Anthony Francis - Frost Moon

That's around the time I realized I wasn't ready for any of this.

Sure, my dad had taught me some self-defense moves, and I took two years of tae kwon do in college. But I was woefully out of shape. I hadn't been to a gym in years, hadn't been running in months. And I certainly couldn't perform any of the basic self- defense moves now, much less stretch my leg so far I could scratch my own damn ear from the topside.

The younger instructor came to join me. "So, are you really joining the class?"

"I'm not going to let this stop me," I said, pointing at my knee, "but… looking at you guys in action, my knee sure is going to try to hold me back from getting started."

"You do need to be healthy to get the most out of this," he said. He hesitated, then continued: "And I don't mean just the knee. You've been banged up, and it will leave you with a victim imprint. You may not feel it right this minute, but a serious assault will leave you with a lot of issues. You should do more than just learn some kicks."

"What? Like get my head examined? Find a victims' counselor to help me work through the issues?" I cracked. He smiled faintly, and I sighed and said: "All right. I get it. You guys are big on mind, body, spirit being one, or whatever. I'll… consider it, OK?"

He held up his hands. "All right, no pressure," he said, then rejoined the class.

Then my phone buzzed, a text message from Jinx: «elegant, this watch»

With some difficulty, I thumbed back: «But will it work?»

Jinx texted back, seemingly instantly, all in lowercase: «like a charm»

«What about Wulfs tattoo?» I responded. If I ever did get back in touch with him, I wanted to be able to say we could go ahead and get started.

«marquis still sitting on it» was the quick response.

«Keep on him. The full moon is Saturday,» I replied. For once Jinx didn't reply; I hesitated, then asked: «Should I take Valentine's challenge?»

Another instant lowercase ping: «o, dakota»

I sighed. Oh, Jinx! I messaged back: «Translate, O cryptic one.»

Jinx: «elegant ink + $1M reward? srsly! take'im on»

I grinned. Then I looked at my hand. There were two ugly scabbed lines on the undersides of my first two fingers and healing scrapes all over, but it functioned. I would be able to ink just fine. For all Transomnia had done to me-even knocking out two of my back teeth- he'd still obeyed the rules. I was alive, unspoiled-with two good hands.

It was time to get back to work.

Soon, the class finished with an informal bow and Darren came back to check on me. "So… did we sell you on maybe trying this out, starting Spring Semester?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "But you know, while I've been watching, I've been thinking. Long term-I never want to feel helpless again, so I'm going to have to make changes in my life. I can't waste time waiting."

Darren sighed. "You aren't listening. You aren't ready to start practicing-"

"Who said anything about practicing?" I said, dialing a number on my cell phone. "I need to start working. Alex? This is Dakota. Jinx gave me clearance-I'm ready to do your watch tattoo. How soon do you think the old man will be up for it?"

30. THE Wristwatch Tattoo

Valentine filmed his challenges, so an entire crowd was crammed into the Rogue Unicorn's larger tattooing room. Valentine was in a wheelchair, attended by a nervous-looking, nurse-for-hire type. There were two cameramen and a pair of associated busybodies. And, inside the magic circle that prevented stray mana from infiltrating the design, were my tools, my chair, Alex and me-and a stool with a box containing extra paraphernalia I would use later.

We had started early Friday morning at the ungodly hour of nine, as I had lied and told them it could take up to six hours-even before I knew an hour would be eaten just getting Valentine's wheelchair up the stairs. When you got over the intricacy of the linework, however, the watch was bone-simple to ink and I would be done in three hours, maybe even two.

I'd stayed up late through the night mixing pigments, performing the rituals to purify them, and generally setting up. In that regard, the watch was simple: it used only seven pigments. Some of the magical tattoos I've done have used upwards of fifty.

So… pigments are simple, if a bit repetitive. The hardest part? Preparing the needles. Normal tattoos are done with little needles soldered to the end of a bar that goes into the tattooing machine. Magical tattoos require something a bit… different. Something that will soak up magic and release it on cue, not poison it like iron does. There are crystals that will work and even some new plastic composites from Japan, but the best material is unicorn hornpreferably free-shed, gathered, if not by virgins, by someone wearing blessed rubber gloves. Yes, Virginia, unicorns do exist. But that's a story for another day.

Making the horn into needles takes many of the same tools that a modelmaker needs-magnifying glass and tweezers, files and sandpaper-and I did my needlework myself, which accounted for at least half of the quality of my work. It had taken two and a half hours to chip all the fragments I needed and file them into all the filigreed 'points' needed to ink the design-a one point, a triangular three, a curved five, and even a comblike seven for some of the larger outlines. You can't solder the finished points: you have to glue them into a throwaway prong and clamp them. I tried reusable clamps once and it was a total wash-running them through the autoclave loosened the clamp, so the horn came loose in the client's skin and he nearly ended up with a magical infection. Trust me-you don't want one of those.

With the needles in the autoclave, the next step is the flashprinted on transfer paper so it can be copied to the skin. With an ordinary tattoo, a stencil and eyeballing it are enough, but for a magical design, you have to be more careful; Jinx had given me a list of resonant points, and once I began working on Alex's skin I'd be pulling out a ruler and calipers to make sure the design was right. It can be tricky work-skin does shift and stretch, after all-and it would be a bit trickier since the design was reversed.

But now I had my ink and my needles and my flash and my subjects. All was in readiness-all that remained was to make sure that everyone understood this was my stage and my chair, and that inking a magic tattoo was not a stunt.

"I still don't see why we had to come to you" Alex said, fidgeting in my tattooing chair. "Why couldn't you have brought your equipment to the hospital?"

"First, I need a sterile environment," I said, wiping down his hand. He jumped a little when I did it: I've had a lot of men in this chair and I know the signs when they're stalling for time. "You understand sterile, right? Hospitals are dirty. That's how the old man got a staph infection-"

"Luck of the draw. All hospitals," Valentine said from his wheelchair, "put patients at risk for staph infections. They're filled with diseased people in a confined space constantly being exposed to each other's air, blood and fluids. Emory is one of the finest. Cleaner than most."

"See?" Alex said, still squirming a little. "We could have made arrangements-"

"If James Randi can go on national television on a gurney when he was on morphine," Valentine said, nostrils flaring, "I can survive a few hours in a wheelchair on Tylenol-3."

"So, first, a few ground rules," I said to the lead cameraman. "Hey you, behind the lens."

"I'm the director," a second man said imperiously, stepping forward.

"No, I'm the director in here," I snapped, holding my eyes on him. "I'm putting a permanent magical mark on a human body, which I take very seriously whether you get it or not. I'll try to make it easy on you to get a good shot, but when I'm working, the camera works around me and not the other way around. If I say slide, you slide. Savvy?"