city of dragons 02 - fire storm (3 page)

“Well, not usually,” I said. Finding one’s mate was all-encompassing. Once dragons were mated, they were physically drawn to each other to the exclusion of everything else. In comparison, the dalliances they had in their youth paled. “But sometimes, before you find your mate, you think that whatever it is you’re experiencing in the moment is actually real, and you might go overboard.”

“You sound like you’re talking from personal experience.”

“Sort of,” I said.

He gave me a thin-lipped smile. “So anything you feel for someone not your mate isn’t ‘real?’”

“I didn’t say that,” I said.

“You kind of did,” he said, crossing to the bookshelf and sorting through the video game cases. “Yet my glacial speed is the issue here.”

“You know, I said that this morning before I’d even had coffee, and I feel like there should be a statute of limitations on bringing up things that I say when I’m half asleep.”

He opened up one of the cases and then shut it. He put it back on the shelf.

“Look, you know that what I felt for Alastair wasn’t real. You know I would never mean that about myself,” I said in a quiet voice.

“So, your mating wasn’t real, but other dragons’ mating is?” He opened another case. “What are the chances he hid a suicide note in one of these? That would make this open and shut.”

“Stop being an ass. How can you be so cavalier? This is a person’s life we’re talking about,” I said. “And I’m not saying that dragon mating is only real for some people and not others. The physical effects are real for everyone. The emotions that develop aren’t a foregone conclusion, however. Most dragons are in love with their mates, but I’m not.”

He paused. “I know.” He set the case back on the shelf. He sighed. “Forget it, okay?”

I sighed too.

He took a deep breath. “All right, well maybe we could find out whether the stuff that slayers are selling is, you know, Fletcher. Go out, have cops make buys and then do DNA tests. We find him, we trace it back to the slayer that killed him, boom.”

“You really think he’s dead?” I said.

“I think—”

“Hey,” interrupted a voice behind us.

We both turned to see a guy who looked a lot like Fletcher, only with longer hair, in the doorway of the room.

“What are you doing in my brother’s room?” said the guy.

Lachlan flashed his badge. “We’re with the SCPD. We’re looking into your brother’s disappearance.”

“That’s stupid,” said the brother. “Who let you in? We don’t need your help, so just get out of here now.”

“We came at the request of your parents,” I said, stepping forward. “I’m Penny Caspian. This is Detective Lachlan Flint. What’s your name?”

“Finn,” said the brother. “But I don’t care who you are. And I don’t believe my parents let you in, either. I don’t want to be part of some glitzy media circus, like what happened to those other dragon families this spring. Don’t investigate this. He’s already dead, and no matter what you do, you won’t bring him back.”

“We’re here with permission,” said Lachlan. “We’re not leaving. Did your brother have any enemies?”

Finn shook his head. “You’re cockroaches. I’m going to have you removed from the premises.” He hurried down the hall.

I peered after him. “Well, he was pleasant.”

“Yeah,” said Lachlan.

“Of course, probably anyone would be in a bad mood after losing his brother.”

“True,” said Lachlan. “Still. Suspect number one.”

“What? Seriously? Just because he was rude?”

“It’s classic, Penny. It’s Cain and Abel. Romulus and Remus. Claudius and Hamlet’s father.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Brother against brother,” said Lachlan. “There’s always some reason to hate your siblings.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I’m an only child.”

“Me too,” said Lachlan.

I shook my head slowly.

He nodded at the laptop. “Grab that. Let’s see if they’ll let us take that to the station and get someone to crack the password.”

I picked it up and tucked it under my arm.

* * *

We were given permission to take the laptop, and we left without running across Finn Remington anywhere else. His guilt or innocence aside, he’d wanted us to leave, and we’d done that.

Lachlan drove me back to the hotel.

I was a little disappointed, because I sort of had hoped we’d go back to the station and spitball some ideas, get cracking on the case right away. But I didn’t know how to bring that up, so I said nothing.

I just got out of the car, waved, and went inside.

From the lobby window, I watched him drive away, and I wondered if it wouldn’t be smarter to simply cut my losses and walk away from any romantic entanglement there. Tell him it would be better if we remained friends.

It
would
be, anyway. Less messy.

But I was afraid that things had possibly gone too far to simply back down now. There were feelings and expectations lingering between us, and they weren’t going to go away just because they were messy.

Of course, I couldn’t tell, but maybe that was exactly what he was trying to do. And maybe if I followed suit, all of this would fade out.

Which wasn’t what I wanted, not really, but maybe—

My phone rang.

I pulled it out of my pocket. It was Felicity. “Hello?” I said.

Panting erupted in my ear. “Penny?” A desperate whisper.

“Felicity, what’s wrong? Is it Jensen?”

“I’m in the parking garage in my apartment building. You have to get here. I need you.” She was whispering and breathing hard.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, shit. They heard me.” And she hung up.

Or maybe she was cut off. I didn’t know.

She’d said ‘they,’ so that seemed to rule out the idea that her boyfriend Jensen was attacking her, but I didn’t trust the guy. Couldn’t help it. No one was good enough for my best friend.

Still, maybe it was him working with a buddy.

She said she was in the parking garage.

I headed out the door, half running for my car.

Wait.

Damn it
.

Keys.

I scrambled back into the hotel. My car keys were all the way upstairs in my apartment. What the hell?

I raced up the steps and threw open the door to my apartment. I hurried back the hall to my bedroom, snatched the keys off the bedside table, and then ran as fast as I could back down the steps, through the lobby, and back outside.

It was shaping up to be a warm day, and the seagulls careened cheerily over my head as I rushed down the sidewalk to my car.

The warmth of the sun hit my shoulders.

When I opened the door to my car and slid inside, the interior of my car was already warm. I fitted the keys into the ignition and hit the button to lower both the windows.

Then I backed out of the parking space, turned, and burned rubber out onto Atlantic Avenue.

Felicity lived a few blocks up. It was too far to walk.

It was May, and traffic wasn’t as bad as it could have been in the summer, but there were still more cars than I wanted.

I was stuck over in the right lane, and I needed to get all the way over to the left lane.

I also would have liked to be going about ninety miles an hour, but I was stuck going about forty.

I nudged my nose out, trying to get into the other lane.

And nearly got my side mirror taken off for my trouble when the car next to me sped past at lightning speed.

I need to be following him
, I thought.
Damn it.

I watched as that car sped down the road, sliding in and out of lanes, somehow finding all the spaces between the cars and getting free of this mess.

Why couldn’t I do that? I had never really done a lot of driving before. I’d been rich. I’d had a driver. And Alastair had refused to let me drive. He said I was a disaster on the road. He was a dick like that a lot.

Ha! There. A space between cars.

I slammed on my blinker and swerved into the lane to my left, barely making it in time.

Ahead of me, the next stoplight was yellow.

It switched to red.

Everyone ahead of me stopped, so I smashed on my brakes too.

I tapped on the steering wheel. Geez. Felicity needed me and here I was, stuck in freaking traffic.

Maybe I should call her again?

No, she said that they had heard her. She was hiding. A ringing cell phone would only draw attention to her.

But what the hell was going on?

And what if I was too late?

The light switched back to green, and I had never been so happy in my life. I surged forward, and the cars to my left streamed past me, revealing a wide open left hand lane.

Thank God.

I switched lanes again and started to pick up speed.

Ahead of me, the next light turned yellow.

Oh, no. Screw that.

I was going through that damned yellow light. I was just going to speed up and fly through that thing—

It turned red.

Damn it.

I screeched to a stop, inches from the bumper of the car ahead of me.

Was I going to get caught at every red light from here to there?

Actually, probably yes. They seemed to be timed that way. It was either all green lights from here to Delaware, or it was a switch to red, one right after the other.

I slumped in my seat, looking at the ceiling.

When I looked back, the car ahead of me was already four feet away.

The light was green.

For God’s sake!

I hit the gas and lurched forward.

The car ahead of me was going at a good clip, and I began to pick up speed. The next light loomed ahead of us, and it was green.

I held my breath, waiting for it to turn yellow.

But it didn’t, and I sailed through it.

I grinned. Okay, maybe everything was going to be okay now. Maybe I was going to make it through these lights and they’d all stay green from here on out.

I pushed the gas pedal down to get more speed. I needed to make it to Felicity now.

And then I saw the next light turn yellow. I was never going to make that.

I slowed down and pulled to a stop.

God damn these lights
.

I glared at the light, willing it to turn back to green.

It stayed red, stubbornly.

I was worried about Felicity, and I couldn’t get to her, and so help me, if I got there, and she was badly hurt, I was going to take it out of the hide of whatever or whoever had hurt her. And I was going to get there in time. I was going to save her. Because a world without Felicity? Hell, no, that was a world that I couldn’t handle living in.

She was going to be fine.

I was going to make it in time.

I pleaded with the light to change.

It didn’t.

Was it me, or was this light taking even longer than all the other ones put together?

I shut my eyes. When I opened them, the light was going to be…

Still red. I glared at it.

Abruptly, it changed, turning green.

“About fucking time,” I muttered, applying my foot to the gas. Off I went again.

The good news was that I was only two blocks from Felicity’s place. I’d turn left just up ahead, at the next light.

I arrived there, pulling into the turning lane.

The light was green, but that meant that the cars going eastbound were whooshing past on three lanes of traffic. Unless there was a lull, I wasn’t going to be able to turn.

There was never a lull.

I waited.

Finally, the light turned red.

“Come on, green arrow,” I whispered. If that thing didn’t show up in two seconds, I was just going to go, traffic lights be damned. Felicity was waiting for me—

Green arrow.

I took off as fast as I could, making the turn and pulling into the parking lot in front of Felicity’s apartment. People who lived inside had spaces in the parking garage, but there were ten measly spaces outside for guests.

They were all full.

Screw it. I parked in a no-parking zone, leapt out of the car, and went running into the parking garage.

Inside, it was dark, the only light greenish-blue lamps along the walls. They gave everything a sickly sort of glow, making the whole place feel creepy.

The parking garage only had two levels, so it shouldn’t take too long to search.

I let my gaze sweep this one.

It was still and silent, cars parked in the green gloom around the perimeter.

No time to waste.

I started to run up the incline that would take me to the next level, scanning the cars on either side of me as I went.

My feet were loud as they slapped against the concrete floor.

Whoever was here was going to hear me coming, but let them. I was a dragon, and I wasn’t someone to be trifled with.

I rounded the bend, emerging onto the next level of the parking garage.

Felicity came running at me, appearing out of the darkness, her eyes wide, her arms outstretched. She was bleeding from a wound on her forehead. “Penny!” she gasped.

I caught her, wrapping my arms around her. “What’s going on?”

“They’re here somewhere,” she said, turning in my arms to look in the direction she’d been running from.

“Who are?”

“Vampires,” she said. “They have magic. My talisman helped a little, I think, but—”

“Get behind me,” I said.

She did.

“They must want your blood,” I said. “If they have magic, they must be stalking drakes.” Vampires needed blood to stay alive, and any blood would do for survival, but drinking dragon blood gave them magic. If they couldn’t find dragon blood, drake blood worked as well.

“Let’s just go,” she said. “Let’s run and leave and get away from them.”

I looked into the darkness of the parking garage. Where were they? “Yeah, okay,” I said, reaching behind me to grab her hand. I started to back up. “That’s not a terrible idea.”

Movement behind me.

I whirled.

Felicity screamed, and she was ripped away from me.

I pumped magic down my arms, ready to pour into the vampires who had Felicity.