Fire Song (City of Dragons)

by St. Crowe, Val

  “Oh, no,” said Felicity, glaring at me. “Do not act like this Penny. This is ridiculous. He’s not drinking my blood.”

  “Yet,” I said. “He’s just biding his time.” I turned to Jensen, putting my finger in his face. “That’s the reason you’re dating a drake. All the blood you might want. Magic damned blood. Everyone knows that drake blood works almost as well as dragon blood to give vampires magic powers.”

  “What?” said Jensen. “Magic what?” He looked thoroughly confused. “Look, I didn’t mean to become a vampire. I had cancer. I tried an experimental treatment of dragon blood, but it didn’t work. I died anyway, but I came back, since I had the blood in my system. I never wanted this. When the treatment was explained to me, the risk of becoming a vampire wasn’t even mentioned. Felicity and I have a lot in common, considering we were both changed by accident. That’s why I’m dating her. I would never use her.”

  “Whatever.” I grabbed Felicity by the arm and dragged her to her feet. “We’re leaving. You’re not going to see this guy again.”

  She pushed me away. “You’re leaving. You’re incredibly rude, and I don’t even want to look at you anymore.”

  “Felicity, you have to realize what it is that he’s doing to you.”

  “No, I don’t.” Her face was flushed red and her scales were starting to turn even an deeper green-blue. “Either apologize to my boyfriend or get away from me.”

  “I’m not leaving without you.”

  “Oh, right now, I don’t even want to look at you,” she snarled.

  CHAPTER NINE

  So, eventually, I left.

  We all did, because the owner of the restaurant asked us to. We were causing a disturbance.

  Felicity had come with me in my car, but she got in Jensen’s in the parking lot, and she didn’t even say goodbye to me. She was clearly pissed.

  I tried to tell myself that she’d be okay. After all, she’d been spending every night with the guy for weeks and she didn’t seem to be hurt. Plus, having his plan to drink her blood outed by me would make him a bit more cautious. I’d bought her some time.

  But I was going to have to convince her to get away from this guy, who was clearly bad news.

  However, by the time I drove back to the hotel, I wasn’t so sure that I had done the right thing after all. Maybe I was overreacting.

  Felicity said that I always thought the worst of men, that I was overly cautious because of what had happened between me and Alastair. I thought everyone was out to get me or out to get her.

  She kept trying to assure me that there were men out there that were good. That, in fact, the men who were bad were few and far between. The good men outnumbered the bad.

  I knew she was right. Not every man out there was trying to take advantage of her.

  But I couldn’t bear the thought of my best friend being hurt the way I had. I just never wanted anything like that to happen to her.

  Still, maybe I should give Jensen the benefit of a doubt.

  Maybe I should apologize.

  Ugh.

  That was when I realized the light was off in the lobby.

  Weird.

  Connor was supposed to be working the front desk. Why had he turned the light off?

  I pushed open the front door. “Connor?” Inside, it was dark, and the television that hung over the door was lying on the floor, its screen shattered.

  “Connor!” I yelled.

  “Here,” came a strained voice.

  I ran in the direction of the sound and found him behind the front desk, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall.

  “What happened?” I said, kneeling down next to him.

  “It was the vampires,” he said. “I tried to stop them. I should have been able to hold my own. I’m a gargoyle. I was created to fight dragons. I’m supposed to be strong as all hell.” He was clutching his stomach.

  I could see a dark stain on his shirt. “You’re bleeding.”

  “One of them had a knife,” he muttered.

  “Okay, we’re calling an ambulance.” I got up, digging my phone out of my purse.

  “No, it’s okay,” he said. “It’ll be okay. I heal fast. Besides, doctors never know what to do with gargoyles.”

  I knelt back down. “Let me see it. If it looks too deep, you’re going to the hospital.”

  He grunted, moving his hand.

  Carefully, I peeled his shirt away from the wound. His skin was ashy, the blood dark and black. I snatched some tissues off the desk and began to gently dab at the wound.

  Once I got the blood away, I could see that it was a long, shallow cut. It was already knitting itself back together.

  “They had a message for you,” said Connor.

  “Let’s get you bandaged,” I said, helping him to his feet.

  “He said he hoped your husband would help you take care of all the people they were going to hurt,” he said.

  I snorted. “Screw that. If he was going to Alastair, he would have already. He’s afraid of him. No vampire has the balls to call up a dragon out of the blue.”

  “Maybe not,” said Connor. He leaned on me as we headed back the hallway to the bathroom.

  Once inside, I turned on the light, put the seat on the toilet and had him sit down. I worked on cleaning up the wound. “No, they aren’t going to Alastair, but hurting you is much worse.”

  “I’m sorry I was such a waste of space,” he said. “I really tried to save the TV.”

  “You are far more important than a television set.” I applied some ointment and then bandaged him up.

  “Thanks,” he said, touching the bandage. “This is probably overkill. I’ll heal up before morning.”

  “You were bleeding a lot,” I said. “You don’t want it to scar.”

  He shrugged. “I guess not. Although scars might make me look really sexy and butch.”

  “Butch?” I said. “You?”

  “What? I could be butch.” He stood up and squared his shoulders, flexing his wings.

  I patted him on the arm. “Of course you could.”

  “You don’t have to patronize me just because I’m hurt. It’s not even that bad. If I hadn’t been so freaked out by the blood, maybe I could have done something to stop them.”

  “They outnumbered you,” I said. “Stop blaming yourself. But we are going to have to do something about this. It’s getting to be a big problem. I won’t let those vampires hurt my friends.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet, but this is going to stop. I will never let anything like this happen to you again.” I looked deep into his eyes, promising. “Ever.”

  *

  “You came,” said Flint at the door to Happy Harry’s Bar and Grill. The place was a hole in the wall that seemed to be frequented by a mix of drakes, vampires and slayers. It was an odd mix, considering most slayers didn’t do much fraternizing with magical creatures, but I guessed they had to get intel someplace.

  “You said you might need my help,” I said. “Of course I came. But I’ve got to tell you. I don’t know much about slayers.” Apparently, that was the suspect we were interviewing. Even though these murders weren’t typical slayer killings, Flint said this guy might be involved.

  “I know that,” he said. “But it might be good if you were along for all the interviews from here on out, I think. You could be a sort of sounding board for me.” He gestured with his head, and we entered the bar.

  Inside, the place was dimly lit with recessed blue lighting. There was a jukebox in the corner, blaring out some gangsta rap from the late 1990s. A group of drakes sat at the bar. One had a face entirely covered in scales. When he spoke, a tiny forked tongue unfurled from his mouth, as if he were a serpent. Another had ridges and horns all over his back and shoulders.

  They turned to look at me and there was hunger in their eyes.

  Could they see I was a dragon?

  Could they tell somehow?

 
; There were stories about drakes going mad if they hadn’t had any meat to eat in a few days. Turning into terrifying monsters that ripped apart anyone and anything in their paths.

  These drakes weren’t insane, were they?

  I stepped closer to Flint, feeling unsettled and unsure. I was pretty confident that no one could sense that I was a dragon, but I wasn’t sure. At any rate, a drake was addicted to dragon flesh. I wasn’t in my dragon form. They wouldn’t be interested in me.

  Abruptly, Flint sat down at a table and tugged me down next to him.

  There, sitting by himself was a man covered in tattoos. He had a purple mohawk and the seat next to him was taken up by his huge bow and quiver of arrows.

  “Otis! Good to see you.”

  Otis looked both of us over. “You’re the cop, ain’tcha? Whose the girl?”

  “She’s my associate,” said Flint. “Want to answer a few questions?”

  “Not really.”

  “We can do it here or downtown,” said Flint, smiling easily, as if he weren’t threatening the guy.

  “I ain’t got nothing to say to you,” said Otis. “I done told you that I just use this here bow to hunt me some deer out on the other side of the bay. You keep saying I’m a dragon slayer, but I ain’t.”

  “Oh, come on, Otis,” said Flint, laughing. “We both know that you hate dragons. You despise them.”

  “I got no feelings about them one way or the other,” said Otis.

  “That so? What happened to your little twin sisters, Otis? Bobby Sue and Etta Mae? They were five years old when they got lost on that camping trip, weren’t they?”

  “You don’t know nothing about my sisters.” Otis sneered at him.

  “You thought it was a dragon, didn’t you? When you found their tiny little singed bodies, you were sure—”

  “Shut up.” Otis leaned across the table, baring his teeth.

  “That didn’t happen,” I said in horror. “Dragons don’t hurt people, especially not little girls.”

  Otis turned to me, sneering. “Oh, you don’t think so, girly? Let me tell you, those dragons can’t control themselves in their reptile form, but they’re rich, all right, and they’re happy to cover up whatever mess they make. There are literally hundreds of dragon killings every year, and ain’t no one doing a thing about it. It’s a conspiracy, that’s what it is.”

  I licked my lips. Oh. He was crazy, then. A conspiracy.

  “If dragons didn’t kill my little sisters, then what did? They was burned.” Otis folded his arms over his chest.

  “Maybe a young dragon. Right after puberty, when shifting is new, maybe a very young dragon could have lost control—” I shook my head. “But young dragons don’t breathe fire. Only mated dragons can breathe fire.” Of course, very occasionally young dragons were already mated. “I’m sorry about your sisters,” I murmured.

  “Oh, everybody is,” said Otis. “But that don’t change nothing, does it?”

  “Well, that’s why you change things. You and the Brotherhood, that is. You’re out there ridding the world of dragons and magic half-breeds,” said Flint.

  “No, I ain’t,” said Otis. “I ain’t in that Brotherhood group. They’re hateful human supremists, and I ain’t got nothing to do with them.”

  “Those dragon girls that washed up on shore,” said Flint. “You probably thought that was a good thing. A few less dragons in the world—”

  “I didn’t do nothing to hurt those dragon girls,” said Otis. “I ain’t in the Brotherhood. You just stop it with your accusations.”

  “Now, did I say you had anything to do with it?” said Flint.

  “Not out loud, no, but that’s what you meant. You would have been coming around to it in a few minutes.” Otis wagged his finger at Flint. “I remember you. You got a mouth on you. You sit there and talk and talk some more. You talk real good. Before too long, listening to you, I get all mixed up. I ain’t doing that again. You leave me alone, you here? I ain’t had nothing to do with it.”

  *

  Flint held the door for me as we left the bar. “Well, what do you think?”

  Otis had clammed up pretty quick after that, refusing to say a word. Eventually, he got up, took his bow and arrows, and left us at the table. That was when we left too.

  “About Otis?” I said. “Or about a dragon attacking little girls and killing them? I’ve never heard anything so horrible in my entire life.”

  “You said that was impossible,” said Flint. He looked around the parking lot. “Did you drive?”

  I pointed. “My car’s over there.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car.” He started off in that direction.

  I matched his pace. “I don’t know. I think it is impossible. I can control myself as a dragon. I don’t have any urges to hurt things. I just…” I shook my head. “But what else could it have been? He said they were burned.”

  “He’s lying,” said Flint. “Or he’s confused. Or he’s convinced himself of it so that he feels justified in killing dragons and selling their bodies for profit.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I had almost forgotten what the man was. I’d been feeling sorry for him, and he might well have been the very person who killed my parents. I felt myself harden toward him. “You think he did it, then?”

  “It’s too early in the investigation to know,” said Flint. “And Otis isn’t going to be cooperative.”

  We reached my car. I opened the door and got inside.

  Flint grabbed the door and leaned in. “Hey, you got anything going right now?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m about to head up to talk to a girl says she’s Sophia’s best friend. I’m hoping she might know more about why Sophia was with Alastair. You want to come?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Should I follow you?”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’d tell you to just leave your car here, but this place is a little sketchy. Probably better not to leave it parked in this lot too long.”

  *

  “I don’t know anything about Alastair Cooper,” said Deena Walsh. “I mean, I’ve seen him around at some parties and functions, but…”

  “So, he wasn’t spending time with you and Sophia that night?” Flint asked.

  “No, not that I can recollect.” She considered, and then shook her head. “I mean, that bar was packed that night. It was a Mardi Gras thing. Everyone was wearing masks. I kept losing track of Sophia. When she didn’t come back home with me, I just figured she’d found another ride. But then she never showed up. Finding out that she was dead all that time…” Deena swallowed, her eyes looking bright. “I just feel awful. I should have looked harder for her.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said.

  “Of course it wasn’t,” said Flint. “But anything you can remember would be helpful.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I know that Amber saw her with Mr. Cooper, but I didn’t. And I can’t imagine she would be hanging out with him anyway. She had a boyfriend.”

  “I thought she was unmated.” Flint looked confused.

  Deena rolled her eyes. “That mating stuff is so bogus. I don’t even know if I believe in it, right? I think that maybe it’s just your parents giving you a big wad of cash for your wedding present that makes you take yourself off the market.”

  “It’s real,” I said in a clipped voice.

  “But you left,” said Deena. “You left Mr. Cooper. So how real could it really be?”

  Flint raised his hand. “Let’s leave this argument aside for the moment. She had a boyfriend, but he wasn’t her mate.”

  “Yeah, some of us think it’s stupid that we have to be set up in these arranged marriages,” said Deena. “We want to pick for ourselves. No one will allow us to do that, but we don’t care.”

  “Because,” I said, “when you meet your mate, you’ll leave the person you chose behind.”

  “You sound like my parents.” Deena rolled her eyes.

  “But who was
her boyfriend?” said Flint.

  “I don’t know,” said Deena. “She was real secretive about it.”

  “Why was that? Because having boyfriends is forbidden?” said Flint.

  “It’s not forbidden,” I said. “Unmated dragons are always flitting about from partner to partner. That’s normal.”

  “But they were serious,” said Deena. “Really serious. And no one likes that.”

  I shrugged. She was overstating it, really. Unmated dragons didn’t get it. Once they found their mate, they understood. If Sophia’s elders didn’t approve of her having a serious relationship with a person who wasn’t her mate, it was only because they wanted to spare her the difficulty it would cause once she did find her mate. They were only thinking of her well-being, not trying to unfairly dictate her life.

  “So, she kept him a secret,” said Flint. “And you don’t know anything about him?”

  “He was older,” said Deena. “Over a hundred, I think. He was really well-off, even by our standards. He owned several big companies, and they were always buying up more. She was always saying that she couldn’t visit him because of another merger, which took up all his time. And he never came to Sea City. He spent all his time in New York.”

  Flint nodded slowly. “Nothing else?”

  She thought about it. “She was always talking about his penis?”

  Flint held up a hand. “That’s all right. You don’t have to go into that.”

  Deena blushed. “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re right to be thorough,” said Flint, smiling. “But I doubt that will help us identify him.”

  *

  “You think this mysterious boyfriend could be our killer?” I said. We were standing outside my car in front of Deena’s family’s home.

  “Unlikely if he really never came to Sea City,” said Flint.

  “True,” I said.

  “If what she said is true, though, and he’s a rich, over-one-hundred-year-old dragon who owns a conglomerate, then that’s a pretty small list, isn’t it?”

  I thought about it. “You’re right. And I don’t know of anyone who matches that description who isn’t already mated.”

  “Maybe that’s why she was keeping it a secret. Maybe her boyfriend was cheating on his wife.”