Anthony Francis - Blood Rock

“W-what are you going to do?” Tully asked, staring at the knife.

I opened it with a snikt. “Make sure the Streetscribe is dead.”

Cinnamon and Tully both stared at me for a second, then ran off to the wall of the cave. I shook my head, and turned towards the wall that had held the tag. At its base, the decapitated head of the monster was disintegrating, fluttering away in giant leafy embers, like flakes of burnt newspaper drifting out of a fire. I then inspected the wall itself. After scanning it for a minute, I convinced myself that whatever had been there was well and truly gone.

Then I walked around the mound and made sure the same was true of the Streetscribe.

When I returned, Cinnamon and Tully were waiting at the shore of the little lake, near where they dove in to avoid the flames. Their eyes grew wide as I approached.

“Gaah,” I said, wringing my hands to try to rid them of the black grease. I spied an old piece of burlap atop the debris and picked it up. As it peeled away from a mound of white powder, it cracked and crumbled in my hands, but there was enough left to get the gunk off. I wiped off Tully’s switchblade, tossed the rag, snapped the blade closed, and extended it to him. “Thanks.”

“Y-you can keep it,” he said, horrified.

“Thanks,” I said, slipping the blade into my back pocket. “Let’s go.”

“Mom,” Cinnamon said. “Mom, your face. You’ve gone… hard.”

I stared at them both a moment, and they both backed up a little. I wanted to tell them it was a hard thing to cut off a man’s head and have it flop out onto the earth beside your feet-and it didn’t make it any easier that it was a blackened corpse. I wanted to chew them out, to list all the people who had died, to scream at them that this wasn’t over.

But there was no point. There was no way, even with a solid knowledge of magic, that they could have known that spraying a little graffiti could have led to all of this. The real sinner was the Streetscribe-and he’d paid for it in full.

“This was a hard day, Cinnamon,” I said. “And I had to do some hard things. But all that matters now is you’re all right. You too, Tully. We made it. Thank you.”

Cinnamon grabbed me suddenly. “I’m so sorry, Mom,” she said. “I’m so sorry… ”

“Don’t you be sorrying me, little Cinnamon,” I said, patting her head. “It’s all over but the shouting. There will be shouting. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

We wove our way out of the cavern, found our way to the dark stone tunnel (after three tries) and tromped back through the sludge to the archway. Half the graffiti was scorched and blackened, but the other half was barely touched-some of it, disturbingly clean.

But when we got to the arch, my hopes fell. The gateway looked like it had been sprayed with a flamethrower, and in spots was actually still smoking. There was nothing left of the tag, which had burst with such force even the stones of the arch were cracked and splintered.

“Well, fuck,” Cinnamon said, kicking a fallen archstone away.

“Great,” Tully said. “A ten mile walk through the Underground.”

“I think we should have expected this,” I said, staring at the blackened arch. The stones were warm to the touch. “Tully, you know the tagger’s magic-do you think that all the tags will have been destroyed along with the master tag?”

His brow furrowed. “N-no,” he said. “Only the gateways, the ones plugged into the… the master circuit. All the freestanding tags will still live.”

“Do any of them have designs like the one we just destroyed?” I said, and at a glance to his face knew the answer. “Oh, damnit, you little fool.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Frost,” he said nervously. He glanced around. “But-but I knows these tunnels, I thinks. I wasn’t lying about that. We can get out if we follows this one.”

“No,” I said. “Actually, I think I know a shorter way out. If we backtrack a little and go one level up, there’s a passage that comes out at Cabbagetown, right near Grant Park.”

“That’s… that’s the lair of the lich,” Cinnamon said. “No, Mom… ”

“No way,” Tully said, jerking back. “No way am I going back there.”

“You’re right, no way,” I said. “Not after all we just went through to get you out of their hands. First, we get you safe. Then, I go deal with the lich.”

“Mom! You can’t go back there,” Cinnamon said. “Your-your vines are gone. Those were your shield! The vamps will be able to-”

“Darkrose is in a cage!” I said. “Delancaster and Saffron are prisoners. And no matter how tough Vlad the Destroyer is, I don’t think he’ll stick his neck out to save them.”

“Don’t you understands,” Tully said. “ They’re going to kill you. ”

I stared off into the distance a moment. Then I drew out my cell phone.

“Maybe if I play their game,” I said, “but not if I play my game by their rules.”

Storming the Fortress

“The deal is the same,” Nyissa said, eyes wide, fingers gripping the poker so hard her knuckles had turned white. “You can have my protection for a drop of blood and a quarter.”

I was back in the limo again, asking a favor of the House Beyond Sleep. But this time, the tables were turned. I was calm and Nyissa was terrified.

Nyissa didn’t want to help at all. As Philip had predicted, Transomnia had skipped town shortly after Philip had called him. The Stone Rose Sanctuary was once again hers. But Arcturus had convinced her she had to do her part in the larger battle-to help free Saffron and Darkrose.

“It is a token of the, of the traditional toll of blood and money,” Nyissa said thickly, “an amount of blood too small to object to, and an amount of money too small to count as consideration under the laws of Georgia.”

“I’m not sure you’ve got the law right on that last one,” I said wryly.

“There is a thin line between vampire dominatrix and outright whore,” Nyissa said, “but I like to keep it drawn. So a token toll is all I demand for my clients to claim protection.”

I stared at her, twisting the poker in her hands. She was scared out of her wits. Then I reached forward and put my hand on her knee to comfort her, as she had on mine… when we were last in the limo headed towards a confrontation. This was getting to be a habit.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “And I’m not asking you to physically defend me.”

“You’re asking me to walk between the Gentry and Vlad the Destroyer,” she said. “The Gentry is unpredictable. You don’t know what they’re capable of. The Destroyer is all too predictable. You have no idea how powerful he is. He’s slain entire armies.”

“He’s not so bad, he’s… ” Cinnamon’s math teacher. But could I say that? Was that betraying the privacy of a man who could slay armies? “He’s, well, he’s not so bad, but that’s not the point. I’m not asking you to fight for me. I’m asking you to give me legitimacy. Weapons won’t save Darkrose. I want to walk into that room with something far more powerful: an idea. The idea that someone not in that room, an unknown quantity in power and capabilities, cares about the outcome. The idea that a fellow vampire lord has authorized me to speak for him.”

“But,” Nyissa said, “Transomnia is not here.”

“They don’t need to know Transomnia has skipped town,” I said. “And we’re not going to tell them the House Beyond Sleep is three vampires in rural Georgia missing their lord. You are the second of a great house, their emissary, and have every right to take this stand.”

Nyissa stared at me. Then she said, “Take out a quarter.”

I dug in my pocket, found one, held it up.