And I looked aside for any help, saw Jinx and Cinnamon hanging from a hook, saw Alex and Buck laid unmoving—and then I saw that Wulf still breathed.
“Look. I… I know you want my tattoos, and maybe Cinnamon’s too, if you decide not to turn her,” I said. Mirabilus said nothing, so I cautiously continued. “And I know how you feel about the magicians. I won’t get in the way of you eliminating your rivals—”
“Won’t?” Mirabilus said curiously, putting his hand on my buttocks. “Or can’t?”
I cringed again, but continued. “But you don’t need to let Wulf die.” I cried. “His marks are too old to harvest. He’s not a magician at all. He doesn’t even know what you’ve done to him. He served you well, even if he didn’t know it. How could he possibly be a threat?”
“Wulfgang? That old Nazi bastard?” Valentine laughed. “He’s no threat at all. In fact he was my favorite stalking horse—all I needed to do was plant a suggestion about a ‘cure’ for his ‘curse’, and steer him towards my target. Normally he’d dig up one or two practitioners, but this time he struck gold, I have to say. At last, he’s helped me draw out my true rival.”
I looked over at Buck. I’d drawn him into this. “Oh no. Not Buck—”
“Oh, no, not him, my dear. And not Alex or Jinx either. They’re all just wankers,” Valentine said. “Even Buckhead, prize that he is, is in the end a pathetic old fool, a fading wannabe-god who never learned anything. None of them, not a one, know the Art.”
He shrugged off his cloak, exposing a barrel chest covered in intricate tattoos.
“My true rival, my dear, is you.”
43. SKINNING THE DANCER
“Tattooing is the only true magical art,” Mirabilus said, spreading his arms wide, showing off a hundred, a thousand detailed tattoos, each a hyperintricate knot of runes and sigils I would have been proud to have inked—had they not been woven throughout with scars and brands and symbols of pain and death. “Tarot readings, onmyoji mystics, hexes—all nonsense. Ley lines, sacrifices, potions— mere dabbling. Only necromancers come close to the true nature of magic; their every spell is powered by the spilt blood of a living thing. But do they recognize the source of their power? No—they let all that magic bleed out into the air, catching only a whiff to make some dead thing dance like a marionette.”
“Only the Art truly understands the true source of all magic: life.” He shrugged his shoulders, and his tattoos seemed to glow to life, coming off his body in a haze of psychedelic color. “All the inks and powders and designs and rituals are just a way of focusing the power that is life. Understand that, and you can do anything.”
“From the olden days, the Hebrews tried to stamp us out,” he said, raising his voice. “They knew what we could do and murdered us, overturned our stones, defiled our altars. We had to go underground, practice our rites in secret—”
“Baal,” I said. “You’re literally a priest of Baal—”
“Close enough,” Mirabilus said, bowing slightly. “You know enough to recognize the words, but have forgotten what they mean. Should I… introduce you to the rites of Ba’alat Gebal before I take my prize?”
Something about his tone made my skin crawl—fuck that. “I knew I saw something Middle Eastern in your skin tone,” I said. “You’re a descendant of priests of Baal who escaped persecution by pretending to be Jews. You threw me off with that ‘Christopher Saint Valentine’s Day’ stage name, but I’m sure of it now—what did your family do, switch to pretending to be Christian once the Jews were the ones being persecuted?”
Mirabilus was silent for a moment, then laughed bitterly. “Wrong, but close enough—the Inheritance of Byblos has taken many guises over the millennia. You know, the rites of Ba’lat would make this easier on you. Call it professional courtesy for a fellow priest—”
“Fuck that” I said, this time aloud. “I’m no priest of Baal or of anything else. I don’t believe in any of that hocus pocus—but I was brought up a Christian and if I have to choose I’ll go out with Jesus. Fuck Baal.”
“Now, now,” Mirabilus said, “you’ll make me change the order—”
“If you were planning to rape me after ripping open my back,” I said, “I’d prefer you switched the order.” Though I couldn’t imagine any order of those things that I’d prefer.