“Something really horrible,” I said, pointing at a join on the network. Arcturus had taught me something new, just in this short week. “Look at the corresponding point on the Pentacle. This isn’t a chi junction. It’s an intent nexus. That’s why the network transports people.”
Arcturus stared at the map, then the Pentacle. “How do you figure that?”
“Extracting a person’s intent is a short-range process,” I said. “And these points on the Pentacle are points of pain. It moved Revenance-it moved me and Calaphase-to the place which needed the most pain to be applied. This network is collecting suffering.”
“God,” Arcturus said. “We must stop this.”
I laughed bitterly. “No argument.”
He nodded a couple of times and took another swig of his limonshine. “I have to call the vampires,” he said with distaste. “I don’t believe this. I’m going to call the bloody vamps. I’m going to thank them for their gesture, then propose we work together to eliminate this threat.”
My eyes widened. “You’ll… you’ll fight with me against the tagger?”
“What? No… I can’t leave Blood Rock, Frost,” Arcturus said, pained. “I can’t afford to be outside the Sanctuary circle, much less appear in public. I am marked for death.”
I stared back at him. “You’ve been here, what, twenty years… ”
“It does not matter how long you hide,” he said grimly. “If you kill the right person from the wrong family, you do not appear in public, ever. Not even to fight this. It’s a rule.”
“Who did you kill?” I asked, immediately regretting it.
Arcturus looked away, took another long gulp of limonshine. I followed his eyes. He was staring into the house, into the open sliding door of the den, staring at a small picture on the coffee table. I didn’t need to get up to know it was a picture of his wife and daughter.
After what seemed like minutes, Arcturus cursed and set his drink down. “I cannot think with all this racket,” he said, and stormed into the house. Then my mouth fell open as Arcturus picked up the phone savagely and snapped, “What the hell do you want?”
I swallowed. I had successfully tuned the phone out after Arcturus’ speech. For him to pick up the phone, my questions about his family must have really rattled him. Or maybe it always rattled him, and he was putting on a brave face to forget what he’d lost.
“Yes, speaking. Who are-yes, right again,” Arcturus said. He grimaced, then picked the phone’s cradle up and walked over to the door, and I sat up in alarm. “It’s for you.”
“ How? No one knows I’m here,” I said. “Who is it?”
“God damned Bespin, sounds like.”
“Bespin? I don’t know a-” I said. “Oh. Where Luke went after he bailed on Yoda.”
“Yeah,” Arcturus said. “This is why I hate phones. If you take the call, you have to act.”
I stared at the phone, then took it. “Hello?”
“Dakota,” Philip said, a bit strangled. “God, I hope your line isn’t already tapped.”
“Philip,” I said. “Oh, Philip, how did you-”
“I got your cell phone records, tracked your recent calls-and the last one got me Transomnia,” Philip said. “To get your location, we had to trade some information. I told him to ditch his phone. He’s probably gone to ground. He’ll be harder to track now.”
“It’s all right, he’s… not wholly evil,” I said. “But why risk it? What’s happened?”
“Palmotti’s filed a missing persons report,” Philip said. “Cinnamon has disappeared.”
The Hunt is On
“Vladimir,” I said, into a spectacularly disgusting gas station pay phone, “tell me Cinnamon showed up for her afterschool math club.”
“Why, yes,” he said. “She just left.”
“Thank God, and damnit,” I said, glancing around. I half expected an army of spring-loaded cops to descend on me at any moment. I know the drill. If the police can’t find a fugitive, they let it be known that the suspect has won a prize-or that her daughter has disappeared.
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s gone missing from the Palmottis,” I said. “He’s filed a missing persons report.”
“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “And here I was thinking things were going better. She’s actually been at school. Didn’t Palmotti even think to call us?”
“Maybe he did,” I said. “Who knows?”
“You haven’t talked to him?”
“Not yet. And frankly, I’m scared to, and not because I’m forbidden to see Cinnamon.”
“Why, Dakota?” Vladimir asked, voice filled with concern. “It isn’t the police, is it?”
Oh, damnit, me and my big mouth. Instinctively I trusted Vladimir, and had been talking to him as if I’d already taken him into confidence. I hemmed and hawed; finally, I gave in.
“Yes,” I said. “They started looking for me because I was on the scene of the Candlestick fire, and have been loose while fires have been ravaging the city.”
“You’re taking a risk even calling me,” Vladimir said, even more concerned.
“Yes,” I said, and explained how Philip had tracked me with my cell phone. “But a random payphone is probably safe, at least calling you. They’ve probably tapped the Palmottis’s phone-my daughter is there-and maybe the phones of my close friends. I would.”
“You’re probably safe making one call per payphone,” Vladimir said, after some thought, “if you’re willing to hang up and drive for twenty, maybe thirty minutes after the call.”
“Vladimir! I’m shocked,” I said. “I didn’t mark you as devious lawbreaker.”
“I read a lot of suspense novels,” he admitted. “But if you’re willing to spend one call, why not go for broke? Why not call the police directly, tell them you’ve nothing to do with the fires and ask for news about your daughter?”
“I take back my crack about devious, Vladimir,” I said. “Switch to true crime books. The police won’t believe me because I call and sound concerned. They won’t believe anything short of me turning myself in so I can rot in jail while the tagger burns the city down to the ground.”
“If you do turn yourself in, and the fires keep popping up, wouldn’t that clear you?”
“Maybe, but I’m not going to sit on my ass in the Fulton County Jail while Cinnamon’s gone to ground, probably to precisely the same places this werekin-eating graffiti is likely to be found. Turning myself in for something I didn’t do is an absolute last resort.”
“Jesus,” Vladimir said, after a long pause. “What’s that going to do to your case?”
I blew out a harsh breath. “Oh, hell, Vladimir,” I said. “Nothing good, but I can’t think that far. We need to find her and get her back to Mister Palmotti, or at least find her some other kind of protection, before she gets killed. Once she’s safe, we worry about saving the case.”
Vladimir was silent for a moment. “Dakota,” he said. “You weren’t this worried about her safety the last time we spoke. What’s happened?”
Without thinking… I told him.
About Calaphase’s death. About Revenance’s death. About the attacks on Tully, on the werehouse, at the Candlesticks. I told him how hard the graffiti was to fight, what it could do-and how Arcturus and I had pieced together that it was part of a far greater spell, a citywide network of death, one Doug believed was beyond any magic or science known to man.
“Oh my God,” Vladimir said. His voice was trembling. I’d forgotten I was speaking to a math teacher and not one of my normal Edgeworld contacts, and that taking someone into confidence didn’t have to mean dumping off all my woes. “What are we going to do?”
“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “Focus on what we can do. Go after Cinnamon, if she hasn’t been gone too long, and get her to wait for Mister Palmotti. If not, find a pretext to call him and let him know she’s been seen-but don’t mention my name. If you see her again-”
“I’ll make her wait for Mister Palmotti,” Vladimir said.
“ No, ” I said. “Don’t make her do anything. She’s a werekin with a large beast. She can take a bullet, lift a car, and run like the wind. Don’t spook her, or she’ll go to ground.”
“Maybe I’ll just ask her to wait for Mister Palmotti,” Vladimir said.
