Don't Feed the Dragon: A Dragon Rider Urban Fantasy Novel (Setting Fires with Dragons Book 1)

by S. W. Clarke

  “She means the box of pictures, dear,” Frank’s voice chimed from the kitchen. “Show her where it is.”

  “Ah!” Seleema stood, crossed to the dining table and picked up Frank’s MacBook. She came and sat by me on the couch, opening it up with slow reverence.

  I went to ease it onto my lap, but she set her hand over mine. “Allow me to show you.” And she dropped one pointed, imperious finger atop the power button, holding it down until the laptop booted. “This is the book of pictures,” she intoned as the MacBook prompted her for a password. She entered it, and we were online.

  I cleared my throat. “May I have access to the book of pictures now?”

  “Certainly.” Seleema passed the laptop over with two careful hands. “Please be careful—when I first encountered this magic, the pictures bore such realism I could not restrain myself from attempting to reach into the book.”

  Frank came out with a basket of bread and three plates. “She cracked the screen. Shattered it, actually.”

  I nodded. “Strong lady you have.”

  He separated the plates out. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  I opened the browser, stared at the screen. Where did I even start? The descendant, Mariana, snowdrop. Should I just do a search for all three? This really wasn’t my forte.

  Ten minutes later, I’d dug straight into all the articles I could find about the Scarred—most of which I’d already read. I mumbled all the while, which I couldn’t really help; I tended to read out loud.

  Seleema sat close, studying everything along with me. From time to time, she would point at the screen. “Crosses,” she said as I scrolled through an article on the Atlanta killings. “Why do the Scarred use this Christian symbol in their evildoings?”

  “Aside from taking delight in offending as many people as possible?” I offered. “I don’t know.”

  And I really didn’t. I’d wondered the same thing myself.

  Meanwhile, Frank had fallen into a close study of something on his cellphone, scrolling in silence as he chewed away at a slice of bread. “Say,” he said after a while, “what did you say the doctor called Valdis?”

  I didn’t glance up, but it did register that Frank had been listening to my mumblings. “Wilhelm.”

  “And when did you say he and the doctor got together?”

  “Seven hundred years ago.”

  “And what was that woman’s name you heard mentioned a few times?”

  “Mariana.”

  “Huh.” Frank chewed thoughtfully. “That’s what I thought you said.”

  This time I did look up. “And?”

  He turned his phone around. “Says on Ancestry.com that a Wilhelm Perdue was married to a Mariana Perdue in the 13th century.”

  ↔

  My breath caught, and I leaned forward to stare at the cellphone’s screen. What I saw next I couldn’t quite believe.

  “And,” Frank went on, “they had …”

  “A daughter,” I finished.

  Frank blinked twice. “But this can’t be right. Can two vampires have children?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I breathed.

  He turned the phone back around. “So I must have the wrong guy.”

  “You don’t.” I sat back on the couch. “That’s him.”

  “How do you know?” Seleema asked.

  I grabbed the sheaf of papers Drow had given me, held them up. “Because he approached this doctor in the 13th century, after Mariana died. She wasn’t a vampire.”

  Seleema sat up straight and turned to me. “You are saying he took a wife but did not turn her?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” I began leafing through the papers again, back to the narrative from the 13th century. My eyes scanned the page, and I stabbed a finger down on it. “A daughter. Drow mentions Wilhelm and Mariana’s daughter.”

  Frank lowered his phone. “A vampire can have children?”

  “I suppose so, if the gal having the kids is human,” I said. “The question is, if he loved his wife so GoneGodDamn much, why would he let her die in the first place? Why wouldn’t he turn her?”

  Seleema shrugged once. “Perhaps she did not want to be turned.”

  A theory sparked in me; I grabbed Frank’s phone and started scrolling through the ancestry tree.

  “Hey!” Frank said.

  I ignored him. “So if the Perdues had a daughter, then maybe that daughter had children, and they had children. And so on.”

  “Can I have my phone back now?”

  I found the notation I was looking for. I stopped scrolling, my thumb hovering over the phone. “The descendants,” I whispered, the phrase rising again to mind.

  Seleema angled her face so she could see the screen. “Why is Annabelle Martin listed here?”

  I turned to her without seeing her. “Because she’s a descendant of Wilhelm and Mariana Perdue.”

  Frank rubbed his face. “Ho-ly hell.”

  Things were starting to click together. “Annabelle is one of his daughter’s descendants. That’s why Valdis took her.”

  “But why would he kidnap her?” Seleema asked.

  I grabbed the sheaf of Drow’s papers, flipped through them until I came to a section I had skimmed over last time. In it, Drow had theorized about how Wilhelm could have become the first vampire.

  In Drow’s studies of Wilhelm, he’d been baffled by how a man could become a vampire without another vampire turning him in the first place. Wilhelm had explained to Drow that, a thousand years before, a demon had come to him and joined with him, and this had given Wilhelm his powers.

  But how could a demon join with a man? It was unheard of. It wasn’t until the 20th century, when science had progressed far enough, that Drow figured it out: Wilhelm possessed an exceedingly rare genetic mutation that had allowed him to join with this demon. It was so rare that he was the only man to whom this had ever happened.

  And one result of that mutation?

  Deafness.

  “Valdis took Annabelle because she has the mutation,” I whispered. “It rendered him deaf when he was human.”

  “Deaf?” Frank and Seleema said together.

  I lifted my eyes to him. “Just like Annabelle.”

  Seleema stared at the page. “Why is this mutation important?”

  “Because it allows a person to join with a demon,” I said. “To become a vampire.”

  I kept looking at the notes, but my mind had already leapt to another theory.

  If Valdis was looking for descendants, that meant he wasn’t focused on bringing his wife’s soul back anymore. After seven hundred years, that wasn’t a quest you just gave up on.

  Something told me he had finished that quest.

  Another thought was rising in me—one I really didn’t like. Really, really didn’t like.

  Dr. Drow had called me “Mariana’s vessel.”

  Vessels contained things.

  My gaze unfocused, and apparently I was doing odd things, because Seleema’s voice broke through my haze. “Franklin, my love, can you give me some time alone with Tara?”

  At some point, I sensed Frank had left.

  And then I felt warmth. Seleema’s hand was on mine.

  “Tara?” she said to me. “Please, look at me.”

  I turned my head, found her eyes. They were dark pools—calming and intense. They steadied me. I realized my heart was galloping. I realized I’d been breathing on double-time, like I had just run a race.

  “It is all right,” Seleema’s honeyed voice murmured. “You are all right.”

  “I’m fine,” I whispered, a breathless sound. That was when I realized I wasn’t fine. Not at all.

  But at least my heart was slowing down. It had been years since I’d been this close to panic. I’d thought I was past these moments.

  As I focused on her, I realized I was sitting before maybe the only person who could answer the questions embedded at the fore of my mind.

  “Seleema,” I said
, “you’re a houri.”

  “Yes, Tara.”

  “You know about souls.”

  Her hand remained over mine, patient and warm. “Yes, Tara.”

  I touched the sheaf of Drow’s papers. “Drow and Valdis spent seven hundred years attempting to bring a soul back from Heaven.” I paused. “Is that possible?”

  Seleema’s head shook. “No.”

  “You’re certain?”

  Her eyebrows lowered, a new thought entering her head. “Not unless a god let it happen.”

  “The gods are gone.” Even as I said it, I knew what her reply would be. It was the exact reply running through my head.

  “If such a thing were possible, this soul would have returned before the gods left,” Seleema said. “But in all my existence, Tara, I know of no god who ever granted a soul permission to return to Earth. Not once.”

  I nodded. Not once, I thought on repeat, her words a salve. Not once. Not once.

  Once I had calmed, she left me sitting alone on the couch, silence spreading around me like a blanket of snow.

  So I did what I always did with my discomfort over feelings—I buried myself in reading. That night, I read everything Drow had given me in that envelope. And I learned more about Valdis, the man I’d spent five years hunting, than I ever expected to know.

  Not long before the gods left, Drow claimed Wilhelm had used that amulet’s magic to bring his dead wife’s soul back. And it had supposedly flown from Heaven and landed somewhere in the world.

  Somewhere, inside someone.

  As the sun came back around the Earth, turning the sky gray, I lifted my eyes to the mirror on the wall across from me, and a young blonde stared back. For a moment, I forgot she was me. Elvarish Drow’s words rang in my ears: “You really are so much like her.”

  “Bullshit,” I whispered, slamming the stack of papers onto the table.

  Souls didn’t come back.

  Chapter 18

  I stepped out onto Frank and Seleema’s balcony, bracing myself against the morning chill. I stared over Brooklyn with one folded arm as I phoned Ferris, my gnome manager. It was still strange being managed, but he certainly did make the bookings easier.

  He answered with his Scottish growl. “Tara, don’t give me problems.”

  I chuckled. “Now when do I ever do that?”

  “Every day,” he said into the receiver.

  “No problems today, my dear gnome. Just an opportunity.”

  “Your opportunities are my problems. You want to move your show again, don’t you?”

  “Times Square is dying for Tara and her Dragon. You should see all the people here, Fer, and the way they look at Percival.”

  “Times Square? You’re doing my head in, Tara.”

  “I need a spot in Midtown Manhattan. I’ll send you the details.”

  “Do you know how expensive that’ll be?”

  “I know, Ferris. But it’s got grand potential.”

  “Grand potential to bring me problems,” he grumbled.

  “Listen, the day I start losing you money, you can drop me and find a new dragon rider.”

  “Oh, and I would. But there are no other dragon riders.”

  I allowed a second of silence to elapse in acknowledgement of that fact. Actually, two seconds.

  Sometimes I could be downright unmerciful.

  “So you’ll find me a spot in Times Square today?”

  “Today?” Ferris pounded whatever table was nearest him with his tiny fist. “No, Tara. I can’t do it.”

  “Shame,” I murmured. “It’s supposed to be a bright blue day today. Not a cloud by noon. Perfect for the sun’s reflection on a dragon’s scales. You know how the people gather on sunny days.”

  He sighed. “You should have been in sales, Tara. You were wasted riding a dragon.”

  I grinned, fingering the wrought iron balustrade. “Thanks, Ferris Wheel. Oh, and one other thing.”

  “If you call me Ferris Wheel again, I’m hanging up.”

  I smiled. “That wouldn’t be polite.”

  “When has politeness ever been part of our friendship?”

  My smile spread to a grin. “We’re friends now. I like that.”

  He groaned. “What else do you want, Tara?”

  I swallowed. “I need a few of your creations. I’m close, Ferris. Closer than I’ve ever been. I need a few of those things you’ve been working on. Are they ready?”

  He groaned louder. “Yes, they’re ready, but how am I supposed to get you all that by—by when?”

  “Tonight. I’ll pay for the priority postage.”

  “Do you know how big the box will have to be?”

  I stepped to the railing, set one hand on the cold iron. It burned into my skin as icy metal can do. “I expect it’ll be real big.”

  “Tara—”

  “Ferris.” I squeezed the railing harder. “This is the real deal. I’m not playing around.”

  Silence fell between us.

  “It’s him?” His voice had lowered.

  “It’s him.”

  This time he didn’t sigh—it was more like a hard, angry exhale. “You’ll have what you need.”

  I smiled. “I’m eternally in your debt.”

  “Tara,” he said before I could hang up. “Give him hell.”

  I chuckled. “Oh, Ferris. You know if there were a hell, I’d send him straight to it. But I’ll make him wish for it, I promise you that.”

  “I know you will.”

  ↔

  When I came back into the apartment, I heard scraping.

  Seleema sat on the armchair, facing away from me and dressed … differently. When I came around, I found her in some strange sort of battle gear with beads hanging from her shoulders.

  She was scraping a file over four-inch-long red nails, whittling them to points.

  I pointed. “Are those stick-ons?”

  Seleema stopped filing and picked up a glass of orange juice from the end table. “Most certainly not.” She took a long, long sip, emptying the whole glass until only the pulp remained. When she lowered the glass, she extended her nails up toward me. “They are houri instruments of battle, sharper than the point of a sword, feared even by the ifrit and the marid for their ability to shear flesh from bone.”

  I bent over to inspect the nails. “But how do you get them to stay on?”

  She sighed, lowering her hand as her shoulder-beads jingle. “I do not wish to tell you.”

  “Gorilla glue? It’s Gorilla glue, isn’t it?”

  “I do not know of this ‘Gorilla glue.’ ”

  I waved a hand in a circle to encompass all of her. “And what’s this all about, anyway? Going to a Halloween party as Lady Gaga?”

  Seleema blinked, stared down at her outfit. “This is not the first time I have heard such a comparison.” She returned her gaze to me. “But no, I am not going to any festivities. I am preparing for battle.”

  I hoped she wasn’t implying what I thought she was implying. “Battle? With whom?”

  She didn’t blink. “With the Scarred.”

  I straightened. “Now Seleema, this one’s my fight. And I’m going—”

  “We are going,” Seleema corrected.

  “Oh no you aren’t,” said Frank, appearing from the kitchen and pointing one oven-mitted hand at his girlfriend. “I draw the line.”

  I turned. “Now Frank, have you been eavesdropping?”

  For her part, Seleema simply crossed her legs. “I am going with Tara.”

  Frank shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Well, this one wasn’t my fight. I stepped back, folding my arms.

  Seleema set one hand over the arm of the chair, her nails spreading along the floral patterning. “You possess the most beautiful soul I have ever seen, Franklin Stubemeyer, but if you attempt to stop me, it will dim your light.”

  Frank started across the room. “Can we talk about this in private?”

  Seleema stood, beads ji
ngling, and followed him into the bedroom. I could hear them talking through the bedroom door, obviously at odds. I didn’t blame the guy; I’d heard love could be as painful as it was beautiful, especially if you lost it.

  At some point, however, their talking evolved.

  The sounds … deepened. Lengthened.

  I suspected they weren’t talking anymore.

  Frank yelped and let out a laugh. Then he moaned.

  Nope, definitely not talking.

  This would be a good time to check on Percy.

  I left the apartment and made my way down to the parking garage—where Percy should have been, but wasn’t.

  Only the tarp remained in the parking spot.

  An unexpected note of panic sent my heart into double-time, and I walked down to the street, staring into the sky as people passed by. It was a perfectly blue day, not a cloud marring the sky.

  When I pulled my whistle from under my shirt and blew into it, nothing happened. No dragon appeared. Not until five minutes later, when he swooped from the sky and landed directly behind me with a small rumble and some shrieks from passersby.

  I spun on him. “Where have you been?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Had to get breakfast somehow, Mom.”

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

  “Then don’t act like my mom.”

  I folded my arms. “Where have you been?” I repeated. People were giving us an enormous berth, staring as they passed by with their briefcases and their cellphones forgotten at their ears.

  He blew a tiny puff of smoke. “Like I said: getting breakfast.”

  “But where were—” I began, then stopped myself. I sighed; I knew what this was about. “I’m sorry, Perce. I know I haven’t taken you to any museums.”

  He just stared at me in silent judgement. And let me tell you, dragons are masters of silently judging you. Those eyes.

  I stepped forward. “Tonight’s the night.”

  “Tonight?” His golden eyes widened. “You mean, we’re going after him?”

  “That’s right. Ferris is sending a new saddle, too.” I paused. “Perce, we’ve got a show in two hours, but the rest of the day is yours. We’ll do whatever you want.”

  All his frustration with me slid right off him, and his tail swung left, then right. “Anywhere I want? You promise?”