I jerked the Prius over into a visitor’s space and hopped out, running up on Catherine Fremont, who was arguing loudly with a blond police officer and a darkhaired, ponytailed woman. “I’m sorry,” she said angrily, “I’m not authorized to do that-”
“Ma’am,” the officer said, leaning back his head, “I don’t think you understand-”
“I do understand and don’t you ma’am me,” she snapped-and then her eyes caught me and her face relaxed in relief. “Oh, thank God. Miss Frost, we have a situation.”
“Miss Frost?” the darkhaired woman said, checking her clipboard, shrugging a couple times to adjust a faux-fur-lined jeans jacket. “Dakota Frost?”
“Yes,” I said, and the woman smiled. She had a pleasant face, open and expressive, with pencil-thin eyebrows that made her look far younger than she was. “What’s going on?”
“I’m Margaret Burnham of DEE-FAX, the Department of Family and Children Services,” she said, eyes flickering over the tattoos on my temples before returning to her clipboard. “Are you currently in custody of a child named ‘Stray Foundling?’”
“Yes, she is in my custody,” I said, “but she goes by Cinnamon Frost.”
–
“Whatever,” Burnham said. “We’re here to take Stray into emergency custody.”
Dee-fax
“You’re what? ” I exploded.
“Ma’am,” the officer said, stepping forward, his hand raised. “Please calm down.”
“What the hell is this, Officer-” and I broke off for a second, eyes scanning him till I found his badge “-Galacci?”
“ Deputy Galacci,” he corrected, body held firm and forbidding, blue eyes distant and stony. “Ma’am, this is a court-ordered action.”
“On what basis?” I asked. The expression on his stony, hard-muscled face didn’t change, and I transferred my glare to Burnham. “For what possible reason?”
“Housing her in unsafe conditions,” Burnham said, checking her clipboard.
“ What? ” I said. “Since when is an apartment in Candler Park unsafe?”
“According to this,” Burnham said, glaring, “Stray’s living in Oakdale.”
“She goes by Cinnamon,” I said, “and Oakdale is where I adopted her from.”
“The address is a condemned factory,” Burnham said.
“It was a werehouse,” I said.
“It burned down.”
“That was arson!”
“I have no info on that,” Burnham said, “but according to the police report, the second police report she appeared in in as many days, I might add, Stray was living there as recently as two weeks ago, on the day the police went to shut it down as an unlicensed werekin housing facility-and it burned down around them.”
It took me a few moments to gather my composure. “Cinnamon was not living in the werehouse,” I said at last. “That’s simply where they interviewed her after the arson.”
“But why was she even there?” Burnham said. “In a condemned factory. In Oakdale!”
“She’s a werekin,” I said. “She was having a bad change. I took her back to the people who I adopted her from because I thought they could help!”
“Why?” Burnham said, eyes flashing with disapproval. “Didn’t you have a safety cage?”
“I’m having one built in our new house,” I said angrily, “but it wasn’t ready yet.”
“Well you should have had it built in your old one before you tried to adopt a werekin,” Burnham said, oddly smug. “If you had followed the rules-”
“Hey!” I said, feeling my nostrils flare. “You have no idea who you’re talking to about following the rules-”
“Ma’am, look, you’re not helping,” Deputy Galacci said firmly. “Please calm down. Getting angry at us is not going to change anything.”
“That’s right,” Burnham said. “This police report is a clear indication of neglect.”
“Oh, yeah, this is neglect,” Deputy Galacci said, cocking his thumb back at the Academy. “Paying for her upscale private school. Look, Miss Frost, it’s clear you do care for Stray-”
“She goes,” Catherine Fremont said icily, “by Cinnamon.”
“Cute,” Galacci said. “The point is, I’m sure that the court will recognize what you’re trying to do here and straighten this all out, but I can’t ignore a court order.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed between my eyebrows with one hand. All I kept seeing was that DEI agent that had practically wanted to shoot Cinnamon on sight. It wasn’t helping.
“Look, Deputy Galacci,” I said, “I know you’re just doing your job, but I’m too damn paranoid to let you just waltz up and take her. Cinnamon was kidnapped last year, poisoned, almost killed, and I don’t know you from Adam Twelve.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Galacci said-and then the corner of his mouth quirked up. “But Adam would mean a two-man patrol. And it’s LAPD jargon. We don’t use it in Georgia.”
I glared at him. “Regardless, if I don’t see some paperwork I’m going to call the police and let the APD sort this out. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am, and I encourage you to contact the police, or at least DFACS,” Galacci said. “But in the meantime we still have to take her.”
I folded my arms. “Over my dead body.”
Galacci looked at me, hard, jaw set. He put his hand on his pistol. “Ma’am-”
“Don’t do it,” I said. I concentrated my intent and let my shield blossom, concentrated mana, a millimeter beneath the surface of my skin, and let out my breath to activate it. “Phooo. My dad’s a cop, my uncle’s a cop, I’ve dated a cop, so I don’t want to hurt you, but until I see paperwork for this alleged court order, you’re just a man with a gun threatening my daughter.”
His eyes tightened at me and he twitched a little, but he didn’t move. He was angry, but behind the anger he was actually curious, eyes looking me over, trying to see what angle I had that made me so unafraid of his badge, his gun.
“I know, I know, you think I’m a street lawyer and want to take me to jail on general principles just to ‘show me’ and my big mouth,” I said. “I’m sorry to bust your nuts like this. But I did this dance with the DEI last week, and all they needed to do to make me play nice is show me a warrant. You did have a warrant or order or some kind of paperwork in hand before you decided to waltz up and take a werekin from her mother, right?”
“Right,” Galacci said. “Burnham, show her your papers so we can get on with it.”
Burnham jerked, then came forward with a clipboard. I took it. “Thank you,” I said, glancing it over. Depressingly official ‘authorization to accept child for short-term emergency care,’ and it all looked in order. Crap. “All seems in order. Now how hard was that?”
“Not hard at all,” Galacci said, relaxing. “I’m sorry to put on such a hard nose, Miss Frost. If the order exists, it has to be carried out, whether the paper’s on me or not. But even when we do, many of the parents I have to deal with are not reasonable in your situation.”
“How could they be?” I said. “Either they’re asses, or their kids are being taken unjustly.”
“Not unjustly,” Burnham said. “but I’ll give you overcautiously. Miss Fremont, please.”
As Catherine left, Galacci spoke to me in a low voice. “Was she really kidnapped?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, swallowing. Fremont leaving to go get Cinnamon was tearing me up, but I tried not to let it show. “And poisoned, to get to me. She almost died.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said, even more quietly, “but you shouldn’t talk to cops about putting them down. Technically that’s assault on a police officer. Less technically, it could get you shot, which could kill you even if you are a werekin.”
“I know, and sorry,” I said. “For the record, I’m not a werekin-but I did take a shotgun blast in the chest the other day, and it didn’t faze me. I’m a magical tattoo artist. I can shield.”
“No s
hit,” Galacci said, curious and amazed. “You wanted me to shoot you?”
“No!” I said. “It would be a dick move to provoke you to shoot me in front of my daughter’s school just to test my shield. She’s going to have to come back here.”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “If you really could take a bullet-”
“Have,” I said. “Have taken a bullet. Twice. Both times to protect Cinnamon.”
Galacci swallowed. “Well, if you could take a bullet, the coolest thing in the world for a little kid would be to see your dad, or, uh, mom, pull a Superman in front of the school.”
“It didn’t impress her,” I said. “She’s a weretiger. Claims to soak up bullets, and given how rough she had it on the streets I take it she knows that from experience. But when I got shot in the chest, all it did was make her worry.”
“Well, ah, let’s… not make that worry worse,” he said, more quietly. “This is never an easy thing. You should be the one to explain to her what’s happening.”
Somehow the thought of explaining things to her filled me with a sudden, urgent fear-and I realized Galacci needed to be filled in too. “Deputy, she has a mouth on her,” I said. “Try not to be offended. We think it might be Tourette’s. Seriously.”
“Really? Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Thanks for the heads up, I’ll-here she is. You’re up.”
The glass door slid open on Cinnamon and Fremont. “Mom,” Cinnamon said uncertainly, darting forward, then stopping to stare at Burnham and Galacci. “Mom, what’s going on?”
“Cinnamon,” I said, squatting down to look at her.
“Yeah,” she said, eyes wide, staring over my shoulder at the deputy.
“Cinnamon,” I said, and choked it off. Then I started to tear up. “Cinnamon, oh, damnit, Cinnamon, they’re taking you from me. I’m so sorry. They say it’s only temporary-”
“And you believes them?” she said, tugging at her collar, head snapping in her tic.
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” I said, “but, regardless-I’m going to fight to get you back.”
“I-I-believes you, Mom,” Cinnamon said, tearing up too. “Fuck! I believe you.”
“Oh, Cinnamon,” I said, hugging her. She grabbed me so fiercely my back cracked, but I didn’t care. I just hugged her back and cried. “I will get you back.”
“I knows-I know, Mom,” Cinnamon said, glancing back over her shoulder at Fremont, then looking at me. The tic twisted her face, but she kept it under control. “I know. ”
She looked up, and I felt movement behind me. “It’s time,” Galacci said.
“This is Deputy Galacci,” I said.
“I gots that,” Cinnamon said, eyes flickering over him.
“And that’s Margaret Burnham. They’re with DFACS. They’re going to take care of you, until I can come back for you. OK?”
“OK,” Cinnamon said.
“Don’t kill them,” I said, “or you’re grounded.”
“Mom!” Cinnamon said, mouth quirking up at Burnham’s horrified reaction and Galacci’s suppressed smile. “I’ll- fuck! -I’ll be good.”
“Come on, now,” Galacci said, patting my shoulder. “You’re just making it harder.”
And so I stood, and handed Cinnamon over to Galacci, who wiped his face clean and took her with a flat, stony stare. I glared at Burnham, but she didn’t give me a second glance, just handed a card to me, told me to call her office, and bustled off to her own car.
And then Cinnamon was in the back of the squad car, staring at me. Abruptly Galacci looked back and said something, and Cinnamon looked forward at him. After a moment, she smiled-and then laughed, and waved at me. She put her hand against the window, huge clawed fingers spread out in a five-pointed star; and then with her other hand she made a thumbs-up towards me. “It’s going to be OK, Mom,” she mouthed.
And then the police car started up and took her away.
Punching Bag
I kicked and kicked and kicked the bag as hard as I could, and screamed.
The first few kicks had started out all right-the Taido ma-washy-getty kick was close enough to an old Tae Kwon Do roundhouse that I’d picked it up pretty quickly. But Taido had all these stupid rules about how to throw kicks that I didn’t really get yet, and it was hard to remember to come back to the same position. I tried, really, but the more I kicked, the madder I got, and by the final three I’d lost all form and was just kicking, kicking, kicking.
“Jeez, Dakota,” Darren Briggs said, dropping what he was doing. He was the black belt in charge of Emory University’s Taido club. Today he’d traded out his normal blue instructor’s jacket for a uniform so old and worn the belt and clothes were both shades of grey, rather than the stiff white karate gi’s worn by the rest of the class. But the man in the uniform wasn’t old. He was young, clean-cut, with a spray of spiky hair he was constantly dying different colors; this week, it was purple and platinum white. “Are you drinking?”
“I have a water bottle,” I said, waving him off. “I’m hydrating.”
“No, I meant, have you been drinking?” he asked. “Like, alcohol. Your face… ”
I straightened and looked in the mirror. My face was flushed red, almost mottled, and I knew it was from more than from just working out. “No,” I said, disgusted, whacking the bag one more time and cursing as it caused a throbbing pain in my knee. “They took Cinnamon.”
“What?” he said. “Your daughter? Hey, wasn’t she supposed to come tonight?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to fall back to the long low stance Darren called choo-dan -but it just made my knee throb and I cursed. “Yes, damnit, damnit, damnit! YAAAA!”
And I kicked the bag again, this time so hard it popped off the chain and fell to the floor. No big feat-it was attached with a big carabineer up top and was always popping off. But as it fell, pain exploded, and I knelt on my other knee, cradling the wounded one. “Damnit.”
“Dakota,” Darren said, hunching down beside me. “You all right?”
“No,” I said. “And I know what you mean. No, my knee hurts.”
“Same one? Damnit, Dakota,” Darren said. “All right, take a break. You weren’t supposed to start back until you healed, but I cut you a break because you were doing so well. Clearly you’ve been overdoing it. So chill out tonight, and go see a doctor tomorrow.”
I hissed, and Darren pressed. “I mean it. Nobody’s been seriously injured in the whole history of the club and I don’t want to start with-”
“All right, all right,” I said, struggling back to my feet. “Ow.”
“Just… try to go easy,” Darren said. “Keep icing it after every practice. And on your own time-don’t laugh-do sem-ay-no-hokay, the new exercise I showed you tonight. You did really good for your first time. It’s pretty advanced stuff.”
“It felt natural,” I said, “but, man, it wore me out.”
“ Sem-ay can give you a real workout, but it’s low impact,” he said. “Probably OK for your knee, but if it bugs you, focus on the breathing. Focus on the breathing if nothing else.”
“Does that really help?” I said.
“Sure does,” Darren said expansively. “Breathing isn’t just the source of your power-it’s the bridge between your conscious and your subconscious.”
I looked at him skeptically, but just then, Rary, the number two in the class and Darren’s off-again, on-again girlfriend, appeared with an icepack.
“No, seriously,” she said, putting the ice on my knee. “The diaphragm is the only muscle under joint control of the deliberative and autonomic nervous system. Controlling your breathing lets your conscious self signal your subconscious self in its own language.”
Both Darren and I were staring at her. “What?” she said. “I am in med school.”
“Soooo… ” Darren said. “You going to join us at Manuel’s?”
“No,” I said. “I have to bail. I gotta get the last of my junk out of my apartment tonight.”
“You need h
elp?” Rary said.
I shook my head. “I’m almost done,” I said. “And, look, Olsen is being a real pisser about Cinnamon. She almost called the cops on me, not just that night but when I went back for the first load. I really don’t want to involve you guys. I’d hate for her to call the cops on you.”
What I didn’t say is that I was scared my crazy life would bite these people. Maybe it was uncharitable, but I thought of them as mundanes: they couldn’t roll minds, lift cars or block bullets, and if their guts got ripped out they wouldn’t come crawling back to them.
So that’s how it was that I found myself alone in the apartment at ten-thirty that night, with about fifty thousand times more crap to box up than I remembered. I desperately hoped Mrs. Olsen wouldn’t hold me to the midnight deadline, but I started tossing things into boxes at random in the hope that I’d somehow get it all done.
My cell rang. “Dakota Frost,” I said, taping up a box with the phone in the crook of my shoulder. “Best magical tattooist in the Southeast-”
“You should have that on your answering machine,” Calaphase said over the line.
“I do,” I said, “you just catch me awake whenever you call.”
“My shift at the werehouse must be when you sleep,” Calaphase said.
“Your shift?” I said, laying down one more line of tape and tearing it off with the dispenser’s serrated edge. “You lead the Oakdale Clan. Don’t you have flunkies for that?”
“I lead by example,” Calaphase replied. “What are you doing?”
“Moving out,” I said. And I explained about Mrs. Bitch downstairs and her ultimatum.
“Charming,” Calaphase said. “Speaking of bitches, I have news from the Lady Saffron, delivered by the way of the Lady Darkrose.”
“A four-link chain,” I said, emptying a junk drawer wholesale into one of the smaller boxes. “Nicely insulated so that neither of us has to talk directly to someone who has talked to the other. Sounds good. Maybe this will keep things on an even keel.”
“Don’t count on it,” Calaphase said. “Her high-and-mightyness the Lady Scara-”
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