The Ink Witch's Bargain

Curses don't show up with fireworks and ominous music. They're quiet, sneaky and they wait for the worst possible moment like a Tuesday night when you're three drinks into your shift at a dive bar that smells like regret and stale beer.

I'm wiping down the counter at The Rusty Anchor when everything goes to hell.

The guy who grabs my wrist is a regular Mid-forties, with thinning hair, and the kind of sad that's soaked into his bones. He's been nursing the same whiskey for an hour while I've been expertly ignoring him.

"Hey." His fingers clamp around my wrist as I reach for his glass. "Hey, you're that tattoo chick, right? I recognize you."

My stomach drops.

I haven't touched a tattoo gun in three years. My name used to mean something in Portland's ink scene, but those days are long gone. Now I pour shots for drunks who think they know me.

"You got the wrong person," Rowan said, trying to pull away.

His grip gets tighter. "Nah, nah. I remember you. You did this." He shoves his forearm in my face.

A koi fish swims up his wrist as it orange and white scales catch the dim bar light. It had clean lines and good shading. It's definitely my work, because i always made the eyes too big, and i curved the tail just so. For half a second, I feel proud. Then the shame crushes it.

"That's great," Rowan said flatly. "Now let go."

"I just wanted to say thanks. You were really talented. What happened to"

Then the tattoo moves.

It just a ripple at first. It could be the light playing tricks. But then the koi's tail actually flicks, then the fish shifts under his skin, and begin swimming in a lazy circle.

"What the hell" The guy's eyes go wide.

I yank my hand back but it too late. The curse have kicked in.

The koi swims faster with it mouth opening and closing, it gills flaring, and the colors brighten to something unnatural, and glowing. The guy yelps and tries to shake it off, but the fish is under his skin as part of him and now it's pissed.

"Make it stop!" the drunk shouted, stumbling off his barstool. "Make it stop!"

Everyone turns. Jade my best friend and fellow bartender drops her pint glass. The koi circles once more, then explodes out of his skin in a burst of ink and scales and impossible magic.

It's the size of a golden retriever now and not a tattoo anymore. Its a living, breathing creature made of ink and rage. It crashes through the bottles behind the bar with whiskey and vodka spray everywhere. Then someone screams. The guy's wrist is bleeding where the koi tore free, his skin torn, and ink smeared everwhere.

"Rowan!" Jade shouted. "Do something!"

I can't and that's the whole problem because i never could.

The koi slithers across the bar like a demented eel, knocking over drinks and shattering glass. It turns toward a woman at the far end, with it mouth open, showing teeth no koi should have.

I grab the nearest bottle that contain some expensive rum and hurl it at the creature and it directly hit it. The koi dissolves into black ink, spreading across the bar before it just... evaporates.

Then silence fell on the bar.

Everyone just stares at the bleeding guy. Jade with her mouth hanging open can't find words and the woman who almost got eaten too. The bouncer is already on his phone, probably calling the cops.

"I'm sorry," Rowan said to no one in particular. "I'm so sorry."

I rip off my apron and run.

Portland night air hits like a slap when I burst through the back exit. My hands shake bad, my ink-stained fingers trembling. I lean against the brick wall and try to remember how to breathe.

I've spent three years keeping my head down, avoiding people, and hiding under long sleeves. All that effort, wasted in thirty seconds because some drunk wanted to reminisce.

"You know," a voice said from the shadows, "most people try to be subtle when they're hiding magical abilities."

I spin around.

A man steps into the weak yellow light. He is tall, lean, and dressed head to toe in black turtleneck, which is an expensive coat, because of the works. His dark hair falls across his forehead in that messy way that probably takes effort. But his eyes catch me, because it hazel, which is a shade shifting between green and gold depending on the light. Currently staring at me with an intensity that makes my pulse stutter.

He's beautiful. The dangerous kind of beautiful that sets off every alarm bell in my head.

"Who the hell are you?" Rowan demanded, trying to sound braver than I feel.

"Someone who's very interested in your particular talent." Caspian said, tilting his head like I'm a painting in a museum. "That was sloppy work in there. You let the koi get too aggressive before destroying it. A better ink witch would've dissolved it before it manifested physically."

My blood runs cold. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please." Caspian took a step closer. He's holding a book thats leather-bound, old, and worn. "Rowan Ashwood. You're twenty-eight, a former tattoo artist with a shop on Hawthorne until it mysteriously burned down three years ago, and investigated for arson but never charged. Your mentor, Vera Blackwood, disappeared around the same time and now you're slinging drinks in a dive bar, hiding from a curse that's eating you alive."

I should run. Every instinct screams run. But I'm frozen between terror and desperate, pathetic hope.

"How do you know all that?" Rowan asked.

"I make it my business to know things." Caspian extended his free hand. "Caspian Thorne. Am bibliomancer, researcher of forbidden magic and your only chance at getting your life back."

I stare at his hand like it might bite. "What do you want?"

"To make you an offer." His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "I know how to break your curse, Rowan. I can give you back everything you lost. Your art, your career and your freedom."

Hope flickers in my chest,  but gets immediately crushed by suspicion. "And what do you want in return?"

"A simple trade." Caspian gestured with the book. "You help me acquire something from a very secure location. Something that requires living ink to access. In exchange, I break your curse and you never have to serve another whiskey sour to a drunk who doesn't tip."

"What's the catch?"Rowan ask.

"The catch," Caspian said, stepping close enough that I can smell him. He smell of old books and cedar and something darker, like smoke. "is that the place I need to break into is the most dangerous magical library in North America, which is The Obsidian Archives and they eat people like us for breakfast."

The rational part of my brain screams no, just walk away from this too-beautiful stranger with his impossible promises and his talk of forbidden magic.

But I'm so tired of hiding, tired of feeling my magic rot inside me, and tired of being afraid of my own hands.

"How?" The word barely comes out. "How would you break the curse?"

Caspian's smile widens. This time it reaches his eyes. They're warm, and almost kind. But there's something else underneath. Is it desperation, or maybe hunger.

"Meet me tomorrow night by Nine PM at Powell's Books, in the Rare Book Room." Caspian handed me a business card, which is an actual cardstock with embossed lettering like we're in the 1920s. "Come alone, and Rowan?" He turned to leave, then he paused. "Don't let anyone else touch you between now and then. That koi was small, but the next manifestation might not be."

Caspian walked away, disappearing into the Portland drizzle that's just starting.

I look down at the card and i see just his name and a phone number.

Behind me, sirens blow, signifiying the cops are coming. Maybe i should go back inside to explain, apologize and beg for my job back even though I know Jade's boss is firing me on the spot.

But instead, I pocket the card and walk the opposite direction.

Because Caspian Thorne is right. The curse is killing me. I feel it constant pressure under my skin, with magic wanting out, and turning toxic from neglect, and i have maybe six months before it consumes me entirely.

Six months of living as a failed artist serving drinks, or one chance to get everything back.

I pull out my phone and stare at it. Then i type a message to the number on the card.

I'll be there.

The response comes immediately.

I knew you would be. Sleep well tonight, Rowan. Because tomorrow, everything changes.

I don't sleep well. Rowan type back.

But the next night, at 8:55 PM, I'm standing outside Powell's Books, staring at the windows and wondering if I'm about to make the biggest mistake of my life, or save it.

Only one way to find out.

I push through the door and head for the Rare Book Room, where caspian is waiting.