Urban Occult Read online

  They had both seen the catalogue before but had only looked at the tattoos. Now they looked in detail and saw the brandings, the scarification. The body modification; a tongue had been divided in two, a finger removed, metal spikes inserted into scalps and cheeks. The work was exquisite.

  Treve barely flinched as he took the sample. He placed it on a sheet of paper and wiped the tattoo over with antiseptic, clearing away the oozing blood.

  “I’ll ring you if—when—I find something out,” he said.

  Treve dressed. As they left the studio the long-haired woman, still looking at her developing tattoos, suddenly spoke.

  “I say the picture’s the key. Someone’s trying to tell you something.”

  Treve stopped. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  The woman shrugged. Gently, so as not to disturb the tattooist. “It stands to reason. Tattoos mean something. They should, anyway. They mark events, tell stories. Someone who can’t communicate in the normal way has a story to tell and they’re using your body to do it.”

  “Like a ghost? Our place isn’t haunted,” said Sarir.

  The woman shrugged again, but was silent.

  When they arrived home, Sarir tried photographing the tattoos but they were too small to get a decent shot of, so she sketched them instead.

  “At least you can see now what they look like and where they are,” she said. “Although I can’t see what the picture is. I hope Lew’s camera is better than mine.”

  “You were very sure that I’m not being haunted,” said Treve.

  “That’s because I am sure,” said Sarir. “I saw a ghost once, when I was a child, and I’ve felt presences a few times. There’s nothing here. I wouldn’t have moved in if there was.”

  Treve was bemused. “You saw a ghost? You never told me that before. What happened?”

  Sarir sat down and closed her eyes, remembering. “It was in the trees near North Weald Underground station. A figure, trapped by the tree, anchored down by the branches as if it didn’t know how to get to wherever the dead are supposed to go. I told my parents. They just laughed. No one believes children, do they?”

  They stayed up late to watch a film. By the time they went to bed, two more tattoos had quietly appeared.

  It was days before Lew got a breakthrough. The more he looked at the sample, the more convinced he was that the ink was ancient. A tattooist friend from Amsterdam was in London and studied the sample through the microscope Lew had borrowed.

  “Well, Anton,” said Lew impatiently, “what does it look like to you?”

  “From what little I can see here, it does look like extremely old, primitive ink. I’d like to have a go at breaking it down to see what it’s made of. Is that okay?”

  Lew nodded. That was what he’d been hoping for.

  “Oh, and I could do with some more samples. Can you organise it?”

  Lew groaned and reached for the phone. The girls were not going to be happy.

  They had refused to return to the studio, so Lew took a cab to Newington Green. He saw Treve looking out of the window at him. As he smiled, her forlorn face disappeared and he wondered what was wrong.

  She was alone and jittery. Sarir was out shopping for food although Treve looked as though she had no interest in eating.

  “I’m sorry for not coming in,” she said. “I don’t want to leave the house. If you want another sample, go ahead. There’s plenty to choose from.”

  She took off her dressing gown and Lew stared in amazement. Roughly half of Treve’s body was now covered in tattoos.

  “They’re everywhere, and I mean, everywhere,” she said. “There’s even one on my scalp. The only place they haven’t appeared is on my old tattoos and my face—yet. It’s like having chicken pox.”

  No, thought Lew. This can’t be a disease. She looks magnificent. Out loud, he said, “I know it’s weird, but it’s also wonderful. Please don’t get despondent—Anton’s a genius. Whether it’s science or magic, he’ll find out what’s going on.”

  He paused. “I really don’t want to treat you like an object, but can I have a proper look?”

  Treve smiled and raised her arms. “It’s fine. It’s not as if you’re straight, after all. And feel free to take photos. We were keeping a record, but we’ve given up.”

  Lew had his camera with him but spent some time just observing the work on Treve’s body. Some of the jigsaw pieces looked as if they would interlock if put together. The colours of the picture were strong and glinted in places.

  “Have you had any thoughts on what the picture is?” he asked.

  His phone rang before she could answer.

  “It’s Anton,” he said. “I should take this.” The call only lasted a few seconds. Lew hung up. “He’s on his way over, if that’s alright? He has some news.”

  “Of course it’s alright,” said Treve. “I need something, some progress. And Sarir’s in a worse state than I am.”

  She went to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

  And there, out of sight, one of the jigsaw pieces on her back began to rotate.

  Sarir had not brought much, concentrating on fresh fruit and vegetables rather than comfort food. She could not afford to buy organic and cursed the fact, but this was the best she could do. If Treve was full of vitamins she would be in the best condition to fight the bizarre disease she had contracted. Sarir checked her own skin regularly to see if whatever afflicted Treve had been passed to her but she was unaffected. The tattoo on each of her forearms—ivy running down one, passion vine in full flower running down the other—was clean and healthy, if slightly faded into her dark skin with age. Lew’s studio appeared to be spotlessly clean but was it possible that he’d used an infected needle on one of Treve’s tattoos?

  She took a short cut back through the park. A chilly blast of wind brought down a shower of brown and gold leaves. Sarir shivered. She found Autumn depressing; the season was summer in its death throes, the forerunner of Winter’s darkness.

  As she zipped her coat up to her neck, she saw the long-haired woman from the tattoo studio, picking up leaves from the grass. The woman had not been fazed by Treve’s sudden outbreak; perhaps she had seen such a thing before. Sarir walked over to her. The woman heard her footsteps on the dry leaves and turned around. Sarir noticed that her hair, flowing wildly down her back, was the same colour as the leaves she held.

  “Hello,” said Sarir. She felt awkward, but was too worried about Treve not to try. “You were at The Modern Primitive the other day. You were having your leg tattooed.”

  “I remember. My leg’s too sore to forget. How’s your friend?”

  “She’s worse, actually. You seemed to know something of what’s happening to her. We could really do with some help…” Close to tears, she stopped.

  “I never did like jigsaws. The story they tell has all the words cut up and scattered,” she said. “I think you’ll only know what’s going on when all the pieces are there, or at least enough of them to see what the picture is. There are so many possibilities. It could be that she’s possessed. It could be a curse or a gift. If your house isn’t haunted, then what about The Modern Primitive? Where do the needles they use come from? What about your girlfriend—has she done the dirty on someone? You’ll just have to wait. See it as an adventure.”

  Sarir shook her head. “We can’t just wait. What if it’s something terrible?”

  “What if it’s something wonderful? But I’m not sure you have a choice. It won’t stop just because you want it to,” said the woman, gathering her hair and tying it back. As Sarir walked away, she called after her.

  “I don’t know why you hate this time of year. It’s my favourite season. Look at the trees—they’re changing, not dying.”

  Sarir picked up her pace. She shivered again, but this time it was not from the cold.

  “Tattoos have been around since prehistory,” Anton was saying as Sarir arrived home. “And have traditionally had huge significance—a rit
e of passage, protection from evil spirits or to bring good fortune. They used different things for ink, of course, and what’s weird about your new tattoos is that they’re made from a mixture of prehistoric material—charcoal, basically—and old, old tattoo ink that’s slightly blue-black, like they used in Indonesia centuries ago. I think there’s blood and urine in there as well, but I need more to work with. It’s as if there’s a piece of every age of tattooing in them.”

  Treve introduced Sarir to Anton. Sarir told them of her meeting with the long-haired woman and asked Lew who she was. He looked blank.

  “I can try to find out, but all we usually get from customers is a name. Not necessarily their own. You think she knows more than she’s admitting to?”

  “Perhaps,” said Sarir. “She seems to be teasing me with snippets of information and she thinks what Treve’s going through is wonderful. But she has let on that she’s sure the picture inside the jigsaw is the only thing that’s important.”

  When Lew had taken several more samples and Anton had taken a last look at each new tattoo, they left. Treve, still clad only in her underwear, sat down and sighed. Sarir leaned over the back of the sofa and put her arms around her.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “As if I’m losing myself. Disappearing inside my skin. Which isn’t my skin anymore. Will you still love me if my face gets covered in tattoos?”

  Sarir squeezed her tightly. “You’re still you, Treve. And I’ll always love you, no matter what.”

  As Treve pretended to choke on the powerful hug, Sarir watched as a jigsaw piece moved from Treve’s knee and fitted itself to the piece on her inner thigh.

  It was music that woke Treve. The notes were from a range she’d never heard before. It was calming yet melancholic, like the music played for people arriving at a funeral. She got up and went to the window.

  The music was coming from the street. Treve put on her coat and slippers and went outside. The flat, one of two above a secondhand shop, had a service road behind it and Treve headed there, following the music, needing to find its source. She disturbed a fox, which was stood on its hind legs rummaging in one of the huge bins from the bakery next door. It looked at her, reluctant to leave.

  “Carry on,” she said. “Don’t mind me.”

  It continued, ignoring both her and the music. She heard a noise behind her and turned. The long-haired woman from the tattoo studio was there. The woman took a stool from a bin and carefully sat down. She browsed through some discarded records that she’d found, albums from the 1970s, then propped them against the stool.

  “Not my kind of thing. Or yours, I’d bet,” she said. “I do like the music you’re playing, though.”

  “I’m not playing it,” said Treve. “I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

  “Well, that can’t be true,” said the woman. “After all, you wrote it. Your moon-music. It’s on your tattoo.”

  Treve took her arm out of her coat and looked at the tattoo she’d designed so long ago. The notes around the moon lit up as the music played. She looked up. The three-quarter moon hung in the sky surrounded by notes on a stave. All around her was the fluttering of bat wings, although she could not see any of the creatures flying around. This had to be a dream, although the cold air, the ground under her feet, felt like the waking world. Treve turned on the woman.

  “Who are you? You know so much. I know you can help me.”

  “Right now, I am Autumn. Find me in two months and I’ll be Winter—my hair will be white and my skin will be covered in ice. I’m constantly changing. Then again, we all are, aren’t we? And no one more than you. You’re becoming something else entirely: a story so desperate to be told that it’s illustrating your skin. It’s wondrous! Most people’s paths never cross such a marvel.”

  Treve looked up at the moon again. The strange tune continued to play.

  “All this… it’s a curse. My girlfriend won’t recognise me soon. It’s like I’m slowly drowning.” Treve let her coat slip to the ground. “If this is a marvel, you’re welcome to it.”

  Autumn gasped and stepped forward for a better view.

  Treve’s skin was alive. The jigsaw pieces were moving, finding their place on her body. And when a piece slotted into place, the picture became more defined. Movement caught Autumn’s eye—a tattoo sun, flaming as it rose over a field of ploughed, bare earth, the furrows lined with giant seeds.

  Autumn walked around Treve, taking in as much as she could. The tattoo was more than a picture; she was looking onto another living world. On Treve’s spine was a tree, its bark being stripped by vast insects, which, in turn, were picked off the tree and eaten by two-legged creatures too monstrous to be human. On her breasts writhed a woman, disappearing momentarily as she moved away from the connected jigsaw and onto unmarked flesh.

  “What place is this?” she cried, more awed than afraid.

  “And what story is it telling?” demanded Treve. “The picture keeps changing, the pieces are still moving into place. What happens when the jigsaw’s complete?”

  Autumn gave her a curious look. “That’s simple, my dear. You’ll be the envy of the world.”

  He had asked Lew to leave him to work. The studio was perfect; clean, bright and most importantly, private. A sample from Treve’s skin lay in a Petri dish on the table in front of him and at his side stood an easel. He opened his rucksack and carefully took out what at first glance looked like a rolled up canvas, but once he unfurled it and laid it over the easel, it was clear it was human skin. And not from just one human; it was a patchwork of skin—Asian, European, African, all the colours of the human race—criss-crossed with untidy stitching to keep the pieces together.

  The skins—and the owners of the skins—were long dead, but the tattoos that covered them were very much alive. All had jigsaw pieces etched onto them, but the movement of the pieces was chaotic, the picture fractured and nonsensical. It showed fragments of a world that was almost close enough to smell, but impossible, in this state, to reach.

  From the rucksack’s side pocket, Anton took a phial. He counted four drops onto the sample, then put it under the microscope. The powerful chemical reacted with the skin and ink. Colours moved around the dish, mixing and separating, every shade of the spectrum appearing before returning to primary colours. Anton removed the dish and scraped the mixture onto a palette knife. He held the knife next to the skins, hesitating, nervous almost to sickness that the result he desperately needed would fail to appear. Then he whispered a word and spread the mixture across the skins.

  The effect was immediate. The jigsaw pieces spun frantically then shot to the outer edges of the skins. At the centre, replacing them, appeared a tattoo mouth. It yawned, showing shark-like teeth that scratched the long tongue resting on them. Immediately above it opened a single eye. Like the mouth, it was scored in simple blackwork, with a tiny chunk cut out of its pupil to give it the appearance of a glint. It glared at Anton as the mouth formed words.

  “So!” rang out a voice. “The lost sheep finds the flock again.”

  “It was not my choice to leave. The Storm took me and I found myself here. I’ve spent forty years trying to find my way back, as well you know.”

  “The puzzle must be close to completion. How many more pieces does it need?” demanded the voice.

  “I’m not sure,” said Anton. “I’ve not had enough access to it to count the pieces. But the process is well underway. It must be a matter of hours, a day at the most.”

  “And the canvas? Has it deteriorated?” asked the voice.

  “Mentally, I don’t know how long it will survive, but it’ll last long enough for my purposes, perhaps for years. Physically it’s in incredibly good condition. The others I tried got nowhere near this far. It’s the right choice—finally. I can’t wait to come home.”

  There was a noise on the other side of the studio—a footstep, an intake of breath. Lew had returned.

  “It? Her name’s
Treve, and she’s terrified of what’s happening. You were supposed to help her, you bastard. What the fuck’s going on?”

  “More than you can comprehend,” said Anton. “And save your piety. You did tell me that you’d be happy if Treve stayed the way she is forever. At least I have a purpose in what I’m doing.”

  “And ‘home’ is the picture in Treve’s tattoo? That’s nonsense.” Lew switched his confused gaze between Anton and the flesh canvas with the moving tattoos at its centre.

  If Anton’s claim was nonsense, what did that make the thing in the room?

  “Be wise,” said Anton, “and walk away. Don’t interfere.”

  Lew grabbed Anton’s arm. “What does all this mean, Anton? What will happen to Treve when the pieces are all in place?”

  Anton tried to push him away. “I don’t know.”

  This much was true. Almost—Anton knew what he wanted to happen, what the magic he had worked on all these years should achieve; that the canvas would become much more than the novelty it currently was. That it would open, that it would be possible to step into the picture, back to his home world. But he was not going to share his hopes, his toils, with Lew. Instead he continued with a poor attempt to appease him. “I’ve never done this before. The others fell apart as soon as the tattoos appeared. As you can see, I saved what I could.”

  “But Treve’s different? Or is that just what you’re hoping?” Lew was enraged. “Is this what you’re going to do to her? Tell me!”

  In place of an answer, Anton swung a punch. It hit Lew on the jaw, knocking his head back, but was not enough to loosen his grip. They grappled, nearly knocking the grotesque canvas to the floor as they careered into the easel. Anton hit him again and this time Lew was stunned. He left Lew on the floor and straightened up the skins.