Page 46 of Demon
“You’re a tattooist?”
He nodded, studying me under the bright lights of the garage.
“But you’ve no tattoos.” I mentally scanned his body, trying to remember. I hadn’t seen one on him, not one.
“I know. I don’t like tattoos. Or other tattoo artists, at least.”
Now I really was confused.
“I don’t get it? A biker who doesn’t like tattoos but is a tattooist?”
“It’s a good job. Pays really well. I like doing it. But tattoos are not for me. I’m the best in the north east. People pay me a fortune and my diary is booked out months in advance. But I don’t trust anyone to tattoo me the same way as I can do it.”
“Can you not tattoo yourself?”
Demon shook his head. “Not in a way that I’d be happy with.”
A noise in the garage made me jump, the sudden loud scratching coming from behind me. I looked around wildly at the sound of giant rats. Then, as my eyes caught his, Demon smiled.
“I have a dog,” he blurted, his hand poised on the door handle.
“I don’t like dogs.”
“She’s friendly. You’ll love her,” he answered, as if trying to convince me that my hatred for the smelly beasts was going to go away the moment I set eyes on her.
On the gigantic, black and tan, angry as fuck Doberman that launched itself through the door at the back of the garage, the moment Demon cracked it open. Shit!
I jumped backwards, the dark shape launching towards us, thick, long legs covering the ground. Its ears flopped around its head as it moved and it held its tail high over its body, curling at the very end like it had been folded for too long. The dog ignored me, bounding up to Demon, rearing up on its hind legs and wrapping its paws round his neck. And now they looked like they were dance partners, rather than dog and master.
Demon scratched the dog under its ears, whispering something to it in a low voice, so quiet that I couldn’t make out the words. The dog thrashed its tail, beating it against a metal cabinet just off to its left. And then it stopped, looking around Demon and straight at me. The dog’s tail stilled, the rhythmical thumping slowing until eventually it just held it there, and two dark eyes stared at me. I stepped back half a step, uncertain what its intentions were next and then it pushed away from Demon, dropping to the floor and standing watching me.
For a minute, we stood there staring at each other. Although it probably wasn’t that long at all, it just seemed a fucking long time when I was trying to decide whether the big black and tan beast was going to eat me or not. It could probably smell the fear radiating from me, hear the pumping of my heart. But eventually it tipped its head the other way, looking back up at Demon, before turning round and wandering back through the door it came from.
“She says you can come in,” Demon said, turning his head to grin at me.
“Who the fuck are you, like? Dr Dolittle? Looked like it said step inside, and I’ll eat you for a midnight snack.”
“It’s a she. She’s called Kinobie.”
“Kinobie, huh? Why the name?”
“Dobi One Kinobie.”
I giggled. The sound slipping from my mouth and making me jump. But then it came again, another outburst.
“What?” Demon asked, watching me giggle hysterically to myself.
“I never had you down as a Star Trek fan.”
“StarWars.”
“Whatever. It’s all the fucking same.”
“It’s fucking not. You’re off ya rocker you if you think that.”
And there it was again, that giggle that didn’t even sound like mine, echoing in the stark garage under Demon’s tattoo shop, whilst his blood thirsty hound waited to savage me when we got up through that door.
“Come on,” Demon beckoned, moving towards the door the dog had come from. And probably to certain death. I’d seen those dogs in films. They bit first, asked questions later.