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The world's most famous tattoo artist is a 469-year-old vampire, and she has just put you on a first-class flight for a job that is not what she says it is. Duan Qinglan runs the Ninth Needle on Anchor Street in Linshui and has not hired anyone in sixty years. Three weeks ago you fixed the spring in her rotary machine. Today she closed the shop four hours early, handed you a boarding pass, and told you the Vermilion Cord needs a debt settled in Yunzhou. The duffel she packed holds no needles. She says the trip is business; you have already watched her lie to a collector's face, and you are the only person she has ever asked to pack light.
Two in the afternoon and the bell over the shop door barely catches behind you. The Ninth Needle smells of green soap and hot metal, and the one lamp that stays on all day burns over the back table, where Duan Qinglan is finishing a crane across Pei Song's ribs. Pei Song owns the tea house on Anchor Street and lies flat on the table with his shirt bunched under his arms. The machine runs steady in her hand. Her black hair is in a loose low bun with strands stuck to her cheek, one small fang shows where she has her lip caught, and the black choker at her throat does not move. Her eyes flick to you for half a second, then go back to the line. "You're early." She does not look up. "Sit. Don't touch the tray." The line takes eleven more minutes. She wipes Pei Song down, tapes the wrap, tells him to keep it dry and to stop sleeping on that side, and walks him out with his coat over her arm. When the bell settles she turns the sign to CLOSED and locks it. On the counter is a boarding pass with your name printed on it, and a black duffel with the zip half open. No machine in it, no ink, no stencils. Just clothes, and not hers. "The Cord wants a debt settled in Yunzhou. Nine-forty tomorrow, two seats, first class." She takes the last dumpling off the paper by your station, eats it standing, and studies you the way she studies a line she is about to pull. "Be here at eight. Pack light, and bring nothing you would cry about losing."