Liquid Fire (12 page)

“Sure, but . . .” Cinnamon looked away. “Won’t things eventually blow over with Scara?”

I let out a breath. “When bad shit used to go down in Atlanta, Scara had to track it down
personally
,” I said. “If I just quit, before real procedures are in place that satisfy Scara . . . I’m afraid six months down the road, she’s going to take matters back into her own hands.”

“So you’re stuck with
—fuck!—
stuck with this . . . forever.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “This can’t be a one-woman crusade, or eventually it will all fall apart. Maybe it isn’t like the tree and Lincoln after all. I’m not trying to cut something down, I’m trying to build something up. But I can’t quit until the structure is standing—”

“Well, thank God you haven’t been shot in the street,” Vickman called through the glass, and we both jumped. He was standing on the Eighth Street sidewalk, making “pshoom, pshoom” motions with his fingers like he was firing six shooters. He cupped his hands and cried, “You’d think that little emotional experience with Jewel would have made you more cautious!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, finishing my sandwich. Saffron stood behind him in a new corset over a frilly spray of a dress, but Darkrose was so bundled in her traveling cloak that whatever she had bought was hidden, assuming she was even wearing it. “We’re coming.”

“We desperately need to, as you would put it, ‘crash,’ ” Darkrose said. Saffron opened her mouth in protest, but Darkrose overrode her. “Including you, my Lady Saffron. I insist. I have no intention of going to dinner with the Vampire Court with us all on the brink of exhaustion.”

“All right,” I said, checking my watch. It was almost three. For a vampire, that had to be like staying up until five in the morning, or worse. Abruptly, I squeezed Cinnamon in a big sideways hug, and she squeezed back. “We can go back to the hotel and plan our next—”

My smartphone rang and, with my free hand, I dug it out—it was Jewel. At first, I cheered up; then I recalled I hadn’t felt that way about getting a phone call since Calaphase, and the feeling drained away. I sighed. I hadn’t expected that nerve to be so raw.

“Mom, are you all right?” Cinnamon said.

“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat, then hitting the button. “I’m fine. Hello?”

“Hello?” Jewel said uncertainly. “I’m sorry, is . . . is this Dakota Frost?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to perk up. “Yes, this is Dakota. Sorry. Your call . . . reminded me of something. Never mind—it’s good to hear from you. What a nice surprise, Jewel!”

Cinnamon sneezed and cussed, and Saffron put her hand to her mouth.

“Hey,” Jewel said, then paused. “This is again last minute, but I, uh . . . oh, hell.”

“Yes,” I asked, smiling. Maybe smirking. Everyone was grinning at me. “Go on?”

“There’s an art show tonight,” she said. “Monkton Teriano, the guy who welded the spinning fire pillars at the Crucible, he’s having a showing at Liquid, and a whole bunch of fireweavers are going. Afterward, we’re going to do a performance at Union Square.”

“Wow, firespinning in Union Square!” I said, raising an eyebrow at Cinnamon. “That sounds spectacular. How did you even get a
permit
for that?”

“We
didn’t
,” Jewel responded.

Both my eyebrows shot up. “Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law,” I said. “I’d love to see you spin again, but we’re booked for dinner tonight—”

“That’s all right, Liquid is a nightclub,” Jewel said. “Artist reception is from seven till ten, and then we’ll walk over to the Square and spin until they chase us away.”

The phone was abruptly taken from my hand. “This is the Lady Saffron,” Saffron said, ducking as I tried to take it back, “Dakota’s friend with the goggles. We would love to see you spin fire, and we plan to be there unless hostile vampires drag us away.”

There was a squawk on the phone, simultaneous with one from me as Saffron spun away, listening. She nodded and smiled. “At Liquid, then. All right, I’m going to take Dakota away from you now for some important business, but I will let you say goodbye.”

The phone was thrust back into my hand, and I fumbled with it. “Uh, so, I guess I’ll see you tonight, then?”

“I hope so, Dakota Frost,” Jewel said, and I swore she licked her lips on the phone. “See you tonight, skindancer.”

“See
you
, fireweaver,” I replied.

“That beats ‘Granola and Mohawk’ any day,” Cinnamon said.

“What the hell?” Vickman said. “What are you playing at, Saffron?”

“Yes, my Lady,” Darkrose said. “You know we cannot ditch the Vampire Court—”

“I’m not ‘ditching’ anyone,” Saffron said crossly, adjusting her bomber goggles. “First, I want an excuse, however slim, to bail on this little ‘dinner’ if things turn nasty. And second . . . my ultimate goal here is not ‘ditching’ . . . it’s more of ‘hitching.’ ”

And she smiled straight at me, pulling her bomber goggles up so I could see her wink.

“Oh, hell,” I said. “All right, all right, I know I’m licked. I’ll go, I’ll go—”

“But first things first,” Darkrose said. “We vampires must ‘crash’—”

———

“And then,” Vickman said, “we all try to survive dinner with the Vampire Court.”

12. Red Velvet and Leather

With the blessing of the Conclave, I’d felt better—but I wasn’t kidding myself. The rest of the trip, Cinnamon’s award, even my chance to shake down Alex for my money, all hinged on the approval of a court of magical creatures who were holding my friend Nyissa hostage.

This trip, we took a stretch limo, rather than our rental cars, and that loss of one degree of freedom made me antsy, an apprehension which grew greater as we surged through a chaos of horns and lights toward the stronghold of the Vampire Court of San Francisco.

We pulled in front of the Clift, a forbidding monolith of gray brick and glass, a row of two-story arched windows at its base creating the appearance of a series of pillars. Vickman stepped out briskly, then motioned to Schultze, and then Saffron and Darkrose.

“All right,” I said, squeezing Cinnamon’s hand. “Last row of the gauntlet!”

“They hits me with sticks,” Cinnamon said, “I tears—
fah!
—tears ’em a new one.”

The Clift’s exterior was grim, but the inside? Oh-so-chic. The featureless two-story gray stone walls looked clean, rather than forbidding, and the weird lights and end tables, not to mention a fantastic oversized ten-foot-tall chair, gave the room a hip Seussical vibe.

But behind Jack the Giant’s chair, beyond two smooth stone columns, the calming gray wall rippled up into black, contorted sheets of stone. Fire roared in a pile of stones at its base—and before the fire stood a muscular, weathered man in a business suit of black leather.

Lord Varguson, leader of the Vampire Court of San Francisco.

The Lady Saffron stepped forward, bowing slightly (or was that
stiffly
) in her new red leather corset, and Lord Varguson returned the bow graciously, kissing her hand. I fumed as my ex-girlfriend exchanged court pleasantries like she was a born noble—we’d gone to the same grade school. Vampire nonsense was worse than that of the wizards.

Then Saffron looked back at me, and Varguson’s eyes glinted—not a full glow, just red pinpricks—but that, and the leather, standing before the fire, made him look like the Prince of Darkness. But he seemed to beckon to me, and I stepped forward, not looking in his eyes.

He looked me over, then exchanged glances with Saffron, and they both nodded. Without a word, he turned and walked off. Two mammoth bodyguards I hadn’t seen detached themselves from the shadows, one following him down a dark passageway, the other guarding its entrance.

“Saffron—” I began, but she shushed me. Then the guard touched his finger to his ear and beckoned to us, and Schultze stepped forward, followed by Saffron and Darkrose. As I passed, I noted the guard’s excellent tribal tattoos climbing his neck. “
Nice
linework.”

The guard’s mouth quirked—he’d checked out my tattoos as well. “You too.”

We passed through a dimly lit tunnel of cut black stone into a vast square room hung with red velvet curtains that fell like frozen waterfalls of blood. Everywhere, cut glass and gleaming metal were patterned in subtle harlequins, and the faces of the patrons hovered like ghosts over glass-topped tables illuminated from beneath. We passed a high arch opening on a bar decorated with glowing portraits of uber-chic faux Victorians, and I was struck by one picture, a woman in a cocktail dress staring demurely at her hands—then her eyes moved, looking straight at me.

I shuddered and moved on. A plasma screen. That’s what it
obviously
was, in retrospect. And this might be a vampire stronghold, but it wasn’t an exclusive enclave—the bar and dining area were filled with hip San Franciscans and T-shirted tourists. Vickman had said that this was a neutral ground where
our
three vampires could meet
their
three vampires in an attempt to avoid unpleasantries, but I hadn’t realized that neutral ground meant
in public
.

The guards escorted us to a round table in the inner corner of the restaurant. The table’s semicircular booth was so high-backed, it reminded me of the Alice in Wonderland chair in the lobby. From another stone tunnel, three vampires emerged: a Japanese vampire in a staid black business suit, a Middle Eastern vampire in a stark black dress . . . and then, Nyissa, breathtaking in a purple leather dress with deep décolletage and a sparkling choker.

My first reaction was to relax. Nyissa was safe, not a prisoner. But then I really noticed her outfit, and my breath caught as I followed the pale flesh from the choker down between her breasts. Nyissa gave me a cocky smirk, and I reddened a bit; then I shook it off. Her neckline went to her navel, and she knew I was bisexual, so she had to expect I would notice.

“Lord Varguson, Lady Astryia, Lord Kitana,” Saffron said, again bowing slightly. “So pleasant to see you again, and our thanks to you for your treatment of Nyissa.” Saffron looked at me with a slight smile. “May I introduce to you Dakota Frost . . . leader of our entourage.”

In the corner of my eye, I could now see
everyone
was looking at me; apparently, I was now “on.” Saffron
had
warned me I’d have to speak, but somehow at a dinner, I hadn’t expected the same degree of attention as at the Conclave. But my ex-girlfriend had long since forgiven me for our unnecessarily messy breakup, so Saffron hadn’t put me on the spot on purpose. Perhaps this was demanded of me by some unspoken rule of vampire politics—or perhaps the Vampire Court had demanded this of her, giving these magical creatures a chance to probe my motives before they decided to welcome us . . . or to bar us from the Bay entirely.

“Greetings, Lord Varguson, Lady Astryia, Lord Kitana,” I said, glancing at each of the vampires: the swarthy, vaguely Spanish-looking leader, the fanged Jewish matron, the grave Japanese revenant, all in staid vampire black. “Thank you for receiving us.”

“Thank you for following our protocols,” Lord Varguson said, extending his hand to the table. “Let us extend to you our hospitality. We have worked with the staff of Asia de Cuba to ensure the best possible experience for both our vampire and our human guests.”

So we all sat around the vast round table, the San Francisco vampires lording it in the semicircular booth like it was a throne, flanked by standing guards; our vampires sat opposite, flanked by us non-vamps. Cinnamon sat between Saffron and me, putting me uncomfortably close to the grave Lord Kitana; Vickman and Schultze sat on the other side, apparently not uncomfortable sitting next to the curious, yet oddly reserved Lady Astryia.

“So, vampires have met the Wizarding Guild without violence,” said Lord Varguson. The swarthy vampire lord raised politely a glass filled with a dark red liquid that was almost certainly not wine. “My congratulations to our daywalking guests.”

I stared at that glass.
Oh, shit.
And so, when the waiter reached toward me with that dark, red, unmarked bottle, I hurriedly flipped my glass over. Cinnamon did so as well. Then the waiter reached Saffron, and she raised her hand.

“With all due thanks to our hosts,” she said, “I shall have the house Merlot.”

The waiter looked at her, befuddled. “I’m . . . not sure to what you refer, my Lady,” he said carefully, proffering that dark red bottle for her inspection, even as she leaned back from it. “Your companions have already ordered from the . . . special collection.”

“Yes, but again with respect to my hosts,” Saffron said, bowing her head deferentially to Lord Varguson, “I shall have the house Merlot. The Merlot. As in the wine. It’s made from grapes. I’m sorry, perhaps I am not being clear—
stop
. Please do not pour me blood.”

“Oh,” the waiter said, withdrawing the bottle. “I’m, uh, sorry, I—”

“So it is true,” Lord Varguson said. “You
are
a vegetarian.”

“I shall believe it,” Lady Astryia said, “when she eats.”

“I am looking forward to the menu this evening,” Saffron said.

“I as well,” Darkrose said. “I too shall have the Merlot, with thanks to our hosts—”

“With thanks to our hosts,” Nyissa croaked, “
I
shall drink from the special collection.”

I looked up in shock—I had not heard her voice in six months. Saffron had said she’d been in the hospital—and even though Nyissa’s striking Vampirella-esque dress exposed her from navel to throat, her neck scars were covered with a wide, sparkling choker.

I had assumed the choker was a fashion statement. I was wrong—it was a bandage.

“And to toast another success,” Lord Varguson said. “Nyissa’s operation.”

“Your surgeons are clearly as skilled as you claimed,” Saffron said. “Thank you.”

“We are all in your debt,” I said. Suddenly, all three vampires of the Court of San Francisco looked at me coldly. Hopefully I was not speaking out of turn—I didn’t know the rules of these weird quasi-medieval vampire courts—but this was the twenty-first century, so I forged ahead, “I am
particularly
grateful, as the Lady Nyissa lost her voice in my defense.”

Lord Varguson just stared at me. Unlike an ordinary vampire, his dark eyes did not light up with the power of his aura. His features looked young, but there was something nonetheless weathered about him, something that reminded me of Sir Leopold, the lich. Perhaps Varguson was a relic of the conquest of the New World, like our own Lord Delancaster—another European vampire who, like their human counterparts, came over and made trouble for the natives.

The waiter returned, filled Saffron’s and Darkrose’s glasses. After the waiter disappeared, Lord Varguson, who had been staring at me the whole time, slowly raised his glass.