Tell Me Ariel, Are You Mine?

Chapter 28 - The Mark

Nate had already come equipped with his various tools in the trunk of his battered car. It wasn't the one he'd driven me home in that fateful gala night, it was his trusty old car. I remember a really long time ago him saying he'd get a paint job done. Low and behold it still looked the exact same. Rusty and second hand. It wasn't even second hand, just Nate had obviously put his motorized best friend through one heck of a demonic hunting ride chasing demons across the country.

His car was a she. A she named Frank Castle. Yeah, Frank. Named after The Punisher; his favourite comic book vigilante antihero. He used to burst into the bathroom while I was in the shower and sit on the toilet while reading his publications.

Motorized Frank and her penchant for being his roady and carrying his weapons everywhere he went made her the Robin to his Batman, or his Batmobile, or both. Whatever. I remember back then he would talk to her, sleep in her, eat in her, pat her bonnet. I never knew she carried weapons for him, learn something new everyday.

Now I know he would never touch her up. No, not his beloved Motorized Frank. That paint job would change her, and to him, well, she was perfect as imperfect as she was. He wouldn't even disrespect her enough to fuck a girl in it. Never. She meant that much to him, she had been his first car, the one he'd saved every last penny to get. She had gone the distance with him and had been his greatest companion. He'd pushed everyone else away apart from the one thing that allowed him to keep on moving wherever he needed to go. That was Motorized Frank Castle.

When he'd shown me his weapons, I had never seen anything like it before. They all looked like ancient artefacts that belonged in a museum, but they were apparently biblical weapons known to work on fallen angels and though it was explained to me that demons like Dante were not of fallen angels demon status, the weapons were just as effective on them all.

I had worried that night. Dante didn't sleep, he sat up on a chair and watched me lie there as I watched him sit there. He was a silhouette against the light of the moon by the window, a beautifully formed silhouette and I propped up on my elbow as I looked at him and asked him if he was okay. He'd taken a deep breath and nodded telling me to go to sleep and I noticed that he was just in the deepest thought imaginable. As for sleep, it took me ages before I finally did.

But when I woke, I found him facing the window. He was just in his trousers and had a naked torso. I sat up watching him and my eyes zeroed in on his back. The little light provided in this room allowed me to see something there. Deep red, painful looking, some parts had developed a darker pigment and as I strained my eyes more to see I noticed it connected to make some kind of pattern. Pattern...? Like a...tattoo of some kind...a mark maybe?

But then it hit me.

Malcolm had a large tattoo that was all over his back and snaked towards his neck, you could always see it slyly peaking from his collar. He'd said once that Dante would never deliberately scar himself for anything. He had his reasons but I didn't know them. And now... He was leaning over the window ledge, his upper torso heaving, he made a small sound and heaved in obvious pain.

But not just Malcolm had one, Hall did too, his entire arm was covered. I was yet to know about Ida.

It alarmed me because it looked both intricate and incredibly sore. On a human body I just knew that person would be in excruciating pain, but on Dante...

As I got up and walked closer I could see how much the mark had slightly risen on his skin. The shapes we almost three-dimensional, they didn't lie flat, they looked like a form of Braille.

"Dante?"

He spun around and gulped. "Ariel...thought you were sleeping."

"For barely a few minutes. What is it?" I asked of the pattern of pain on his back.