I have no intention to follow her no matter what... Let's just get that out the way.
But when a woman with bone charms in her hair and a living tattoo on her chest says "You're coming with me," you don't say no. Especially when your insides feel like they're being whispered to by the soul of a pissed-off voodoo queen.
So yeah, I followed.
We took the back alleys. Past shuttered jazz bars, iron balconies dripping with vines, and walls crusted in peeling murals. The early morning air was hot and sticky. My shirt clung to me, and the tattoo on my wrist itched like fire ants were nesting in my veins.
She didn't tell me her name. Just moved like someone who owned the shadows.
"You mind explaining where we're going?" I asked.
She didn't even glance back. "Some place safe."
"That's not comforting."
"You want comforting? Go back to sleep. Go hug a pillow. You want answers? Shut up and walk."
So I shut up. And I walked.
About ten minutes in, I realized something weird. The street noise? Gone. No cars. No horns. Even the music from Bourbon Street had faded like a dying dream.
"Where are we?" I muttered.
She stopped in front of a crumbling old mausoleum tucked behind a churchyard gate. The iron was twisted like it had melted mid-scream.
"This," she said, "is the Between."
"The what now?"
She stepped through the gate without touching it. I followed, and the second my foot hit the gravel, I felt it.
Cold.
Like walking into a freezer full of bones.
The graveyard wasn't right. The tombstones shifted when I blinked. Some whispered. One of them had a face, mouth open, screaming in stone.
The woman turned. "This is where the dead speak. Where tattoos don't lie. Where you see what's really coming."
I swallowed. "Okay. Cool. Love what you've done with the place."
Then I saw him.
Sitting on a stone bench at the far edge of the yard. A man in a pinstripe suit. Face pale, lips stitched shut. And his teeth....
God!!
They moved.
Not like chewing. No. His teeth shifted in his gums. Wriggling. Humming. Every few seconds, they screamed. Not loud. But high. Like tiny metal knives grinding inside your head.
"Don't look at him," the woman said.
"Too late."
She grabbed my arm. "Seriously. That's the Listener. If he sees you, he remembers you. And if he remembers you, he'll find you again."
I backed up. Fast. "Who are you?"
She let go of my arm and looked me dead in the eyes.
"I'm Etta. I stitch the unstitched. I guide lost Weavers through their first mark."
"…That's a job?"
"It used to be. Then people stopped surviving their first week."
"Comforting."
She reached into her satchel and pulled out a little mirror. Old. Cracked. She angled it toward me.
"Look at yourself."
I did. And I jumped.
My eyes, my actual eyes, weren't just bloodshot. They were wrong. The whites had turned pink, like ink had spilled into my vision. My veins pulsed with red threads. My skin near the tattoo looked like it was peeling, like paper.
"What the hell!?..."
"You're unraveling," Etta said calmly. "It starts with the eyes. Then the skin. Then your thoughts."
"But it's just one tattoo!"
"One mark from a queen," she corrected. "Her spirit didn't die. It moved in. You didn't just take her sight. You took her voice. And she's already pushing from the inside."
"I didn't know...."
"Doesn't matter. You stole it. Now it owns you."
I paced, heart racing. "Okay. Okay. So what now? How do I stop unraveling?"
She raised an eyebrow. "You don't. You balance. That's the whole game."
I frowned. "Game?"
She knelt in front of me, serious now. "You have one tattoo. One power. One curse. If you survive this week, you might earn another. But each time, the dead get louder. Their sins get heavier. One day, they'll tear through. That's what happens to most Weavers. They break. Or worse, they become Weaves."
"What's a Weave?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she handed me something. A coin. Heavy. Rusted. But on the back, it showed a spiral just like mine.
"Keep this," she said. "It'll get you into the Auction."
"I thought that was a myth."
"It's not. It's tonight."
"Tonight?!"
"You're marked by a queen, Jake Carter. That makes you valuable. But also hunted."
"Hunted by who?"
She turned toward the gate. And that's when we heard it.
A crunch. Then another. Like bones breaking, slow and wet.
Etta spun. "No, no no no, not him, not yet..."
The Listener stood. His teeth were screaming now. Louder. The air around him shimmered like heat.
"He saw you," Etta said.
"I thought you said...."
"RUN!"
We bolted. But the gate was gone. Just mist.
The Listener's mouth opened. Wide. Way too wide. Inside, more teeth. Rows. Spinning like gears.
I heard whispers. My name.
Jake... Carter... Jake... Carter...
Etta screamed, grabbed my hand, and slammed the coin into my chest.
The world twisted. The graveyard melted. And we were gone.
I woke up on a velvet floor. Music played. Low, slow jazz. And laughter.
I sat up. We were in a ballroom. No windows. Just red velvet curtains, chandeliers shaped like ribs, and hundreds of people. But they weren't people.
Some had skin like paper. Some had no mouths. Some had tattoos that crawled like spiders.
At the center of the room, a man stood on a platform, holding a cane made of bones.
He smiled when he saw me.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "Our final item tonight… is this man. The thief of the Queen's Mark. The one who walks with death's whisper in his ear."
Every eye turned to me.
"Let the bidding begin."
................