doors leading to the warren of side offices and shops. He looked like an extra from the Renaissance Faire who fell off the back of a truck and then got run over by it. He had elaborate pants and a ruffled pirate shirt beneath the brocade, but all were old, dirty, nearly as unkempt as his hair. He approached us with a curiously mincing step and upraised hands held slack, as if he deigned to touch nothing other than his tattooing tools.
He hopped up onto the platform gracefully, and bowed to me. He didn’t do the standard double take when he stood and found me still towering over him, which notched him up in my regard; but then he turned to the throng and spoke with evident disdain. “I heard this is the ‘artist’ who would tattoo a wolf,” he said to the crowd, in a high-pitched voice that nonetheless carried. “Show her we need no more inkers!”
A young man leapt forward, baring his chest to show a gleaming tattoo of a wolf, woven with marks for sharp sight. Another leapt forward with tribal signs granting increased hunting powers; the young girl paraded back and forth, and I could see stealth and grace written into her tiger stripes.
It was all excellent work: the outlines were sharp, the shading subtle, the colors vibrant; but I needed to know more, and impulsively I stepped down into the little crowd of exhibitionists, who now numbered five. There were others showing off tattoos behind the front row, but it was all just normal ink or minor marks: these five were the finest the Marquis had to display, and knew it.
I stretched out my hands and felt the power through their marks. The subtle interplay of ink and line necessary to call upon magic were woven through all their signs. I recognized some of the larger signs, but just as many were clearly new, having none of Jinx’s mathematical subtlety but instead a raw grip on the rules of power inked with a firm, well-trained hand. The Marquis was not just an inker; he was a backwoods graphomancer, with a fine grasp of the magic of the wolf. No wonder Jinx had recommended him.
“Impressive,” I said, loud enough to carry through the throng. I was getting pretty tired of playing this like I was on a stage; I much preferred meeting in a coffeehouse, Jinx-style, to all these theatrics. “I can see why Jinx sent me to you.”
“The blind witch is truly gifted,” the Marquis called out to the crowd, smiling with a bow as I ascended to the stage. “Even she can see my superior talent.”
I smiled at him. He smirked back at me, yellow glowing eyes the only thing wolfish about his weak, effete face. Well, in truth his hair was pretty wolfish too, but that was clearly achieved with just a lack of grooming than any expression of wolf. Or maybe I was rapidly losing my patience and not inclined to give him an inch. So I just stared straight back at him, smiling, until the glow faltered and he looked away.
“So, ‘Marquis,’” I said, in a quiet tone designed to be heard only on the stage, withdrawing a picture tube from my vest and unrolling the flash, blown up to 11x17 and cleaned up as much as Photoshop would permit. “Tell me what you make of this?”
He looked at it for a moment, then took it from me with an offended hiss, strolling away. He stared down at it dismissively, then with more and more interest. Finally he turned back to me. “Where,” he whined, loud enough to play to his audience, “did you get this?”
“My client” I replied. “He thinks it will give him more control over his beast.”
“Oh, it will,” he laughed, still speaking to the crowd, eyes never leaving the tattoo. “It will… it most definitely will.”
“‘Most definitely will’ as in ‘will definitely control his beast by interfering with his changes in a bad way,’” I asked, “or ‘will definitely give him more self control?’”
He looked at me sharply, eyes flicking back down. “You would not understand.”
“Try me.”
“It will… contain his excess power as the moon approaches,” he said, “then release it when he decides to trigger the change.”
“See, I understood that just fine,” I said. “Was that so hard, Mister Wizard?”
He flapped his hand once or twice to dismiss me, waltzing off. “Enough, girl. You have done your duty. Send this wolf to me, and I will