“Keep pressure on it,” Vladimir said. “The touch of silver may have damaged the outer layers of cells, but it won’t have poisoned you.”
“What are we going to do?” Cinnamon asked fearfully, tugging at her collar.
I took Tully’s refilled backpack and my cell phone from one of the guards and knelt down before the two of them. “I’m going to take us inside the magic circle. Once inside, I’m going to perform the Dance of Five and Two, which will highlight the lines of the tag. Tully—”
“I didn’t do anything—”
“Regardless, you know graffiti magic,” I said, and then, since I knew it would irritate him, I said, “you know it because you’re a tagger.”
“It’s writer,” he said, and bit his lip.
“Yeah, gotcha,” I said. “Once the lines of the tag start to glow, you, Tully, will need to identify the mana cycles—the magical power circuit. Then Cinnamon can tell me which points to destroy in what order to create maximum feedback.”
“But I don’t knows how—” Cinnamon said.
“It’s a simple logic problem,” I said. “You’ll know it when you see it. It’s why you’re precious, remember? I don’t need you to explain it. Just see it and tell me. Remember, stay close to me while I’m doing the first dance, then as soon as I tell you, step straight back to the edge of the circle while I’m working. If anything goes wrong, Iadimus’s magicians will pull you out.”
“We will not,” the female magician said.
The lich raised his hand. “Do as she says. We must question them if she fails,” he hissed. “And you must be on hand in case the circle is broken when she takes them through the barrier.”
Reluctantly, the two magicians stepped forward. The lich stood behind one of them; Vladimir stood behind the other. I put my hands on Cinnamon and Tully’s shoulders and led them forward, straight up to the edge of the magic circle.
“How will you stop it from grabbing us?” Tully asked fearfully.
“Arcturus, my master, taught me how,” I lied. “Ready?”
“Yes,” she said, swallowing. “Fuck!”
“All right,” I said, “let’s do this.”
I raised my hands and stepped right up to the edge of the field. I stared at the spinning whorl, at the six arcs of stone, then closed my eyes. For the moment, the magic of the tag was a distraction: I needed to feel the magic of the circle first.
I heard the surging of the magic barrier as it tried to contain the magic within, the muffled roaring of the flames, and beyond that, like a hidden baseline newly noticed on a familiar song, the humming of the spinning whorl as it gathered its power.
I spun, then began shimmying my arms up and down, harmonizing myself with the field. Then I slowly lowered my hands, placing them on Cinnamon’s and Tully’s shoulders. I couldn’t believe I was going to do this, to take us into that torrent of magic.
But hopefully it was better than where we were.
I tugged Tully and Cinnamon forward and leapt with them through the field, shattering the magic barrier. The tag surged out hungrily. No time for fancy dances or subtle intents; I just lunged forward and screamed: “Web of space, take us to your heart!”
—
The whorl expanded. Its tentacles reached out—and pulled us inside.
The Truth Will Set You Free
Second time through, Streetscribe’s Happy Fun Ride was much more manageable. There was the initial shock as mana flashed against my skin, worse than before as this tag was more powerful and my skin had grown more sensitive. But I sloughed the pain off, and with it the buffeting of color and the torrent of wind screaming around us.
Even with training, I couldn’t help being jerked, twisted and buffeted: it was like riding a roller coaster in a hurricane. But I once rode the Mindbender at Six Flags Georgia five times in a row, and had been through this before. So when this kaleidoscope ride came to an end, I landed head up, boots down, with legs coiled for impact, and then straightened right up to standing.
Cinnamon and Tully fell into the water at my feet, their screams turning to spluttering as water splashed up into their lungs. I reached down and collared them both, hauling them to their feet. Tully looked fine, if a bit rattled, but Cinnamon was dry retching—I had forgotten about her motion sickness. While she struggled upright, I took stock.
We were in a dark stone tunnel, lit only by the magic of the tag behind us. It was a cruder version of the masterpiece we’d seen in the lich’s lair, and I realized there was a brief window when they could come after us—or that the tagger might have a secondary trap, like the one that took Revenance. The werekin were still stunned, but I was going to take no chances. “Move,” I said, and dragged them down the corridor away from the tag before anything happened.
When we were fifty yards away, it was so dark I pulled out my phone and powered it up, using the light to guide us into a small cubbyhole in the tunnel. I pulled Cinnamon and Tully inside and positioned myself at the edge, watching to see if anyone else came through the tag, or if any secondary tags had triggered. After a few moments, however, the glow of the tag died out.
“Whew,” I said.
“What,” Cinnamon said, gasping. “What the fuck?”
“We’re in the Underground,” Tully said, staring up at the masonry. He was right: the tag had transported us somewhere into the vast network of ancient tunnels that crisscrossed the city. Legend had it that they dated back to the Civil War. From my time down here, however, I suspected they were actually far older. “How did we get into the Underground?”
“I was hoping you would tell me,” I said, “but in case the tagger didn’t fill you in on that part of his magic, the tags can act as magic doors.”
“I don’t knows the writer that did the tag,” Tully said.
“Whatever,” I said, dialing a number.
“What are you doing?” he said fearfully.
“Calling Vladimir,” I said. It buzzed several times, then picked up.
“Hello, Frost,” Vladimir said. “What the hell—”
“Sorry to keep you in the dark, but it was necessary,” I said. “I was afraid the lich and his buddies wouldn’t let us proceed if he knew what I planned.”
“You’ve got that right,” he said, “They’re demanding to know where you are.”
“Tell them we’re wherever the blood goes when a tag drains a vampire,” I said, glancing around the dank tunnel around me, flickering in my own light. “Tell him I think that’s somewhere in Underground Atlanta—and I don’t mean the tourist trap downtown.”
“I think he got that from context,” Vladimir said, laughing. “What are you doing there?”
“Exactly what I said we were going to do,” I said. “We’re taking the battle to the tagger.”
Vladimir was silent for a moment, then he relayed what I said. “Sir Leopold is asking how you plan to do that?”
“The doorway tags transport victims to traps,” I said, “but they’re not one-to-one. It’s more like a subway network. I used my magic to guide us to its heart. With any luck, there’s a central tag within a few hundred yards—and along with it, hopefully, the tagger.”
“So you really are taking the battle to him,” he said. “The lich is impressed.”
“Good. So tell him hands off the hostages, or when I get back I’ll be most irate.”
There was a squawking on the phone, and Vladimir laughed. “I think they heard you.”
“Vampire hearing, right,” I said. “Well, Lords and Ladies of the Gentry, next time you hear from me, I’ll either have dealt with the tagger—or will be calling the cavalry. Frost out.”
“Frost out?” Tully said. “Can’t you just say goodbye like a normal person?”
“Oh, come on, lighten up,” I said. “We’re deep underneath the city, about to go on a mission. All we need are walkie talkies and flashlights.”
“We don’t needs either,” Cinnamon said.
“True enough, but I will,” I sa
id. “Give me your iPod.”
“Why?” Cinnamon said, mirroring Tully’s fearful tone. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m not taking it to punish you. I’m going to use its light as a flashlight so I can turn off my phone. I don’t want Philip butting in and getting Darkrose killed,” I said, and she relaxed. “But, strictly speaking, you lied, Cinnamon. You have done something wrong.”
She just stared at me, eyes wide. “I-I’m sorry I ran away from the Palmottis—”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about, Cinnamon,” I said, kneeling down so I could look her in the eye. “You need to come clean.”
Cinnamon looked at me in fear. “Wh-what about, Mom?”
“You can’t hide anything from me,” I said. “I know you’re the third tagger, honey.”
“No, Mom,” Cinnamon said, shaking her head. “I’d never paint anything that hurt—”
“I know you would have never hurt Revenance,” I said. “You hiss and swat like a cat, but inside you’re just a little old softie. I don’t think you meant for any of this to happen—but as far as doing graffiti, come on. I bet you were tagging walls before I ever met you.”
“But Mom,” she said. “You don’t understands. I didn’t do it—”
“She’s right,” Tully said, looking at me with a cocky I-can-get-away-with-it look, aimed straight at good old me, the big square—the big square who, unbeknownst to him, got away with all he did and more back in college. “She didn’t do it. Neither did I. Sure, I’m a writer, but I didn’t have anything to do with this shit, and you can’t prove—”
“Oh, come on! ‘They hit us really good?’ ‘Don’t you want to see it?’ And ‘Right under my nose?’—that nose? Give me a break!” I said. “I admit, after the tag turned on you I crossed you off my list, but what did I find today on the outside of your little hideout? A werekin ward rune written with the tagger’s logic, slowly rewriting itself into one of the tagger’s traps.”
“So that’s why it turned on me,” Tully said—and realized I’d nailed him. “Oh, crap!”
“And as for you, young lady,” I said, turning to Cinnamon. “You want me to look at your drawings, but don’t want me to recognize them scrawled over the walls? You want me to check your homework, but not recognize your number system woven into the tags? I didn’t want to believe it, but Doug used your notes to pick apart the tag’s design—and you run with Tully.”
“Oh crap,” Cinnamon said. Her ears folded and drooped, she hunched up, and her tail wrapped around her. “Oh crap oh crap oh crap! Mom—I-I-I’m sorry!”
And there we had it. All the admissions I needed to hear.
“S’alright,” I said, sitting on a shelf in the alcove. “Really, it’s all right. Come here.”
Fearfully, Cinnamon sat down in the other corner of the alcove. Tully remained standing, defiant, putting his hand on her shoulder. She jerked away and muttered something, and he sighed and went to sit down in the other corner, sullen. I looked at her expectantly.
“We—we were just having fun,” Cinnamon said. “All the other werekin were doing it. Not just the kids. The werekin have been bombing the werehouse since its earliest days. Gettyson taught me my first marks, the symbols we uses to stake out territory.”
“I’ve seen them, before I even met you, on the very first day I went to the werehouse,” I said. “Magical runes. The most they’ll do, though, is glow, or give you a mild shock if you stray where you’re not supposed to be. How did you get into writing? Tully?”
“Not just me,” Tully said defensively. “A lot of the cubs are writers from wayback, at first simple stuff, names and warnings. But after we saw the living marks, we started copying them. I was the best. I learned how to do them right. At least, I thought I did … ”
“Until it turned on you,” I said. “Whatever this thing is, not only did it try to kill you, it killed Cinnamon’s old guardian and my boyfriend. It’s fair to say it’s completely out of control. I’m not blaming you. There’s no way you could have known it would lead to this. But I need to know how it started, who’s behind it—and how it works, so I can fight it.”
“All right,” Tully said. “All right. She doesn’t know. I just thought … it would be fun, you know, something to do on our runs. We made it a game, to run out into the city and spread the coolest looking lifemarks as far as we could—”
“Oh, hell,” I said.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Tully said. “We didn’t mean to hurt anyone! It was just a big old adventure. And after it started, it was too late to fess up. You heard the vamps—they wanted to kill us. No one will believe we didn’t know what this shit could do!”
“You’re right, they won’t,” I said. “But I know you couldn’t have known copying his designs would make them stronger, or that one tag could receive information from another and elaborate itself. Later, we can have the lecture about not copying magic you don’t understand.”
“I’m not a cribber!” Tully snarled furiously, his eyes glowing. “And I do too understands, though I got way more than ever I bargained for—”
“This is complicated magic,” I said. “You can’t grok it without training.”
“I had training,” Tully said defiantly. He dug into his pants and pulled out a battered pocket notebook. My eyes bugged. “I got it straight from the source.”
—
“I’m the Streetscribe’s apprentice,” Tully said, “and he gave me his blackbook.”
Tale of the Tagger
I took the blackbook in my hands like it was the Holy Grail. It was a small, battered old black Moleskine with the tagger’s XRYBE road sign scratched into its cover. Inside, I could see hundreds of tiny drawings, precise as a graphomancer’s, annotated in an immensely tiny Portuguese script. As I flipped through it, Tully spoke.
“Streetscribe came from Sao Paulo,” Tully said. “Tall, lean, good runner. He’s a were, but I never found out what kind—I thinks a leopard, but he kept to himself when he changed. He wrote as Streetscribe, but face-to-face, he called himself the Painter of Night.”
“The anti-Kinkade,” I said. Tully stared at me blankly. “No one appreciates me. Go on.”
“Painter wasn’t born in Sao Paulo,” Tully said. “He came from some hick town hacked out of the rain forest near the border of Peru. But his family came from the rain forest itself.”
“A displaced tribe,” I said grimly. “Pushed out by logging.”
“If only,” Tully said. “A displaced pack. Hunted down by vampires.”
I stared at Tully, suddenly aware of the cold water soaking through my boots.
“Painter was in school in Sao Paulo when the fangs attacked his town,” he said. “Wiped out his whole family. He tracked them back to Acre, trashed some of them, but got pretty trashed in return. That convinced him to never tangle with fangs. So he started lookin’ for a weapon.”
“His family was really old-school—old weres, with old magic and old gods,” Tully said. “Painter had learned some of the old ways, so he wandered out into the rain forest, across the border, looking for his family temple. He found it, or somethin’ like it—”
“Oh, Jesus,” I said.
“—and holed up in the tunnels below. He found some cave paintings, or somethin’, and figured out how they worked with schoolin’ he’d picked up in Sao Paulo. Eventually, he cracked their code, and learned some dark magics to use against the fangs.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I said. “So this wacko found an equivalent of Atlanta’s Underground, not underneath Sao Paulo but under some lost Mayan … no, Incan temple, maybe, deep in uncharted forests between Brazil and Peru, where we’re still finding uncontacted tribes to this day?”
“Yeah, I guesses,” Tully said.
“So, in the deepest heart of the rain forest, under an ancient temple built by an unknown culture, the Streetscribe found even older secret places he thought might be related to his family gods, and started reverse-engine
ering random magics until he made something really nasty?”
Tully nodded, swallowing.
“And why are we dealing with this here,” I asked, “rather than reading in the comfort of own homes about how Sao Paulo was wiped off the face of the Earth by an explosion of magic so horrible that the faithful rightfully interpreted it as the wrath of God?”
“He tried,” Tully said, and swallowed again. “Painter went back to Sao Paulo, began writing again, this time as Streetscribe. But he was too bold, and soon the police were after him—and then the vamps. So Streetscribe fled north—and kept going.”
“And now he’s here,” I said quietly. “His new home.”
“Still fighting the vamps,” Tully said. “Sounded like a good idea. You gots to trigger the traps, see, and until … until he took Revy, I thought he’d just use them against bad vamps.”
“Bad vamps?” I asked. “I thought werekin used vampires as their protectors.”
“At the full moon,” Tully said with disgust, “when rich jerks comes out to play. The rest of the time, vamps prey on us lifers, for blood or money. There are plenty of bad vamps.”
“Including the Oakdale Clan?” I pressed. “Who decides who’s a bad vamp, Tully?”
“Fuck!” Cinnamon barked. “Trans was a bad vamp.”
“Yes, baby, but not as bad as you might think, even given all the bad stuff he did,” I said, staring at the blackbook. My point was that the tags couldn’t tell good vamp from bad vamp, but I didn’t have time for that argument. “Why’d Streetscribe give you this, Tully?”
“I—I told you,” Tully said. “We—he wanted to set traps for … for bad vamps. So he gave me his blackbook … and told me to make copies.”
I looked up in horror. “And you gave it to … ”
“Other werekin. The kids, the lifers,” he said. “We’re the ones the vamps hassle. But what does it matter? He didn’t teach anyone else how to make the masterpieces.”
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