“You-you can’t do this,” Scara snarled. “To put him in charge- you can’t trust him! ”
“He remains a puppet, but it has been a century and a half, my dear,” the lich said, sitting on the throne next to Delancaster. “And his protege is one of us now. The Lady Saffron leads the Consulates, I will support her, and together… we will support the Lady Frost. ”
Never waste a good crisis, indeed. “Uh… thank you for your support, Sir Leopold.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, staring at me. “How will you deal with the taggers?”
“Well, we have Tully, trained by the tagger,” I said, thinking as quickly as I could, “and my contacts in Atlanta’s human graffiti community are already working to defuse the tagger’s tags. My team will teach other taggers these methods, and spread the word: eliminate the bad tags when you find them, and make no new tags designed to prey on the life of another.”
“And if they do-”
“Then you catch them, you give them to me, and I give them to Philip,” I said. “And let the men-in-black deal with getting enough evidence to make it stick.”
“That’s nonsense,” Scara said. “We are vampires. The taggers are werekin. Neither of us can go to the police. We can only enforce your rules through violence, which you forbid.”
“If only you had someone with recognized authority,” I said. The lich’s piranha grin was growing. “Someone to give me an appointment, and the power to make it stick.”
“But… but I can’t do that,” Saffron said. “I can’t make appointments.”
“No you can’t,” I said. “Not at the city level.”
Saffron glanced at me. Then she followed my gaze to the throne.. . to Lord Delancaster, Vampire Master of Georgia, in his mind, on TV-and in the eyes of the State.
“If only,” I said, “Lord Delancaster really had the power you’ve pretended to give him.”
“No! You can’t!” Scara said to the lich-like a scared little child. “You, you promised -”
“Lady Frost,” Iadimus said quietly, and now I flinched back from the sudden icy cold and the unexpected hate in his pale eyes. “You have no idea what you have just done.”
“But I-” I began, then stopped. He had sounded like he supported my quickly hatching plan, but now he was angry -and Scara was terrified. I really didn’t have any idea.
“Things are not as simple as they seem,” Iadimus said, glaring at me. But his eyes didn’t blaze at me for long; he quickly turned to the lich, and the wave of frost intensified. “You know that, Sir Leopold. Do you really think you can maneuver us like little children?”
“I think I have,” the lich said.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “Think about what I’m asking. This is in your best interests. I’m offering you a chance to get my help on tap. I’m trying to get us to work together.”
“But-but-” Scara began, eyes fixed on Delancaster like a fearful cat on a challenger, afraid to look away lest the newcomer pounce. But she broke the glance, shook off her fear, and glared at me, eyes glowing cold red. “But what if we do not want to work with you?”
I stared at her, eyes tightening into slits. I felt her aura expand, felt her anger burning against my face, flooding past my skin. Then my vision began to double, as the head of the Dragon-which had never fully retracted-began to rise over my head again. I snarled as the feedback loop begin again-the pain was excruciating-and Scara backed up.
“Then I kill you where you stand,” I said through clenched teeth, and Scara nodded.
“Enough, enough,” the lich said, raising his hand for silence. “You have made your point, Dakota Frost-and even so, you will never know how close to death you came. Your designs have played into mine. .. quite nicely, I must admit. Still, I rarely tolerate such insolence in my presence. A thousand years ago I would have had your tongue cut from your mouth at the first insult. Five hundred years ago, we would have all fallen on you at the first sign of such magic in the hands of someone we do not control.
“But the world has changed, and while your diplomacy leaves much to be desired, your conduct is honorable, your power considerable-and your logic… plausible. Magic has been practiced in secret since recorded memory for good reason, but now that Pandora’s box has been opened, we will need more than just hope to fight all the things fools like you have loosed upon the world. And since sometimes the best way to fight fire is with fire… ”
And then he looked over at Lord Delancaster. The two eyed each other warily, and then Delancaster nodded heavily in agreement. He closed his eyes and raised one finger to his forehead, lips moving. Then he put his hand down and spoke clearly, like he was on TV.
“With the unprecedented spate of accidents involving magical graffiti in the recent weeks, it has become clear to me that greater regulation of and education in the use of magic is needed. Therefore, I am convening a Magical Security Council, including representatives of vampire, werekin and other Edgeworld communities, and I plan to petition the State of Georgia for official recognition of and empowerment of this body.
“Based on her work resolving this crisis, I appoint Dakota Frost the Council’s chair.”
The Hell Outta Dodge
The Magical Security Council. Those words hung in the air. My ploy had worked: we would replace fangfights at the OK Corral with something more reasoned, more modern.
And I’d be heading up it all. Oh, shit.
“Well… is that it?” Saffron asked, voice ringing with unexpected authority. “Are we all now in agreement? Are we now done?”
“Of course, my Lady Saffron,” the lich said.
“Thank you,” she responded. “Then I am taking my people. All of them. Now. ”
With Vladimir guarding our backs, Saffron, Darkrose, Delancaster and I picked our way out of the wrecked hall. The freed captives were gathering in the foyer: Delancaster’s servants, Darkrose’s bodyguards-and Nyissa’s driver.
Then Iadimus carried Nyissa out to us, and Saffron flinched like she’d been slapped. Her gaze quickly bounced between me and Nyissa, face mottling with rage, and I realized she’d detected the link Nyissa had forged between us. But then, just as quickly, Saffron relaxed.
“The Lady Nyissa stepped up to defend the Lady Dakota,” Saffron said, stepping forward, gently touching the cowl of Nyissa’s robe, “and this was the thanks she got.”
Iadimus stiffened, then let Nyissa down gently into Saffron’s extended arms.
“My most profuse apologies, Lady Saffron,” he said. “It will not happen again.”
We practically mummified our vamps with curtains, then rushed them out to the limo. Even Saffron, covered in a heavy coat, hissed in pain as sun glinted off parked cars; but even after having been starved and forced to drink blood, she did not catch on fire.
We retreated to the Four Seasons Hotel, where Saffron booked a linked set of suites that made my hotel look as shabby as my cardboard box under the bridge. While a servant tucked in the nearly comatose vampires and Saffron called a doctor for Nyissa, I called Cinnamon.
“Mom,” she said, voice brimming with relief. “Are you safe?”
“I am,” I said, and explained what happened. “And are you?”
“Yes,” she said. “We’re with Lord Buckhead in the Underground. “
“Good,” I said. “Cinnamon, honey… Vladimir’s coming to take you back to school. After that… you have to go back and stay with the Palmotti’s.”
Cinnamon was speechless for a moment. “But… Mom-”
“Cinnamon… right now, you can’t stay with me. I’m about to be arrested.”
“No!” she said. “Mom, fuck, you saved the whole city.”
“The police don’t know that,” I said, “and if they find you with me, they’ll take you away. Is that what you want? Or do you want to stay in the Underground, be on the run forever?”
“No. I wants to come home,” she said. “And I wants… I wants to go back to school.”
I felt something relax deep within me. “Then go back to school, love,” I said. “Vladimir will keep you safe until we work this all out. You can trust him.”