Ink Portals

The promise of revenge

29

Arthur was met with shocked stares when he came in through the door of the temple in his underwear, shivering and clutching the bloody flap of skin.

"What have you done, Arthur?" Kazunori said, rising to his feet and spilling half his tea on the coffee table.

"I have an idea," Arthur said, unfolding the piece of skin and laying it down next to the fire pit to dry out.

"You've desecrated a dead body!" Kazunori said.

"Jack would've understood," Arthur said. "I'm going after Pierre. And I'm claiming my inheritance."

"Your inheritance?" Abby said.

"Yoshi is still here, inside the artwork," Arthur said. He unhooked the small, bras disc-shaped gong that hung by the temple entrance, then set it down next to the fire pit. "At least before the skin starts to rot away. That means we can still salvage him. Master Kazunori, I need you to transfer him to me."

Arthur used the tongs by the fire to move some red-hot coals onto the gong, then he laid the flap of skin down over them.

"That's preposterous!" Kazunori said, waving his hand in front of his face, as if swatting away the very notion of the idea like a pestering fly.

"That sounds pretty crazy to me too," Abby said. "We have no way of knowing if it will even work?"

"Only one way to find out," Arthur said, watching the skin in the gong sizzle and burn into a blackened paste. The smell was overpowering, like burnt bacon.

"Wait," Abby said. "Wanting to go after Pierre is one thing, but we have no idea where he is. Where would we even start looking?"

"This morning, out in the garden," Arthur said, pointing back out the window. "When that thing took control of him, he said 'don't let her take me back down there - into the tombs.'"

Arthur took the iron kettle, which was almost always at boiling point, and poured hot water into the gong. There was steam and more sizzling. Arthur grabbed Kazunori's stone herb grinder and used it to soften the remains of Jack's skin, then he went into the kitchen and brought back the empty vial that belonged to his raven spirits. Kazunori had cleaned it and left it out to dry. Arthur placed the vial on the mat by the fire and picked up the gong, using it like a dish to pour the black liquid into the little glass container.

"We don't know which tombs he was talking about," Abby said, watching Arthur put the cork back on the container before slipping it into his pocket. "They could be anywhere."

Arthur didn't answer; instead he stormed down the hallway into the room where Pierre had slept. The only thing in there that belonged to Pierre was a duffel bag, kicked into the corner of the room. Arthur unzipped it and poured the contents out onto Pierre's sleeping mat. A half-empty carton of cigarettes and a passport, along with an overcoat and some other items of clothing tumbled out. Arthur sifted through the contents and came across a small address book. It seemed a little old fashioned, hardly anyone still kept a book with contact numbers. He flipped through the pages, scanning the names and numbers of people he had never heard of. When he got to the back of the book something slid out from the last page and drifted down to his feet, Abby came into the room behind him as he picked it up.

"Who still carries around nudie pics?" she said, peeking over his shoulder.

"Apparently Pierre does," he said.

The naughty photo was a self-shot taken by a rather artsy looking French gal, she was wearing a Barret but not much else. She was blowing a kiss at the camera while posing on a bed with her breasts, provocatively pressed together between her upper arms. Arthur noticed the woman had a tattoo of a cat. It was sleeved around the upper section of her right arm.