“It’s not payment,” I said, hands clasped on the rail. “You stole them.”
“We’re not thieves,” Daniel snapped. “Jewel needed liquid fire and mystical weapons to carry out her spell; I tried to keep her from getting any of that, for all the good it did me. When we saw the dagger with the inks, naturally we had to take both—”
“You know, the word we use for taking someone else’s property,” I said, “is stealing—”
“Fine, we stole it,” Daniel said. “Fair or not, did you come prepared to trade?”
“Yes,” I said, glancing over at him. “Yes, I did.”
———
“So you do have liquid fire,” Daniel said, eyes burning. “What if I just took it?”
66. Stewards of the Secret Flame
I tensed, not moving. Daniel was only a few feet away, in the so-called “kill zone” where you could theoretically deliver a blow before your opponent could retaliate. Not that I wasn’t prepared for that, but . . . now was the point where Daniel would show his true colors.
“That doesn’t sound like much of a trade,” I said cautiously.
“It sounds like you haven’t thought this through,” he said. “If I took it from you—”
“How?” I asked, staring out over the water. “If you make this a confrontation, I’ll throw you over the side—or just push you out into traffic. I may not have the spirit of a dragon on my back anymore, but I have an enormous magical arsenal and I’m an expert martial artist.”
Daniel stiffened. “What if I told you the cute couple with the camera—”
“—and the schoolgirls are your plants, ready to pull a gun out of the fake baby stroller?” I said, smirking. “What if I told you I’m willing to jump and pull you with me? I can make a pretty decent parachute out of these vines. You, on the other hand, will hit the water like cement.”
“You’re far from home,” he said, “and this is a dangerous town—”
“Do you know how I got that dagger? One of the vampire lords of San Francisco gave it to me for services rendered,” I said, turning toward him, pushing off the rail so I towered over him. “That service was defending Jewel from you.”
“Maybe so,” Daniel said, “but the vamps can’t come out in the day.”
“But the fae can,” the girl with the lollipop said. The “Japanese” schoolgirls, now clearly just young Hawaiian college students, backed up rapidly from the little fae called Sidhain as she flicked her hair, the glamour coming off, her locks turning white—and her eyes glittering blue.
“Jesus,” Daniel said, backing up. “We don’t want trouble with the fae—”
I extended my hand. “Then please give me my dagger and inks.”
“There’s still the matter of trade,” Daniel said stubbornly.
“No, there’s not,” I said. “They’re mine, and I want them back. You may have a claim against Jewel, but that’s a completely different conversation. I want each of us to walk away from this conversation with what each of us is owed. Now, please, give them to me.”
Daniel hesitated, then pulled out a long, narrow case.
“These inks are the signature of your clan . . . so you are their rightful custodian.”
I took the case carefully, feeling no mana, getting no signs that it was booby-trapped. Inside, my dragon’s tooth dagger rested on blue velvet, with my bottles of ink on either side in small compartments. Sidhain peered in, nodded, then smiled. I closed the case.
“You had a fancy box made?” I asked.
“Consider it icing on the olive branch,” Daniel said. “Satisfied?”
“For now,” I said, smiling wryly. “I understand that Jewel has been deposed.”
“I—” Daniel began, a bit off-put. “Jewel has been . . . removed from office,” Daniel said, uneasily staring at the fae girl. “She’s no longer the leader of the Order, not while she’s in jail and unable to fulfill her ceremonial responsibilities. We’ve appointed a regent—”
“And that regent is you?” I said.
“Yes,” Daniel said. “Not that I wanted it, not that you’d believe it—”
“So you, Fire Prince Daniel Hill, would be the rightful custodian of this.”
I withdrew a tiny steel cylinder from my other jacket pocket. I unscrewed its tiny steel top and slowly lifted it, exposing an inner glass cylinder glowing with golden light. Both Daniel and Sidhain gasped. Then I closed the cylinder and slipped it back inside my coat.
“Jesus, Frost! You did have it on you,” Daniel said angrily. He stepped up to me, but spoke quietly, urgently. “Frost, you can’t go waltzing around with that shit! What if you got mugged? Hit by a car? What if I was a bad guy and had tried to take it from you?”
“You’re not a bad guy, then?” I asked. “Now you know . . . you won’t try?”
Daniel glanced at Sidhain, then shook his head. “Not even if you didn’t have her. We’re not thieves or muggers. After Jewel went kazoo, I recruited every fireweaver I could to fight her. You know what we called ourselves? The Fire Safety Squad. We’re not the bad guys here—”
“And you say that, with a straight face, after you attacked Union Square?”
“Damn it, Frost, you know what we were trying to stop!” Daniel said. “What do you think would have happened if Jewel had called down hatchsign in Union Square, instead of it being bottled up on your back? Everything we’ve done was for the greater good—”
“So you’re claiming that, all along, you were just trying to stop the bad guys?” I asked. I had already figured as much when Jewel showed her true colors at Haleakala, but I wanted to hear it from him. “So your black pajama squad . . . is actually a police organization?”
“No, I—” Daniel began, then shook his head. “In a way . . . I guess it is.”
“Maybe we aren’t so different after all,” I said. “Look, I can’t just hand a canister of liquid fire over to you on a bridge like we’re in a bad spy movie. You know what I’d do with it, by demonstration, but I don’t know you. We have to build up trust before that happens.”
“Before it happens?” Daniel said, looking at me strangely. “You mean—”
“I mean, ultimately . . . I want the Fireweavers’ Order to have the liquid fire.”
“We want it,” Daniel said immediately, “but . . . why even think of giving it to us?”
“Because it’s yours—Jewel’s, really. Forget for a moment her crazy Hawaiian nativist methods—she knew Pele was hatching, and she knew that could be a world-changing disaster. Everything she did was designed to prevent a dragon’s death—or a human catastrophe.”
“She should have just let me crack that egg and harvest it,” Daniel said.
“Maybe,” I said, “and maybe she was a nut-job wannabe dictator—but her plan worked. A dragon was saved. Human life was preserved. And we got a fresh supply of liquid fire. It’s the product of her spell, and she deserves it—”
“She deserves,” Daniel said hotly, “to go to jail—”
“And she’s there now,” I said. “And her faction of the Order has a lot to answer for. But unless we do something, the government will step up and confiscate the liquid fire—and I’d rather a bunch of Edgeworlders get it than let the government use it for godknowswhat.”
Daniel grimaced.
“You don’t know the trouble you’re in,” I said. “The whole magical world knows your Order performed that spell. And the ones who understand the spell will realize that when Pele hatched, you almost certainly had to make, or harvest, liquid fire from it—”
“You have to know that, if we do get any, we’ll never give it up,” Daniel said.
“There’s not knowing trouble, and then there’s asking for trouble,” I said. “A whole host of people will come for it. Yes, it’s yours,
and you shouldn’t have to give up your stuff to a robber, but in the end you just want to spin fire. But they don’t want to die.
“I’ve met a lot of ancient wizards over the last few months,” I said. “A lot of them are really wise, or sweet, or just plain quirky. But I know how nasty they can get. There’s every chance the wizard that tried to murder me wanted the firecap ink in my tattoos.”
“I’ve heard of the spell,” Daniel said tightly. “A wizard doesn’t even need the ink to give himself a jolt of stolen youth. He just needs to find someone infused with liquid fire, find the right time or place, then be willing to make them bleed . . . when in close contact with them.”
I drew a breath. There was a reason that creepy old rapist had done what he’d done to me. A way to use that death and pain to give himself new life. No wonder Valentine had crossed the country raping magically tattooed women—it was his personal Fountain of Youth.
“This,” I said, “could get really crazy. We’ve got to reach out to the wizards, to negotiate with them. You may need to give up some fire, but you’ll get something in return. And we’ve got to preserve some true fire for the future. There are things worth more than spinning fire.”
“Is there enough to go around?” Daniel said. “What was that, a milliliter—”
“We got more than a milliliter,” I said. “A lot more.”
“Jesus,” he said. “And it’s yours to keep—”
“Did I need it before?” I said, patting my coat. “I have my own source.”
“Firecap ink is just an echo of the real thing,” Daniel said.
“It’s impressive enough. For the Dragon’s Noose to activate just from me walking into it, firecap ink’s got to be around Fermat level six magic. Of course, from all the things created from the droplets that fell from Pele . . . I’m guessing the real thing’s Fermat number is far higher.”
Daniel’s eyes flashed. “Where do you have the rest?”
“With the Ark of the Covenant,” I said.
Daniel looked confused. Then he laughed.
“The DEI has it,” he said. “Oh, Frost, you idiot—”
“They would have taken it anyway,” I snapped. “But my DEI contact agreed to seize the liquid fire on my personal authority. I’ve never known how much to trust them, but this is their chance to prove themselves to us. Let’s see whether they hold their part of the bargain—”
“You’re a fool if you think they will,” Daniel said. “But if they do . . . we want it.”
“You willing to make reparations?” I said. “Give up a slice to pay for Jewel’s crimes? Or are you willing to sue over it? You can’t take on the DEI, it won’t help to take on me . . . but you can petition the Magical Security Council for the release of your supplies.”
“Oh, hell,” he said, turning away. He looked back at me, then at Sidhain. “We are going to need the whole damn thing, aren’t we? Courts and police and rules and treaties—”
“It’s either that, or we go to war,” I said.
“That sounds like fun,” Sidhain said, licking her lollipop, “but I’m told it’s impolite.”
“That it is, Sidhain,” I said evenly. “Especially when there’s a better way.”
“All right,” Daniel said. “All right. We need the whole damn thing.”
“All right,” I said quietly. “Care to take a little walk, then?”
I nodded my head toward the northern end of the bridge, then turned and walked off. Daniel and Sidhain wordlessly followed. Cars rushed past as the giant columns of the bridge rose toward us, then fell away behind us. Then we turned into a corner of the parking lot.
Philip and Carnes waited for us, leaning on the trunk of my rental, talking in low tones. They wore similar, far-too-expensive suits, but Carnes’s had an odd cut to his jacket and subtle alchemical signs woven into the fabric weave. I wondered if the garment was magical.
“I brought no one,” Philip said. “As requested.”
“Ha,” I said. “You’ve probably got an airship hidden in your pants—”
“How did you know?” Philip said, mouth quirking up. “We weren’t dating that long—”
“Oh, I walked into that,” I said. “Special Agent Davidson, Master Wizard Carnes, I believe you already know Sidhain, the Lost Child of the Ford. All of you . . . please meet Fire Prince Daniel Hill. He claims to speak for the Fireweavers . . . and claims their liquid fire.”
“Mr. Hill,” Carnes said, extending his hand. “Pleased to . . .”
Daniel stared at his hand doubtfully, then at all of us.
“Who are you all?” he said. “The Mystical Spook Squad?”
“We all,” I said, indicating him as well, “are the Stewards of the Secret Flame.”
“I can’t just release the liquid fire to you,” Philip said. “To any of you—no offense, Dakota, but liquid fire is more rare and dangerous than plutonium. But it shouldn’t disappear into the MIRChold like the Ark of the Covenant. I’d rather see it in the hands of Edgeworlders—”
“But the question is, who do we give it to?” I said. “Who can we trust with it?”
“Not you,” Daniel said. “And not the government, I can tell you that.”
“Nor the fae,” Sidhain said. “We neither want it . . . nor need it.”
“And not you, Daniel,” Carnes said. “You attacked my city—”
“I know, I know,” Daniel said, raising his hands. He glared at me. “All right, Frost, you were right. I screwed up, and have a lot to answer for. But I can’t just join your creepy club. I’m not some dictator like Jewel. I have to run this by the Fireweaver’s Council.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But a resource of enormous mystical power has been created, and the last thing I want is a war. I—” and I looked off into the air for a moment, then shook my head “—and I just wanted to bring all the . . . stakeholders together. Jesus.”
“Stakeholders,” Philip said, a wry smile on his face.
“God,” Carnes said, putting his face in his palm. “You’ve already done this too long.”
“My job,” Philip said, slipping a hand into his pocket, “isn’t just to keep America safe from the misuse of magic, but to be an ambassador to the Edgeworld. A mystical version of a beat cop, out in the community, building relationships, creating trust.”
He looked at me. “What Dakota’s doing in Atlanta . . . I see as the magical community stepping up to police itself, the way the vampires did with the Consulates. Now we have a chance to take it up a level. I’m willing to go to the mat to support this—if you’re all in.”
“You already have my support,” Carnes said. “As for the rest of the Conclave—”
“The fae are inclined to agree with the wizards,” Sidhain said.
“You already know where I stand,” I said. “Or . . . maybe you don’t. To be clear, living in the Edgeworld means breaking the normal law, but I don’t care about that. I’m restricting the charter of the Magical Security Council to keeping people safe—”
“Then we’d never get our hands on liquid fire,” Daniel said. “It’s too dangerous—”
“It all comes down to what people do with it,” I said. “Spin fire all you want—but before you use it to cast some greater spell . . . run it by the Magical Security Council. Just don’t hoard it. Leave some liquid fire for the rest of us. What do you say, Fire Prince Daniel Hill?”
Daniel considered that a long moment.
“Not like I have a choice,” he muttered. “But I agree. We already had to create our own Fire Safety Squad. We should have stopped this before it got started. We should have been working together from the beginning. And working together . . . sure beats a war.”
———
“All right, Dakota Frost,” he said. “I’ll convi
nce the Fireweavers to do things your way.”
67. Life is Fire
Jewel got seven years in prison . . . and I nearly ended up alongside her.
She was charged with vandalism of a federal park and reckless endangerment of human life . . . all federal crimes, to which she pleaded guilty. And all crimes of which I, technically, was also guilty, when I seized control of the spell and used it to free Pele.
My work securing Haleakala crater didn’t help—even though the Hawaii National Guard did their best to seal the crater, and Philip did his best to lock down the whole incident, there was no way to suppress thousands of videos of Pele flying up to space.
So there was no way to stop the US Attorney from investigating how that happened, and as I worked to make sure that any liquid fire in the crater was safely locked down, I was unwittingly building the District of Hawaii’s case for reckless endangerment.
No good deed goes unpunished.
But, miraculously, no one died. We blew off the top of a mountain, but no one died. Well, some yahoo got himself killed trying to film the tsunami roiling up onto his hotel, but not from the tsunami—he fell off the roof, while the bathers in the pool survived.
A national park was wrecked, but it had been nearly empty. Dozens of houses collapsed, but everyone in them was already outside watching the eruption. A mammoth chunk of rock from the explosion hit a hotel—but an abandoned one, already scheduled for demolition.
No one died. Miraculously. Apparently, my prayer worked.
So the US Attorney ultimately decided—“by a hair,” she told me, “by a hair”—that as a kidnap victim, my actions could be counted as a bizarre form of self-defense, and that even though releasing Pele had enormous repercussions, it was better than another Krakatoa.
Liquid Fire Page 48
