Kiss of Fire

by Deborah Cooke

  Quinn opened the door but there was no one there. He moved to the top of the stairs that led to Sara’s apartment and saw Erik standing on the path from the sidewalk.

  “You’d better give me permission to cross your smoke before this woman calls the police,” Erik said in old-speak.

  Quinn belatedly remembered that Sara had a tenant in the main part of the house. Even so, he wasn’t ready to invite Erik into his temporary lair, not with Sara there. Her purse was on the floor where she had dropped it, and her keys were on the top.

  He took her keys, locked the door behind himself, and descended the stairs instead. “Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested tersely.

  Erik gave him a wry smile. “Still don’t trust me?”

  “There’s no reason for us to awaken Sara.”

  Erik snorted in disbelief but Quinn didn’t care. Erik’s leather jacket was wet, but the rain had slowed to almost nothing. The clouds were moving quickly across the sky. Quinn didn’t mind a few sprinkles on his shoulders.

  “You have a question for me,” Erik prompted.

  “I have many. Let’s begin with the big one. Why were you in Béziers when my family died?”

  “They didn’t die, Quinn. They were killed. Don’t imagine that it was anything other than murder.”

  “Everyone is murdered in a way, if you want to think about it that way.”

  “No. There’s always a war that can be used in the service of the greater war. An artful member of our kind can always infiltrate human society, can always bend the target of an individual battle to his will.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I am not. The cohesive element of human history is that the humans who recorded it seldom knew what was truly at stake.”

  Quinn was still skeptical. “The entire town was slaughtered so that my father could be killed?”

  Erik pursed his lips. “Recognize that your father was the Smith of his time, although he had not had the years to perfect his skills as you have done. He was powerful and he was feared by Slayers in his day. I doubt that many would have believed they could have eliminated him in a fair battle.”

  “So they chose to fight unfairly.”

  “It is the Slayer way.”

  “But my mother?”

  “She could have been carrying his seed.” Erik arched a brow. “And you can guess why your elder brothers were killed. You were all supposed to die, Quinn, but the Great Wyvern held you in the palm of her hand.”

  “If only to drop me into the fire later.”

  “Who can say what each of us must experience to become what we are destined to be? Your experience made you what you are: there is no denying that you are the most powerful Smith in all my lifetime.”

  Quinn averted his gaze. He still needed to hear Erik’s answer before he could pledge to serve with the Pyr.

  The two walked in silence for a long time, up one sleepy street and down another. Quinn cast his thoughts back and heard the steady rhythm of Sara’s sleeping, pinged his smoke and heard it ring true.

  “I had a friend, a long time ago,” Erik finally said. “A friend who taught me a great deal. His name was Thierry de Béziers.”

  “You said before that you knew my father.”

  “But not that I loved him as dearly as a brother.”

  “Why should I believe you?” Quinn asked.

  “I will tell you.” Erik waited for a few moments before he said more and when he did speak, his words surprised Quinn. “There is an old conviction among our kind that love is a whimsy of mortals, that to love a woman is to lose something of what makes one Pyr. To link oneself to a mortal woman is to create a binding tie with one place and time, to rip asunder our connection to infinity. According to such thinking, women serve their purpose in bearing our young and have no merit beyond that. We may protect them and we may honor them by force of that debt, but it is inadvisable for us to surrender any of our affection to them. I have known many who have lived to that code.”

  Quinn said nothing.

  Erik pursed his lips and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “There is power in that choice and for a long time, I respected it as the truth.”

  Quinn was intrigued by the implication. “But?”

  “But your father argued otherwise. Your father bound himself to your mother, in every possible way, and did so against much protest from the others.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Erik held Quinn’s gaze. “I mean that he loved her, and he was unafraid as to who knew as much.”

  Quinn looked at the sidewalk, remembering. There certainly had been affection between his parents and he knew that his father must have been Pyr. He hadn’t ever seen his father in dragon form, but he remembered the tricks his father would play with flames. It had been as if the fire listened to him, but as a child, Quinn had believed his father could do anything.

  Erik continued his story. “Your father insisted that he gained more by his surrender to love than he lost.”

  “Was he right?”

  Erik looked Quinn in the eye. “He died young, too young, and it is hard for me to accept that he believed his choice to have been a worthy one at the end. He died because he had a weak spot.”

  “Us?” Quinn guessed.

  Erik shook his head and didn’t answer the question. “You ask why I was there. I was there because I smelled the fire, though I was not close at hand. I did not arrive in time to make a difference to your father’s fate.”

  “He was dead.”

  “Not quite. He could not speak aloud, he could not see me and if he had been mortal, the barrier between us would have been insurmountable. But he sensed my arrival and he recognized me with keener senses than sight.” Erik swallowed. “We had old-speak between us that one last time.”

  Erik fell silent and Quinn glanced up at the other Pyr. He was surprised to see that Erik looked older and more drawn.

  “Thierry had taught me so much,” he said, his words thick. “The debt between us was long and the bonds between us numerous, even though we had argued over his choice with regard to Margaux. I was honored to have old-speak between us that last time, to hear his rumble in my own thoughts. He was my mentor in many ways and it was not easy to see him in such pain.”

  Quinn was remembering a thousand details. He remembered that there had always been a fire in the grate in his parents’ home, despite the weather. He remembered sparks flying between his brothers’ swords as they fought. He remembered stories that his father could always start a blaze, no matter how wet the wood or cold the hearth. He remembered his mother saying that his father “warmed her heart,” then smiling a mysterious little smile.

  “Your father bade me find his other sons,” Erik said hoarsely. “We both knew that he had fallen in defense of Jean, for Jean’s body was near him.”

  “My brother.”

  “Your father took a blow intended for Jean. He was wounded severely, but the Slayer let him live long enough to see his eldest son slaughtered before his eyes. Thierry had been teaching Jean his craft and was proud at what promise the boy showed.” Erik shook his head. “The only thing that saved him from madness at the end was the hope that one of you, one of the other four, had lived.”

  Quinn knew that his brothers had not.

  “I promised him that I would find all of his sons. I promised that I would raise them as my own, and I did not share my doubts that any of you had survived. Thierry had not seen the destruction of the town and I did not tell him how horrific it was. I could not bear the sight of it, myself. He would have been devastated to know that his friends and neighbors had suffered so much because he had been targeted.”

  Yes. Quinn knew that was true.

  Erik cleared his throat. “While Thierry’s strength faded, I went into that town. I went through its every alley and passageway. I looked at every corpse. In dragon form, I could even examine the ones that were still smoking. It was not an easy task, but I did it for my friend.�
� Erik’s voice tightened. “I did it because he asked it of me and it was the only thing left that I could do for him.”

  “And?” Quinn prompted when the other Pyr fell silent.

  Erik fired a hot glance his way. “I found three more of Thierry’s sons.”

  “Dead,” Quinn said quietly, no question in his tone.

  “Dead,” Erik confirmed and Quinn hung his head. They walked in silence for a moment. “I could not find the fifth, the youngest. I could not find you, and that gave me hope. It gave me a mission and it gave me a deadline.”

  “My mother was in the church when it burned. I heard her call to me.”

  “I wondered what had happened to Margaux,” Erik said softly. “The church, well, it was the hardest place of all. I confess that I looked for young boys first and tried to ignore the rest. Bless the Great Wyvern that you did not heed her.”

  Quinn sighed.

  Erik nodded. “For a long time, I hoped that you and she were together somewhere, that you had managed to flee in her care.”

  “No.” Quinn shook his head.

  Erik swallowed. “It is a blessing that Thierry never knew that it was fire that destroyed her. He had two loves: the fire that defines us and the woman who gave meaning to his existence. It would have broken him to have known that truth.”

  Quinn bit his tongue. A similar truth had nearly broken him. Was he tougher than his father? Or less compassionate? Or had his commitment to Elizabeth been less than the love his father had felt for his mother? Quinn didn’t really want to know.

  The other Pyr’s grief was tangible. Erik shoved a hand through his hair and frowned. “I went back to him. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, but at least there was that chance that you and Margaux had escaped.”

  “And he died?”

  “And he died, clutching that last fragile hope, along with my promise to do my all to find you.” He knotted his hands together, searching for the words. “It rained that night, you know, great torrents of rain.”

  “I’d forgotten.”

  “Until this week, I had no idea how important that was.” Erik sighed, then looked at Quinn. “Tell me. Did you hide in the mill?”

  Quinn was shocked. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because there was a glimmer of a scent there, one that I tried to follow. It was so faint that it wasn’t trustworthy, but it was the only one I found.”

  Quinn nodded. “I was there.”

  “And afterward?”

  “After I saw the church burning and I saw you, I ran.”

  “I wish I had seen you then.” Erik’s voice was tinged with such regret that Quinn was tempted to believe him. “You were too young to have come into your inherited powers, so you left little hint of your passage. I was determined to find you by the time you reached puberty and came into your own.”

  “You never did,” Quinn felt compelled to observe.

  “No. I never did, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.”

  “What about Ambrose?”

  “What about Ambrose?” Erik’s gaze was steady.

  Quinn frowned in his turn. “I guess he wasn’t the friend I thought him to be.”

  “Worse, Quinn. It is worse than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who do you think was the Slayer who killed your father and your brothers?” Erik held Quinn’s gaze, his own bright with conviction. “Who do you think was assigned the task of eliminating the Smith’s line, and is still driven to finish his task?”

  Quinn walked more quickly in his agitation. It would have been nice to deny Erik’s claim, but it made too much sense, especially given recent events.

  If that were true, then Sara would never be safe until Ambrose was dead. If that were true, he should be the one challenging Ambrose to a blood duel. But Quinn had been deceived once before and he had learned something from it.

  Belief wasn’t good enough. Persuasiveness wasn’t good enough.

  He needed proof.

  “Why should I believe you?” he demanded of Erik.

  “I have defended your mate and helped to save her.”

  “You could be trying to win my confidence, like Ambrose did.”

  Erik nodded agreement. “That’s true.” He pulled his hand from the pocket of his jacket and something glinted gold on his palm. “I think you will recognize this.”

  Quinn did. It was the Roman coin that his father had always rolled between his knuckles, making it disappear and reappear when the family sat by the fire in the evening. Quinn had been entranced by that coin as a child, though his father had never let him touch it.

  Thierry had never let any of his sons or his wife touch the coin and now Quinn knew why. It was the coin he used to challenge other Pyr to a blood duel.

  Erik offered it to Quinn. “He gave it to me, at the end, as his legacy to his son. He assumed that I would find you and that you would survive.”

  “You could have taken it from him, if you were his killer.”

  “Then I would challenge you with it.” Erik shrugged. “Instead, I give it to you.”

  Quinn took the coin, still unconvinced. There was too much at stake to take anything on faith.

  Erik frowned, then indicated that he’d take the next turn back to his hotel. “By the way, Thierry told me to say that the Smith can make any coin his own. I don’t know what that means, but maybe you do.” He held Quinn’s gaze for a moment, then turned to walk down the street that led back downtown.

  “You’re right, Erik,” Quinn called after him. “I do.”

  Erik paused and glanced back. As the other Pyr watched, Quinn closed his hand over the coin. He breathed into his fist three times. He murmured to the gold of its own song and felt it transform within his grasp. Then he opened his palm for Erik to see how the coin had changed. “It means that you’re telling the truth.”

  Erik had to walk back to him to see what he had done. When he did, he looked between the coin and Quinn, but he looked more resigned than astonished. “But you still don’t fully trust me.”

  There was no question in his voice and Quinn didn’t answer him. He didn’t have to: they both knew it was true.

  He was closer to trusting the older Pyr though, and he could prove it.

  “Sun’s coming up,” he said. “You want a cup of coffee?”

  Erik nodded at a donut shop. “Over there?”

  “No. I’m going to make some for Sara.” Quinn held Erik’s gaze steadily. “In her apartment.” He saw the moment that Erik realized he was being invited to cross Quinn’s smoke. The depth of the other Pyr’s relief persuaded Quinn that he had made the right choice.

  Sara had been right about finding out the truth.

  The trick would be proving Erik innocent of the third crime against Quinn and his loved ones. There were no witnesses of Elizabeth’s death, and Quinn saw no point in asking Erik about his role.

  A lie would be indistinguishable from the truth.

  There is fire.

  There is so much fire.

  Sara tosses and turns, aware that she dreams but knowing she can’t evade this dream’s truth.

  It is about Quinn.

  Everything around her is burning bright, orange with hungry, licking flames. They crackle and hiss and leap so high that she can’t see the walls of the kitchen, much less guess where to find the door. She feels a woman’s panic as she tries to escape the inferno. She cannot feel Quinn, but this woman’s thoughts are full of him.

  There’s a gold band on the woman’s left hand. Sara lets herself slide into the thoughts of Quinn’s wife, knowing this is why she is having this dream. The force of Elizabeth’s love for Quinn is staggering.

  She is praying for him, even as she herself is condemned to burn alive. Elizabeth pounds on the walls and shouts for help, help that she knows will not come.

  No one will help her. Elizabeth has been shunned by her family and her friends, she has moved with Quinn into the wilderness to establish a farm away from
those who would condemn them both, and she knows that the others will take satisfaction in her death when they learn of it.

  They will say she reaped what she had sown.

  Because they are fools.

  Quinn is the only one who would help her. But Quinn is traveling, doing his regular route of repairing the shoes of plough horses. Elizabeth knows he will be at the most distant point by now, close to Boston, and also knows that it is no accident the golden dragon chose this day for his attack.

  By the time Quinn returns to their farm, only smoking ash will remain. Elizabeth prays, even as she beats at the burning walls with her bare hands, desperate to escape. The stones of the chimney that Quinn built are hot, the thatch on the roof is burning, the kitchen is filled with blinding orange light.

  Her father said that she deserved to burn for giving her hand and her heart to a demon. Her father said she would burn forever for her defiance of him, for her choice to marry a man who could take dragon form.

  She never expected him to be proven right, not so soon.

  Her heart had stopped when she opened the kitchen door, intending to milk the cow. A golden dragon landed in the space between house and barn, scattering the chickens and stirring the dust. When he smiled, she knew she would not see midday.

  His beauty was deceptive yet fascinating. He might have been a jewel from a king’s treasury, made of glittering gold and the gleam of the stone she knew as tiger eye.

  Her father would have said that the wrath of God had come upon her. Elizabeth knew it was the wrath of the Slayers.

  Of one particular Slayer. She knew from Quinn that his name must be Erik, but when she called him such, he laughed. He loosed a torrent of fire on the house, on her precious house that Quinn had built with his own hands, and Elizabeth dropped her bucket. She snatched a broom and tried to beat out the flames, only to find that the dragon continued his fiery assault.

  She felt the heat and turned to find a wall of flames at her back. Her only escape was back into her kitchen and she didn’t expect she’d leave it alive.

  She didn’t beg. She didn’t plead. She lifted her chin and picked up her bucket and her broom. “You are evil,” she told the Slayer, whose smile only broadened. “And justice will be visited upon you. I only regret that I shall not live to see that day.”