My Tattoo's Got a Secret

作成遷移啓示結合忘却, seven-year-old Nathan writes on a piece of paper without missing a stroke, beaming under the pride shining in his mother's eyes. Then, as instructed by her, he burns the paper and watches as a hundred little dots of fire, like tiny lanterns, float up into the air. The forest around them seems to hold its breath in the cool winter night, expectant, fearful.

“When the time comes,” she says, placing her cool hand on his cheek. “These words will open the door for you to make your way back to me and find that which will remain hidden until then.” Her Japanese accent tilts each syllable into staccato singsong, like a lullaby.

As usual on these nights of ritual and learning, little Nathan frowns, turning away from the fading spectacle of burning paper. “But where are you going, Mom?”

She cups his face now with both hands. "Silly, beautiful boy. You know well I can't tell you."

"For the sake of my soul?" He says, knowingly but still holding to that modicum of hope that this time she will relent and reveal the name of her mystery destination—or better yet, that she might just say this is all a fancy tale and she will never ever leave.

They sit there huddled together in the evening breeze, unmoving, unperturbed, until something stirs in the trees.

Her arms tighten around him like they did the night his father left, although in his early childhood memory there are only vague images and the one thing with any solidity at all is the deep sense of loss.

Before she carries him in her arms for the last time, away and into the nightly bustle of the city, deep into the empty esophagus of an abandoned subway station, Nathan hears a whisper and the rustling of dry leaves. Behind them, almost missed in their hurried escape, a pair of yellow eyes watch from the blackest space between the trees, conjuring a single word in Nathan's young, but already sensitive psyche: danger.

作成 * * * * * * * * (Creation)

"I miss the days when all you needed to summon a daemon was a bit of blood, an incantation, and, worst case, your firstborn,” Erika said, in a voice as steady as the nanomelanic tattoo needle in her hand, never taking her eyes from Nathan's chest.

Just like Mom, Nathan thought, recalling his late mother’s opinion on the marriage of witchcraft and nanotechnology. A sacrilege, she had called it often, even as she had avidly learned about the amplification power and efficacy nanoInk gave to her more traditional magical tattoos.

"I mean," Erika continued, never deviating a micrometer from what Nathan hoped was the final stroke of 忘, the kanji for "forget." "Nanomelanic tattooing still involves some blood-letting." She giggled at this, but thankfully, the hand holding the needle might as well have been separate from Erika's body: so steady and precise it was.

"There," Erika said. "We'll let this heal a little over the next two days and Constance can do your next character on Saturday."

"Constance?" Nathan's voice came out hoarse and indefinite around the consonants. "I thought Jeffran—"

"Yes, love, Constance." Erika laughed, discarding the used needle and placing the tool away in its little sarcophagus of a case. "Your beloved Jeffran caught a little curse when summoning one of his eidolons. You know him, always conjuring his specters bare-minded."

"Again?" Nathan liked Jeffran, really liked him, but the man was a petri dish for spectral hacking.

"Spectrally speaking,” Erika continued, spraying a mist of antiseptic soap and water on Nathan’s skin, only minutely cooling that post-tattoo, burning feeling. “Jeffran would be the one to open Hell’s gates while trying to conjure a wraith just to do his dishes.” Then softly, rhythmically, she began to blot the blood with a piece of gauze, raising the ghost of the needle’s bite on already frayed nerve endings. “Romantically, though…” She paused, tossing the gauze and grabbing the bottle of ointment, which she applied on the tattooed area with practiced care. “Well, you’ll either end up heartbroken or soul bound. But, if you need protection, I have spells that—“

"I might just have enough protection with this—" Nathan replied, cutting Erika off but then quickly stopping himself from finishing his sentence. Shit, shit, he thought, remembering his mother's advice of never even hinting at what a magical tattoo might or might not do, especially when created with nanotechnology—what with the additional danger of being vulnerable to technological hacking—and especially when the tattoo was meant for something as grand as, say, granting one passage into the underworld.

Erika fixed him with amusement. "Hmm, a protection spell?” She winked playfully as she unrolled and cut a piece of healing tape. "I couldn't really tell from just one character." She covered the treated area with the tape and smoothed it out, rekindling the pain for an instant. “I mean, why all the secrecy? Word is you have hired almost every tattoo artist in the city, one for each kanji. Who are you summoning, the goddess of death?"

Nathan swallowed, bothered that the circle of tattooists in this town was as fond of gossip as its members were of poking people with needles. Worse, her jest was a little too close to the truth for it to be mere coincidence, but maybe he was being paranoid and thought it might be best to pay it back in kind, with jest. "Izanami herself? Sure, then I can have her take each one of your souls to ensure my secrecy."

Erika paused. "Huh. On second thought, anyone who can fall for Jeffran wouldn't have the brains for advanced conjuring," she retorted. With this, she walked away, her new red vinyl boots squeaking annoyingly as she disappeared behind a red curtain.

Relieved, Nathan waited quietly while the nanoInk of the new character began transmuting flesh and skin—not without pain. Technically, the tattooed area would become necrotized flesh, a key factor in the creation of his plan to retrieve what his mother had hidden in the underworld before her tragic death. Theoretically, only the dead were welcome in Yomi—the underworld as understood by his mother's Japanese ancestors, which meant he would claim what was his only when his heart actually stopped beating, and what was the use of that. However, as Nathan had found out, many accounts existed of mortals entering the land of the dead by means that did not shy from flat-out beating renowned psychopomps to a pulp to hop on the happy barge to the thereafter—round trip, even.

Thankfully, Nathan's plan did not involve violence but rather technicality. What if only a part of him were actually dead? He was certain that what passed for the official constitution of places like Yomi was as ambiguous as its American counterpart, likely not dealing clearly with the difference between concepts like "dead" and "mostly dead"— to the chagrin of people like Miracle Max. At any rate, even if his plan failed and Izanami cast his body aside like yesterday's rubbish, his soul would still make it into the underworld as all dead people do and then, thanks to the spectral password his mother had made him memorize, he would finally access the truth of who the hell he was supposed to be.

One more character, he thought, glad that the previously tattooed eight characters were, thanks to the flexibility of nanoInk, now disguised as indecipherable asterisks while not activated, keeping any one of the ten tattoo artists from knowing them all.

"Alright, here you go," Erika said as she returned, squeaky boots and all. "Pay the lady." She extended her wrist toward him, the light spirals of ViperPay swirling right under her pale skin like two snakes.

He placed his own wrist atop hers and the transaction was completed in a fizz of electricity that seized both wrists for a moment, tiny arcs like spectral shackles holding their forearms close together in the air. He hated the forced intimacy of payment these days and most technology that did anything to the body, except, of course, for nanoInk.

"See you Saturday," he said as he walked out into the rainy Thursday afternoon, the new character burning on his chest as it slowly transformed itself into a ninth asterisk.

* * 遷移 * * * * * * (Transition)

His cell rang. Who the hell dared summon him at the ungodly hour of 8:33 a.m. on a Saturday morning?

Scam Likely, read the screen. He really needed to ditch the ancient cell phone, but the idea of a cranial implant freaked him out. Yet he had to answer, as this could be in response to one of the hundreds of job applications he had sent out like so many hellhounds over the last couple months of joblessness. "Hello?"

"Nath?"

He froze; only Jeffran called him Nath.

"Hey." Jeffran's basso profundo echoed as if he were sitting in an empty room, likely his summoning den.

"Hey, I—" Nathan's voice faltered.

"Sorry to wake you. I have something urgent to ask of you." Jeffran had never asked for Nathan's number—let alone help with anything—and it had been two months since he had added the last touches to the double-snake tattoo sleeve on Nathan's right arm for protection against compulsion.

"No worries," Nathan said, sleepily and nervously, suddenly feeling a nagging itch right where the snakes curled around each other like two codependent lovers.

"Remember how you concealed your—" he paused. "You know, that marker on your aura?"

Of course Nathan remembered the aural marker his previous employer had placed on him three months ago, a spectral tool to broadcast to other agencies the fact that he had been fired. Even though it had been a voluntary act that had come with hefty compensation from the company, it would have lasted an entire year, thus bringing his career, just like his dating prospects, to a nausea-inducing stop. "Yeah," Nathan said, non-committal. "What are you trying to conceal?"

"I have to tell you in person." Jeffran's tone wavered, very unlike him.

"I can't really teach it to anyone. The person I learned it from—“ Nathan cleared his throat nervously. "They're no longer with us." To conceal that aural marker, Nathan had used one of his mother's ancient sigils, carved directly onto his heel, to block the marker's power and reopen himself up to the job pool—not exactly legal but definitely efficient and, with today’s obsession with tech-magic, virtually untraceable.

"Not an issue. I can summon them,” Jeffran said in his more usual, nonchalant tone.

Nathan wanted to shout, You are not summoning my mother! But the binding she had placed on him surrounding this particular teaching would make him stutter, and likely choke, before speaking the word, "Mother." Instead he asked, surprising himself, "Isn't summoning without protection what got you cursed in the first place? Erika said you—“

"Please!” Shouted Jeffran with what sounded like feigned indignation. “Don't believe anything Erika says. I just needed the weekend off to work on my—well, little issue.”

“If it were just a little issue then you wouldn’t need my help. Not that I can really do anything for you. Sorry.” He meant it, though a part of him felt bad for his beloved Jeffran.

“You leave me no choice then,” Jeffran said, something like regret in his voice. “I have two words for you: double-tongued snake."

At first, Nathan was distracted by trying to determine whether that really was two words or technically three. Then, without warning, a pulse of electricity traveled from his right shoulder—from the double-snake tattoo, spreading through his body, seizure-like. Nathan felt that snapping moment of transition from free will into blind faith as a compulsion spell settled upon him. Ironic, since the tattoo was supposed to protect him from exactly that: suggestion.

“Nathan boy,” Jeffran said, just when Nathan started to regain, he hoped, the use of his vocal cords. “Let me ask you again: will you help me with an aural concealment?”

Nathan remained silent as two sides of his psyche declared war on each other: To help or not to help Jeffran, that was the question.

“So?” Jeffran prodded. “Aside from getting your help, I really, really have been dying to see you outside of Quayside Tattoo."

What was happening? In three years Jeffran had been nothing but tattoo business and constant whining about his stormy relationships. You'll believe anything that sounds like what you want to hear, Nathan's mother's voice said in his head as he slowly realized that Jeffran had somehow woven a spell into the snake tattoo and that, under his spell, helping him was his only option.

“Will you help me then?” There was an impossible, pleading tone in Jeffran’s voice.

“Of course. I will help.” Nathan’s words came out unbidden, reflex-like. “See you would also...” he fought to stop himself from finishing the sentence, unsuccessfully. “...be nice.”

"Good, good.” Jeffran said almost kindly. “And, I will repay you for your help. I'll finish your tattoo for free.”

There was no way Jeffran, or anyone in fact, could know that the next kanji would be the last, but under Jeffran’s magical yoke, the thought lacked the weight of relevance. “Okay,” was all he could say.

“Great! Come to my place at 2pm today. I will link my location to your cranial—" Jeffran paused, probably just remembering that Nathan had not yet opted for the implant. "I'll text it to you." He hung up.

Nathan's room became as quiet as a tomb. Then, mind suddenly racing, Nathan ran to the bathroom mirror to examine the tattoo sleeve on his right arm. The heads of the two snakes faced each other as before, but one thing was different: where there had been an almost imperceptible space between the two tongues, there was now a single, shared tongue.

"Damn it!" Nathan slammed his fist against the countertop, sending a surge of pain up his arm. It was no use; a compulsion spell was hard to break, especially one crafted with nanoInk by a master Tattooist.

Defeated, ashamed his mother would somehow know how careless he had been with the sacrilege that was nanoInk, Nathan crawled back into bed. He would do what Jeffran needed just to get this spell removed and at the same time finish his spectral password two days early. Maybe it wasn't that bad after all, he would get that last character for free, but could he trust Jeffran?

* * * * 啓示 * * * * (Revelation)

That afternoon, in the near empty streets of the Dead Tree District and under a harsh sun that cast sharp and heavy shadows, Nathan realized he was being followed. The two spider tattoos behind each of Nathan's ears were sending waves of high-frequency vibration along his skull, indicating the presence of malignant intention within a 100-foot radius.

As he turned the next corner, Nathan quickly ran down a set of stairs leading to a basement door, an area almost completely dipped in shadow. He crouched and quickly pressed the 隠 kanji tattooed on his left palm against its pair 蔽, tattooed on his right palm. Together they spelled, "Concealment." The air and the darkness around him thickened until Nathan felt as if he were looking at the street above him through a thick piece of smoky, wavy glass.

Above, a figure turned the corner and stopped. Nathan knew that even a direct look in his direction would reveal nothing but empty space. Become a chameleon, his mother would say, and that is exactly what the conjuring turned him into. Hold your breath. Remain still.

From his vantage point, Nathan could see that the figure was slender and tall, wearing a cloak with a hoodie, both incongruent with the sunny day behind its face—her face! It was definitely a woman, he confirmed, also noticing the obvious swell of breasts under her cloak.

She faced in his direction for an instant, squinting, but her attention was stolen by a sudden noise farther down the block, the way Nathan would have gone had he been stalker-free. As she ran toward the noise, Nathan could hear a rhythmic, squeaky sound, like that of really new vinyl boots on concrete. Revelation struck him like the slap of a grave-cold ghoul: Erika's new red boots!

A buzzing in his pocket shook him out of the shock of slow-burning paranoia suddenly turned into ice-cold reality, into the realization that Erika must know something about his family history or his crazy plan to access the world of the dead. He lost his balance and fell on his buttocks as the transmuted air returned to normal around him. He cursed silently at his ancient cell phone, pretty sure he might get that cranial implant after all. As he struggled to fish the device out of his tight pocket, he pondered the fact that Erika had somehow learned about his impromptu trip to Jeffran's side of town. Unless she had a secret kink of watching two gay men in action, which he highly doubted, it was likely that her offhand comment about summoning death's goddess had been a subtle warning that yes, she and likely others had been watching him closely, very closely.

She's gone, read the cryptic text on the cell phone's cracked screen. It came from an unknown number. Go back the way you came to the corner of 4th and Amethyst and stand in front of the graffitied wall with the eight cups of sake and the eight-headed snake monster thing. I will open a door for you.

Jeffran! He knew, even though the man was texting from yet another unknown number. Perhaps Nathan was not the only one flirting with paranoia, but this did nothing to comfort his sense of dread because the question now was, how did Jeffran even know that Erika had gone stalker on him?

Nathan got up, quickly climbed up the stairs and turned the corner to retrace his steps back to the colorful mural, which he vaguely recalled seeing before Erika's shadow had become apparent. On the tall wall, a giant eight-headed monster stood menacingly on a field of what must be cedar trees, if he went by his mother's telling of the story, except that in this Disney-meet-street-art cartoonish style the eyes of the eight heads looked anything but menacing. In front of the beast there were eight cups of what must be sake and a little man beckoning the monster to drink from them. Aside from the questionably artistic representation of Yamata no Orochi and the sake of its doom, there was no door to be seen.

Okay, Jeffran, he thought, ready to knock on the wall when the snake heads began to move, each one finding its way into a cup of sake. That was a new one, he thought as a rectangular shape began to take form, darkening the area of the wall where the dragon heads had been before their drinking binge, eventually condensing into a portal so black that it seemed to have swallowed all the light around it. All he could think as he stepped through the void, his chest tingling with electricity, was what his mother always told him, Never walk through portals created by other conjurers.

After what seemed like forever, lost somewhere between worlds, the prickling sensation all over his body stopped. It was like a thousand needles he had not noticed were suddenly gone, their absence strangely louder than their constant presence had ever been. Something else seemed to have been taken away in the passage that in reality had lasted only seconds, but the pull of Jeffran's compulsion made it hard to think this through.

"Don't move," Jeffran's voice said, somewhere in front of Nathan.

The darkness slowly resolved into the interior of a large room about two stories high and with an oculus at the very top, where Nathan could see passing clouds against a very blue sky. Large conjuring sigils were drawn on the four brick walls, sigils like the ones his mother had often used.

"Welcome to my summoning den," Jeffran said, extending a hand out to Nathan. "Sorry about bringing you in like this; I couldn't take the risk of you saying no.”

"You mean, through the double-snake tattoo?" Helpless, Nathan took Jeffran's hand and followed the man all the way to a tattooing chair made completely of crimson red leather, placed exactly under the beam of light descending from the oculus.

"Yes and that's the first thing we'll take care of before telling you what I need from you." Gently, he guided Nathan onto the red leather, beckoning him to remove his shirt.

The touch of Jeffran's hands was electric as he examined the double snakes. "Impressive. This worked better than I thought. You see," Jeffran said as he dug into his valise for a small but shiny nanoInk tool. "When you came to me with the snake design, I knew it as a sign. The double snakes have been my family's symbol for hundreds of years as keepers of the veil between the seen and the unseen."

Jeffran pressed the tip of the needle against Nathan's shoulder, exactly on the spot where Nathan knew the fused tongues were. "Sorry, this might hurt a little." The needle buzzed to life.

Within seconds of sharp pain, the tension of the spell that had seized him that morning fell away like old skin being shed. As soon as Jeffran removed the tattoo needle, Nathan jumped out of the chair and ran toward the wall where he had entered. The portal was gone. In fact, looking around the room, Nathan realized that there were no doors, only brick and more brick, naked except for the large sigils that loomed above him.

"There's only a wall there now," Jeffran said calmly. "Trust me; I mean you no harm."

"No harm?" Nathan shouted, turning to face Jeffran as he flattened his back against the cold brick wall. "You put me under a spell that literally wiped out any desire to exercise my free will and drew me to this forsaken side of town only to be chased around by another deranged tattoo master with god-knows what intentions!" Nathan could feel fire building up under his solar plexus, where 戦, the kanji for "war," sat vigilant.

"There is more to it, Nath," Jeffran said calmly, gesturing with his hands, palms down as if pacifying and angry dog.

"It's Nathan!" He all but barked back, ready to bare his teeth and go for first blood.

"Nathan." Jeffran corrected, his voice caressing the two syllables with that goddamned soft voice that would need no compulsion spell to remove Nathan's clothes with a mere whisper. "Aside from my dire need for a concealment spell, there are forces at work much more dangerous than a simple spell that, as you see, I have willingly removed. This is as much for my benefit as it is for yours, for your protection. Also, in the last few years I truly have come to..." He paused, eyes momentarily cast down as if struck by sudden shyness. "...care about you."

Nathan was silent for a moment, lured as much as he was disgusted by Jeffran's untimely revelation. "Really? Is that why you dragged me here by force? To tell me that you'll finally give me the time of day after three years of fruitless flirting?" It was said before he could stop himself and the words floated between them like pages torn out of his life's book, burning away to ashes.

"Not exactly. I really need your help and I was afraid you would say no," Jeffran said apologetically. "You have always been very protective of your secret life outside your visits to Quayside Tattoo and I'm finally now starting to understand why; you are in danger as much as I am."

"Danger? From Erika?" Being reminded of Erika's pursuit did nothing to improve his anger toward Jeffran, but it distracted him from it long enough to refocus its energy.

"Yes, and nearly everyone at the tattoo shop, I'm afraid." Jeffran turned around and walked to the tattoo chair. He grabbed an antiseptic towelette and began to wipe the red leather. "That's another reason to bring you here so that I can finish your chest tattoo, safely away from the prying eyes of Erika and, worse, Constance."

Nathan began to see some sense in what Jeffran was saying, even though he was still uncertain about the part about actually suddenly having any kind of romantic feelings. Yet the anger still simmered under the surface of his thoughts, bringing his trust for Nathan into question. But at the end of the day, he needed that final kanji tattooed and his spectral password completed. He finally spoke. "Alright. I can't quite forgive you for what you did but I am willing to do this as an honest exchange; your aural concealment for my tattoo."

"Thank you," was all Jeffran said, voice as contrite as could be.

Before walking to the tattoo chair, while Jeffran fussed about with preparations, Nathan took a look at the snakes on his shoulder: the tongues were indeed separated, as they were meant to be. As an additional precaution, he placed one index finger on each of the spider tattoos behind his ears, sensing for danger. There was none, at least not within the hundred-foot radius of the spell, which indicated that Jeffran's intentions were, if not good, at least not harmful.

"Ready?" Jeffran asked.

Nathan opened his eyes. "As ready as I'll ever be."

* * * * * * 結合 * * (Conjunction)

The coolness of red leather seeped in through Nathan's skin like the soft caress of his mother's hand. He let himself relax on the tattoo chair while Jeffran assembled his very expensive nanoInk needle with the somber aura of religious ritual.

"Alright," Jeffran said as he took a seat next to the tattoo chair, looking down at Nathan with a smile that brightened his already beautiful face, backlit as it was by the light coming from the oculus above.

Daemon or angel? Nathan wondered.

"Before we start, I need to emphasize how sorry I am to have put you under that compulsion spell. I wish I'd had the guts to just ask you for help." Jeffran looked directly into Nathan's eyes, his topaz-blue irises making a silent plea of their own. "More importantly, you can't trust anyone at Quayside Tattoo; Erika and her cronies seem only too willing to turn you in to those forces I mentioned before."

Nathan swallowed. His mother had sacrificed her life to hide the knowledge about Nathan’s true self that apparently tied him to some unavoidable fate. To keep their all-seeing eyes off you, she would say.

“Who are they?” Nathan asked.

Jeffran thought for a moment. "Let's just say they are ancient supernatural powers."

"How would you know? Your family is not even Japanese," Nathan said, thinking of the crystal eyes of the many small statues his mother kept in her summoning parlor, which his very American father had hated until the day he had finally left.

"Some manifestations of power transcend cultures, snakes being one powerful connection."

"Like the snakes in the mural?" Nathan asked.

"Exactly, or your sleeve. The fact is, you have suddenly caught the attention of those forces. It is almost as if you had been invisible to them until you got the first milliliter of nanoInk under your skin."

Nathan froze. His mother had always warned him about the dangers and vulnerabilities of nanoInk technology, but he had just dismissed it as part of her usual disconnect with the times. Then he thought of his spider tattoos, made by his mother using the old techniques when he was only four, those should not have failed. "Wait, how did anyone even manage to bypass my sensing capabilities?"

"Who, the people at Quayside?" Jeffran asked.

Nathan nodded.

"Compartmentalization. Whatever forces they are working for have a way of compartmentalizing intention so that it can be basically stored away from detection by traditional spells or sigils. Ironically, nanoInk would have made such spells more effective in that respect, but then it also has its own set of downfalls."

"Yeah," Nathan said, unable to hide the sarcasm from his voice. "Like being able to create tattoos that self-modify to turn—I don't know—protection into compulsion?"

Jeffran said nothing, turning away from Nathan to look for something on one of the tool trays next to him.

At any rate, it made sense. Perhaps that was how his mother had managed to hide Nathan's truth about himself, by locking it away in the underworld through compartmentalization. "That explains it, I guess." And yet, Nathan could not really shake the feeling that perhaps Jeffran was compartmentalizing his intentions too, thus avoiding his "spidey" senses, but at this point this was a risk he would have to take.

"So," Jeffran continued, turning back to face Nathan. "It became clear to me that they knew something about you and were doing things like spying on you and trying to find out exactly which master tattooists had worked on your chest so far, all to please the greater powers interested in you."

There it was again, the mention of greater powers and the sense that he now lay wide open to them, ready for the taking. He really needed to get on with this tattoo and make his way to the underworld to reclaim that crucial piece of hidden knowledge. "How did you know about Erika?"

"Erika following you here was a no brainer, really, but the truth is, the binding cast by the snake tattoo worked both ways and it alerted me as soon as you sensed danger out there in the street. Then all it took was a well-timed noise a block away to draw her away from you."

"You did that?"

"Yes. I have to keep her thinking I am just some careless nanoInk tattooist dabbling in spectral summoning."

Nathan was not so sure Jeffran was not altogether as dangerous as Erika and her comrades, but he set the thought aside for the time being. "Okay. So what's next?"

"An exchange. I finish your tattoo and help you modify it with a randomization spell so that whatever those tattoo artists remember will be just off enough to render their recollection useless. For that, all I ask is your help with a way to conceal a pesky aural marker."

"And what exactly do you need to hide?"

"Let's just say that the conjuring I am planning, which might as well be the last one of my breathing life, will release the type of energy that will not go unnoticed by certain powers because of a certain marker on my aura. It will only get amplified, turning my summoning room into a supernatural beacon."

"Does your summoning have anything to do with the powers after me?" It was a fair question as much as it was a test. Nathan did not blink, watching Jeffran's expression very closely.

"It's likely," Jeffran said, letting out a sigh. "All things under heaven and above the earth are inextricably connected in ways most of us cannot even begin to fathom, but something tells me that we have at least a few common enemies."

"Alright," Nathan said, his tone all business. "Let me sense your aural marker and figure out the best approach. It can be a little uncomfortable."

"Of course; I trust you. But what about we finish your tattoo first, to show you I mean to keep my word."

"Actually, let's deal with your aural marker before we start on my tattoo; it's a little easier if I am not in pain." Nathan got on his feet and beckoned Jeffran to stand in front of him, facing each other. "I have to touch your solar plexus and the back of your neck." He waited a few seconds before he added, "Skin on skin."

"Oh!" Exclaimed Jeffran, who then said in a more playful tone, "I thought you'd never ask." Jeffran unbuttoned his shirt and revealed a hairy and muscular chest, gleaming in the hot air condition-less room.

"Close your eyes," Nathan said, which was completely unnecessary for sensing the man's aura, but he could not stand to look into those eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. Contact was electric, the warmth of Jeffran's nape and the heat of his bare chest threatening to turn Nathan's assessment into something more. However, before the thought could go any further, the world fell away and Nathan saw himself floating in the crystal-clear waters of a giant lake that reflected the blue of a sky as beautiful as Jeffran's eyes.

Peace, he thought, but then something stirred in the waters, something dark and slithering, making its way across the lake right under the surface, a blemish in Jeffran's otherwise empty psyche. Perhaps too empty, he wondered, but the idea faded as the dark shape rose out of the waters and looked in his direction with a pair of unsettling, yellow eyes. It must be the aural marker, Nathan thought, though it seemed a bit too sentient as markers go.

He let go of the vision and the world re-solidified around him, only to find himself staring directly into Jeffran's open eyes. He removed his hands from the man's chest and nape and shook the numbness away, purposely turning away from Jeffran as he did so. "I got it," he said matter-of-factly.

"Got it? So can you conceal it?" There was eagerness in Jeffran's voice.

"I think so. First we both need to—" Fire burned on Nathan's cheeks.

"Get naked?" Jeffran laughed. "Of course! No respectable ritual ever works well with clothes on."

Soon they were both standing in front of one another, fully nude, under the oculus. Nathan held a small dagger in his right hand. "This is gonna hurt."

Jeffran stood still and nodded.

Circling around Jeffran until he stood behind him, Nathan tried his best to focus on the image of the sigil he would have to carve on the man's heel, trying to look away from the perfect roundness of Jeffran's buttocks. "Do not move," Nathan said as he traced, with the tip of the dagger, the length of Jeffran's leg, down to his heel. He pressed the point in, drawing a tiny bead of blood.

Sensing no movement, he began, and the sigil slowly came to life, all else forgotten: the scent of Jeffran's naked flesh, the silent power surging in his chest, and the eyes of the forces that were watching him. He carved the two horizontal lines separating the three worlds, the half circle of the spirit world above, and the half circle of the underworld below. With a steady hand he carved the small circle of divine knowledge above and the five pointed star of earthly things in the underworld, hidden. The vertical line connecting the world above and the world below featured a gap in the middle, in the real world, to represent the broken link that would effectively hide the marker.

Exhausted, Nathan sat on the floor, letting go of the dagger. He closed his eyes.

"Thank you," he heard Jeffran say somewhere above him. Then he was suddenly suddenly next to his ear. "I hope I don't cause you half this much pain when I work on your skin."

Nathan lifted his face to look at Jeffran, who was kneeling next to him, eyes crystal clear now, the weight of the aural marker lifted from them. Nathan opened his mouth to say something but his words were drowned by lips touching lips as intoxicating as the magic he had imbued into the sigil.

* * * * * * * * 忘却 (Oblivion)

Two hours later, Nathan was back in the streets leading away from the Dead Tree District, spent from both the demands of the concealment ritual, the aftershock of unexpected sex, and the burning fire of the fresh tattoo Jeffran had finished on his chest. He could feel the completeness of the ten characters, their combined energies surging and dancing on his chest as the nanoInk adjusted and readjusted, alchemizing and necrotizing.

He kept replaying every moment he had spent with Jeffran obsessively, hung up as much on the magical moments between them as on those moments where Jeffran's actions or comments had triggered doubts. In particular, there was the way the tattooed skin on his chest had reacted to Jeffran's touch after he was finished with the work, almost as if the characters knew him. But then there had been a lot of intimate contact before that and then the fact that Nathan had gotten two characters tattooed two days in a row—that would make for very sensitive skin.

Then there were the comments Jeffran had made before Nathan got out of the tattoo chair, still shirtless. "Amazing how the characters hide themselves in the guise of stars," Jeffran had said. Nathan could have sworn that the man, a bit older than Nathan, must know that these were asterisks, not stars, and that as of last century, when passwords were still in vogue, asterisks on the now obsolete computer monitors would hide the secret characters from prying eyes. It was almost as if Jeffran were trying to sound more clueless than he really was.

No matter, he thought as he made his way to Malcolm station, walking briskly along the river. The spectral password was ready and all that was left to do was to visit the underbelly of the city once again, that place of dark memory where he knew he would find one of the many secret portals to the world of the dead, if all his research were correct.

His phone buzzed, reminding him that he should get rid of it before entering the subway station. "Hello?"

"Oh, Nathan. We were all worried," said Erika's voice, flat and steely over the crackling connection. "Constance called me to let me know you hadn't shown up for your session."

"I'm flattered, really. You all seem to take particular interest in my well being."

Silence. Then, "Of course, you are one of our prized clients." There was a tentative edge to her voice, as if suddenly aware that Jeffran knew something.

"No worries. I must have caught something from work. Much better now, though, infinitely better. Can we just reschedule for Monday?"

He could sense Erika's tension over the line; it almost had him convinced. "I think it best you come in today; some of us think you're in danger. I can't tell you over the phone."

Of course she would say that, Nathan thought. "Oh, please, no need to worry, it's just the common cold, nothing spectral."

"Nathan," she continued in a fake-sweet tone. "I haven't been completely honest with you.”

A bit of anger surged in Nathan's chest, but he kept it at bay. "My, my, but you know I don't swing that way.” He laughed.

“Nothing like that, Nathan. Seriously, there are things you must learn about certain events and people around you.”

“Tell me Monday." He hung up before she could say more. The bitch, he thought as he hurled his phone into the river, drowning any trace of tracking magic she, or someone else at Quayside, might have placed on it.

When he arrived at the entrance to the abandoned station, he could feel the call of the underground, the tattoo burning in his chest as it slowly transformed from asterisks back to kanji. The transformation had always been accompanied by burning pain, but this time all he felt was a tingling that was by no means worthy of being called pain. Perhaps something related to the completion of the tattoo, he hoped.

Once in front of what used to be one of the main entrances to the station, he crawled through a large opening on the bottom part of the shut gate that he knew very well, careful not to rest his hand on some discarded needle. He descended the dark staircase, with only supernatural sight to guide him—he had a tatt for that—into the empty tunnels where he had lived among the rejects of society for a time after his mother died at the hands of Oni daemons. He could feel the heavy sadness of returning to the darkness where his mother had left him, nameless, motherless. Also, now more than ever, Nathan felt the void left behind by the absence of the hidden truth about himself, hidden away as it was from him in some unknown dimension of non-existence.

Shaking off the memories, he made it to the very bottom track, one that even the homeless had avoided then. The silence was complete. Nathan removed his clothing, the cold wet air of the tunnel clinging to his skin like the hands of a dead lover. He thought of Jeffran's touch the night before, at first tentative and then as certain as the man's tattooing hand. Would he be able to do anything about Jeffran after he gained access to the underworld and claimed his true self—assuming he made it back alive?

He removed a vial from his bag. It contained a thin powder. Mother's blood, he thought as he rubbed it against his chest, feeling the nanoInk drinking up each particle greedily. As a recently orphaned teen, Nathan had, against his dead mother's wishes, gone back to the place where the Oni had eaten her alive and collected some of the spilt blood to make the magical powder.

Sacrilege, he thought he heard, echoing in the emptiness of these tunnels.

"Sorry, Mom," he whispered.

Magic and electricity danced on his chest, each character lighting up as the nanoInk came to life in a triple marriage of quantum, electromagnetic, and spectral fields. Soon the glow was strong enough to cast light that cut across the dark tunnel like a white, blinding beacon.

A tall figure stood across from Nathan, long black hair falling like a dark cascade over a white, blood-stained kimono. She floated toward Nathan, eight long shadows with heads like snakes trailing behind her. Her face crawled alive with worms and maggots, swirling around two empty pits that looked at him from the blackness of death.

"You are not dead," she said, her accent reminiscent of Nathan's own mother. "Only the dead can cross into Yomi."

"I seek passage only to retrieve knowledge hidden there for me; I don't mean to stay."

"Only the dead can cross into Yomi.” She raised what passed for an eyebrow. “Who hid this knowledge?"

"My mother. This is the password to your realm that she passed on to me."

"Pas-su-woo-do?" She said the word as if she were tasting a rare wine for the first time. "Ah, a Jumon: your incantation." Her entire form, snakes and all, floated in front of Nathan menacingly. She extended a hand toward Nathan's naked chest.

When the palm of her hand settled flat upon his chest, it felt as if the entirety of Nathan's being was catching on fire, each of the ten kanji exploding into a thousand strands of flame that reached every nerve in his body.

"Fascinating," she said, her searing hand now glowing with the light emanating from his chest. Then, out of nowhere, a cryptic smirk coalesces on her face, followed by, "It’s like you’re—mostly dead."

The sudden image of Izanami kicking back in her netherworld home theater watching late 80s fantasy adventure comedies with her bloodshot eyes haunted Nathan's vision for a moment, but then it vanished as soon as Izanami removed her hand, refocusing his attention on the soothing coolness now settling on his skin.

She floated away from him, back against the opposite wall of the tunnel. Raising her left arm at shoulder height, the tattered sleeve of her kimono dangling like shredded flesh, she said, "You may get passage only to retrieve what lies hidden there. You have one hour."

"Thank you, my lady," was all he could say.

"Izanami-no-Mikoto, child." The space under her extended arm darkened and soon something like a portal lay open beneath it.

Nathan walked toward it, expectant, triumphant, ever so ready to walk into another portal, this time opened by the goddess of death herself.

Suddenly, right before he placed one foot into the portal, Izanami's other hand was on his chest, this one as cold as frozen snow. It arrested his movement. When he looked at her decaying face, it wore, if it was even possible for a countenance made of maggots to do so, a sad expression. "I fear you are too late."

"Too late?" Nathan's body froze. "What do you mean?"

"I am so sorry but your—" She hesitated for a moment. "Your password has been compromised."

"Compromised? How?" He panicked.

"Sorry. Someone tried to access the hidden knowledge using that password.” She paused, as if listening to something outside this reality. “Not to worry, Nathan-san; he has been dealt with and speedily transformed into an Oni."

"He?"

She ignored his question. "Do you wish to reset your password?"

"Are you kidding me?" The situation was now outright ridiculous, a goddess of death asking if he wanted a spectral password reset?

"Izanami-no-Mikoto does not kid, child. Do you wish to reset your password?"

"Yes, yes. Reset my fucking password!" He was now angry, the war kanji on his solar plexus like a piercing pain, but Izanami was oblivious to this.

"As you wish." She raised her right hand and exclaimed, "Jefuran-no-Oni, password reset please."

Another figure appeared by her side, tall and red-skinned, two black horns atop its head. It paced toward Nathan slowly, studying him even as it advanced toward him. The creature raised its hand and reached for Nathan's chest, revealing long dark claws that traveled across it from right to left teasingly, like a lover's touch.

Then it spoke. "This might hurt a little," and it was Jeffran's voice coming out of a dark hole of a mouth with rows of white fangs as long as fingers. "Look into my eyes; it will help," and they were Jeffran's clear blue-topaz-for-eyes.

Nathan wanted to ask how and why, but deep within he knew he had been duped, that Jeffran had somehow gained access to his password—the portal? The strange creature he faced before the concealment ritual? For God's sake, had it been the sex? It did not matter now, at least his mother’s secret remained intact.

Before Nathan could say anything, Jeffran's claws plunged into his chest and in one swift motion peeled off his skin as if peeling an orange, tearing at the edges until the entire tattoo was removed from him, down to the flesh.

"Password reset complete," Jefuran-no-oni growled.

The last image before collapsing and before darkness took over the tunnel was that of Jeffran, or the Oni daemon thing he had become, crouched on the floor, eating the strip of flesh in one gulp, while Izanami's hand pet him on the back as if he were a faithful hound.

Nathan began to lose consciousness, knowing well that he would just bleed to death and that nobody would find him down here where not even daylight dared to enter.

Izanami's voice echoed somewhere in the growing darkness. "If you survive, Nathan-san, please check your email for instructions on how to reset your password. If not—" She laughed.

I will see you soon, he thought as the echo of laughter bounced off the tunnel walls, as death carried him into oblivion, knowing that at least he would not need a password to get back to his mother, even if her secret, his secret, was forever lost to a twisted technicality.

No, you won't, Izanami's voice replied, as loud as if she were standing next to his dying body, yet also sounding like it spoke somewhere in the sudden void in his head.

Your access to Yomi has been temporarily blocked.