking advantage of?”

She breathed in. Nothing else seemed to be different about her body, every bone looked in place, and every muscle looked alright. She’d need to ask someone. But her mom would freak out and a hospital, a hospital just seemed like a bad decision. She had to take care of it on her own. Nobody could know. She put on a long T-shirt over it. Nobody could see it.

That night she couldn’t sleep. She tried and tried. Over and over. But she’d close her eyes and open them five minutes later. If there was a card for sleep she wished she could get it. She stared up at the ceiling of her room. The darkness looked back at her. Hello, darkness. Old chap, old bud. Always with you when you close your eyes. Her new tattoo itched, it burned.

She closed her eyes again.

“Hey.” She heard a voice but it wasn’t in the room with her. She jumped awake and peered around. She looked out the window. She saw nobody. The moon reflected the lights of the stones in the garden. Nobody watched her from below. Nobody looked at her in her room. So where did the voice come from?

“Close your eyes dipshit ugly ass motherfucker.”

The voice sounded nasally. Like God took every annoying debate kid at your high school and turned them into someone’s vocal cords. She kept her eyes wide open. They strained at the edges of her lids. They wouldn’t close for a while.

“I can’t do anything in your eyes. Pig for brains. Short bus. Short bus for tall girls. Tall bus for short girls. Ok I can’t make any word-play with that.” The voice kept on talking. She didn’t recognize it. If she got schizophrenia she’d probably use someone’s voice that she knew, more convincing that way. But maybe the schizophrenia just annoyed her and didn’t actually convince her to do anything. That would be a bad form of schizophrenia, that’s the type that makes you shove thumbtacks in your ears.

“Earth to girl. Tall girl. Tall girl 2: Electric Boogaloo. Eiffel Tower, no romance. Women. Lady. Female. Mistress. Mommy? Kidding. Close your eyes.” She couldn’t keep them open, she blinked.

And there in the blackness of her eyes, sat the man from before. She opened her eyes again.

“Ok,, so you don’t even want to talk face to face. I can just keep you up all night. I go to bed at like five anyways, this is nothing for me. But you probably have something important to wake up for.” The man said.

“Hello?”

“You know what, I’m just doing introductions. Absolutely pointless talking to morons. Pigsty brains. Did someone take a saltwater enema and shoot it up your nose and straight into your brain waves? Call it the Gandhi special. I’m the guy who gave you that tattoo. No, it doesn’t do anything at all. I swear. I just will know where you are at all times and can talk to you from long distances. But that doesn’t particularly matter because I don’t care about you at all. This is just a fun diversion. Anyways, doesn’t it look sick? I thought so. Mhmmm. Yeah that’s right.”

Iona closed her eyes and saw the man staring right at her.

“Why did you give this to me?”

“Well, I was bored. Well, I wasn’t actually bored at that exact moment but I knew that in a couple of hours, I would’ve been bored, so I planned ahead.” She didn’t say anything just kept looking at him. He shifted on the balls of his feet. His eyes drifted all throughout the pitch-black space.

“How do I get rid of this.”

“Fuck you. I’m not cute enough? Ugly ass bitch.” She didn’t say anything. She put him down as another to-do on her list. He kept on walking around in her head. He’d look around as if there was something to see in the great black space. She needed to sleep. But just knowing that the man would be there in her sleep.

“Let me go to sleep.”

“No come on just talk with me. I’m a Master. A bonafide one. A Master, Master, I can do wild shit.”

“Ok let’s talk. Fine. I’m tired. What’s your name.” He scoffed and looked aggrieved. He couldn’t be a Master. Plenty of ways to use magic effects like this.

“Christian”

She opened her eyes.

“I think it’s a nice name. Oh, come on don’t open your eyes. Whatever your name is. I actually could care less.” She walked over to her closet, opened it, and retrieved an old notepad. She’d bought it for school but she didn’t take notes. She’d made it useless.

“You know I’m actually pissed tonight because I finally got banned off another dating app. I literally had a date waiting for me.” She blinked.

“I actually have no idea what you look like. Maybe you’re some hot chicky babe, I just like vaguely remember passing you but you know… Being chased actually sucks. Like totally.” She got a pencil from her desk and began to draw. Dark black hair, a white shirt, and sharp jawbones that fell at the sides of his face. He’d have been handsome to a punk. She closed her eyes. The filigree sword tattoo cut through the majority of his body. She saw it peak out from his left hip. But his eyes looked completely different from when she saw him out front of her house. They looked vibrant and alive. Each white ball shone in its socket.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She touched her left hip and dragged her finger up to her shoulder. The ink would be a beautiful armor.

“What are you a Master of Christian?”

“It’s obvious are you an idiot? Like seriously are you an absolute idiot? Oh, I forgot Venice was such a bad school.” Could a tattoo gun change her lips? Could it sharpen her jawline?

“Tattoos?”

“Obviously. We aren’t that rare.”

“I don’t have any tattoos.”

“Why not?” Also, why are you even talking to me like a normal person? I usually do this like as a gag and it’s fairly annoying that you’re just like ok with this.” She opened her eyes. She didn’t feel tired. Her brain didn’t want to go to bed. Her limbs quivered with energy. Yellow thoughts filled her brain. Why did she feel like this?

“I don’t know.” He didn’t say anything for a minute.

“I really don’t know. Why should I hate you? You only permanently maimed me but not like anyone would notice me. Which I don’t have a problem with.” She touched her eyes with her fingers. Would she not be able to get cards if she tore them out?

“It’s not permanent.”

“How do I get rid of it?”

“Find a tattoo Master. Or cut off your skin there.” He said the answer so fast. It didn’t make sense.

“You’re just telling me?”

“I’m the only tattoo Master who will do it for less than ten thousand dollars.”

“So this is extortion.” He looked embarrassed.

“Well if you see me that way maybe.” He said, his shoulders shrugging saying: “just work”.

“Where should I give this money?”

“Junktown. Venice side. You’ll find the place. It’s only fifty bucks and I’ll throw in a beer, if you’re of age of course.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Great.” She didn’t want to give him too many words. He considered her.

“Only fifty bucks be there tomorrow. Hope you have better luck, you know, in life. Like you get it? I’ll let you sleep. Remember to count sheep. Don’t worry. It’ll come.” With that, she watched as he walked away into the darkness of her eyelids. He left.

She opened her eyes. Her mind whirred. Like a pack of hungry bees. She could practically see her thoughts flying out of her head. Tonight wouldn’t be a night of sleep. It’d be a night of thinking. She didn’t trust him. Something felt off about his cadence, about the way he looked. She didn’t trust anyone she never smelled. She’d always been proud of her sense of smell. Whenever someone changed their perfume she’d immediately notice.

That night she dreamed of the Malibu canyons. She flew above them in the form of a bird and a dragon. Her body caught halfway between scales and feathers, unsure of which to choose. She smelled the hot dusty air mixed with the smell of seawater, she smelled the mountain flowers, the burnt ash of California. She hadn’t been there in so long. Her dad took her there once. She remembered standing on his shoulders. She dug her toes into his back and looked down onto the valley. He’d point out each flower and each plant on the paths. He gave her some dried sage to put on her hands. As her fire burnt the canyon below, she almost smelt the smell of that dried sage. She missed her dad.

She woke up with a jump. Her heart beat hard. Harsh afternoon light filtered through her window. Junktown was by the beach. It’d been there forever. The city just left it. Nobody could get rid of Junktown anymore. Junktown offered a very important niche to Venice. Anything strange, anything creative, anything off, came there and left the normal parts of the city to the paying customers. Someone had covered the former concrete pathways with a metal sheet. Buildings made out of all sorts of junk got thrown together. Anyone who needed a house but didn’t have one built one in Junktown. Old mud adobe houses made by people who didn’t have anything more than mud juxtaposed with hulking concrete boxes.

Iona despite living in Venice her whole life had never been to Junktown. Her mom never let her and she never wanted to go. She knew the way, everyone did. Go to the beach and walk straight and you’d see the signature metal sheet buildings blocking the sky. It was only ten minutes from her house. She left a note to her mother, “Going out see you later.” She’d saved up seventy-five dollars in emergency supplies. She wanted to spend it on more boxing lessons but such is life.

She smelled Junktown before she saw it. It smelled like a pile of trash that had steamed in the rain for a couple of days. She could hardly stand it. It infiltrated her nose, it blinded her mind. But she kept on walking. Soon the buildings themselves switched from traditional beach bungalows to metal and adobe one window shacks.

Someone stacked up several of the shacks on top of each other. Ramshackle bridges connected the shacks together. Clotheslines fluttered in the wind, clothing of every color covered the sky like a stained glass window blocking the sun. Various people sat on porches smoking cigarettes or drinking coffee or just generally living like normal humans. The place practically bounced with people. She thought people would look at her, thought that someone would take her money or beat her up. But nobody even spared her a glance. It almost felt worse.

At the end of Venice Boulevard, the shack towers grew larger and larger. The buildings on the first floors even had neon signs advertising various sorts of shops but nothing that Iona ever saw before. They had names like: “Jambo’s Knife Sharpening Emporium”, “Book’s Book’s Book’s All Over My Walls”, and “Help Please Take My Things!!!!!!!!!”, crowds of people thronged into that particular store.

But there were just so many people, all of them poor, but none of them unhappy. She’d never seen so many smiles. As she got to the end, two roads and a wall of shack towers appeared before her. In between the shack towers, she could almost see the white sand and water of the beach.

The terrible acrid smell from before faded and only the faint smell of marijuana and ocean filled the air. She looked around for bit before seeing her destination. “Christian Tattoo Shop! That’s the Joke! Christian Tattoos, by Christian! Do you Get the Joke?” Someone added two additional signs to the end of the first sign so none of the words were missed. The signing decorum of the place was strange. The store stood out from the rest of the shops. Christian or one of his friends had erected a red scrap man at the front. Large attenas stuck out from the scrap man’s round ball head. It sat looking out on all of Junktown. Iona stared and stared. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. Two etched eyeballs looked back at her.

At closer inspection they weren’t eyeballs but interlocking etched swords in the shape of an eyeball. As Iona looked closer and closer, the robot moved. First, it just creaked. Then it jostled a bit, but at last It’s mouth opened. The metal man talked. Iona couldn’t hear what it said but it talked. And someone on the street, talked back to it.

The man who talked didn’t even look back and continued walking away from the automatan. The bot nodded as it received it’s answer and sat back down. She watched as it’s eyes moved from person to person on the street, until those eyes landed on her. At that moment, her vision focused in until it seemed as if the scrap was right in front of her face. She couldn’t see anything else, she’d been taken out of her body.

The sword eyes stared at her. They looked into everything, her whole being, every unshaven hair, every follicle. After a moment they stopped and she returned back to her fleshy prison. She stumbled, the sun got brighter in the sky, the wind picked up pace, the air began to smell ten times more like air, the world appeared in high-definition. She looked back at the scrap man. He continued to look at everyone else, his eyes didn’t even glance in her direction. Her leg jerked forward by an inch then another. Finally, after ages she arrived at the front of the store. The metallic person paid her no attention. Didn’t even turn it’s head. Did she imagine it moving? Now it lay there completely still. Only it’s eyes whirlled and whirlled.

The inside of the store smelled thickly of incense. Large clouds of it billowed out of a pot just next to the door. Various metal objects covered the room, large nails stuck out of a wall, each one bent in a million directions. CD’s shone from a pillar in the center of the shack. Pictures of various tattoos hung around each corner of the place. Countless swords and eyeballs of different sizes caught Iona’s attention. Some of the tattoos she couldn’t even place, harsh dark lines that looked like scars, patterns that looked like things she’d only seen in rune books. Someone had etched thousands of runes into the floor. Iona tried to follow their jagged lines, tried to understand their meanings when a voice came out.

“What do you need fuckwad.” The voice rang out from the back of the store, she looked, and standing on a green metal stool sat Christian. His eyes drooped from exhaustion, his voice didn’t seem very happy. In response, she rolled up her sleeves and showed the tattoo.

“Am I supposed to know what this shit is? The lines are awful, who would make this?” He didn’t approach her, she looked as his eyes squinted to look at his tattoo.

“You gave this to me.”

“Oh. Well fuck hi girl why didn’t you say this from the beginning? Are you the little pigsty from last night? I couldn’t sleep at all because I kept on having to hear your breath in my ear. Let’s get rid of this shit, come on sit over here.” He indicated a stool. As she sat down he rummaged in a pair of metal drawers and took out a pair of pliers.

“This won’t hurt a bit,” He said. Adults only said “This won’t hurt a bit” before something would hurt a bit. He took the pliers and put them on the tattoo. He breathed in and she winced. In one motion, he jammed the tip into the center of the tattoo and pulled. A sharp stinging pain stabbed into her and then spread. At one second the pain was in her head, splitting her head like an apple. It wormed it’s way through her veins. It tickled her heart. In a second it was gone and she watched as he pulled out a black ball from her arm. He’d taken out the ink with pliers.

“Wow, holy shit you really got a lot of negative emotions. I knew when I saw the stump that you’d done some fucked up shit but you really gotta get a therapist ugly duckling. Little porky. Big porky? Maybe that’s more fitting?” She screamed and clutched her arm.

“Oh yeah, that definitely hurt. For most people, it wouldn’t but for malcontents like you. Little Malvolio. Little oh fuck I don’t have a reference here.” He sat grinning and touching the swirling black ball of ink.

“What is that?” He smiled.

“This is all your negative emotions for the last day and a bunch of ink. Isn’t it beautiful?” Her arm still stung. He’d lied.

“You stole from me?”

“Nope. I appropriated the dregs of your emotions. You weren’t doing anything with them anyways.” She felt icky. Like something had touched her in the stomach.

“Fuck you.”

“Well I would prefer you don’t fuck me but if you insist.” He said making kissy faces towards her. She looked at him. Looked at this greasy dirtbag and felt sick to her stomach.

“What are you going to do with it? Use it on some poor unsuspecting girl? Use it to rape? To kill? I don’t know what you Junktown shmucks do with your days.”

“Not on some girl. On some criminal assholes that deserve eternal suffering. You’ve got the wrong idea of Junkers girl. It’s just where Los Angeles power-broking assholes like you stuff the poor.” He smirked. Almost as if he said “gotcha” to her.

“Who are you going to use it on.” He smiled and stretched out his hands.

“See Junktown isn’t like the city. We’re magic babe. We’re kings around here. There are more Masters here than anywhere in LA, well except Rustic Canyon or the Hills but those places suck. And when Masters do bad shit. They can only really be punished by other Masters. You ever see someone with The Crown of Thorns?” She hadn’t, she shook her head.

“Well if you do throw some rocks at them. Or like kick them, unless they're a kid, don’t mess with kids that’s fucked. Anyways, I make the Crown of Thorns. It’s the ultimate punishment for a Master. It destroys their drive, it corrupts their skill. A Master with a Crown of Thorns is fucked. Uber fucked. Like those anal videos, you probably watch porky.” She looked at him. He smiled.

“What crimes makes anyone deserve this? It’s like, monstrous, like I can’t even.”

“A lot of stuff. The guy who’s getting this one hasn’t done anything, yet, though. Sorry.” Christian said, looking at his feet.

“So you’re ruining his life over nothing? Just because you want to?” Christian paused and looked out into the distance. Thoughts danced on his face, his brow furrowed and shut and furrowed again.

“We need to take care of him. We’ve discussed it. Me and the rest of them.” She didn’t think she could ask any more questions. His face looked sharp in the half-lighting. His tattoo almost shone.

“Can I at least see you manhandle my emotions?”

“No. Absolutely not porkiepie. Fatso. We can’t just let any numbnuts waltz right in.” His mouth moved up and down in the same ways that he joked before. But beneath his voice, just underneath the surface, sat nothing at all. He was empty. She didn’t say anything.

“These people, you wouldn’t want to deal with these people. Seriously, I’m not trying to be some protective motherfucker because I don’t know anything about who you are or anything of anything. I really just don’t know nothing. Anything. What did I even say. Who am I even talking to.” Iona just looked at him.

“It’s also so gruesome. I’m just like covered in blood everytime it happens. I’m just warning you it’s like totally not something that you’d want to see.” She didn’t say a word. He looked up at her. His skin stuck to him and her skin bounced over her musculature.

“I want to see.”

“Ok. I can get you in. It’s not dangerous.”

They’d arranged to meet each other at 6:00 the next morning. The ritual would take place at a community center in the neighborhood. She’d played basketball there and they would end someone’s life there.

As she got home from Junktown, Iona opened up her deck of cards. In the pack a new card laid, the suit was of Christian’s face as he looked up at her, and now that she looked at it closer. As she stared at the new card, she realized what that emotion was. She was scared.