I took the design upstairs and checked the clock one last time. I still had a couple of hours until Tera was due to arrive, and to my surprise, I felt myself growing nervous. I had been tattooing long enough that I was never nervous before starting a piece of work. I had done more than a dozen tattoos in a single night and still gone on to have drinks with friends later. Tattooing was my life, and yet I was suddenly faced with what would probably be the last great act of this woman before she died; I was nervous about screwing it up for her.
Shaking my head at my strange feeling, I started to tidy up the windowless back room where I would be tattooing Tera. Considering that she would be forced to lie on her stomach with her back fully exposed, I thought she might appreciate a little extra privacy instead of being on display for any other customers who might come in. While I knew the tattoo would take close to two hours to complete, I figured that I would be able to finish it before Trixie came in the door and officially opened the shop.
As I prepped everything I needed, I took a long look at the plastic cap that would hold the black ink for her tattoo. It was a large, but simple, thin line tattoo. I wouldn’t need more than a single cap of black ink. Mind swirling and conscience screaming, I tightly grasped the cap in the palm of my hand as I stomped down the stairs to the basement where my hidden ingredients beckoned me.
“Fine! I’m here!” I shouted to no one as I stood before the cabinets. I set the cap down on one of the counters of the largest cabinet before I started pulling open one glass door after another. It was only when I reached the one with the heavy padlock on the front that my mind grasped what I was searching for. My heart pounded and my mouth went as dry as the Sahara. I had never thought to use it. Part of me had convinced myself that it wasn’t real, but then I had acquired it from my mentor and he wasn’t one to lie about the veracity of a particular item. Every potion maker had to understand the potency and capabilities of every item he used. The only problem was that due to its extreme rareness no one knew how this item would react. But this once, I was willing to take a chance as the ingredients that I needed suddenly filled my brain.
Walking back over to the first cabinet, I reached inside and on the second shelf picked up a small vial. With a toothpick, I fished out a few particles of pollen from a white lily that had been sitting on a church altar during Easter mass. I wasn’t the type to go haunting churches and cemeteries for the really interesting ingredients, but sometimes a person had to take some chances to get the good stuff. At least I had waited until everyone left mass and cleared out of the church before I made my own personal collection. The white lily has always been a symbol of rebirth and purity. There was a cleanness to it that appealed to my brain, as if I could use these particles of pollen to wash away Tera’s sins.
Replacing the container in the cabinet, I closed the doors and carried the cap, with one finger over the opening and one below the bottom, to the cabinet with the padlock. Carefully setting the cap down, I fished my keys out of my pocket and, with the infrequently used lock making a slight screech, opened it. The wooden doors groaned as they were opened. Dragging over a stepladder, I climbed up to the last step so that I could reach the top shelf. I removed several items before I could reach a carefully sealed mason jar in the very back that seemed to glow with its own perfect light. The jar contained a single white feather that looked as if it was large enough to come from a giant eagle or condor. After coming down the steps, I walked over to my workbench and grabbed a pair of metal tweezers and a pair of wooden tongs. With shaking hands, I opened the jar and partially removed the feather by grasping it with the wooden tongs. I drew in a deep breath and held it as I used the tweezers to pull a single wispy frond from the feather and curl it in the bottom of the plastic ink cap. It was only after the feather had been replaced in the jar and the lid properly resealed that I started breathing again. I quickly put everything back where it belonged and locked the cabinet.
According to my mentor that feather had come from an actual angel. In fact, if he was to be believed, the feather had come from Gabriel himself. Other than my mentor, no one knew I possessed such a unique artifact, and I had always promised myself that I would never use it. It seemed to be too dangerous to ever use. And in truth, there had never been a call for anything so pure and perfect to be used in a tattoo, but at the moment it seemed to fit. I was drawing angel wings for a dying woman. What was more fitting than to have the ink first touched by the bit of a feather from a real angel? It had to do some good, right?
Placing my thumb back over the opening to the cap, I carried it up the stairs and kicked the trapdoor closed with a heavy bang. Setting the cap on the table, I grabbed a small piece of plastic wrap and placed it over the cap so that its contents would be protected until I could finally add the ink.
A knock on the front door suddenly woke me from the doze I had fallen into while stretched out in one of the tattoo chairs. I rubbed my eyes and stumbled out to the main waiting area. Tera was peeking through the front window around the stickers and signs, trying to see if anyone was actually inside. I waved at her as I crossed the distance to the front door and unlocked it for her.
“I saw the closed sign and thought maybe you had forgotten about our appointment,” she said as she stepped inside.
“No, I just can’t open the parlor until I’m done with your tattoo because I won’t be able to work on you and man the front desk and phone at the same time. The shop probably won’t officially open until Trixie gets here later tonight.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so much trouble.”
I waved her off as I led her to the back tattoo room. “It’s why I had you come in so early. The shop usually doesn’t open until around seven during the summer. Most of my customers are the nocturnal sort.”
“Isn’t that a little dangerous?”
“Not really if you’ve got a troll on staff,” I replied with a smirk. “Bronx tends to keep the peace with just a look.”
“I can imagine,” she murmured as she stepped into the windowless back room. There was a large, cushioned table in the center of the room surrounded by some small tables on wheels so I could easily move my supplies and tattooing machine around without forcing the subject to switch positions. There was one stainless steel sink against the far wall where we would sterilize some of our equipment that wasn’t simply disposable. On the opposite wall was a floor-to-ceiling mirror that allowed the customer to easily see the new piece of work. I knew that it was intimidating being closed up in a windowless room with a total stranger and a pulsating needle while being half dressed, but it was part of my job to set her at ease.
Pulling around one of the stools on wheels, I patted it for her to sit down while I walked over to another table in the corner and grabbed my drawings. I held them up to her. Each was only one wing. I would make a mirror-image copy of the second wing so that it would be symmetrically perfect on her back.
“For the first one, I chose to go with long, slender feathers because your frame is so small and narrow,” I explained. “I wanted to create the illusion of them flowing down your back. The second image is of somewhat shorter wings that stretch more across your shoulder blades.”
A slow smile spread across Tera’s face as she looked at the two designs. She lightly held the paper by her fingertips, as if she were afraid of harming the design. “I love the first one. It’s perfect. Exactly what I had in mind.”
