“Thanks,” I said. “Now I know how a marker feels-called in.”
“I’m sorry,” Rand said. “If I’d known that fang… that Revenance wasn’t going to make it, I wouldn’t have called you. This is why McGough suddenly turned into a dick. Having someone with magical training at the scene of a magical crime creates a horrible mess.”
“Why?” I asked. “Seems like you’d want the knowledge-”
“If we ever do catch the guy,” Rand said grimly, “his lawyer will argue you did it.”
“ What? ” I said. “ Me? How? You called me after it was already started-”
“People don’t understand magic,” Rand said. “ Anything sounds plausible. If they can’t pin it on you, they’ll try McGough next, and he couldn’t even do a card trick-”
“The largest School of Magic in North America is five miles from here,” I said. “Emory University-a billion dollar endowment, my alma mater? Maybe you’ve heard of it? There are plenty of expert witnesses you can get who can explain magic.”
“Not to a jury,” Rand said. “Not so they’d understand. And defense lawyers know it. And the only thing that scares juries more than a wizard on the loose is a cop with a wand.”
I sighed. I just wanted to create art, to fill the finest canvases on Earth with marks of beauty. Ours is a great world, full of magic and wonders, and yet there I sat, mourning a friend, my skin still tingling with stray mana from the spell that had killed him.
“Why,” I asked, “do people have to go fuck everything up?”
And then McGough was yelling at Horscht, who was… holding a spray can.
“Oh, hell,” Rand said, rising-and I followed. “This is why we clear first responders-”
“What do you mean, put it down?” Horscht said, jerking the can back from McGough protectively, making the little gnome even madder. “This, this is evidence-”
“But where did you get it?” McGough barked. “Did you take a picture? Did you make some notes? Did you bother to use a glove or a baggie before getting your stupid paws on it-”
“No, I didn’t have one,” Horscht said, jerking it back, but I noticed he was holding it with a piece of paper so his fingerprints wouldn’t get on it. “And you don’t either. I came to get an evidence bag. This is important. He had to use this to spray the tag-”
“It wasn’t spray painted,” I said, cocking my head back at the mess that was left of the tag. “Hard to tell now, after all that fire and water, but it had to be infused oil chalk.”
McGough looked over at me sharply, then back at the tag. “You’re right,” he said slowly, “he couldn’t have… or could he-”
“Horscht, put it down before McGruff the Crime Dog bursts a blood vessel,” I said. “I’m sure he wants to fingerprint it, even though the killer couldn’t have used it to make this mark-”
“I get the point, I shouldn’t have touched it,” Horscht said, staring down at the can, a plain white affair with a larger-than normal top and glittery gold oozing down one of its sides. “But I did take a picture, and I do remember where I got it-in the yard where we found the basketball goal. These crime scene guys, they think they’re so sharp but they miss stuff-”
At that crack, McGough, who had calmed down as Horscht explained himself, suddenly glared at Rand, who scowled back at him. I remembered the ‘first responders’ crack. Oh, great. I’d just blundered onto some internal rivalry in the APD. Joy.
“-and I thought this was evidence,” he was saying. “Why are you so sure that it isn’t?”
“Fair question,” I said, “but Home Depot doesn’t sell spray cans filled with a thousand bucks of magical pigment, and even if they did you wouldn’t want to spray a magical mark-”
“Why not?” Horscht said, shaking the can experimentally. “I mean-”
“NO!” yelled McGough, but it was too late. Horscht squeezed the top, and a screaming blaze of golden flame erupted as the magical inkmagical ink, oh shit! -reacted against the stray mana floating through the air. He flinched and screamed, dropping the can, which skittered across the pavement, propelled for a moment by an elaborate trail of fire.
Like a fat number six made of yellow and orange sparkles, the fireball folded in on itself and curled lazily up into the sky, taking the trail with it, coiling off into the clouds. Horscht was still screaming, chest and face covered in glowing wildstyle flames, but I grabbed him, flexed my hand over his face and chest, generating enough mana to pull the ink out of his skin before it could set and do damage. The sparkling stuff began attacking my skin now, a thousand pricking ants, but I just shook my hand until it dissipated into a cloud of colorful, acrid dust.
“Damnation, Horscht,” Rand said, steadying him. “You’d think you’d never been on a crime scene before. What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Horscht said, scared. “I’m sorry, sir-”
“You can’t play around with this shit,” I said. “Magic is really dangerous.”
“Cut him a break, he showed us all up,” McGough said. “Sorry I went off on you, Horscht. This is the best piece of evidence yet.”
We all stared at him in shock. McGough’s bluster was gone, replaced with a quiet seriousness. He’d put on a rubber glove and picked up the can, turning it so I could see an air valve sticking out of its neck, like you see on bicycle tires-a rechargeable spray can.
“Hell, Frost,” he said, “I sure wish you hadn’t been wrong about this.”
I stared at it. “Me too,” I said. “I’d never heard of magical marks this powerful before today, and if someone has learned to spray paint them…”
“… we have a big problem,” McGough finished.
Sticky and Sweet
Gibbs questioned me, and it didn’t take long-he was polite, efficient, and to the point. “That does it,” he said, putting a few finishing touches on the statement. “Anything to add?”
“No, but I do have a question,” I said, shivering, hands on my scraped knees, staring down at my jeans shorts. “Can I get my clothes back, or are they evidence now too?”
“I’m having them dry cleaned,” Gibbs said, deadpan.
“ What? ” I said, then blinked as he grinned. “Oh, very funny.”
“Sign this, and I’ll fetch your things so you can get dressed,” Gibbs said, handing me his clipboard. “Just to warn you, they’ll probably want you at the station later.”
I sighed and looked over the form. It summed up my morning in a few short lines: school shopping with daughter (with name and address of my alibi), police summons (with time of call noted), and failure to prevent magical attack (which resulted in watching friend die.)
As awkward and painful a morning as I could imagine. I signed the statement and looked up to see Officer Lee leading Cinnamon back to me. They were smiling and laughing, but then Cinnamon cussed and tossed her head angrily, as if poked with a cattle prod. Lee took it in stride, but she looked up at me, not angry, just-eyes filled with immense pity.
“Thanks, Officer,” I said, holding my arms out to Cinnamon, who leapt upon me and squeezed her arms around me in a breath-defying hug. “I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem,” Lee said. “Your daughter is very observant. And colorful.”
Cinnamon snorted and twitched her head, but smiled back at Lee.
Gibbs brought my clothes from his squad car and I gratefully grabbed my turtleneck-I was now freezing. I pulled it on, chanting, “Brr, brr, brr-”
“Get some fur,” Cinnamon sang.
“- no thank you,” I finished, as my head popped out.
Rand was just looking at us, one hand in his pocket, suit frayed but soul unperturbed, a snapshot of a black GQ Kojak right after a fight with a horde of zombies. It was so good to see him back on his game, even after all that horror. “You guys sure are sickeningly sweet.”
I forced a smile-Cinnamon could get me goofing, but Revy’s death still weighed in my mind. “Just standard procedure,” I said at last, slipping on m
y leather chaps. “Are we done?”
“For now,” Rand said. “But, look, we all saw what went down-but not even McGough can explain it, and he’s seen more weird shit than you and me put together. He’s already asked me to pull in the DEI’s experts, and I’ll guess Philip will want you looking into it too.”
“Fine, that’s all I need, another excuse to talk to Philip,” I said, slipping on my vestcoat. Philip Davidson was my contact at the DEI, the Department of Extraordinary Investigations. We were dating, whenever he could make it to Atlanta. It was an odd match-he was politically right of Attila the Hun and I was an uber-treehugger-but he still drove a Prius when he wasn’t riding to my rescue in a cool black helicopter. “I’ll give my favorite bod in the spook squad a ring.”
“Also, there’s another thing,” Rand said, kneading his brow. “Dakota, I know this is going to be difficult for you but… could you please inform the Consulate?”
My smile faded. “The… Vampire Consulate?” I asked, though I knew exactly which consulate he meant. “Why me? I mean, shouldn’t the police do that job?”
Rand’s face flickered a bit- ah, you caught me -but he persisted, nodding at the collar about my throat. “Normally, yes… but since you were their representative on site…”
I tugged at my stainless steel collar. It was lined with neoprene to make it comfortable, but it wasn’t coming off. “I’m not their ‘representative,’ I’m just… under their protection.”
“Whatever,” Rand said. “Dakota… could you break the news to Savannah? I know Revenance was a mutual friend, and she’d probably appreciate hearing it from you.”
I stared at him. “You suck.”
“That’s her you’re thinking of,” Rand said, “and to be honest, I find it a bit creepy to think that a girl I once bounced on my knee now drinks blood. Will you tell her?”
“Yes,” I said, scowling, dialing the next school on my cell. “ After our appointment-”
“Hello, Clairmont Academy,” a female voice over the phone answered.
“Hello, this is Dakota Frost,” I said. “We had an appointment for noon.”
“Oh, yes, well,” the woman said, spluttering a little. “Things are filling up.”
“I know you have a full schedule,” I said, watching Cinnamon’s eyes grow wide. “I’m sorry, but we were detained by the police-”
“Got caught speeding?” the woman said, suddenly conspiratorial. “You should give yourself more time to get places, you know. I heard this article in the AJC… ”
She nattered on a bit. I didn’t really know how to deal with that, and frankly I didn’t want to. “Look, I’m sorry, I wasn’t speeding,” I said quietly. “One of our friends just got attacked-”
“Oh,” she said. “I-I’m so sorry-are they OK?”
I stood there, swaying. “No, he’s-” My mouth grew dry. “He didn’t make it.”
The line was quiet. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” the woman said.
“Yes, well, yes,” I said. “I hate to inconvenience you, but… can you fit us in?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I-I’m so sorry. We just filled our last slot an hour ago.”
I was stunned. I had known they were squeezing us in, but-”Are you sure?”
“We had three slots left and filled five before the principal called me and told me to stop,” the woman said. “I’ve been calling the rest of the appointments and canceling-”
“I see,” I said quietly. “Thank you.” I hung up the phone, staring at it. “ Damnit.”
Cinnamon stared up at me, eyes welling up. “I’m goin’ for a walk,” she said.
“Go to her,” Rand said, taking the phone from my hand and redialing. “Hello? Clairmont Academy? Yes, this is Detective Andre Rand with the APD, badge number-”
I followed Cinnamon, who kept her back to me, snuffling. “I don’t wanna talk to you,” she said. “You wants me to go to school, but can’t even find a good one-”
“We’ll find you a school,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders. “Look, I know what you want. I’ll find a way for you to have a real life-”
“How?” she said bitterly, turning. “I’m a total freak. Look at me. Look at me!”
I stared down at her. At her orange hair, her yellow cat eyes, her tattooed stripes, her huge ears, her twitching tail. This time of the month, fine orange fur began encroaching upon her pale olive skin at the edges of her normal hair. You couldn’t not know she was a werekin.
But none of that mattered to me. “What?” I asked. “All I see is my daughter.”
Her eyes welled up even more, and then she grabbed me and squeezed me so hard the air once again left my lungs. “You big sap,” she said, still crying. “Always gets me with the sticky-sweets. Lucky for you Rand snagged us an appointment at three.”
I looked over at Rand, smiling, but there was a glint in his eye which seemed to say there was more to his favor than just soothing Cinnamon’s broken heart… and I knew precisely what he wanted for his quid pro quo.
“Wonderful,” I said. “ More than enough time to break the news to my ex-girlfriend.”
Undying Lover
We delayed the inevitable by getting breakfast-for-lunch at Ria’s Bluebird Cafe. And not just because it was right across the street from Oakland Cemetery: I love the place, and for more than the food. It’s always amusing to watch a server’s expression as tiny little Cinnamon plows into beef brisket, while big old me nibbles at soysage, sweet potatoes and a tofu omelet.
While Cinnamon finished up, I sipped my sweet tea, scanned the street, and found myself noticing graffiti where I’d never seen it before: a sloppy caricature sprayed on the side of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper box; something political stenciled on a sidewalk; even colorful bubbly capitals sprayed on the brick wall of the Cemetery itself. Nothing as elaborate as the tag that killed Revy, but, still, graffiti was ever present.
But then the check came, it was only twelve-thirty, and our appointment at the school wasn’t until three; and so we no longer had a good excuse not to drive the five minutes to the nearby Consulate and deliver the bad news to my childhood sweetheart.
The Vampire Consulate of Little Five Points isn’t actually in Little Five Points. It’s at another five-pointed intersection in the Sweet Auburn area downtown. There, hidden away in a quiet set of buildings made from a deconsecrated church, is the court of one of the most powerful vampires in Atlanta: the Lady Saffron, nee Savannah Winters… my very ex -girlfriend.
“Fucking fang,” Cinnamon muttered curtly, and when I glanced at her, she glared and looked away. “I-I means, I hates this place. She always smells funny.”
“She is a vampire,” I said, pulling into the tiny lot behind the converted Victorian that served as the Consulate office. I dug out our vampire district parking tag and hung it from the rear-view mirror. “She may be almost vegetarian, but she’s got to drink at least some blood-and who knows how much her girlfriend drinks. There’s bound to be a smell.”
“Hey, I likes the smell of blood, but she’s always stinking of leather… or rubber.”
“Damnit.” I put my hand over my eyes and rubbed. “I really didn’t need to know that.”
“Share the love, I says,” Cinnamon said, and I looked over to see her grinning.
“You set me up,” I said.
“And knocked you over,” she replied, flicking a hand out, catlike. “After all, she was your giiirl friend. Don’t you knows what she’s into?”
“Better than you,” I grumbled. “Fine, fine, just for that, you’re coming inside.”
“No problem,” Cinnamon said, and then: “I do too likes her. I was just messing with ya.”
We stepped through wrought iron gates and passed signs for Darkrose Security Enterprises and the Junior Van Helsing Detective Agency. The former was the security force belonging to Darkrose, Saffron’s new girlfriend; the latter was a Scooby-Doo grade paranormal detective agency which had tried and failed
to take out Saffron shortly after she became a vampire. Now, through a sequence of events that had never been adequately explained to me, both rented space from the Consulate, even down to sharing a receptionist.
Through the glass doors of the porch we could see that today that receptionist was Nagli, a cute little Indian college student that was one of the better Van Helsings. She looked bored out of her mind, but after buzzing the two of us in she immediately perked up.
“Hey, Cinnamon,” she said brightly. When Nagli was perky, she was darned cute, and I couldn’t help grinning back at her. “And hey, Dakota. The Lady Saffron is in the garden.”
I led Cinnamon through the middle door behind Nagli, through the shared conference room, and out into the garden. In the church’s former preschool playground now stood trellis after trellis of honeysuckle, hydrangeas, and clematis. When first planted they were low hedges that burst with stunning color in summer and fall. Now they were a maze of high vines, winter green and oppressively dark, that opened up around a white gazebo.
Savannah Winters stood there in the sunshine in a ruffled Southern belle dress almost as red as her hair. Over the dress she wore a black leather corset with red lacing, that daring touch that I had so liked. Dark leather gloves protected her hands to the elbow, and she wore a huge red bonnet with black lace; but where Revenance had caught fire at the first direct touch of daylight, “the Lady Saffron” strolled through it unconcerned, with bomber goggles and a UV monitor as only concessions to the nuclear fire of the Sun.
Once I had thought Savannah had won her post as the Queen of the Little Five Points district through vampire nepotism-after all, her maker was Lord Delancaster, the head vampire of Georgia and one of the most famous vampires in America.
The truth was, “the Lady Saffron” was immensely powerful, frighteningly brilliant-and a daywalker. I think your typical vampire was scared shitless that she would crack open their coffin at high noon and ram a polished sandalwood stake straight through their heart.
“Da ko ta,” Saffron said, turning, smiling at us from beneath her umbrella-a broad, closemouthed grin which dimpled up her delicate oval features. “And Cinnamon too! What a wonderful surprise. Come, you must join me in the gazebo.”
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