Skin Deep - prologue

Nobody had ever seen them—nor would they ever, if he had any say in the matter—but that didn't mean that they weren't there. They were dark and intricate, racing down from the tops of his shoulders to end in a charcoal gray at his bony wrists. The tattoos twisted around his arms like bands, dilating, expanding at some spots and stretching thin enough to snap, like a toothpick, at others. At night, he could feel them pulsing with a heady sort of energy; and often, he closed his eyes and indulged himself in the magic that coursed its way through his admittedly sallow skin.

Under hot water, they burned. When positioned beneath the open tap, they steamed and hissed, spitting like a fire. Two years ago, when he'd first made the tattoos in order to protect himself from the demon that shared his body, he had found their reaction to water quite disconcerting. By now he was unperturbed by the sight. In fact, it was almost comforting. Familiar. Like his job, or his flat.

His tattoos crackled as his shirt was tugged off and brushed against them, but Ciaran Conrad barely spared them a glance before undressing the rest of the way and stepping into the bathtub. He held them up to the tap; the skin around the tattoos reddened rapidly, and Ciaran watched in morbid fascination as the areas began to bleed profusely. Gritting his teeth against the sharp ache, he looked down at the crimson liquid dripping into the water. Ciaran slowly relaxed before reaching for the jar of shampoo on the side of the tub. Pouring a generous amount into his palm, he rubbed the mixture into his hair and began scrubbing.

The patterns on his arms glared up at him as he rinsed the shampoo out of his hair, and he paused while reaching for his washcloth and soap.

Fading. The very tip of the swirl on his right wrist was starting to disappear. Indeed, as he stared, he could see little tendrils beginning to vanish thread by thread—like a rope about to snap. But slowly. Very, very slowly.

This was bad, Ciaran realized, just as the soap slipped from his senseless fingers and landed in the pinkish water on the bottom of the tub. As he fumbled for the slippery bar, a sudden ringing caught his attention and he banged his elbow on the faucet. Swearing softly to himself, he turned the bath off and listened as his telephone rang again. He reached out of the bathtub and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his slim hips and stepping out onto the cold tile floor.

He squinted at the small screen on the wall beside the telephone. Alexander Conrad, it read. His mouth instantly went dry. Ciaran swallowed compulsively and stared blankly at the telephone. When nothing popped out at him screaming “April Fools,” he wiped his clammy hands off on his towel and gingerly picked up his phone. It stopped ringing a moment later, but he had no time to let out so much as a sigh of relief, when the aggravating piece of technology began to call for his attention again.

Alexander Conrad.

It didn't seem like his father was going to give up anytime soon.

His heart sank when he received yet another call, the third one in a matter of minutes, and Ciaran took a deep breath to steady himself as he leaned against the washroom door. He squeezed the phone hard in his hand. The tattoos on his pallid skin shifted as his muscles flexed, and he half expected the metal of the phone to come oozing out onto his wrist.

But nothing happened, save for the continuous ringing and one sharper piece of the chipped metal to pierce his skin, and he bit his lip as he slowly, hesitantly, pressed 'answer' and raised the phone to his ear.