Then the wolf-boy leapt forward, displacing the girl. He snarled at me, eyes glowing; then the eyes of his tattoo began glowing as well. Suddenly his human head shifted in a blink to a wolf's head, snapping at me, howling at the ceiling; and all the wolves whistled and applauded. I could now see that what I had thought were far-seeing signs were actually the marks of a magical capacitor, and guessed that the applause of the crowd was that the tat had made him a quickchange artist. Impressive… but I was starting to get an idea.
Now the Marquis stretched his thin chest. Wolf tattoos began to move across his shoulders, and tribal designs on his chest began to shift and interplay. His marks gave off quite a bit of light, and were moving impressively fast-as long as you hadn't noticed the trick. The Marquis was powerful, but he only inked surface magic. His tattoos were shimmering back and forth on his chest in a running display that I assumed was some kind of history of the pack, and the wolves were lapping it up; but all I saw was "A magical screensaver,;" I cried, clapping slowly and loudly. The Marquis's jaw bulged. "Clearly you are an expert at the two dimensional form. I cannot equal you."
"Well, then-" the Marquis said, confused and suspicious.
I clapped my hands together firmly and rubbed them against each other, Mister Miyagi style. When I pulled them apart, the mana I'd built up in my magical capacitors on my palms released slowly, into a glowing ball of light.
The crowd grew silent, then drew back as the ball grew larger and larger, from softball to soccer to basketball. The Marquis just stared, eyes wide, clenching his jaw. I was right. He was a backwoods artist; skilled, but without the training or the flash to do real skindancer marks that could affect anything beyond the wearer. If the crowd's reaction was any gauge, none of them had seen this kind of magic either. Now it was clear why the Bear King feared it.
"There is more to magic than just show," I said, letting the floating ball rise slowly over my upraised palm, then jabbing it so it exploded in a thousand fiery sparks that jetted out among the crowd and pushed them back a full yard from the edge of the pit. "And more than just function. True magic is beauty incarnate: let me show you.
Then I swayed my whole body, drawing mana through the vines, concentrating it into my upraised left wrist so the gems gleamed, the flowers bloomed, and the butterfly flapped its wings and raised off my wrist into life.
There was silence around me as the glowing image of the butterfly flapped in the air, as I sheltered it with my hand like a dying flame, feeding all the mana left in my body into it to bring it back to life. Then I raised my hand, whispered, "Fly," and blew one more kiss to the feral girl-and the butterfly flew with it, on a wind of sparkles and sunshine.
The girl squealed and held up her hand, and the trailers of magic bounced off her harmlessly. But the butterfly settled on her hand, fluttering, and she stared at it with open, wide eyes, and something closer to delight than fear. It flickered, once more, then lay its wings down and merged with her hand.
"You get one for free," I said. "More will cost you."
She cried out with joy, and the Marquis reached over and grabbed her hand, running his thumb over the design, peering at it with wide and inquisitive eyes. Then he looked sharply over at me, and took a sharp bow.
"How could I not concede to such skill?" he said. "Dakota may ink any of us."
And then I was swarmed with a hundred werewolves, tigers, and stags, pressing around me, all asking what I could do for them-or just trying to get close enough to rub up against my bare skin. The referees and vampires pushed them all back and made a space for me at the edge of the ring, where, exhausted, I quickly began putting back on my clothes.
The Marquis and wolf-boy were staring at the feral girl's tattoo. She was alternately looking at it and looking at me with equally wide eyes.
"I'm sorry," I called out to the Marquis.
"I do not feel robbed," he said bitterly. "I just lost."
"I do want your advice on the control-charm tattoo," I said. "I really need your help."
"I think it is safe, but I will… review it," he said, looking back at me. "I will report my findings to the blind witch, and charge only my standard fee. But if any other… requests… come out of your little display, any other ink for one of my wolves, you must first show me."
The little putz wanted to see my flash. Fine. Apparently he didn't know the new rules, the Edgeworld rules which recognized our need to collaborate; perhaps it was time to show him.
"Of course you can see my flash," I said, and he looked over sharply. "I can bring you a selection of designs, even show you how to ink some of the more complicated-"
"Why are you placating me?" he snapped, almost taking a chunk out of the air.
"This is the twenty-first century," I reminded him. "And I'm not an old-world, secret-magic practitioner keeping all my best tricks for myself. I'm an Edgeworlder, and we share our gifts with each other and the world."
I stood, letting my coat drape over me. "Besides, I might get another request for a tattoo from a werewolf. You give me good advice on this one, and I'll send more work your way."
The Marquis nodded, pulling on his own coat. Then without another word, he swept off, taking with him wolf-boy and the feral girl, both looking back at me.
I looked up to see Lord Buckhead standing at the edge of the ring, and the Bear King slinking off his stage towards the farther loading docks. "I have smoothed over any remaining difficulties," the werestag said, "but the Bear King does not wish to speak further with you today. We should go, before the crowd becomes… boisterous."
"Amen to that," I said, shifting my coat, turning back to Calaphase. "You know what? Thank you, Calaphase. You're quite a decent fellow-"
"For a vampire?" he asked.
"For not leering like all the rest," I said.
"Oh, that. Well, I do like to be a gentleman," he said, and then, leaning close, whispered, "And just between you and me? Half the time-your back was turned."
16. Not-So-Secret Admirer
I woke up sweaty, feeling warmth beside me in the bed, where one of my cats had curled up into the curve of my body. The rest of them yowled around me, and I shifted sleepily, trying to push off the heat source-boy, they didn't know their own weight, did they?-and ignore them. But my nose wrinkled: whoo, the stink. Had one of them farted or, worse, sprayed? No; the scent was different, less cat stink than gym sweat… with a touch of cinnamon.
I opened my eyes to see the face of the feral girl.
"Aaaaa!" I screamed, jumping and klonking my head on the headboard. She was still there, and I shoved away, falling onto the floor, dragging half the bedcovers with me. I lay there frozen a minute-I couldn't see her; had it been a dream?-and then pulled myself up to see the feral girl still curled up on my bed, looking straight at me.
"I let myself in," she said. "I hopes that's OK."
"How the hell did you manage-" and then I saw overturned glassware in the kitchen: she'd let herself in through a second floor window. "Never mind. How did you find me?"
"I followed you. You gots the world's lamest bike. It was easy to keep up-"
"My precious Vespa is a scooter,; not a bike," I said, "and she gets like sixty miles to the gallon." My brow furrowed. "You mean followed, like on foot?"
She smiled, her tail flickering up in the air.
"I find myself less and less enamored of were-whatevers," I muttered, cracking my neck where the collar had kinked it in my sleep. I reached up to the desk next to my bed and batted at my computer mouse: after a moment the monitor turned itself back on, and I peered at the system clock. "Jeez! It's like, eight in the morning! Who's up at this ungodly hour?"