Liquid Fire

by Anthony Francis

  I raised an eyebrow. It was almost ten days, but still, everyone I’d met since we’d left Hawaii had asked me about nothing other than the disaster on Mount Haleakala. What happened on Maui? Were you a witness? And did a dragon really hatch?

  But Alex was all absorbed with his own problems. Maybe they were real problems.

  “Here, as in San Francisco?” I said. “For my friend Nyissa. She was horribly burned when the fireweavers kidnapped me. After the doctors in Maui stabilized her condition, the DEI airlifted her back here so the San Francisco vampires could try to save her life.”

  “The pale, pretty vamp?” he said. “Hit by magical fire? That’s horrible. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know why I’m here, Alex?” I asked, stopping two steps beneath him. “Here, as in alive? Because of the files you gave me. You helped me crack a mystery, avert a greater disaster, save thousands of lives—and prevent a war which would have split Hawaii off the union. Relax, Alex. I am here to pick up a check, and maybe to bust your nuts over that video. But not to gloat, Alex. If you paid a heavy price for me . . . it’s just one more thing I owe you.”

  Alex brought me inside, to the same small conference room. I filled him in on what happened—he was in the Magical Security Council, after all—while he plugged in a laptop and pulled up a video. After I was done briefing him, he showed me the promo videos.

  None were as bad as the one that had leaked, but I still got hot under the collar, and Alex took careful notes. At first, I wanted to tell Dennis off in person, but I gathered Alex had decided to insulate me from the rest of the crew as a way of protecting them, and it was a wise move.

  My phone buzzed. Earlier I’d texted Cinnamon that I was here; now she texted back: «gr8 . . . dont kill teh ken doll mom»

  I grinned . . . then thought about what I’d said to Jewel about radical forgiveness. That was my way of life—with her, with the vampire Transomnia, even with Nyissa, who’d threatened me the first time we met and now was one of my closest companions.

  All of them, at one time or another, had kidnapped me and threatened my life. All Alex had done was post a slightly unflattering video which would no doubt create great publicity for the series. Alex deserved the same olive branch I’d given to those who’d done me real harm.

  “I have one more to show you,” Alex said, finishing writing my comments about the last video on a yellow pad. “You may not believe this, but I recorded this before those promos we did. But still, I hope you’ll take this as a form of apology—”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “Hey, are all the crew about? And Browning, or Meyer?”

  “Y-yes,” he said, suspiciously. “Most of them, anyway. What do you have in mind—”

  “I’d like to take them all out for beers,” I said. “Or dinner, or whatever. My treat. Call it my attempt to bury the hatchet, and not just because we’re all going to have to work together. I know I can fly off the handle, and even if I think I’ve got reasons, it’s not fair to them.”

  Alex stared at me a moment. “All right, Dakota,” he said, and hit play.

  Alex’s image appeared on the screen, up close and approachable, on a bright sunny day with the Golden Gate Bridge over his left shoulder. With what little I’d worked with them so far, I realized how much skill had gone in to make the shot look that good in that bright lighting.

  “Hi, I’m Alex Nicholson, host of The Exposers,” his image said. “Many of you may know me as Christopher Valentine’s protégé. Together, on this show, we’ve taken a hard line on, as Chris would say, the flim-flammery of our age, exposing mystics for the fakers they were.

  “Or so we, the staff of The Exposers thought, but we were wrong. As many of you may have heard, Christopher Valentine himself has been exposed as a real magician and a criminal, using threats, violence, and even murder to ensure no one ever overcame his Challenges.

  “Many of you may not have heard that I, his protégé, was almost a victim of his schemes. As his protégé and heir, I’ve been put in charge of his affairs, and I’m trying to set things right. I’ve donated Christopher Valentine’s estate to his victims’ families, but that is not enough.

  “In this special, we’re going to present to you the very last Valentine Challenge, against Dakota Frost. We’re going to show, conclusively, that she won; and we’re going to break down for you how Christopher planned to prevent her from ever claiming her victory.

  “I must warn you, some of the material that will be presented is very traumatic, most of all for Ms. Frost, who we thank for agreeing to participate. All proceeds from this special are being donated to charity or to pay what the Valentine Foundation owes Ms. Frost.

  “So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for watching. We’ll be right back.”

  I stood there, stunned. I hadn’t seen his face, but . . . I had heard that voice. Heard genuine pain, genuine sympathy, a genuine desire to make things right. Maybe that was as fake as Christopher Valentine’s smile, but it was hard to hear that voice and not believe.

  The screen went black. I looked over. Alex had closed his laptop.

  “I take it,” he said quietly, “you approve.”

  “You know, Alex,” I said, “you’re still a ghoul. But—”

  “You don’t need to say it,” he said, though I had no idea how he thought he knew what I was going to say, because I sure as hell didn’t. “We have four more tapings, and two scheduled pickups, to finish the damn special. When it’s done . . . let’s put the damn thing behind us.”

  I pursed my lips, then nodded.

  “The beers thing, it’s a good idea,” he said. “You don’t need to, Dakota. They’re crew, you’re the talent. You can get away with a lot. They’re used to it. But if you feel inclined to smooth some feathers, it will make everyone’s lives easier while we . . . what? What?”

  I had raised my hand with a wry smile, raising my fingers. “Two things.”

  Alex leaned back. “Let me guess the first. The advance has to happen.”

  “You’re a great friend, you saved my life, yada yada,” I said, “but you’ve dragged my reputation through the dirt, are making me crawl through the sewer, and keep welshing on payment. If the wire transfer hasn’t gone through by Friday, we’re in court.”

  “I signed the paperwork today,” Alex said. “If it hasn’t gone through by tomorrow, I’ll sue myself—but, Dakota. You hatched a dragon. You’re going to be the most famous woman in the world. You’ll be a hit. This will end up worth far more than that paltry two million.”

  “All right,” I said, relaxing. There was a chance we could close this thing off after all. “And the other . . . I need to call in a little more on the favor. Call it the gift that keeps on giving. I need to send a message to the fireweavers.”

  “They won’t want to fucking talk to me,” he said.

  “No, they won’t,” I said. “And the man I want won’t want to be found. But you’re damn good, Alex, and your videos are everywhere. Even after this disaster, anything you do, someone will be watching—almost certainly the fireweaver clans, if you’re on their shit list.”

  “Almost certainly,” Alex said. “They even said they’re watching me—”

  “If we just blurt what I want to say out in the open, it creates enormous risk,” I said. “But fireweavers can talk without people overhearing, without even people knowing—through the flame symbols that showed up at all of Jewel’s attacks. The Fireweaver’s Code.”

  “I don’t know it,” Alex said.

  “I do,” I said, pushing a thumb drive over. Alex’s eyes went wide, and I smiled. “I coded this on the flight over,” I said. “It’s not real fire magic, just four solid hours of fumbling with Excel and forty five minutes in Photoshop after I figured out the content of the message—”

  “What do you want me to
do with it?” Alex said, eyes still wide.

  ———

  “Put it on The Exposers’s website,” I said, “and it becomes a message the world can see.”

  65. Walk Across the Bridge

  At noon, I strode across the Golden Gate Bridge, the tail of my vestcoat flapping in the strong Pacific wind. An endless stream of cars whooshed by, crowds milled on the bridge, and a cargo ship slid below atop a sheet of water, faintly rippled like dark blue denim.

  I marveled at the enormous cables that supported the bridge, at the titanic support columns that loomed above me. Cinnamon had said they were “international orange,” painted that way to alert airplanes, and that she was jealous that I was going to go see it.

  Me, I was a bit nervous, not because of what I’d planned, but because of the little gap between the East Sidewalk and the road. I’d expected the Bridge to be solid, but instead, I could see through a narrow crevice to catch a glimpse of mist and breakers below.

  I’m not afraid of heights, but for some reason, that gave me the willies.

  Bicyclists whizzed past. Joggers bopped by. Tourists took pictures—old and young, alone and with family, Midwesterners and Australians, gesticulating Armenians walking past smiling Japanese schoolgirls, talking with a granola San Francisco kid licking a lollipop.

  I’d wanted this meeting to be at night, but the sidewalk was closed then.

  This would have to do.

  I stopped at the center of the bridge and leaned on the rail, staring out over the San Francisco Bay, toward the rising boxes of the city, then toward an island I guessed was Alcatraz. The Bay was pretty. I wondered if I would ever come back here again.

  I leaned there a long time, thinking.

  Thinking of my lost love. Thinking of her betrayal. Thinking of all else I’d lost.

  Thinking of a code. The second half was a time and GPS coordinate, but the first half . . .

  Bring my ink and dagger to the bridge.

  BRING MYINK ANDDA GGERT OTHEB RIDGE

  RBGNI IMYNK NDDAA GTEGR TOBEH DRIGE

  21543 31245 23451 15324 21543 31245

  DANIE LHILL HILLD ANIEL DANIE LHILL

  “Sorry I’m late, but you messed up the cipher,” said a friendly but guarded voice. “The shuffler for the second stanza should have been HILLD ANIEL, but you scrambled it as LHILL DANIE. It took me quite a while to figure out your mistake. I almost didn’t make it.”

  “Daniel Hill,” I said, turning to face the man.

  Daniel Hill stood before me, a tough, ripped Hawaiian, skin tanned and weathered, slouching before me in comfortable slacks and a baggy, hooded jacket. He sized me up, eyeing my fading bruises, then he smiled. “Somebody sure kicked the holy living shit out of you.”

  “I gave far better than I got,” I said, sizing him up. I guessed the “dangerous assassin trying to kill my lover” was more likely to be a “reluctant hero with a thankless job”—but that conjecture remained to be proven. Daniel was tough, a bit bigger than Molokii, but nowhere near as muscular. He was slightly wary, and his hands were in his hoodie’s oversized front pockets. If he was packing, however, he was in for a shock. I said, “You were going to kill Pele.”

  “I swear by the blood of the Christian God that I did not believe Pele was still alive,” Daniel said. He took his hands out of his pockets and raised them. “I honestly thought their missionaries killed her when they threw rocks into her egg.”

  “What?” I said.

  “We all had theories what happened to Pele,” Daniel said. “The favorite of the Order was that she died. If she really was dead—if all that was down there was a cracked shell filled with burning yolk—then why not harvest it? Why not turn her tragedy into fuel for beauty—”

  “There never was a real Pele,” I said. “That’s just a myth, a metaphor. Or if there was a real Pele, that thing which hatched is not her. Trust me. I carried that thing on my skin for nine months, and it was beautiful and terrible—but it had no memories of anything like humans.”

  “That only makes my case stronger. You figure out what Jewel wanted to do?”

  “Enslave Pele,” I said, “and use her to retake Hawai`i for the Hawai`ians.”

  “Jesus,” Daniel said. “I guessed as much. I don’t know why she failed—”

  “I’m why,” I said. “I’m the one who thwarted the spell and set Pele free.”

  Daniel laughed. “So it is true—you really are a screaming egomaniac.”

  Now I laughed. “Maybe. Let me also credit prayer—and a mountain of dumb luck.”

  “Well,” Daniel said, “thank you, but Jewel still has a lot to answer for.”

  I turned and fixed him with a glare. He ignored it, staring out over the Bay.

  “You will leave her out of this from now on,” I said.

  “No, we won’t,” Daniel said, shaking his head. I clearly wasn’t getting through to him yet; this would take some work. “This is a fireweaver matter, a matter for the Order. We tried to warn her, but she didn’t listen—and you saw what happened. Now she has a lot to answer for—”

  “Yes, she has a lot to answer for, but you are done with her,” I said. “Leave her to the MSC. And next time you have a problem with something someone is trying to do, you don’t assault them on the street and try to cripple them in front of witnesses. You bring it to me.”

  “Why?” Daniel asked. “Who the hell are you, that we should come to you?”

  “Jewel almost won because you made yourself look like a bad guy!” I said. “You and I should have been working together from day one, but instead of telling anyone what was really happening, you decided to try to maim my girlfriend right in front of me!”

  Daniel didn’t look directly at me—but, to his credit, he wasn’t easily deterred.

  “I meant it. Who the hell are you? Who the hell were you?” he said. “Now we know you were the herald—but then? Pele’s egg was in Hawai`i, that so-called ‘princess’ Jewel had run to San Francisco. Why would we have turned to you, a tattoo artist from Hicksville, Georgia?”

  My nostrils flared. There was that Hicksville again. “OK. So you didn’t know. But you know now—you bring it to me. I don’t care whether you’re in Tahiti fighting someone in Timbuktu. From now on, the Edgeworld doesn’t police itself alone. You bring it to me.”

  “What, you’re going to be judge, jury, and executioner?” Daniel said.

  “Oh, hell,” I said, turning away. “We’re going to need the whole damn thing, aren’t we? Courts and police and rules and treaties, not just a roundtable of wankers pretending to be politicians. We’re going to need the whole damn thing.”

  “Only because you say we do. And I say we don’t, not even if you were the herald,” he said. “Not even if you managed to save Pele after I’d given up hope. You took an enormous risk, Frost. Millions of people could have died. We got lucky. Extremely lucky.”

  I looked back at him. “Look me in the eye and tell me you wanted to save her.”

  “I did not want to murder the god of my ancestors,” Daniel said evenly. “Nor did I have any intention of enslaving one. All I wanted to do was what I thought I had to in order to prevent a disaster—and to keep that little dictator from creating her own personal Godzilla!”

  I looked him in the eyes. His lips pursed.

  “All right, I admit it,” he said. “I wanted to take the opportunity to create more of the fuel I use to spin magic fire. But that was always secondary. If I just wanted fuel, Jewel would have given it freely. There would be some bowing and scraping involved—”

  “And you’re a big enough man to do that?” I asked, and Daniel’s eyes tightened. The text of my message never mentioned an exchange . . . but the three glyphs at the center of the message could be read as trade liquid fire. “To let someone else co
ntrol the source?”

  Daniel thought a moment. “Yes, I am,” he said. “But . . . look, Frost. I know Jewel. You may have dated her, but you really don’t know her. Her head is full of bad wires. If she had enslaved Pele . . . she’d have used her to burn all the interlopers off the island.”

  I sighed.

  “That she would have,” I said quietly. “All right, Daniel. Let’s get to what we’re here for.”

  “Your dagger, and your inks,” Daniel said. He stared at me. “I take it you know it’s not just a dagger. It’s a dragon’s tooth dagger, and can be used in the spell to crack a dragon’s egg—if you have liquid fire. Which I learned is in your firecap ink, thanks to Jewel—”

  “You had to have a plant in Jewel’s camp,” I said, and Daniel smiled at me, curious. “You had to. You took my inks to keep them from Jewel, but only she knew about them. Only she, or someone she told—”

  “Jewel is never careful,” Daniel said. “Always spilling the beans to Molokii in sign language when she thinks no one’s looking. But while it’s easy to hide signing from someone looking over your shoulder, it’s harder if your foe has a telephoto lens.”

  “So, plain old-fashioned snooping. You found out what I let them say under my nose, to give them privacy,” I said, grimacing. “I need to learn to be more nosy. One surreptitious glance at the right time could have ended this months ago.”

  “What’s the phrase?” Daniel said, leaning back against the rail. “Waters under?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “We are on a bridge.”

  “Look, if you know what that dagger can do . . . you have to know I can’t just give it to you.” I glanced at him a for moment, then he shrugged. “Ah . . . I guess we already know what you’d do if a dragon was hatching, don’t we, Frost?”

  “Proof by demonstration,” I said. “My ink and dagger, Daniel.”

  “You know what the dagger can do. You have to know what it’s worth. We have other magical weapons we could use, of course, but we won’t readily give them up. When you told me to give them to you, you had to know what I would consider proper payment.”