And then the tires met the tarmac, and we were down.
“Mom,” she said, as I released her hand after one last squeeze. She half smiled, half glared, holding her hand, ear twitching something fierce. “Meany,” she said, screwing her knuckle in her ear; she never used the claws on anything delicate. “Big old meany—”
“Distracted you, didn’t I?” I said, leaning back in the seat. I heard a chuckle, and looked over to see Jewel smiling. I smiled back, a little forced, still unsure of whether there was real interest there or she was just an irrepressible flirt. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said, covering her smile with her hand.
After crossing the country at seven hundred miles an hour, the plane crossed the tarmac at a crawl. Everyone pulled out their cell phones; even I dug out my smartphone. I called the Lady Saffron, far up in First Class, but she didn’t answer. Jewel? She texted like a demon.
Then the arrival bell rang. Quick as a flash, Jewel hopped up and popped open a bin.
“I hate all this 9/11 nonsense,” she said, tugging at her jacket repeatedly, trying to pull it out from beneath a heavy, ancient Samsonite someone had jammed in to the overhead at the last minute. “I have to run all my gear through baggage claim—holy cow.”
I’d reached out over her head and lifted the Samsonite out of the way so she could free her jacket. Jewel glanced back at me and did a double take—even on large planes, I can usually bump my forehead against the roof if I stand tippy-toe.
Cinnamon made a little yelp, her tail apparently caught in a tangle of our unbuckled seatbelts. As I leaned to help her, a man in the opposite side stood and opened the bin. Soon, the aisle was filled with passengers unloading their bags, with Jewel two rows ahead of us.
I started forward to get her card or figure out how to continue the dragon discussion later, but irate passengers in the row ahead of me hopped up, and Cinnamon tugged at me from behind. With long arms, I scooped down our carry-ons while the row emptied.
When the logjam of passengers in front of us had cleared, Jewel was gone.
We tromped off the plane, wedged past impatient departees, passed rows of seats empty and full, and sailed out into the terminal. All the airports I had visited since I started the Council were starting to blur. All had the same blah décor—here, blue and gray patterned carpet. All tried to spice it with airport art—here, a giant driftwood horse. And all had an army of underpaid staff—here, Latinos and Asians, picking up after us wasteful consumers destroying the atmosphere with our travel.
Soon, I found the stairs to the baggage claim area, where once again I was next to Jewel.
“Surprise, surprise,” Jewel said, mouth quirking up a little.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I said, pulling Cinnamon’s bag off the carousel.
“Fancy that,” Jewel replied. A huge black bag, covered with stickers, thudded out of the conveyor and slammed down onto the carousel, and she began wedging her way with a litany of “excuse me’s.” The bag was passing too fast, so I reached in and pulled it out.
“Here you go,” I said. What was it about this woman? I couldn’t resist trying to help her, trying to show off for her. I tried to steel myself, to play cool, then I caught Jewel staring at the muscles in my arms as I set the bag down. I flexed my bicep and said, “Show’s for free.”
“Oh, God,” she said, putting her hand to her forehead. “Sorry, thanks.”
“No need to be sorry,” I said, “and anyway, ‘sorry’ is normally my line.”
“Who’s your new friend?” asked an impish Southern belle voice from beside us, and I saw Jewel’s head jerk aside to see the red-hair-black-dress-bonnet-and-bomber-goggles show that was the Lady Saffron—my ex-girlfriend. She looked Jewel up and down. “Adorable.”
“I . . . I,” Jewel said, eyes widening at Saffron, clearly not sure how to take her.
Saffron was a daywalker, making few concessions to her vampirism beyond the goggles. The dark black cloth made her red hair stand out like fire, but it exposed her face and throat. Most people never guessed that she was the most powerful vampire in the Southeast.
But you couldn’t miss her entourage. Darkrose, Saffron’s consort, wore a dark, gray-hemmed velvet traveling hood that cloaked her almost completely. Beside her stood Vickman, her sharp-eyed, bearded bodyguard, quietly menacing in his black hat and bulky coat. Collecting the bags was Schultze, Darkrose’s human servant, a tall, swarthy, reserved man in an immaculate white suit with black patterned trim that echoed Darkrose’s robe. For those in the know, a hooded figure with matching attendant and hovering bodyguard just screamed “vampire.”
But I couldn’t tell if Jewel could tell. She looked at Saffron’s imperious black dress and regal red hair pouring out of her bonnet; then at the black leather catsuit beneath Darkrose’s Sith traveling cloak, then back at me, eyes lingering on the steel collar that symbolized I was under Saffron’s protection. Jewel raised an eyebrow; I returned the favor. Perhaps this curly-haired granola girl was into more devious forms of alternative culture than just magical firespinning.
Schultze leaned forward and pulled another bag off the carousel. “The last bag, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Schultze,” Darkrose said wearily. She was upright, but sagging to the point you could barely see her dark features beneath the hood; unlike Saffron, she was not yet a full daywalker and found the day not only dangerous but draining. “All we await now is Nyissa.”
“Another of your . . . friends?” Jewel asked, trying to subtly lift her head to peer inside Darkrose’s cloak—not looking at her features, but at the collar of her leather catsuit, barely visible beneath the hood of the cloak. “Is she coming on another flight?”
“No, she came on this one with us,” I said, smiling. I had been wondering how far we could push this without actually mentioning the word “vampire,” and now, I guessed, was it—I pointed at the traveling coffin coming out of the oversized baggage area. “Over there.”
“Oh, no, I’m so sorry,” Jewel said, face falling. Damn it, I hadn’t intended to make her think Nyissa was dead. But before I could explain, her phone buzzed and she pulled it out. “Hey, my ride is here. Nice meeting you, Mohawk Lady.”
“Great meeting you, Granola Girl,” I said.
And Jewel walked off, texting into her phone. Far, far down the terminal, I saw a young, short muscular man with spiky hair waving, and Jewel waved back. But rather than running to meet him, she stopped, wavered, dug something out of her bag—and walked back to us.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I hate the whole ‘meet someone on the plane, have a nice conversation, then spoil it by passing over a greasy business card’ thing. I hate it when some slimy old businessman or lipstick lesbian does it to me. But after our conversation—”
And she handed over, not a business card, but a little postcard, a glossy little flyer for “Fireweaver’s Foray” at something called the Crucible. “We’re performing tonight,” she said, “so this may be too last minute. But it really sounds like something you’d enjoy.”
“Thanks,” I said, flipping it over. It was in Oakland, which, according to the directions, was on the far side of the San Francisco Bay. Huh—I always thought Oakland was a suburb of Los Angeles. Who knew? “No promises. We have a full schedule, and I don’t know if we can.”
Jewel smiled, and when she did so her eyes seemed to sparkle. “Great! See you.”
And then she strode off, texting into her phone as she went to join her friend.
“Did I not just say I probably wouldn’t make it?” I asked, watching her go.
“With your words,” Darkrose said, “but not your tone.”
“I heard it as ‘definitely make it,’ ” Saffron said. “Very clearly ‘definitely’.”
“Mohawk and Granola sittin’ in a tree,” Cinnamon said
—then hissed. The last time she’d used that phrase, it had been “Cotie and Cally,” and Cally—Calaphase, my ex-boyfriend—wasn’t with us anymore. “Sorry, Mom. That was mean.”
“S’okay,” I said, rubbing her headscarf until it went crooked and she swatted at me. “Have to get over it sometime.”
“And tonight’s a good night to do it,” Saffron said. “We’re required to present ourselves to the Vampire Court of San Francisco, but you’re not welcome in their territory until invited—and I’m sorry, Cinnamon, that includes you too. You both wear my collar.”
“I knew it,” Cinnamon said, head snapping aside. “Nothing but trouble—”
“Cinnamon, you’re never trouble,” I fibbed. “Saffron, look . . . Doug and Jinx are staying in San Francisco. Are you seriously telling me that they’re safer there than we are because we’re wearing your collars? I thought these stupid things guaranteed us protection—”
“In Atlanta,” Saffron said. “But you’re not safe in San Francisco until we know that will be honored. That’s not just for your protection; it’s for ours. You both wear my collar—so to other vampires, you’re not just under my protection—you’re my minions.”
“I am not anybody’s ‘minion,’ ” I said.
“But they don’t know that,” Darkrose said, raising her head, weary, but with an edge to her clipped South African accent. “And one powerful vampire bringing a formidable werekin and a very formidable witch into the territory of another could be considered an act of war.”
“You can stay at the airport hotel, or you can go have a night on the town,” Saffron said, folding her arms, setting her chin, making the locks of red hair pouring out of her bonnet look like the mane of a red lion. “But you can’t join us in San Francisco until you’re cleared.”
“All right, fine, a night on the town,” I said, rubbing Cinnamon’s headscarf. “Oakland looks like it could be only, what, a thirty minute drive or so? Let’s catch some dinner, then go see Jewel spin some fire. After all—wait for it—what’s the worst that could happen?”
———
“On the streets of Oakland?” asked a sharp voice. “You could die, Dakota Frost.”
2. Shoot the Messenger
Vickman cursed and shoved Darkrose back with one hand, Schultze closing ranks beside him so they shielded her with their bodies from the short, wiry man in the tough biker leathers who had seemingly popped right into the middle of us.
Time slowed down. Everything got quiet. The crowd receded, its people blurring, its noise fading, leaving this man at the center. I jerked back into a low karate stance, Cinnamon hissed, claws out, and Saffron . . . just stood there, amused, as if she was invulnerable.
“What the hell—” Vickman said. His voice echoed oddly, and he stiffened, clenching his teeth. Whatever weapons he had were no doubt in the baggage; whereas this guy could have come out off of the streets with an Uzi under his leather jacket. “How did you—”
“An area glamour,” I guessed, relaxing slightly, waving my arm through the air. I could feel the slightest tingle of magic, some sparkle of mana that reacted against my tattoos. “Mostly, a silence spell. Surprising how much people rely on sound to draw their attention, isn’t it?”
“Surprising,” said the wiry little man—five-six, maybe five-seven, his motorcycle jacket open, and his sandy hair tousled, like it had been blown back—“how much people don’t listen. Especially when told things like ‘Stay away, Dakota Frost.’ ”
“I beg your pardon,” Saffron said, scowling. “I believe we negotiated—”
“Quiet, Scarlett O’Hara,” the man said, eyes fixed on me. “This is wizarding business—”
“Wizarding business?” I said. “Like, Wizarding Guild? But I’m working with you!”
“You think you’re working with us?” The man’s lip curled. “Just because we assigned a babysitter to your crazy little Council? Nicholson’s barely a wizard, and he’s not working with you, he was supposed to keep tabs on you—and he sure as hell doesn’t speak for the Guild.”
“Dakota,” Saffron said, voice warning. “What haven’t you told me—”
“Nothing,” I said. “Hang on. When I first talked about this trip, there was some flak—”
“Now she remembers,” the man said. “You were specifically banned from the Bay—”
“We worked that out, first week! The Wizarding Guild even invited me to give a talk—”
“Before they found out you were bringing a coven of vampires!” the man said, raising his voice, not two feet from Saffron—and I suddenly realized, he doesn’t know she is a vampire. He couldn’t; as she glared, he ignored her, leaned in, and said to me, “Consider yourself disinvited.”
Something was amiss. The Guild had cleared my visit. Their leadership seemed to want to know more about the MSC—I was giving a talk at their request. Heck, I had a Guild wizard, Alex Nicholson, not only on my new Magical Security Council, but on speed dial.
And yet the guy in front of me who claimed to be with the Wizarding Guild had no clue I traveled with vampires that had no need of a coffin. Then I remembered how complicated vampire politics was with its secrets and factions—and suddenly, I got it.
“You’re not from the Wizarding Guild,” I said. “You’re from a faction within it.”
“The only faction you need worry about,” the wiry man said. He shot his hand toward the inside of his jacket, then stopped just short, a grin spreading across his face as Vickman convulsed. “May I? I have a present but I wouldn’t want to, you know, spook you.”
I caught a flash of white inside his biker jacket. While the wiry man’s attention was focused on Vickman, I shot my long arm out. The wizard jerked back like he’d been stung, but not fast enough, and my hand came back with a white envelope plucked from his map pocket.
“Fuck me!” he said, raising his fists in what looked like a karate stance—Tae Kwon Do or something Korean-derived. Huh. I was actually starting to recognize the subtleties of the different martial arts. Interesting.
“I take it I’m to open this?” I asked. The envelope was hand addressed, simply to “Frost.” I passed my tattooed palm over it, but the yin-yang didn’t absorb any stray magic. “There’s no live magic on this, but if it’s filled with powdered anthrax or whatever, Vickman—shoot him.”
Vickman scowled, nodded, and put his hand inside his jacket, as if there really was a gun in there he’d managed to sneak past security. The wiry little man’s eyes bugged and he started to back up, but he found himself penned in between Cinnamon and Saffron.
Fists still raised, the little man made a shrugging move to back them off, and I expected Saffron to show her fangs—but Cinnamon reacted first, growling quiet but deep, staring up at him, chin set, never taking her eyes off him for an instant—like a cat in a challenge.
The little man’s face went ashen. “Now wait a minute,” he said, looking around for help—but everyone was still ignoring us, passing our zone of silence in quiet blurs. And if he popped the bubble and cried for help, the TSA would be all over him, too. “Don’t you—”
“You’re the one who materialized in the middle of a crowd of Edgeworlders,” I said, cautiously cracking the envelope open. “If you wanted to play this nice, you should have waited for us with a sign that said ‘Frost’ rather than playing stupid wizard tricks.”
The man cursed, but relaxed slightly as I pulled out . . . tickets, back to Atlanta. I thumbed through them . . . and found one for almost every member of our party, right down to my daughter: FROST, CINNAMON. Only Nyissa was left out. Disturbing.
“So,” he said, folding his arms, not looking at Cinnamon, even though she could take his throat out. “Now you know the score. We told you not to come. You came anyway. So we’re giving you an out. Take the tickets, put a leash on your pet tiger—”
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“Oh, you did not just say that,” I said, as Cinnamon’s growl deepened.
“—leave your vamps in their coffins, and fly with them back to your little hick hellhole!”
At “vamps,” Saffron chuckled, glancing at Darkrose, and the little man raised an eyebrow, not getting it. I was looking over the tickets; there was indeed a shipping ticket for one coffin, but apparently he didn’t know that—or hadn’t been told that. Even more disturbing.
“You’ve been misinformed,” I said. “First, my daughter doesn’t wear a leash. Second, Atlanta is very advanced—its metro is larger than San Francisco and San Jose combined. And third, most of the vampires in our party don’t travel in coffins. Only our . . . enforcer.”
Saffron dropped her hand on the little man’s shoulder, baring her fangs, and a second later, Cinnamon did likewise, half a snarl, half a grin. The man tensed in fear, glancing back and forth between them—and then I heard a pair of clicks behind me, and turned.
Startled travelers were backing up as the latches on the coffin at the loading area opened on their own. Slowly, the lid lifted, lifted by a porcelain-pale arm; then she rose, a shag of violet hair over pure white skin, a slender body wrapped in stripes of dark cloth—with a long metal poker carried in her hands, like a riding crop. The Lady Nyissa. My “bodyguard.”
Technically, I was Nyissa’s vampire “client,” gaining her protection in exchange for an act of submission. Saffron, my former girlfriend, had demanded I wear this actual submissive’s collar, like, in public, to receive her protection . . . and yet had rarely delivered. Nyissa, on the other hand, my former enemy, had only asked for a drop of blood and a quarter . . . and had guarded me in person in a vampire court, nearly costing her life.
Liquid Fire Page 2