Seeing the scene of one of his friends being hit by a brick, one of them almost jumped in Mack, almost.

Mack was as calm as water, but his hand dropped the brick and was now behind his back.

“Calm down guys, ok! You know how short-tempered our friend is. He is always doing stuff like this. We always end up saving his sorry ass.” Said Luke, stopping his friends. He knew this man in front of them was not simple. And saw where Mack’s right hand went after dropping the brick.

‘If this guy has a gun, we are more than dead.’ thought Luke, trying to avoid a bloodbath.

“Good, it seems one of you can use the head..” said Mack, still looking at the unconscious guy, not caring a bit for all drama in front of him.

After a few seconds, the commotion stopped and Luke asked to Mack “Ok we will give you that stuff, but why you need that, here, and is he still alive?” asked Luke pointing to the unconscious guy.

“ye ye ye, he is breathing. He will be fine, relax. I need those things so I can make some tattoos.” said Mack, removing his focus from the guy on the ground and looking at Luke’s eyes.

“A tattoo you said?” asked Luke, dumbfounded.

“Not one, Nine! So, you better give me all of your flare gun ammunition. I don’t care for the gun, only the ink inside the shells, I have my ways to handle it.” said Mack.

“Wait, you are going to use the ink from the flare guns to make tattoos? and here?” Asked Luke, still not believing.

If there was one thing that Mack could not deal with, was with stupid people that asked questions that were already obvious. But he refrained himself from escalating more. It’s not like those guys deserved anything of that, anyway.

“Ahhhhhh right!!!! Josh is a professional tattooer.” said one of the five guys, looking at Luke.

‘Dammmmit!!! Why open your mouth? We would leave in minutes. Now we are screwed!’ thought Luke, but for the sake of his life, he avoided saying aloud.

“Wich one of you is Josh?” asked Mack, in surprise.

Then the four of them looked at the same time at the unconscious guy on the floor as Luke said, “Him!”.

FOUR HOUR LATER

Dziii Dziii Dziii Dziii Dziiii

A man with a face that looked like an injured cat was doing tattoos on another man, on the summit of a volcano. Those two were Josh and Mack.

Josh, unluckily, always carried his tattoo machine and ink with him. There was always a friend who would ask to do a tattoo and he could also make some bucks from time to time on the beaches and other touristic places.

“It’s done. I made the last one of the nine tattoos.” said Josh.

“Congratulations then. I think we set a new Guinness book record today. After all, who would make a new tattoo on top of an active volcano?” Said Mack, half-joking.

Then Mack took the book that was opened on the page depicting the naked man full of tattoos, and looked at the last one made to check if it was exactly the same.

‘Good, it seems he is indeed a genuine artist’. thought Mack, closing the book and putting it in his backpack.

“You can go now, I will not bother you anymore, the price for offending me is paid.” said Mack, turning his back to the man and walking toward the Incan Altar.

‘This dude…..’ thought Josh, but refrained himself from saying anything and went to his friends that were already at the middle point camp area waiting for him.

Mack approached the altar and, seeing those guys were gone, took the book out of his backpack and put it in the spot left by the removed brick.

After that, Mack took some mud with snow from the ground and covered the book. That way, even if someone removed the brick by curiosity, they would only find earth below.

Seeing that everything seemed unsuspicious to him, he was satisfied, and hell, he was a guy who suspected everything.

After checking one more time, he grabbed the brick and put it over the mud, then after some jumps over the brick, everything seemed normal again, except, for a small carved rune on a corner of the brick.

Mack finally concluded his father’s last wishes, except, of course, for the implied need of having a son to pass this book on, and that, he was not planning to do so soon.

“Ok, time to go home now. Solomon Islands, here we go!” said Mack, wishing to return to where his best days of childhood were spent.