Blood Rock Read Free Page A

was so … complicated , built layer upon layer upon layer. Revenance was embedded in a rosette of vines; coiling out from that were thick, stony tentacles, a grey brick octopus clutching at cartoon images of the trees and buildings around us. Colorful lettering in the exaggerated “wildstyle” font floated behind the octopus, and behind that was a fully painted backdrop of a grassy hill against a black sky. Almost like an afterthought, the base of the design sported two groups of curving, cracked tombstones, one on the left, one on the right, drawn to look like they erupted from the base of the wall.
    I considered whether the tombstones could be the graffiti’s power source … perhaps by necromancy? No, they were dry of blood. Earth magic from the hill image? No, I would have felt it if this was a ley-line crossing, and that also ruled out the idea that the octopus tentacles were drawing power from the nearby buildings. So how did it work ?
    Surely not … graphomancy, or something like tattoo magic? I stared past the weaving vines, into the letters, trying to see past the tag’s art and through to its logic. It was difficult: the wildstyle letters were distorted, overlapping, intertwining, and I could barely pick out a single letter. But every stroke was amazing work, and there was a glittering texture to the pigments, almost like the magic inks used in tattoos. Perhaps a variant of tattoo ink, reformulated to let the magic work on rock? But the designs of tattoo magic only work because skin is a canvas infused with living magic. Where was the graffiti getting the mana?
    And then Revenance moaned, the blackened tongue in the dark hole of his mouth looking like he’d been left to die in Death Valley. No one does that to my friends.
    “All right,” I whispered. “Your vines versus my vines. Let’s go.”
    I stepped forward, letting my vines curl out, green and glowing. The barbed tentacles twisted towards me, and now I could see that they were a braid of wire, roses and chains. They slapped against my thicket of magic, initially just questing, then with increasing rage. I shimmied forward, then whirled and drew my glowing green blanket in. The hooked braids pounced—just as I threw my arms out and let the vines explode outward, tearing the barbs to pieces.
    Colorful, bitter powder puffed through the air as the braids flew apart, a residue of the materials used in this tag. The thin layer of oil chalk was weaker than the ink woven into living flesh that made my tattoos. But there was a hell of a lot to the tag, and it kept getting stronger, two more tombstone images erupting as a dozen more tentacles hungrily pounced on me.
    Instinctively I crouched back, hands raised in a guard as the braided vines whipped around me, shoving me roughly through my shield. How was I going to get Revenance out if I couldn’t even reach him? Then I noticed what my crouch and guard had done. I’d fallen back into a Taido karate middle stance, and it hit me: karate was a kind of a dance.
    I dropped into a low stance my instructor called jodan , legs a low coiled crouch, one fist jutting forward to guard me, the other pointing straight backwards at the sky, the karate version of thumbing your nose. Immediately my legs began to throb: I wasn’t strong enough to use the stance yet, but it was stable , damn it, and coiled in a way I could use for my magic.
    I began writhing again, making my tattoos shimmer; working with the stance; and then, just like in class, I raised my fist to protect my face, shot the back hand and leg forward together and moved , planting myself five feet forward in the mirror image of the same stance.
    The thing flailed at me like an animated octopus; but with every step I poured more power into my marks, pushing in closer, closer; my vines pushing its vines back. I didn’t feel the cold anymore: I was sweating. My bum knee began pulsing with pain, but I ignored it.
    The pressure was intense; my boots ground