Saffron’s eyes widened. “I… didn’t even know that was possible.”
“I didn’t either. Incredibly powerful magic-and fast too,” I said, gesturing at my forehead. “That’s how I got dinged-”
“Fast? The graffiti… moved? ” Saffron said.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “You’ve seen my tattoos move, same principle-”
“Oh, do I remember your tattoos moving,” Saffron said, first lascivious, then embarrassed in the very next moment. Cinnamon sneezed, and Saffron raised a gloved hand to her brow. “I’m sorry, that was inappropriate, given the circumstances and company.”
“Yes, please, thank you,” I snapped. “If you would stop hitting on me every time I came over here I would be much more likely to come over here.”
“Dakota,” Saffron said. “I thought we were going to be friends again-”
“ Friends,” I underlined. “Not girl friends.”
“Dakota,” Saffron said reprovingly. “There’s no need to get snippy-”
“I’m goin’ for a walk,” Cinnamon said, hopping up and leaping over the banister of the gazebo, tail fluidly slipping over the rail. She glared back at me. “The reason I said I hates this place is that you always fights when you comes here.”
In the silence that followed, Saffron and I stared at each other uncomfortably.
“Sorry,” I said, embarrassed. “I thought we’d stopped bringing up reminders of ‘us.’”
“Sorry,” Saffron said, equally embarrassed. “You’ve recently bled. It’s, uh, agitating me-and can we please leave it at that? You were trying to tell me-”
“About a magical attack,” I said. “A giant graffiti tag, all magical, all energized. Revenance was trapped in it. It was tearing him apart-”
“Oh no,” Saffron said, swallowing. “Did it-”
“No,” I said. “But it had him effectively trapped. The police tried to rescue him, then I tried. We all failed. He held on as long as he could-”
“But he wasn’t a daywalker,” she said soberly, putting her goggles back on.
“No,” I said. Watching a vampire die was… horrible. I could still hear his screams. I cast about for anything else to talk about. “What I don’t get is how it worked. It held him there for hours. The mana should have dissipated, but it seemed like it was getting stronger. ”
“Perhaps there was a hidden caster,” Saffron said, “feeding magic to it-”
“There was a guy,” I said, describing the jerk with the hat and skateboard, gloating as Revy died. “But he was hundreds of feet away, and there was no magic flowing off him, like from a classical wizard. I can feel it, with these vines. The tag, on the other hand, was just bleeding mana. It was definitely a power source, or maybe plugged into a power source-”
“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully, “it was feeding off Revy. ”
“Can’t be,” I said. “Magic is derived from life force, and vampires aren’t alive-”
Saffron hissed, quietly but with full fangs. “I’m shocked to hear that from you, Dakota,” she said, and with her eyes behind the goggles I couldn’t tell if she was really angry or just messing with me. “I had to devote a whole chapter in my thesis to debunking that myth.”
“Well, send it to me,” I said gladly. “Prove me wrong.”
“It is a bit technical,” she said smugly.
“ I was a chemistry major,” I replied. “I can handle anything the soft sciences put out.”
“Them’s fightin’ words,” Saffron said, turning her laptop towards her with a vicious smirk. “I’ll email it to you. Maybe you can send me comments.”
“Sure,” I said. Then, again bringing the conversation back to Revy, “But even so… he may have been writhing, but he sure wasn’t dancing.”
Saffron paused her search. “Who cares whether he was dancing? Just because he’s not an official skindancer doesn’t mean his writhing couldn’t generate magical power-”
“Except that normal movements don’t obey skindancing rules,” I said, “so the random surges of magic they generate usually average out to a null effect.”
“Could it have been… a magical capacitor?” Saffron said, resuming her typing. “Powered up slowly over time by sapping Revenance’s life force?”
“I… don’t think so,” I said.
“Don’t think so,” Saffron snapped, “or don’t know? Did you think to check?”
“ Yes, Saffron,” I said. What was wrong with her today? The explanation about the blood wasn’t cutting it-the news about Revy had really put her on edge. “I studied capacitor designs after last year’s incident, and I looked for them while the tag was active. I didn’t see any-”
“Well, now that it isn’t, check again,” she said. My face fell, and she frowned. “What?”
“They’re not going to let me back onto the scene,” I said. “The magical investigators, the Black Hats, seemed to think that some clever defense attorney would make hay of a magician-”
“For the love,” Saffron said. “Well, hopefully they took pictureswhat? ”
“Savannah,” I said softly. “This is me. I did doublecheck. But after the firemen put… put Revy out, the tag was a burnt ruin. There’s nothing left to photograph.”
“ Damn it,” Saffron said. “Sorry. I should have known you would look.”
I shrugged. Yeah, but-”Anyway, a tag with that kind of surface area is usually a magical radiator-any mana Revenance generated would just leak away in the air. I’ve never seen such a large magical mark, except for maybe the Harris Mural at Emory.”
Saffron looked up into the air sharply, sun reflecting off her goggles, remembering. The mural was a striking slow-moving magical pageant in Emory’s Harris Hall, powered by the rays of the sun. No Harris School of Magic alum ever forgot its ever-changing abstract colors.
“You should check that out,” Saffron said slowly. “It’s only about twenty-five years old. The painter might still be alive. There can’t be too many people who could paint a magical painting big enough to kill a person-maybe the painter of the Mural could give you some names that could kick-start your investigation.”
“I’m not really investigating this,” I said, taken aback. “I mean, it’s a police matter, and they practically kicked me off the scene-”
“Dakota, you have to look into this,” Saffron said urgently. “I mean, it would be stupid for them to not ask you after all you did for them last year. Who’s more qualified?”
“Rand said as much,” I said. “He seemed to think Philip would want my help, and he definitely wanted me to talk to you on behalf of the Vampire Consulate, so here I am.”
“Well, that will make things… simpler,” Saffron said, oddly uncomfortable. “So, if you are our representative, Dakota… can you deliver a message to the police for me?”
“What? Has someone else died?” I said, flashing back to Cinnamon’s insight. “Savannah?”
“The Consulate has kept this quiet,” Savannah began, “so we won’t anger the Gentry-”
“The who?”
“Atlanta’s old-school vampires,” Savannah said, clearly irritated. “But now the police are involved, we need the opposite tack. We must show Sir Leopold and his crew of wingnuts we’re doing something,” she said, pulling off her goggles. Behind her squint, I could see that she was pleading. “We need someone who knows vampires, and magic, and has good relations with the police: you. We really need your help, Dakota.”
I swallowed. “Help with what?” My head was buzzing with questions, but I was stuck on the idea that she needed me to be her go-between. “What do you want me to tell the police?”
“Revenance isn’t the first vampire we’ve lost this week. He’s the third.”
Educational Experience
“Thanks for handling this, Rand,” I said, slowing the Prius for the turn into the Clairmont Academy’s drive. “Savannah says to call Nagli, she’ll give you all the details.”
“Why can’t she call me directly?” Rand’s disembodied voice asked. “If vampires really are disappearing, they
