INK

**New and improved editing**

Spending half the day in the crowded, stifling heat, of a neighbor’s attic was no way to spend your summer vacation. Especially when the ‘said’ attic was full of creepy crawlies who liked to leave webs in the most unlikely places. Just thinking about arachnids gave Cameron the willies.

He was bound by his promise though. Their neighbor, Mr. Satsu, was going on seventy-two years old and was much too old to be moving boxes and antique furniture. Cam’s older brother, Jake, was supposed to be helping too, but somehow the weasel had managed to sneak off with his girlfriend.

Mr. Satsu was in the den, carefully picking through the musty boxes Cam had lugged down the steep stairwell. Cam kicked one of the smaller boxes aside, preferring to take all the heavier ones first. The box slid across the floor and flipped on its side, spilling out marbles.

Cam blew out an exasperated breath. No way was he going to risk tripping on marbles and falling in a house this old. With his luck he’d fall straight through the floor. It already creaked something awful with each step he took. He bent down and began collecting the marbles with one hand. With his other hand he tipped the box back on its bottom. He was preparing to toss the marbles back in the box when he saw it. At the bottom of the box, ten by twelve inches long, was a leather bound book. The insignia was three circles intertwined with a dragon’s head, protruding from the middle. The insignia was done in bone white, except for the glittering eyes. They were the color of blood rubies.

Cam reached in and took the book out. It felt heavier than it looked, like the pages inside might be made of more than paper. He traced the insignia with his forefinger. For a kid who loved Dungeon and Dragons there was no question that he wanted it. As old as it was it had to be worth a fortune, not that he would ever consider selling it.

Cam got up and hurried toward the stairwell. You had to go down them sideways because the steps were hardly wide enough for one foot. In his hurry, he nearly tripped at only half way, but he steadied himself with one hand on the wall.

He hurried into the den. Mr. Satsu was bent over, reaching into one of the boxes to get the last of the books inside. A wall of books, he’d separated by genre, already encircled him. Cam paused in front of the piles. He held up the book he was holding. “Mr. Satsu, can I have this book?” God he hoped so! He had a feeling this one was going to be interesting!

“Let's see what you have there young man.” Mr. Satsu took off his glasses. They were covered in a thin layer of dust, which he rubbed off on his shirt. He held the glasses up to the light. “Damn, must have been a pebble in that dust. I scratched my lens.” He mumbled something about having bought scratchproof eyeglasses. Seeming to forget about Cam’s question, as so often happened to people his age, Mr. Satsu got out of his chair, intent on finding Lencrafters’ telephone number to give them a piece of his mind.

Cam called him before he got to the door. “Mr. Satsu can I have the book?”

“Oh, yeah, sure Cam. You done with all the boxes yet?”

Cam nodded. “There are a few more.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen making a phone call, but keep it coming.”

Cam looked down at his book and smiled. “Sure thing.”


*****
The book was fascinating. Well, at least the pictures were. The writing was in Latin, and Cam barely recognized two words in a row. The pages were the weirdest thing he’d ever seen, brown and grainy, almost as leathery as the book. He thought the book must have been made before they’d learned to bleach paper. That probably made it ancient. Which meant he was the soul owner of a relic.

He was a happy man.

It took him four days to go through the whole book and get his feel of the pictures. The pictures weren’t colored or anything. The lines drawn were made in black ink. He thought it odd that they didn’t look faded at all, as if they’d been drawn just a few days ago, but he chalked that up the quality of the paper and ink. It wasn’t like the cheap shit they produced today. Nothing lasted long in the twenty-first century.

As for the pictures themselves: there were drawings of fantastical beasts Cam had never even seen before. Even as he admired the detail, some of the pictures were downright creepy. One drawing in particular kept drawing his him back to it over and over again. It was another insignia like the one on the front of the book.This one had three entwined circles as well, but there were spikes on the circles making them looked barbed. Instead of a dragon in the middle there was a jagged lighting bolt.

For a week Cam came back to the exact page, and he could stare at it for almost an hour at a time. Something about it drew him. His birthday was coming up in a week and Cam knew just what he wanted when he turned eighteen. Grabbing one of his notebooks he ripped out a piece of paper, scribbled a word down, and stuck it inside the page to mark it. He closed the book and carefully put it back on his bookshelf. Then he went downstairs to join his mother and Jake for dinner.

The paper read, 'Tattoo'.

***
Cam propped the book up on one of his pillows, and sat on the bed. He’d dragged the mirror over so he could see what he was doing. His bed was littered with paper from where he’d practiced drawing the tattoo. Besides anything to do with Dungeons and Dragons, or XBOX 360, Cam loved to draw.

He’d decided he wanted to see what the tattoo would look like before he got it. He really just couldn’t stop think about the design. A picture of it would pop into his head out of the blue. He’d been watching T.V. just an hour ago when the idea had hit him to draw it on his arm. His birthday was tomorrow, but Cam just couldn’t wait.

He’d decided to draw the design just below his right shoulder. That’s where he planned to get the Tattoo, because he was left-handed and he wouldn’t have to use his soar arm that much. The lightning bolt was easy; it was getting the little barbs on each of the circles that made him concentrate. He tried to draw them with as much detail as the picture had shown. He’d study the picture long enough to know there were six barbs to each circle. He was drawing the last barb when the air in front of his eyes went all swimmy. He shook his head, to clear it.

“Fuck!” The action forced the ballpoint pen to draw a drop of blood. Cam ignored the small droplet that slid down his arm, and connected the final barb to the circle.

That is when it hit him. Pain. It slammed into him, sharp, hard, and all consuming. The pain enveloped him so completely he couldn’t get enough air to scream. Catching a glimpse of his arm in the mirror, Cam looked on with disbelief as a tiny forks of electricity erupted from the tattoo, growing in size as it traveled up his arm. The light was just under his skin, illuminating him from the inside out. It traveled up to his shoulder, and changed directions. It was forging a path straight for his heart.

Cam didn’t remember passing out. When he woke up, it was to blackness. He lifted his head. It felt like it weighed a ton. What the hell had just happened? His mind was a little fuzzy and all he wanted in that instant was a little light. He’d never been one to fear the dark but there was something about this darkness that was deeper then most.

Cam found the light switch in record time. He’d reached for the light with his right arm. When the light came on his saw it. Not the ink he’d used to draw the tattoo, but the cauterized flesh that now made up a perfect lightning bolt, surrounded by three circles, and of course the barbs. Cam went cold. He didn’t think he’d ever be warm again.


****
The fine hairs at the back of Jake’s neck wanted to crawl down his spine. That’s what made him look up from his textbook. His brother was standing in his doorway, shivering like a leaf. Cam was cradling his arm like it was broken. His big, brown eyes looked wide and shocked.

Jake snatched off his earphones and leapt off the bed. “Cam! Man what’s wrong? Is your arm hurt?” Jake carefully lifted his brother’s arm. It was warm and if he wasn’t mistaken, tingly: like tiny electrical currents were running just under the skin. He slid his hand up Cam’s arm. “Cam your arm is hot.” His fingers brushed a different texture of skin and he pushed up the short sleeve of Cam’s t-shirt. “What the fuck! What did you do to yourself?”

Cam wasn’t talking. He looked in shock. Jake shook his opposite shoulder just in case the one he held was hurting. “Cam, talk to me. When did you burn yourself like this? His fingers traced the scar tissue. It was days, maybe even weeks old. It made no sense. The Cam he knew wouldn’t mutilate himself intentionally. “Did Kyle talk you into doing this shit?!” That was one particular friend of Cam’s that Jake flat out didn’t like.

Cam shook his head. He still wasn’t talking but at least that was something. Jake released his brother’s arm. The arm was still tingly and it was weirding him out. Jake raked his hand through his short, sandy blonde hair: the same color he shared with his little brother. Mom was going to kill Cam when she found out. Hell she was going to kill Jake too for not doing anything to stop it. Never mind trying to explain to her that he couldn’t have known.

“I-It was j-just ink!” Cam said, interrupting his brother’s thoughts. Hearing his own voice seemed to ground him, because he repeated it again. “Just ink. No burns J.” Now his eyes were filling with water. and fat tears trailed down his cheeks. What the fuck! Cam hardly ever cried. He hadn’t even cried two summers ago when he broke his arm. Oh, he’d done a lot of moaning and cursing, but cry? Hell no! Cam was a tough little shit. That alarmed Jake even more then the burn.

He did the only thing he could do. He folded Cam in his arms. Cam was two inches shorter then him, so his head fit under his brother’s chin, and gave Cam a place to bury his face, and run hot tears all down his brother’s shirt. Jake stroked his brothers back, and even as he did, he tried to tell himself that that there wasn’t electrical currents running down Cam’s back. It was just a trick of the mind, from too many hours of studying his brain out.

“What am I gonna do Jake?!” Cam said in a watery voice.

I don’t even know what the hell is going on, Jake's brain screamed. He said, “We’ll figure it out.”

Cam nodded.

They would.