Mercy Burns

by Keri Arthur

  “Don’t,” he said, gravelly voice calm and soothing, showing no trace of the fear I could smell on him. “There’s a cut above your eye and you’ll only make the bleeding worse.”

  It couldn’t get worse, I wanted to say. And I meant the situation, not the wound. Yet that little voice inside me whispered that the pain wasn’t over yet, that there was a whole lot more to come.

  I clenched my fingers against the stranger’s, suddenly needing the security of his touch. At least it was something real in a world that had seemingly gone mad.

  The screeching of metal stopped, and the thick silence was almost as frightening. Yet welcome. If only the pounding in my head would stop …

  “Almost there, ma’am. Just keep calm a little longer.”

  “Where …” My voice came out little more than a harsh whisper and my throat burned in protest. I swallowed heavily and tried again. “Where is Rainey?”

  He hesitated. “Your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  His hesitation lasted longer. “Let’s just concentrate on getting you out and safe.”

  There was something in his voice that had alarm bells ringing. An edge that spoke of sorrow and death and all those things I didn’t want to contemplate or believe.

  “Where is she?” I said, almost desperately. “I need to know she’s okay.”

  “She’s being taken care of by someone else,” he said, and I sensed the lie in his words.

  No, I thought. No!

  Rainey had to be alive. Had to be. She wasn’t just my friend, she was my strength, my courage, and my confidante. She’d hauled me out of more scrapes than I could remember. She couldn’t be gone.

  Fear and disbelief surged. I tore my hand from his and scrubbed urgently at my eyes. Warmth began to flow anew, but I was finally able to see.

  And what I saw was the crumpled steering wheel, the smashed remains of the windshield, the smears of blood on the jagged, twisted front end of the car.

  No, no, NO!

  She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. I’d survived, and she was stronger—tougher—than me. How could she die? How could that be possible?

  And then I saw something else.

  Bright sunlight.

  Dawn had well and truly passed.

  That’s why my rescuer had been so vague about Rainey. They couldn’t find her. And no matter how much they looked, they never would. The flesh of a dead dragon incinerated at the first touch of sunrise.

  I began to scream then, and there was nothing anyone could do to make me stop. Because they didn’t understand what a dragon dying unaccompanied at dawn meant.

  But I did. And it tore me apart.

  Though in the end, I did stop—but only because the pain of being wrenched free of the twisted, broken wreck finally swept me into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Two

  I left the hospital as soon as I was physically able.

  The staff had tried to make me stay. They’d tried to convince me that one day after an operation to remove a six-inch piece of steel from my side, I should be flat on my back and recovering, not strolling around like there was nothing wrong with me.

  But they didn’t understand what I was. I couldn’t have stayed there even if I’d wanted to, and not just because they would have noticed how fast I healed and started asking questions.

  No, the real reason was Rainey.

  Her soul still had a chance to move on.

  Sunset wasn’t only the time where day met night, it was the time when the dead could mingle more freely with those who lived. Some of those ghosts would be dragons who died without someone to pray for them, destined to roam this earth forever—insubstantial beings who could never move on, never feel, and never experience life again. But those who had died before their time had one small lifeline. If I caught and killed those responsible for Rainey’s demise within seven days of her death, I could then pray for her soul on the fall of the final day and she would be able to move on.

  I had five of those seven days left, and there was no way on this earth I was going to waste them lying in a hospital bed. No matter how much it still hurt to walk around.

  Which was why I was sitting here, in this dark and dingy bar, waiting for the man we’d arranged to meet before that truck had barreled into us.

  I reached for my Coke and did a quick scan of the place. It wasn’t anywhere I would have chosen, though I could see the appeal to a sea dragon. Situated in the Marina district of San Francisco, the bar was dark and smoky, and the air thick with the scent of beer, sweaty men, and secrets. Tables hid in dim corners, those sitting at them barely visible in the nebulous light.

  There was no one human in those shadows.

  A long wooden bar dominated one side of the venue, and the gleaming brass foot rail and old-style stools reminded me of something out of the Old West—although the décor of the rest of the place was more ship-related than Western-themed, with old rope ladders, furled sails, and a ship’s wheel taking pride of place on the various walls.

  I’d attracted plenty of attention when I’d walked in, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was due to the fact that I was the only female in the place, or the rather prominent scar on my forehead. Most of the men had quickly lost interest once I’d sent a few scowls their way, but the bartender—a big, swarthy man of indeterminate age—seemed to be keeping an eye on me. While some part of me figured he simply didn’t want trouble, something about it bothered me nonetheless.

  Then the door to my right opened, briefly silhouetting the figure of a man. He was thickset but tall, and his hair was a wild mix of black, blue, and green, as if some artist had spilled a palette of sea-colored paints over his head.

  When my gaze met his, he nodded once, then stepped into the room.

  I took another sip of Coke and waited. He weaved his way through the mess of tables and chairs, his movements deft and sure, exhibiting a fluid grace so rare in most people.

  Of course, he wasn’t most people. He was one of the other ones. One of the monsters.

  “Angus Dougall, at your service,” he said, his deep, somewhat gruff voice holding only the barest hint of a Scottish burr. “Sorry I was so late, but there were protestors up on Mission Street and the traffic was hell. You want another drink?”

  “Not at the moment, thanks. And why meet here if it was so far out of your way?”

  “Because I know these parts well enough.”

  Implying that he felt safer here than anywhere else, I guessed. He took off a blue woolen peacoat that had seen better years and tossed it over the back of the chair opposite, then walked to the bar. He was, I thought with amusement, very much the image of a sea captain of old, complete with jaunty cap and a pipe shoved in his back pocket. His multicolored hair was wild and scraggly, his skin burned nut-brown by the sun, and his beard was as unkempt as his hair. All that was missing was the parrot on his shoulder. And the wrinkles—because despite looking like an old-style sea captain, he couldn’t have been any older than his mid-forties.

  Only I doubt he’d ever been near a boat in his life. Sea dragons had no need for that mode of transport. Not according to Leith—a friend who was currently running a background check on Dougall. And he should know, because he was a sea dragon himself.

  Angus came back with a beer in his hand and sat down. His gaze swept my face, lingering on the half-healed wound that snuck out from my hair to create a jagged line across half my forehead. Once it was fully healed, it would be barely visible, but right now it was fucking ugly.

  Which was a small price to pay, considering the other option. Tears touched my eyes and I blinked them away rapidly. Now was not the time to grieve. I had far too much to do before I could give in to the pain and hurt and loss.

  Angus took a sip of his beer then said, “I wasn’t actually expecting you to make it today. I thought you’d been in an accident?”

  Fear prickled my spine. I took a drink to ease the sudden dryness in my throat and wondered if he’d b
een behind the wheel of that truck. Wondered just how safe I was in this bar, even with the dozen or so strangers around us.

  “I was.”

  “You look okay.”

  “I am.” My fingers tightened around the glass. “Who told you about the accident?”

  Certainly I hadn’t mentioned it when I’d finally received my possessions from the mangled car and had given him another call. In fact, I hadn’t told anyone—although that hadn’t stopped Leith from calling the hospital frantically to see if I was all right. But then, he had other methods of finding these things out.

  Angus shrugged. “I saw it mentioned in the Chronicle.”

  If the Chronicle had run an article on the accident, why hadn’t they contacted me? I was, after all, one of their reporters. But I could sense no lie in his words or in his expression, and reading a newspaper had been the last thing on my mind when I’d awoken in the hospital. For all I knew, he was telling the truth. Yet there was a strange tension emanating from him, and that made me uneasy. I eased my grip a little on the glass and took a sip.

  “I was also told you’re draman,” he continued.

  Meaning someone had been checking up on me. And given the accident that wasn’t, that couldn’t be a good thing—especially considering I wasn’t exactly popular at home. I knew for a fact that many in my clique hoarded a grudge as avidly as they collected all things shiny—which was the reason behind my original move to San Francisco.

  It was entirely possible that one of those long-hoarded grudges was the reason behind Rainey’s death. After all, someone had given that deep-voiced man my cell phone number, and Mom still lived within the clique’s compound. She was extraordinarily trusting when it came to the dragons that she lived with and loved.

  And just because I was presuming it was linked to our quest to discover the reason behind the death of Rainey’s sister didn’t mean that it actually was.

  And if I was wrong, then Rainey would pay.

  But I wasn’t wrong. I felt that with every inch of my being.

  “What does it matter to you what I am?” I asked, wondering if he, like many full dragons, held a grudge against those of us who weren’t.

  It was a sad fact that most full-bloods considered us a blight on the dragon name. In times past, it had been common practice among the dragon cliques to regularly cull the draman ranks. These days, such practices were outlawed by the dragon council, but I very much doubted it was done to protect us. The fact was, humans were encroaching on dragon land more and more, and mass cleansings—as they were called—were bound to attract notice sooner or later. It said something about the council’s desperation to avoid human notice that they were allowing our numbers to increase.

  But if Angus was one of those dragons, then I wasn’t entirely sure what my next step would be. I desperately needed the information he apparently had, but he was a sea dragon and a man besides. He had me bested in both strength and skill.

  He took a sip of beer, his face giving little away. White froth briefly decorated his wiry beard before he wiped it away. “You’re a member of the Jamieson clique, aren’t you?”

  Again that sliver of fear ran down my spine. Maybe I’d stepped out of the frying pan and into the fire—and this wasn’t the sort of heat I could control. Not if things went wrong. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m not stupid enough to meet anyone without checking up on them first.”

  “And if you’re inferring that I am, then you’re mistaken.” Although he wasn’t. Not entirely.

  A smile briefly touched his mouth before disappearing. “Jamieson’s one of the oldest ones, isn’t it?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “They’re all old, simply because there are no new cliques. There haven’t been, for hundreds of years.”

  The rogue towns certainly didn’t count. Not yet, anyway—although I had no doubt that the council would move on them sooner or later. They seemed to think the only way to stop the humans from discovering us was to rule us all with the iron fist of fear and retribution.

  Which is why Rainey and I had thought that the council might be behind the cleansings of both Stillwater and Desert Springs. But the clues weren’t really adding any support to that.

  Angus took another sip of beer then leaned forward, blue eyes wary as he said, “Prove you are who you say.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I need to be sure it’s not a trap.”

  “Why would you agree to meet me if you think it’s a trap?” And why would he even think I was trying to trap him?

  Hell, even Rainey wouldn’t have tried something like that, and she’d had the full spectrum of dragon powers. But she’d also had a lot more respect for full-bloods, despite what we’d gone through growing up.

  Angus’s smile had a bitter edge. “You ask that, two days after a serious accident that landed you in the hospital and left your best friend dead?” He shook his head. “You’d be better off walking away right now, little draman.”

  He was probably right. I knew that, even if I had no intention of ever doing it. “I can’t.”

  “Even knowing you could be risking your life? These people aren’t the type to let anyone off easily. We both bear the scars to prove that.”

  “What they’ve done has only strengthened my determination to track them down.” Tears welled and I blinked them away quickly, internally repeating the mantra that had become a theme for me this last day and a bit. Don’t think, don’t feel. Not until it was all over, one way or another. “And if you’ve got scars, where the hell are they?”

  Angus shoved an arm across the table and pushed up the sleeve of his shirt. His leathery skin was crisscrossed with a myriad of thickly healed wounds. “My whole body bears the evidence of their attack. They’re not going to get a second shot.”

  My gaze jumped from the scars to his eyes, and I saw the glint of determination and fury there. And suddenly, I knew why he’d chosen this bar. Not because it was a refuge for would-be sea dogs, but because it was close to the sea. Which was his to call, like fire was for dragons. He’d drown everyone if he thought I was in any way here to trap him.

  I blew out a breath, then said, “What do you want me to do?”

  “If you are who you say you are, show me your stain and prove it.”

  The stain was a leathery, luminescent strip of skin that swirled around the spines of all dragons, whether they were of the air or sea, or were a half-breed like myself. The colors varied depending on clique and parentage, but usually involved a myriad of iridescent colors. I’d never been able to shift shape and attain dragon form so, unlike most stains, mine was just a boring brown.

  But there were only a few people who could know that—past lovers, my mom, and my brother.

  Neither my mom nor my brother would give out personal information like that, so that left past lovers. And while I could name a couple of those who’d delight in not only telling all but in getting back at me in any way possible, they’d left the clique well before Rainey and I had.

  “I’m not stripping in public just to prove who I am.” Especially not in a bar filled with shadowy men who maybe weren’t less-than-savory types, but who were still unknowns all the same.

  And you never trusted an unknown. It was a motto that had saved my skin many a time growing up, and I wasn’t about to abandon it now, no matter how badly I wanted information.

  Angus studied me for a moment, then said, voice still flat, “Then dance fire across your fingertips. I’m told you have extraordinary control.”

  I frowned. I didn’t like using dragon skills in public—in fact, not using them anywhere humans were likely to see them had been hammered into my brain since birth. There might be no humans currently in this bar, but there was nothing stopping them from walking in at the wrong moment. “Why is this so important to you?”

  “It’s important because I’ve been caught unawares before and have paid the price for it.” Bleakness flared in his eyes, and his so
mewhat fierce expression was touched fleetingly with sadness, a sadness that tore at my heart and made the reporter in me want to ask what was wrong. But I very much doubted he’d answer that question when he didn’t even trust me with the information I was going to pay him for.

  Then the sadness was gone and he took another sip of beer before adding, in a voice that was edgy and sharp, “And I’ve discovered the hard way that lies and entrapments fall from the prettiest tongue as easily as the ugliest.”

  “Well, I hope I fall into the former group rather than the latter,” I said, a little alarmed by the sudden fierceness in his tone. Something was very off, but I wasn’t sure what. Then my gaze flicked to his arm. Maybe his fierceness was understandable. With scars like those, survival must have been touch and go, even for a dragon who could heal far better than any human.

  “Do it,” he said, “or I walk out of here now and you’ll never get your answers.”

  I looked around the room, seeing no one looking our way or showing any undue interest. That might change given what I was about to do, but there wasn’t much I could change about that. Not if I wanted my answers.

  If this guy could provide answers and wasn’t just yanking my chain.

  I mean, the voice on the phone that had given us this lead had been oddly familiar, and that alone had raised questions. But Rainey had convinced me that we needed to take the chance if we were ever to get some answers. And now Rainey was dead and I was here talking to a stranger who might not only be connected to her death, but who might well be here to trap me—the one who had escaped from their little “accident.”

  And while Leith and his people were doing the background check on Angus, I simply didn’t have the time to sit back and wait for the answers. Hence the reason I was here, taking this god-awful chance.

  I had no other choice if I wanted to save Rainey.

  I pushed the Coke back then held up a hand, keeping it close to my chest so that there was less likelihood of anyone else noticing.

  Then I reached deep down into that place in my soul where the dragon resided. She came roaring forward in answer, heating my skin and making it tingle. But she was all flame and no substance, as usual. I focused on the energy burning through my body, controlling and restricting it until it was little more than flickers dancing joyfully across my fingertips.