I hurled the rest of the bowl at them and scrambled back. The tentacles cracked to the pavement where I had lain, batting the remaining bowl aside with a KHWANGG, scattering basil everywhere. The herbs lit up like blue flame, as before, but without the protective barrier of paint diffusing the flow of mana between them and the tag, the basil sprigs turned to real flames.
In seconds, my magic mix disintegrated in a cloud of sparks.
This Will Be a Bit Tricky
“Damnit,” I cried. I retrieved the overturned bowls. I’d lost almost all of the mix, save a few scraps left in the bottom of the bowl the tag had struck. All the rest was sprayed out over the dirt and in the grassy cracks through the pavement, ruined. I glared up at the vamp, who lay half sprawled in Calaphase and Fischer’s arms. “ Asshole! ”
The vamp’s hazel eyes glowed. “I tried to save him, and you insult me?” he said, trying to regain his footing. “In Lithuania I stood in the Gentry! No mortal speaks to me that way!”
I crouched, hooked my right foot behind my left, and stood back upright, twisting like a corkscrew as I did so. Mana built up in my skin and brought it to life, bursting my vines outward and making every gem on my body sparkle and every flower unfurl. The shimmering light burst onto the clearing in a rainbow of colors, washing all natural color from the vamps and weres and leaving their faces pale circles of shock.
“I don’t care what country club you were in. This ain’t Lithuania,” I growled. “Now stay back, or this thing will kill you too dead to hear this mortal tell you what an idiot you are.”
I twisted round, expanding my vines, recreating my glowing shield. “I’m coming for you, Tully,” I said, stepping straight towards him slowly. “But this will be a bit tricky.”
The tag’s free tentacles snapped and bit at me, uselessly, then folded back on Tully, clenching on him. He screamed-but his eyes were on me and he nodded. Behind him the planet motif shimmered, eerily real; through some trick of perspective it almost looked like the tag’s tentacles were pulling him into the wall, towards it. There was a cracking sound, and I looked over to see ugly lumps begin to form at the base of the wall, beneath the splashes of paint. Tombstones, no doubt-the only element in Revenance’s tag that had been missing from this design. The basil and paint had suppressed the tag a little, but there was no doubt: it had the same logic as the one that killed Revenance, and was getting stronger.
I knelt and drew the first arc of a magic circle, just beyond the safety line I’d drawn earlier. The chalk broke against a crack in the pavement and I dinged my knuckle, wincing, but I didn’t stop, feeling the tag writhe before me in malevolence and hearing Tully moan. Soon I had the inner rings, the layer of runes, and the outer circle that would hold what little magic powder I had left. I studied the bowl, then began picking out pinches of dust, laying them around the design, trying to stretch each little bit out so that I’d have enough left for my final trick.
Somehow, I managed to complete the circle, scraping enough out of the bowl to complete the final arc-almost, leaving one gap in front of Tully. The circle of powder looked dangerously sketchy, but it would have to do. So I poured all the dusty remains in the bowl at the edge of the gap, creating a pitiful little heap of fine powder on one end. Too much! The lines of the circle began glowing, like a flickering neon, as the mana it absorbed from the tag began sparking over the gap. I scooted the heap aside, and the sparking stopped. If the circle closed before we were inside, it would shove Tully and me into the tag rather than protect us from it.
Then Tully moaned again. I flung the bowl aside. There was nothing left to be done. I had to do it now. I crouched down, concentrating.
“Spirit of Earth,” I murmured. “Shield our lives.”
Then I lunged forward and threw both my arms around Tully’s chest.
Tully screamed as the vines tried to saw him in half-then the tag squealed in rage as I wrapped Tully in a protective cocoon of mana. Tentacles flailed at me as my vines whipped around him, barbs wearing at my defenses as my trusty wrist snakes snapped at the tentacles on his chest. More tentacles curled around me, pulling me forward, into the wall, into the tag, like there was a whole world behind the paint. I felt an immense magical pressure weigh on me, like water weighs on your ears at the bottom of a pool-but I jammed my boot against the wall and shoved, hurling myself backward into the circle with Tully in my arms.
The tentacles refused to give up, wrapping around us, hot, burning, pouring mana out around us in elaborate arcs of living flame. I couldn’t see anything through the blazing light. I’d like to say I used skindancing to fight it off, but I didn’t. I just ground in my feet and held on to Tully for dear life, forcing the tag to expend as much mana as possible. The tentacles squeezed tighter; we both screamed in pain And then finally the excess mana the tag was pouring into the air closed the circle’s magical circuit, like a spark leaping a gap, and Tully and I collapsed gratefully to the ground. The tentacles leapt back, wounded, and I quickly shoved the tiny pile of mix back over the gap with my boot, making sure the circuit stayed closed.
But almost immediately the protective bubble began to flicker and sparkle as the tag, squealing, renewed its attack. The clouds on the image of the planet began whirling furiously. I could see the images of tombstones cracking up through the join of the wall and the pavement, struggling to break free of their layer of paint. A horrible scream rent the air, and a dozen new tentacles whipped down on us, screaming with rage as if the tag was a living monster. It was still getting stronger-but Tully was out of the circuit!
“So much for Saffron’s theory,” I said.
The bubble began to crack. My mix was thin and poorly refined, and the pavement beneath us was an uneven mess; there was no way it would hold. Fine- I was counting on it. I took a deep breath, sinuously stretching within the bubble until all my vine tattoos came to life again and wrapped around Tully and me, a green glowing shield. Then I grabbed him tight.
“Hang on, Tully,” I said-and leapt backwards out of the circle.
The tentacles closed on the magic bubble right as it collapsed with a bright flash. All the built up mana discharged with a bang, rippling back through the graffiti like blue lightning. As Tully and I landed, the whole tag sparked and shorted out, a brief two-dimensional fireworks display, leaving nothing but black crinkled smudges dotted with glowing red embers.
For a moment, Tully and I just lay there in the dust, staring at the intricate concentric rings that were all that was left of the design. Then we looked at each other.
“Congratulations, Tully,” I said. “You get to live to run another day.”
“Thank you thank you thank you,” Tully said, trying to give me a hug, then grimacing as the gesture squeezed a new river of blood from his chest. “Aaah-I’m so sorry-”
“Thank you, Dakota,” a voice said, and I looked up to see Calaphase staring down at me. The vamps and werekin were all standing over us, all looking down gratefully-except Gettyson, who just stood there, jaw clenched, before turning on his heel and stalking off.
Tully kept sobbing. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I had no idea this would happen.”
“There’s no way you could have known,” I said.
“I means, it was just magical graffiti-”
“Wait,” I said. “You already knew it was magical?”
“You can’t miss it,” Calaphase said quietly. “These tags, they’re always moving-”
“Wait wait,” I said, alarmed. “They? This has happened before?”
“An attack, no, but the tags-yes,” Calaphase said, even more quietly. “We’ve seen tags like this for weeks, nothing this elaborate, usually just little ones, though they seem like they get bigger over time-or else the prick keeps coming back to flesh them out. Revy said he saw a huge one yesterday, though he never got to show me where. For all I know, this was it-”