I first started wearing a Mohawk to repel low-lifes-barflies, vampires, Republicans, and so on-but when I found my true profession my hairstyle turned into an ad. People's eyes are drawn by it-no longer a true Mohawk, but a big, unruly deathhawk-a stripe of feathered black, purple and white streaks climbing down the center of my head-but their gazes linger on the tattoos, which start as tribal vines in the shaved spaces on either side of the 'hawk, and then cascade down my throat to my shoulders, flowering into roses and jewels and butterflies.

Their colors are so vivid, their details so sharp many people mistake them for body paint, or assume that they can't have been done in the States. Yes, they're real; no, they're not Japanese-they're all, with a few exceptions, done by my own hand, right here in Atlanta at the Rogue Unicorn in Little Five Points. Drop by-I'll ink you. Ask for Dakota Frost.

To attract the more… perceptive… eye, I started wearing a sleeveless, ankle-length leather coat-vest that shows off the intricate designs on my arms, and a cutoff top and low-rider jeans that show off a tribal yin-yang symbol on my midriff. Tying it all together is the black tail of something big, curling up the left side of my neck, looping around the yin-yang, and arcing through the leaves on my right shoulder. Most people think it's the tail of a dragon, and they wouldn't be wrong; in case anyone misses the point, I even have the design sewn into the back of a few of my vests.

Those who live on the edge might notice a little more detail: magical runes woven into the tribal designs, working charms woven into the flowers, and, if you look real close at the tail of the dragon, the slow movement of a symbolic familiar. Yes, it did move; and yes, that's real magic. Drop by the Rogue Unicorn-you're still asking for the one- and-only Dakota Frost, the best magical tattooist in the Southeast.