“Is that even possible?” Iadimus asked, looking at his magicians.
“Oh, yes,” the man said. He had gone pale. “Obvious, really, now that she said it.”
Both Iadimus and Scara seemed to draw back, and I continued, “Bad enough, but the magic was corrupted, a misreading of forbidden Incan magic. The collected intentions of the victims were slowly incarnating a demon.”
“A… demon?” Vladimir said.
“Demon, alien, small-g god, what have you,” I said. “My scientists from Georgia Tech assure me this magic uses advanced concepts not likely to be hidden lore or backwoods graphomancy-it’s more likely to come from another world or dimension.”
“Your… scientists,” the lich said.
“When I said I’ve been studying it for weeks, I meant I’d been studying it for weeks,” I said hotly. “So we don’t throw away our best chance to figure out what the hell it was and what it was trying to do before my scientists and your magicians have a chance to look at it.”
“Agreed,” the lich said, and Scara hissed, but reluctantly. Iadimus nodded.
“Agreed, then,” I said. “And if we do decide that the cave is still a threat and that dynamiting it will help, we find out where the fuck it is before we blow it up-I have no desire to topple the IBM tower and kill fifty thousand people in Midtown.”
“I do not care how many humans have to die to protect vampires,” Scara said.
“You do care, because this is the twenty-first fucking century and the DEI will find you,” I said. “And when they do, they’ll find that I’ve found you first and pulled your fucking heart out. I did not save your life just so you could go on a killing spree.”
Scara’s lips parted in a vicious snarl. “You did not save my life-”
“Be silent,” Iadimus said. He looked over at the lich. “We were more stable at five-”
“Now now, not in front of our guests,” the lich said, staring at me, wrinkled dead face smiling and amused. “You make a good point, Lady Frost,” he said, voice velvety smooth, “but why, if you have destroyed the tag and the tagger, do you not think this is over?”
“Because only tags connected to the network will have been destroyed,” I said, pointing at Demophage’s body, which had spilled out of its coffin and yet still smoldered with glowing rainbow wisps. “Any other tags may still be active, and some of them have components of the spell. Worse, the tagger’s designs are self-replicating, and self-elaborating.”
“No,” the lich hissed, recoiling from the magic flowing off Demophage’s corpse. “No, we cannot have this again. We must destroy them-”
“ If you can,” I said. “But each and every one of them is like a Venus’ Flytrap for vampires. You’re going to need help: knowledge of the tagger’s designs, and even photocopies of the tagger’s blackbook, are now spreading through Atlanta’s graffiti community.”
Scara snarled. “We will not permit it! We’ll track them down and destroy them.”
“What? What did I just say about killing sprees, and now you’re talking about sending vampires out against magicians who can use them as a power source? No,” I said… and my idea took full shape. Very firmly, I said, “ I forbid it.”
“You… forbid? ” the lich said incredulously.
“I forbid it,” I snapped, flapping the Dragon’s wings. “If you could have dealt with this you would have done so. You had to call me . You may rule the vamps, the Bear King the weres, and Buckhead the forest, but where the use of magic is concerned I’m in charge of Atlanta.”
The lich just smiled and nodded. “A bold claim,” he said. “I am prepared to accept it. But you do not know what a mess you are stepping into.”
One of Iadimus’ magicians cleared his throat. “My Lord… the Wizarding Guild will have something to say about that.”
“Then let them step up and deal with the problem,” I said, glaring at him. I’d never even heard of the Wizarding Guild before this. “Dozens of people died. My friends died. Thousands of people were put at risk by this, including any of the members of the Guild who live inside the Perimeter. If they don’t like how I’m handling it, let them come to me.”
The lich laughed, a delicious, vicious sound.
“And how will you handle it?” Iadimus said. “Kill all the taggers?”
“Sounds like a great idea,” I said. “We should also stake all the vamps, and put a silver bullet in all the weres. And why don’t we burn all the witches while we’re at it?”
Iadimus sighed. “A puerile analogy,” he said, “but you’ve made your point.”
“Not yet,” I said. “The police have been trying to stamp out graffiti for years, and short of putting cameras on every street corner like in London, they’ve not been able to do it, even though they weren’t fighting people who can turn into animals and disappear.”
“The police failed only because nothing was at stake when it was mere spray painting,” Scara said dismissively. “We will succeed if we have the will to do what needs to be done.”
“Aren’t you listening? Half the taggers are weres. Their werekin friends will turn on you, just because you’re vamps. You’ll start a war-and I won’t have that.”
“ You won’t have-” Scara began, then froze when Vladimir stepped up to my side, turned around and growled at her, oh so softly. Saffron abruptly left Darkrose’s side and stepped to the other side of me, folding her arms.
“Lords and Ladies of the Gentry, let me be clear,” I said. “A lot of good people died recently-vamps, weres, your human servants, my good friends. But not all of them died at the hands of the tagger-many died as a direct result of your actions, Lady Scara.”
She tensed. “I will not be held to account for defending my people.”
“Nor do I intend to,” I said. “That’s over now. This was a terrible, dangerous situation in which many people acted out of fear-including you, Lady Scara. You murdered many good men and women at the Consulate, but I am prepared to forgive and forget-this one time.”
“What are you doing, Dakota?” Saffron muttered.
“This is not the Wild West,” I said. “This is not the Stone Age. This is the twenty-first fucking century, and tribal warfare stops, now. From now on, if you have a grievance, you bring it to the Consulate-open warfare between factions in the Edgeworld of Atlanta is forbidden.”
Scara snorted. “And if I do not play along?”
“If anyone breaks the truce,” I said, “then I will take them down.”
“And I’ll help,” Saffron said.
“As will I,” Vladimir said.
“As will I, ” the lich said, smiling.
Scara and Iadimus both turned on him, stunned. Then Iadimus snarled.
“Oh, you’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you?” he said. “Damn you.”
“If you have a grievance, take it up with the Consulate,” the lich cackled. “If the Lady Frost agrees, of course. Unless… she wants to be judge and jury, in addition to executioner?”
“What? No, of course we should have a, a grievance procedure,” I said, thinking fast. The vampires already had courts, didn’t they? “We, ah, could begin with the Consulates-”
“No!” Scara said, her voice tinged with despair.
“Finally,” Lord Delancaster said, relaxing into his throne, looking, for the first time, as if he truly belonged there. “Play acting no longer.”
I stared at him blankly, then looked at Saffron. “What… what did I just do?”
“The Consulates,” the lich said turning back to his throne, “are my project, Dakota Frost. An independent power structure to which even members of the Gentry may be held accountable. But there has not been enough… independent power to enforce this idea… until now.”
“But… aren’t you the big man on campus?” I said, confused and alarmed. “Didn’t you always have the power to make him your lieutenant?”
“No!” Scara said. “No! You can’t! I forbid it-”
“You cannot forbid anything any longer,” Iadimus said. “Your allies on the Gentry are dead, Delancaster’s protege has replaced them-and your behavior has become embarrassingly erratic.” He turned to Delancaster with an ironic smile. “I will support this plan, my Lord.”