city of dragons 02 - fire storm (23 page)

I peered into his eyes. “I think this is harder on you than it is on me.”

“What? That’s insane. You’re in shock still, and it hasn’t sunk in—”

“This isn’t the first time this happened to me, Lachlan. I’ve been through this with Alastair before. Worse than this. Much worse. But it’s the first time it’s happened to you.”

“Nothing happened to
me
.”

I reached up to caress his face. “You were right to insist I come here, do that kit, that I press charges, all of it. You were right that I wasn’t thinking clearly. I had gone into survival mode, and all I wanted to do was forget about it and move on.”

“And you’re not in survival mode now?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Yes, maybe. But I’m sort of always in survival mode a little bit.”

He got his sunglasses out of his suit jacket and turned them over in his hands.

“You’re treating me like I’m fragile. You’re being careful with me,” I said. “But when you met me, I’d already been through this.”

“It happened
last night.
I think it’s warranted to go easy on you.”

“Okay, yeah, but this isn’t like… It’s not as if I was fresh and innocent as the driven snow and now I’ve been utterly destroyed. I lived through this abuse already. I’m screwed up. I was screwed up when you met me. This is an extension of that screwed-up-ness.”

“I don’t think that makes it better.’

“No,” I said. “But I have tools to deal with this abuse now. Back when I was with Alastair, I thought I deserved it, and my spirit was crushed.”

“How could you possibly think you deserved it?”

“It was a combination of things. Before Alastair ever laid a hand on me, he started breaking me down. Telling me that I was worthless and vain and shallow. Criticizing me. Slowly chipping away at me, eroding all my defenses. Until I believed him when he said that I was a horrible person and I needed to be punished. And I also thought that he and I were fated to be together. That it was written in the stars or something, you know? So, if that was true, there had to be some reason I was joined to a man like that. I
must
deserve it.”

“Jesus.” He put his sunglasses on top of his head and pulled me against him.

I pressed my cheek against his chest and closed my eyes. I liked being close to him. I liked being held. That was good, wasn’t it? Because earlier, when he’d touched me, I’d pulled away. This meant I was healing. “Anyway, now I know that’s bull. So, when it happens, it’s external. It’s Alastair’s fault, not mine. That makes a world of difference, you know?”

He stroked my hair. “It’s still a big deal, Penny,” he murmured. “I can’t let you just hand wave it all away.”

“I’m not,” I said. I looked up at him. “I’m really not. But I don’t want to wallow in it either. So, what’s our next move? We file a report? Press charges?”

“You want to do that right now?”

I nodded. “Yes. And then I want to get back to work. I want to go to Clarke Gannon’s house.”

“No,” he said. “No way. That’s crazy.”

* * *

Clarke Gannon opened the door with her hair in two braids, wearing a ratty t-shirt and a pair of sweats. She looked softer, somehow. Younger. I could see the curves of her cheeks and chin. I realized that she couldn’t be more than twenty. She was practically a child. How had she gotten into this? Was she really killing dragons to protect her sister?

“I don’t think I have to talk to you,” she said, pulling the door closed.

My hand shot out, blocking the door from closing. I made my voice soothing. “It’s okay. We’re just here to try to understand what happened.”

Lachlan raised his eyebrows at me.

He’d taught me well, what could I say? Anyway, I felt a tiny thread of sympathy for Clarke. Not enough to excuse her actions, because she murdered my kind for sport and cash, but enough that I could tap into it and make everything I said to her genuine. “You know that drakes don’t need dragon flesh to survive, don’t you? Your sister would be okay on a diet of steak and chicken.”

“What’s my sister got to do with this?” Clarke folded her arms over her chest.

“Can we come in?” I said.

Clarke sighed. But she stepped back, making room for us to pass.

Lachlan and I stepped into Clarke’s apartment, which was cluttered but not dirty.

“How many dragons have you killed for Gina?” I said.

“That’s what you think?” said Clarke. “It’s not like that at all. Sometimes she steals the meat. She’s addicted to it. That’s how she became a drake in the first place, chasing dragon meat down, doing anything for it. I don’t want to give her that stuff.”

“You admit that you kill dragons, though?” said Lachlan.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I take down problems,” she said. “And I only sell to mages who can take the curses out of the bones of the mad dragons. That’s what’s made Gina worse, honestly. Eating that tainted meat. It’s bad for her. It’s like I don’t even know who she is anymore.”

“Mad dragons?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re a dragon, right?” she said. “I saw the stories about you in the paper. How you took Anthony Barnes down. Thanks for that, by the way. His shelter was one of the few places that I could send Gina to dry out where they could actually handle her. Now, that place is gone. No one else knows what to do with someone strung out on magic. She just breaks out.”

“Anthony Barnes was a murderer—”

“He had magic,” she said. “He could fight Gina down.”

“He got that magic from killing dragons,” I said. “But I guess that doesn’t matter to someone like you, since you murder us anyway.”

Lachlan cleared his throat.

Okay, okay, so my sympathetic act had pretty much crashed and burned. I guessed that Lachlan was better at this than me after all. I clamped my mouth shut. Maybe I shouldn’t talk.

“I don’t,” said Clarke. “Like I said, I only kill the mad ones.”

“There aren’t any mad dragons,” said Lachlan quietly.

“You don’t know, do you?” She shook her head at us in disbelief. “It’s happening right under your nose, and you don’t see it. And the money that the dragons are throwing at it. They spend millions to cover it up, and you still don’t know about it?”

“Know about what?”

“Know about the rogue dragons. The ones who go crazy and start burning people to death unless someone like me stops them.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like this. The other slayer we’d met, Otis, he’d claimed that dragons had murdered his little sisters.

“This idea that dragons go insane is a fairy tale,” I said to her. So much for keeping my mouth shut. “You slayers whisper it to yourselves before you go to bed at night so that you can sleep with a clear conscience.”

Clarke pressed her lips together in a firm line.

“Listen, regardless of any conspiracy about hiding dragon attacks,” said Lachlan.

“It’s not a conspiracy,” said Clarke. “It’s fact. You can think what you like, but I don’t need to lie to myself about the carnage dragons wreak on the populace. Dragons have always been dangerous, and the more powerful they get, the more they just shove it under the rug. The dragons don’t want to stop the rogues. They just want to throw money at it, pay off the officials, change the reports, donate anonymously to trusts made in the victims’ names. They think that stops it, but it doesn’t.”

I was aghast. She really believed this was true. But if something like that were going on, I would know about it.

“We’re here about something very specific,” said Lachlan.

“Yeah, okay.” She folded her arms over her chest. “What’s this about again? Some missing guy?”

“Fletcher Remington,” I said. “He was a dragon, and he’s missing.”

“And you think I killed him?”

“You
do
kill dragons,” said Lachlan.

“Not like him,” she said. “Not like that. He doesn’t fit my profile. I never touched him.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Oh, Penny,” whispered Felicity. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t think anything happened,” I said. “I mean, I think when he knocked me out, he stopped. Alastair is horrible, but he always liked me awake and suffering.”

“As far as you know, anyway,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you slept next to that man for years, and you have no idea what he might have done to you—”

“This is not helping,” I said.

She nodded once. “Noted.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” I got up off the couch in my living room and wandered over to the kitchen. “I could make food.”

She shook her head. “Lachlan’s picking something up, he said. He told me to make sure you take it easy, so get back on the couch, missy.”

I groaned. “I wish everyone would stop treating me like I’m glass.”

“You just went through—”

“I’ve been through this before!”

She nodded. “Okay.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Tell me something else, okay? Tell me how Connor is doing with the magic lessons?”

“Really well,” she said. “I’m a much better teacher than you.”

I smiled. “I’m sure you are. And Jensen? How are things with Jensen?”

“You don’t care about Jensen.”

“Sure I do,” I said. I was eager to talk about anything besides what had happened to me.

“Well, now that he’s sufficiently convinced that I’m capable of fending off hungry vampires, he’s letting me drive myself places, which is good, because if he hadn’t let up on that, I would have probably left him.”

“Seriously?”

“I know you guys did what you did because you were worried about me, but it was not cool. You can’t just take away someone’s ability to leave her house.”

I furrowed my brow. “You know, Felicity, I didn’t think about it that way. I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “Like I said, you did it out of love, and I know that, so I forgive you. But don’t do that again.”

I nodded. “I won’t. It’s like we kidnapped you. It’s like…” I went back over to the couch and sat down. “You were like a captive.”

“Don’t get dramatic,” she said. “Now, if Jensen would apologize too, I’d be completely over it.”

The door to my apartment opened.

I leaped to my feet, gathering up my magic, ready to breathe fire.

But it was only Lachlan, coming in with paper bags full of takeout.

I let my shoulders slump. “Jesus, Lachlan, can you knock?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Sorry, I just figured that since I was already in the hotel, you’d know it was me.”

I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t have enough magic. I need to shift.”

“But there’s food,” he said. “Why don’t you sit down and eat?”

I shook my head. “No, I need to shift now.” And I took off down the hallway to head for the back door.

* * *

I sat on the couch with my arms wrapped around my knees. I was exhausted. I’d gone out into the waves and shifted, which had been refreshing, but I still hadn’t had the energy to go on a decent flight or anything. Instead, I wanted to come home and crawl into bed. But I found that I was too wired to sleep, at least so far.

Lachlan was pacing in my living room, talking into the phone in a low, urgent voice.

The takeout food had been delicious and only a little bit cold. Shifting before eating, for my peace of mind, had been totally worth it.

Lachlan hung up. “I told them that they needed to tranq him and to ship him to Roxbone right away, even if they’re just holding him overnight.”

“They listened, right?” I said. “Alastair is too dangerous to be dealt with any other way. If the police are going to try to arrest him, that’s how they have to do it.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think I got through to them, but I can’t be sure. It’s not being treated with the kind of priority I feel it should be. If I weren’t a vampire, if it was some other detective’s girlfriend, then the cavalry would be called in.” He sat down next to me on the couch, sinking both his hands into his hair. “Or maybe it’s because I’m just not very likable. People think I use magic to get my confessions. I don’t.”

“I know that.” I patted his knee. “Maybe we should go with the officers who are arresting Alastair? We have magic. You drank my blood earlier, so you could help.”

He sank back against the couch. “That. We haven’t even talked about that. What the hell
was
that?”

“A blood bond, apparently,” I said. “But about going out there—”

“No way. You’ve been through enough today. You look tired.”

I sighed, leaning into the couch as well. “I
am
tired. But if they can’t handle him—”

“They have to handle him. I told them what to do, and they won’t screw it up.” But it sounded like he was trying to convince himself as well as me. “We can’t be there. We’re involved, and we need unbiased people performing the arrest.”

“Oh, right.” I nodded.

He reached out and picked up a lock of my hair. He fingered it. “Hey, it would make me feel better if you let me stay here on the couch or something. I don’t think I could sleep if I thought you were here alone.”

“Of course you should stay,” I said.

“I probably won’t sleep,” he muttered. “At least not until I know they have him.”

“Connor said he was going to stand sentry at the bottom of the steps,” I said.

Lachlan raised his eyebrows.

“He’s a gargoyle,” I said. “He’s impervious to flame.”

Lachlan laughed. “Well, there’s that, I guess.” He sucked in breath through his nose, and he wouldn’t look at me. “What you said earlier, about it being an extension of your screwed-up-ness. It’s true for me too.”

“What do you mean?”

He studied his palms. “It’s just one more way that I failed, you know? Like, I was supposed to protect my daughter? That was my most important job. That’s what a father
does
. And I didn’t.”

“Hey, that’s not—”

“And last night, I was being juvenile and worrying over my ego, and I didn’t pick up the phone when you called.” He looked at me. “I didn’t protect you either. I should have been here with you.”