Frost Moon (23 page)

“I’d be honored,” I said.

And so I got to enter the Masquerade like BDSM royalty, preceded by Savannah and Darkrose, Jinx and Sir Charles on either arm, with Alex pushing from behind as my motor. The crowd cheered, though it probably had a lot more to do with the matching vampires and dog slaves in white and black leather than any accolades for me or Sir Charles.

We went to a special area right at the base of the stage, right beneath the raised bar and tables where Savannah and I had always liked to camp out at so we could see the dance floor. It would have been hard to get a better view.

“So, Sir Charles,” I said breathlessly, as Alex led Jinx off, “do you have a wonderful show planned for us this evening?”

He smiled, a little weakly, a little wistfully. “I’m just a guest of honor today,” he said. “I don’t have the endurance anymore to perform. It’s frustrating because it’s not my muscles—it’s the ticker. I can start swinging, but in less than a minute, I’m out of breath.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can sit in a chair with a phone and my Rolodex and whip up a performance just by calling in a few favors— half the performers in this town owe their start to me, and would jump at the chance to fill my shoes. The Secret Room is on later, and Darkrose and Saffron have something planned. But first, we have a
very
special show.”

Savannah and Darkrose rejoined us, taking posts on either side of us with the dogs kneeling at their feet. “Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “What, you’re going to allow the leather dogs and vampires in and not have them
do
anything?”

“We have an
extensive
dog and pony show later. Right now, we’re here to be seen and let the crowd… simmer,” Savannah said. “Besides, we—actually,
all
the performers—wanted to see
this
show first.”

Jinx stepped to the stage, guided by Alex. “And now, dear friends, we are proud to present a very special demonstration of magic,” she said, whipping out her spirit cane and extending it to its full length. She drew it in a great circle through the air, creating a pulsing arc of color that shimmered through every shade in the rainbow—very very Jinx! Then she drew the cane up and down, up and down in a mountain shape—and then repeated it, and my mouth opened as I recognized the logo.

“Please welcome—the Mysterious Mirabilus!”

There was a clap of thunder, and all the lights went out. Two hooded figures appeared in the darkness, each carrying a lone torch.

They stepped forward slowly, in unison, approaching two huge braziers on pillars at each end of the stage. Just before lighting them, the figures reached up ostentatiously, and threw aside their hoods.

Each
bore the unmistakable features of Christopher Valentine.

“Oh my God,” I said, sitting up in my wheelchair.
This
was the Mysterious Mirabilus’ most famous trick, and he was doing it here, at the Masquerade, for
us
—and I had the best seat in the house! Just last week I’d seen a trick in a movie where a man ‘teleported’ to the other side of the stage—but this
wasn’t
teleportation, and it
wasn’t
a movie. There were two of him—right in front of me! Even from
this
close I couldn’t see how it was done. They weren’t masks—each commanding face had the same dark eyebrows and the same mischievous eyes. The torrent of white hair even had the same part on the same side, so there was no way the two images could be simple reflections.
How
was he doing it?

Then the figures plunged their torches into the braziers, and a giant flare of light lit up the whole interior of Hell. I looked back, seeing all the astonished faces, then looked forward again to see the robes collapsing to the ground and—just barely glimpse two dark cat-suited figures disappearing behind the stage. But everyone’s eyes were on center stage, where a single Mirabilus now stood alone, in a simple tuxedo and a top hat, which he removed and swept across the crowd to release a torrent of flapping birds of fire that darted out across the crowd before dissolving into a thousand colored sparks.

Christopher Valentine was in rare form. Each trick started as something simple—shuffling cards, juggling, pulling a rabbit out of a hat—and then grew more and more spectacular in typical Mirabilus fashion. He made the rabbit and the hat disappear, then kicked off his shoe to reveal bunny slippers, which he turned inside out to reveal the bunny, from which he improbably pulled the hat. While juggling he got a phone call and stepped off to the side of the stage, the balls still tumbling through the air in his absence; on his return he tossed the cell phone into the mix and glared irritated at it when it started ringing again, seemingly unable to stop himself juggling long enough to answer it.

And then a second Mirabilus appeared. The first eyed the phone, and his clone reached in, snatched it and answered it. He began talking animatedly while the juggling Mirabilus glared at him; then a
third
Mirabilus appeared, also yakking on a phone and tossing a deck of cards. Enraged, the original Mirabilus started tossing the balls at his counterparts, who tossed the phones and deck of cards back in a brief display of three-way juggling. Then the clones took the balls and phones and whirled off—while the original caught the deck, broke the wrapper off, and grinned widely to the crowd as he fanned out the cards.

Now the Mirabilus went straight back to the basics. The spotlight zoomed in, and two enormous screens projected a close-up view of his nimble, graceful hands, shuffling the cards with incredible skill. I wondered if the two projectors and the unseen camera had a big hand in the dueling Mirabiluses we had seen earlier, but I couldn’t see how and frankly I didn’t care: like everyone else I was mesmerized by his supremely deft prestidigitation. Cards blurred through the air, became flowers, then coins; then the coins were between his outstretched fingers, turning to marbles and gems and dice in rapid succession.

And then I looked up at his face. The lights weren’t on it, but I could see Christopher was tired and sweating, scowling with the effort. The Mirabilus was getting old, and I felt saddened. Then his eye looked down and caught me, and he winked, throwing his hands up and turning the glittering marbles into ten sparks of fire.

And with that, all too soon, it was over, the Mirabilus bowing to the crowd and its thunderous applause. He motioned for the mike, also flicking his fingers down at me—and as an assistant named Elijah brought him the mike, I was shocked to see Savannah leaning down to release the bumpers on my wheelchair.

“What are you doing?” I asked, as she started to push me forward. “He’s not done—”

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Masquerade,” Christopher called out to the crowd warmly, waving his arms so no-one would notice he was pausing for breath. “I am the Mysterious Mirabilus, and I hope you have enjoyed my little show tonight.”

The crowd went wild—as did I, as Savannah pushed me up next to Darkrose and turned my wheelchair around to face the crowd. “What, what are you doing—”

“And while the date and venue are yet to be decided, I’m proud to announce here on this very stage—my next Valentine Challenge!” he cried. The crowd went a little less wild—apparently the skeptical set didn’t make a big showing at goth-fetish-techno dance clubs—but they cheered anyway as he continued: “You’ve seen me throw down the gauntlet before to psychics and seers and dowsers and all sorts of mystics, and each time I’ve won—but this time, I may have met my match: Atlanta’s own magical tattooist, Dakota Frost!”

My mouth opened—and then Darkrose and Savannah reached down and effortlessly lifted my wheelchair and set me gently down on the stage next to Valentine, who put his warm hand on my shoulder and winked at me.

The crowd gasped—many of them were close enough to realize that many of my bruises and cuts were not just makeup, and many of the rest realized that my Mohawk was gone. But Valentine raised his hand, calming. “Now, Miss Frost has had a rough time of late, having recently come back from the brink of death—” and everyone laughed, a bit nervously “—but she told me she was willing to go ahead with the challenge.”

“No-one would blame her if she backed out,” he continued, looking straight at me, ignoring the crowd, “after all she’s been through.”

I reached up and pulled the mike towards me. “Not a chance, old man.”

“Hear that? You hear that?” he cried, smiling out at the cheering crowd. “She’s a trooper, and I respect that! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you—”

“Dakota Frost!” a man yelled from the upper railing, and there were screams and shouts as I looked up straight into the barrel of a gun. “You’ll never ink that Nazi bastard, Frost!”

There was a terrific bang, everything tilted sideways, and my knee exploded in pain as something slammed into me. There were shouts and screams as I fell off the stage, wheelchair and the world tumbling down on me. I lay frozen a moment, gasping, watching the surge of feet recede; but there were no more shots. So I lifted the wheelchair off me with difficulty.

When it fell aside I saw Christopher Valentine sprawled across me, gasping for breath, clutching his left shoulder with his right hand.

And bleeding. Bleeding fast.

26. VALENTINE’S DAY

Christopher Valentine’s head lay tilted on the pillow, hair disheveled, an oxygen tube running under his nose. His eyes were closed, slack, and his breathing was labored. His body seemed as thin as sticks under the flimsy hospital gown—except for his left shoulder and upper left chest, all swollen out of shape, and covered in an array of bandages.

I stood there, on crutches, staring down at him. “Is… is he going to live?”

“I don’t know,” Philip said. “I just don’t know.”

After a long period of waiting, Philip had worked his magic to get me and Alex through the police guard and the hospital staff. It was amazing, like watching a Jedi out of a Star Wars movie pull his mind tricks. But once inside the ICU, I was too afraid to ask any of the staff anything for fear they would ask us to leave, so I just stood there, hunched over the crutches that had replaced my ruined wheelchair, staring down at the old man who had saved my life.

Valentine opened his eyes to slits. “Miss Frost,” he said, voice hoarse and ancient, holding nothing of his normal stage presence… but still a bit of his devilish humor. “I may need to delay the challenge a bit.”

“Whatever you say, old man,” I said, with forced bravado. The old geezer had taken a bullet for me. Christopher Valentine took a
bullet
—for
me!
“Whatever you say.”

His eyes slipped down to the bandages, and he held up his left hand slowly. He could barely move his stiff, swollen fingers, and the arm somehow looked… limp, as if more than the muscles weren’t working right. “Good thing I’m a righty, eh?”

“Good thing,” I said, choking up. “A good thing.”

“Hey,” Valentine said. “I’ve been through worse—no,
really
, through worse.”

“Hello again,” said a voice behind me, and I whirled guiltily to see Doctor Hampton—the older doctor that had called in the yummy Doctor Blake to operate on my knee. He eyed me curiously. “Should you be walking around?”

“The wheelchair was smashed in the attack,” I said. “But I’m using crutches.”

“Could I ask you to step out for a moment?” the doc said. “I need to talk to Doctor Valentine about his condition—”

“That’s all right,” Valentine said. “She’s my… protege. Consider her family.”

“You’re just everyone’s family, aren’t you?” Doctor Hampton said. He had a smile that didn’t seem at all forced—clearly he had been schooling Blake on his bedside manner, or Blake had rubbed off on him. “Doctor Valentine, I’m a bit concerned about your bloodwork. You’ve got some spikes that can indicate an opportunistic infection—”

“Let me guess,” Valentine said. His voice sounded oddly ragged, and he took very deep breaths. “MRSA?”

“What?” I asked. “What’s that?”

“Drug-resistant staph,” Hampton said. “We don’t know that yet, but the micro lab’s looking it over now. We might need to move you into a different ward.”

“I get it, I get it,” he said, waving his hand. “Common in enclosed populations—”

“I’m so sorry,” the doctor said.

“Should you be saying that?” Valentine said, a twinkle in his eye. “What if I were likely to sue you for giving me a bug I didn’t come in with?”

“Somehow I think that won’t happen,” Hampton said. “Let’s see your hand.”

“It’s a little stiff,” he said, as Hampton felt it gently. “But I have feeling. I told you, not to worry.”

“You hear that?” Hampton said, looking at me. “When I heard a sixty-seven year old man had gotten shot I was afraid he wouldn’t last the night, and now
he
tells
me
not to worry. You’re one hell of a tough old bird, Doctor Valentine.”

“You doctors,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Always underestimating.”

“I won’t underestimate you, old man,” I said.

“Sure I’m not faking it?” Valentine said hoarsely. He tried to grin, but coughed and spat up something black. “You—you don’t get off that easy.”

He sank back into the pillow, and Hampton looked at us visitors disapprovingly. “I think Doctor Valentine has had enough excitement for—”

“Dakota!” Valentine said. His good hand shot out, gripped mine tightly, for a brief moment incredibly strong, then rapidly fading as he sank back into the bed. “You find the guy who did this, hear me?” he said. “Don’t take him on yourself, but you help the police find him and you put him away for me. You’ll do that as a favor for old Valentine?”

“Cheer up, Chris,” I said, squeezing his hand back. “This one’s for free.”

27. PIOUS

Stumping up and down rickety wooden stairs in crutches is not the smartest way to speed up your rehabilitation, but I was determined to get back into the game as soon as possible. I’d never realized how handicap-unfriendly the Rogue became when the elevator was out, and after finding out, I was loud and vocal to the rest of the staff about it. Of course, I’m sure my sore jaw from my morning’s trip to the periodontist—and the bad news that it would take upwards of six months to fix my teeth—had
nothing
to do with my mood.