screamed. I squeezed my eyes shut as my vision exploded into white light. Then the light faded, slowly-and suddenly I saw through new eyes.
The world before me was sharp, but its colors distorted, my point of view rising through a stream of colors and flame.. My new eyes looked down, and I could see my own trembling body, could watch as the glittering scales and rippling form of my finest tattoo glowed, detached from my skin and came to life. I saw through the eyes of the Dragon, rearing over a shocked Mirabilus in a fully dimensional tower of color and flame.
'Spirit offire,' I whispered. 'Show him the light!'
The Dragon unleashed a torrent of fire upon Mirabilus, blackening and burning his body. His tattoos seared and dissolved, leaking mana in fitful incoherent sparks, and he fell backward with a tortured scream. Then the Dragon reared back and pounced upon him, jaws snapping down upon his neck as its long, segmented tail detached from me.
My link to the Dragon severed abruptly, and I opened my own eyes to see its curling form, rippling and alive- and savaging Mirabilus. With each bite it seemed to grow more real and strong, until it stopped and looked back at me, fully opaque, all aglow in glittering coils and sparking blue eyes. Then it raised its wings, screeched, and shot upwards, exploding through the ceiling of Hell, disappearing into the darkness.
Valentine twisted, moaned, raised one weak, bloody hand after the Dragon. Then he collapsed and was still, mana streaming slowly out of his ruined tattoos like slow rainbow fire.
'Finally,' Transomnia said, clambering back up onto the stage, burnt, singed, but still standing. 'Free of you, you sick fuck.'
He stared down at Valentine's body for a long, long time. Then he looked up abruptly at me, and I flinched. I had nothing left. No way to defend myself. If he decided to come after me-and then his hand came out of his pocket, holding the pruners.
'Oh, God,' I said, ducking my head back down to the dais. 'Oh, God-'
'Oh, quit whining,' Transomnia said, strolling around me, cutting the wires on my wrists, then pulling me up to a sitting position. 'But we're not done.'
He strolled off casually, and I just sat there, propping myself up with one hand, covering myself with another, ankles still pulled apart by the wires. He returned with a rag and grabbed my right hand and began wiping it off roughly. I sat there, trembling, letting him do it, until he finally gave up in disgust and released my only slightly less grimy hand.
'That will have to do,' he said, opening his shirt. 'Now get this fucking thing off me!'
My eyes widened. There was an elaborate knot tattooed on Transomnia's chest-a bat, practically turned inside out inside an elaborate design pulling at it with fishhooks. It was a controlling charm, from the looks of it precisely the same kind inked on WulfTransomnia had been just as much a pawn as he had.
I gathered my strength and reached out with my cleaned hand. At first I felt nothing; then I caught the edge of the mana, began flexing my fingers, and drew the magic out into the air. The bat squealed and squeaked as its prison dissolved. The fishhooks of the design came loose and flailed in the air. But I didn't let them get a grip on anything, and soon the whole design dissolved into sparks, leaving nothing but a faint ghost of an impression on his chest.
'Thank you,' Transomnia said, buttoning his shirt, somehow taller, more businesslike. He popped the wires on my ankles, left, right, and I gratefully pulled my feet together and huddled in a mound on the dais. Transomnia calmly walked away and stood over Valentine's corpse-and began kicking it, grievously, brutally, methodically, each time releasing a flash of magic and color as his body flipped and skittered across the floor.
'No draining. No maiming. No raping. No killing. Those were the rulesf Transomnia said, staring down at Valentine's bloodied corpse with pure contempt. He looked straight back at me, and I twitched back a bit, trying to cover myself. 'Consider ourselves even.'
'Even steven,' I said, trembling, naked but for Savannah's collar, sitting here before a vampire who had almost beaten me to death… and who had now saved my life. I slipped slowly backwards off the dais, still trembling. I didn't know if my legs would hold me, but somehow they did.
Transomnia smiled evilly, then threw the pruners down, embedding them in the floor between my feet. I flinched, but stayed where I was. Then he turned to go… and paused a moment, scowling. Finally he turned back to me. I flinched again, but didn't try to get away-and I stood my ground before him, damn it, I stood.
And then Transomnia took off his coat, and slipped it on my shoulders.
'I hate your guts, bitch,' he said, 'but you need this more than me.'
'Thanks,' I said, drawing it about me. 'For saving my life.'
Transomnia roughly nodded. 'I needed your help, too.'
'Then why didn't you just ask?' I shouted, waving my hand at the carnage around us. I couldn't keep it in anymore. 'Why did you put us through all this-'
'Because I had to,' Transomnia snarled. 'You saw the design. Mirabilus would have known the instant I turned hostile. I had to play my cards very carefully-'
'You let me beat your guards,' I said, in sudden realization. 'You told them what to do, but not clearly enough for them to take me seriously.'
'That gamble paid off,' Transomnia said. 'But Mirabilus would have dismissed the rent-a-thugs from the ceremonial chamber anyway-it's better to have no witnesses to the deed, since even Wulf and I couldn't always tie up every loose end. It was always going to be just you, me, and Mirabilus-but the history of our little tussles made it appropriate to express hostility in his presence.' He smiled grimly. 'For that… I thank you, Dakota.'
'Why did you let him tattoo you in the first place? Did you think he could protect you from Saffron?' I asked- and then I stopped, working out the timing in my head. 'No… not even vampires heal that fast. That had to be an old tattoo-'
'So old,' Transomnia said, 'I barely remember why the deal made sense at the time.'
'You're his advance man,' I said. 'You roll into town, sniff out the lay of the land-'
'And then help him take out his rivals,' Transomnia said. His eyes were burning on me, not hate exactly, but… rage? 'But this time, it was supposed to be different. This time, I was going to find someone to protect me, a vampire whose aura was strong enough to bind myself to, someone whose power could shield me from Mirabilus' control. I found Calaphase of the Oakdale Clan-and then you went and fucked it up. They kicked me out because of you-'
'-and drove you right back into his arms,' I said. 'I'm sorry. I didn't know-'
'You couldn't have,' Transomnia said, still glaring at me. 'How could you know all this would happen, just from one little punch? But remember: you picked that fight. I was doing my duty, trying to scare you off-but I never touchedyou that first night..'
My eyes widened. His stayed on me, burning with anger and expectation. Surely the vampire who nearly took two of my fingers wasn't waiting for… an apology?
'I'm sorry,' I said at last. 'Sorry… that I hit you.'
'Finally,' Transomnia said, leaning back. 'And I'm sorry that led to all this-but it is over, and as far as I am concerned, we are evenand done. I'm not going to come after you, you're not going to come after me-we leave each other the hell alone.'
I nodded, blinked, and when my eyes opened, he had disappeared.
I stood there, swaying, drinking it all in. Then I stepped up Valentine's corpse. It was still steaming with wisps of color and fire, but fading fast. I stood there, watching him go, my skin tingling with magic as the last streamers from his tattoos faded into darkness.
'Guess what,' I said. 'It turns out I can do a trick you can't do, after all.'
Grimacing in pain, I used the clippers to cut Jinx and Cinnamon down and then tried to free them from the silver barbed wire. Jinx was easy, but Cinnamon was damn near hopeless-and the wires on her wrists cut so deep into the flesh I couldn't get the clippers in there without hurting her more, so I just cut the wires between them, leaving her with two bloody silver bracelets. My hands were tingling with pain, but I tried to carefully clip the wires out of her mouth; when I was done her mouth hung slack and I could barely hear her breathing.
I stared at the others. Wulf looked dead, but Jinx was still whole; Alex and Lord Buckhead were pretty
