Chapter 28:

"Hey there," a young man said as he looked up from his magazine. "If you wanna see our albums, they're under the table over there." He pointed to the coffee table pushed against the wall.

"No need for that, sweetie," Katrina said with a grin. "I know what I want."

Bo gave Katrina an incredulous glance. "What?"

She stuck her tongue at him and pranced over to the man, raising her blue eyes to his green ones. "How much for a lower back tat?" she asked as she leaned forward on the counter, pushing her breasts up from underneath her shirt.

His eyes widened a little at the sight and he grinned, scratching his bald, tattooed head. "Well, what is it you want?"

"'Property of Vincent,' in pretty calligraphy," Katrina answered.

"Aw, so you're taken. You're a lucky guy, Vincent," the man said.

Katrina laughed. "Oh, that ain't Vincent. That's my brother, Bo. He's paying for the tattoo, it's my birthday present. So how much is it?" she asked before Bo could protest.

"I'll do it for one fifty."

"Done. So let's get to it."

"Well, I kind of need you to pay first."

"Bo, go ahead and pay the man," Katrina ordered imperiously.

He gave her a sharp look, rolled his eyes, and forked over the money.

"I'm Todd, by the way," the tattoo artist said. "That's my chair over there." He grinned at Bo. "This will be so much fun! I get to touch her skin! She's so hot!"

Bo glowered at the young man with narrowed eyes.

Katrina sat down, ignoring the remark, and forty five minutes later had "Property of Vincent" tattooed on her lower back in scarlet ink, along with a V and a K entwined in a lover's knot. She waited until Todd had covered the art in ointment and plastic wrap before pulling out her knife and ramming it up against the artist's throat.

"Thanks so much for the tattoo," she said with a sexy smile. "It was fun. But now, we're going to have some more fun, sweetheart! We're gonna have all kinds of fun!"

Bo walked over and locked the doors, put up the "Closed" sign and turned off the lights. "So you think my sister's hot, do you? You got to touch her skin . . . lucky you, asshole. But now, motherfucker, you have to die for it."

"Oh J . . . Jesus . . ." Todd mumbled as he began to shake visibly.

"Was my skin soft, Todd?" Katrina asked him, her breath hot against his ear as her eyes locked with Bo's. "Did you enjoy touchin' it?" The knife dug deeper into the young man's neck, forcing a stream of crimson to trickle down into his shirt. Katrina's slender white fingers reached up to play with the blood, rubbing it around on his chest as if she were finger painting.

"Your blood sure is warm, Todd!" she said as if she were surprised. "I wonder if it would get hotter if I let more of it out of you."

Bo laughed along with Katrina and drew his knife.

A couple of hours later, they sat next to Todd's mangled corpse as they shared a cigarette between them.

"That was fun," Katrina said, making smoke rings in the air.

"It was," Bo agreed, crushing the cigarette into the floor. "Very amusing."

"And we got four hundred dollars plus a hundred fifty dollar tattoo out of the deal."

Bo grinned at his companion and pulled himself up. "We've got to clean up a bit and then get the hell out of here," he said as he surveyed the bloodied mess around him.

Katrina pushed herself from the floor and grabbed a piece of Todd's torn shirt to wipe off the surfaces of the tattoo parlor. It was a familiar routine by now: her taking care of any fingerprints, Bo cleaning their knives and checking for hair or anything else on the corpse. They made sure no sign of them ever being there remained, down to taking the needle used to make Katrina's tattoo. After driving into the woods a ways, they washed up with some soap and water from a barrel Bo kept in the back of his truck and changed their clothes.

Bo stopped at a convenience store for some more beer before they drove back to Ambrose.