Fire Marked

by Val St. Crowe

  “These dragons aren’t like regular dragons. There’s something wrong with them. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know that there’s no intelligence in them, and that all they seem to do is kill things. They’re focused on my hotel for some reason, and we don’t know why.”

  “Penny, that’s horrible,” said Ophelia. “How can you possibly run a business when you’ve got… monsters attacking you?”

  “I can’t,” I said. “But I talked to Maeve Hall, who owned the hotel fifteen years ago, and there was a murder here then, and she said that she swore that the hotel was haunted. I thought maybe the ghosts could be calling to the dragons somehow.”

  “Ghosts?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, maybe the spirits have some kind of magic, or maybe the murder left some kind of residue on the hotel. An, um, energy or something.”

  “I don’t know about that,” she said. “But I can tell you that there’s no way to imbue magic into an object. The only objects that hold magic are dragon artifacts. Teeth and scales and bones and that sort of thing. You can’t take the magic out of something and put it into something else. Your hotel can’t have magic in it. Now, energy, maybe. I don’t know about that kind of thing. I’m not going to say that there aren’t things like spirits or ghosts out there. Maybe there are. But I sure as hell don’t know anything about them.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling disappointed.

  “Sorry I can’t be much help,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I come to you with problems too much anyway.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “I don’t mind at all. Anything you need, I’m here for you.” She smiled. “How’s that growing boy child in there?”

  “Good,” I said, grinning. “I feel him kicking nearly every day now.”

  “Strong kicks?”

  “Pretty strong.” I rubbed my belly. He wasn’t moving right now, but that was probably because I was up and about. I’d been told that walking around tended to rock the baby to sleep.

  “Well, if I think of anything I can do to help you both, I’ll let you know,” she said. “We don’t want any trouble for you right now.”

  “Trouble? Me?” I joked sarcastically.

  She laughed. “All right, you do seem to be a trouble magnet.”

  I sighed. “Thanks anyway, Ophelia.”

  She gave me a hug. “Take care of yourself, Penny.”

  * * *

  That evening, Lachlan was out doing recon on the stolen artifacts for the Stone clan. I was in the apartment on my own. I made myself dinner—tacos—and then I settled down to watch some television.

  But my television set started acting up. Maybe it was the TV. Maybe it was the reception. I don’t know. But I kept getting these weird bursts of static, and the picture would go wonky for a minute.

  At first, I was only annoyed by it, and I tried to wiggle all the connections to make sure everything was okay. Nothing helped.

  But then, the next time that the picture went staticky, I could swear that I saw something in the static. Like an image. Of a person.

  An icy hand grabbed hold of my spine.

  Oh, God. What if this wasn’t a problem with the reception or the TV? What if this was the ghost trying to communicate with me?

  Was it the ghost of the violent father? The one who had killed his family? Or was it one of the children instead? Maybe the mother?

  I gulped, staring at the TV, waiting for another burst of static.

  But there was nothing, just the inane chatter of some advertisement for a fast food restaurant. I picked up the remote control and muted the TV. I’d be able to see the static image just fine without—

  Boom.

  I jumped.

  What the hell was that? It had come from back the hallway. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to burrow on the couch from whatever it was.

  But that was almost worse, because now all I could do was picture something coming up on me from behind, something almost liquid and shadowy, sliding behind the couch…

  I leapt to my feet.

  Damn it.

  Slowly, I took a few steps across the room to peer down the hallway.

  I stared at the cream carpet running over the floor. The light blue-grey walls. The white trim. I had a few framed photographs on the walls, mostly of me, Felicity, and Connor.

  Boom.

  I jumped again, adrenaline flaring through me, fraying my nerves.

  It was coming from the spare room.

  I looked behind me, back at the living room. The television was muted, and silent people were moving back and forth on the screen. Behind the TV, the curtains on the windows were shut tight against the darkness. My couch was covered in pillows, because I wasn’t comfortable any other way.

  I turned my gaze back to the hallway, to the door to the spare room, which was closed.

  Should I stay here? Ignore the noise?

  Going to investigate the strange noise was stupid, right? In the movies—

  But this wasn’t a movie. And in real life, it was always better to face things head on, not to cower and hide from them.

  I took a deep breath. I looked back at that closed door.

  And then I looked at the relative safety of the living room, the cozy, cozy living room.

  The television image jumped. Static.

  I backed into the wall.

  The image went back to normal, people talking on mute.

  I drew in a shaky breath. “What do you want from me?” I asked in a quavery voice. “I want to help you go into the light or whatever.”

  No response.

  I shut my eyes.

  Boom.

  I opened my eyes. Licking my lips, I started to walk down the hallway.

  Inch by inch, I grew closer to the spare room.

  I passed a picture of Felicity and me, taken ages ago, when we were both young. We had our arms around each other, and we were grinning ear to ear.

  I passed the door to the bathroom. It was open about a foot, but it was dark inside. I could only see a small circle of light, illuminating the blue tile there.

  I doubled back.

  Something about that open door… I couldn’t handle it. I pushed open the bathroom door. I flicked on the light.

  Nothing out of place. The sink there, a cup holding my toothbrush and toothpaste. The fuzzy blue cover on my closed toilet bowl. A blue rug in front of my shower curtain, which sported tiny blue flowers.

  Of course the shower curtain was closed.

  It was dumb to think that…

  I yanked the curtain open.

  The tub was empty.

  I took another deep breath, trying to steady myself. I backed out of the bathroom.

  Boom.

  Oh Jesus Christ, what was that?

  My heart was beating double time. I clenched and unclenched my fists and I gathered up all my magic, winding it in a tight spool in my belly. If there was anything there, I was going to find it. I was going to face it. I was going to stop it.

  Of course, I didn’t even know if magic worked on ghosts.

  And I wasn’t sure that I even wanted to see what I was going to find in that room.

  As I approached the door, I found myself taking smaller and smaller steps.

  But eventually, I did get there.

  Boom.

  It was louder.

  Jolts of fear went through me.

  I put my hand on the doorknob.

  My heart pounded.

  I turned the doorknob.

  My palms were sweating.

  The knob turned, and I tumbled into the spare room, which was dark except for light that was coming in through the slats of wood on the window. We’d had to bar it up after it had gotten broken.

  The light danced and jumped over the floor as the wooden slats were blown by the wind outside.

  Boom.

  Oh. That was what was making the noise. There was a strong wind coming in off the ocean, and one of the slats wasn
’t nailed down, and the wind was blowing it and…

  It maybe wasn’t so much a booming noise as a… banging? A light banging?

  I let out a nervous little laugh. It had a hysterical edge to it.

  Not ghosts. Just the wind. Just some static and the wind and…

  The door to my apartment opened.

  I screamed.

  “Penny?” Lachlan’s voice, panicked. He ran into the hallway. “Penny? Where are you?”

  I stepped out into the hall, feeling sheepish. “I’m fine. You just, uh, you scared me is all.”

  “I scared you?” He let out a shaky laugh. “Jesus Christ. I didn’t know what to think.”

  “I thought maybe… the ghost…”

  “Penny, come on. There are no such things as ghosts.”

  I chewed on my lip, looking around. “I don’t know, Lachlan. What’s up with these dragons, then?”

  “We’re going to figure it out,” he said. “Don’t worry. You should get some rest, though. Tomorrow, you can come with me to get those artifacts back for Jacqueline Stone.”

  “You found them?”

  “They’re all being sold at an underground auction. One of my confidential informants found out all the information we need to crash that place. You want to come?”

  “Sure, why not?” I said.

  “We’ll go in pretending to be buyers,” he said. “Once we confirm that the stuff there is actually what we’re looking for, then we bust them.”

  “Ooh,” I said. “Undercover work. Fun.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, I think so too.”

  * * *

  Lachlan was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, baggy jeans, and a whole mess of gold chains around his neck. He’d actually had these clothes in his house somewhere. I didn’t ask, because I’d had lots of fun putting together my own outfit, which consisted of tight, ripped jeans and big gold hoop earrings.

  Before leaving, I had surveyed myself in the mirror from all angles. I thought I looked ridiculously pregnant. Was Connor really right when he said that no one could tell?

  I couldn’t believe that. I grabbed a baggie hooded sweatshirt of my own and threw it on over top of everything. I didn’t feel like my undercover self should be pregnant.

  The underground auction was being held in a condo about midway up Atlantic Avenue. We had the code to get in the gate from Lachlan’s confidential informant. We parked, got out of the car, and did our best to look nonchalant as we took the elevator to the top floor.

  Once off the elevator, we walked to the door of the condo where the auction was being held.

  The condo building had been built around a communal pool in the center. On all sides of the pool, four stories of stacked-up condos jutted up. Each story made a square around the empty space in the center. Up here on the top, we could look down over the railing-lined walkway at the pool glittering below us.

  Most of the condos had welcome mats, but not the one we were going to.

  Lachlan knocked on the door.

  A drake pulled the door open. He had red and purple scales and reptilian eyes. “You got a ticket?” he asked.

  A ticket? What? We didn’t.

  “I get them all the time,” said Lachlan. “I can’t drive fifty-five.”

  I squinted at him. What?

  The drake nodded, stepped out of the way, and let us inside.

  Must have been a passphrase or something, like a spy movie. Cool. And apparently, whoever had made it up was a Sammy Hagar fan. Now I had that song stuck in my head. I started to hum it.

  Inside the condo, it was packed full of people. I couldn’t tell if they were humans, vampires, or mages. They all looked the same. The drakes stood out, though. There were quite a few of them.

  The condo had been stripped of all its furniture. The only thing that looked like a condo was the kitchen. All the appliances were intact, but someone had stripped off the doors to the cabinets.

  “This is a place undergoing renovations,” Lachlan whispered in my ear. “The guy who owns it ran out of money, and so he’s renting it out to underworld types to raise the cash to finish the project.”

  Huh. Interesting.

  Lachlan took my hand. “We need to get up front.” He started to weave his way through the crowd.

  I held tight to his hand and stayed with him.

  Eventually, we emerged at the end of the room, right next to the glass double doors that opened onto the porch outside. This condo wasn’t oceanfront, but it was semi-oceanfront, so if you craned your neck, you could see the sand and sea.

  A man in a tattered top hat with a beard was standing in front of a stack of suitcases. His clothing was brightly colored, but a little ragged. Sort of hipster-jester, I thought. He was wearing eyeliner, and he had lots of chains tucked inside his shirt. That probably meant he was wearing talismans. To work, they needed to be touching skin.

  “Welcome ladies and gents,” boomed out the voice of the man in the top hat. He had a deep voice, like a radio announcer. “We’ve got quite the array of goodies for you today, so let’s get to it, shall we?”

  There was a smattering of applause and a few cheers.

  Top Hat reached behind him and picked up a suitcase. He opened it and displayed its contents to the crowd. “First up, we have verified dragon’s blood, no imitations, genuinely magical, for your needs.” The suitcase was full of vials of red liquid.

  I coughed, feeling a tightness in my chest. Geez, I hadn’t really expected this. I should have known, though, that an auction like this would be full of dragon parts. It was only that it hit so close to home.

  But I couldn’t blow my cover, so I forced myself to stay calm, not to react.

  I had to force myself through suitcase of dragon bones and the one of scales and claws and teeth as well.

  “Now, we have a real treat,” boomed out Top Hat. “For those of you out there you aren’t do-it-yourselfers, or for those of you who don’t fancy paying a mage to make your talismans. We have a suitcase here of already-made talismans, highest quality, a complete collection.” He opened the suitcase. Inside were rows of talismans on chains, all resting against a red velvet background.

  Lachlan whispered in my ear. “This is it. That’s the stuff.”

  My eyes got wide.

  “Stay back,” said Lachlan. Then he reached into his hoodie and pulled out his badge. He held it high above his head. “SCPD,” he yelled in a loud voice. “Stay right where you are.”

  Of course, no one did.

  The place turned into a madhouse, people running for the door, running into the master suite, the bathroom, all yelling and swearing and pulling out weapons.

  Lachlan snatched the suitcase from a stunned Top Hat.

  Top Hat swallowed hard. “Look, I’m only the master of ceremonies. They pay me to do this, but I don’t have anything to do with—”

  “Save it,” said Lachlan. He handed me the suitcase, and he tugged out a pair of handcuffs. He handcuffed Top Hat.

  There were more uniformed police officers swarming the scene. They’d been waiting outside for people to try to leave. Now, they were handcuffing everyone in sight.

  The people weren’t down for the count. Magic zoomed through the air, pinning cops to the ceiling, tossing them at the walls.

  The police used tranquilizer darts on anyone who wouldn’t come quietly.

  Within ten minutes, it was quiet. Half of the people lay on the floor, handcuffed and tranquilized. The other half were also handcuffed and being led away by the police to be processed down at the station.

  Lachlan took the suitcase back from me. “Let me see that.” He opened it up and examined the talismans. “Yup, looks like everything’s in order. I think Jacqueline will be pleased.”

  “I have to admit,” I said, “you did well with this. Open and shut.”

  “Yeah, it’s a little less difficult than murder, I’ll give it that.” Lachlan shut the suitcase and fastened it.

  And then the sliding doors behin
d us shattered and fell with a crash.

  A dragon flew in through the pieces of glass, breathing out fire that licked at the walls and made the wallpaper peel and bubble.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I pushed out both of my palms, shoving magic at the dragon.

  It toppled backwards, out onto the porch.

  I pushed it again.

  The railing broke and the dragon hurtled into thin air.

  But it was back in seconds, flapping its wings and heading for us. It blew out a ball of fire.

  This one sailed over everyone’s heads to catch the stripped cabinets on fire.

  “Penny, run,” said Lachlan.

  “But I—”

  “Protect the baby, and get out of here,” he said. “Let me deal with this.” He had his gun out again.

  Well, it had worked okay last time, hadn’t it?

  I took off for the door to the condo, leaping over tranquilized bodies on my way. At the door, I threw myself outside, and I began running down the walkway, heading for the elevator.

  A keening scream overhead—a noise that a dragon’s throat was capable of making, but a noise that sounded unearthly and terrifying.

  The dragon had flown over the roof. It was above me.

  I tossed magic at it.

  It halted, blown backward.

  I kept running.

  The dragon was only fazed for a minute. Now, it was coming for me again. Its nose angled at me, and it was dive-bombing for me.

  I squealed. Leaped out of the way.

  The dragon collided with the siding of the condo.

  I ran forward and gripped the railing, looking down at the pool. It was four stories down. There was no way the pool was deep enough for me to jump. I couldn’t shift.

  I turned back to the dragon.

  It was getting to its feet. It looked stunned and off balance. Even so, it clumsily advanced on me, breathing hard, smoke rising from its nostrils. Its eyes were that horrible black empty color, like shining marbles in its skull.

  I backed up. I used my magic to force its head down, pinning it to the ground.

  It whined, straining. And then it seemed to find magic of its own, magic it used against mine.

  We were locked in a struggle for a moment, my magic against its magic. My magic was strong, and it wasn’t going to break. I wouldn’t let it break.