Liquid Fire (34 page)

“Yes, we are,” I said. “I still don’t quite know how, but the sighting at Borders in Palo Alto
was
one of my tattoos, or more technically a
projectia
. I have no idea how it survived, but Cinnamon snapped a picture and it was very definitely generated by my original masterwork, the one I detached and used against Christopher Valentine. Based on my reaction to that brief glimpse of video, the one atop the Golden Gate was almost certainly the same one.”

Scara glared at me, then at Nyissa. “You saw it, Nyissa—was it hers?”

“I—” Nyissa said, her hand going to her throat as her voice came out as an unexpectedly ragged croak. Then she drew a breath and said, “I never had the pleasure of seeing her original masterwork upon her skin, but the apparition certainly had the . . . confident lines of her style.”

Scara and Iadimus looked at each other. “Still, that could fit,” Scara said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“We are given to understand,” Iadimus said, “
you
summoned that dragon spirit. If true, you would be the first person to do so . . . in at least a century. Perhaps more—”

“But I never—”

“Perhaps unwittingly, it seems, by launching a tattoo which it could inhabit.”

My mouth dropped. I’d never considered the possibility that something could possess a
tattoo
, but there was nothing to stop it from happening. Complete tattoos were normally inked with Euler angles that made that difficult, but released from the body and disintegrating—

“You admit it is a possibility,” Scara said.

“Most definitely,” I said. “Skindancers ink magic tattoos inside magic circles to prevent stray spirits from inhabiting the magic. Normally a
projectia
is reattached, or is small enough that it disintegrates quickly; but this was a masterwork, filled with two dancers’ magic.”

“More like a probability,” Scara said.

“Perhaps,” Iadimus said. “Do you have a source of liquid fire?”

“What? Not you too,” I said. “No, I don’t have a source, but—”

“I take it you know the substance’s value. Do not be concerned. Vampires have no need of it; we have our own source of eternal life,” the lich said. “Iadimus asks because, according to legend, a dragon spirit can only be summoned by a spell using liquid fire as a component.”

“Only
true
liquid fire has the concentrated magic needed to summon a dragon,” Scara said, and I squirmed in my chair as my Dragon squirmed on my back. The vampire said, “Or so the legends go. I do not know if I believe those stories—ah. But I see you do.”

Damn it!
“I—I have heard that
theory
,” I said. “That true liquid fire is a . . . ‘concentrated’ form of magic, capable of accomplishing what many, many wizards working together could not. As for the summoning . . . I don’t know. It sounds convincing, not knowing more—”

“So,” Iadimus said. “Was your tattoo inked with liquid fire? Even in trace amounts—”

“No. I don’t have access to any, nor do I even recall
hearing
about it before this trip.” Then I scowled—I
had
learned a thing or two on this trip. “
But
 . . . I have heard a wizard allege that there must be some compatible compound in the pigments I use.”

“I used to be a wizard, and I concur,” Nyissa said. “The House Beyond Sleep feared the skindancers of Blood Rock and their unusually potent magic. Before the Lady Frost brokered a truce, I worried they were using vampire blood . . . but liquid fire is a better explanation.”

“I have never heard my master or any of the stonegrinders refer to liquid fire,” I said—realizing, as I said it, that that meant nothing. “Of course, while legend may
claim
that liquid fire may be required for a spell, according to modern science . . . a substitute could do.”

“If that’s true,” Nyissa mused, “when you empowered your dragon masterwork in Union Square, using the magic of Jewel’s shield, which we know used liquid fire, and in quantity . . . perhaps you
accidentally
summoned the spirit of a dragon.”

All the other vampires hissed, and Scara rose from the table.

“Leopold was right,” she said. “You have exposed us all to unnecessary risk.”

“How?” I asked. “I’m not contradicting you. I need you to explain this to me.”

“Liquid fire extends human life. Dragons are supposedly the only source of liquid fire,” Iadimus said patiently. “And their spirits can only be summoned by magic that uses liquid fire, or something very much like it. Something that can be potentially used for the same purpose.”

I leaned back in my chair.
Now
I could see where this was going.

“So some cult of ancient wizards,” I said, “is going to try to steal my supplies—”

“No, you fool,” Scara said. “Who cares about your supplies?”

“What Scara means,” Iadimus said, “is that you are their target.”

“Do what?” I said. “But . . . if they want liquid fire, what do they need
me
for?”

“I have seen this before, over the centuries,” the lich said softly. “The supplies of liquid fire rise and ebb. When they rise, arrogant youths drink deep in the hope of endless life; when they ebb, desperate old men fight to the death over the extra day granted by that last drop.”

“But the supply should have long since run out,” I said. “Dragons are extinct—”

“But their eggs keep,” the lich said with a cackle. “Oh, they keep. And there are legends—”

“When the spirit of a dragon is sighted, an egg is about to hatch,” Scara said.

“And the summoner of the dragon’s spirit is the one who will crack it,” Iadimus said.

I let my chair fall back to level. I hadn’t seen where this was going at all.

I stared at the vampires. These were the Gentry, deadly and manipulative, creepy old monsters who’d killed one of my friends and who’d tried to kill me. And yet they continued to surprise me, this time with knowledge of legends and . . . concern for my welfare?

“By summoning the spirit,” Scara said—and then her voice softened. “That is,
if
you summoned the spirit, you
may
have started a war for liquid fire.” Then her old venom surged back. “And if that
stunt
in Union Square convinced desperate wizards you are the herald . . .”

“They’ll move Heaven and Earth,” Nyissa said, swallowing, “to get to you.”

“Surely,” I said, “surely you don’t really believe—”

“What we believe is irrelevant,” the lich said. “Somewhere out there, Dakota Frost, an ancient wizard is dying. Only dragon’s blood will save him, or so he thinks; liquid fire from a dragon’s egg, revealed only by the summoning of the spirit of a dragon.

———

“And you are the first person to have summoned a dragon in over a hundred years.”

36. Off the Deep End

Dreamily, I strode through a tunnel of shimmering blue-green light. Myriad fluttering shapes broke the sunbeams into ever-changing shapes beneath my feet. The day was almost perfect . . . then a dark shadow loomed above me, blotting out the sun.

I looked up. The vast shape sliding effortlessly overhead had a body longer than a car, fins wider than I was tall, mouth big enough to swallow a child—though Taroko, the Georgia Aquarium’s newest whale shark, was a filter feeder that never ate anything larger than a pea.

The huge shark turned lazily, first showing its white belly, then the distinctive gray and white panther pattern on its sides. As Taroko slid overhead, Cinnamon squealed and hopped; on each bounce, her head rose almost to the glass top of the Ocean Explorer tunnel.

“Ta-RO-ko Ta-RO-ko,” she cried, “the-SPLENdid-and-MAGnificent!”

I sighed, and smiled. At last, things were back to normal.

After the Gentry’s ominous warning, things were tense at the MSC—but no thieves snuck in to steal my nonexistent supply of liquid fire, no thugs leaned on me to divulge the location of my mythical dragon’s egg, and there were no more sightings of my possibly-possessed tattoo.

Even the Dragon on my back had gone disappointingly quiet.

And so, without data, I was left with what I had—inking new asp and vine tattoos to get back to full strength, researching liquid fire to find out what I could, trying to crack the code with Cinnamon, and injuring myself trying to learn fireweaving as remotely instructed by Alex.

After we had signed the contracts, Alex had honored his part of the bargain—sort of. He had started to teach me regular fire
spinning
, not magical fire
weaving
, insisting that I learn to spin poi before setting them on fire, and that I get comfortable spinning fire before I tried magic.

It was hard to argue with that.

I tried learning the theory, but, as Jewel had hinted, fireweaving was not simple, and trying to learn enough of it to reverse-engineer what the fire ninjas were doing—or what she was doing—was taking far longer than I expected, especially since the basics didn’t use magic.

So it felt good to finally get a glimpse of normal life—a field trip with my daughter.

No; it was more than just that. I’d taken her across the country to win a prize, only to have hers snatched away while I got mine. Now I was determined to make it up to her, to spend as much time with her as I could. It wasn’t just a field trip; it was an unspoken apology.

We left the glass tunnel and its rainbow schools of fish to find an enormous plate glass window as big as the front of my house—another view of the same six million gallon tank. The tank’s newest star guests, Taroko and his companion, Yushan, slid past every few minutes, and I watched them closely. The Taiwanese whale sharks had adjusted well to their first month in the tank, sliding effortlessly through the waters. Their distinctive pattern would make an interesting full-body tattoo; I wondered if I could weave swimming magic into it. I’d have to talk to Jinx.

“That’s most of the exhibits. Ready to go?” I asked, after Cinnamon and I eventually returned to the mammoth atrium of the Georgia Aquarium. All around us were engineered micro-worlds: rivers, lakes, the deep sea. “Get everything you needed for your report?”

“What? No! Let’s . . . um,” Cinnamon said, whirling, eyeing the river exhibits we had already gone through an hour earlier. Then she caught the second question. “What? Oh.”

“I take it the ‘oh’ is also a ‘no,’ ” I said, pulling out my buzzing smartphone. “Come on, Cinnamon. What did you need to see to finish your report?”

“Oh, God, not that old thing,” Cinnamon said, ignoring my question and peering down at the phone. “That’s
so
last month. Why don’t you gets an iPhone—”

“You means you want me to get
you
an iPhone,” I said, checking the call—it was Ranger. She was an artist friend who shared my newfound interest in firespinning. “And maybe I will, but as for me, this thing isn’t even seven months old. Besides, are iPhones even out yet?”

“Mom! Didn’t you see the lines?
Eeeveryone’s
gots them at school,” she said—and I suddenly realized yet another downside to sending Cinnamon to an expensive private school—her friends all had parents who were rich, rich, rich. She said, “You gonna get that?”

“No,” I said, thumbing the call to voicemail. “I don’t want to be rude cell phone lady—and I don’t want to distract you from doing your homework. All right, young lady, once more with feeling—this time, fewer pretty pretties, more taking notesies.”

While Cinnamon was getting notes and taking pictures for her field report on the Indo-Pacific reef, Ranger texted me:
«Want to see some live dragons spin fire?»

My jaw dropped. Numbly, I thumbed an affirmative and pocketed my phone. I couldn’t read that and not think of Jewel. She’d called when she landed, but promptly disappeared—no calls, no email, not even a text message, nor did she respond when I’d texted her. After a few weeks, I’d started to think that Daniel had gotten her—I’d heard from
Carnes
more recently—when on the sixth of August I’d received a postcard from her:

Hey Skindancer, miss me? Hope you worried, but you needn’t. I’m safe, sound, and as far from the public eye as can possibly be. No wires on this isle! This may be a few days getting to you—Molokii will send it when he next goes to Maui. I trust you, but who knows who reads the mail? Thanks for saving me. And thanks for showing me your Dragons—both attached and unattached. Wish I’d gotten to know you better—I had fun with you.

Thoughts of hot kisses from a might-have-been—your Fireweaver.

A “might have been.” She was right. It was hard to imagine a more difficult long-distance relationship, between the attention hound and the underground princess, one grabbing the spotlight, the other trying to lay low on the other side of the planet.

True to form, the airport Maui postcard had no return address and was postmarked the first of August, more than a week after the date on Jewel’s handwritten note sent near the end of July. It had taken Molokii longer to mail the card than it had taken the card to reach me.

That worried me at first—Molokii was quiet, by necessity, but he didn’t seem like a slacker. Maybe the “isle” was on the other end of a ferry? No, Molokii drove cars. Well, even then, they could still be on the other end of a ferry. I hoped nothing sinister was hidden behind the delay. Maybe I was getting paranoid, but with my job as leader of the Magical Security Council, it was easy to see why. Every week, it seemed, I learned of a new threat.