“When he bit you,” she guessed. I reddened, and she nodded. “During sex, when your nervous systems were in full contact, interpenetrating.” Her eyes glinted as I squirmed. “But normally, the only time a vampire comes in direct contact with your nervous system is when you look them eye to eye, exposing your retinas to their auras. You probably think by looking away you’re safe. But it isn’t that simple. A vampire’s aura is always on, always hungry for life. I can teach you how to recognize it. How to defend against it.”
I looked at her, not directly in the eye as I had before. “Why-”
“If I make you my client, I must give you protection,” she said. “But protection has many forms. Teaching you to defend yourself would protect you, even if I was not here. Isn’t learning how to do that worth becoming my client? Look into my eyes-”
“No,” I said, looking even more off center. “You’re just trying to sway me.”
“I would love to,” she said, licking her lips. “But… I am not a powerful vampire.”
My eyes narrowed. She was right: she wasn’t a powerful vampire. I guessed she’d been a vampire for at most thirty, maybe forty years. Saffron, in contrast, had matured in a few short years into some kind of cross between a vampire Terminator and a force of nature.
What determined a vampire’s power? Clearly it wasn’t age. I had no idea.
“You have little to fear from me,” Nyissa was saying, “and in truth I can offer you little physical protection. But I can easily teach you how to defend yourself. I know how to thwart a vampire’s aura-I was a wizard before I was a vampire, after all.”
“Really?” I asked. “Isn’t that some kind of no-no?”
“I am lurking in rural Georgia,” she said, smiling wryly. “Still, what of my offer?”
“Sounds great,” I said. She had designed the Stone, after all. She probably had a lot to teach me. “Very generous. But I’m still not going to look you in the eye.”
She looked away, the frown returning to her expression as her eyes searched the air. “No, I suppose not,” she said. “I don’t guess I’ve earned that yet, have I?”
“Not by a long shot,” I said. “And I don’t like that language ‘yet’… ”
“Very well,” she said, picking up the poker again-and once again planting her boot in the center of the limo. “That still leaves the toll.”
I glared at her boot. “Like hell. I am not going to kiss-”
“Please,” Nyissa said. “Vampires who control territory must exact a toll. I’ve already lost my position at the Sanctuary by allowing Lord Transomnia to come in without a toll.”
“Then why did you let him do that?” I said.
“I owe him my life,” she said, and I found myself with nothing to say. “Now, please, Lady Frost, play along. Kissing my boots is the toll I am known for, and being able to claim I exacted it from you will not only enhance my position, but also reestablish some respect for the law within the House Beyond Sleep, rather than the rule of Transomnia’s whims.”
Damnit. Now the crazy psycho vampire with the metal poker was talking law and order to me, and giving me a chance to throw something in the face of Transomnia he couldn’t easily take umbrage at. I struggled on the seat for a moment. Then I broke down.
“ Fine,” I said. “I’ll kiss- peck -just one boot. You have to pick which one.”
Nyissa smiled, her face breaking out with little dimples when she did so. She stared off in the air for a second, holding the poker by her cheek like a fairy wand, then leaned back and pointed the poker at her extended right boot.
Swallowing, I slipped off the seat and knelt on the floor, then went forward onto my hands and knees, cheek falling aside Nyissa’s boot. I could smell the leather, feel the soft, plush carpet beneath my feet, hear her breathing as she leaned down over me.
The car screeched to a halt and we were both thrown forward, me flying between her legs and landing on top of her. Her eyes were thrown wide in total shock as I awkwardly tried to push off her and nailed her breast.
Then the tires squealed and we were thrown forward again as the driver hurled us into reverse, a hail of gravel and dirt roaring beneath the limo as it awkwardly fishtailed, trying to back up from whatever had brought us to a stop.
Nyissa pushed me off her, her hand nailing my breast this time, and I tumbled back into the floor. I flexed and brought my vines to life. Nyissa’s eyes glowed, she raised the poker, and we crouched back to back, staring out the windows as the limo rocked from its hard stop.
The squealing and rattling stopped, but the tires were still spinning. Nyissa and I were thrown onto each other as the limo drunkenly slewed around, lifting into the air. Flickering red light began creeping up under the cracks of the doors and climbing the sides of the windows.
“Oh, God,” I said. “It’s the tagger-”
“Oh, no,” Nyissa said. “He’s going to kill us-”
“That’s far enough!” a voice screamed. “I’ll make you regret coming to Blood Rock!”
A Torrent of Red and Gold
“What the hell? ” I was certain I recognized that voice, and reached for the door.
“No, don’t,” Nyissa said, grabbing my arm with irresistible strength. “Don’t challenge him. Let him rage, maybe he will tire of it and let us go.”
“Let go of my arm,” I said. Nyissa shook her head, and I asked, “This client thing, is it feudal? You protect me in exchange for tribute, but I can also be called on to protect you?”
Nyissa blinked, then squealed as the car rocked. “Y-yes,” she said, shrinking back from the flickering orange light now roaring around all the windows.
“Then let go of me,” I said. “It’s my time to protect you.”
The car rocked again, slewing around, and she released my arm. Quickly I tore off my jacket, unzipped my chaps, exposing as many tattoos as I could. Then I opened the door.
A torrent of red and gold leaves whipped around the car, like a tornado made by the spirit of fall. Giant vines weaved through the storm, not unlike my own, but thick as tree trunks, snapping like giant snakes-and then one struck the car and knocked me flying.
“ Whoa! ” I cried, arms windmilling. A ‘spirit of air’ haiku it wasn’t, but my cry captured my intent and my panicked movement spread the mana I had already been building, making the half-finished wings of my new Dragon erupt from my back in a flare of purple feathers.
Wind caught under them, braked my fall-I wasn’t quite flying, or even falling with style, but managed to twirl downwards like a maple seed, buffeted by the roiling tornado of tattoo magic around me, but not quite knocked from the air. As I stabilized, I saw him.
The wide, strong figure of Arturo Carlos “Arcturus” Rodriguez de la Turin danced in the road, legs moving quickly around the points of a pentagram, arms waving in counterpoint with the grace of a Tai Chi master. His shaggy white hair tossed in the wind of his power. The tattoos of his bare arms and chest didn’t just glow, they blazed, sweeping out around him in a tornado of leaves and vines that swirled beneath the limo, lifting it thirty feet up into the air. From his back, a huge serpent uncoiled, rising up, growing larger, preparing to strike.
“ Spirit of vengeance, ” he snarled-and then he saw me. “Frost?”
He paused his quick dancing steps, and the torrent began to abate. “ Friends of the earth, ease my fall, ” I murmured, and my vines coiled out and below me, cushioning my fall as I touched down on the dirt road, which he’d nearly blasted back to the clay.
“Frost!” he cried, happily, stepping forward. As he did so, Zinaga, who had been leaning against a tree and watching the show with an unconcealed grin, suddenly scowled and turned her back. Arcturus, as usual, did not notice. “I can’t believe it-Dakota Frost!”
He looked genuinely surprised to see me. I wondered what, if anything, that I’d said that Zinaga had passed on to him. Probably just enough to cast me in the worst possible light. Then I looked over my shoulder, up and at the limo, which was now tottering and sinking as the tornado began to break up. Arcturus saw it too, grimaced, looked at me, then grimaced even more. He struggled with something; the glowing snake twisted, reared. Then Arcturus cursed.
“ Spirit of vengeance, spare them my wrath, ” he said, bowing slowly, throwing his hands wide. The limo began to settle gently to the ground, the leaves dispersed, the vines recoiled, and the snake resentfully sank back down into his back. At the precise moment he completed his bow, all signs of his magic dissipated-and the limo’s
