Liquid Fire

by Anthony Francis

  Cinnamon shifted in her chair. I scowled—I didn’t like having her here, but I had hoped to drop her off with her schoolmate Joya, who had not yet arrived at the lich’s house. Then I realized Cinnamon was nervous because the lich was waiting for me to speak.

  “First off, it wasn’t your mission,” I said, “it was a trip for Cinnamon—”

  “And yet you failed to bring home even a plastic statuette,” the lich said.

  “The ‘mission’ wasn’t a complete failure,” I said defensively, eyes flickering between Cinnamon and the chessboard. Nothing to show for it? No, I came back with a contract for two million dollars—but I wouldn’t tell the lich that; above and beyond it being none of his fucking business, I didn’t want these ancient, powerful vampires to have too clear an idea of how much treasure was stored at my castle. “We had to leave early, but we learned a lot.”

  “Really,” the lich hissed, gesturing at the chessboard. “Show me.”

  Oh, hell. I glared at the chessboard. It was early in our game, but the position was already confusing, and I was a knight down with no real plan. The symbolism wasn’t lost on me. The lich wasn’t playing with me—he was playing me, and wanted me to know it.

  “We learned some games aren’t worth playing out,” I said, tipping over my king—and the lich hissed. “We were under fire, almost without reason. We made friends, we got aid from allies—but when you’re down before you start, sometimes the best move is to regroup.”

  “I did not mean you to demonstrate it so literally,” the lich said, laughing softly. “But I did warn you. That San Francisco is a warzone. That you sought allies where others have tried and failed. That you lacked the knowledge you needed to make the trip a success—”

  “Well,” I said, “like I said, we learned a lot—”

  “What did you learn?” the lich hissed. “That there is far more to magic than you know? That your child was too young for the schools you indulged her fancies on? That the people who owe you are no likelier to give you your due to your face than over the phone?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What are you saying?”

  “This . . . trip,” the lich rasped, “was not the business of the Council. It was not even a vacation. It was a thin excuse to gather your loved ones under the wing of new allies, with a new source of funds. Surely you see that was futile now. You cannot escape our grasp—”

  “If you mean to say you had us tailed while we were out there, we could have used the help of those agents when we were under attack,” I said evenly. “If you mean to say you were actually behind those attacks . . . you will find you cannot escape my wrath.”

  The lich chuckled softly. “You and I are too dangerous for cheap threats or stunts. I simply meant that you will not find allies in San Francisco useful enough to keep you out of the situations you . . . and yours . . . have created.”

  Cinnamon drew herself up even more tightly in the chair.

  “You know, this creepy insinuation thing, it’s not working for me,” I said. “If you’re referring to the graffiti attacks, those could have happened just as easily in San Francisco as they did here. Remember, the Screetscribe hated all vampires, not just Atlantans.”

  Something flickered behind the lich’s eyes, ever so slightly, so I rolled on.

  “If you’re referring to cleaning up that mess . . . the Streetscribe’s blackbook is circulating widely now. We have to not just clean it up here, we need to stop it from starting there.” I said. “Yes, we had to bail without meeting all the people I wanted, without even Cinnamon’s award. That doesn’t mean we didn’t find allies. They might even be useful to you.”

  The lich considered that for a while. Then, slowly, he smiled.

  “I think they shall be useful . . . to me,” the lich said. Then his bony hand reached out and righted my king. “Which turns to my next lesson—some games you cannot easily stop playing, Dakota Frost. It is still your move—even if you know, in the end, you are going to lose.”

  That hung in the air like a lead balloon.

  “Ooo, boogedy,” I said, taking his queen with my knight.

  The lich blinked. “You fool,” he said, moving his knight. “I have you forked—”

  I moved my king—because I had to, I was in check—but I’d get that knight before he forced mate. “If I’m going down, I’m going to have some fun.”

  The lich hissed and knocked the pieces from the board.

  “Oh, you concede?” I said. “How wonderful for me—”

  “No, for you are a fool, and are not seeing what I am trying to teach you here,” the lich said with a hiss. “Even for one such as you, who delights in the rules of the game . . . you have much to learn before you can win. Girl! Reset the board!”

  I blinked in shock; he was speaking to Cinnamon. She glanced away from him a moment, then seemed to jerk and hopped out of her chair, gathering the fallen pieces from the floor.

  “Don’t, Cinnamon,” I said sharply. “I won’t have you doing his dirty—”

  But when I glanced up, the lich had drawn a long bony finger to his lips. Nyissa had stood as well, slowly letting her dark hood back to show pale skin, violet hair—and glittering jeweled lace choker covering her healing scars. She too put her finger to her lips.

  I suddenly realized that twilight had passed and true night had fallen. I swallowed. Nyissa shifted, rolling her poker between her fingers imperiously . . . but with a hint of fear. There was a quiet creaking in the old bones of the house in which we stood; then a sliding panel opened.

  The Lady Scara stepped from the shadows to see Cinnamon placing the chess pieces back in place on the board between me and Sir Leopold. Scara was a black, matronly vampire, whose eyes literally glowed red with the closest thing I’d ever seen to pure bottled hate.

  “We are done with you here, girl; you are not needed in the Council tonight,” the lich said harshly, cuffing Cinnamon behind the ear—for show, I hoped. “Lord Iadimus is here. Receive him, then go entertain his daughter while your mother details for us her failure.”

  “Yes, Sir Leopold,” Cinnamon said, quickly turning away and bolting out. My blood boiled, but I kept my mouth shut. The lich, it seemed, was actually on my side against his protégé, Scara, and was willing to put on a little show to protect Cinnamon.

  Scara watched Cinnamon go, then turned her red gaze back upon us. I could feel the flush of “heat” from her gaze, a mana field flooding out of her irises, as a prickling along my tattoos. I didn’t need to feel the religious symbols on my knuckles burn to know she meant me harm.

  “You cannot shield the stray from me forever,” she said, and I could not tell whether she was speaking to me or the lich—but I could tell that Cinnamon remained on Scara’s little black book of enemies. The vampire said, “One day there will be an accounting.”

  “Maybe,” I said, moving my king’s pawn forward two squares, “but not today—”

  Now Scara knocked the pieces from the board. “Enough games,” she hissed.

  “You forget yourself,” the lich said softly to her, eyes still on me.

  “I see through both of you,” she said.

  Cinnamon opened the door to the study, and beyond her, I saw a tall, blond man kiss the forehead of a tall, blond girl; Lord Iadimus, and his dhampyr daughter, Joya. Lord Iadimus stepped forward, and Joya stepped back, quickly darting off with Cinnamon.

  “The Lady Saffron is detained,” Iadimus said coldly, eyes quickly flicking over me, the lich, Scara—and the scattered chess pieces. “But since she was a witness in San Francisco, we wished to interrogate her separately in any event. We have a quorum. Shall we proceed?”

  “Of course,” the Scara said, brushing past Nyissa—then her dress caught on the end of Nyissa’s poker. Nyissa’s eyes bulged—Scara was the vampire who gave her those
scars. Scara slowly looked aside, to fabric hooked on metal. “Do you need the lesson again, my dear?”

  “Do you?” Iadimus asked, stepping forward quickly, releasing her dress. Iadimus had saved Nyissa from Scara—saved me too, though I guessed that was incidental to protecting a fellow vampire under truce from unprovoked violence. He said, “Behave yourself.”

  “As you wish,” Scara said, sweeping forward. “Another time.”

  Iadimus shook his head, almost imperceptibly, then followed. The lich was impassive . . . but did he look pained? Then that ancient monster followed his protégé—and the second vampire that he needed to keep his protégé under leash—into the chamber.

  Damn it! This was precisely what I’d feared when Saffron became a vampire—not that I’d get sucked on by a vampire, but that I’d get sucked into her vampire world. Now I was about to enter the lion’s den with a vampire who was my former enemy as my only protection.

  ———

  Nyissa and I stared at each other helplessly . . . and then joined the Gentry in court.

  35. To Summon a Dragon

  The Gentry interrogated me for hours, a long session over a conference table where I explained we were still in communication with the fae and werekin we had not had the chance to meet with before I hit the eject button. And, disturbing as they had been, the attacks had actually made our mission easier; defending Jewel gave us instant credibility.

  I was just explaining what I’d learned about liquid fire—oh, and the many requests we’d had to broker a meeting with Lord Buckhead—when Scara hissed softly and raised her hand. Nyissa shifted, ever so slightly, but she remained completely silent while Scara spoke.

  “And what of the dragon?” Scara said.

  “And what of it?” I said evenly. “I had to defend Jewel—”

  “Do not dissemble,” Scara snapped. “I do not mean that little display in Union Square. We have seen your tattoo magic. I meant the summoning.”

  “The . . . summoning?” I said, perplexed.

  “Of the spirit of a dragon,” Iadimus said, so seriously that I realized it was not just poetic language. “Ghostly visions, first sighted when you arrived in San Francisco, and continuing until you departed. Even excluding the Union Square sighting, there were five visitations—”

  “All of that was me,” I said dismissively. “I used my dragon tattoo, first in Oakland, then in the Square, later at Stanford, and . . . and . . .”

  And then I paused. I’d only used my Dragon three, maybe four times.

  “You used it in the Square twice, at the same time?” Scara asked, and my eyes widened. I had gotten double vision—and several people had referred to the dragons at Union Square. Scara continued, “And used it atop a theater at Palo Alto? And atop the Golden Gate Bridge?”

  “Atop the Golden Gate? That was real?” I asked. “I saw the video at the Drake Cage, but though it was a promotion, ripping off one of my designs—”

  “We are not talking about your tattoo magic,” Scara barked.

  “Yes, we are,” I said. “I still don’t quite know how, but the sighting at Borders in Palo Alto was one of my tattoos, or more technically a projectia. I have no idea how it survived, but Cinnamon snapped a picture and it was very definitely generated by my original masterwork, the one I detached and used against Christopher Valentine. Based on my reaction to that brief glimpse of video, the one atop the Golden Gate was almost certainly the same one.”

  Scara glared at me, then at Nyissa. “You saw it, Nyissa—was it hers?”

  “I—” Nyissa said, her hand going to her throat as her voice came out as an unexpectedly ragged croak. Then she drew a breath and said, “I never had the pleasure of seeing her original masterwork upon her skin, but the apparition certainly had the . . . confident lines of her style.”

  Scara and Iadimus looked at each other. “Still, that could fit,” Scara said.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “We are given to understand,” Iadimus said, “you summoned that dragon spirit. If true, you would be the first person to do so . . . in at least a century. Perhaps more—”

  “But I never—”

  “Perhaps unwittingly, it seems, by launching a tattoo which it could inhabit.”

  My mouth dropped. I’d never considered the possibility that something could possess a tattoo, but there was nothing to stop it from happening. Complete tattoos were normally inked with Euler angles that made that difficult, but released from the body and disintegrating—

  “You admit it is a possibility,” Scara said.

  “Most definitely,” I said. “Skindancers ink magic tattoos inside magic circles to prevent stray spirits from inhabiting the magic. Normally a projectia is reattached, or is small enough that it disintegrates quickly; but this was a masterwork, filled with two dancers’ magic.”

  “More like a probability,” Scara said.

  “Perhaps,” Iadimus said. “Do you have a source of liquid fire?”

  “What? Not you too,” I said. “No, I don’t have a source, but—”

  “I take it you know the substance’s value. Do not be concerned. Vampires have no need of it; we have our own source of eternal life,” the lich said. “Iadimus asks because, according to legend, a dragon spirit can only be summoned by a spell using liquid fire as a component.”

  “Only true liquid fire has the concentrated magic needed to summon a dragon,” Scara said, and I squirmed in my chair as my Dragon squirmed on my back. The vampire said, “Or so the legends go. I do not know if I believe those stories—ah. But I see you do.”

  Damn it! “I—I have heard that theory,” I said. “That true liquid fire is a . . . ‘concentrated’ form of magic, capable of accomplishing what many, many wizards working together could not. As for the summoning . . . I don’t know. It sounds convincing, not knowing more—”

  “So,” Iadimus said. “Was your tattoo inked with liquid fire? Even in trace amounts—”

  “No. I don’t have access to any, nor do I even recall hearing about it before this trip.” Then I scowled—I had learned a thing or two on this trip. “But . . . I have heard a wizard allege that there must be some compatible compound in the pigments I use.”

  “I used to be a wizard, and I concur,” Nyissa said. “The House Beyond Sleep feared the skindancers of Blood Rock and their unusually potent magic. Before the Lady Frost brokered a truce, I worried they were using vampire blood . . . but liquid fire is a better explanation.”

  “I have never heard my master or any of the stonegrinders refer to liquid fire,” I said—realizing, as I said it, that that meant nothing. “Of course, while legend may claim that liquid fire may be required for a spell, according to modern science . . . a substitute could do.”

  “If that’s true,” Nyissa mused, “when you empowered your dragon masterwork in Union Square, using the magic of Jewel’s shield, which we know used liquid fire, and in quantity . . . perhaps you accidentally summoned the spirit of a dragon.”

  All the other vampires hissed, and Scara rose from the table.

  “Leopold was right,” she said. “You have exposed us all to unnecessary risk.”

  “How?” I asked. “I’m not contradicting you. I need you to explain this to me.”

  “Liquid fire extends human life. Dragons are supposedly the only source of liquid fire,” Iadimus said patiently. “And their spirits can only be summoned by magic that uses liquid fire, or something very much like it. Something that can be potentially used for the same purpose.”

  I leaned back in my chair. Now I could see where this was going.

  “So some cult of ancient wizards,” I said, “is going to try to steal my supplies—”

  “No, you fool,” Scara said. “Who cares about your supplies?”

  “What S
cara means,” Iadimus said, “is that you are their target.”

  “Do what?” I said. “But . . . if they want liquid fire, what do they need me for?”

  “I have seen this before, over the centuries,” the lich said softly. “The supplies of liquid fire rise and ebb. When they rise, arrogant youths drink deep in the hope of endless life; when they ebb, desperate old men fight to the death over the extra day granted by that last drop.”

  “But the supply should have long since run out,” I said. “Dragons are extinct—”

  “But their eggs keep,” the lich said with a cackle. “Oh, they keep. And there are legends—”

  “When the spirit of a dragon is sighted, an egg is about to hatch,” Scara said.

  “And the summoner of the dragon’s spirit is the one who will crack it,” Iadimus said.

  I let my chair fall back to level. I hadn’t seen where this was going at all.

  I stared at the vampires. These were the Gentry, deadly and manipulative, creepy old monsters who’d killed one of my friends and who’d tried to kill me. And yet they continued to surprise me, this time with knowledge of legends and . . . concern for my welfare?

  “By summoning the spirit,” Scara said—and then her voice softened. “That is, if you summoned the spirit, you may have started a war for liquid fire.” Then her old venom surged back. “And if that stunt in Union Square convinced desperate wizards you are the herald . . .”

  “They’ll move Heaven and Earth,” Nyissa said, swallowing, “to get to you.”

  “Surely,” I said, “surely you don’t really believe—”

  “What we believe is irrelevant,” the lich said. “Somewhere out there, Dakota Frost, an ancient wizard is dying. Only dragon’s blood will save him, or so he thinks; liquid fire from a dragon’s egg, revealed only by the summoning of the spirit of a dragon.