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  His eyes bespeak volumes. I know he immediately senses my confusion. He frowns. “What’s wrong?”

  Pushing up on my elbows, I sit up. “Had a bad dream,” I said, trying to recount how I’d gotten from the alley to my bed without Eli or Seth knowing I’d left the apartment—if I’d left at all. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure. I look at Eli. “Have I been here all night?”

  Eli’s eyes narrow. “Why would you ask that?”

  Frustrated, I jump out of bed. “Damn it Eli, stop answering my questions with more questions.” Pulling the curtains back, I stare out over River Street. “Have I been in bed with you all night?”

  “Yes,” he says, and moves behind me. Wrapping his arms around me, he pulls me against him. “Tell me.”

  I relax. “Damn, it was so realistic. I…was out in the street, at night, and I saw Bhing from next door getting attacked by two newlings. I killed them. Bhing got away.” I turn and stare up at his concerned expression. “Then I felt, I don’t know. Sick. Dizzy.” I shrug. “Next thing I know, you’re waking me up.”

  “Want me to go check on Bhing?” he asks.

  I sigh and move out of Eli’s arms. “No. I will. If it really happened last night I’m sure I freaked her out. Besides, I want to go visit Preacher and Estelle before I get ready for work anyway.” Preacher and Estelle keep a store, Da Plat Eye—a Gullah herbs and concoctions parlor—right next door. They live upstairs, just like I live above Inksomnia.

  “They’re not there,” Eli says. “Ri, they left Monday morning to go visit Estelle’s sister in Charleston. Don’t you remember?”

  Slowly, I turn and look at Eli. My insides turn cold. “Today is Monday.”

  Eli’s face is drawn, worried. “Today is Wednesday.”

  I close my eyes, push my fingertips against the sockets. What’s happening to me? I’m now losing chunks of time? I scramble in my memory, trying to remember. I recall going to bed, then suddenly being outside, fighting two newlings over Bhing’s blood. The last thing I want to do though is freak Eli out. The very last thing. I chuckle, shake my head. “God, I’m getting old. Dream must’ve sucked the life out of me.” I glance at Eli. “No pun intended.” Glancing at the clock on my bedside table, I stretch. “I’m starved. Think I’ll go grab some Kremes and coffee. Wanna go with?”

  “Absolutely,” Eli says.

  I don’t think he plans on letting me out of his sight anytime soon. It already pisses him off to no end that he can’t read my mind like he used to. The Arcoses really did a number on my DNA. Since it keeps changing, I have no idea where I’ll end up. Me. Riley Poe. What’s left of me, anyway. I can’t bullshit Eli for long about my loss of time. Don’t want to. It scares the shit out of me, truth be told. I’ll try to handle it first. See what Victorian can tell me. Maybe I can learn to control it like I have my other tendencies? I hope to God so.

  “Hey, bro, running to KK,” I say. “Want anything?”

  Seth glances at me, his usually bright expression dull. “No thanks.”

  “Something wrong?” I ask, perplexed.

  Seth’s gaze lingers on mine for a second or two, almost as if he’s waiting on me to guess. “No,” he finally answers, and pulls on his jacket. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Where’re you going?” It’s not like Seth to be so sullen with me, but lately, we’ve both been through so much crap, we’ve learned to give each other a little space.

  “School, Ri,” he answers. “Mrs. Dupré likes me there early.” Elise home-schools Seth and Josie.

  I nod. “Okay. Later.”

  Seth, silent, walks past me and out the door. I try to ignore the hurt I feel and look at Eli. I’m pretty sure the smile I paste on my face looks fake as hell. “Ready?”

  “He just worries about you, you know?” he says quietly.

  I grab the Jeep keys from the hook and head out. “Yeah. I know.”

  The moment I step outside, I see Bhing at the Dumpster. She is heading back into her store and she spares me a single look and a wave. Her silky black hair, cut in a shoulder-length bob, swings with her every movement. She stares at me through her glasses. I wave back. So, she’s safe after all. I wonder what she’s thinking?

  We make it to Krispy Kreme and back in thirty minutes. I eat four glazed doughnuts and sip my sugar-and-cream-loaded coffee while going over a few ink designs I have scheduled for the day. I can tell my head isn’t in the game, or in the food, and both tick me off. What’s more frustrating is that I don’t know what to do about it. Sometimes it’s worse than others. These feelings are relatively new. Eli knows my irritation; he watches intently as I dress for work in a pair of ripped, faded low-rider jeans, a black Inksomnia long-sleeved tee and a pair of worn boots. Pulling my hair into a high ponytail, I brush my teeth and head downstairs to open shop. I feel anxious. Unsettled. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen Preacher and Estelle. I just can’t figure it all out.

  I hear Nyx a full three minutes before she enters the shop.

  Rather, I hear her heart beating.

  For a split second, just before Nyx opens the front door, my vision blurs. The sound of Nyx’s heart thumping inside its cage reverberates inside of me. Her blood whooshes through the vessels as it races to and from the organ. I can friggin’ hear its resonance. I shake my head a few times, take some breaths, close my eyes, clear my head. Rid my brain of it. Goddamn it! What the hell?

  “Riley.” Eli stands next to me, his hand on my shoulder, his voice stern, steady. Almost as if he knows my inner turmoil. I glance briefly at him. My mind begins to clear.

  “Riley! Good morning!” Nyx greets as she steps inside, and I turn my attention to her. Luc is right behind her. Gene, the Welcome Raven—appropriately named after Gene Simmons—crows above the door. For some reason, both sounds annoy me. Nyx drops her oversized pink handbag with black skull and crossbones at her station and crosses over to me. She pulls me into a tight hug. In the span of a few seconds, she assesses me. “You didn’t get much sleep, huh? Poor thing. You look tired.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I say, and move to the iPod station. “Isn’t that the same thing as saying I look like shit?”

  Nyx yanked my ponytail. “Yeah, pretty much. So get some more sleep. I know you don’t need as much anymore, but a little more couldn’t hurt. You have dark circles under your eyes, Ri. You’ve lost all the color that you got from Da Island when you were rehabilitating and between your pale skin and dark circle eyes, you actually look like a, um. You know.”

  I glance over my shoulder at Nyx, who passes a single look to first Eli, then Luc.

  “What? You mean a vampire?” I ask. I almost laugh.

  “Yes! But more like a Hollywood version. Dracula. You know?” she replies.

  Luc approaches and grasps my chin with his hand, turning my face left and right. His eyes, the same shade of cerulean blue as all the Duprés, study me with intensity. “Damn, Poe. You do look like shit.”

  I jerk away. “I gotta get busy.” Feeling like some Freddie Mercury, I select “Killer Queen” and start work. I tune out Eli, Luc, and Nyx, as well as my own bad mood as I sift through my designs. Without looking up, I feel all of their eyes on me. Eli’s gaze is burning into me like a branding iron. This morning I simply don’t care.

  My first appointment arrives. I’m freehand outlining a fairly large spider over the ribcage of a lanky young dude. Not an ounce of body fat on him. “Take off your shirt and get comfortable,” I say, and point in the direction of my table. “You okay with an audience?”

  The guy shrugs. “Sure, no prob.”

  I nod and flip the switch to the Widow, my beloved tattooing machine. Or, as Estelle calls it, the Black Engine. As I’m setting up the ink pots, I glance at him. “How’s your pain tolerance?”

  Again, he shrugs. “I’m good.”

  I again nod. “If you need a break just let me know.” I thumped his ribs. He didn’t even budge, which was a good sign. “You have zero body fat. It’s not gonna feel great over those
bones, dude. Promise.”

  “I’m cool, I’m cool,” he assures. “I can take it.”

  “All right then,” I say, shaking my head. I’m not in any mood for a crybaby today. I scrub his side with antiseptic. “Lie with your arm resting above your head on the pillow and let’s get going.”

  The kid’s good. He doesn’t even flinch as my needle moves over his bumpy ribs. The hum of the Widow mixes with Freddie Mercury’s unique pitch and blessedly pulls me into the zone. All is going pretty well for a handful of minutes. I feel like my old self. I sense my old life, before vampires, newlings, and tendencies. Before the Arcoses. I’m in there, barely hanging on by a thread.

  I lean close over the kid’s ribs, freehand sketching the body of the spider that is approximately eight inches in length, six inches in width. I move with my needle, wiping the blood with a four-by-four-inch piece of gauze. I wipe. Blood. Wipe. Blood.

  Blood.

  Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” is now fading away in the background, and becomes muffled until it is nothing more than a soft hum. Nyx’s happy chatter fades. Luc’s constant flirting fades. Eli’s totally silent. Only one thing remains.

  This kid’s heartbeat.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  I take a deep breath, shake my head, and continue.

  The needle penetrates the skin in rapid-fire shots as I move along, creating the outline of the spider. My gaze fixes on the beads of blood, and I wipe with the gauze. I continue. More blood. Not a lot. Just beads. But there are a lot of them. The more I stare, the more I concentrate. What was a line of ink with whelps of blood turns into filleted skin as my needle plunges three inches into the kid’s side. Blood pours out. I jerk back in horror.

  “What?” the kid says. His voice is shallow, as though it’s calling from a deep tunnel. He peers over his ribs at where I’m working.

  I glance at him, and his face is concerned, but nothing more. When I look back at his side, it’s perfectly normal. I blink, shake my head. Sweat breaks out across my forehead and I wipe it with my forearm. “Nothing. My needle jammed is all,” I lie. “I’ll change it fast. Just relax.”

  “No prob,” he says, and lies back.

  I turn to change the perfectly good needle, and Eli’s at my ear. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks quietly. Even his voice sounds muffled, and I know he’s mostly speaking inside my head. He sounds far, far away.

  The whole while, I hear that kid’s heart beating.

  I draw another deep breath. “Needle jammed,” I say. “Everything’s fine.”

  I glance at Eli’s face to reassure him. He’s not reassured at all. His face is pulled into lines and sharp planes of worry. He says nothing. Only watches. Behind him, Luc does the same. Both irritate me. But Eli’s constant presence seriously annoys me. I try to block him out.

  I continue with the spider and the kid.

  Focusing on my work, I try to block the thumping of his heart. It takes such strength to manipulate the sounds around me that sweat again breaks out across my forehead. It’s almost what drug or alcohol withdrawals feel like, and I can speak from experience on that one. Your body craves, and turns itself inside out to fight off that craving. It feels like a thousand ants are crawling inside your skin, trying to break free. I try to ignore the feeling, try not to rush, take my time, making the legs of the spider design angled, defined, and structured. I’m almost finished. Thank God. Just a little more.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  I glance at the kid’s face, and I gasp and stumble back. His eyes are missing, sockets are deep and black, and his face and skin have a bluish-white hue. The area over his heart is filleted open, and the organ beats before my eyes. Beckons.

  My mouth goes dry.

  “Riley.”

  A hand tightens around my upper arm, squeezes hard. I blink and wipe my sweaty brow. When I look at the kid, he’s okay. Normal. Staring at me.

  I force a smile. “Okay. All done.” I set my needle on the stainless steel tray. “You did good. Didn’t even flinch going over all that bone.”

  The kid, thankfully, is oblivious to my turmoil. He smiles proudly. “Thanks.” Cocking his head, he stretches and looks at my work. “Ah, freak! That’s sick!”

  My insides are still shaking, and his heart is still slamming in my ear. “Glad you like it. Let’s cover it up now.”

  He lies back, and it’s all I can do to apply the antibiotic ointment and cover the area with nonstick gauze. I tape the edges. “You’re good to go.”

  “Sweet,” he replies, and hops off the table. “When can I come back for the color?”

  “It has to be completely healed,” I say, and I wipe my brow again. “No scabs, no raw places. Let’s set you up for four weeks and see how it looks.”

  The kid nods. “Cool.”

  “Here,” Luc says. “Meet me up front and I’ll give you instructions and ointment samples.” He glances at me, and I give a half smile. He inclines his head and leads the kid up front.

  Only now do I realize the crowd that has gathered in Inksomnia. It’s not an unusual crowd. It’s not at all strange for a large group to gather at the picture window and watch us work, or a group to stand inside and look through the design books. Inksomnia is sort of well-known, especially in the tattoo world, and I’ve made quite a name for myself as an artist. People have traveled far just to have me ink their design. People who’ve never even heard of me gather at the window to watch the tattooing process. It’s not weird to have a crowd nearly every day. It’s not strange to have people ask to take pictures with me.

  It’s strange that I didn’t know they were here in the first place.

  I feel sick. Nauseated. Out of control. Adrenaline soars. Heart sluggish. Sweaty.

  “Ms. Poe, can we get a pic with you?” someone in the group asks.

  “Just a sec,” I say, nausea choking me. I head to the back before I toss Krispy Kremes everywhere. When I glance at the crowd, their faces are all gruesome: eye sockets black, white-blue skin, and the hearts are all beating so hard I see it through their shirts. I stumble. What’s going on?

  Eli catches me just before I fall and eases me onto the steps of the staircase. I sit, elbows on knees, head hanging between. I gulp in air.

  Kneeling in front of me, Eli pushes my escaped bangs from my face and holds them to my head with one hand. “Riley,” he says, and I hear the urgency in his voice. “What is wrong?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m coming down with the flu?” That’s such a damn lie and I know it. Eli probably knows it too. I don’t know what else to say. The truth? Human heartbeats are consuming my thoughts. I smell their blood. I’m starting to crave.

  No friggin’ way can I tell him that. Victorian already did and Eli didn’t believe him. Thank God he can’t hear it in my head, nor does he recall his own torturous turning. I breathe deeply and give myself a pep talk. Get a grip, Poe. It’s just your wacky DNA morphing again. Gilles said this would happen. Don’t be a baby! Talk to Vic. He can help. It’s part of him inside you anyway. You can handle this. Breathe…

  The slow, rhythmic strokes of Eli’s fingers over the back of my neck, along with my slow, controlled breaths, ease the cravings, lessen the noise, dissipate the nausea. I don’t know how long I sit there on the steps, but I start feeling better. Finally, I raise my head and meet Eli’s worried gaze.

  Worried and angry gaze, I should say.

  “Thanks,” I graze his jaw with my fingertips. “I feel better now.”

  The penetrating stare tells me Eli doesn’t believe it. Not one word.

  “Promise,” I say, and stand. “Come on. I have a pic to take.”

  Eli says nothing as I pass by and head back to the front of the shop. His brother is equally grim; Luc studies me as I make my way to the crowd of guys gathered for the pic, and I slide him a quick look and then fasten my attention to the ink fans. Someone pulls out a digital camera, I stand in the middle of the crowd, and sev
eral pics are taken.

  “Can we see the dragon?” one younger guy asks.

  “Ah,” I say, “you caught me on an off day. Nothing underneath here this time,” I say, pointing to my shirt. “Summer is the best time to catch that.” People who know or have heard of me always want to see the dragon inked on my back, courtesy of Nyx. In the summer, I wear clothes that easily show most of it, or I wear a bikini top underneath my shirt so I can take off whatever I’m wearing and show off for the onlookers. It’s become sort of my trademark. Today, though, I’m not into it.

  A few groans go through the crowd, and Nyx waves to them. “Hey! We have a few postcards over here with Riley and me. You can see the dragon perfectly!”

  Everyone moves to the sales counter, and Nyx shows the rack of postcards. She glances at me, and I mouth thanks.

  I don’t understand it, but the rest of the day passes smoothly. I have no further episodes. No further cravings. Heartbeats recede. Only normalcy.

  I don’t break for lunch but work through instead. By six p.m. I am wrapping up my last client: a Savannah College of Art and Design, better known as SCAD, student with a dainty black butterfly arm cuff. Her arm is as big around as a pipe cleaner, so it doesn’t take me long. I apply her ointment, cover with gauze, and give her instructions. In the fading light falling on Savannah, she walks down the sidewalk, happily chatting on her cell, stretching her arm out and admiring her art through its gauzy cover.

  My memory skips back to the past, when Nyx inked my dragons. I remember not being able to stay away from mirrors, I wanted to look at them all the time. To me they meant struggle, conquering demons, strength. Empowerment. I was so proud of them. I am proud of them.

  A ping of envy hits me. I used to have a normal life, where a little body art made my day, made me happy beyond belief. I enjoyed Sundays with Seth, with Preacher and Estelle, and chillin’ on the floor of my living room with Nyx, sketching designs. Cramming slice after slice of pizza in our mouths. Taking Chaz for walks. I want it all back. I want it all the hell back.