the werehouse, in full animal form. A young, slender wolf came up and fawned before him, but the Bear King batted at it. The wolf whined, rolling on its back, exposing its white chest marred with a ragged stripe of bloody fur; and then it looked at me with Tully’s eyes. He was safe. The werehouse was a rough place, but they cared for the least of their own. And that meant, somewhere behind me in the werehouse, Cinnamon was safe too-at least while she struggled through her change.
But a thousand glowing eyes still stared at me hungrily from the darkness.
“On behalf of the werehouse, thank you,” the Bear King rumbled. “Now leave us.”
Sweet and Sticky
Less than a quarter hour later, but seemingly a million miles away, Calaphase scowled, eyes closed, brow furrowing in pain as he took the straw of the Frappuccino from his lips. I winced in sympathy. “Is even liquid food too hard on you?”
“Yes-no,” he said, kneading his brow. “Drank too fast-brain freeze.”
I laughed.
The Starbucks in Vinings was in a quaint little converted house tucked into a cluster of similar shops off of Paces Ferry Road. Vinings was a full mile inside Atlanta’s northeast Perimeter, but the steep hills and dense forest made it feel like a cozy mountain outpost. The cafe’s outdoor patio was cradled in clusters of trees and bushes, and in that cradle we lounged beneath the warm light of a heating lamp-and while the vampire was trying his best to suck down the moral equivalent of a coffee Frostee in the beginning of January, I was drinking a hot chai latte and feeling it down to my toes, thank you very much.
“Why did we come all the way up here?” I asked, grinning as he put the delicious sludge down. “There’s a Starbucks up South Atlanta Road, not a mile from the werehouse.”
“Do you know where all the Starbucksen are in Atlanta?”
“Not all of them,” I replied. “And you ducked my question. Why here?”
“One,” Calaphase ticked off with his finger, “the cats here know me and blend the way I like, rather than just handing me a cup of crushed ice with coffee poured over it. And two… Vinings is inside the Perimeter. Safer for you.”
“I wondered why you ran us down all those back roads,” I said. To mundanes, the Perimeter was Interstate 285, twin ribbons of asphalt that ringed Atlanta like a black eye. To Edgeworlders, it was a mammoth magic circle, protecting the residents within from the full chaos of the magical Edgeworld. Fae battles and demon possessions didn’t happen here.
At least, they didn’t happen… much. The vampires saw to that. I tugged at my steel collar. It was the sign of Saffron’s protection, but it didn’t mean too much OTP-”Outside the Perimeter”-where the delicate truce established by civilized vampires broke down.
Most humans never noticed, of course, but an Edgeworlder traveling outside the safe zones had to watch her back. There were rules, as old and ancient as those governing trolls under a bridge. First and foremost, you didn’t expose Edgeworlders without their permission.
That, of course, hadn’t flown with Rand when I’d called in to report this new graffiti attack. He blew up at me when I refused to divulge our location, cussed me out, in language more suited to me than him. And then he hung up, on me! And rather than support me…
“You can’t tell Rand where the werehouse is,” Calaphase said, with quiet authority. Calaphase and I had met most often at weekly meetings at Manuel’s Tavern, with Saffron and our mutual friend Jinx. My memory from Manuel’s was just gleaming blue eyes flashing across the table, but close up his hair was wiry gold, his skin like polished ivory. “You know the rules.”
“I know, I know,” I said, still avoiding his eyes. “I won’t out an Edgeworlder. But that’s going to make things difficult. Someone’s got to analyze the crime scene, take pictures of the tag. Secrecy will make it harder to find the bastards that killed Revenance-”
“Bastard s?” Calaphase asked. “Plural?”
“The tag had the same motifs as the one that killed Revenance,” I said, “but not the same style. They were inked by two different people. This isn’t one tagger. It’s a crew.”
Calaphase stared off into the distance, thinking. “This is bad,” he said. “Revenance dead. Two more vamps missing, plus Josephine. And now this attack. Look, talk to your pet cop-”
“Andre Rand is not a pet,” I said. “He’s like an uncle. I can’t believe he hung up on me.”
“I can’t either, Dakota, but call him back,” Calaphase said, again with quiet authority. “We’ve got to investigate this, but we can’t lead cops to the werehouse. Rand will have to work through you. Get him on board and ask him what evidence you need to collect.”
“I’m not a crime scene investigator, Cally-”
“Then learn what you need to do,” Calaphase repeated. “Get a copy of Criminology for Dummies if you have to. When you come for Cinnamon on Thursday, you can take pictures-”
“Wait, what about Thursday,” I said. “I’m coming back tomorrow.”
“No, Dakota,” Calaphase said, staring off into the distance with the same quiet finality. I glared at him, about to speak, but he abruptly looked over, his blue clear eyes meeting mine. I quickly looked away at the table, and he sighed. “I’m not going to put the whammy on you. You can look at me. Please. Look at my face, if not my eyes.”
Reluctantly I looked up, not quite directly meeting his gaze. It was a pity that he was a vampire, that his eyes could project his aura and work on my will. Otherwise I would have enjoyed gazing into them, two gems of blue sky embedded in a statue of dark cruelty.
“The werehouse is a private haven for a private affliction,” he said gravely. “No police, no outsiders-and especially no fresh meat on the full moon.” His eyes sparkled. “Unless you’re planning on providing a one-time catering service for Wednesday night’s hunt.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “When you put it that way-what time on Thursday?”
“Right at six-the moon will just be coming up, but the sun will just have gone down, so I can protect you,” Calaphase said, taking a sip of his Frappuccino. He got the same pained expression, and this time I was certain it wasn’t a brain freeze.
“What gave you the idea to eat human food?”
“Not a what,” Calaphase said, eyes still closed, now just as clearly savoring the taste. “A who. You, Dakota.” His eyes opened, catching the shock in my glance before I looked away, and he laughed. “This is the Saffron diet. You told her to try human food.”
“I did?” I asked… and then I remembered. “I did. When she was thinking about becoming a vampire, she told me she’d have to give up human food-”
“And you said, ‘Why? Aren’t you going to even fucking try it?’” Calaphase responded, miming my diction uncannily. “And so she did. Every vampire tries eating rare steak and pukes it up. Saffron analyzed vampire digestion, started off with sugar water, and built up from there.”
“So… if it’s so bad, why torture yourself? Are you going vegetarian-”
“Hell, no,” Calaphase said. “I love the taste of blood. But… Saffron’s a daywalker, Dakota. She can stand in the sun and not catch fire. And she thinks a diet of human food-ahem, a diet of food humans eat-has a lot to do with that.”
“Did Revenance follow the Sav-uh, ‘Saffron’ diet?” I asked, pleased and horrified: pleased that vampires were cutting back on blood, and horrified that it might loose these predatory superhumans onto the daylit world. “He lasted a long time under a cloudy sky.”
“So it did work,” Calaphase said. “Revy always was bolder than me. Since I started the diet, I’ve felt less oppressed by the daystar, but I’ve not been brave enough to face it.”
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry,” I said quietly. “He survived the clouds… but direct sunlight killed him.” That unpleasant reminder hung there between us, and Calaphase took a sip of his beverage, again staring off into the distance. Eventually I filled the gap. “So… where are you on the Saffron diet?”
“I could show you. Canoe is my current favorite restaurant in the area,” Calaphase said. “You’d like it. I should take you there.”
I blinked. “Did… you just ask me out?”
Calaphase blinked as well. “No, I was just thanking you for-” he began… and then stopped. Then he looked me straight in the eyes, blue gems gleaming in that handsome statue, and said, with quiet confidence, “Yes, I did.
