Finally I realized she was waiting for an answer and said, “I had to use it.”
“Use it?” she said. “You mean you detached it? Why?”
I used it to defeat a serial killer who, blah, blah, blah. “It’s a long story,” I said.
She shook her head. “I’ll go tell Arcturus you’re here. You can tell him about the Dragon—I don’t want to get an earful about the sanctity of your mastermark when I haven’t even done anything. He still goes off on you from time to time whenever some random thing bothers him, and I have to sit there and listen to an hour-long rant.”
“After all these years,” I said.
“Yeah, welcome ‘home,’” she said, walking back towards the studio; Blood Rock was that small. “I expect he’s going to go off on you, so bring earplugs, or a sixpack so we have something to pass the time with.”
“I can’t stay the night,” I said. “I have a court appearance in the morning.”
“Well, you know how he is—don’t keep him waiting too long, or blow him off again,” she said, waving as she went. “Piss him off again, you could get the cold shoulder for months.”
I sighed, watching her go. It was so good to be ‘home’ again.
Then I turned to go inside—and a fist exploded in my face in a flashbulb of pain. The blow knocked me back against my car and almost off my feet. Everything blurred, then my vision resolved to see a wide, greasy bearded guy grinning at me.
“You should never have come to Blood Rock, skindancer,” he said, cracking his knuckles and throwing another punch before I could even scream.
My arms moved automatically, one curving in a block and the other popping out to clock the guy on the chin. The punch wasn’t Taido, it was older, a college Tae Kwon Do reflex. The blow knocked his head back, but he laughed it off and moved in—straight into my follow up.
This punch was Taido, with skindancing mixed in: thrown from the hip, twisting over in the last half inch, absorbing mana in my skin and discharging it with a bang on his nose. Blood sprayed, he staggered back, and I moved in with a savage, full-power kick to the ribs.
It was like kicking a telephone pole. He cried out but didn’t fall, and actually caught my leg before I could withdraw. I started punching him, single punch, double punch, triple punch, tagging him one-two-three in the skull, chest, and gut, but he shrugged them all off.
“Damn,” he said, shoving back on my leg as a van squealed behind us on the gravel. He ducked under one blow, then cried out as my followup landed on his collarbone, but still held on as feet ran up on us. “You’ve got a hell of a fight in you—for a girl.”
A fist solid as a brick connected with my temple, and suddenly I was swarmed by black-suited figures. I struggled uselessly, flashing on the one and only time I’d played football and ended up on the bottom of a pileup—groped, crushed and unable to breathe.
I was picked up bodily despite my thrashing—and then I saw the hood of a police car slide past the end of the van. I yelled as loud as I could, and as the window of the police car hove into view I saw Sheriff Steyn—who just nodded, smiled, and drove on.
Oh, God—he was in on it, whatever it was.
Everything went dark as I was hurled into the back of the van. I tried to scream again, but a leather-gloved hand pressed over my mouth. I mmphed and squirmed, but could not stop the probing fingers running over my body, picking at my pockets.
“Here are the keys. Get the car. Get the car!” a voice shouted. I kicked out, and someone howled—then a fist was planted in my gut, and the air in my lungs squeaked out my nose in a spray of blood and snot. “For God’s sake, put her out before she uses her marks!”
Then my first attacker leaned over me, blood running down his beard. “Don’t worry,” he said, grinning. “We know how to deal with skindancers.”
—
A stinking cloth was shoved over my face, and then—blackness.
A Taste for Vampires
Choking pain gripped my neck, and my eyes opened in terror.
I saw a black-gloved hand, clamped in a steel ring, a few feet above a floor of irregular slate flagstones. The hand flexed, and I realized it was my hand. I tried to jerk away, but my hand just twitched uselessly in the ring. I tried to flex but my black-sleeved arm just writhed against the metal armrest of a chair. I became aware of something clammy and sticky covering my whole body, even my head. I twisted and tried to stand, but just felt an immense pain in my collarbones as they pushed against something rigid clamped tightly around my neck. Panicked, I screamed—but all that came out around the huge ball shoved in my mouth was a whimper.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
Minutes of frantic struggle yielded nothing. I was wrapped from head to toe in layers of black rubber and clamped into a rigid steel chair. I couldn’t see much, but from my attempts to rock, it seemed like the chair was bolted to the floor. I was going nowhere.
A single spotlight, faint and gray, shone down on me and the chair, illuminating a small patch of slate flagstones. Beyond that was murk. I twisted as much as I could and only saw velvety blackness. No one had heard my faint whimpers—or no one had responded.
My discomfort kept building. The chair was built for someone smaller than me, and held me slumped back and scrunched sideways. I was cramped and choking, but still, I tried writhing to power my marks. But I had no tattoos on exposed skin, so what little mana I could generate burned back into my body in a surge of pain, and I sagged back against the clamps.
Then the lights came on.
Dark curtains lined the walls; metal railings hemmed in the flagstones. Before me, steps rose towards a throne sitting in front of a huge disc of stone inscribed with an elaborate ring of bloodstained roses—the Sanctuary Stone. It should have been in the Stonegrinder’s Grove, warning them that someone threatened a magician of Blood Rock. But who had it—and me?
Footsteps sounded on the dais, beyond the stone, and level with my eyes I saw a pair of fine leather boots walking confidently towards me. They were medieval yet elegant, styled to match the tailored leggings above them, Renaissance Faire as done by Giorgio Armani.
A dark velvet coat flared like a priest’s cassock as the figure stepped round the Stone, but above the straight line of the sheathed sword in the figure’s hand, the coat’s cut tightened, with subdued, elegant brocade. The figure came to a stop, and I craned my neck to look into red eyes set in a cruel young face, beneath a wiry shock of hair like a blaze of white flame.
It was the vampire Transomnia.
I screamed. A high-pitched squeal escaped around the gag, and laughter erupted behind me. My hands flailed, and Transomnia smiled, tightlipped, not bothering to expose his fangs. He turned slightly, lowering the sword behind him, and raised his other hand for silence.
“So, skindancer,” he said, voice as smooth as the velvet of his cloak, “not the welcome you expected to Blood Rock? We have tired of you people swaggering through our town. Try using your marks now. Try breathing a word of power. Not so confident, are we?”
He straightened and glared down at me, voice ringing out. “We made the rules very clear. Blood Rock is our domain now. No skindancers are welcome without our token; none may come here unannounced.” He waved a hand at the Stone. “You have done both, trying to sneak past—”
“Whath th fkkk, Tranth?” I choked out around the gag. After I’d saved him from Valentine, we had agreed to leave each other alone. “Whh hdd ah dhhl!”
A hand struck the back of my head, hard—but Transomnia paused. “Don’t,” he said, raising his hand to stay the one that had struck me, but without looking at his underling. His eyes stayed on me. His red, glowing eyes seemed to sparkle, and I felt a flush of heat against the skin of my face. Then, slowly, he descended the stairs, sword held back casually, but in what I could see was one quick move away from a decapitating strike.
I twisted uselessly in the clamps, then cringed back as he stepped right before me and leaned down. “Did you have some
thing to say, skindancer?” he asked softly, leaning down into my face. Then his eyes widened in recognition—then further in pure, unadulterated terror.
His head jerked back—just a little—then his eyes tightened and he straightened, much more slowly than he needed to, as if to prove to himself he was not afraid. I saw his hand tighten on the sword, but as he became fully erect he said, “Then let’s hear it.”
“Whffk—” I choked, then sagged forward in the chair. “Fhkk yh.”
He smiled, turned away and climbed two steps of the stairs. “Get it off her.”
“But, my Lord,” a voice said, female—and scared. “She’s a skindancer, his protégé. We all know how dangerous their magic is. You warned us about her, specifically. You showed us her killing your own master. If we let her speak a word of power—”
“You knew she was his protégé and didn’t think it significant enough to tell me?” Transomnia said. “No wonder the Stone did not react to her presence.”
“Oh, but it did,” the female voice said. “The blood marks resonated when she passed the barrier. That confirmed the tip we received.”
“So, technically, she has the right to be here—and again you didn’t tell me? Oh, get that thing off her,” he said, cracking his neck. Then he turned back, and his eyes were filled with calm menace as he stared over my shoulder. “And let her out of that chair.”
There was the briefest of pauses, then hands fumbled at the back of my head, and others fumbled at the arms and legs of the chair. As the gag peeled off and I coughed, I caught a glimpse of a goateed, handsome male guard and a pale, beautiful, violet-haired female vampire.
The collar came off. I spat and bleahed and wiped my hand with my free arm, which was stinging and stinking, pins and needles mixed with pungent rubber. My other hand came free and I hunched forward, massaging my right nervously with my left through the sticky gloves. My legs were freed, I put my hands on the armrests, I gritted my teeth, and I stood.
I swayed forward, dizzy, and saw a black velvet coat, saw a white hand reach out and steady my shoulder. Oh, God, he was touching me. I twitched, feeling magic trapped beneath the suit burn against my skin. Then I leaned back out of it and looked right in his face.
Transomnia stood before me, the man who’d taken two of my back teeth, my confidence and nearly my life. He was precisely positioned on the steps to give him an ever so slight advantage over my height. And, within arm’s reach, holding a sword, was his hand. The hand. That awful hand, that had held those awful clippers, with which he’d nearly taken my tattooing fingers.
He could kill me in a second. He’d nearly maimed me for life. And I was defenseless. But I held my ground before him, damnit. I straightened defiantly—and so did he.
“Well, well, well, Dakota Frost,” he said, voice careful and controlled. “I did not recognize you with that hood wrapping your head. What did you want to say?”
“I said, what the fuck, Trans? We had a deal!”
“Did we?” Transomnia said—and seized my right hand. My eyes bugged, but I stayed frozen: he could kill me in an instant with that sword, or, hell, just with one backhand. “Ah yes, I remember. Our first deal, more of a covenant, really: never cross me again, or I’ll leave you with bloody stumps. Do you remember that, Dakota Frost?”
My knees began trembling, and I nodded.
“To think,” he said, raising my hand to inspect it, “one little squeeze a few months ago could have destroyed this fine, precision instrument, and you would never have tattooed again.” My rubber-gloved fingers now began trembling in his grip, and I felt my teeth grinding against each other, with a sharp cracking pain on the right side where Transomnia had kicked out two of my molars. “That would have been a loss to the world, don’t you think?”
“Y-yes,” I said, absolutely terrified.
He raised my hand to his lips and kissed my two fingers. “Once again,” he said, raising his voice to address the hall, “see forbearance brings more than small favors. I spared Dakota Frost’s hand, and she, in turn, helped me free myself from my master.”
He released my hand and turned away, ascending the steps to his throne, behind which the Sanctuary Stone that was supposed to be protecting me was hanging like a useless gong.
“Following that, I recall, we made a new deal,” he said, throwing himself down abruptly on the throne, one leg over the side, hand resting on the sword like a cane. I appreciated the increased distance between us, but somehow that deliberately casual pose made me feel even less safe. “That we would leave each other the hell alone. Why are you here, Dakota Frost?”
“Why am I here?” I said, stunned. “You kidnapped me and brought me here.”
“Do not dissemble,” Transomnia hissed, shifting forward abruptly, steepling both hands over the hilt of his sword, hair rising up above him like a frozen bonfire. “Why have you pursued me to Blood Rock, Dakota Frost?”
“Why have I pursued you?” I said—then laughed. He actually thought I had tracked him here for some reason? “Not everything is about you, Trans.”
Something immensely strong struck my cheek with a loud slap, and I staggered sideways. Transomnia had not moved, and I looked to my left, straight into the blazing green eyes of the cruelly delicious female vampire. Eyes watering, I flinched away, coming face to face with the other, goateed vamp. But I didn’t have time to think through the horror of standing defenseless between two hostile vampires, because the female vamp reached out and seized my neck.
“Do not speak to my master with such familiarity,” she hissed. She jerked me close, and I could hear the strands of her hair brush against the suit, could feel her breath against my ear, echoing hollowly against the slick, icky rubber. “His name is Lord Transomnia—”
“Nyissa,” Transomnia said. “Don’t. And do not make me say it a third time.”
Both the vampire at my throat and I jerked at the voice. It was quiet, even, and filled with deadly menace. Nyissa let me go, and I straightened, looking up at Transomnia, calm face tilted towards me, eyes following Nyissa away. Gone was the pasty wannabe spouting threats, gone was the sick whiny serial-killer taunts. All the masks were gone: this was a vampire lord.
“How old are you?” I whispered.
Transomnia’s glowing red eyes settled on me again, and I looked away. “Not as old as you think,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “But that is the advantage of turning early. I can look as young as I want.” Then the humor vanished. “Why are you here, Dakota?”
“To see Arcturus, my skindancing master,” I said. “To ask how to fight magic graffiti.”
“Magic graffiti?” he laughed, leaning back onto his throne before the Stone in that oh-so comfortable, almost mocking slouch. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen, Dakota.”
“It’s incredibly strong. It killed Revenance and tried to kill Tully.”
“Revenance was a vampire,” Transomnia said, smiling down at me. “And you hate vampires. Why would you come all the way out here to avenge one of us?”
“He was nice to me and Cinnamon,” I said defensively. “Besides, Calaphase—”
Transomnia raised a hand. “Do not say that name.”
Calaphase had kicked Transomnia out of the Oakdale Clan—and forced him back into the arms of the serial killer who had controlled him. I swallowed. “Well … he … and Sav—the Lady Saffron … wanted me to investigate Revenance’s death.”
“My my my, so many vampires in your life, and you’re doing so much for them,” Transomnia said. “Surely you’re not developing a taste for vampires? I’m sure any of the vampires here would love to get a taste of you and that hot skindancer blood.”
“Yes, indeed,” Nyissa purred.
“My leads had run dry,” I said, swallowing. “My master is the next logical person I could turn to. I didn’t know you’d moved into town!”
“I was here first,” Nyissa said, oddly petulant. “Before that Chilean jerk took over.”
“But all of the House Beyond Sleep stand with you now, and Blood Rock is yours again,” Transomnia said. Strange that he’d said the city was hers, not his. “Odd that Arcturus didn’t warn you the balance of power had changed, Dakota.”
My brow furrowed. That was odd. I could see Zinaga not warning me; she hated my guts. But why had Arcturus not bothered to tell me a new crop of vampires had rolled into Blood Rock—or that Nyissa was here all along? Why hadn’t I seen her? Was I that oblivious?
Then I remembered what Arcturus was really like, and grimaced.
“You’re giving him a wide berth, aren’t you?” I asked. Transomnia scowled, and I smiled grimly. “He can be a scary piece of work, but as long as you leave him be, he leaves you be. You could throw my bleeding body onto his doorstep and he’d just yell at me for being late.”
“Why, that sounds like a capital idea,” Nyissa purred.
I glanced at her: goth pale, painfully pretty, green eyes blazing beneath a mop of violet hair, a flaring coat/dress that exposed what looked like riding pants and incongruous suede boots, and a long, narrow stick in her hands, which at first I took to be a riding crop—and then realized was a metal poker used to stir a fire. Something about that last accessory made me swallow.
“D-don’t you think it might be a bit obvious to off me the day I roll into town?”
“Off you?” Nyissa said, strutting around me, a cold runway model twirling her poker. “Why, there is no need to be so … indiscriminate. Bleeding and drained, yes, but not dead: a suitable warning. And what danger would you be? You don’t even know where you are.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “You picked me up as soon as I rolled into town. Blood Rock is pretty damn small—and you’ve got the Stone. You can’t hide your location by driving me around for a few hours. I assure you I’ll be able to find it later on Google Maps.”
“Maybe we should blind her,” the goateed vamp guard said.
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