!!! One Night Only !!!

Magpabatok sa Mangkukulam!

Salamangka Bar — March 7, 2023

10 PM to 3 AM

Cassandra did a double take when she saw the flyer.

Magpabatok sa mangkukulam! — Get a tribal tattoo done by a witch!

Cassandra didn’t believe in witches, but she had always wanted to get a legit tribal tattoo from a legit “mambabatok”—a tattoo artist wielding just a bamboo stick, a thorn, soot, and her own two hands to create hand-tapped tattoos for her friends and paying visitors.

The ad had been posted by the occult bar, Salamangka, that was just a few blocks from her condo. Cassandra had seen a few weirdoes walking out of its intricately carved doors a few times, but she’d never seen what was inside the place because the storefront windows were coated in black paint.

She had never been interested in going there anyway. She expected to be surrounded by a gloomy bunch of posers nursing cranberry cocktails or choking on bourbon, auras replete with contrived angst.

This new development piqued her interest, though. The only practicing mambabatok she knew about was in a province over eight hours away. Not to mention she’d have to hike up a mountain for two hours just to get to visit their tribe and get the tattoo.

She took out her phone to take a photo of the flyer, then set a reminder for the night of March 7.