Frost Moon (35 page)

“So old,” Transomnia said, “I barely remember why the deal made sense at the time.”

“You’re his advance man,” I said. “You roll into town, sniff out the lay of the land—”

“And then help him take out his rivals,” Transomnia said. His eyes were burning on me, not hate exactly, but… rage? “But this time, it was supposed to be different. This time, I was going to find someone to protect me, a vampire whose aura was strong enough to bind myself to, someone whose power could shield me from Mirabilus’ control. I found Calaphase of the Oakdale Clan—and then you went and fucked it up. They kicked me out because of you—”

“—and drove you right back into his arms,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

“You couldn’t have,” Transomnia said, still glaring at me. “How could you know all this would happen, just from one little punch? But remember:
you
picked that fight. I was doing my duty, trying to scare you off—but
I never touched you that first night.
.”

My eyes widened. His stayed on me, burning with anger and expectation. Surely the vampire who nearly took two of my fingers wasn’t waiting for… an
apology?

“I’m sorry,” I said at last. “Sorry… that I hit you.”

“Finally,” Transomnia said, leaning back. “And I’m sorry that led to all this—but it is over, and as far as I am concerned, we are
even—
and
done.
I’m not going to come after you, you’re not going to come after me—we leave each other the hell alone.”

I nodded, blinked, and when my eyes opened, he had disappeared.

I stood there, swaying, drinking it all in. Then I stepped up Valentine’s corpse. It was still steaming with wisps of color and fire, but fading fast. I stood there, watching him go, my skin tingling with magic as the last streamers from his tattoos faded into darkness.

“Guess what,” I said. “It turns out I can do a trick you can’t do, after all.”

44. BLACK MAYDAY

Grimacing in pain, I used the clippers to cut Jinx and Cinnamon down and then tried to free them from the silver barbed wire. Jinx was easy, but Cinnamon was damn near hopeless—and the wires on her wrists cut so deep into the flesh I couldn’t get the clippers in there without hurting her more, so I just cut the wires between them, leaving her with two bloody silver bracelets. My hands were tingling with pain, but I tried to carefully clip the wires out of her mouth; when I was done her mouth hung slack and I could barely hear her breathing.

I stared at the others. Wulf looked dead, but Jinx was still whole; Alex and Lord Buckhead were pretty trashed, but they were all breathing, if not stirring; they’d hold. I untied them, prayed to God that they’d hold, and carried Cinnamon up out of Hell. At first I was relieved when I saw that the guards I’d incapacitated were gone, but then I realized that meant they were alive and conscious. I didn’t wait to find out whether they were running or plotting: I just ran straight out into the street.

Knee and hands throbbing with pain, I hobbled out across North Avenue, leaving the Masquerade behind, alternately heedless of and wincing at the gravel and glass scattered across the pavement. I headed straight for City Hall East, for the police entrance, where cop cars left after refueling in the night. One black-and-white was pulling out of the gate just as I stumbled up, and I ran straight for it. They came to a screeching halt just as I ran out of gas, gasping, depositing Cinnamon on their hood.

“Holy Mary,” the driving officer said, only half stepping out of his car, holding a flashlight with one hand and with his other reaching for… his sidearm?

“Help, help, we’ve been attacked,” I said, bending involuntarily as my knee began throbbing like mad. “I and my friends have just been attacked in the Masquerade. I need you to call for backup and ambulances—”

“What the hell you think this one’s been on?” the second officer said, crawling out of the car. “And look at the state of the other one—”

I realized how I must look—bruised, naked, with a flapping black coat, carrying a bloody young girl outfitted in the most realistic tiger costume they’d ever seen. They thought we were drugged-out prostitutes, and were tuning out everything I was saying, assuming I was babbling.
Fuck them.

“My name is Dakota Frost,” I barked. “I’m an expert witness working with Special Agent Philip Davidson of the DEI and Detective Andre Rand of Atlanta Homicide—”

The first officer was frozen, but the second was holding up her hands and saying, “Now, far out, little lady—”

“I have just been attacked,” I said. “I and my friends have been attacked. This girl is dying, and at least four other people are injured in the Masquerade. We need ambulances and backup in case Mirabilus had any other help—”

“Mirabilus?” the female officer said. “Like the Mysterious Mirabilus—”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I said, glaring at her.

“Settle down, now,” the female officer said. “I now you’ve been through a lot—”

Damnit, they were thinking that whatever I’d been through was over, but for all I knew the guards were coming back with shotguns to clean up the evidence. I needed help. We needed help. For a moment I thought of lunging for the car’s radio and calling for help myself, but my dad was on the force: I knew I’d never make it. Something more subtle was required.

So I did the first thing that came to mind. It’s lame, I know, but it works: I swayed.

“Oh God,” I said, tottering. Then I leaned heavily on the hood. “Can—can I sit down for a minute?”

“Sure thing, little lady,” the female officer said. She stepped to the back passenger door and opened it, and I smiled weakly, leaning on the car with one hand as I walked around it—but as I passed the front passenger door I dove in and shot one long arm in to grab the car’s mike.

“Black Mayday, Black Mayday, D-E-I assets down, Black Mayday, Black Mayday—”

“God damn you, you tricky bitch,” the female officer said, hauling me out, twisting my arm round and slamming my cheek to the hood of the car. I screamed and bucked at the pain in my hand, but she twisted harder and pushed me down. “Jeez, she’s strong,” she said, and I winced as a cuff went on one wrist. “Help me—”

I bucked up and clocked the woman in the jaw with the back of my head, and then the other officer surged around the car and pinned me down in. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, grasping my other squirming wrist and cuffing it too. “She’s my
partner—
“

“Go easy,” I heard the female officer say. “Look at what they’ve been through. Between the drugs and whatever their pimp did to them she’s probably out of her mind—”

And then the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard swept over us, a rising, high-pitched purring like a mechanical cat—or a muffled leafblower, sweeping out of City Hall East and swooping over us in a sudden gust of wind. A bright light pinned us all, followed by an eruption of red and blue flashing lights as a DEI Shadowhawk decloaked above us.

“This is the Department of Extraordinary Investigations!” Philip’s voice roared over the PA. “Officers stand down! APD officers stand down!”

“Boy, that was quick,” I muttered under my breath.

The Shadowhawk set down in the middle of North Avenue, its whirling blades whipping over our heads as Philip leapt out, brandishing his badge and shouting, “D-E-I agent! Officers stand down, stand down! DEI agent! Stand down, stand down!”

“Holy… cow,” the officer said, releasing me.

Philip ran up, holding his badge up like a shield, shades glowing red like night-vision goggles and carrying an enormous black combat shotgun carefully pointed away from the APD officers. “Special Agent Philip Davidson, DEI! Miss Frost, Miss Frost, are you all right?”

“I’m not hurt,” I said, “but the tattoo killer tortured Cinnamon to get to me.”

“Damnit!” Philip shouted, staring straight at me, then surveying Cinnamon, the officers, and the rest of the scene in one quick glance.

Then he threw the shotgun over his shoulder and scooped Cinnamon off the hood of the car. “Pilot! I need an emergency evac—”

“If you disappear her, I will
kill
you,” I shouted after him.

Philip nodded, never looking back. “Emory Hospital—special emergencies unit, stat!”

Philip deposited Cinnamon in the back of the Shadowhawk and stepped back, motioning to another officer, who was already grabbing a first aid kit as Philip closed the door and whirled his hand for the black helicopter to lift off. It left the ground in a rising whine, and Philip bore down on us in a whirlwind of debris and rage.

“Half of Little Five Points is bleeding out in the Masquerade,” I shouted. “Alex, Jinx, Wulf, Buck—and would someone get these cuffs off me!”

“Do it,” Philip said. “What are we facing in there?”

“The killer was Christopher Valentine—
yes!
—but he’s dead,” I said, as the female officer freed my hands. “He was controlling Wulf through a magic tattoo. And guess who was helping him—our favorite poseur vampire!”

“Transomnia,” Philip snarled. “Are they still in there?”

“Transomnia skipped, and Wulf is dying and Mirabilus is dead,” I said, “but they had a buttload of guards. I took them out when I arrived—”

“You
took them out?” the first cop said.
“How?”

“Magic,” I responded. “But all of the guards were gone when I came out. I don’t know if they’re gone or just regrouping—”

“Aw, hell,” Philip said, looking off sharply—sirens started blaring out of City Hall East, and I heard more approaching rapidly from the distance. “And now we’re about to get a swarm of badges descending on a sea of Edgeworlders. It can’t ever be easy, can it?”

He stood there, just a moment; then he came to a decision.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Philip said, loudly, as if he was speaking to far more than just the two officers. “We have five victims, including one witch and one werewolf—yes!—at the mercy of the minions of a serial killer. I need you at my back, but be sharp! Don’t plug anyone just because they look odd or furry! Let’s move.”

They ran. I realized he hadn’t asked me where to go, what else to look for. He just ran for the Masquerade, and the two officers followed him without a second thought. I tried to follow, but the pebbles and glass that I had sailed over before brought me to a standstill when I was halfway there. The sirens and the lights grew louder and louder, but I kept walking, walking towards the Masquerade. I was shaking when an officer stepped up beside me, covered my shoulders in a blanket, and sat me in the open door of his police cruiser.

And the rising whine of the Shadowhawk returned—one, then two, then more, backed by a deeper thrum. I and the new officer looked up to see three Shadowhawks decloak around the Masquerade, disgorging black-suited officers that rappelled down to join the fray. Above them, the long cigar shape of a zeppelin was dimly visible, its black metal hide illuminated by the backwash of a huge spotlight.

“Holy… cow,” the officer said, just like the first one had.

“You’re telling me,” I said.

Most of Mirabilus’s thugs were gone. Philip said they rounded up one minion holed up under the bar in Purgatory—Baldy, who turned out to be the same low-rent gun thug that had gone after me during the stage show but ended up plugging ‘Mirabilus’. True to form, the former stage magician had used a plant to ‘fake’ (or at least keep control over) his own shooting. They also picked up a confused and astounded chauffeur who had been waiting for Mirabilus and company to return to his rented car, but Philip seemed to have already checked the guy’s story out by the time he got back to me, two hot steaming coffees in his hands.

“Mirabilus is dead,” he said, looking back at the Masquerade, “but you’re right—no sign of Transomnia.”

“Transomnia helped me at the end,” I said. “Said Mirabilus was using him.”

“He’s an accessory to murder,” Philip said. “You’re not suggesting we let him go?”

I pulled back my right lip to expose my missing molars. “You won’t hear that from me,” I said, “but you won’t see me going after him, even if I thought I could take him.”

“Fair enough,” Philip said. He sighed. “The medics did what they could to revive him but… we were too late to save Wulf.”

“I know,” I said. “I know.”

He reached out and took me into his arms, kissed my forehead, held me while I cried. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

“He just wanted my help,” I said. “Just wanted a normal life—”

“Hey,” he said. “You saved a young girl today, and your friends. We lose some, but we win some.”

“Fair enough,” I said, wiping my cheek. “What about North Carolina?”

“Goose chase,” he said. “We’re holding the girl. She claims she was just trying to create trouble for her boyfriend, but she’s got a relatively new magical tattoo—”

“Controlling charm,” I said.

“Given what I saw of Mirabilus and Wulf,” Philip said, “Oh yeah.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner,” I said.

“Kidnappings always make for tough calls,” he said softly. “You did the right thing. Jinx’s boy Doug
tried
to call it in—”

“Good for him,” I said.
“Good
Doug!”

“Ha,” Philip replied. “But he got routed to 911 hell, very hinky—”

“Mirabilus again,” I said bitterly. “He was bragging about it.”

Philip nodded. “By the time he’d given up and drove down to the police station, the shit had already hit the fan.”

“At least he tried,” I said. “More sense than the rest of us—”

“None of this is your fault,” Philip said.
“None
of it.”

“I know, I know,” I said. But I had trouble believing it, looking over at the ambulances, at the one pulling away, and the one waiting on a body bag to be loaded. “But still… I just have one question.”

“Shoot,” Philip said.

“That damn box,” I said. “Mirabilus didn’t use it to take down Buck, and it didn’t look like he was going to use it in the ceremony on me. He went on and on about the Children of this and the Inheritance of that, but never mentioned the box. But it was far too sophisticated a magic to imagine it was just a trophy. So… what the
fuck
was it for?”

“I have a better question,” he replied. “Mirabilus
was
killing people and taking their tattoos to put on that damn box,” Philip said. “But it wasn’t
his
damn box.”