Chapter 10: Mark of the Beast
The whiskey didn’t help. It never did, but he kept pouring, hoping the next glass would drown the echo of a name he hadn’t uttered in years. Driscoll. The kid had been all of nineteen, eyes too wide for the dirt they were eating, hands that shook when they weren’t holding a rifle. A good soldier, until he wasn’t. Until the sand and the silence and the constant, gnawing fear broke something behind those eyes.
Gunnar ran a thumb over the crisp bills Lola had left. Silence money. Blood money. He left it stacked by the register, a monument to the past crawling out of its grave.
The neon sign buzzed its monotonous elegy. He’d sent the last of the evening’s customers—a giggling pair of college girls wanting matching butterflies—on their way hours ago. The shop was steeped in a hollow quiet, the only movement the slow swirl of dust in the beam of his workstation lamp.
The bell jangled, sharp and sudden.
He didn’t reach for the baseball bat under the counter. He knew the step. Knew the scent of jasmine cutting through the stale air before he even looked up.
Lola stood in the doorway, backlit by the sickly neon. She wore leather pants this time, tight and black, and a simple tank top. Her dark hair was pulled back, sharpening the elegant lines of her face. Her lips were slightly swollen, a faint bruise blooming at the corner of her mouth—a souvenir from the counter’s edge. Her gray eyes were flat, devoid of their previous cool calculation. Now they just looked tired. Real.
“You’re open,” she said, a statement, not a question.
“For you?” Gunnar said, his voice gravel. “Always.”
A ghost of a smile touched her damaged lips. She walked in, the click of her boots on the linoleum the only sound. She stopped before him, her gaze dropping to the half-empty bottle of bourbon, then back to his face. “Heard from him.”
Ice slid down Gunnar’s spine. “Driscoll.”
“Called a burner phone I haven’t used in five years,” she nodded. “He’s in the state. Asking about old friends. Asking about the sergeant who left him behind.” She leaned her hips against the counter, mirroring her pose from the previous night, but the confidence was strained, a performance wearing thin. “I need another one.”
“Another tattoo.”
“Another everything.” Her hand went to the top button of her leather pants. “A matching set. Fangs. Here.” She pointed to the inner crease of her thighs. “And I want you to bite me while you ink me.”
He held her gaze. Saw the fear beneath the demand. Saw the need for a different kind of pain, a controlled burn to cauterize a deeper one. “That’s a hard spot. Sensitive. You won’t hold still.”
“Try me.”
She unzipped the leather pants, shoving them down over her hips along with her lace underwear in one practiced motion. She didn’t turn away this time. She stood facing him, naked from the waist down. The fresh phoenix on her hip was vibrant, angry reds and golds against her pale skin. Lower, between her legs, her cock lay soft against her thigh, a delicate contrast to the violent artwork beside it.
She hoisted herself onto the tattooing chair, spreading her legs wide, planting her boots firmly on the footrests. The position was brutally open, vulnerable and defiant all at once. The soft light illuminated the soft, hairless skin of her inner thighs.
“Bite me,” she repeated, her voice a low growl. “Make it real.”
He sterilized the area, the cold wipe making her muscles tense. He set up his machine, the buzz a sudden, angry insect in the room. He mixed the ink, black as a starless night. He didn’t speak. She watched his every move, her chest rising and falling with a steady, forced rhythm.
He positioned himself between her legs, the warmth of her skin radiating against his forearms. He placed a gloved hand high on her thigh, holding her open. The first touch of the needle made her jump, a sharp hiss escaping her teeth.
“Steady,” he muttered.
“Fuck you. Do your job.”
He began. The needle traced the outline of a single, curved fang, pointing downward towards her knee. She trembled, her body fighting the instinct to clamp shut. Sweat beaded on her upper lip.
He leaned in, his face close to her skin. He could smell her, the jasmine and vanilla from last night now mixed with the clean, sterile scent of the green soap and her own intimate musk. He felt the heat pouring off her. He saw the pulse hammering in the delicate blue vein just beneath the skin he was staining.
He finished the outline of the first fang. He looked up at her. Her head was thrown back, her eyes squeezed shut, her knuckles white where they gripped the edges of the chair.
He lowered his mouth to the unmarked thigh, opposite the fresh, stinging lines. He opened his jaw, let his teeth scrape the tender flesh. She gasped. Then he bit down, not hard enough to break skin, but with a firm, possessive pressure. She cried out, a short, sharp sound that morphed into a long, shuddering moan. Her hips lifted off the chair, seeking friction, finding none.
He released her thigh, a red crescent of teeth marks blooming in the pale skin. He moved to the other leg, starting the mirror image fang. The needle buzzed, digging into that hypersensitive flesh. Her moans were continuous now, a ragged soundtrack to his work. Her cock, which had been soft, began to fill, thickening and lifting from her thigh.
“Gunny,” she pleaded, the word ripped from her.
He didn’t answer with words. He finished the second outline, then leaned in again. This time, his mouth went lower, his breath hot on the weeping lines of fresh ink. He bit the inside of her thigh, right where leg met torso, a fraction from where her heat emanated. She jerked violently, a sob catching in her throat. His free hand, the one not pinning her leg, came up and wrapped around her cock. It was fully hard now, sleek and hot in his gloved grip.
“Oh, god, yes,” she choked out.
He began to stroke her, a rough, demanding rhythm in counterpoint to the precise vibration of the needle he now reactivated. He started shading the first fang, the needle digging into the inflamed, bitten flesh. He worked her cock with the same relentless pace, his thumb smearing the bead of moisture at its tip. She was panting, her body a taut bowstring, every muscle clenched.
“I’m gonna… fuck… I’m gonna come,” she warned, her voice shattered.
“Do it,” he growled against her thigh.
He felt her cock pulse in his hand a second before her whole body convulsed. She came with a raw, guttural shout, her release shooting over his gloved fingers and onto her own stomach. Her cunt, hidden beneath her, clenched rhythmically around nothing, her hips bucking wildly. He rode her through it, never stopping the needle, finishing the black fill of the fang as her climax shuddered through her.
When she finally stilled, boneless and breathing in ragged gulps, he cleaned her swiftly, applied the balm, and taped a bandage over each new piece. He peeled off his soiled glove, tossed it in the biohazard bin.
She lay there for a long moment, legs still spread, utterly spent. Slowly, she pulled her leather pants back up, wincing as the fabric brushed the fresh tattoos. She slid off the chair, her legs almost buckling. He caught her elbow, steadied her.
For a second, she leaned into him, her forehead against his chest. She felt small. Then she pushed away, the mask sliding back into place, though it was cracked, fragile.
“He’s at the Motel 6 off the interstate,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Room 114. He’s not waiting for a reunion, Gunny. He’s doing recon.”
She turned to leave, but paused at the door, looking back at the money still stacked by the register. “You should buy a better gun.” Then she was gone, swallowed by the night.
Gunnar stood in the silence, the taste of her skin still on his lips, the ghost of her release on his ungloved hand. He looked at the empty chair, then at the baseball bat under the counter. It suddenly seemed like a child’s toy.
He walked to the back, to the steel locker where he kept his supplies. From the very bottom, under boxes of ink and needles, he pulled out a long, heavy case. He clicked it open. The streetlight from the window gleamed on cold, blued steel. An M40A5 sniper rifle, disassembled, cleaned, and unused since another life. Beside it lay a familiar, worn leather shoulder holster and a .45 caliber 1911 pistol.
He ran a finger over the rifle’s stock. The past wasn’t just knocking. It was kicking the fucking door in.