Would you like to go to Canoe, Dakota?”
My heart leapt into my throat and I felt my face flush. Oh. My. God. I had just attracted the attention of a vampire, one who probably chased his steaks with O Positive. Very bad news. I don’t like vampires. I certainly don’t date vampires. And why was I thinking of dating, when I was dating Philip Davidson… Philip, who was off in Virginia, and who was never here?
“I don’t give blood,” I blurted.
“Never on a first date,” Calaphase said with a smile. Then the smile faded. “I’m serious. Never on a first date. It means as much to me as sex.”
“Then how do you live?” I said, brow furrowing. I don’t trust vampires because I was trained as a chemist. Vampires were powerful and fast-so something had to be powering those hyperactive metabolisms. If blood was no richer in calories than a good Frappuccino it would take something like a gallon a day to feed them-and a human can’t safely donate more than a pint of blood every few months. “I mean, the amount of human blood-”
“Cow’s blood, actually,” Calaphase said, a bit embarrassed. “Kosher butchers have been selling it to vampires, both above and below the table, for hundreds of years.”
I blinked.
“I can show you where I buy it,” he said, sipping his Frappuccino.
“I think I’d prefer Canoe for our first, uh, date,” I replied, with a nervous little laugh.
“Call it a dinner in thanks for your service if it makes you more comfortable. Besides, the Lady Saffron doesn’t share well with other clans,” Calaphase said. “Still… is that a yes?”
We were just staring at each other now. I was afraid to breathe. Did Calaphase breathe? Saffron would say, if he eats, he breathes, but I wasn’t sure; come to think of it, vampires were magic. Could his metabolism involve magic? Would our date?
“Are you free tomorrow night?” I said suddenly.
“Yes,” he said. “No-damnit, yes. I will have to return to the werehouse, but I can take a break around dinnertime. I’ll meet you at the restaurant. You’ll feel safer.”
“I’ll feel safer or you’ll feel safer?” I asked, tugging the ring on my collar. “I know I’m safe around a vampire, unless you want a ‘Lady Saffron’ garlic enema. Don’t trust yourself?”
“Oh, I trust myself completely,” Calaphase said, staring straight at me. “No matter how good the dish looks, I know the stew tastes better if you let it simmer.”
Calaphase’s phone rang, more werehouse business, and while he spoke I excused myself with a nervous wave, hopped in the blue bomb and fled out into the dark. My brain was buzzing: finish the paperwork for the Clairmont Academy, buy Cinnamon’s books, get the Prius fixed up, find a good lawyer to handle the adoption and the Valentine Foundation’s missing payments, and, oh, yeah, track down a graffiti killer. There were a thousand things to do.
But mostly my brain was buzzing with the obvious: I was having dinner with a vampire. Oh, man. How did that happen? And why was I so jazzed about it? My palms were almost as damp on the wheel as they had been when Cinnamon had been ready to rip my head off.
I tried to force myself to relax.
So I was having dinner with a vampire. What’s the worst that could happen?
Magical Fallout
“You want me to what? ” I said, bringing the Prius to a screeching stop.
“Stop what you’re doing and stay out of this,” Rand ordered through my Bluetooth headset. I’d called him back, just as Calaphase had asked… but bringing him back on board was proving to be difficult. Rand wasn’t going down without a fight. “This investigation is getting hairy. Having a loose cannon is going to complicate things.”
“But I’ve already started,” I said, and I had. I’d not yet found anything on magical graffiti, but I had found a little on magical pigments and a lot about regular graffiti. Now that I was primed for it, I was seeing graffiti everywhere-on walls, on street signs, even on the street itself. It was hard not to get lost in the raw folk beauty of graffiti, but already I was starting to notice patterns, possibly crews, and even the occasional magic mark, and was convinced we could catch this guy. “In fact, it’s hard to see how I could stop-”
“Try this. Just stop,” he said. “The Atlanta Police Department does not want a registered freelance magician nosing around this case. Especially not if you’re going to help by stirring up a hornet’s nest in the local werehouse and then not even telling us where you were-”
“I tried to tell you before,” I said sharply, “I was not there to stir up a hornet’s nest.”
“Then what were you doing?”
“Trying to get help for Cinnamon,” I said, and the line stayed silent. “She hadn’t changed since she was poisoned… and apparently that shit builds up. She turned early, and I didn’t know where else to take her. I don’t have a radar for evil graffiti. Being there to help was blind luck.”
Rand was silent, so I pressed my case. “Cinnamon’s safe because I took her there, and our werekin friend is alive because I was at the right place at the right time. If you don’t like blind luck, call it dumb luck. Did you really want me to let that boy die, Uncle Andy?”
“No,” Rand said. “No, I’m sorry. The attack’s clearly related to the one on Revenance, so I assumed it was a reaction to you poking around. I didn’t realize it was a coincidence-which actually makes our problem worse. I shouldn’t have hung up on you-”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” I said, starting up the car as the light turned green. I was silent for a moment, just driving, then said, “Not before you got the whole story.”
“Look, the DA freaked when she found out you’d been at the crime scene. We can’t have you connected to the investigation in any way, or we can kiss a conviction goodbye.”
“No way,” I said.
“No way, no how-no investigating,” Rand said. “You’ve got to promise me that you’ll stay out of this-or you might end up attached to the investigation as a suspect.”
“Uncle Andy,” I said. “Are you… threatening me?”
“No, I’m trying to make you see how serious this is,” Rand said. His voice was so stern and important I could almost see his expression. “You have to promise me, Kotie-”
“Oh, please,” I said. I automatically crossed my fingers, then glared at them. I was not going to play this game. “Cross my heart and hope to die? Detective Andre Rand, don’t you think we’re both a bit old for this? This thing murdered a friend, attacked another and almost killed me. I want to help you get this guy. These guys. Whoever it is.”
Rand was silent for a minute. “Fine,” he said. “I love you like a daughter, but I promise you that if you stick your nose back into this I will have you up on obstruction charges.”
“Andre-”
“I mean it, Dakota,” Rand said. “Butt. The Hell. Out.”
And he hung up, leaving me and the blue bomb sailing into Midtown in near silence. Once Midtown Atlanta had been a graveyard of half-filled mid-height office buildings and closed hotels, but now it was having a comeback, with new buildings in brick and stone with nary a bit of graffiti on a one of them, except for a mural, clearly commissioned.
It was new, fresh, vibrant-yet sterile: even though the cars on West Peachtree’s wide one-way expanse held enough people to make a crowd, I felt alone. Sometimes I missed riding my Vespa. No matter how comfy my Prius was, it left me disconnected from my environment.
Then the phone rang, and I blooped it through without thinking. “Dakota Frost,” I groused. “Best magical tattooist in the Southeast-”
“You won’t get many customers with that tone,” the caller said.
“Philip!” I said, smiling with pleasure. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Good to hear yours too, Dakota,” Special Agent Philip Davidson said. You could still hear the warmth, even through the Bluetooth. I wanted to see his face: his wavy brown hair, his cute little goatee, the blue-gray eyes he always hid behind dark glasses. I was glad he couldn’t see me, cheeks red with guilt. I waited a second too long to keep the conversation going, and Philip caught that. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” I said, abruptly, turning onto West Peachtree. “Damnit, no, things aren’t all right. One of my friends, Revenance, was just killed.”
“Rand told me-I’m so sorry. He also mentioned you witnessed a second attack,” Philip said, slipping into his
