I felt my collar in sympathy: I didn’t like mine either. OK, so I lied again: we didn’t look as different as can be. First, we both had silver collars around our necks, a kind of fangs-off sign provided by the Vampire Queen of Little Five Points; and second, we were both tattooed.

Cinnamon’s tiger stripes were beautiful, eye-catching… and forced upon her by her last guardian. She’d hide them if she could, but they come all the way up to her cheeks and down to the backs of her palms, and our attempts at covering them with makeup were a disaster.

My elaborate vines are even more eye-catching, a tribal rainbow beginning at my temples and cascading over my whole body in braids of flowers and jewels and butterflies. Today I was in a turtleneck, but normally I make no effort to hide them. I want people to see them move.

Unless you know what to look for, it’s subtle: out of the corner of your eye, a leaf flutters, a butterfly flaps, a gem sparkles-it’s like magic. And that sparks the conversation: Actually, they are magic, all inked here in Atlanta by yours truly “Dakota Frost,” I said, as my phone picked up, “Best magical tattooist in the Southeast.”

“Dakota.” The voice was deep, male and familiar.

“Hey, Uncle Andy,” I said. When I had been a kid, Sergeant Andre Rand had been my father’s partner on the Stratton police force-so close to the family I’d called him “Uncle Andy” though he was nothing of the sort. Now that I was an adult, Detective Andre Rand was my guardian angel in the Atlanta Police Department. “And before you ask, I did call Dad-”

“This isn’t about that,” Rand interrupted. “It’s-look, where are you now?”

“Out school shopping with Cinnamon.”

“Not what you’re doing,” Rand snapped. “Where, I mean geographically-”

“Downtown,” I said, now worried. Rand was normally polite and uber-smooth, but now he was curt and very stressed-and that scared the hell out of me.