'I don't know all modern car makes,' he said. 'Is POS the model number or-'
'Piece of Shit,' I said, 'and it's a scooter, license plate
MAGTAT.'
'I saw it,' he said, closing his eyes briefly, as if recalling and re- memorizing every detail. 'Is there anything else you'd like to protect?'
Abruptly I flashed on Richard Sumners-he'd insured his hands for a million dollars. What the hell? It couldn't hurt. 'Just my hands. I'm a tattoo artist.'
'Your life, blood, and sex; your friend, scooter, and hands,' he said, reciting the odd list in complete seriousness. 'I think that is as extensive, and as specific, as we can make the ban; but it will have to do.'
'Thanks,' I said.
He took my hand, raised it, and kissed it chastely. 'Remember, this protection only lasts in the inner city. Outside the Perimeter, the vampires can no longer protect you.. So please, do not forget: if you travel outside the circle of I-285, you should stick to the safe places that humans instinctively gather in-or else you will run into creatures far more dangerous than either vampires or werewolves.'
My lip pursed up. 'Thank you, Lord Delancaster.'
I still couldn't wrap my head around the vampires being Atlanta's force of supernatural law and order.
13. The Werehouse
The werehouse stood at the edge of the Chattahoochee, a bombed-out vestige of ironworks damaged beyond hope of repair on the river's slimy banks. The entrance was an unlikely path struggling down an embankment of a bridge crossing, a trail so trampled that the earth opened up in a jagged wound of red clay. Trash was piled everywhere, cigarette butts, beer bottles, ants swarming over mustard packets spilling out of a discarded Chick-fil-A bag. I gagged. I couldn't stand the smell. I couldn't imagine how the weres did either.
No doubt it was a steal on the rent.
The moon was swelling close to whole-what did that make it? New? Gibbous?-and I heard a soft thump as the vamp guard I'd been told to expect jumped down behind me.
'Ah-ah-ah,' a soft, velvety voice said, almost near enough to taste. You could almost hear him wagging his finger. 'You don't want to go down that path at this hour, mortal.'
I turned, and the vampire cringed at the blaze of my cross.
'Jeez!' he said, half choking on the word.
'Sorry,' I said, slipping the cross back under my shirt. I squared off with the vampire, hands jammed into the buttery leather of my trench vest, letting my tattoos gleam in the silver of the streetlight. 'You must be Insomnia?' I said, hoping I got his name right.
I was wrong.
The little vampire punk quit cringing and glared, drawing himself to his full height, pale, made-up face falling as he realized I still towered a half a head over him, even counting his ridiculous teased hair that made him look like an albino member of the Flock of Seagulls. His face fell even further as he realized I was not the least bit intimidated.
How could I be? A vampire in makeup, designed to make him look more like a vampire? Total poseur. He looked like he shopped at Hot Topic-not that I don't-and had even gotten mud on the hems of his bondage pants, the ones with the cheap plastic handcuffs and glittering chains that are supposed to look all Goth and edgy. And this was supposed to be a guard?
'I,' he said pretentiously, fake accent and all, 'am the Vampire Transomnia.'
'Dakota Frost,' I replied, and the rest of him deflated. 'I was sent by Jinx to see the Marquis, and I travel under the protection of the Lady Saffron, Queen of Little Five Points.' I tugged at the metal collar once or twice to make sure he saw it.
The little vampire glowered at me-ok, perhaps not little, most likely average height for a guy-and I hopped down from the slight ridge to land in the clearing next to him, hoping that reducing the height difference would set him at ease. It didn't help. The proximity apparently made me even more threatening. His lips parted in a slow sigh, tips of his canines pointed past human, eyes glinting in his pale pudgy face like black olives shoved into the surface of a puff pastry.
'Saffron protects you?' he said, hot breath curling on the air, a dull red glow building in his eyes. I suddenly realized I was within arms' reach of a vampire-a scrawny, poseur, threatened, insulting vampire who wanted a pissing match. 'You could have done better than to ally yourself with that… maid.'
His lip curled further, and the bit of dried blood at the root of his fangs erased any illusions as to whether he'd been the one to eat the fast food from the sack tossed on the ground. Christ, he'd fed, not minutes ago, and not from the drive-thru window. He'd been sloppy about it. I hoped to God it had been a rat, but…
I swallowed and slowly took my hands out of my pockets- empty. Showing him I wasn't carrying a stake or something.
'I didn't have a choice,' I said. 'I live in her district.'
'No, you had a choice,' he said, his lip twisting up into a mocking sneer. 'Not to come here. Now that you have… you have to pay the toll.'
I raised my hands. 'I'll use a different entrance-'
'Too late,' he said, grin widening, both fangs now exposed. 'You're already under the bridge, and I'm the troll.'
Shit, so much for Saffron's protection. 'Hey, I just want to speak to the Marquis,' I said, raising my hands higher. 'And I'm glad to go through you to do it.'
I said it so placatingly that he actually blinked as he processed it. In that split second I flipped my hands, and when his lids opened he got an eyeful of the crosses, stars and sickles upon each knuckle. They blazed with power, resonating with the vampire's own projected aura of hostility, and when he flinched, my right fist popped out and landed the holy symbols on his face in a twisting one-inch punch.
All the mana stored in my tattoos and all the hate feeding back through the holy symbols released with a flash and a solid, satisfying BANG, and the vampire flew back into the mud and slid halfway down the riverbank.
'I protect Saffron as much as she protects me,' I said, strolling over to where the vampire lay, planting my fist in my other hand to let the charms charge up against the yin-yang in my palm. 'Now would you, pretty please with sugar on it, take me to see the Marquis?'
The vampire was blinking, twitching, and I started to worry I'd hit him too hard. Then his eyes focused on me, and I felt the holy symbols on my knuckles start to tingle in a hot wave of hate. I settled back, feeling adrenaline flood me. He wasn't supposed to get back up-what the hell was I going to do if he rushed me with vampire speed? 'You're dead,' he snarled, fangs fully exposed. 'You are so dead, bitch!'
He reached toward a bush to pull himself back up-but before he could, the bush put out a strong male hand to steady the vampire. 'Enough, Trans,' said a deep voice, and the bush unfolded, branches morphing into the proud antlers of a deer's head that flowed into the shoulders of a ruddy Native American warrior-a werestag, in halfhuman form.
'Homina,' I breathed.
'Lord Buckhead,' Transomnia stammered. 'I-I didn't see you-'
'You were not meant to,' the werestag said. 'I was watching your watching.'
Lord Buckhead carried a staff topped with the skull and antlers of a deer, adorned with eagle's feathers, but beyond that wore only a loincloth, buckskins, and an ornately woven chestpiece of beads bumping against his broad chest. His bare feet were almost as ruddy as the clay, but left only the slightest impressions as he effortlessly helped the smaller man up the bank and set him down beside me. I paid the vampire no mind. The werestag was
