Calaphase stared up at me, lifeless, body broken on the tagged parking lot in a vast splash of blood. I couldn’t believe it. He’d just jumped from the broken window of the little hot-dog stand, tripped as magic flame caught his feet, and pitched face down in the pavement-but instead of hitting the pavement, he’d seemed to fall forever into the vast chasm depicted by the tag, disappearing into the painted distance in some horrible trick of perspective.
But it wasn’t just a trick, it was magic, and seconds later Calaphase had splatted into the pavement right in front of my feet with more force than if he’d fallen from an airplane. I stared down at him from the safety of my strip of grass, stared at the twisted body that had been so strong in my arms, at the broken fangs that had sipped my blood, into the lifeless eyes that an hour ago had stared back into mine as he told me he loved me.
His body twitched, and for a brief moment I felt a flicker of hope: maybe blunt trauma wouldn’t be enough to kill a vampire. But then the vast splash of blood gurgled obscenely and began sinking into the pavement, blotted up by the graffiti, draining into the cracks painted in the rock, turning the glowing lava blood red. There was the power of the graffiti-these monster marks were feeding off of vampire blood, literal blood rocks. How dare they. How dare they!
My nostrils flared, and I looked up.
Zipperface stood at the far end of the parking lot, his misshapen head canted beneath his huge cap, his tiny eyes glowing, holding his baseball bat down and out like a sword in challenge. My face flushed with rage as I read more and more clearly off that exaggerated body language one clear emotion: saucy, self-satisfied glee. Suddenly a jagged, cartoony grin spread across that inhuman face, and he swept his paint can across the air in a clear gesture: I tagged you.
“Like hell,” I said, stalking out across the grass towards him.
Zipperface raised his hands, and flames surged from the blockhouse, a wash of mana driving cracked lines out across the parking lot, extending the lava landscape that had killed Calaphase. No matter-I was still going to kill him. But I’d have to get past the lava to do it-and then I realized the magic was reaching my skin before the heat.
I spread my hands wide, testing the air, feeling the mana like an electric charge. Normally I built up mana, then activated the tattoos to spend it. But now I stepped up to the edge of the lot, threw my arms wide, and soaked up mana like fresh spring rain. The tag spreading across the lot began to lose definition, no longer an active menace but just a few inked lines. I was astounded that the tag could not just move, but spread itself; but I had no time to think about that now. The mana was flooding my body, filling me with heat and light, more than I could safely take.
Lacking real skindancing training, I once again borrowed moves from Taido, twisting round once to draw in the mana, then surging forward in a high-stepping stomp that punched both hands forward and hurled the mana out in a fiery ball. Dazzling and impressive, yes, making Zipperface jump back; but improvised and weak, too. Zipperface swung his bat and struck the ball of mana full on, making it pop into multicolored fireworks.
I stalked out over the pavement, throwing my arms wide to suck more mana out of his tag. The air was cool now. We were far enough from his playground that I could keep him from creating new flames as long as I kept his tag drained. But Zipperface was not out of tricks: he snarled, drew his spray can, and began drawing lines in the air in a complicated pattern.
The vast tag began to shimmer again, the lava regaining its glow, the rocks regaining their depth and falling away, one by one-but I was having none of that this time, and began sashaying to pour my own magic into the mix. I whipped off my jacket and let it flap away over the spreading chasm, exposing the unfinished wings of the dragon on my shoulders, already glowing with the mana my walk was pouring into it. Unfinished as it was, it couldn’t defend me-but it could still help me kick this freak’s ass.
“ Spirit of air, ” I murmured, “ give me wings. ”
Twin wings erupted from my shoulder blades just as the last rocks fell away beneath my feet, leaving me floating forward over the vast gulf like a glowing angel. This was beyond even my power, but the surge of mana rippling off the pavement buoyed me up. The more Zipperface fed magic into the chasm, the higher I flew-and the closer I got.
Zipperface’s white gleaming eyes were fixed on me, and I stared straight back at him. I saw his logic now: he was a projectia, an image created by a magician operating somewhere else. Normally that figure replicated the image of the caster as closely as possible, but this figure was inspired by graffiti’s love of distorting an image into a cartoonish parody.
I had a good idea of how to use my vines to disrupt his image and short-circuit his magic, and if the feedback didn’t kill him it would at least leave me with a huge, living master tag I could study and use to track him back to his source.
But Zipperface, snarling, drew on the air again, spray casting runes that began draining the mana back out of the lava. I drifted lower and lower as the piece on the pavement grew duller and duller. My feet struck ground and I strode forward, twisting my arms to gather the remaining mana in my wings and shoot it forward into a net of vines that would disrupt his projection.
Zipperface tensed, watching me approach, canting his head further-then abruptly he drew three quick arcs in the air with his can. My eyes narrowed. The cartoony little sigil began to solidify, taking shape, looking familiar-and then I saw it. It was a baseball.
Zipperface swung his metal bat with a ringing crack, and the ball shot out and landed in my gut, knocking the wind out of me. My wings sagged around me, their mana surging back into my body like fire. I gasped for breath, trying to say a word of power. But Zipperface didn’t wait. He stepped forward, gripping the bat with two hands, preparing to take off my head.
But then I remembered: in magic, pretty words don’t matter. All that matters is intent.
“ Gaaah! ” I gasped, thrusting my hand out at him. A coiling vine leapt and entangled Zipperface’s bat. He leapt back, trying to tug the bat out of my tattoo grip. I grinned and pulled, as my brand new asp curled up the vine and began sliding towards him.
Zipperface’s snarl rippled across those metal teeth like a wave. He switched to a one-handed grip and pulled out his spray can again, drawing a pair of shears in the air. I leaned back, unfurling the vine, drawing my hand back in just as the shears sliced the vine in two.
Tension released, I fell back to the pavement, gasping for breath. In moments Zipperface was standing over me, a glowing cartoon parody of a man, white eyes gleaming, lowering his bat and spray can as he savored his moment of triumph.
I clutched my stomach, struggling for breath, and Zipperface raised the bat again, hefting the coiling tattoo vines trying to find purchase on its surface, preparing to hit me with a roiling ball of my own magic. Finally, I drew just enough breath to squeeze out one word. “Sucker.”
The snake in his half of the vines struck at him, and the vines themselves uncoiled, whipping around his head, crushing his cap, tearing into his face. Zipperface tried to toss away the bat, but the vines coiled around and caught his hand, pinning the bat to him. He dropped the can, trying to wrestle the bat away from his eyes-then snarled and thrust both arms wide, breaking all the vines into pieces, crushing the snake in his hand.
I laughed weakly. Tattoo magic wasn’t graffiti magic: the broken marks couldn’t just be reduced to dust like a sandblasted tag. Tattoos are alive, and tenacious. The remnants of the vines and snake dug into Zipperface’s ‘skin,’ interfering with the magic, disrupting the projection. Zipperface began to melt, to cant over, becoming even more misshapen.
But he didn’t fall. He held his bat out like a sword, holding me off, snarling, long tongue rippling out of his metal mouth. Then he stamped his foot and summoned his skateboard out of the ground. When the board fully materialized, he skated off, sliding back into the lines he had created against the wall of the tenement, merging back into them in a rainbow spray of mana.
I sagged back against the pavement, watching the glow fade from the graffiti. Long after Zipperface had disappeared, I gathered enough of my breath and strength to stand, and began to hobble back towards Calaphase. Even though I had seen what happened to him, my mind didn’t want to accept it. Maybe he wasn’t dead. Maybe he was just stunned. Maybe, with vampire regenerative abilities, he would roll over, smile, and be just fine.
Before I even got to him, I knew I was just lying to myself. Calaphase’s body was drained, charred. After the magic tag had sucked him dry of blood, it had set him on magical fire. Slow streamers of rainbow flame lifted off his body, like slow-motion animation; beneath the flames was a smudge of blackness that was barely recognizable as a man.
Damnit. Damnit. Damnit! I stood there, face screwed up so much it hurt, mouth covered with my hands so no one would see, eyes squeezed tight so I wouldn’t have to either. We were friends, we’d became lovers, seemingly moments ago-and he was gone. Gone! No more walks. No more talks. No more riding to my rescue in the middle of the night with donuts and that confident yet oddly bashful charm. Gone.
Finally, after how long I had no idea, I began to shiver in the cold, and turned away, looking for my vestcoat. I found it a blackened, smoking ruin atop a graffiti’d image of glowing rocks. I snatched it up, cursing as the hot cracked leather burned my skin-but as I grabbed it, my fingers had brushed pavement and found it cool. Magic, again.
I tossed the remains of the jacket into the crook of my elbow and began massaging my singed hand. The burn wasn’t too bad, no worse than all the minor singes, dings and scrapes I’d picked up in our ordeal, but as I looked at my skin, it looked different somehow. After a moment, I realized why, and cursed again, more quietly now, at another loss.
“My dependable snakes,” I said. Emotions welled up in me, and I clamped them down, inspecting the bare skin that until minutes ago had borne one of my best smaller designs, figuring out how to replace it. I needed the distraction of planning to fix what I’d lost. I needed to focus on anything but what had just happened. “I’m going to have to tattoo another one.”
Flashing lights caught my eye and an Atlanta black-and-white shot past the end of the tenement, running silent with lights blazing. I waved hopefully, gratefully, and the car turned into the lot and screeched to a halt well short of the graffiti image of the molten lava. I ran towards it, and my heart leapt as Rand stepped out, flanked by Horscht and Gibbs.
“Rand, thank God,” I said. “Calaphase and I were just attacked by magic graffiti-and it killed him. And I think the graffiti is using vampire blood for power-Rand? What’s wrong?”
Rand stared at me, jaw clenched. Then he spoke the last words I expected.
“I’m sorry, Kotie. You’re under arrest for the murder of Christopher Valentine.”