Blood Rock s-2

by Anthony Francis

  Just then there was a rushing of air and suddenly Calaphase and another guard popped out of the darkness, with four bags worth of groceries from Kroger.

  “Honey, I’m home,” Calaphase said, smiling as he saw me undressing-and then his smile faded when he saw Tully. “Hell, it’s killing him-”

  “I know, but damn, that was fast,” I said. “I didn’t think vampires could really fly.”

  “We can run,” Calaphase said. “And I think we found almost everything you needed.”

  “Great,” I said, pawing through the bags. Chalk, cinnamon, rock salt, more Kosher salt-and fresh basil -in January. I pulled out a twig and twirled it: perfect. “Let’s get cooking.”

  “ I often cooked with cinnamon, basil, and salt, back when I was alive,” the curly-headed vamp said, watching me mix. “And those ingredients never did anything special but stew.”

  “You’re as alive as I am,” I retorted, not looking up, “and iron filings won’t do anything special but rust-until you add a magnetic field. Then they line up like soldiers.”

  “You expect me to believe basil is magnetic?” Curly asked.

  “No,” I said, “but I expect to show it’s magically active-if you know how to unlock it.”

  I finished the basil mix, said a small prayer over the bowl, picked it up, and then stepped up to the right side of the tag, where it was completely coated with paint. Against the dirty back wall of the werehouse, beneath the many splashes of color, thick cables writhed and bubbled. One had nearly torn itself free, but it did not strike; and so I got almost close enough to touch.

  “I cannot wait to see,” the vamp guard said, “the magic of Julia Child.”

  “Showing your age, Curly,” I said, scooping a fistful of coated basil sprigs. “Me, I prefer Alton Brown, but for this job, you need a little Emeril- BAM! ”

  And I tossed the sprigs out through the air, where their coatings absorbed stray mana, discharging it into the leaves until they glittered like feathers of blue flame. They cascaded down the wall, some sticking, some falling, and collected on the pavement in an odd hexagonal pattern that clearly didn’t look random. Magical energy flickered across the pattern each time the tag stirred beneath the paint, and it began to get more sluggish. Even the tentacle that was tearing itself free started to go limp… and then sank back into the paint.

  “You did it!” the vampire said, leaping forward to grab Tully.

  “No!” I shouted, shooting my free hand forth in a sinuous motion. Mana rippled through my skin and one of my vines leapt off my skin like a green glowing whip, faster than even I’d expected. It caught the vampire on the chest and flung him back just as three barbed tentacles tore free from the wall and struck where he would have landed. The momentum rippled back along my glowing vine and near tore my arm out of its socket, knocking me forward, down to the pavement on my already throbbing knee. I cried out in pain-and looked up to see the three tentacles, right above my face, turning slowly towards me.

  I hurled the rest of the bowl at them and scrambled back. The tentacles cracked to the pavement where I had lain, batting the remaining bowl aside with a KHWANGG, scattering basil everywhere. The herbs lit up like blue flame, as before, but without the protective barrier of paint diffusing the flow of mana between them and the tag, the basil sprigs turned to real flames.

  In seconds, my magic mix disintegrated in a cloud of sparks.

  This Will Be a Bit Tricky

  “Damnit,” I cried. I retrieved the overturned bowls. I’d lost almost all of the mix, save a few scraps left in the bottom of the bowl the tag had struck. All the rest was sprayed out over the dirt and in the grassy cracks through the pavement, ruined. I glared up at the vamp, who lay half sprawled in Calaphase and Fischer’s arms. “ Asshole! ”

  The vamp’s hazel eyes glowed. “I tried to save him, and you insult me?” he said, trying to regain his footing. “In Lithuania I stood in the Gentry! No mortal speaks to me that way!”

  I crouched, hooked my right foot behind my left, and stood back upright, twisting like a corkscrew as I did so. Mana built up in my skin and brought it to life, bursting my vines outward and making every gem on my body sparkle and every flower unfurl. The shimmering light burst onto the clearing in a rainbow of colors, washing all natural color from the vamps and weres and leaving their faces pale circles of shock.

  “I don’t care what country club you were in. This ain’t Lithuania,” I growled. “Now stay back, or this thing will kill you too dead to hear this mortal tell you what an idiot you are.”

  I twisted round, expanding my vines, recreating my glowing shield. “I’m coming for you, Tully,” I said, stepping straight towards him slowly. “But this will be a bit tricky.”

  The tag’s free tentacles snapped and bit at me, uselessly, then folded back on Tully, clenching on him. He screamed-but his eyes were on me and he nodded. Behind him the planet motif shimmered, eerily real; through some trick of perspective it almost looked like the tag’s tentacles were pulling him into the wall, towards it. There was a cracking sound, and I looked over to see ugly lumps begin to form at the base of the wall, beneath the splashes of paint. Tombstones, no doubt-the only element in Revenance’s tag that had been missing from this design. The basil and paint had suppressed the tag a little, but there was no doubt: it had the same logic as the one that killed Revenance, and was getting stronger.

  I knelt and drew the first arc of a magic circle, just beyond the safety line I’d drawn earlier. The chalk broke against a crack in the pavement and I dinged my knuckle, wincing, but I didn’t stop, feeling the tag writhe before me in malevolence and hearing Tully moan. Soon I had the inner rings, the layer of runes, and the outer circle that would hold what little magic powder I had left. I studied the bowl, then began picking out pinches of dust, laying them around the design, trying to stretch each little bit out so that I’d have enough left for my final trick.

  Somehow, I managed to complete the circle, scraping enough out of the bowl to complete the final arc-almost, leaving one gap in front of Tully. The circle of powder looked dangerously sketchy, but it would have to do. So I poured all the dusty remains in the bowl at the edge of the gap, creating a pitiful little heap of fine powder on one end. Too much! The lines of the circle began glowing, like a flickering neon, as the mana it absorbed from the tag began sparking over the gap. I scooted the heap aside, and the sparking stopped. If the circle closed before we were inside, it would shove Tully and me into the tag rather than protect us from it.

  Then Tully moaned again. I flung the bowl aside. There was nothing left to be done. I had to do it now. I crouched down, concentrating.

  “Spirit of Earth,” I murmured. “Shield our lives.”

  Then I lunged forward and threw both my arms around Tully’s chest.

  Tully screamed as the vines tried to saw him in half-then the tag squealed in rage as I wrapped Tully in a protective cocoon of mana. Tentacles flailed at me as my vines whipped around him, barbs wearing at my defenses as my trusty wrist snakes snapped at the tentacles on his chest. More tentacles curled around me, pulling me forward, into the wall, into the tag, like there was a whole world behind the paint. I felt an immense magical pressure weigh on me, like water weighs on your ears at the bottom of a pool-but I jammed my boot against the wall and shoved, hurling myself backward into the circle with Tully in my arms.

  The tentacles refused to give up, wrapping around us, hot, burning, pouring mana out around us in elaborate arcs of living flame. I couldn’t see anything through the blazing light. I’d like to say I used skindancing to fight it off, but I didn’t. I just ground in my feet and held on to Tully for dear life, forcing the tag to expend as much mana as possible. The tentacles squeezed tighter; we both screamed in pain And then finally the excess mana the tag was pouring into the air closed the circle’s magical circuit, like a spark leaping a gap, and Tully and I collapsed gratefully to the ground. The tentacles leapt back, wounded, and I quickly shoved the tiny pile o
f mix back over the gap with my boot, making sure the circuit stayed closed.

  But almost immediately the protective bubble began to flicker and sparkle as the tag, squealing, renewed its attack. The clouds on the image of the planet began whirling furiously. I could see the images of tombstones cracking up through the join of the wall and the pavement, struggling to break free of their layer of paint. A horrible scream rent the air, and a dozen new tentacles whipped down on us, screaming with rage as if the tag was a living monster. It was still getting stronger-but Tully was out of the circuit!

  “So much for Saffron’s theory,” I said.

  The bubble began to crack. My mix was thin and poorly refined, and the pavement beneath us was an uneven mess; there was no way it would hold. Fine- I was counting on it. I took a deep breath, sinuously stretching within the bubble until all my vine tattoos came to life again and wrapped around Tully and me, a green glowing shield. Then I grabbed him tight.

  “Hang on, Tully,” I said-and leapt backwards out of the circle.

  The tentacles closed on the magic bubble right as it collapsed with a bright flash. All the built up mana discharged with a bang, rippling back through the graffiti like blue lightning. As Tully and I landed, the whole tag sparked and shorted out, a brief two-dimensional fireworks display, leaving nothing but black crinkled smudges dotted with glowing red embers.

  For a moment, Tully and I just lay there in the dust, staring at the intricate concentric rings that were all that was left of the design. Then we looked at each other.

  “Congratulations, Tully,” I said. “You get to live to run another day.”

  “Thank you thank you thank you,” Tully said, trying to give me a hug, then grimacing as the gesture squeezed a new river of blood from his chest. “Aaah-I’m so sorry-”

  “Thank you, Dakota,” a voice said, and I looked up to see Calaphase staring down at me. The vamps and werekin were all standing over us, all looking down gratefully-except Gettyson, who just stood there, jaw clenched, before turning on his heel and stalking off.

  Tully kept sobbing. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I had no idea this would happen.”

  “There’s no way you could have known,” I said.

  “I means, it was just magical graffiti-”

  “Wait,” I said. “You already knew it was magical?”

  “You can’t miss it,” Calaphase said quietly. “These tags, they’re always moving-”

  “Wait wait,” I said, alarmed. “They? This has happened before?”

  “An attack, no, but the tags-yes,” Calaphase said, even more quietly. “We’ve seen tags like this for weeks, nothing this elaborate, usually just little ones, though they seem like they get bigger over time-or else the prick keeps coming back to flesh them out. Revy said he saw a huge one yesterday, though he never got to show me where. For all I know, this was it-”

  “No,” I said. “This thing loves vamps. If he’d gotten close to it, it would have caught him-and then how would he have ended up in the cemetery?” I asked. Then I recalled the odd sensation I’d felt in the graffiti’s grip… like it was pulling me inside. The conclusion sounded outlandish, but was just too damn obvious to ignore. “Unless. .. that’s where this one… led?”

  But before I could go any further, Tully began convulsing in my arms.

  “I gots-I gots to change,” he said, holding his bloody hands up, staring at them, at the gash in his chest. The graffiti had dug down to the bone, exposing white flashes of ribs, and I felt my stomach churn. “I can’t heal like this.”

  “Come on, cub,” Fischer said, squatting down beside us, taking Tully from my arms and picking him up. “I’ll carry you out to the clearing, to the light of the moon.”

  I got to my feet, groaning, covered in grime, dirt, blood and basil. More and more weres and vamps were gathering; the ones who had watched stood in awe, but the newcomers stared at me with cold, hungry eyes. Wonderful-I was covered in Tully-flavored barbecue sauce. Fortunately the curly-headed vamp guard was on crowd control, keeping both the weres and the vamps away from the tag.

  “She’s Lady Saffron’s troubleshooter,” he said to a new arrival, following with a glowing account of my recent duel with the graffiti. I half smiled. I wasn’t Saffron’s ‘troubleshooter,’ and it hadn’t been that easy. I turned to correct him-and got a bucket of water in the face.

  “Wash up, wash up,” Gettyson said, splashing the rest of me with cold, stinging liquid, then attacking me with a towel. “You gots to get Tully’s blood off you, get it off you.”

  I took the towel and began scrubbing gratefully. The fluid stank of ammonia and disinfectant and other things besides, and felt harsh against my hands. My eyes were watering from the initial splash, and my lips were actually tingling… surely he hadn’t just splashed wolfsbane extract in my face! But then, a thin purple haze began lifting off my top, chest and shorts-not smoke, but mana, from Tully’s moon-charged werekin blood-and the grateful magician in me won out over the worried chemist.

  Gettyson handed me a dry towel for my face and looked me over roughly, checking my chest, my hands, under my arms. He daubed a more concentrated form of the stinging substance on a cloth and began wiping scrapes on my legs, arms, finally my forehead.

  “That was from earlier,” I said.

  “But still,” he said, frowning, wiping it clean. “You feels like you’re cut anywhere?”

  “No, no,” I said, feeling myself up and down. “I’m good.”

  Gettyson seized my hand and inspected the knuckle. “That’s not from earlier,” he said, holding my hand firmly in the cloth and pouring the stinging fluid straight on the wound. “Keep watch on this. I don’t wants you turning wolf unless you wants to.”

  “Ow. Thanks,” I said, taking the bottle and cloth gratefully. He nodded, barely looking at me, his odd, slit-pupiled eyes angry and tight; not at me, but at a memory. I had a feeling he hadn’t ‘turned horse’ because he wanted to.

  A sudden howl rent the air, and Gettyson looked off. “Tully’s changed,” he said. “If he has, the other young ones will too. It’s like a trigger. You gets yourself out of here.”

  “We don’t have time for all this werekin bullshit,” I said. “A tag like that killed Revenance. This one nearly killed Tully, started to drag us both inside. I think the different graffiti is connected somehow. I need to see the others-”

  “In daylight,” Gettyson said. “ After the full moon. The last thing we needs is you here covered with the scent of blood right when we gots a crowd of wolves changing.”

  And then a crackling growl rippled across the pavement. I looked up to see a monstrous bear lumbering past, larger than a horse, eyeing me sideways as he planted himself at the edge of the darkness: the Bear King, leader of the werehouse, in full animal form. A young, slender wolf came up and fawned before him, but the Bear King batted at it. The wolf whined, rolling on its back, exposing its white chest marred with a ragged stripe of bloody fur; and then it looked at me with Tully’s eyes. He was safe. The werehouse was a rough place, but they cared for the least of their own. And that meant, somewhere behind me in the werehouse, Cinnamon was safe too-at least while she struggled through her change.

  But a thousand glowing eyes still stared at me hungrily from the darkness.

  “On behalf of the werehouse, thank you,” the Bear King rumbled. “Now leave us.”

  Sweet and Sticky

  Less than a quarter hour later, but seemingly a million miles away, Calaphase scowled, eyes closed, brow furrowing in pain as he took the straw of the Frappuccino from his lips. I winced in sympathy. “Is even liquid food too hard on you?”

  “Yes-no,” he said, kneading his brow. “Drank too fast-brain freeze.”

  I laughed.

  The Starbucks in Vinings was in a quaint little converted house tucked into a cluster of similar shops off of Paces Ferry Road. Vinings was a full mile inside Atlanta’s northeast Perimeter, but the steep hills and dense forest made it feel like a
cozy mountain outpost. The cafe’s outdoor patio was cradled in clusters of trees and bushes, and in that cradle we lounged beneath the warm light of a heating lamp-and while the vampire was trying his best to suck down the moral equivalent of a coffee Frostee in the beginning of January, I was drinking a hot chai latte and feeling it down to my toes, thank you very much.

  “Why did we come all the way up here?” I asked, grinning as he put the delicious sludge down. “There’s a Starbucks up South Atlanta Road, not a mile from the werehouse.”

  “Do you know where all the Starbucksen are in Atlanta?”

  “Not all of them,” I replied. “And you ducked my question. Why here?”

  “One,” Calaphase ticked off with his finger, “the cats here know me and blend the way I like, rather than just handing me a cup of crushed ice with coffee poured over it. And two… Vinings is inside the Perimeter. Safer for you.”

  “I wondered why you ran us down all those back roads,” I said. To mundanes, the Perimeter was Interstate 285, twin ribbons of asphalt that ringed Atlanta like a black eye. To Edgeworlders, it was a mammoth magic circle, protecting the residents within from the full chaos of the magical Edgeworld. Fae battles and demon possessions didn’t happen here.

  At least, they didn’t happen… much. The vampires saw to that. I tugged at my steel collar. It was the sign of Saffron’s protection, but it didn’t mean too much OTP-”Outside the Perimeter”-where the delicate truce established by civilized vampires broke down.

  Most humans never noticed, of course, but an Edgeworlder traveling outside the safe zones had to watch her back. There were rules, as old and ancient as those governing trolls under a bridge. First and foremost, you didn’t expose Edgeworlders without their permission.

  That, of course, hadn’t flown with Rand when I’d called in to report this new graffiti attack. He blew up at me when I refused to divulge our location, cussed me out, in language more suited to me than him. And then he hung up, on me! And rather than support me…