“You’ve threatened to kill me if I don’t stop the graffiti. But how do you imagine that’s going to work? Do you expect me to mix up a potion, or break into the Georgia Tech Physics of Magic lab, spin up their magic accelerator and perform an incantation?”
“Well-”
“I’m a skindancer, ” I said. “I ink magic tattoos and dance to bring them to life. I’ve spent the last week learning the logic of the tags, improving my skindancing skill, and repairing some of the tattoos that were damaged in previous battles. I’m as ready as I’m going to be.”
“If you are so ready,” Iadimus said, “then why have you not yet destroyed them?”
“I won’t lie to you,” I said. “These tags have damn near killed me, four times. Each time it was because the tagger chose the time and the target, and either I was the target or I was blundering in to save the target. Now, things are different. I’m ready, I have Cinnamon, I have Tully, I have an intact tag without a trapped victim, and I have a hell of an incentive.”
“Your life,” Iadimus said, “and the lives of your friends.”
“Yeah. But not in the way you think,” I said. “The real reason is that your magic circle is total crap, and the tag is about to bust free and kill us all. Quiet, everyone, and listen.”
The room went silent. In the sudden silence, you could hear a rushing sound, as of a terrific wind. I let the sound rush over me, relished the horrified looks on the vamp’s faces. Then I turned to look at the tag. The whorl was spinning, and the flames behind the city were beginning to rise in a rippling wall of rainbow flame. Beyond it was the source of the noise: within the magic circle containing Demophage’s casket, magic fire was rising in a tornado of flame.
“The tags are both batteries and generators, transmitters and receivers,” I said loudly. “Their magic feeds on not just blood, but pain and death, then stores it up. Even through your crappy magic circle, it was able to absorb enough power and pain from the carnage of Vladimir’s assault to finally activate. Once activated, it can power magic fires.”
Iadimus appeared and consulted with two sycophants, a man and a woman. Scowling, they looked over at me-perhaps they were the magicians that had laid the magic circle I’d just called crap. Well, fine: it was crap. Then Iadimus asked them a question in low tones, and both of the mages nodded-one reluctantly, the other vigorously. Both were scared.
“I’m sure they’ve told you that if the fire breaks out, it will destroy this building,” I said. “But just as clearly you can see that there’s no more material to burn in there. That fire is being fed magically from an exterior source. To stop it, I’m going to need to go into the magic circle, take on the tag and sever that connection. The tagger uses a graffiti-based projectia, so he’s plugged into the circuit. The feedback of destroying this tag will almost certainly kill him.”
The last sentence was a lie, but Iadimus looked at his mages, who slowly nodded.
“Very well,” the lich said.
They bought it.
“Release Tully and give him back his backpack,” I said. “And give me my cell phone. It’s in Velasquez’s breast pocket.”
“Why, so you can call for help?” Iadimus asked.
“And provoke you to kill Darkrose?” I said. There was no one manning the rope at this second, but any guard with a gun or crossbow could do the job in a heartbeat. But then Vladimir stepped forward, and I smiled. They wouldn’t dare kill her while he “Or provoke me to kill all of you?” Vladimir said darkly. I swallowed, and Vladimir looked at me pitilessly. “I want to help you, Dakota, but I survive by preserving my privacy. Do not involve the police, or I will wipe this place out, move on, and start over.”
I stared at him. I hadn’t expected that; I’d thought we were on the same side. Perhaps the lich was right; I really didn’t know Vlad the Destroyer. “Good to know,” I said finally. “In any case, I’m on the run from the police. I’m not going to even turn it on unless I have to.”
“And why would you have to?” Iadimus asked.
I struck the magic barrier with my hand, and a hollow sound echoed through the hall. “Because these are damn near soundproof. Listen to that fire: it’s raging, but you can barely hear it through the barrier, and if you can barely hear that you won’t hear me. If I need you and your magicians to do something I’m not going to play fucking charades.”
“If it’s soundproof,” Iadimus said, “how do you know your phone will work?”
“You can see it. Obviously it’s transparent to electromagnetic radiation.” There were blank looks. “You know, light, radio waves, two parts of one spectrum-”
“Dakota, quit showing off your knowledge,” Vladimir growled. “And the rest of you, quit dicking around. Leopold, give her what she asks so she can get on with it, or quit this place before the fire escapes and kills you all.”
“Just us? Not you?” Iadimus asked.
“He will not die,” the lich said, motioning to his guards, “not even in a fire.”
Moments later, Tully appeared beside Cinnamon and me, left hand squeezed over his bloody right wrist. “The barbs were silver,” he said. “The bleeding won’t stop-”
“Keep pressure on it,” Vladimir said. “The touch of silver may have damaged the outer layers of cells, but it won’t have poisoned you.”
“What are we going to do?” Cinnamon asked fearfully, tugging at her collar.
I took Tully’s refilled backpack and my cell phone from one of the guards and knelt down before the two of them. “I’m going to take us inside the magic circle. Once inside, I’m going to perform the Dance of Five and Two, which will highlight the lines of the tag. Tully-”
“I didn’t do anything-”
“Regardless, you know graffiti magic,” I said, and then, since I knew it would irritate him, I said, “you know it because you’re a tagger. ”
“It’s writer, ” he said, and bit his lip.
“Yeah, gotcha,” I said. “Once the lines of the tag start to glow, you, Tully, will need to identify the mana cycles-the magical power circuit. Then Cinnamon can tell me which points to destroy in what order to create maximum feedback.”
“But I don’t knows how-” Cinnamon said.
“It’s a simple logic problem,” I said. “You’ll know it when you see it. It’s why you’re precious, remember? I don’t need you to explain it. Just see it and tell me. Remember, stay close to me while I’m doing the first dance, then as soon as I tell you, step straight back to the edge of the circle while I’m working. If anything goes wrong, Iadimus’s magicians will pull you out.”
“We will not,” the female magician said.
The lich raised his hand. “Do as she says. We must question them if she fails,” he hissed. “And you must be on hand in case the circle is broken when she takes them through the barrier.”
Reluctantly, the two magicians stepped forward. The lich stood behind one of them; Vladimir stood behind the other. I put my hands on Cinnamon and Tully’s shoulders and led them forward, straight up to the edge of the magic circle.
“How will you stop it from grabbing us?” Tully asked fearfully.
“Arcturus, my master, taught me how,” I lied. “Ready?”
“Yes,” she said, swallowing. “Fuck!”
“All right,” I said, “let’s do this.”
I raised my hands and stepped right up to the edge of the field. I stared at the spinning whorl, at the six arcs of stone, then closed my eyes. For the moment, the magic of the tag was a distraction: I needed to feel the magic of the circle first.
I heard the surging of the magic barrier as it tried to contain the magic within, the muffled roaring of the flames, and beyond that, like a hidden baseline newly noticed on a familiar song, the humming of the spinning whorl as it gathered its power.
I spun, then began shimmying my arms up and down, harmonizing myself with the field. Then I slowly lowered my hands, placing them on Cinnamon’s and Tully’s shoulders. I couldn’t believe I was going to do this, to take us into that torrent of magic.
