"You called? Sorry, I was doing a tat-"
"And what of mine?" he snarled.
I swallowed. He was on edge, his voice shaking. "I'm still getting it researched-"
"I am running out of time," he snapped. "I tire of these games, Dakota-"
"Wulf," I said passionately, and it halted him. "I haven't known you for a long time… but do you think I would game you?"
There was a long pause. "No, Dakota."
"I am checking with the graphomancers literally as we speak," I said, texting «Hurry!» into my phone. "But I would never do anything to hurt you."
"Then why won't you-"
"You know the tattoo is Nazi, Wulf," I said-and Kring/L's eyes widened.
"I know," he said, voice quiet.
"So I have to know it's safe. I won't risk hurting you." Now both Annesthesia and Kring/L raised their eyebrows. "I can't just take it on faith. I have to know that it won't cause you harm."
"Thank you, Dakota," he said. "I'd never hurt you either-but it's so hard to control myself, so close to the moon. The beast wants out. It wants me to change. It's so old now. So strong. So strong. I would never want to release that savage animal on you-"
"Spleen is dead," I said. "Savaged, by an animal."
There was even longer pause. "It wasn't me," he said. "It wasn't me-"
"I didn't say it was," I said. I heard the panic in his voice and wished I couldn't empathize. But I'd felt that panic of everything closing in on me, of helplessness, of realizing I wasn't in control of anything. Still, I pushed him. I had to. "But if not you-"
"My enemies," he snarled over the phone. "Damn them. Damn them!"
"Wulf…" I said. "Who? Who are your enemies?"
"The Hunters," he said. Even now, even with me believing he didn't kill Spleen, even knowing Philip believed that someone really had made trouble for him at the hospital, Wulf still came off like a conspiracy nut, with his assumed name and vaguely ascribed 'enemies.' "They've been looking so long, so long. They're afraid of me. They never attack me directly. They just make it… difficult. Or attack my friends. Always my friends. All my friends. So I won't let myself have any friends."
My phone buzzed: «marquis sez: "safe, u impatient bitch"»
I sighed in relief. Finally. «Thanks Jinx, and tell him thanks!»
"I'm your friend, Wulf," I said, as convincingly as I could muster. "I just got word from my graphomancers, right now, that the tattoo is safe. And I'm going to do it for you-"
"I can't let you do that," Wulf said. "Not if you're a friend." "But you said this was important. You need-" "That was before I knew Spleen had been murdered," Wulf said, and I could hear him pacing. Well, I wasn't sure I could actually hear someone pace, but his agitation came through loud and clear. "I won't let you become a target."
"I'm not an easy target, Wulf," I said, reddening even as I said it. That was an obvious lie, the old bravado talking. "The evidence says otherwise," Wulf said.
I had nothing to say to that, so after a moment I plowed ahead: "It will take me most of the afternoon to mix the pigments and make the needles. I can do the tattoo late tonight-"
"Not at night," Wulf said. "Not after moon rise. It isn't safe for you then."
"Tomorrow, then," I said. "Come to the Rogue-" "I can't be seen in public-"
"I need a magic circle, Wulf," I said. "I cannot do it in the open. Anything could get in to the marks and you could end up ten times worse off than you are now."
There was a long pause. "I will find you a circle, then, somewhere in the Underground," Wulf said. "And if I cannot find it before nightfall-"
"The full moon is what, two nights away?" I said. "Not 'til Sunday. You have time-"
Wulf laughed. "The moon hits zenith at two minutes to midnight tomorrow, Dakota, and it will be ninety-nine-point-six- percent full," he said bitterly. Then his words began to speed up, tumbling over one another. "Believe me, I know. That sliver of difference between full and not won't make a difference. I know the moon. The first moon of November. It's called a 'Frost Moon', did you know that, Dakota Frost? The frost moon of November. The Frost Moon is always so strong. So strong. If I cannot find somewhere safe… somewhere safe… perhaps it is best I wait it out… wait out the Frost Moon… and hope." "Wulf-"
His voice tightened up again, and he regained control of himself. "I will contact you tomorrow if I find a circle. Don't try to contact me-I can't use this pay phone again, it may be tapped. Be safe, Dakota."
Click. And with that, he was gone.
With me having no way to reach him, no way to find him. And time rapidly running out.
I felt safe. But for him… I felt it was not safe at all.
32. Back to Africa
"The airport Houlihan's serves the best Bloody Marys," Savannah said, pushing her glass towards me. Reluctantly, I took a sip of the blood-red pulp and raised an eyebrow: the drink was strong and refreshingly tangy.
"You're right," I said, passing the glass back to her. "Who knew?"
Houlihan's was in the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport's atrium, a vast, round, indoor space filled with shops and restaurants. The atrium served as overflow for the staggering mess of the Atlanta security checkpoint, which fed all the passengers of the world's busiest airport through one measly row of metal detectors. The rest of Darkrose and Savannah's crew kept looking at the mammoth knot of passengers nervously, but Savannah was not perturbed; she just took another sip of her drink and leaned back in her chair thoughtfully.
"Surely," she said, "we could leave her one guard."
"No," Vickman said, scratching his beard. Darkrose's chief bodyguard always seemed to be scowling-and it was worse than normal today. "We can't. We're going into the lion's den here. We need everyone."
"I don't think you're even trying to find a way to protect Dakota," Savannah said, eyes narrowing at him as they might at Darkrose, or Doug. Vickman wasn't fazed.
"I'm not," he said sharply, meeting her eye to eye. "I don't answer to you, Saffron. I answer to Darkrose, and even then only as long as it doesn't interfere with keeping her alive. You may be modern and progressive, but South Africa is very definitely populated with Old World vampires. I need every hand I have to keep you safe, so everyone is going."
Savannah looked at Darkrose, who just shrugged.
"Good bodyguards are hard to find," she said. "I would never argue with a man who would take a bullet for me, much less a human willing to guard my daytime resting place rather than put a stake in me at the first opportunity. Vickman's word stands."
I stared into my own drink. I knew how important this trip was to them. They were going to Johannesburg, where 'Saffron' would formally petition Darkrose's former master to release Darkrose, so she could join Saffron's court. It had taken a year of delicate negotiations and a huge payout by Delancaster to make this trip happen, but the end result would be the end of animosity between vampires on either side of the Atlantic and… and the beginning of a new life of happiness for my ex-girlfriend and her lover.
I couldn't begrudge them going. But right at that moment, I was scared shitless for Wulf, by Wulf, and by whatever other forces lurked out there around him.
"The full moon is just tomorrow night," I pleaded. "Can't you delay the trip for at least forty-eight hours?"
"We could move the meet to the festival," Savannah said thoughtfully. "It's not too late to charter a direct flight to Sunday-"
"Yes, it is," Darkrose snapped. "Delancaster is already in the air."
"We've been planning for Darkrose to go back to the South African Court for eighteen months now," Vickman said. "This is a coordinated operation. We can't stop now. We especially can't leave your master hanging around in South Africa alone, no matter how good his own bodyguards are."