Drums beat, strong and primal. Fire blazed from burning barrels. And on the broad floor of what had been a warehouse, a crowd of nearly-human shapes cheered on as a huge wolf the size of a tiger faced off with a stag the size of a Buick.
I started to think that maybe this job wasn't worth it.
Ragged young boys ran the outer perimeter of the werehouse, human in form but snapping and snarling at each other with the voices of dogs. Wolves padded back and forth around the largest and scruffiest single group of men; both wolves and men stared at me with hungry eyes. There were other groups-tall, proud men I took to be werestags, another group crowded around a werebear, and many others. Or perhaps there was no relation between their human forms and their beasts-I had not seen any of them change yet.
To the snarling was added whistling. I looked up, and saw an upper set of loft structures, perhaps once offices, that had been converted into living space. Boys and young men, expertly tattooed with wolf s heads and cat's paws, hung from the railing, whistling down at me. I laughed. Actual wolf whistles and cat calls! My laughter faded as I saw girls mixed in with the boys, angry, indignant-hitting their men and glaring down at me.
Then an orange-haired girl leapt down from the railing, shoved a knot of boys apart and stalked up to me. She wore a cropped top and vest and short pants that showed off elaborate, tattooed tiger stripes-and it was good work, I mean, I was impressed-but the claws erupting from her fingers and the tail curving behind her were quite real.
"You thinks you can just waltz in here and get a taste of our men?" she said, glaring up at me with yellow cat eyes, which made her all the more exotic and beautiful. She held up a long, sharp set of claws. "You thinks you can go through me to do it?"
I leaned in down on her until my face was inches from her exotic, oval face, and her tufted cat ears folded back as her eyes grew wider. I closed mine, and drank in her scent. She was warm and spicy with sweat, with a hint of real perfume that tasted of cinnamon.
"Oooh, you smell yummy," I cooed, opening my eyes to see hers terrified. "Why would I want them when you're throwing yourself at me? Give me a taste, little girl."
Emboldened, I licked her face, and she leapt back with a squeal, hissing at me and swatting like a frightened little cat. It made her all the more cute, like the younger Savannah I remembered, and I watched her back all the way to a clump of the very same boys she'd challenged me over, hissing and swatting at them as they laughed.
I licked my lips. "Definitely cinnamon."
"Most interesting," Calaphase said. "Definitely Saffron's ex."
Lord Buckhead suddenly strode forward and broke into the ring, pulling the wolf and stag apart like a pair of stuffed toys. The stag snorted and challenged him, but the wolf just whined and tried to get away. Both twisted uselessly at the ends of his straightened arms.
"Enough!" he shouted, his voice ringing out throughout the house. "We are not animals, that we should fight like dogs!"
"But this is a werehouse, Lord Buckhead," snarled a voice that was half laugh and half roar, as Lord Buckhead slowly lowered the combatants to the floor. "This is not a place for decorum. This is a place to celebrate our beasts! And when is more appropriate to celebrate our beasts than Halloween?"
Oh, just wonderful. Halloween was just next Tuesday… and this was Friday night. This was literally a Halloween party. Every werekin in the Atlanta metro region was probably here tonight, and I'd wandered straight into it.
Lord Buckhead released the fighters, and they slunk away. The stag looked back once or twice, but Lord Buckhead did not acknowledge him. Buckhead just stared up at the end of the hall, to a raised platform, and even though he had a stag's head I could tell he was glaring.
"But what is this?" the voice said, and I swallowed as the crowd parted to reveal the massive shape looming on the platform. "What have you brought before us tonight?"
A huge chair welded from parts of cars made the throne for a massive man-bear easily nine feet tall. The long claws of his "hands" curled over the working headlights of an old Cadillac. The engine and grille had been removed to make room for a huge bench seat groaning beneath the weight of two hairy, brawny legs. The hood had been flipped up into a backrest for his hyperdeveloped chest and shoulders, which were covered in a shaggy mane that would have made a lion proud. And atop his massive neck loomed a head that looked like it could have swallowed me whole, with two glowing green eyes fixed straight upon me.
"My name is Dakota Frost," I said, voice ringing out in a silence that was unexpected. "I travel under the protection of the court of the Lady Saffron and the ban of the Lord Delancaster, but I come here to see the Marquis on business of my own."
"I think Lord Buckhead was supposed to introduce you," Calaphase said under his breath-and I noticed he'd moved quite a few steps back, with Transomnia skulking behind him like a wayward child.
"Ooops," I said, turning back to face the Bear King. At least, I assumed it was the Bear King; hopefully there weren't two of these monstrosities floating around.
A wolf lying at the monster's feet snarled something, and the Bear King snarled back so deep it reverberated in my gut. "We have a human in our court," he spat. "If you have not learned to use a human voice in that shape, don't talk to me."
The wolf ran off, snarling and whining, and the Bear King leaned back, seeming to become even larger against his oversized throne. He waved a hand at the throng. "We care not for vampire politics," he said, eyes boring into me. "Tell me, why have you dared to interrupt our Halloween revels, little one?"
"Little," I snapped, stalking forward. The vampires hung back as I walked forward through the predominantly werewolf crowd, climbed the steps of his throne and stopped straight in front of him. The huge beast's jowls were only a few feet from mine.
"Little," I said, projecting my voice, turning around to face the throng. On one level, I was scared out of my wits; on another, the only way I could get through this was to brazen my way through. "I can't tell you how good it is to hear a man call me 'little'!"
The bear leaned closer. "Are you challenging me, little one?"
"Good heavens, no," I said, waving my hand to indicate his legion of followers. "You get plus three, plus three to attack as long as seven or more cards are in play."
The Bear King froze for a moment, befuddled; I guess he didn't play Magic: The Gathering. Then he laughed, a long, hearty laugh that sounded jarringly human coming from his monstrous face. "Very well, little one, tell us what was so urgent that it could not wait?"
"I'm doing a tattoo for a werewolf," I said, "and he wants it done before the full moon."
The bear head stared at me, then laughed uproariously, the whole crowd laughing and howling with him. "Oh, I very much doubt that."
"A werewolf wants her to do a tattoo," a female voice cried, and I saw the girl who had challenged me hanging on to one of her boys and pointing at me. I blew her a kiss, and quicker than a magic trick, she was hiding behind her friends. Satisfied, I refocused on the bear.
"Marquis, this one is no threat to you," the Bear King said. "Approach without fear."
I turned, and saw a man with a raised brown Wolverine haircut and long brocaded coat step cautiously out from one of the doors leading to the warren of side offices and shops. He looked like an extra from the Renaissance Faire who fell off the back of a truck and then got run over by it. He had elaborate pants and a ruffled pirate shirt beneath the brocade, but all were old, dirty, nearly as unkempt as his hair. He approached us with a curiously mincing step and upraised hands held slack, as if he deigned to touch nothing other than his tattooing tools.
He hopped up onto the platform gracefully, and bowed to me. He didn't do the standard double take when he stood and found me still towering over him, which notched him up in my regard; but then he turned to the throng and spoke with evident disdain. "I heard this is the 'artist' who would tattoo a wolf," he said to the crowd, in a high-pitched voice that nonetheless carried. "Show her we need no more inkers!"
A young man leapt forward, baring his chest to show a gleaming tattoo of a wolf, woven with marks for sharp sight. Another leapt forward with tribal signs granting increased hunting powers; the young girl paraded back and forth, and I could see stealth and grace written into her tiger stripes.
It was all excellent work: the outlines were sharp, the shading subtle, the colors vibrant; but I needed to know more, and impulsively I stepped down into the little crowd of exhibitionists, who now numbered five. There were others showing off tattoos behind the front row, but it was all just normal ink or minor marks: these five were the finest the Marquis had to display, and knew it.
I stretched out my hands and felt the power through their marks. The subtle interplay of ink and line necessary to call upon magic were woven through all their signs. I recognized some of the larger signs, but just as many were clearly new, having none of Jinx's mathematical subtlety but instead a raw grip on the rules of power inked with a firm, well-trained hand. The Marquis was not just an inker; he was a backwoods graphomancer, with a fine grasp of the magic of the wolf. No wonder Jinx had recommended him.
"Impressive," I said, loud enough to carry through the throng. I was getting pretty tired of playing this like I was on a stage; I much preferred meeting in a coffeehouse, Jinx-style, to all these theatrics. "I can see why Jinx sent me to you."
"The blind witch is truly gifted," the Marquis called out to the crowd, smiling with a bow as I ascended to the stage. "Even she can see my superior talent."
I smiled at him. He smirked back at me, yellow glowing eyes the only thing wolfish about his weak, effete face. Well, in truth his hair was pretty wolfish too, but that was clearly achieved with just a lack of grooming than any expression of wolf. Or maybe I was rapidly losing my patience and not inclined to give him an inch. So I just stared straight back at him, smiling, until the glow faltered and he looked away.
"So, 'Marquis,'" I said, in a quiet tone designed to be heard only on the stage, withdrawing a picture tube from my vest and unrolling the flash, blown up to 11x17 and cleaned up as much as Photoshop would permit. "Tell me what you make of this?"
He looked at it for a moment, then took it from me with an offended hiss, strolling away. He stared down at it dismissively, then with more and more interest. Finally he turned back to me. "Where," he whined, loud enough to play to his audience, "did you get this?"
"My client" I replied. "He thinks it will give him more control over his beast."
"Oh, it will," he laughed, still speaking to the crowd, eyes never leaving the tattoo. "It will… it most definitely will."
"'Most definitely will' as in 'will definitely control his beast by interfering with his changes in a bad way,'" I asked, "or 'will definitely give him more self control?'"
He looked at me sharply, eyes flicking back down. "You would not understand."
"Try me."
"It will… contain his excess power as the moon approaches," he said, "then release it when he decides to trigger the change."
"See, I understood that just fine," I said. "Was that so hard, Mister Wizard?"
He flapped his hand once or twice to dismiss me, waltzing off. "Enough, girl. You have done your duty. Send this wolf to me, and I will ink him."
Hear that snap? The camel's back-right after the last straw.
"Not going to happen," I said, crushing the picture tube in my hand.
"Excuse me?" the Marquis said, slowly turning back to me.
"This is my client," I said. "I did not risk life and limb coming here just to hand him over to you. I need your advice, for which you'll be well paid. That's it."
Hot breath brushed past my face and feathered my 'hawk, and I looked aside to see the glowing green eyes of the Bear King not two feet from my face.
"The Marquis tattoos all the werekin in my realm," he said, voice crackling like two slabs of granite sliding over each other. "We need no other."
"If he was in your realm, he'd have already come to the Marquis," I said. "He's not. He's a Little Fiver, an Edgeworlder. He's under Saffron's protection, and came to me-and he's going under my needle."
"You are challenging me, aren't you, little one?"
I should have been filled with terror. Alright, I was filled with terror-despite the fact I've never been afraid of bears, even when I watch some giant Kodiak's crap-inducing roar on the Discovery Channel. For some reason they're not as scary to me as tigers, much less the fake stuff dreamed up by H.R. Giger, that really twists my gut. But here, inches away from the Bear King's bared teeth and red glowing eyes, I was terrified and frightened to the point of useless bravado.
So I squeezed my fist tight, pouring a cascade of mana down the vines into my yin-yang, and then shoved my glowing palm at his face.
The Bear King ducked his head back as if stung, snarling, but otherwise frozen, making no move to respond. I could feel his magic, his power sparkling on the edge of my tattoos, and it was far weaker than I expected; surely it took more power than that to change man into beast? The Bear King's eyes tightened in very human rage and his muzzle wrinkled in a very feral snarl, and he began to shake, his claws drawing a squealing whine out of the metal of his throne, tires supporting it squeaking ominously as he shifted his weight. Now I was challenging him, on his own throne; but he was afraid of magic; and there was no easy way out for us without one of us showing weakness. He had to respond to this.
And then it was the Marquis who rescued us, leaping forward to come between me and the Bear King, grasping my hand with one tattooed thumb pressed into my yin-yang to bleed off the power. "And so we have ourselves not just an inker, but one inked! A real magician," he said, crying out to the crowd, holding my hand up high. "Surely she is not afraid to prove herself worthy in front of our King, to prove she has the magic to ink a mark upon a wolf!"
"I accept your challenge," I said loudly, and then more quietly, "Thank you."
The Marquis looked over at me, yellow eyes glinting. "Thank me?" he giggled, sounding less like a half-wolf monster who could tear out my throat than a catty little prima donna… who could still tear out my throat. "You don't even know what the challenge is, much less how to win it. I'll take your flash and your client, and send you home with your tail between your legs, you tall skinny bitch."
"I don't have a tail," I said.
"You don't now," he said. "But… we shall see."