Skin trade, p.1
Skin Trade, page 1
Skin trade
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright© 2024 Rivka Spicer
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
For further works by this author, please see the bibliography at the end of this book.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Bea stared at the ring of bruises encircling her neck in the bathroom mirror with a grim frown. It had gone too far this time. There was no way she could cover up this level of damage with just make-up. Well fuck.
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“What’s with the scarf?” Bea’s room-mate Emma waltzed into the kitchen and snagged a piece of toast from Bea’s plate. “You look like an air hostess.”
“They’re called flight attendants now,” Bea replied absently, her thoughts elsewhere. Like how the fuck she was going to manage this new and distressing display of power.
“Whatever.” Emma flopped into a seat. “You look awful. Didn’t you sleep at all last night?”
“You’re just full of the compliments today, aren’t you?” Bea snapped, feeling awful when Emma flinched. “I’m sorry. I just…” She sighed. It was easier to show than tell. She pulled the top of the scarf down slightly and Emma’s eyes widened.
“Oh fuck,” she breathed and Bea nodded. Oh fuck indeed. She rearranged the scarf and took another sip of her coffee. “What are you going to do?” Emma had gone pale.
“I don’t know,” Bea admitted. She was out of options. Even so… sharing with Emma at least made her feel a little bit better. Her room-mate was the only person she could tell. If anyone else found out Bea could interact with spirits, she’d lose her job, her home and all her human rights. Having any kind of supernatural ability would get you blacklisted, never mind one as creepy as hers. It had been a total fluke that she and Emma had discovered each other and she’d been so desperately grateful to have someone that understood the fear she lived through, day in and day out. Emma had minimal green-witch powers. Enough to get her blacklisted, but not enough to protect herself, so they covered for each other since they had equally as much to lose.
It had been Emma that had put her in touch with the witch that had made her charms to protect herself from the spirit world. Small, innocuous looking pendants and bracelets, or sun-catchers hanging in her window, for example. But they were small magics and this spirit was powerful. And getting more powerful by the night.
Most spirits didn’t have the energy to interact with supes past talking, although not all supes with Bea’s gift could hear them. Ones that could move objects were rare. Ones that could influence mood were even rarer. But this one… this one’s rage had fuelled it to the terrifying point of being able to possess a person whose mind was vulnerable. When they were asleep, say. It was only a matter of time until it got powerful enough to possess a waking person and that was where it all ended for Bea. Losing control of her body was too dangerous. Her secrets would slip out.
“Can you help it move on?” Emma asked. It was a reasonable question and it wasn’t like Bea hadn’t done it before for other spirits. But this time was different.
“How am I supposed to solve a murder that the Police don’t have a single lead on?” she asked. The ghost didn’t know who’d killed her. Bea had asked her that, back when the spirit had been more benign. All the spirit remembered was choking choking choking, sparkles in her vision, a dark room and a masked man, then the void. She hadn’t been able to name a single person she thought might have had a motive to kill her. In part, that’s what was fuelling her rage – the sheer injustice of it all.
Armed with the spirit’s details, Bea had tried to find information about her death on the internet, but what was there was depressingly sparse. She’d died. The Police had no leads. After two years, the case had gone cold.
To be honest, it didn’t sound like they’d tried very hard once other cases had started to come in. Bethany had been a norm, to all appearances, but her apartment had been on the fringes of the supe side of town. Close enough to cast the shadow of suspicion that she might have been a supe masquerading as a norm. The divide between the two classes was getting wider and wider. That side of town was lawless, ruled by the criminal gangs and underworld bosses who kept their own kind of order.
"I don't know anyone that could make you stronger protection," Em said, her face glum as she chewed her stolen toast.
"Honestly, I think it's gone past being contained by regular charms and wards," Bea admitted. "The only thing that's going to stop it is ink. Which I can't afford." It seemed callous to call the spirit an ‘it’, but speaking their names gave them power and it was already strong enough.
"So what do we do?" Em asked and Bea shrugged.
"For now I go to work. Tonight I'll try and figure something out." If she had to throw herself on the mercy of an inkslinger, she'd do it. If she had to spend seventy-two hours working around the clock to drum up money, she'd do it. She couldn't afford to be outed and neither could Em. They'd come too far, and life on the supe side could be grim if you got kicked over there with nothing but the clothes you were wearing.
Draining the rest of her coffee, she gave Em a brave smile and headed down the street and around the corner to her little salon, Nailed It. Even her worries about the spirit couldn't stop her smile as she entered the studio she rented. She'd built up enough of a reputation to work alone as the best nail tech in the city, with a waiting list of almost eight months. If you wanted something crazy, like the latest trend of aquarium nails, she could build them for you. Her clients paid hundreds of dollars, but each set took hours to make and the rent and materials weren't cheap. She made a decent living and had a small pot of savings for a rainy day, but nowhere close to the thousands she'd have to pay for the kind of protection she needed to ask for. Inked skin wards lasted for life and that cost a fortune. Never mind that only two parlors in the city had inkslingers capable of that kind of power and both were in a dangerous part of town.
Putting thoughts of spirits and tattoos out of her mind, she set up her station and waited for her first client of the day.
Chapter 2
It was already dark by the time Bea closed out her last customer of the day and she locked the door, emptying the till and taking everything out of the safe to count it in the small back room. If she drained her current and savings accounts on the way, leaving the bare minimum to keep a roof over her head and feed her a week's supply of ramen noodles, she could scrape together close to ten grand. It would have to do. Stuffing the money into her bag, she gathered her things and went to see a man about some ink.
Paranoia had her zigzagging all over the city before she finally made her way out of a rundown metro station into the supe side of town. Everything was different here. The streetlights were dim and mostly shot out. The buildings were coated in graffiti and bullet pock marks. After dark, most of it was boarded up and warded to the gunnels against theft and violence, but she could hear raucous laughter and music from the nearby bars. Shivering, she dragged her coat tightly closed around her body and set off with a determined step in the direction of the tattoo parlor. She'd looked it up before she left the salon and memorised the directions. Flashing a nice phone here to follow a map was just an excuse to get mugged. Or worse. These were supposed to be her people, but she'd never been more scared in her life.
Thankfully the place she was looking for was only a handful of streets away from the metro stop and she hurried towards the lights, barely pausing before she entered.
It was a big parlor with half a dozen artists all mid-session, mostly working on guys that were already covered in ink. The kind of guys that had teardrops on their faces and gang marks on their necks. She stuck out like a flamingo in a flock of pigeons and the whole place went silent in the wake of her arrival as everyone turned to stare.
"I think you've got the wrong address, Sweet Cheeks," the guy at the front desk said with a smirk. "We don't deal with your kind here."
"Yes you do." She set her jaw and headed forward to speak to him. "Just because I come from over there doesn't mean I'm one of them."
"Don't mean you're one of us either," he replied flatly. "You don't get to walk in here in your fancy-ass clothes and pretend you're one of us."
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't need your help," she said, trying a different tack, since clearly building a rapport wasn't happening. "I need a skin ward. A strong one. And I'm told this is the best place in town to get one."
Finally she caught his attention. Big money items were always worth discussing. "How strong are we talking?" he asked and she swallowed.
"Strong enough to deal with an angry spirit capable of doing this," she replied, undoing the scarf at her throat and tugging it off to show the full extent of the livid bruising. "I'm only days away from waking possession and I can't let that happen. Please. I've tried everything else. It's too strong."
There was a brief flash of pity in his eyes before they hardened again and it was back to all business. "That kind of work is going to set you back twenty g’s," he said bluntly and she flinched. She'd known it would be a lot, but that was a crazy amount she hadn't anticipated. Prices must have gone up since the outdated information she'd been able to find online.
"I can give you ten grand tonight and the rest in two weeks," she told him. The bank might front her a loan for that amount, although she was self-employed and had no collateral. "But I need the ink tonight."
"Payment is up front. No exceptions."
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck fucking fuck. "Please, I'm begging you." To her horror, she felt tears pricking her eyes. "I'm desperate. If it possesses me fully, I'm going to lose everything. I promise I'll get the money. I swear I'm good for it."
"We've heard that before, Lady," one of the artists called across. "And we've all learned the hard way that people don't come back with what they owe. You pay up front, or no one in this business will ink you."
She could see them all nodding and panic swarmed up her throat, making her shrill as she tried one last time.
"Please. Please! I'm begging you to help me. I'll sign whatever you want. Please!"
"What's all the ruckus out here?"
God... that voice... it was the aural love child of velvet and whisky; soft and husky, with a raw smoky power that didn't need to shout to be heard. She shivered as it curled around her exposed throat and turned to see who had spoken. The man standing behind her was tall and lean, with soft brown eyes, but they were a lie. Everything about him screamed apex predator, from his buzzcut black hair down to his solid leather boots.
"Lady needs some special ink in a hurry and can't afford to pay up front," the receptionist explained.
"How short?" Whoever he was, he didn't waste any words.
"Ten g’s."
"Is that right." It wasn't a question. She felt her face flaming as he turned the full force of that soft gaze on her and slowly perused her up and down, his lips twisting either in amusement or appreciation. She couldn't tell. It was like waiting for a mountain lion to decide whether he was going to eat her for dinner or not, and her cheeks were flaming by the time by the time his eyes found hers again.
"Come with me."
He turned with every expectation of being obeyed and, for a second, Bea hesitated. Following some guy she didn't know into a back room of a backstreet tattoo parlor was not something a smart woman did, but she was desperate. He paused at the side door and didn't turn around, but just that fraction of a second was enough to rush her forwards after him. Even though she couldn't see his face, she could tell he was smirking at her obedience. She was like a puppy called to heel and her skin prickled with shame and helpless rage.
Through the door was a surprisingly nice office, all dark wood and dim lighting with a well-stocked bar filling one wall. His desk was sleek and modern, but there was no laptop on it. There wasn't anything on it. Not even a pot of pens and pencils, like a normal person would have in their place of work.
He rounded the desk and sat back in the big black chair there. Now that she wasn't completely overwhelmed by the force of his presence, she could study his face. He was younger than she'd first thought, the same age as her, maybe. Early thirties, definitely no more. His features were fine, sharp even, under that smooth olive skin, but he pulled it off with a wide smile that she bet would be stunning if she ever actually saw it in full force. Not that she wanted to. The man was a tiger. The less time she spent in his presence, the better. She didn't usually hang around guys that had neck tattoos. She briefly wondered where else on his body he had ink and then shut that train of thought down real quick. She wasn't interested. She didn't go for bad boys and he was lean and wiry, like a runner or featherweight boxer. She preferred her men a little less slim.
In the same way she was studying him, he was studying her. If she hadn't been looking directly at him, she might have missed the way his eyes flickered up and down her body, but she definitely caught both that and the amusement in his eyes.
"So." He finally broke the silence. "What's a girl like you doin' in a place like this?"
"Believe me, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't necessary," she replied fervently, only belatedly realizing how offensive that sounded when the laughter in his eyes and the quirk of his lips let her know she'd mis-stepped. "I'm a Medium," she confessed, blurting it out to cover her blunder. "I've been latched onto by a spirit strong enough to possess me when I sleep." His eyes flicked to the ring of bruises around her neck and narrowed. "It's only days away from being strong enough to possess me when I'm awake, and I don't think it would benefit anyone to have a spirit in my body going on a murderous rampage around the city."
He was silent for a moment. "You ain't from around here," he observed and she inwardly rolled her eyes. That wasn't exactly a deep observation.
"No, I'm not."
"You work?" he asked and she nodded slowly, wondering where this new direction was going.
"Yes. I run my own business."
"Then I think you and I can help each other," he said, leaning forward. "You see, you have a cash flow problem and I have a laundry problem."
A laundry problem? How many shirts would she have to iron to pay off a ten grand debt?? Her eyes dropped to the navy blue button-down he was wearing and he actually chuckled. "It ain't that kinda laundry, Darlin'."
Darlin'. Half of her bristled at his condescending tone and the other half wanted to wrap itself around his voice and do naughty, nasty things. Stupid body. Maybe she was hormonal. It was the only explanation for it. The man was asking her to launder illegal cash, for fuck’s sake.
"So what do you say?" he asked. "How bad do you want this ink?"
She tried really, really hard not to look at the tats on his neck and failed miserably. He was making it hard to think, with the way he was staring at her. She desperately needed the ward, or she was as good as dead. That wasn't in question. But was it worth getting it, only to die in a week or two weeks when this guy realized she was out of her depth and put a bullet in her?
"I don't know anything about... laundry," she said bluntly, and he shrugged.
"That ain't my problem. You want the ink or not?"
"I need it," she admitted miserably.
"Then we have a deal." He grinned and she shivered. It was as beautiful as it was deadly. He pressed a button somewhere and the door swung inwards on silent hinges. "Give the lady whatever she wants," he said to whoever was standing behind her, his eyes never leaving hers. "And you, come back in here before you leave. I'll have your... laundry ready to go."
She swallowed and almost said 'yes, sir', but bit it back. "What if I don't?" she said, a sudden spurt of insanity overtaking her. "What if I just leave?"
At that, he burst out laughing and the mocking sound of it followed her all the way back out into the parlor, where she was seated in a chair and the artist started to hash out the details.
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It was close to midnight by the time she was done and part of her hoped that Mr. tall, dark and dangerous had left for the night, but she knew she'd never be that lucky. She paid them what she had out of her own money and then went to the side door to deal with the rest. The door was already swinging open by the time she raised her hand to knock and she almost stepped back, startled, but forced herself to stay where she was. Showing weakness to these guys wasn't an option.
