Frost Moon s-1

by Anthony Francis

  I looked over at Buck. I'd drawn him into this. "Oh no. Not Buck-"

  "Oh, no, not him, my dear. And not Alex or Jinx either. They're all just wankers," Valentine said. "Even Buckhead, prize that he is, is in the end a pathetic old fool, a fading wannabe-god who never learned anything. None of them, not a one, know the Art."

  He shrugged off his cloak, exposing a barrel chest covered in intricate tattoos. ^

  "My true rival, my dear, is you."

  43. SKINNING THE DANCER

  "Tattooing is the only true magical art," Mirabilus said, spreading his arms wide, showing off a hundred, a thousand detailed tattoos, each a hyperintricate knot of runes and sigils I would have been proud to have inked-had they not been woven throughout with scars and brands and symbols of pain and death. "Tarot readings, onmyoji mystics, hexes-all nonsense. Ley lines, sacrifices, potions- mere dabbling. Only necromancers come close to the true nature of magic; their every spell is powered by the spilt blood of a living thing. But do they recognize the source of their power? No-they let all that magic bleed out into the air, catching only a whiff to make some dead thing dance like a marionette."

  "Only the Art truly understands the true source of all magic: life." He shrugged his shoulders, and his tattoos seemed to glow to life, coming off his body in a haze of psychedelic color. "All the inks and powders and designs and rituals are just a way of focusing the power that is life. Understand that, and you can do anything."

  "From the olden days, the Hebrews tried to stamp us out," he said, raising his voice. "They knew what we could do and murdered us, overturned our stones, defiled our altars. We had to go underground, practice our rites in secret-"

  "Baal," I said. "You're literally a priest of Baal-" "Close enough," Mirabilus said, bowing slightly. "You know enough to recognize the words, but have forgotten what they mean. Should I… introduce you to the rites of Ba'alat Gebal before I take my prize?"

  Something about his tone made my skin crawl-fuck that. "I knew I saw something Middle Eastern in your skin tone," I said. "You're a descendant of priests of Baal who escaped persecution by pretending to be Jews. You threw me off with that 'Christopher Saint Valentine's Day' stage name, but I'm sure of it now-what did your family do, switch to pretending to be Christian once the Jews were the ones being persecuted?"

  Mirabilus was silent for a moment, then laughed bitterly. "Wrong, but close enough-the Inheritance of Byblos has taken many guises over the millennia. You know, the rites of Ba'lat would make this easier on you. Call it professional courtesy for a fellow priest-"

  "Fuck that" I said, this time aloud. "I'm no priest of Baal or of anything else. I don't believe in any of that hocus pocus-but I was brought up a Christian and if I have to choose I'll go out with Jesus. Fuck Baal."

  "Now, now," Mirabilus said, "you'll make me change the order-"

  "If you were planning to rape me after ripping open my back," I said, "I'd prefer you switched the order." Though I couldn't imagine any order of those things that I'd prefer.

  "I will kill you tonight," Mirabilus said icily, pulling out the dagger and drawing it over the skin of his arm without a flinch. The dagger's pommel began to glow red. "I will link my life with yours with the Art of Ink and Life, drain your power and add it to my own. It will be done now as in centuries past by the Children of the Ba'alat of Gebal."

  I swallowed, clenching my hands tightly. I could feel the mana building in my hands, but underneath the stinging pitch it had nowhere to go and the skin of my hands got hotter and hotter until it felt like it was burning fire.

  "Oh, please, Dakota, build up the mana in the vessels on your hands until they burst," he said, laughing-and something tickled the back of my mind. "It will only make my job easier, the flow faster. I will kill you, tonight, and then Buckhead, and Jinx, and then Alex-a pity for him, he had such potential."

  But I was ignoring him now, concentrating. Build up the mana in the vessels of your hands until they burst. What was wrong about how he said that?

  "Sorry I'm late," Transomnia said, hopping up to the podium nimbly and tossing down a hammer with a kind of glee. "Anything left for me, old man?"

  And then it hit me. He'd hadn't said the vessels in your hands, but on your hands.

  "You can have all the blood," Mirabilus said, grinning. "I just want the skin."

  Vessel was an old skindancer word for magical capacitor. He didn't mean my blood vessels-he was talking about the magical marks on my palms and knuckles. The word was old, falling out of use in the 1800's, used now only by faux-ancients like Wiccans… and true ancients like Mirabilus. If I was right about his use of such an old word, Mirabilus had extended his life a century or more with his lifedraining tricks-and maybe, just maybe, he was like the Marquis, trapped in a prescientific view that saw magical tattoos as mystical lenses, projecting mana from living bodies into the air through their two-dimensional designs.

  In that view, my hands were the biggest threat: with their flexible skin, they were my quickest source of power, whereas any other skindancing movement would be slower, giving him more than enough time to stab me in the back. With my hands coated with goo, all that power could do was burn out my skin, like black paper thrown over a light bulb.

  But reality was more complicated: the line between air and skin, skin and flesh was blurry; each had its own capacity to carry manabut a difference of degree, rather than kind. After all, a cell phone is just like a land line-once you realize the air can act like a wire.

  I could use that coating of pitch, project the power of my tattoos inward, make my body like the air, to hold that power and release it. It might damn near kill me-but with the magic hidden away behind my skin, Mirabilus would never see it coming.

  I had a chance, if I could only find a distraction.

  "Every drop of blood in her body," Transomnia said, breathing heavily. "Oh, yessss, juice of the forbidden fruit. I will enjoy defying the Lady Saffron again."

  But… he hadn't defied Savannah before. He had practically been a rules lawyer, skirting what harm he could do to me without defying her ban. I twisted my neck to look at him, and he raised an eyebrow, eyes trying to communicate… something. He knew what he was saying was wrong. What the hell? What was I missing?

  My eyes widened as I remembered it had been awfully easy to get in here-and yet Transomnia knew exactly how to shut me down. He just hadn't told his guards.

  "Maybe I'll make Jinx my apertif before I feast on you, Dakota," he hissed, leaning down close, his desperate face in opposition to his words; but when he leaned back where Mirabilus could see him, he was practically leering in hunger. "And Alex will make a nice palate cleanser before I have Buckhead for dessert-"

  I writhed and squeezed my hands. The mana built up in them and fed back, burning my skin, sinking into my body, like I'd drunk an entire pot of hot coffee. I could feel the tingling start, rippling down my insides-but held on to the power, held onto it tight.

  "Please burn out your hands trying to awaken your marks," Mirabilus said, raising his dagger. "I'll drink in your power until not a scrap is left-"

  Transomnia stepped up behind Mirabilus for a better view, leaning in, winking at him, leering down at me, making me duck and flinch. Mirabilus glared and Transomnia stepped back, hands raised in mock surrender. But the moment the wizard's face turned away, he caught my eye and raised his finger to his lips… and showed me the pruners.

  I looked away in terror. What new horror was this? But his face had shifted from eager leering sycophant to… something else, just for a second. Mirabilus stepped forward, to the edge of the platform, and placed his clammy geezer hand on my bare backside. I looked back one last time, and saw Transomnia raise the pruners high behind Mirabilus's head.

  "Whatever you're going to do, do it now, Dakota," he said.

  And rammed the pruners down with vampire speed.

  Mirabilus whirled, crying out in pain as the pruners stabbed into his collarbone. Faster than a vampire, stronger tha
n a werewolf, his fist popped out and clocked Transomnia under the chin; Transomnia staggered back, but pulled with his right hand on the pruners, making Mirabilus scream as they ripped free. Mirabilus shook the pain off, shifted his shoulders and chest, and his tattoos blazed to life.

  Transomnia tumbled backwards, screaming as Mirabilus poured all his power out into the air. Snakes snapped at him, bees stung him, and spiders whirled around him, twining his legs so he tumbled backwards off the stage. But somehow, despite all the power, all the artistry, even with the magic flying through the air, there was something off about Mirabilus' designs… something flat, and two dimensional.

  Mirabilus was an old school magician. He had thought Transomnia had taken my weapons away by coating my 'vessels' with pitch to keep the magic from leaking out into the air and awakening my marks. But that theory of magic was over a hundred years out of date. I, on the other hand, was an Edgeworlder. We experiment, not inherit; and I knew from the burning in my gut that what we'd learned was true: as mana was concerned, the flesh of the body was just another kind of air-except it could hold a thousand times more mana.

  I ignored the sounds of Transomnia's screams, and drew in one painful breath. Then I let it out slowly, sinuously rippling my back, pouring every ounce of mana I had into the Dragon.

  The pain of so much mana was incredible as it reverberated through my body and streamed out of my skin. I screamed. I squeezed my eyes shut as my vision exploded into white light. Then the light faded, slowly-and suddenly I saw through new eyes.

  The world before me was sharp, but its colors distorted, my point of view rising through a stream of colors and flame.. My new eyes looked down, and I could see my own trembling body, could watch as the glittering scales and rippling form of my finest tattoo glowed, detached from my skin and came to life. I saw through the eyes of the Dragon, rearing over a shocked Mirabilus in a fully dimensional tower of color and flame.

  "Spirit offire," I whispered. "Show him the light!"

  The Dragon unleashed a torrent of fire upon Mirabilus, blackening and burning his body. His tattoos seared and dissolved, leaking mana in fitful incoherent sparks, and he fell backward with a tortured scream. Then the Dragon reared back and pounced upon him, jaws snapping down upon his neck as its long, segmented tail detached from me.

  My link to the Dragon severed abruptly, and I opened my own eyes to see its curling form, rippling and alive-and savaging Mirabilus. With each bite it seemed to grow more real and strong, until it stopped and looked back at me, fully opaque, all aglow in glittering coils and sparking blue eyes. Then it raised its wings, screeched, and shot upwards, exploding through the ceiling of Hell, disappearing into the darkness.

  Valentine twisted, moaned, raised one weak, bloody hand after the Dragon. Then he collapsed and was still, mana streaming slowly out of his ruined tattoos like slow rainbow fire.

  "Finally," Transomnia said, clambering back up onto the stage, burnt, singed, but still standing. "Free of you, you sick fuck."

  He stared down at Valentine's body for a long, long time. Then he looked up abruptly at me, and I flinched. I had nothing left. No way to defend myself. If he decided to come after me-and then his hand came out of his pocket, holding the pruners.

  "Oh, God," I said, ducking my head back down to the dais. "Oh, God-"

  "Oh, quit whining," Transomnia said, strolling around me, cutting the wires on my wrists, then pulling me up to a sitting position. "But we're not done."

  He strolled off casually, and I just sat there, propping myself up with one hand, covering myself with another, ankles still pulled apart by the wires. He returned with a rag and grabbed my right hand and began wiping it off roughly. I sat there, trembling, letting him do it, until he finally gave up in disgust and released my only slightly less grimy hand.

  "That will have to do," he said, opening his shirt. "Now get this fucking thing off me!"

  My eyes widened. There was an elaborate knot tattooed on Transomnia's chest-a bat, practically turned inside out inside an elaborate design pulling at it with fishhooks. It was a controlling charm, from the looks of it precisely the same kind inked on WulfTransomnia had been just as much a pawn as he had.

  I gathered my strength and reached out with my cleaned hand. At first I felt nothing; then I caught the edge of the mana, began flexing my fingers, and drew the magic out into the air. The bat squealed and squeaked as its prison dissolved. The fishhooks of the design came loose and flailed in the air. But I didn't let them get a grip on anything, and soon the whole design dissolved into sparks, leaving nothing but a faint ghost of an impression on his chest.

  "Thank you," Transomnia said, buttoning his shirt, somehow taller, more businesslike. He popped the wires on my ankles, left, right, and I gratefully pulled my feet together and huddled in a mound on the dais. Transomnia calmly walked away and stood over Valentine's corpse-and began kicking it, grievously, brutally, methodically, each time releasing a flash of magic and color as his body flipped and skittered across the floor.

  "No draining. No maiming. No raping. No killing. Those were the rulesf Transomnia said, staring down at Valentine's bloodied corpse with pure contempt. He looked straight back at me, and I twitched back a bit, trying to cover myself. "Consider ourselves even."

  "Even steven," I said, trembling, naked but for Savannah's collar, sitting here before a vampire who had almost beaten me to death… and who had now saved my life. I slipped slowly backwards off the dais, still trembling. I didn't know if my legs would hold me, but somehow they did.

  Transomnia smiled evilly, then threw the pruners down, embedding them in the floor between my feet. I flinched, but stayed where I was. Then he turned to go… and paused a moment, scowling. Finally he turned back to me. I flinched again, but didn't try to get away-and I stood my ground before him, damn it, I stood.

  And then Transomnia took off his coat, and slipped it on my shoulders.

  "I hate your guts, bitch," he said, "but you need this more than me."

  "Thanks," I said, drawing it about me. "For saving my life."

  Transomnia roughly nodded. "I needed your help, too."

  "Then why didn't you just ask?" I shouted, waving my hand at the carnage around us. I couldn't keep it in anymore. "Why did you put us through all this-"

  "Because I had to," Transomnia snarled. "You saw the design. Mirabilus would have known the instant I turned hostile. I had to play my cards very carefully-"

  "You let me beat your guards," I said, in sudden realization. "You told them what to do, but not clearly enough for them to take me seriously."

  "That gamble paid off," Transomnia said. "But Mirabilus would have dismissed the rent-a-thugs from the ceremonial chamber anyway-it's better to have no witnesses to the deed, since even Wulf and I couldn't always tie up every loose end. It was always going to be just you, me, and Mirabilus-but the history of our little tussles made it appropriate to express hostility in his presence." He smiled grimly. "For that… I thank you, Dakota."

  "Why did you let him tattoo you in the first place? Did you think he could protect you from Saffron?" I asked-and then I stopped, working out the timing in my head. "No… not even vampires heal that fast. That had to be an old tattoo-"

  "So old," Transomnia said, "I barely remember why the deal made sense at the time."

  "You're his advance man," I said. "You roll into town, sniff out the lay of the land-"

  "And then help him take out his rivals," Transomnia said. His eyes were burning on me, not hate exactly, but… rage? "But this time, it was supposed to be different. This time, I was going to find someone to protect me, a vampire whose aura was strong enough to bind myself to, someone whose power could shield me from Mirabilus' control. I found Calaphase of the Oakdale Clan-and then you went and fucked it up. They kicked me out because of you-"

  "-and drove you right back into his arms," I said. "I'm sorry. I didn't know-"

  "You couldn't have," Transomnia said, still glaring at me. "How could
you know all this would happen, just from one little punch? But remember: you picked that fight. I was doing my duty, trying to scare you off-but I never touchedyou that first night.."

  My eyes widened. His stayed on me, burning with anger and expectation. Surely the vampire who nearly took two of my fingers wasn't waiting for… an apology?

  "I'm sorry," I said at last. "Sorry… that I hit you."

  "Finally," Transomnia said, leaning back. "And I'm sorry that led to all this-but it is over, and as far as I am concerned, we are evenand done. I'm not going to come after you, you're not going to come after me-we leave each other the hell alone."

  I nodded, blinked, and when my eyes opened, he had disappeared.

  I stood there, swaying, drinking it all in. Then I stepped up Valentine's corpse. It was still steaming with wisps of color and fire, but fading fast. I stood there, watching him go, my skin tingling with magic as the last streamers from his tattoos faded into darkness.

  "Guess what," I said. "It turns out I can do a trick you can't do, after all."

  44. BLACK MAYDAY

  Grimacing in pain, I used the clippers to cut Jinx and Cinnamon down and then tried to free them from the silver barbed wire. Jinx was easy, but Cinnamon was damn near hopeless-and the wires on her wrists cut so deep into the flesh I couldn't get the clippers in there without hurting her more, so I just cut the wires between them, leaving her with two bloody silver bracelets. My hands were tingling with pain, but I tried to carefully clip the wires out of her mouth; when I was done her mouth hung slack and I could barely hear her breathing.

  I stared at the others. Wulf looked dead, but Jinx was still whole; Alex and Lord Buckhead were pretty trashed, but they were all breathing, if not stirring; they'd hold. I untied them, prayed to God that they'd hold, and carried Cinnamon up out of Hell. At first I was relieved when I saw that the guards I'd incapacitated were gone, but then I realized that meant they were alive and conscious. I didn't wait to find out whether they were running or plotting: I just ran straight out into the street.