my skin.
Two men ran out in complete silence, their mouths moving without sound. One drew a gun and raised it at me, and I curled the opposite way, murmuring, 'Spirit of home: safe and sound.' The vines contracted, the remaining leaves curling around me, and the bullet he fired bounced harmlessly, almost soundlessly, away.
One of the men paused, but the shooter kept running straight at me, raising his gun like a club. I cried, 'Spirit of fire: color and light!' and the head of the dragon reared up, dousing his face with a rainbow of flame. But I could tell I was running out of juice, so as he fell back, I clenched my fists, concentrated on my back, knelt and said, 'Spirit of air: take to flight!'
A hawk tattooed onto my back detached itself and flew at the final man, who ran away, screams muffled by the silence spell. The shooter was writhing on the ground, his face a flickering mass of tattooed fire, his cries silenced by the gentle fall of glowing maple leaves. He'd live, but would be sore as hell with some pretty hardcore face tattoos. Walrus was similarly gone-but as I turned, Baldy stood back up, blinking.
I decked him flat, and my knee started to throb.
I left the downed guards outside and stepped into the Masquerade. The lights were out, but I could see pretty clearly. The stairs to Heaven were blocked off with boards and the door to Hell was locked, but Purgatory was open. As I moved out of the range of the dissipating silence spell, I started to hear the world around me again. Then a deep, resonant voice spoke, closer than I expected, and I ducked down.
'Show me,' the voice commanded.
'Let's save it, at least until the guards bring her in,' a petulant, higher-pitched voice responded. 'After all, I prefer to work with an audience-'
'Stop balking,' the voice said. 'Show me what you mean by 'creative.''
'You don't get it, do you,' the petulant voice said. 'Sure, you've got the guts to strip off a bit of skin of someone you've killed-'
'I must work on the living,' the deep voice said. 'The magic will not work otherwise-'
They were at the far end, at the little dance area past the DJ stand. I crouched low, trying to worm my way along the right wall to the bar, to get closer. There were piled boxes and glasses at the end of the bar; slowly I raised my head up, to get a better view. There was a rough table, a steaming black kettle, and- ^
Transomnia, holding the pruners in one hand-and Cinnamon aloft in another.
38. GLOVES OF LIQUID FIRE
'Sure, you work on the living, but you never make it last,' Transomnia said. He'd upgraded his coat to a long, black Hellraiser affair. In one hand he effortlessly held Cinnamon, whimpering and bleeding, arms bound behind her with silvery barbed wire. In the other, he held the pruners, twitching, snipping the air with them. 'You've got guts. But no strategy.'
'You're stalling,' the other figure said, a shorter, hooded figure in an ornate brocaded robe whose face was completely hidden from view. 'You don't have the will to-'
'Maybe you don't know me as well as you think,' Transomnia said. 'You're an expert at sacrifice, but you don't know the first thing about torture. Punching, slapping, bruising-fine for foreplay. But snipping- you can't take it back.'
'We're going to kill them,' the robed monk said. 'We need hold nothing back.'
I gathered my power into the yin-yangs. If I could hit him hard enough with a burst of lightning, it might knock Cinnamon from his hands and give me a chance to save her.
'If you're gonna kill them, fine, you can do things you can't take back, but for hostages-you save that,' Transomnia said. 'If you keep the hostages unspoiled, it leaves you free to say: 'That's far enough, Dakota.' '
I froze. The hooded figure looked around sharply, and Transomnia grinned widely, showing his long, sharp teeth as he raised the pruners and pointed straight at me. The hooded figure looked over in shock, but I stayed frozen behind the bar… until Transomnia drew the pruners back aside and pointed in front of the two of them in invitation.
'Now, Dakota,' Transomnia said, 'or I show you both what I mean by 'creative.''
I stepped out to the end of the bar. Nothing now stood between them and me but the table, and the steaming kettle of black fluid.. . sitting atop a tin of canned heat.
The hooded figure shifted slightly. 'Are those the last whispers of a silence spell, Miss Frost?' he said, extending his hand in a slow movement through the air. 'And fire? And a bird-of-prey projectia?' He rubbed his fingers together, as if he could feel the very texture of the mana in the air. 'I am impressed. You have exceeded my expectations.'
'Well,' Transomnia said. 'I can't say the same for my rent-athugs.'
'I told you to warn them about her magic,' the hooded figure hissed.
'I did. Perhaps they didn't believe me, or perhaps they thought she would have more sense than to risk a hostage,' Transomnia said, glancing at Cinnamon. She mmmm'd and kicked, and Transomnia shook her once, a sharp snap that flicked her head back and forth and made her body go limp. 'Did you kill them?'
'No,' I said. 'They're all still alive. I just ran them off-'
'Damnit, if you were going to fight you could have at least done us the courtesy of killing them,' Transomnia snarled, fangs flashing. 'Now I'll have to run them to ground. I hate tying up loose endsspeaking of which, step up to the table, Dakota.'
He pointed to the table with the shears, but I stood frozen.
'Ever smashed a cat's brains out against the wall?' he said, giving Cinnamon another shake. 'Like salsa made from steamed cauliflower and cranberry sauce-'
I swallowed. Cinnamon claimed she could soak up bullets; but you could kill a were by cutting off her head, so there was no way letting him slam her brains out could be good. I stepped forward to the table, scowling. 'Hurt her, and I'll-'
'Now, now, Dakota, as a tattooist you know the importance of proper hygiene,' he said, pointing at the kettle. 'Why don't you wash your hands before we get started? Dunk them deep-we wouldn't want you to miss a spot.'
I stared into the huge kettle, swallowing. It was filled with something black, hot and steaming, running down over the edges of the vessel in dripping, frozen streamers. Some kind of disgusting potion? I looked back at him, and he raised the clippers to her ear- then her eye.
'It's only getting hotter,' he said. 'And my imagination is just running wild-'
I thrust my hands deeply into the kettle.
Like gloves made of liquid fire: I screamed, jerking backward, pulling back hands and forearms dripping with black, scalding pitch. The sticky goop coated my hands like paint, like glue, cooling and drying so fast that half my fingers were already stuck together. With effort I forced my left hand opened, seeing no marks, no skin, only black sticky goo.
'You-you bastard,' I said, shaking. 'I'll-'
'Do nothing,' he said, pocketing the clippers and pulling out a syringe filled with a clear liquid. I cried out and tried to lunge around the table, but he slid it into Cinnamon's arm with practiced ease and emptied it into her bloodstream. 'And neither will she. Just a little medicine to help her sleep, and some silver nitrate to help it along-'
'You bastard,' I said, shaking.
'So you said,' Transomnia said, slapping Cinnamon's head back and forth with his free hand, watching her sag until her head lolled with each blow. 'But keep standing right there, or I'll exercise my imagination.'
'Why should we need to do that?' the hooded figure said, with a touch of amusement. 'Let's get straight to why I came here-to see the goods. Strip, Miss Frost, and let's see what you've got that I can add to my collection.'
Oh, God. Exactly as I'd feared: the robed monk was the tattoo killer.
'You're the third person to tell me to strip in as many days,' I said, shaking. 'Go to hell.'
The killer snorted. 'Strip, or we start with the stray-'
