Karen Chance - Inked

The pumps at the station were self-service, but there was a garage out back. That’s where she found Mannie Bouchard, scowling up at a Suburban raised high by the hydraulic lift.

Early twenties, six feet even, weight maybe one-fifty, black and brown. His skin was dark enough to suggest that Mannie might be short for Manuel in spite of the French surname. Slim verging on skinny, but his arms were ropy with muscle. Ragged hair, grease-stained jeans, sleeves ripped out of his T-shirt. A tattoo on his right bicep, but she couldn’t see what it was from here. “Mannie Bouchard?”

His head swung toward her, the scowl undisturbed—until someone flipped a switch and his thin face lit in a grin. “Hey! You’re Lily Yu, aren’t you?” He started toward her, pulling a rag from his back pocket to wipe his hands. “I’m Mannie, yeah.” His voice dropped as he reached her. “And I’m ospi to Nokolai.” He held out a hand.

Her eyebrows lifted. Ospi meant out-clan friend; used as he had, as introduction, it probably meant he was related to someone who was clan.

She shook his hand. No furry magic, but a small bump of a Finding Gift. “Your mom’s Nokolai?”

“Yeah. Dora Bouchard. You know her?”

It took a second, but once Lily placed the name, she smiled. “Nice lady. There’s no nonsense to her.” Dora was the daughter of one of the Nokolai councilors, so was considered clan. Her children weren’t. “Would you be the wild child she blames for her gray hair?”

“Sorry to say, but yeah. Though I’m getting my act together finally.” He grimaced. “I should tell you I’m on probation.”

“Oh?”

“Drove drunk, smashed up my car and someone’s parked truck. Just lucky I didn’t kill myself or anyone else. I’ve paid off the fine and damages. Got another month on probation.” He repeated that quick, blinding grin. “Got another car, too, a sweet little ’65 Mustang. Needed a new engine, so it’s not original, but man, is she sweet. No way I’ll take a chance on busting her up.”

“Sounds like you’re doing it right this time. Can you talk to me for a few minutes?”

“Sure. You want to go in my office?” He waved toward the front of the station and, she assumed, the tiny glassed-in cubby where she’d seen a chair, a counter, and a cash register.

As they headed that way he asked, “Is this about Steve? Man, that’s some seriously bad shit.”

“It is.” She glanced at him. “I’m thinking that, being raised by clan, you’d be able to speak frankly of sexual matters.”

“Well…yeah, I guess. Since you’re clan, you’ll understand.”

“Tell me about your group. The one that included Steve, Adele, and Mariah.”

He did. They had some really bad coffee in the glassed-in cubicle with him on a stool behind the counter, her in the single chair, and she learned that the group was loosely organized around a belief in sexual plurality and an interest in magical exploration. Adele was the leader in both realms. According to Mannie, Adele hadn’t minded sharing Steve physically, but she got twisted up when Steve spent too much time with any of the other women.

Like when Steve took up with Mariah?

“Yeah. I mean, Adele really was cool with the sex part, she wasn’t fooling about that, but Steve wanted more than a variety of bodies. Mariah was special to him, and Adele could see that. Shit, we all could. Adele still said the right things, but there was a strain, you know?”

Lily was pretty sure she did know. “You said you’re more interested in the magical exploration bit. What kind of exploring did Adele do?”

The grin was just as white this time, but more sheepish. “I didn’t mean that I was, like, immune to the sex. At first I liked that part, too, but after a while…I thought it would be more like clan.”

“It wasn’t?”

“First time I turned someone down, I saw the difference! Man.” He shook his head. “Adele says some of the same stuff clan does, but she gets it wrong.”

“How do you mean?”

“You know how the fundamental thing is that everyone owns their own sexuality? Everyone, all the time, no exceptions once you’re adult. So if a guy is turned on by other guys, that’s okay, or if you want to take a vow of chastity, that’s cool, too. Hard to understand, maybe.” A quick grin. “But okay. You don’t get to think you know what’s best for someone else, because it’s their sexuality, right? And it’s just as okay to say no as it is to say yes.”

“Adele doesn’t agree?”

“She says the thing is to be kind to each other—well, that’s what Mom says, too, but she doesn’t mean it the same way. Adele thinks the only kind, healthy answer is yes. If you turn someone down, there’s something wrong with you.” Another head shake. “I think it’s a control thing with her. I tried to tell Steve that once, that she’s using sex for control, but he didn’t see it. But she never pulls that control shit with them. With the lupi, I mean. Not anymore.”

“Not anymore?”

“I wasn’t part of the group when Rule came in and pulled the plug a few years back, but I heard about it. He didn’t try to tell the older lupi like Steve what to do, but he had a word with the young ones, and pfft! They were gone, just like that, and they didn’t come back. Shook Adele up, I think.” His smile was sly. “I know it pissed her off.”

“If you aren’t happy with Adele’s sexual philosophy or her efforts to control the group, why stay with it?”

He sighed. “You read me, right? I’ve got a little bit of a Gift, nothing special. But that’s what rocks me, studying magic. I like working on cars, too, but they’re second. If I could make a living with spells…but, shit, even if there was a job like that, I don’t have the power.”

“Adele’s willing to teach you.”

“Yeah. Not many are, not when I’ll never be a powerhouse, and I get that. The ones with big-ass Gifts need help getting them under control, and they can do more with what they’re taught than I could.”

“I’ve always thought desire has as much to do with where we end up as raw talent. Stubbornness counts, too. Did Adele teach you any, ah, runic spells? The kind with patterns, drawings?”

He lit up. “No, those are more my thing. She’s into charms and potions, but potions are really hard to get right—the results can be unpredictable, you know? And charms take power. Me, I get off on the drawn spells. Lots of spells have a drawn or written component, but putting one all in symbols, that’s rare. I’ve been working on how to convert other kinds of spells to runic.”

“Maybe she’s asked you to convert a spell that way sometimes.”

“Yeah, she has. I’m pretty good at it.” He might have been trying to look modest. It looked more like delight. “She asked me to help her with one a couple weeks ago. Well, she didn’t show me the whole spell, just part of it she was having trouble with. She said I wasn’t ready for the whole thing, but I think she just likes being mysterious, making like she knows everything.”

In that moment, Lily truly hated Adele Blanco. She didn’t want Mannie to know what his teacher had done with his help…but she wasn’t going to be able to prevent it. For that alone, Adele Blanco needed to go down.

She reminded herself that Mannie could be playing the naïf to deflect suspicion. And she did listen to herself—she just didn’t believe it. “What was the deal with wolfbane?” she asked casually.

“You heard about that?” he asked, surprised—and immediately supplied his own answer. “I guess Steve told Rule. Well, it didn’t work out. She and Steve were trying to find a way to use it for an anesthetic, but all she got was a kind of paralytic. It made Steve real drowsy and he couldn’t move, but didn’t really knock him out. From the way Steve described it…”