Anthony Francis - Blood Rock

“Well… is that it?” Saffron asked, voice ringing with unexpected authority. “Are we all now in agreement? Are we now done?”

“Of course, my Lady Saffron,” the lich said.

“Thank you,” she responded. “Then I am taking my people. All of them. Now. ”

With Vladimir guarding our backs, Saffron, Darkrose, Delancaster and I picked our way out of the wrecked hall. The freed captives were gathering in the foyer: Delancaster’s servants, Darkrose’s bodyguards-and Nyissa’s driver.

Then Iadimus carried Nyissa out to us, and Saffron flinched like she’d been slapped. Her gaze quickly bounced between me and Nyissa, face mottling with rage, and I realized she’d detected the link Nyissa had forged between us. But then, just as quickly, Saffron relaxed.

“The Lady Nyissa stepped up to defend the Lady Dakota,” Saffron said, stepping forward, gently touching the cowl of Nyissa’s robe, “and this was the thanks she got.”

Iadimus stiffened, then let Nyissa down gently into Saffron’s extended arms.

“My most profuse apologies, Lady Saffron,” he said. “It will not happen again.”

We practically mummified our vamps with curtains, then rushed them out to the limo. Even Saffron, covered in a heavy coat, hissed in pain as sun glinted off parked cars; but even after having been starved and forced to drink blood, she did not catch on fire.

We retreated to the Four Seasons Hotel, where Saffron booked a linked set of suites that made my hotel look as shabby as my cardboard box under the bridge. While a servant tucked in the nearly comatose vampires and Saffron called a doctor for Nyissa, I called Cinnamon.

“Mom,” she said, voice brimming with relief. “Are you safe?”

“I am,” I said, and explained what happened. “And are you?”

“Yes,” she said. “We’re with Lord Buckhead in the Underground. “

“Good,” I said. “Cinnamon, honey… Vladimir’s coming to take you back to school. After that… you have to go back and stay with the Palmotti’s.”

Cinnamon was speechless for a moment. “But… Mom-”

“Cinnamon… right now, you can’t stay with me. I’m about to be arrested.”

“No!” she said. “Mom, fuck, you saved the whole city.”

“The police don’t know that,” I said, “and if they find you with me, they’ll take you away. Is that what you want? Or do you want to stay in the Underground, be on the run forever?”

“No. I wants to come home,” she said. “And I wants… I wants to go back to school.”

I felt something relax deep within me. “Then go back to school, love,” I said. “Vladimir will keep you safe until we work this all out. You can trust him.”

“I trusts you, Mom,” Cinnamon said.

We said goodbyes, I closed the phone-and then my jaw opened in shock. Saffron had walked out of the vampire’s suite in her bathrobe, closed the door-and then dropped the robe and stalked towards the window, buck naked but for her bomber goggles.

“I can’t thank you enough, Dakota,” she said, passing me, flaming red hair over ghostly curves, stepping straight up to the window-and throwing the curtains wide. The bright morning sun streamed in, and she hissed and flinched. There was a searing sound, smoke rose from her skin-and then it began to dissipate, and she slowly turned her head towards the sunrise.

“Oh thank you, God,” she said. “I’d just die if they had taken my daylight.”

Something smart alecky, like clearly not, popped into my lips-but didn’t pass them. I stood there watching her for a while, watching the sun gleam off that skin, reddening, first like a rash, then more like real color was returning. Part of me wondered how that worked, made me want to give the papers of the world’s only vampire vampirologist more than a token read. The rest of me was just so glad she was alive.

“Dakota, my behavior’s been unconscionable, ” she said, stepping up to me, then giving me a huge hug in her birthday suit. “Tell you what. I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”

“Uh… deal,” I said, uneasily embracing her naked body. Can you say… awkward! But I knew her well enough to know that while part of her was deliberately tweaking me, the rest of her really did think nothing of it. Oh, Savannah. “Friends?”

“Always,” she said. We hugged again, longer this time. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” I said. “I wish I’d realized sooner you never left.”

There was a knock at the door, and Saffron cocked her head. “Room service,” she said, mouth quirking up in a smile. “Oh, Dakota. I did miss you. I want you collared again, if you really are going to do this ridiculous Daniel-in-the-lion’s-den thing-”

“Saffron,” I began, but room service knocked again, and I gave up. “I’ll think about it.”

“Fair enough,” she said, putting her hand on her hip, still standing there nude before me, the window, God and everybody. “Now.. . I need to sun and feed, I mean, get real human food in me, before the fungal symbiote destroys any more of the outer layers of my skin.”

On the way down in the elevator, my phone rang, and I whipped it out. The number was PHILIP DAVIDSON. I clenched my jaw, found my wits

… and put the phone to my ear.

“Oh, hi, Philip,” I said.

“She said nonchalantly,” Philip replied. “So, Dakota… vampires who haven’t been seen in days or weeks are back on the radar. Savannah Winters charged a suite at the Four Seasons, and Lord Delancaster’s office has called a press conference. And the DEI’s remote viewers woke up screaming that something mammoth went down somewhere in Atlanta around four a.m. I can’t see the whole picture, but I can tell this is all part of the same elephant. Fill an old friend in?”

“Oy,” I said. “All right, Philip. Here goes.” And I told him. Not in half measures, either. I talked, the elevator landed, I kept talking, I crashed in a comfy chair in the lobby and kept telling him as much as I could without giving away any confidences that would get me killed.

“Oy,” Philip said. “You’ve cleaned up a mess, and created a bigger one.”

“Not likely,” I said. “You didn’t see it. You have no idea what we were up against.”

“Then you have to give me an idea,” Philip said firmly. “You have to come in.”

“Philip,” I said. “I can’t just drop by the DEI office. I’ll be arrested on the spot.”

“Right now, we all just want to talk to you,” Philip said. “I can get them to hold off on any new charges at least until we debrief you-I play golf with the U.S. Attorney’s husband. But I can’t do that if you’re on the run. You need to turn yourself in. Now’s the time.”

My eyes widened as a short, rumpled figure wandered in to the lobby of the Four Seasons-Detective McGough. “You aren’t kidding,” I said. “You sell me out?”

“Of course not!” Philip said. As if on cue, Detective McGough noted the phone on my ear, waved politely, and hung back as Philip denied having led him to me. “I wasn’t responsible for the raid on the werehouse, and I’m not going to turn you in now. You can’t do my job if you stab everyone you meet in the back… and besides, Dakota, you’re a friend.”

“Whatever you say, Philip,” I said distantly. “See you soon.”

I hung up, pocketed the phone slowly, and stood.

“All right,” I said, proffering my wrists. “I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?” McGough asked, jamming his hands in his rumpled coat.

“To turn myself in,” I said, lowering my hands. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“No,” McGough said, with a rough shake of his head. “That’s something you need to work out with Rand. I heard through the grapevine you’d be here… and we need to talk.”