Liquid Fire (21 page)

“I’m afraid,” Carnes interrupted, “I do
not
know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come now,” I said. “How did you get this number? I didn’t give it to you. You had to get it from the goon you sent to the airport.”

“Ferguson is not a goon. The purpose of his visit, as he
should
have stated—”

“He
did,
” I said sharply. “We figured out what you were doing with him—”

“What we were doing,” Carnes said, “was giving Ferguson a chance to show his mettle, and giving
you
the opportunity to gracefully bow out of your trip—which you were free to decline, as you did. And yes, he did pass along your message to me—”

“Along with
your
thinly veiled threat about my safety on the streets of Oakland,” I said, “after which, if you recall, my friend was assaulted on the streets of Oakland. I thought they were unrelated until I saw the magical symbols on
your
tie
billboarded
across Union Square—”

“What?
Jesus,
” Carnes said. He was quiet on the phone, but I could hear clicking, as of a web search. Finally, he let his breath out like a hiss; I guessed he’d found a picture. “I hadn’t looked closely, but I see the resemblance. Look, Frost . . . we got off on the wrong foot. I didn’t order these assaults, and if you didn’t instigate those fireworks, then . . . I’m disturbed to see a magical assault in public, much less
Union Square
. My eldest
daughter
shops there—”

“Sorry to hear that. About the proximity, not the shopping. I hope she’s OK.”

“Yes, she’s—that’s not the point,” Carnes said. “I’m worried about . . .”

“Yes?” I said, after a long pause that drew on to the point I worried about my cell battery.

“Well, frankly, I’m worried about you, Ms. Frost,” Carnes said. I blinked—he sounded completely sincere. “I didn’t want you here because I was afraid you’d be a disruption, and clearly, I was right. But there are disruptions, and then there are outright attacks—”

“Not everything is about me,” I said. “My friend appears to be the target.”

“Same one from Oakland?” he asked. “What’s her relationship to you?”

“I—”
think she’s cute.
My cheeks reddened. “I just met her on the plane in.”

“Hell,” Carnes said. “She’s that fire magician, the Queen of Fire, right?”

“Princess, I think,” I said.

“Right,” Carnes said. “Alex Nicholson told me about her. I think I’ve even seen her perform, in Paris, if I recall. So . . . a visitor to the City has suffered two magical attacks. I’m going to take you at your word you weren’t responsible, Ms. Frost—”

“And I’ll take you at your word that you weren’t, Mr. Carnes,” I said. “But if this doesn’t have anything to do with you and me, then whatever disagreements we have are a distraction. We need to—well, that is,
I
need to focus on Jewel’s safety—”

“No, you had it right the first time,” Carnes said tightly. “I can’t speak for the Guild, but I’m not going to sit by and let magicians get attacked, not in San Francisco, not on
my
watch.
We
need to keep your friend safe. We need to get to the bottom of this. And we need to stop it.”

Now the pause was on my end of the line.

“Do I hear you right, Mr. Carnes?” I said, not trusting him for a second. “I’m hearing the kinds of things I was saying at the Conclave, the kinds of things I’ve been saying to my own Magical Security Council for months. Do I have you on board, Mr. Carnes?”

“Yes,” he said even more tightly. “I swear to you, though, if this is some kind of plot—”

“I swear too,” I said. “Don’t be playing me, as my daughter would say, or I—”

“No, no,” Carnes said. “Of course not. On that note . . . did she collect her award?”

“Uh . . . not yet,” I said. Carnes kept throwing me—I’d been ready to pigeonhole him as “foe,” but he seemed to actually . . .
care
. I told him about the talk. “We thought it was going to be a dozen people in a conference room, and it was three hundred in an auditorium.”

“That . . .” Carnes began, with a laugh he quickly suppressed. “That must have been challenging, Cinnamon, isn’t it? I know you’ve got . . . things you struggle with, and it was brave of you to step in front of all those people. Your mother must be very proud of you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Cinnamon said, oddly muted.

“So, Frost,” Carnes said, suddenly serious. “We both know what this is for.”

“I take your meaning,” I said, looking at Cinnamon. The man had daughters too.

“Make my job easier,” he said. “Give the Conclave their quid pro quo. Convince Lord Buckhead to meet the fae. You don’t know what that will mean for all of us—”

“First, Carnes,” I said, “I do not control Lord Buckhead, so no promises—and no stalling on this problem waiting for his cooperation. If this is a threat, we act on it.”

“Look, Frost—”

“It’s your jurisdiction,” I said, and there was silence on the other end of the line. “It
is
your jurisdiction. All I can do is advise.
You
will tell
me
what to do, unless you want another arrangement.” He remained quiet. “
Do
you want another arrangement?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “It would make things easier. Let me consult the Guild.”

“All right,” I said. “And second, Carnes, Lord Buckhead is a friend, and a . . . strategic asset of Atlanta. I’m not asking him to come out here unless we can get assurances of his safety. The last time a wizard wanted to meet Lord Buckhead, it was a trap.”

Carnes snorted. “What wizard tried to take on the Lord of the Hunt?”

“Christopher Valentine,” I said, “better known as the Mysterious Mirabilus—”

“Mirabilus?” Carnes asked. “The
stage magician?
”

“Only on TV,” I said. “Valentine was, in secret, a member of secret skindancing cult and an extremely powerful magician. Lord Buckhead called him the Archmage—”

“Fuck me!” Carnes said. “I’ve heard of him, a
nasty
piece of work with a huge trail of bodies in his wake. I guess he bit off more than he can chew, taking on a fae god.”

“No,” I said. “Lord Buckhead tried, but . . . the Archmage planned his attack well. He took him out in under a minute. I had a center stage seat for the whole show.”

“The Archmage traditionally kills those he defeats,” Carnes asked suspiciously. “How did Lord Buckhead survive? For that matter, how did you?”

“Do you never read the news, Mr. Carnes?” I said. “I defended myself—”

“
You
took on the Archmage and lived? I don’t believe it.”

———

“You don’t have to take my word for it,” I said, pulling the rental to a stop in front of the Valentine Foundation headquarters. “It will be all over TV this fall.”

22. Godwin’s Law

The Valentine Foundation headquarters was a grey stone structure in the hills south of San Francisco, overlooking a little town called Burlingame. At least, the
signs
said we passed through the “City of Burlingame”; however, climbing the windy road toward the Foundation, I had seen no clear city boundary. Only the odd trees set this place apart—thick, white-trunked, almost like massive birches except for the rich, dark green foliage.

I slammed the door of the rental and stared out over the suburbs and into the Bay. Trees rose through a sea of homes like reeds in a marsh; beyond them hotels and offices, shrunken by perspective, clustered like piles of white toy blocks in a green carpet; and beyond them, washed out by distance, the Bay, mountains and sky stretched across the vista in three stripes of blue. The view was spectacular—Valentine had spared no expense acquiring this land.

Then Cinnamon got out of the car, and my blood boiled. Valentine had deceived us all, and Cinnamon had almost died because of him. How much of this land had been paid for by Valentine’s use of real magic to enhance his stage career?

Worse, how much had been paid for by theft from his Edgeworld victims? Valentine had quietly disposed of the real magicians who accepted his Challenge, but it was equally dangerous to have turned him down—most of those who did disappeared after violent robberies.

Even though Valentine himself was gone, I was determined to see his Foundation pay for his crimes in full—to the tune of one million dollars, the one million the Foundation owed me for winning the Valentine Challenge—performing a feat of magic Valentine couldn’t replicate by nonmagical means, namely, inking a working magical wristwatch on a willing subject.

Supposedly, the Valentine Foundation itself was innocent. Supposedly, none of the Foundation staff had participated in his crimes. Supposedly, this visit was my last contractual obligation to the Foundation—shooting bumpers for the TV special documenting my defeat of the old coot. And supposedly, after I did that, I’d be free to put the screws to these shmucks.

The only problem?

The head schmuck was Alex Nicholson, who’d nearly lost his life trying to save mine.

“Dakota!” he cried in his familiar voice, and I turned to see Alex descending the steps—trim, blond, muscled, arms thrown wide with easy warmth, smile held wide with more difficulty. “I’m so glad you finally made it out to, ah, to film the trailers—and Cinnamon too! Gimme a hug!”

Charming, with a touch of snake oil. Alex was a bundle of contradictions: magician and fireweaver, clean-cut and tattooed, Valentine’s protégé—and nearly his victim. He’d let me ink that magical wristwatch to win the Valentine Challenge—but now was withholding my money as the Valentine Foundation’s official gatekeeper. He was a close friend to Jinx and me, but also a near-adversary on the Magical Security Council as the representative for the Wizarding Guild.

Our relationship was officially
complicated
.

“Mom,” Cinnamon said, squealing. “The giant Ken doll is crushing me!”

“Oh, give her a squeeze,” I said, trying to force a grin. “She’s a werekin. She can take it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to break her, but—OK!” Alex said, lifting her again, his glance catching mine, his eyes unexpectedly moist. Cinnamon had almost died from silver poisoning during that nasty business. “Yep, still in one piece, thank goodness!”

Oh great. I’d forgotten he had seen Cinnamon maybe twice in the last six months; because of the show, he hadn’t had his face rubbed in our troubles like the rest of us. So we’d be processing this all again. Well, great, we were here to reopen old wounds anyway.

“So,” Cinnamon said, as Alex put her down. “Mom says you spins fire. And can fly!”

“I certainly can and do firespin,” Alex said, “though I’d call it floating with style.”

I grinned—that was how I’d described Jewel’s performance at the Crucible. “That’s fair,” I said; I’d seen Alex do essentially the same trick, though for a far shorter duration, and with considerably less height. Still . . . “But it’s far more spectacular than you’re letting on—”

“Yeah,” Cinnamon said. “Fire magic is
super
awesome. We went to this show at this place called the Crucible or something—”

“I love the Crucible—” Alex began, grinning at me as Cinnamon rolled on.

“—and these guys called the Fireweavers or something ended their show with this super spinny floaty fireball thingy done by this cute fat chick Mom likes called Jewel—”

“
You
saw the Princess of
Fire
?” Alex said, impressed. “What a treat, Cinnamon! Jewel Grace is a real artist. She’s definitely old school, but she’s got
awesome
technical skill and killer style to go with it. I’d love to pick her brains—”

“I’ll see if I can arrange it,” I said. At Alex’s baffled look, I said, “Jewel’s a . . . friend.”

“She’s Mom’s new
giiiirl
friend,” Cinnamon said, with a toothy grin.

“She is
not,
” I said testily. “She’s . . . just a friend into fire magic.”

“You’re not kidding,” Alex said. “Jewel’s more into fire magic than anyone.”

Oddly, it disturbed me to learn even Alex knew about Jewel’s skill—independent corroboration of her knowledge meant I’d have to consider her ideas about the curse even more closely. And then it struck me—
Alex
was the friend into fire magic I’d known longest.

“Speaking of that,” I said, “since you are officially my oldest friend into fire magic, can you teach me about it?”

“What?” Alex said, grinning broadly, a bit too broadly, like he was sucking up to me. “
You
want to be a firespinner? It certainly would go with the whole dragon theme—”

“Well, no,” I said, laughing. “I’m just a tattoo artist. I saw some . . . interesting fire magic last night, and I was hoping to pick your brains about how it was done.”

“Dakota,” he said, reproving but with a touch of the snake oil returning to his voice. “Going from pillar to post? If Jewel didn’t feel comfortable telling you, I can’t tell you either. It isn’t nice to ask a magician to spill his own secrets, much less spoil someone else—”

“Hold on,” I said, raising my hand. “First off, we practitioners call you stage magicians illusionists—but I wasn’t asking about the secrets of your stage magic. I’ve seen you do real magic with fire, and that’s the kind I’m asking about—”

“Dakota,” Alex interrupted, a little more sharply, a little more
honestly
, “yes, I am a fire magician, but . . . our art is not public knowledge. The Order’s secrets are passed on only to initiates, and if Princess Jewel didn’t see fit to tell you something, I certainly can’t.”