city of dragons 02 - fire storm

by Val St. Crowe

  Lachlan hurtled out of the doorway onto the balcony, and I saw him jump.

  I screamed.

  Alastair laughed. He picked me up with magic as well, sent me through space, flying down the hallway, past the balcony.

  I hovered in space there. I could see Lachlan below me in the sand. He was moving, but he was obviously in pain.

  “You little bitch,” Alastair said to me. “You left me. How did you break my magic?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I said. I flung magic at him again.

  It seemed to bounce off him, not doing anything at all. He laughed again. “If you weren’t my mate, Penny, I would kill you for what you’ve done to me. You’re lucky I have a soft spot for you, even though you don’t deserve it.”

  And suddenly I was falling, my stomach in my throat, the ground rushing up.

  Crunch.

  I landed on the sand. Pain reverberated through my body.

  Alastair came to the edge of the balcony, staring down at me. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be punished.”

  I sucked in breath, gathering my magic.

  “You’ll watch as that cop of yours dies,” said Alastair. “You’ll watch me kill him.”

  I blew out a huge ball of fire, sending it straight for Alastair’s head.

  Alastair’s eyes widened in alarm. But then he moved fast, ducking away from it.

  And the fire ball hit my balcony, which burst into flames.

  “Damn it,” I muttered.

  Alastair rushed down the steps. He went over to Lachlan, who was on his hands and knees, trying to get up. Alastair picked him up by his neck, using magic so that it looked as easy as lifting a rag doll.

  Lachlan screwed up his face, trying to pump magic into Alastair. But it wasn’t any more effective than my attempts.

  “I’m going to kill him with my bare hands,” said Alastair. “I’m going to squeeze the life out of him.”

  “No.” I crawled to them. I reached up to grab Lachlan’s hand.

  And the minute we touched, it was as if the stars and the comets came swirling for us, zooming into our bodies and welling up, bursting.

  And then shooting out of my body—bright and white and hot—through my eyes and mouth and my nostrils.

  I had no control of it.

  It engulfed Alastair, lifting him into the air and catching his clothes on fire, his hair.

  But it kept going, into the steps to the balcony, reducing a huge circle of them to cinders.

  Into the wall of my hotel, punching a hole into the side of it.

  I let go of Lachlan’s hand.

  Alastair fell to the ground, motionless.

  Lachlan and I exchanged a glance.

  “Whoa,” I whispered.

  * * *

  Connor and I huddled together in front of the hotel, watching the patterns of the flashing lights on the police cars play on the outer walls. I couldn’t believe that I blown a hole in my own hotel with magic. I hoped it was going to be reparable. It looked bad.

  The fire department was there too. They’d put out the fire on my balcony. It hadn’t spread to the rest of the building, so that was one thing to be grateful for.

  One by one, the police cars were leaving now. I felt as if I’d told the story only a hundred times to different uniforms, all of whom noted what I said on notepads or with styluses on their phones.

  Lachlan was somewhere in the middle of the fray, doing cop things.

  As the last of the cars pulled away, he strode back to Connor and me.

  I held up my hand to give him a small wave.

  He smiled at me tiredly.

  “So, he’s gone then, right?” I said. “He’s locked up.”

  “They loaded him up and took him straight to Roxbone,” said Lachlan. “They gave him an injection to keep him unconscious just in case.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”

  “Yeah, but…” Then Lachlan shook his head.

  “What?” I said.

  “Well,” said Lachlan. “He’s going to have a bail hearing sometime tomorrow. Maybe as late as afternoon, but probably early in the morning. The kind of caliber lawyer he can afford and the kind of money he can put up? He’ll probably be home by tomorrow evening at the latest.”

  I put my fingers to my lips. “Oh.”

  “Sorry.” Lachlan’s shoulders sagged.

  “But he tried to kill us, Lachlan,” I said. “They can’t let him out.”

  “Yeah, they’re just having trouble wrapping their heads around how dire it is, I think,” Lachlan said.

  “What do you mean?” said Connor. “The man’s insane.”

  Lachlan shrugged. “They’re treating it like a typical domestic violence case. Like your run-of-the-mill jealous ex-husband. They think he was drunk or something. That they’ll lock him up, and he’ll cool off. They think being arrested will scare some sense into him.”

  I wrapped my arms around my body. “Tomorrow evening. He’ll be out by then?”

  “Probably,” said Lachlan.

  “If you knew this, why were you so insistent that I press charges against him earlier today?” I said. “Doing this only makes him angrier. It’s not solving any problems at all.”

  “When he goes to trial, though—”

  “When will that be?” I said. “It could be months before that all comes together. I mean, when is Anthony Barnes going to go to trial?”

  Lachlan sighed again. “I know the system isn’t perfect, Penny, but it’s the best that we’ve got.”

  I made a face. “Whatever. It’s beginning to seem more and more like the times that I’ve taken the law into my own hands have been the right thing to do.”

  A figure was approaching from down the street.

  I squinted and realized it was Ophelia. I waved at her.

  She hurried over. “What happened?”

  “My crazy ex-husband happened,” I said.

  “He put that hole in your hotel?” she said.

  “Well, no. Lachlan and I sort of did that accidentally. Which reminds me. What do you know about this blood bond stuff? How do we control it?”

  Ophelia shook her head. “I don’t know anything more than what I told you, and what you heard from Esther. I can ask her about it again, but she’s likely to be hostile, knowing I want the information for you.”

  I groaned.

  “Who’s Esther?” said Connor.

  “A nasty woman who thinks that gargoyle men are lost without serving mages, because it’s the purpose they were created for,” I said.

  Connor’s mouth twisted.

  Ophelia was eyeing the hole in the hotel. “How did you two do that?”

  “We have no damned clue,” Lachlan muttered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  By the time I got out of bed the next day, it was nearly noon. The sun was high in the sky, and Felicity was at the front desk issuing refunds to half the hotel, most of whom had left last night in the middle of the hullabaloo.

  I supposed I should be worried about how much money I was losing, but I didn’t care. I was much more concerned with whether there was any news about Alastair.

  Lachlan was nowhere to be found, so I tried calling him on his phone. He didn’t pick up.

  That annoyed me. He should have been here when I woke up. He should have left me a note or something, at least.

  Oh. There was a text message, I realized.

  Went to the station to see how things stand, it read.

  I guessed that was okay. I wandered around the building to look at the damage, but it had been covered up by a tarp. And I found Ophelia standing with her bare feet in the sand, securing an amulet to the corner of the building. She was muttering to herself, doing some kind of magic.

  I waited.

  When she stood up, she jumped. “Oh, Penny, child, my God! You gave me a start.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. What are you up to?”

  “Pla
cing wards for you. Won’t keep everything out, but it should make things a bit harder.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s nice of you.”

  She smiled. “I consider us friends, you know.”

  I smiled back. “I do too.”

  “Good. Then don’t thank me like we’re strangers.”

  I gave her a hug. “Thank you, Ophelia.”

  She hugged back. She had a strong grip. “You take care of yourself, you hear me?”

  I pulled away. “I’ll do my best.” I took a step back.

  “You going someplace?”

  “To the station. That’s where Lachlan is.”

  “I’d feel better if you stayed within the wards,” she said.

  “I’ll come right back. It’s only that he’s not answering his phone. Makes me worried.”

  She nodded in understanding. “Be careful, then.”

  * * *

  “Penny!” Lachlan grinned at me as if he’d never been so happy to see me in his life.

  I couldn’t help but grin back. “Did something good happen? Did Alastair get denied bail or something?”

  His face fell. “Well, no. He’s probably out by now, in fact.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, I was going to call you and tell you, but then I just couldn’t wake you up to that news.” He wandered over to the whiteboard, where he took down the picture of Clarke Gannon. “So, while I was waiting for you to wake up, I checked in with a few of the stray threads we have in Fletcher’s case, and I found something out.”

  “Should we be worrying about Fletcher right now?” I said.

  “Yesterday, you were gung-ho,” he said.

  “Well, but you said I was in shock.”

  “You want to know what I found out or not?”

  I put my hands on my hips.

  “Joseph Vickers wasn’t playing any video games on May sixth, because he was locked up in the drunk tank. I told you he was lying. I could smell it.”

  I tapped my chin. “So, that means that Finn doesn’t have an alibi anymore.”

  “Not at all.”

  “He lied about his alibi,” I said. “That’s not good.”

  “Nope. And we should talk to him,” said Lachlan. “But we can wait until this Alastair business gets resolved in some way.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Ophelia put up wards on the hotel. She said we should stay inside them for extra protection.”

  “Right,” he said. “So, back to the hotel, then?”

  I chewed on my lip. “Well, that’s what we should do.”

  * * *

  “Your alibi doesn’t hold up,” said Lachlan.

  “This isn’t about the surf board?” said Finn, in complete disbelief. “Because the last time you called me, you wanted to know if Fletcher’s surf board was missing, and I figured this was still about that. Are you seriously still thinking I did this?”

  “Oh, that’s right,” I said. “Was Fletcher missing a board?”

  “Finn here didn’t know,” said Lachlan. “Neither did his parents.”

  “Fletcher has like eighteen boards,” said Finn. He looked away. “Had, I mean. He had that many boards.”

  The sadness was so thick in his voice, it was hard to believe that he could possibly be guilty. But I remembered that Lachlan had said it might be possible that Finn was simply extremely remorseful about what he’d done. Maybe he hadn’t meant to kill Fletcher. Maybe it had been a crime of passion or something.

  “He didn’t take good care of them either,” said Finn, making a face. “They were all scratched up, marked up, stuff like that. But before you say anything, the fact that I didn’t think my brother valued his possessions doesn’t mean that I killed him. I thought we were done with this.”

  “We would have been,” said Lachlan, “if you’d told us the truth about where you were the last night anyone saw Fletcher alive.”

  Finn shook his head, angry. “I did tell you the truth. I know Joseph confirmed it.”

  “Joseph was lying,” said Lachlan. “Because he was locked up for drunk driving that night. You two weren’t together. So, why don’t you tell us where you really were.”

  Finn pressed his lips together. “Oh, man, you have got to be kidding me.”

  “Maybe you saw Fletcher come home when he got dropped off,” said Lachlan. “Maybe the two of you got into an argument about something. Like how he was taking over the legacy you worked for—”

  “I explained to you that didn’t matter.”

  “I don’t think you meant to kill him,” Lachlan said, his voice going soft. “I think you loved your brother. Maybe you just went a little too far, and then you had to cover it up. Where’s the body, Finn? You can tell me.”

  “I didn’t kill my brother!” Finn protested. “Look, I wasn’t with Joseph that night, but I didn’t hurt Fletcher. I just… I have this very embarrassing sort of problem. It’s not relevant, so there’s no reason you need to know about it. But I swear to you that I’m innocent.”

  “That’s not going to work for me,” said Lachlan. “I do need to know where you were.”

  Finn sighed heavily. “All right, look. I, uh, I’m a binge eater.”

  Both Lachlan and I exchanged a glance.

  “It’s a real disorder,” said Finn, defensive. “It requires treatment and everything.”

  I looked him over. He didn’t much look like he had trouble binging on food. Did he purge too? Was he bulimic?

  “I don’t do it all the time or anything,” said Finn. “Just once a month or so… it’s like I can’t help myself. And I can’t do it at home, because people would judge me. So, I check into a hotel for a night, and I order in a lot of food, and I just go nuts.” He hung his head. “Man, I can’t believe I told you that.”

  “You were binging the night that Fletcher disappeared?” Lachlan asked.

  Finn nodded. “I can give you my credit card statement. You can see the charge for the room, and for all the food I bought.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Credit card charges don’t mean much of anything,” said Lachlan from the couch in my living room. We were back in the hotel, back inside the wards. “Most places batch them out and run them at the end of the day or at the very least, hours after they’re made. So, he could have made these charges earlier in the day. And booking a hotel room doesn’t mean you’re actually there.”

  “Right,” I said, “and he doesn’t look like he has a binge-eating problem.”

  Lachlan snorted. “Yeah, what the heck was that? Couldn’t he have come up with something better than binge eating?”

  “It’s such a girly thing, too.” I shook my head, laughing a little.

  “So, essentially, he still has no alibi,” said Lachlan. “I told you it was the brother.”

  “Well, what’s our next move?” I said. “We need some physical evidence, right?”

  “We need a damned body,” said Lachlan. “Until we can prove that Fletcher is actually dead, it’s hard as hell to build a case against the brother.” He furrowed his brow, thinking. “Maybe I could bring him in to the station and hold him for a while. Maybe if I lean on him hard, I could get him to confess.”

  “That’s where we are, then? We basically need a confession?”

  “Or a body,” he said.

  I bit down on my bottom lip. “Did you hear what he said about the surf boards all having scratches and marks on them?”

  “Yeah, sure. So?”

  “Well, the surf board at Alastair’s had a big scar on it.”

  Lachlan pursed his lips. “Hmm.”

  “I don’t think it’s Alastair,” I said. “He has no motive, right? I mean, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Nothing about Alastair giving him a ride home makes sense, though,” said Lachlan. “No, you know, what with everything we’re dealing with about him, it’s easy just to want to try to shove him out of the picture, but the thing is, in terms of building a case, we’ve got way more against Alas
tair than we do against Finn. Eyewitnesses place them together. If that surf board is Finn’s—”

  “Well, how would we prove that?” I said.

  He rubbed his temples. “Aw, geez, I have no clue.” He sighed. “All right, so, we’re going to focus on Finn for now. We try to lean on him, get a confession. We don’t worry about Alastair for now.”

  “Except for the fact that he’s out on bail and probably coming for us.”

  “Well, he spent a night in Roxbone,” said Lachlan. “Maybe he’s going to be more cautious. Maybe he doesn’t want to go back there. You’re important to him, Penny, but the rest of his life’s got to be more important. His job. His reputation. Those things he won’t want to risk.”

  I licked my lips. “I still don’t understand where all his magic came from. If it’s a talisman, I should have seen it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was in bed with him.”

  Lachlan’s face twitched.

  “Sorry,” I said. “But I saw him wrapped in a sheet, nothing else, and there was no talisman anywhere.”

  “Well, how do talismans work? You have to be holding them for the magic to be useful?”

  “It has to be touching your skin, yeah,” I said. “That’s why I always wear mine around my neck, under my shirt.”

  “Maybe he, um, got it injected under his skin or something. Can they do that?”

  “I’ve never heard of that,” I said, tapping my chin. “But I guess it’s possible. It’s only that talismans eventually run out of magic, and putting one under your skin seems so permanent.”

  “Well, how else can someone get more magic?”

  “There is no other way. We have a finite amount of magic that we create just by existing as a dragon. Any other magic we use, we have to get from other dragons.”

  “What if a dragon drinks dragon blood or… eats dragon flesh?”

  I looked at him, horrified. “I don’t know… Maybe that would work, but it would be temporary. It would wear off. And it definitely wouldn’t make you more powerful than a properly crafted talisman.”

  “Which we know he’s not using.”

  “But he does have to be getting the magic from another source. A dragon source.”