Welcome to Slate City
mc mf ff md fd gr collar
Prologue- Eliza enjoys the biker rally.
I nodded, taking in the surrounding ambiance. The annual Quad-City Biker Rally was rocking.
Gangs from the Quads were well represented, with bikers from Chrystal Heights, Darkview, Stone Valley and Slate City all making their presence felt. Music blasted from giant speakers. Exotic food stand aromas drifted along the streets. Long, impatient lines snaked in front of beer carts and liquor tents. Vendors jostled for attention as pedestrians walked around the inevitable brawls. The annual Biker Rally was always a rowdy bash and this year was no different.
I’m no stranger to the back of a motorcycle. I know the difference between a Harley Davidson and a Harvey Wallbanger and I fill a pair of tight denim jeans pretty well. But that wasn’t why I was here.
I was here for the Beast commission.
As a tattooist- owner and solo artist for Eliza’s Inks- motorcycle rallies were great for me. My bread, butter and jam. Just set up a little tent and let the drunk bikers start stumbling in. No shortage of customers. Bikers weren’t the most intellectual of customers, but their money spent just as well as anybody else’s. The Biker Rally would likely be the most lucrative week of the year for me.
But this year, the big happening was the Beast commission. Beast was the president of No Regrets, a small but influential biker gang. Influential typically means dangerous, but whatever. He was a big name and he wanted a tattoo. He wanted a big tattoo, a unique tattoo, and whoever did that tattoo was going to gain some serious professional cred.
And I had every intention of making sure I scored that commission. That tattoo was going to put Eliza’s Inks on the map.
Word had gone out the week before that Beast was looking to use the festival as a stage for finding the right design. The right inker. The perfect tat. And every local inker who heard the news likely went straight to the drawing board. Literally.
But as far as I was concerned, you couldn’t create the perfect tat for someone if you didn’t know them. So instead of going to the drawing board, I went to the Internet and looked up everything I could find about Beast.
Which turned out to be surprisingly little. Despite being the well-known badass head of No Regrets, there were few pictures of him to be found. Pictures of his biker gang brothers, yes, but pictures of him, no. He apparently wasn’t big on posing. No pics of him at a beer bash. No pics of him on a ‘cycle with a hot biker chick clutching his waist from behind. Not even a pic of him flipping his middle finger at the camera. He didn’t maintain any social media accounts. He was dressed almost exactly the same in the few pictures that were available.
Street chant said that Beast came from Slate City. All the Quad cities are weird in their own way, of course. Chrystal Heights is home to transformative magic and super science, Darkview is known for shady arcana and no rules, and Stone Valley is home to the dangerously horny, breeding futas. But Slate City was in some ways even stranger, founded from some sort of crystal power. Their social structure was a weird mix of formidable patriarchy and electric cyberpunk. The laws were different there and some women were practically second-class citizens. Hell, word was some women were even legally owned.
But street chant aside, nobody actually knew for sure where Beast came from, so the Slate City rumor was possibly just creative license. I needed facts, not stories, and trying to get a lock on him was like trying to nail Jello to a tree.
I needed a picture of the private Beast to form.
*****
That’d been a week ago. After several days and numerous false starts, it didn’t look like it was going to happen. On the verge of despair, I decided to take a surreptitious look at the infamous Beast to see if it sparked something.
No Regrets had an entire canopy set up near the center of the festival. Beast’s tattoo being one of the main events, they’d gotten premium placement. I took a break from inking and emerged from my tent to make my way in that direction.
It was a warm if breezy afternoon. Denim and leather was everywhere. Black was prominent. Food fragrances lingered. A local band was playing to a small crowd and the hard notes beat on the air. Bleary-eyed bikers and leather-clad women manned various stands. It was still early in the day- for bikers- and the ambiance was languid for now.
Being early had its advantages, though, and since there wasn’t much of a line, I grabbed a beer and leaned against an available wooden pole not far from the tent opening. As luck would have it, Beast himself stepped outside the tent for what looked like a breath of fresh air.
A couple inches over 6 feet, with the thick shoulders and muscled arms you might expect from a biker, and dressed the same way he appeared in almost every picture I’d seen of him. Jeans, black t-shirt, leather vest. Engineer boots. Black bandanna holding down long wavy hair. Wraparound sunglasses. Trimmed black beard. Ruggedly good-looking with an edgy, dangerous air. Probably all mouth and trousers for it, but he certainly looked the part.
I wasn’t learning anything I didn’t already know, but this was at least an opportunity to get a couple pics of my own. On the down-low, of course. I took out my cell phone.
Then I got thumped from the side. Something warm splashed over me.
“Hey!” said a grating voice. “Watch where you’re going, you dumb bitch! You spilled my beer!”
The speaker was a skinny rodent-like biker who was almost certainly overcompensating. A few scraggly whiskers jutted from his chin, admirable only for their efforts in pretending to be a beard. His leather vest was filthy and the band on his tattered concert shirt had likely retired long after the last time the shirt had been washed.
I decided to try diplomacy. “Try again, numbnuts. You ran into me.”
He stepped closer, trying to look menacing. “You owe me a beer, bitch,” he said, his beer breath actually penetrating the fumes now emanating from my t-shirt. He leered and reached out for me. “And maybe a little fun afterward as an apology.”
Nobody in the area even turned their head. Whatever. I lifted my knee directly into his balls.
The skinny biker stumbled backward, eyes bulging. Then he clutched his abused sack and dropped to his knees, wheezing. I put my boot on his chest and pushed, tumbling him over.
“There’s your apology, dickless,” I said. “See if they’ll give you a beer for that.”
“Hey!” said a rough voice. “Why da fuck you do dat to Ratfink? He was just tryin’ ta be friendly.”
I looked up and saw two lumbering behemoths. Bigger, heavier versions of the dude I’d just kicked, and with actual beards. And, judging by the identical forearm tattoos the behemoths shared with the rodent, part of the same gang. The Ghosts, if I was reading the ink right.
I offered a shrug. “It was a love tap. He’ll be fine.”
“You won’t be,” said the other biker, his voice an ominous rumble. “No cunt hits a Ghost and gets away with it.”
Crap. I could handle myself in a scrap, but these two dudes were mini-mountains. This wasn’t going to be good.
Then a voice said, “Not gonna happen.”
The two bikers and I turned to the speaker. It was Beast.
The two Ghosts looked at each other, then back at Beast.
He hadn’t moved. “Ratfink made himself obnoxious and the lady dealt with it. It should end there, but that’s not my business. She is, however, in No Regrets’ territory and that is my business. You’re not laying a hand on her here.”
His voice sounded like he didn’t use it often, but then, he probably didn’t need to. His body language projected ‘no trespassing’ better than any sign could have.
The slightly-more-intellectual Ghost behemoth stared incredulously. “This is the street, berk. You claiming the whole street as yours?”
Beast shook his head coolly. “Nope. Not the street. But this tent is our territory.”
The Ghost shrugged. “Fine. We’ll just take her with us.”
Beast didn’t move, but the air around him was suddenly alive. “No, you won’t. You’ll take your brother and you’ll scram. You’re not laying a hand on her. Not here.”
The battle lines were drawn. The two behemoths lumbered toward Beast, the pair wearing impending violence like old leather jackets. Things were getting ugly. I couldn’t step up to stop it at this point because this wasn’t about me anymore. It had moved beyond me. It was about dominance now.
The first Ghost threw a heavy punch at Beast, and Beast took it full, his wraparound shades flying off as his head snapped to the side. The other Ghost threw a punch from the opposite side, also catching Beast square in the jaw.
It was weird. Beast had made no effort to block either punch. In fact, he almost appeared to be smiling.
He’s taking their measure, I realized. Finding out what they’ve got.
The first Ghost followed up with a haymaker. Or what would have been a haymaker, had it landed, but by the time his fist arrived at where Beast’s face should have been, said face was a foot away, burying his fist in the other Ghost’s gut. The punch didn’t have a great deal of effect, but it did cause the behemoth to lower his massive arms an inch or so, which was apparently all Beast needed.
Beast drove bladed fingers into the behemoth’s now-exposed throat, causing the biker to stumble back a step. The first Ghost bear-hugged Beast from behind, but Beast drove his heel into the behemoth’s instep, causing the Ghost to yell and loosen his grip. Beast dropped his shoulders slightly and elbowed the Ghost in the stomach, then whirled and used his opposite arm to elbow the Ghost in the jaw. The Ghost’s eyes vagued and he dropped to a knee.
The still-standing Ghost gamely tried to grab the front of Beast’s t-shirt, but Beast reached over the behemoth’s arm and grabbed the other wrist, trapping the Ghost’s beefy forearms against his chest. The biker’s face was inches from Beast’s then and Beast delivered a vicious headbutt. The Ghost’s eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped.
Beast turned to the remaining Ghost, who was still upright on one knee, but his eyes were glazed. Beast reached out and palm-pushed his thick chest. The Ghost fell backward to the ground with an audible thump.
Several bikers spilled out of the tent, drawn by the edgy sounds of violence, but the battle was finished and there was nothing left to do but drag the dazed Ghosts out of the way. The action had materialized so quickly, few of the passers-by even realized anything was happening. Those that had caught the violent confrontation stared with awe-struck breathlessness, however. Beast had taken out two behemoths in under 10 seconds. Messing with Beast appeared to be an unhealthy pursuit.
His wraparound sunglasses had landed near me. I picked them up and walked over to him.
“Here,” I said, handing him his shades. “Thanks.”
He took the sunglasses and met my gaze for an extended heartbeat before sliding them into place. His eyes were a gunmetal grey. Ungiving, unyielding, coldly efficient. Dangerous. Not a man to be trifled with.
“Didn’t do it for you,” he said. He turned and walked back into his tent. I wanted to follow him inside, but the flat stares of his brothers made it clear that wasn’t happening.
But that was okay. I had more to work with now. Not much, but more than I’d had fifteen minutes ago.
*****
It turned out to be more than enough. Watching him take out those guys- seeing the beast within come out, so to speak- combined with the memory of those gunmetal grey eyes gave me what I needed. 48 hours later, I finished what was probably the best work I had ever done.
I looked at the blueprint. It brought out the half-man, half-beast aspect perfectly. Savage, yet efficient. A great base, with variations available for body part placement, in case he wanted a running theme across his torso. I was flexible. Lived to serve, right?
HA! I didn’t serve anybody. Never would. But I was willing to be flexible for this ink job.
*****
It was time to drop off my entry. But just as I was preparing to leave to deliver it, my tent flap opened and a biker walked in. The odor filling my workspace told me it was Ratfink.
For a moment I thought there might be trouble. Then I realized that Ratfink was actually sober and mumbling something.
“Umm…Beetlejuice said…I gotta ‘polgize to you…and stuff…didn’t know you were Eliza…and friends with the bossman, y’know? So…sorry…’kay?”
Wow. The president of the Ghosts himself was making Ratfink apologize. I’d done some work on Beetlejuice before and he remembered me. It was good to have friends. Or at least customers.
I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
He brightened at that. “So we’re good?”
A real ball of fire in the brains department, this one. “Yeah, we’re good.”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Fuckin’ A! So I can get a tat here?”
I rolled my eyes, but got out my equipment. Business was business, right? Even if I did have to air out my tent afterward.
*****
The job wasn’t complicated and a short time later I was on my way to No Regrets’s canopy, cardboard tube holding the rolled up blueprint tucked under my arm. This blueprint was my ticket.
I slowed for a moment as I neared their tent, remembering the sudden explosion of violence, hearing again the meaty thump of fist on bone, witnessing Beast’s brutal display of speed and power. Then I moved on, ignoring the stirring in my belly.
The No Regrets’ flap was rolled open, so I strolled inside the large canopy, startling a blonde floozy. Tables ranged throughout, most of them covered with full ashtrays and empty beer bottles. A couple of them were occupied by passed-out bikers. Banners hung, displaying past achievements. An impressive number of posters featuring topless women papered various flat surfaces. The stale smell of alcohol and cannabis hung so heavy in the air that I was tempted to try cutting it into cubes and selling it on the street.
I glanced around the nearly empty canopy. The place should have been full of hard-partying bikers. My heart started pounding as my chest went tight with anxiety. Had I somehow missed the window?
I looked at the woman I had startled when I burst in. Big blue eyes stared back. Wavy blonde curls bobbed. Perky cleavage invited. Almost certainly a biker groupie. Cute, but definitely not a rocket scientist. Maybe a rocket scientist’s receptionist.
She put a hand to her chest. “Omigod! You totally gave me a heart attack!”
Okay, maybe not even a receptionist. “Sorry. Where is everybody?”
Blondie blinked, obviously turning over the question in her mind.
I sighed. “Wasn’t meant to be a stumper. Beast? No Regrets? Why is this place so empty?”
“Oh!” she said, giggling. “Sorry. Most of the boys are, like, at the demo, you know?”
Then I remembered a demonstration was happening at the far end of the rally. No Regrets was almost certainly participating.
I nodded, still tense. “Makes sense. Any idea where I turn in my entry?”
Her eyes brightened. “Oh, yeah! Right in the back! C’mon, I’ll show you!”
Relief swept over me. I shook my head. “Thanks, but I don’t need a babysitter. Just tell me where.”
Looking hurt, Blondie pointed to the back part of the canopy, which was sectioned off. I gave her a nod and made my way there.
I felt bad for brushing her off like that. I normally wouldn’t have minded her company- she was a cutie, after all- but I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to study the opposition. And it was some strong opposition indeed.
There was no denying the quality of several of the entries. Mufasa from Chrystal Heights, with his powerful African lines projecting nobility and power. Corker Blue, with his high-level concepts and transition images, and Kitty Bird, with her intricate designs and bold coloring, both from Chrystal Heights. Darkview’s Frankenstone, with his dark, multi-layer image projecting strength, danger and badassery in general. And Max from Slate City, with edgy lines and contrasting colors that stood out in many ways.
They were good. They were very good. But mine had an element, a subtle life to it that set it apart from even this high-end collection. I pulled my entry from the cardboard tube and placed it in a prominent place that would draw his eye when he stepped back here.
I’d done what I needed to do and it was time to get back to work. But when I turned to leave, my eyes fell on an entry I had missed earlier, an entry sitting on a different table than the others.
I walked over for a closer look. My heart dropped.
It was another blueprint, but different from the rest. It was more concept than object art. Far more. It felt like many things at once. It was subtle, but overt. Gentle, but powerful. I wasn’t entirely sure what the message was, but there was something intriguing, something enthralling about the image. I didn’t understand it, but there was no denying it touched something inside.
I exhaled. The blueprint had been submitted by Sir Cosmo of Slate City. And this…was a potential winner.
Glancing around the divider, I saw Blondie was still in the tent, staring at the entry door flap. She looked nervous. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to be here. The reason was didn’t concern me, as long as she stayed out there.
Turning back, I made my decision. This blueprint was the only thing between me and my dream commission and there was no way I going to let it stop me.
Making the blueprint disappear would be easy enough. The trick was making sure nobody realized it was me. And with Blondie sitting by the front door, there’d be a witness, so I was going to have to leave a false trail.
It felt like old times. I grinned, finding myself wistfully wishing the blueprint was locked in a safe.
Granted, that was an odd thing to wish for, but inking wasn’t my only talent. It wasn’t even my main talent. I’d been the safe-cracker with the Alley Cats- an all-girl Chrystal Heights gang- for a couple years, until we got nicked during a big job. I got away, but the others ended up in front of Judge Hanover, the one they call ‘The Rack’. Jazzy was now dancing naked at the Chrystal Palace, Little Bit was a topless window-display mannequin on Main Street and Pepper was getting knocked up and carrying babies for the guy whose house we’d broken into. Judge Hanover didn’t fuck around with his punishments. I’d been lucky to get away in time.
With them out of action, I was a lock-breaker without a gang, so it seemed a good time to fall back on my artistic ability and start inking. A girl’s gotta make a living, right? And it worked, so walking this side of the line suited me these days.
But my past made me no stranger to utilizing alternative means to get what I wanted and getting this blueprint out of here would be a comparative breeze. I just needed to do it right. The classic red herring was the way to go, I decided.
I glanced around, looking for a sharp object. Being a biker gang’s tent, there was no shortage of knives and daggers. I picked up a dagger with a skull decorating the hilt and briefly weighed it in my hand.
There was only one entrance into the tent, but anyone with a sharp knife could make as many entries as they liked. One quick jab and a hasty slice job left a slit just big enough for a person to get through. Then I rolled up Sir Cosmo’s blueprint and slid it inside my cardboard tube. Tucking the tube under my arm, I strolled back into the main area like I’d been there a hundred times before and hadn’t been impressed then either.
Blondie turned as I moved past her. “Geez. In a hurry?”
I smiled. “Sure am. Don’t want to miss the demo, you know?”
She smiled back, but her big blue eyes didn’t join in. “Oh! That makes total sense.”
I simply nodded as I made my way outside with the loot.
BOOM! The perfect crime.
*****
The judging felt almost anti-climatic. The blueprints had been put on display racks outside the No Regrets tent. Beast walked back and forth, looking over each one before moving on to the next. It felt like an odd contrast, the masculine, dangerous Beast prowling between art displays, but here we were.
I admit I was still a bit worried. Beast seemed distracted, like he was looking for something he couldn’t see. But in the end, he tapped my blueprint and grunted. His vice-president- a stocky dude called Handler- made the announcement. The job was being awarded to Eliza from Eliza’s Inks.
RESULT!
I spent the next hour going over the blueprint with Beast and making several small changes at his direction. Then numerous kegs were opened and a local band set up shop, starting what looked to be an all-night jam. And I was a star.
You couldn’t expect to hang with No Regrets without partying as hard as they did. Unspoken, unwritten, but absolutely requisite, and of course I had to uphold my part. After several beers, not only was I upholding my part, but doing so with great finesse. One assumed.
A stream of bikers and revelers carried the festivities. The local band was called Darkspoken and they weren’t great, but they were definitely leveling the locale to ground zero with biker metal while topless biker chicks stumbled around, bare breasts bouncing. Boozy brawls spontaneously erupted here and there and semi-dressed couples performed vertically what’s usually done horizontally. It was revelry to do a biker festival proud.
I was feeling no pain myself and was preparing to get another beer when one was handed to me by a blonde cutie. Bleary, for sure, but definitely a cutie. After a few blinks, I realized she looked familiar.
“Bimbo!” I said.
She giggled. “Like, congrats! It’s sooooo cool your design got selected!”
I gave a less-than-modest shrug. “What can I say?”
One drink later, we were making out. There’s something to be said for bimbo beer kisses.
“Maybe we should go someplace else,” she said, a cute innocent look on her face.
I was inclined to agree. I had to make a stop first, though. Navigating to my tent in my inebriated condition wasn’t easy, but I wasn’t so far gone that I was willing to risk leaving Sir Cosmo’s stolen blueprint in my tent. Tents aren’t that secure and having the stolen blueprint turn up in my tent was a good way to make sure bad things happened to me. Things worse than just losing the commission. Bikers don’t like things being stolen from them and they have long memories.
*****
We made it back to my place in one piece. We didn’t stay dressed for long.
Things were even more blurry by then- I’d added several shots of whiskey to join the festive brewskis I’d imbibed earlier- but that didn’t take away from anything. The alcohol made me even dommier than usual and I made the poor bimbo lick me non-stop for a good hour as I worked my way through countless orgasms. When the final orgasm wracked my body, I knew I was done. Darkness was closing fast.
I tumbled off the bimbo’s face, falling to the mattress. In the far distance, I irrationally thought I could hear someone banging on the front door.
I hiccupped and giggled, then mumbled, “Bimbo, answer the door.”
Then I passed out.
NEXT: Part 1- Eliza becomes a guest of the Slate City justice system.
mc mf ff md fd gr collar
Prologue- Eliza enjoys the biker rally.
I nodded, taking in the surrounding ambiance. The annual Quad-City Biker Rally was rocking.
Gangs from the Quads were well represented, with bikers from Chrystal Heights, Darkview, Stone Valley and Slate City all making their presence felt. Music blasted from giant speakers. Exotic food stand aromas drifted along the streets. Long, impatient lines snaked in front of beer carts and liquor tents. Vendors jostled for attention as pedestrians walked around the inevitable brawls. The annual Biker Rally was always a rowdy bash and this year was no different.
I’m no stranger to the back of a motorcycle. I know the difference between a Harley Davidson and a Harvey Wallbanger and I fill a pair of tight denim jeans pretty well. But that wasn’t why I was here.
I was here for the Beast commission.
As a tattooist- owner and solo artist for Eliza’s Inks- motorcycle rallies were great for me. My bread, butter and jam. Just set up a little tent and let the drunk bikers start stumbling in. No shortage of customers. Bikers weren’t the most intellectual of customers, but their money spent just as well as anybody else’s. The Biker Rally would likely be the most lucrative week of the year for me.
But this year, the big happening was the Beast commission. Beast was the president of No Regrets, a small but influential biker gang. Influential typically means dangerous, but whatever. He was a big name and he wanted a tattoo. He wanted a big tattoo, a unique tattoo, and whoever did that tattoo was going to gain some serious professional cred.
And I had every intention of making sure I scored that commission. That tattoo was going to put Eliza’s Inks on the map.
Word had gone out the week before that Beast was looking to use the festival as a stage for finding the right design. The right inker. The perfect tat. And every local inker who heard the news likely went straight to the drawing board. Literally.
But as far as I was concerned, you couldn’t create the perfect tat for someone if you didn’t know them. So instead of going to the drawing board, I went to the Internet and looked up everything I could find about Beast.
Which turned out to be surprisingly little. Despite being the well-known badass head of No Regrets, there were few pictures of him to be found. Pictures of his biker gang brothers, yes, but pictures of him, no. He apparently wasn’t big on posing. No pics of him at a beer bash. No pics of him on a ‘cycle with a hot biker chick clutching his waist from behind. Not even a pic of him flipping his middle finger at the camera. He didn’t maintain any social media accounts. He was dressed almost exactly the same in the few pictures that were available.
Street chant said that Beast came from Slate City. All the Quad cities are weird in their own way, of course. Chrystal Heights is home to transformative magic and super science, Darkview is known for shady arcana and no rules, and Stone Valley is home to the dangerously horny, breeding futas. But Slate City was in some ways even stranger, founded from some sort of crystal power. Their social structure was a weird mix of formidable patriarchy and electric cyberpunk. The laws were different there and some women were practically second-class citizens. Hell, word was some women were even legally owned.
But street chant aside, nobody actually knew for sure where Beast came from, so the Slate City rumor was possibly just creative license. I needed facts, not stories, and trying to get a lock on him was like trying to nail Jello to a tree.
I needed a picture of the private Beast to form.
*****
That’d been a week ago. After several days and numerous false starts, it didn’t look like it was going to happen. On the verge of despair, I decided to take a surreptitious look at the infamous Beast to see if it sparked something.
No Regrets had an entire canopy set up near the center of the festival. Beast’s tattoo being one of the main events, they’d gotten premium placement. I took a break from inking and emerged from my tent to make my way in that direction.
It was a warm if breezy afternoon. Denim and leather was everywhere. Black was prominent. Food fragrances lingered. A local band was playing to a small crowd and the hard notes beat on the air. Bleary-eyed bikers and leather-clad women manned various stands. It was still early in the day- for bikers- and the ambiance was languid for now.
Being early had its advantages, though, and since there wasn’t much of a line, I grabbed a beer and leaned against an available wooden pole not far from the tent opening. As luck would have it, Beast himself stepped outside the tent for what looked like a breath of fresh air.
A couple inches over 6 feet, with the thick shoulders and muscled arms you might expect from a biker, and dressed the same way he appeared in almost every picture I’d seen of him. Jeans, black t-shirt, leather vest. Engineer boots. Black bandanna holding down long wavy hair. Wraparound sunglasses. Trimmed black beard. Ruggedly good-looking with an edgy, dangerous air. Probably all mouth and trousers for it, but he certainly looked the part.
I wasn’t learning anything I didn’t already know, but this was at least an opportunity to get a couple pics of my own. On the down-low, of course. I took out my cell phone.
Then I got thumped from the side. Something warm splashed over me.
“Hey!” said a grating voice. “Watch where you’re going, you dumb bitch! You spilled my beer!”
The speaker was a skinny rodent-like biker who was almost certainly overcompensating. A few scraggly whiskers jutted from his chin, admirable only for their efforts in pretending to be a beard. His leather vest was filthy and the band on his tattered concert shirt had likely retired long after the last time the shirt had been washed.
I decided to try diplomacy. “Try again, numbnuts. You ran into me.”
He stepped closer, trying to look menacing. “You owe me a beer, bitch,” he said, his beer breath actually penetrating the fumes now emanating from my t-shirt. He leered and reached out for me. “And maybe a little fun afterward as an apology.”
Nobody in the area even turned their head. Whatever. I lifted my knee directly into his balls.
The skinny biker stumbled backward, eyes bulging. Then he clutched his abused sack and dropped to his knees, wheezing. I put my boot on his chest and pushed, tumbling him over.
“There’s your apology, dickless,” I said. “See if they’ll give you a beer for that.”
“Hey!” said a rough voice. “Why da fuck you do dat to Ratfink? He was just tryin’ ta be friendly.”
I looked up and saw two lumbering behemoths. Bigger, heavier versions of the dude I’d just kicked, and with actual beards. And, judging by the identical forearm tattoos the behemoths shared with the rodent, part of the same gang. The Ghosts, if I was reading the ink right.
I offered a shrug. “It was a love tap. He’ll be fine.”
“You won’t be,” said the other biker, his voice an ominous rumble. “No cunt hits a Ghost and gets away with it.”
Crap. I could handle myself in a scrap, but these two dudes were mini-mountains. This wasn’t going to be good.
Then a voice said, “Not gonna happen.”
The two bikers and I turned to the speaker. It was Beast.
The two Ghosts looked at each other, then back at Beast.
He hadn’t moved. “Ratfink made himself obnoxious and the lady dealt with it. It should end there, but that’s not my business. She is, however, in No Regrets’ territory and that is my business. You’re not laying a hand on her here.”
His voice sounded like he didn’t use it often, but then, he probably didn’t need to. His body language projected ‘no trespassing’ better than any sign could have.
The slightly-more-intellectual Ghost behemoth stared incredulously. “This is the street, berk. You claiming the whole street as yours?”
Beast shook his head coolly. “Nope. Not the street. But this tent is our territory.”
The Ghost shrugged. “Fine. We’ll just take her with us.”
Beast didn’t move, but the air around him was suddenly alive. “No, you won’t. You’ll take your brother and you’ll scram. You’re not laying a hand on her. Not here.”
The battle lines were drawn. The two behemoths lumbered toward Beast, the pair wearing impending violence like old leather jackets. Things were getting ugly. I couldn’t step up to stop it at this point because this wasn’t about me anymore. It had moved beyond me. It was about dominance now.
The first Ghost threw a heavy punch at Beast, and Beast took it full, his wraparound shades flying off as his head snapped to the side. The other Ghost threw a punch from the opposite side, also catching Beast square in the jaw.
It was weird. Beast had made no effort to block either punch. In fact, he almost appeared to be smiling.
He’s taking their measure, I realized. Finding out what they’ve got.
The first Ghost followed up with a haymaker. Or what would have been a haymaker, had it landed, but by the time his fist arrived at where Beast’s face should have been, said face was a foot away, burying his fist in the other Ghost’s gut. The punch didn’t have a great deal of effect, but it did cause the behemoth to lower his massive arms an inch or so, which was apparently all Beast needed.
Beast drove bladed fingers into the behemoth’s now-exposed throat, causing the biker to stumble back a step. The first Ghost bear-hugged Beast from behind, but Beast drove his heel into the behemoth’s instep, causing the Ghost to yell and loosen his grip. Beast dropped his shoulders slightly and elbowed the Ghost in the stomach, then whirled and used his opposite arm to elbow the Ghost in the jaw. The Ghost’s eyes vagued and he dropped to a knee.
The still-standing Ghost gamely tried to grab the front of Beast’s t-shirt, but Beast reached over the behemoth’s arm and grabbed the other wrist, trapping the Ghost’s beefy forearms against his chest. The biker’s face was inches from Beast’s then and Beast delivered a vicious headbutt. The Ghost’s eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped.
Beast turned to the remaining Ghost, who was still upright on one knee, but his eyes were glazed. Beast reached out and palm-pushed his thick chest. The Ghost fell backward to the ground with an audible thump.
Several bikers spilled out of the tent, drawn by the edgy sounds of violence, but the battle was finished and there was nothing left to do but drag the dazed Ghosts out of the way. The action had materialized so quickly, few of the passers-by even realized anything was happening. Those that had caught the violent confrontation stared with awe-struck breathlessness, however. Beast had taken out two behemoths in under 10 seconds. Messing with Beast appeared to be an unhealthy pursuit.
His wraparound sunglasses had landed near me. I picked them up and walked over to him.
“Here,” I said, handing him his shades. “Thanks.”
He took the sunglasses and met my gaze for an extended heartbeat before sliding them into place. His eyes were a gunmetal grey. Ungiving, unyielding, coldly efficient. Dangerous. Not a man to be trifled with.
“Didn’t do it for you,” he said. He turned and walked back into his tent. I wanted to follow him inside, but the flat stares of his brothers made it clear that wasn’t happening.
But that was okay. I had more to work with now. Not much, but more than I’d had fifteen minutes ago.
*****
It turned out to be more than enough. Watching him take out those guys- seeing the beast within come out, so to speak- combined with the memory of those gunmetal grey eyes gave me what I needed. 48 hours later, I finished what was probably the best work I had ever done.
I looked at the blueprint. It brought out the half-man, half-beast aspect perfectly. Savage, yet efficient. A great base, with variations available for body part placement, in case he wanted a running theme across his torso. I was flexible. Lived to serve, right?
HA! I didn’t serve anybody. Never would. But I was willing to be flexible for this ink job.
*****
It was time to drop off my entry. But just as I was preparing to leave to deliver it, my tent flap opened and a biker walked in. The odor filling my workspace told me it was Ratfink.
For a moment I thought there might be trouble. Then I realized that Ratfink was actually sober and mumbling something.
“Umm…Beetlejuice said…I gotta ‘polgize to you…and stuff…didn’t know you were Eliza…and friends with the bossman, y’know? So…sorry…’kay?”
Wow. The president of the Ghosts himself was making Ratfink apologize. I’d done some work on Beetlejuice before and he remembered me. It was good to have friends. Or at least customers.
I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
He brightened at that. “So we’re good?”
A real ball of fire in the brains department, this one. “Yeah, we’re good.”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Fuckin’ A! So I can get a tat here?”
I rolled my eyes, but got out my equipment. Business was business, right? Even if I did have to air out my tent afterward.
*****
The job wasn’t complicated and a short time later I was on my way to No Regrets’s canopy, cardboard tube holding the rolled up blueprint tucked under my arm. This blueprint was my ticket.
I slowed for a moment as I neared their tent, remembering the sudden explosion of violence, hearing again the meaty thump of fist on bone, witnessing Beast’s brutal display of speed and power. Then I moved on, ignoring the stirring in my belly.
The No Regrets’ flap was rolled open, so I strolled inside the large canopy, startling a blonde floozy. Tables ranged throughout, most of them covered with full ashtrays and empty beer bottles. A couple of them were occupied by passed-out bikers. Banners hung, displaying past achievements. An impressive number of posters featuring topless women papered various flat surfaces. The stale smell of alcohol and cannabis hung so heavy in the air that I was tempted to try cutting it into cubes and selling it on the street.
I glanced around the nearly empty canopy. The place should have been full of hard-partying bikers. My heart started pounding as my chest went tight with anxiety. Had I somehow missed the window?
I looked at the woman I had startled when I burst in. Big blue eyes stared back. Wavy blonde curls bobbed. Perky cleavage invited. Almost certainly a biker groupie. Cute, but definitely not a rocket scientist. Maybe a rocket scientist’s receptionist.
She put a hand to her chest. “Omigod! You totally gave me a heart attack!”
Okay, maybe not even a receptionist. “Sorry. Where is everybody?”
Blondie blinked, obviously turning over the question in her mind.
I sighed. “Wasn’t meant to be a stumper. Beast? No Regrets? Why is this place so empty?”
“Oh!” she said, giggling. “Sorry. Most of the boys are, like, at the demo, you know?”
Then I remembered a demonstration was happening at the far end of the rally. No Regrets was almost certainly participating.
I nodded, still tense. “Makes sense. Any idea where I turn in my entry?”
Her eyes brightened. “Oh, yeah! Right in the back! C’mon, I’ll show you!”
Relief swept over me. I shook my head. “Thanks, but I don’t need a babysitter. Just tell me where.”
Looking hurt, Blondie pointed to the back part of the canopy, which was sectioned off. I gave her a nod and made my way there.
I felt bad for brushing her off like that. I normally wouldn’t have minded her company- she was a cutie, after all- but I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to study the opposition. And it was some strong opposition indeed.
There was no denying the quality of several of the entries. Mufasa from Chrystal Heights, with his powerful African lines projecting nobility and power. Corker Blue, with his high-level concepts and transition images, and Kitty Bird, with her intricate designs and bold coloring, both from Chrystal Heights. Darkview’s Frankenstone, with his dark, multi-layer image projecting strength, danger and badassery in general. And Max from Slate City, with edgy lines and contrasting colors that stood out in many ways.
They were good. They were very good. But mine had an element, a subtle life to it that set it apart from even this high-end collection. I pulled my entry from the cardboard tube and placed it in a prominent place that would draw his eye when he stepped back here.
I’d done what I needed to do and it was time to get back to work. But when I turned to leave, my eyes fell on an entry I had missed earlier, an entry sitting on a different table than the others.
I walked over for a closer look. My heart dropped.
It was another blueprint, but different from the rest. It was more concept than object art. Far more. It felt like many things at once. It was subtle, but overt. Gentle, but powerful. I wasn’t entirely sure what the message was, but there was something intriguing, something enthralling about the image. I didn’t understand it, but there was no denying it touched something inside.
I exhaled. The blueprint had been submitted by Sir Cosmo of Slate City. And this…was a potential winner.
Glancing around the divider, I saw Blondie was still in the tent, staring at the entry door flap. She looked nervous. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to be here. The reason was didn’t concern me, as long as she stayed out there.
Turning back, I made my decision. This blueprint was the only thing between me and my dream commission and there was no way I going to let it stop me.
Making the blueprint disappear would be easy enough. The trick was making sure nobody realized it was me. And with Blondie sitting by the front door, there’d be a witness, so I was going to have to leave a false trail.
It felt like old times. I grinned, finding myself wistfully wishing the blueprint was locked in a safe.
Granted, that was an odd thing to wish for, but inking wasn’t my only talent. It wasn’t even my main talent. I’d been the safe-cracker with the Alley Cats- an all-girl Chrystal Heights gang- for a couple years, until we got nicked during a big job. I got away, but the others ended up in front of Judge Hanover, the one they call ‘The Rack’. Jazzy was now dancing naked at the Chrystal Palace, Little Bit was a topless window-display mannequin on Main Street and Pepper was getting knocked up and carrying babies for the guy whose house we’d broken into. Judge Hanover didn’t fuck around with his punishments. I’d been lucky to get away in time.
With them out of action, I was a lock-breaker without a gang, so it seemed a good time to fall back on my artistic ability and start inking. A girl’s gotta make a living, right? And it worked, so walking this side of the line suited me these days.
But my past made me no stranger to utilizing alternative means to get what I wanted and getting this blueprint out of here would be a comparative breeze. I just needed to do it right. The classic red herring was the way to go, I decided.
I glanced around, looking for a sharp object. Being a biker gang’s tent, there was no shortage of knives and daggers. I picked up a dagger with a skull decorating the hilt and briefly weighed it in my hand.
There was only one entrance into the tent, but anyone with a sharp knife could make as many entries as they liked. One quick jab and a hasty slice job left a slit just big enough for a person to get through. Then I rolled up Sir Cosmo’s blueprint and slid it inside my cardboard tube. Tucking the tube under my arm, I strolled back into the main area like I’d been there a hundred times before and hadn’t been impressed then either.
Blondie turned as I moved past her. “Geez. In a hurry?”
I smiled. “Sure am. Don’t want to miss the demo, you know?”
She smiled back, but her big blue eyes didn’t join in. “Oh! That makes total sense.”
I simply nodded as I made my way outside with the loot.
BOOM! The perfect crime.
*****
The judging felt almost anti-climatic. The blueprints had been put on display racks outside the No Regrets tent. Beast walked back and forth, looking over each one before moving on to the next. It felt like an odd contrast, the masculine, dangerous Beast prowling between art displays, but here we were.
I admit I was still a bit worried. Beast seemed distracted, like he was looking for something he couldn’t see. But in the end, he tapped my blueprint and grunted. His vice-president- a stocky dude called Handler- made the announcement. The job was being awarded to Eliza from Eliza’s Inks.
RESULT!
I spent the next hour going over the blueprint with Beast and making several small changes at his direction. Then numerous kegs were opened and a local band set up shop, starting what looked to be an all-night jam. And I was a star.
You couldn’t expect to hang with No Regrets without partying as hard as they did. Unspoken, unwritten, but absolutely requisite, and of course I had to uphold my part. After several beers, not only was I upholding my part, but doing so with great finesse. One assumed.
A stream of bikers and revelers carried the festivities. The local band was called Darkspoken and they weren’t great, but they were definitely leveling the locale to ground zero with biker metal while topless biker chicks stumbled around, bare breasts bouncing. Boozy brawls spontaneously erupted here and there and semi-dressed couples performed vertically what’s usually done horizontally. It was revelry to do a biker festival proud.
I was feeling no pain myself and was preparing to get another beer when one was handed to me by a blonde cutie. Bleary, for sure, but definitely a cutie. After a few blinks, I realized she looked familiar.
“Bimbo!” I said.
She giggled. “Like, congrats! It’s sooooo cool your design got selected!”
I gave a less-than-modest shrug. “What can I say?”
One drink later, we were making out. There’s something to be said for bimbo beer kisses.
“Maybe we should go someplace else,” she said, a cute innocent look on her face.
I was inclined to agree. I had to make a stop first, though. Navigating to my tent in my inebriated condition wasn’t easy, but I wasn’t so far gone that I was willing to risk leaving Sir Cosmo’s stolen blueprint in my tent. Tents aren’t that secure and having the stolen blueprint turn up in my tent was a good way to make sure bad things happened to me. Things worse than just losing the commission. Bikers don’t like things being stolen from them and they have long memories.
*****
We made it back to my place in one piece. We didn’t stay dressed for long.
Things were even more blurry by then- I’d added several shots of whiskey to join the festive brewskis I’d imbibed earlier- but that didn’t take away from anything. The alcohol made me even dommier than usual and I made the poor bimbo lick me non-stop for a good hour as I worked my way through countless orgasms. When the final orgasm wracked my body, I knew I was done. Darkness was closing fast.
I tumbled off the bimbo’s face, falling to the mattress. In the far distance, I irrationally thought I could hear someone banging on the front door.
I hiccupped and giggled, then mumbled, “Bimbo, answer the door.”
Then I passed out.
NEXT: Part 1- Eliza becomes a guest of the Slate City justice system.