Blood Rock (45 page)

Swallowing, I slipped off the seat and knelt on the floor, then went forward onto my hands and knees, cheek falling aside Nyissa’s boot. I could smell the leather, feel the soft, plush carpet beneath my feet, hear her breathing as she leaned down over me.

The car screeched to a halt and we were both thrown forward, me flying between her legs and landing on top of her. Her eyes were thrown wide in total shock as I awkwardly tried to push off her and nailed her breast.

Then the tires squealed and we were thrown forward again as the driver hurled us into reverse, a hail of gravel and dirt roaring beneath the limo as it awkwardly fishtailed, trying to back up from whatever had brought us to a stop.

Nyissa pushed me off her, her hand nailing my breast this time, and I tumbled back into the floor. I flexed and brought my vines to life. Nyissa’s eyes glowed, she raised the poker, and we crouched back to back, staring out the windows as the limo rocked from its hard stop.

The squealing and rattling stopped, but the tires were still spinning. Nyissa and I were thrown onto each other as the limo drunkenly slewed around, lifting into the air. Flickering red light began creeping up under the cracks of the doors and climbing the sides of the windows.

“Oh, God,” I said. “It’s the tagger—”

“Oh, no,” Nyissa said. “He’s going to kill us—”

“That’s far enough!” a voice screamed. “I’ll make you regret coming to Blood Rock!”

“What the
hell?
” I was certain I recognized that voice, and reached for the door.

“No, don’t,” Nyissa said, grabbing my arm with irresistible strength. “Don’t challenge him. Let him rage, maybe he will tire of it and let us go.”

“Let go of my arm,” I said. Nyissa shook her head, and I asked, “This client thing, is it feudal? You protect me in exchange for tribute, but I can also be called on to protect you?”

Nyissa blinked, then squealed as the car rocked. “Y-yes,” she said, shrinking back from the flickering orange light now roaring around all the windows.

“Then let go of me,” I said. “It’s my time to protect you.”

The car rocked again, slewing around, and she released my arm. Quickly I tore off my jacket, unzipped my chaps, exposing as many tattoos as I could. Then I opened the door.

A torrent of red and gold leaves whipped around the car, like a tornado made by the spirit of fall. Giant vines weaved through the storm, not unlike my own, but thick as tree trunks, snapping like giant snakes—and then one struck the car and knocked me flying.

“
Whoa!
” I cried, arms windmilling. A ‘spirit of air’ haiku it wasn’t, but my cry captured my intent and my panicked movement spread the mana I had already been building, making the half-finished wings of my new Dragon erupt from my back in a flare of purple feathers.

Wind caught under them, braked my fall—I wasn’t quite flying, or even falling with style, but managed to twirl downwards like a maple seed, buffeted by the roiling tornado of tattoo magic around me, but not quite knocked from the air. As I stabilized, I saw him.

The wide, strong figure of Arturo Carlos “Arcturus” Rodriguez de la Turin danced in the road, legs moving quickly around the points of a pentagram, arms waving in counterpoint with the grace of a Tai Chi master. His shaggy white hair tossed in the wind of his power. The tattoos of his bare arms and chest didn’t just glow, they
blazed
, sweeping out around him in a tornado of leaves and vines that swirled beneath the limo, lifting it thirty feet up into the air. From his back, a huge serpent uncoiled, rising up, growing larger, preparing to strike.

“
Spirit of vengeance,
” he snarled—and then he saw me. “Frost?”

He paused his quick dancing steps, and the torrent began to abate. “
Friends of the earth, ease my fall,
” I murmured, and my vines coiled out and below me, cushioning my fall as I touched down on the dirt road, which he’d nearly blasted back to the clay.

“Frost!” he cried, happily, stepping forward. As he did so, Zinaga, who had been leaning against a tree and watching the show with an unconcealed grin, suddenly scowled and turned her back. Arcturus, as usual, did not notice. “I can’t believe it—Dakota Frost!”

He looked genuinely surprised to see me. I wondered what, if anything, that I’d said that Zinaga had passed on to him. Probably just enough to cast me in the worst possible light. Then I looked over my shoulder, up and at the limo, which was now tottering and sinking as the tornado began to break up. Arcturus saw it too, grimaced, looked at me, then grimaced even more. He struggled with something; the glowing snake twisted, reared. Then Arcturus cursed.

“
Spirit of vengeance, spare them my wrath,
” he said, bowing slowly, throwing his hands wide. The limo began to settle gently to the ground, the leaves dispersed, the vines recoiled, and the snake resentfully sank back down into his back. At the precise moment he completed his bow, all signs of his magic dissipated—and the limo’s tires gently touched the Earth.

“Always the showman,” I said quietly, letting my own wings and vines fade.

“Good Lord, Frost, what are
you
doing riding with the vampires?” he said, rubbing his hands together. Little glowing sparks erupted where flesh met flesh—the mana-capacitor yin-yangs on
my
palms were based on
his
example. “And why are
they
riding straight into the heart of Old Town? I told both you
and
them to stay away until you learned better manners.”

I stared at Arcturus, taking him all in: Hispanic features, English accent, that slightly aristocratic air which always made me want to kick his teeth in. I reflected on what Nyissa said. I thought about how to best handle the situation. Then I opened my damn mouth.

“Damnit, Arturo, you didn’t tell me anything because you don’t answer your phone.”

“The telephone,” Arcturus said archly, “is not a universal feature of the human condition. For the bulk of history, people have spoken without electrical intermediaries—”

“I’m not finished,” I said. “Any message you had for me was
not
passed on by Zinaga, who just as clearly hasn’t passed on to you half of what I told her. She’s probably holding out on both of us for the same reason she sold me out to the vampires: she’s jealous.”

Arcturus’ eyes bugged out and he whirled on Zinaga. “You betrayed my
star pupil
to the vampires?” he said. Zinaga flinched at ‘star pupil’—meaning she and her years of service were, what, chopped liver? No wonder she was jealous. “A serious accusation. Defend yourself!”

“Of course I didn’t sell her out,” she said, shrugging her shoulders with a cocky ‘I can get away with it’ air. “And if I had, would she be here?”

“Actually, I get on famously with vampires, after their fashion,” I said. “Which answers Arcturus’ first question. I had grovel to them before I could come grovel to you.”

The limo door opened, and Nyissa’s booted foot planted itself in the road. She followed it out, twisting her poker in her fingers, features composed, assured, hostile. The layered, nuanced woman was gone, replaced by the scary psycho bitch I’d seen in the court of Transomnia. Her game face was on, and she strolled straight up to Arcturus as if she was not terrified.

“Oh, it’s
you,
” Arcturus said dismissively—but beyond that, was he a tiny bit …
embarrassed?
“Sorry about the light show. I thought you were your boss.”

“Think nothing of it,” she said, staring straight at Arcturus. “The Lady Frost is correct. We intercepted her earlier based on a tip from Zinaga, with whom I have maintained a … private relationship … to keep the line of communication between skindancers and vampires open.”

“She’s lying!” Zinaga said. “I never called her!”

“I never said you
called,
” Nyissa said, withdrawing a cell phone from the folds of her dress-coat, “but … you did.”

Nyissa thumbed through listings on the phone, then held it to Arcturus. He stared at it, cursed, then glared over at Zinaga, daring her to contradict. She just slumped back against the tree, looking away. “Return to the shop,” he said. “I’ll decide your fate later.”

“She should stay,” I said. “I want her to hear this.”

Arcturus glared at me sharply. “See now, Frost, you’re in Coventry already—”

“Because we forbade the Lady Frost to return to Blood Rock,” Nyissa said.

Arcturus squinted at Nyissa. “Well, if she didn’t have the fortitude to defy you,” he said, glancing at me sidelong, “she should have just stayed away.”

“
No one
has the guts to buck them,” I said. “Not even Zinaga, and she’s their ally. You don’t know that because you spend all your time holed up in your studio, but everyone in town is running scared. Go downtown tomorrow night and you won’t see one exposed tattoo.”

Arcturus winced … then snorted. “Who cares,” he said, though he was grimacing. “Anybody with
my
ink could take them, if they had chests—”

“But, as she said, no one has any guts,” Nyissa said. “Everyone in Blood Rock fears the House Beyond Sleep … which brings us to the Lady Frost’s proposal.”

“Proposal?” he said. “What proposal?”

“The Lady Frost has convinced us,” Nyissa said, “that our fear of skindancers has created the very conditions we wanted to avoid: open hostility. She has suggested that we should lift the ban on skindancing in Blood Rock … and we have agreed.”

Zinaga stood up straight, leaning away from the tree with her mouth hanging open. Arcturus stood there in the road for a moment, swaying, then said, “Again, why should I care? Anyone who doesn’t have the guts to stand up to you—”

“Stop being an ass, Arturo,” I snapped.

“No, you stop being an ass,” Nyissa said. “You are not helping.”

“Look, you—”

“Are you not my client?” Nyissa asked. “Do you not want my protection?”

“Technically no,” I said, “and not really, no.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So you
want
all vampires to consider you free game?”

I stared up into the night sky, then let out my breath. “No.”

“Then as my client,” she said, “you will learn to hold your tongue.”

“I’d pay good money to see that trick,” Arcturus said.

“I only need a minute of silence to make my case,” Nyissa said. “This town was a haven for skindancers first, before the vampires came. You and I had our disagreements, but we were civil. It was my master who feared skindancers, and my master who imposed the ban. Frost was one of the skindancers he feared, and she convinced him that fear was not warranted.”

“Oh really?” Arcturus said. “You don’t think we could put the hurt on you?”

“So could a posse of pissed off townspeople with shotguns,” Nyissa said. “Frost’s suggestion is to stop pissing you off, starting with rescinding the ban on displayed ink.”

Arcturus cocked his head. “And what do you get out of it?”

“My Lord Transomnia would like you to extend his apologies to the people of Blood Rock,” she said, “and my client, Dakota Frost, would like you to accept my apology for interfering with the legitimate business she had with you.”

I let out an exasperated breath. “Oh, you’re just loving this.”

“Zip it,” she said. “And don’t forget, you still owe me a drop of blood and a quarter.”

Arcturus looked at her, then me. “This vamp your new girlfriend, Dakota?”

I rankled—and so did Zinaga; how interesting. “Now, look—”

Nyissa licked her lips and looked at me. “Why, that’s—” she began—and then her face fell. “That’s a flattering suggestion, but poorly timed. Miss Frost’s romantic companion was just murdered, by magic. I believe that’s what she’s here to talk to you about.”

Arcturus stiffened. “Murdered? By magic? Not skindancing—”

“No,” Nyissa said softly, so I didn’t have to. “Magic graffiti. And her friend is not the only victim. This plague has claimed dozens of vampires, werewolves, and normal humans.”

“Damnation. And I’m sorry to hear about your friend,” Arcturus said. Clearly Zinaga had told him nothing. His eyes scanned me, then narrowed. “But the vamps have picked the wrong horse to back—you’ll be useless in a fight, now that you’ve stripped your masterwork.”

“I’m inking a new Dragon,” I said.

His eyes narrowed further. “Those wings you used? Show me.” I turned so Arcturus could look down the back of my shirt, which left me facing Nyissa. She smiled sweetly, and I shuddered. “Hard to get a whole picture,” Arcturus said. “Could I pull this up a moment?”

“Not with Miss Predator figuring out where to sink her teeth,” I said.

“Or plant her tongue,” she said sweetly.

“Ew,” I said, folding my arms in front of me. “Look, you can see the wings over my shoulders, and between them the head of the Dragon, or the start of it, anyway. Those aren’t isolated marks, I’m redoing the whole masterwork to a new design—”

“So you are,” Arcturus said, and despite my warning, lifted the back of my shirt to inspect my inking more closely. After a moment, he said, “Impressive. I thought you’d have gotten sloppy, running all that commercial ink. But you’ve gotten better.”

“I love my work.”

Arcturus released me, and I turned back to face him.