Frost Moon (18 page)

“Oh, hon, do you have to?” the girl on his arm said.

“I’m fraid I do, Cheri,” Calaphase said. “Wait by the bar, if you would.”

After the girls walked away, I said: “Tell them what you saw, Cinnamon.”

She stared at her Sprite. “A fucking wooden lid with somebody’s tattooed skin nailed to it.”

“Holy crap,” Revenance said. I didn’t think a vampire could get any paler, but somehow he managed it. “How did—”

“The Feds say there’s a serial killer skinning the tattooed,” I said. “I believe them.”

“Jesus,”
Savannah said, crossing herself, making the other vampires flinch.

I had forgotten Savannah didn’t know, but I just plowed ahead. “After our little tussle I don’t think the Marquis will listen to
me
about anything but… now Cinnamon has seen it, too. I need you to make sure they don’t bust her chops for this. That they take her seriously.”

Calaphase nodded. “Yeah. I mean—yeah. I can do that.”

“If they give you any crap,” I said, “the Marquis can call Jinx for confirmation—she’s ‘seen’ it too, and I don’t think she’s on his shit list, so he’ll trust her. Besides, giving Cinnamon a message to take back may take some heat off her for her little walkabout.”

“That’s… that’s a really good idea,” Revenance said thoughtfully.

“Well, Lady Frost,” Calaphase said. “You’re just full of surprises.”

“It’s just Dakota,” I said. “And just… keep her safe.”

Cinnamon, still hunched over her Sprite, looked sidelong at me.

We closed up and I cornered the waitress: Annie was indeed checking out my tats, and promised to come by the Rogue Unicorn at the first opportunity. While we talked, I noticed Guinness-boy noticing us; cute, nice skin, but
definitely
suitor, not customer. His eyes caught mine again, and I smiled briefly, but then slipped out before he could nerve himself up.

When I strolled out of the massive, raftered dining area into the bar, I found the vampires had rejoined their companions. Calaphase was dismissing his evening companion with a chaste kiss, but Revenance was still working on his, trying to convince her to take a ride.

“See the short, redheaded biker chick?” Revenance was saying. “She’s the Queen of the Vampires in this district… and a Daywalker. She can guarantee you’ll be safe with me. If you ride off with me on my bike and disappear, she’ll blame me—then come open my coffin sometime right around noon.”

Savannah stared at him in shock. “Yeah… yeah, I would,” she said slowly. “And give you a big old garlic enema.”

“Ouch!” Calaphase said. “Stings just thinking about—”

“Oi,” Darkrose said, wincing. “Less graphic, please.”

“I—I don’t know,” the girl said nervously, excited and afraid at the same time, staring up at him with huge, enraptured eyes. “Maybe next time—”

“But how would I find you?” Revenance said, staring down at her, the slightest glow glimmering in his eyes. “Maybe I could get your numb—”

“Maybe we could all get together next week?” I suggested, and Revenance scowled at me. “Same time, next Saturday?”

“I’d like that,” Jinx said.

“Me too,” Savannah said.

“We will be in Africa,” Darkrose reminded her.

“Maybe the week after, then?” I said, unwilling to let it go.

“That would be better for me,” the girl said.

Savannah looked at Darkrose. “I—I suppose—”

“That sounds like a
great
idea,” Calaphase said, putting his hand heavily on Revenance’s shoulder. “Listen to the Lady, she knows stews taste best when they’ve had time to simmer.” Calaphase smiled at his own potential—victim? girlfriend? I didn’t know the rules anymore—evenly, without a hint of a leer; and she just smiled back at him.

“All right, all right, you win,” Revenance sighed, kissing his starry-eyed but relieved companion on the hand. “In two weeks, my sweet.”

“It’s settled, then,” Calaphase said. “Dakota, if the Bear King allows it, we’ll drop Cinnamon off a week from Friday at your place and pick her up here, same time.”

“Sure,” I said, forced-cheerful, trying not to let my voice crack as I put my hand on Cinnamon’s shoulder. I hadn’t bargained on that at all, but—”I’d be happy to watch over her again.”

“Don’t try to sound
too
excited,” Cinnamon said.

“Need a ride back to your place?” Savannah asked as we stepped outside. “It’s not so out of the way if we’re running Jinx back by Emory—”

“No,” I responded hastily. “My bike is a couple of blocks away in LFP, and it’s a nice night. I think I’ll walk it—”

“You
have a
bike?”
Calaphase asked, staring at my long leather vest, which nearly trailed the floor. “How can you
ride
in that thing?”

“I tuck it,” I admitted. “Last thing I want is to get sucked into the wheel of a Vespa—”

“A Vespa!” Calaphase said. “I thought you said you had a
bike—”

“Hey, you,” I said, my face reddening a little. Technically it was a
scooter
and not a bike, but—”It gets sixty miles to the gallon—”

“Can see why you tuck it though,” Revenance said, hopping on his bike. “It’s not just hazardous. Death by Vespa would be downright embarrassing.”

“Death by Vespa!” Calaphase laughed, hopping on his bike. “Take care, Frost.”

“Yeah, Frost,” Cinnamon said, wrapping her hands around Calaphase nervously.

“No helmet?” I asked. “Is that safe—”

Cinnamon rolled her eyes. “Unless the streets are paved with silver—”

“I get it, I get it,” I said, laughing. Then I looked from her to Savannah, who was standing by Darkrose, arm round her waist, not looking directly at me. “See y’all in two weeks.”

“Yeah,” Savannah said, looking up suddenly. “See you then.”

And with that my ex-girlfriend and her vampire lover departed, blind witch and her newfound seeing-eye Doug in tow. Moments later the werecat and her vampire companions rode off on their Harleys, leaving me alone in the parking lot three blocks from my Vespa for no good reason other than my damn stubbornness.

I’m such an idiot.

I strolled past the edge of the bar and thought about running into Videodrome, but it was late and there wasn’t anything I was really buzzed to watch, so I turned onto Highland and headed home.

“Garlic enema,” I muttered to myself, snorting. I had to admit it, I missed Savannah. She could be a riot when she wanted to. And so, surprisingly, could Revenance. “Death by Vespa,” I said, chuckling. I needed to get home before I pissed myself—

“Hey Dakota!” someone screamed. “Catch!”

I looked up, and a dark figure hurled a white barrel straight at my head.

21. PLAYING CATCH

I raised my hands to defend myself, but I was too slow: with a tremendous
CRACK
the barrel broke against my face, knocking me backwards and splashing me with white, sticky goop. The impact lifted my feet off the ground, and I was momentarily airborne; then my back slammed into the sidewalk and all the air left my lungs with a
WHOOF,
leaving me in a red haze, choking for oxygen through a mouthful of sludge.

I coughed and spat and scraped the stinging muck from my eyes, lying back, wheezing for breath. The hull and contents of a splintered five-gallon paint barrel lay splattered around me. Dully I saw marks on the side of the barrel where it had been scored with a razor, and realized it had been
meant
to burst. Meant to splatter paint—all over me. I held my shaking hands up: the religious symbols and the yin yangs were covered in a thick layer of white paint. In terror I looked up at my assailant.

Transomnia stood over me, eyes twin red coals.

“Let’s see you use your marks now,” he said, and kicked me in the ribs.

I cried out. My body thudded backward against the wall of a nearby car, but before I could get up or roll away he kicked me again—and again, and again. In the ribs, in the face, cracking against the side of my knee. Not savagely, not with vampire strength, but deliberately, methodically, so the pain built, as I scraped and skidded across the pavement and he casually, oh so casually, savaged me.

“Can’t kill you—”
CRACK
“—can’t drain you—” CRACK “— can’t even
rape
you—” CRACK! “—but I can make you pay for humiliating me.”

I started to say something. I don’t know what it was. He kicked me in the teeth, and when my hand instinctively went to my face he seized it with immense strength and pinned it to his knee, prying my fingers apart and then crushing the little fingers and thumb underneath his viselike hand so my index and middle fingers waved helplessly in the air.

Then he pulled a pair of pruning clippers from his long black coat.

“Oh, God—”

Transomnia backhanded me casually with the hand holding the clippers, gashing my forehead. “I want some souvenirs,” he said, grabbing my fingers within the V of the clippers and squeezing down so hard I squealed in pain and twisted my head into the pavement, bawling.

“Look at me,” he said. I twisted my head away, and his grip tightened, making my trapped knuckles pop. Then he squeezed again, and I felt the clippers draw blood. “Look at me. Do it, or lose them.”

I looked up, saw my fingers in the curved beak of the pruner, and his unsmiling face. His makeup was gone, making him look older, leaner, meaner. I looked into his cold red eyes—and knew he could do
anything.

“That’s right,” he said, releasing his grip on my hand but keeping my fingers trapped between the blade and hook of the pruner. “According to this little thing—” and he grabbed my protective collar so hard I began choking “—I supposedly ‘can’t’ even maim you. But I
can.
I can walk away from here with ALL your fingers and leave you with stumps. I’ll put them in the blender when I get home, one by one, and think of your stumps. You’ll never tattoo again.”

He released my neck, and I croaked: “Duh-don’t take my haands—”

He backhanded me, hard, and I felt a tooth loosen in a warm, metallic flow of blood. “Don’t speak to me. Don’t ever presume to speak to me again. Got that, bitch?”

I nodded, slumped on the pavement, staring at his boots.

He twisted my hand back and forth a bit, squeezing experimentally. I cringed. Finally he said, “You’re not worth it,” and released me—kicking me, vampire hard, in the gut.

My dinner spewed out onto the sidewalk. I alternately coughed and gasped for breath. Finally I just lay there at Transomnia’s feet, dry heaving staring at my bloody, twisted hand.

Distantly I heard voices, running, shouting—and the savage barking of a dog.

“‘Oh, look, the cavalry!’” Transomnia mocked, pocketing the clippers, looking off in the distance. “But if I’d meant to maim you for life, you’d be lying there wearing a bloody pair of meat flippers now. And I can have you again, anytime I want, and nobody can stop me—not that dandy or his maid or her Queen of de Nile. You’re my bitch, anytime I want—bitch. And next time I
will
get creative. So never cross me again. Ever. Ev-er.”

I let out a low moan. But I nodded.

The barking dog was almost upon us now, but I never saw it arrive: the last things I remember were Transomnia casually kicking the side of my face, a spray of blood, and one of my teeth skittering out across the pavement.

22. ROADKLLL

The fingers of my right hand were bandaged—
all
of them, one two three four five.

Thank God.

I lay back in a fuzzy haze. Bright lights shone in my face. A man was asking me to count. I looked aside, and a doctor was talking to a nurse. I asked, “What?”

They looked at each other. “She won’t remember any of this.”

Now my knee was itching something fierce. I picked up my hand again, staring at the bandaged fingers. I seemed to see Andre Rand through them, hunched over the edge of the bed, praying, but when my hand fell to the bed, I saw Special Agent Philip Davidson.

“What?” I said again, looking around. It was a hospital room. Emory Hospital.

Philip sat up abruptly. “You’re awake before me,” he said, blinking sleep from his eyes. “Good. That’s promising.”

He’d been sitting backwards in an armless hospital-issue guest chair, hunched over the backrest, staring at my knee. I reached down, cautiously, with my bandaged hand—it hurt, but I could move it— and pulled the sheets aside to reveal a white bandage on my right knee.

“What?” I asked again, then marshaled myself. “What the hell?”

“That’s my Dakota,” Savannah said.

I gasped. Savannah stood there in the sunbeams in a red leather dress—
the
red leather dress, the one I liked, simple and asymmetrical, peaking high over her right breast and sweeping down over the curve of her left. The bottom hem was cut at a similar angle, exposing her right thigh and sweeping down, mirroring the angle of the sunlight shining down on the bare flesh of her delicate bare calf and ankle.

“Savannah,” I said, caught with sudden horror. “The sun—”

“S’alright,” she said, smiling, adjusting her bomber goggles. “I’m a daywalker. Besides, the glass soaks up a lot of the UV.” She held up a light monitor she carried around her neck—and if I knew Savannah and the red dress, the monitor and the goggles were the only other things on her curvy body. “As long as I keep an eye on the levels, I’m safe.”

“You look… spectacular,” I said.

“You
look like crap,” she responded. “Just this shy of Roadkill.”

‘Roadkill’ had been my costume at the last Halloween we’d spent together—layered makeup and printed tire tracks that had actually made Savannah nauseous—and now that she’d pointed it out I winced, feeling what must be stitches on my forehead and some crusty crap on my cheek. In fact, aches and pains were popping up
all
over my body, there was a gap where two of my back left molars should have been, and my left eye didn’t want to open all the way. No wonder I reminded her of ‘Roadkill.’

“So this
really
is your girlfriend?” Philip said, a half smile on his face.

“Ex-girlfriend,” Savannah and I said simultaneously.

“Your ex here used a little social engineering to waltz straight through our police barricade.”

“I didn’t lie,” Savannah said, scowling but embarrassed. “I said I was here
as
her girlfriend. There’s no statute of limitations on girlfriendiness, is there?”