“Oh, God,” I said, ducking my head back down to the dais. “Oh, God—”
“Oh, quit whining,” Transomnia said, strolling around me, cutting the wires on my wrists, then pulling me up to a sitting position. “But we’re not done.”
He strolled off casually, and I just sat there, propping myself up with one hand, covering myself with another, ankles still pulled apart by the wires. He returned with a rag and grabbed my right hand and began wiping it off roughly. I sat there, trembling, letting him do it, until he finally gave up in disgust and released my only slightly less grimy hand.
“That will have to do,” he said, opening his shirt. “Now get this fucking thing off me!”
My eyes widened. There was an elaborate knot tattooed on Transomnia’s chest—a bat, practically turned inside out inside an elaborate design pulling at it with fishhooks. It was a controlling charm, from the looks of it precisely the same kind inked on Wulf— Transomnia had been just as much a pawn as he had.
I gathered my strength and reached out with my cleaned hand. At first I felt nothing; then I caught the edge of the mana, began flexing my fingers, and drew the magic out into the air. The bat squealed and squeaked as its prison dissolved. The fishhooks of the design came loose and flailed in the air. But I didn’t let them get a grip on anything, and soon the whole design dissolved into sparks, leaving nothing but a faint ghost of an impression on his chest.
“Thank you,” Transomnia said, buttoning his shirt, somehow taller, more businesslike. He popped the wires on my ankles, left, right, and I gratefully pulled my feet together and huddled in a mound on the dais. Transomnia calmly walked away and stood over Valentine’s corpse—and began kicking it, grievously, brutally, methodically, each time releasing a flash of magic and color as his body flipped and skittered across the floor.
“No draining. No maiming. No raping. No killing. Those were the rules.“ Transomnia said, staring down at Valentine’s bloodied corpse with pure contempt. He looked straight back at me, and I twitched back a bit, trying to cover myself. “Consider ourselves even.”
“Even steven,” I said, trembling, naked but for Savannah’s collar, sitting here before a vampire who had almost beaten me to death… and who had now saved my life. I slipped slowly backwards off the dais, still trembling. I didn’t know if my legs would hold me, but somehow they did.
Transomnia smiled evilly, then threw the pruners down, embedding them in the floor between my feet. I flinched, but stayed where I was. Then he turned to go… and paused a moment, scowling. Finally he turned back to me. I flinched again, but didn’t try to get away—and I stood my ground before him, damn it, I stood.
And then Transomnia took off his coat, and slipped it on my shoulders.
“I hate your guts, bitch,” he said, “but you need this more than me.”
“Thanks,” I said, drawing it about me. “For saving my life.”
Transomnia roughly nodded. “I needed your help, too.”
“Then why didn’t you just ask?” I shouted, waving my hand at the carnage around us. I couldn’t keep it in anymore. “Why did you put us through all this—”
“Because I had to,” Transomnia snarled. “You saw the design. Mirabilus would have known the instant I turned hostile. I had to play my cards very carefully—”
“You let me beat your guards,” I said, in sudden realization. “You told them what to do, but not clearly enough for them to take me seriously.”
“That gamble paid off,” Transomnia said. “But Mirabilus would have dismissed the rent-a-thugs from the ceremonial chamber anyway—it’s better to have no witnesses to the deed, since even Wulf and I couldn’t always tie up every loose end. It was always going to be just you, me, and Mirabilus—but the history of our little tussles made it appropriate to express hostility in his presence.” He smiled grimly. “For that… I thank you, Dakota.”
“Why did you let him tattoo you in the first place? Did you think he could protect you from Saffron?” I asked—and then I stopped, working out the timing in my head. “No… not even vampires heal that fast. That had to be an old tattoo—”
“So old,” Transomnia said, “I barely remember why the deal made sense at the time.”
“You’re his advance man,” I said. “You roll into town, sniff out the lay of the land—”