Flashfire

by Deborah Cooke

  “Not Lorenzo! He wouldn’t be involved in anything illegal.” Cassie knew that right in her bones.

  He was a dragon shifter.

  He took care of his dad.

  He was an awesome lover.

  He was confident, cocky, gorgeous, clever, and secretive.

  Lorenzo was a lot of things, but not a criminal.

  Stacy shrugged and bounced on the bed. “Then tell this guy so. I just told him that I thought it was a great trick.”

  Stacy bounced a little harder on the mattress. “Don’t just stand there. Hurry up already. You can call this Chen guy from your BlackBerry in the bar.”

  Lorenzo arrived at the theater, hoping to get a bit of sleep in his dressing room before his final evening performance. He also hoped that Cassie would be there. He was exhausted. He had several small wounds to dress. He needed time to find his composure once again.

  His wishes were not to be.

  Cassie wasn’t there. He still couldn’t sense Slayer, but he had a very bad feeling.

  Was he just worn out?

  The python had gotten out of its enclosure again, a disappearing act that it had mastered recently and was repeating with increasing frequency. It had simply gotten too big for its enclosure. Lorenzo knew it, but he’d hoped to get through the day without having to make changes.

  No luck. The animal control people had been summoned and arrived right after Lorenzo. The python could not be found in the theater and was assumed to have escaped into the hotel. The backstage area was crowded, Fred and Ursula trying to defend the area, the clock ticking down to showtime as the animal control people argued with the hotel management.

  It was left to Lorenzo to find the snake ASAP.

  He got a call from Erik in the midst of this.

  “They’re not coming,” Erik said, his tone grim.

  “Who?” Lorenzo asked, but he already knew. It was traditional for the Pyr to gather for a firestorm, to help the Pyr in question to secure his future when Slayers attacked.

  “The others,” Erik said crisply. “I forbade Quinn and Donovan to come, because JP is here and is likely seeking vengeance. Rafferty is in the Middle East with Melissa, so too far away to arrive in a timely fashion.” He paused. “Niall and Delaney declined to join us.” He forced a smile. “Brandt is coming, though.”

  Lorenzo couldn’t really blame the other Pyr for refusing to help him. He’d never helped any of them.

  Even so, his heart began to pound.

  “You have to remember that everything changed with the darkfire.”

  Lorenzo knew it was more than that.

  He wished he was in Erik’s presence, so he could try to discern more of Erik’s thoughts. He had the definite sense that Erik wasn’t telling him everything.

  Erik cleared his throat. “Sloane and Brandt will arrive shortly. Sloane is going to take Eileen and Zoë to Donovan for me.”

  “I thought maybe you’d leave, too,” Lorenzo said.

  He heard Erik’s voice warm. “We have been friends longer than we have been at odds, Lorenzo.”

  “What’s really happening?” Lorenzo asked. “What have you seen in the future?”

  Erik was quiet for so long that Lorenzo didn’t think he’d answer. “I see only a shadow,” he admitted. “A darkness that engulfs everything around it.”

  Lorenzo looked at the floor, trying to put a positive spin on what Erik had glimpsed.

  He couldn’t.

  Neither apparently could Erik.

  He also couldn’t quite drive the flashfire song from his thoughts.

  “Midnight, as planned?” Erik said, obviously trying to sound optimistic.

  “Midnight,” Lorenzo agreed, holding up one finger for the hotel manager who was tapping his shoulder. “We’ll be fine.”

  “Of course,” Erik agreed and then cut the connection.

  Lorenzo immediately called Cassie’s hotel and was connected to her room. The phone rang and rang.

  He reminded himself to believe in her.

  He told himself that she was probably finishing the sale of those shots, just as she’d planned.

  He breathed deeply and didn’t smell Slayer.

  That should have reassured him more than it did.

  Meanwhile, the gathered experts were debating the possibilities of the snake’s location. In the plumbing? In the walls? In the basement? The elevator shafts? They hadn’t come to any kind of consensus when there was a loud scream from the lobby of the hotel.

  “Found,” Lorenzo said firmly. He marched away to beguile the creature into submission once again.

  At least one item on his list was resolved.

  Then he’d go to Cassie’s hotel and find her.

  Chapter 16

  Mr. Chen looked like a typical bureaucrat. He was dressed in a forgettable cheap suit and his hand actually trembled when Cassie shook it. He wore thick glasses and stammered when he spoke. He couldn’t look either Cassie or Stacy in the eye.

  Cassie couldn’t imagine a less likely individual to bring down a smuggling organization, much less to battle dragon shape shifters with an illegal agenda.

  She took that as a sign that the feds were wrong and relaxed.

  Stacy rolled her eyes and sipped her drink, crossing her legs and spinning on her barstool to check out the view. There were a number of good-looking men in the bar already, and Stacy’s heartbreak over JP appeared to be healing fast.

  Then Mr. Chen began to ask questions and Cassie had to pay close attention. His soft-spoken manner meant that she had to lean close to hear him over the din in the bar. He asked for her full name, her occupation and home address, as well as her contact information.

  Then Mr. Chen flipped through his notes. His hands were still shaking and he hadn’t looked up at her yet. Cassie didn’t think she was quite that terrifying. “Am-am-am I correct that you saw Lorenzo become a dragon d-d-during his show on Wednesday?”

  “Yes, but I thought it was an illusion.”

  He shuffled his notes, frowning as he scribbled something. “Do you st-st-still believe that?” He shot her a furtive glance.

  Should she lie? To a federal agent? Everyone would soon know that she had taken those pictures.

  But they wouldn’t know who the subject was. Cassie decided to defend Lorenzo’s privacy.

  “Yes.” Cassie spoke with resolve.

  Mr. Chen pushed his glasses up his nose and peered through them at her. The lenses were smeared and so strong that he looked buglike.

  Cassie held his gaze unflinchingly.

  Mr. Chen flipped through his notes with nervous fingers. “But you were p-p-picked up by the dragon at the show.”

  “Yes. It seemed that way.”

  Mr. Chen appeared to find this an exciting admission. “Seemed?” he echoed.

  Cassie shrugged. “It was an illusionist’s show. It must have been a trick.”

  “And wh-wh-what happened then?”

  It struck Cassie that Mr. Chen’s interviewing technique wasn’t very organized. But then, he wasn’t very organized either. Maybe he was really junior. Maybe if the feds were assigning an agent like this to the case, it wasn’t very serious.

  Mr. Chen murmured something, then looked expectant.

  “I beg your pardon?” Cassie leaned closer. Things were getting a bit rowdy at the bar. There was a game on the televisions and Cassie assumed that some team or another had just scored. The guys at the bar were shouting and making bets with each other.

  Mr. Chen murmured again, wincing and scratching his chin, then flipped through his notes again.

  “I still can’t hear you. What was the question?”

  Mr. Chen looked irritated as he glanced at the partying crowd at the bar. “
We must go elsewhere. I must finish this interview.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “I’m starving,” Stacy muttered.

  “Only a few m-m-minutes,” Mr. Chen insisted. “It is very important. You may have seen s-s-something.”

  “I don’t think Lorenzo is involved in any illegal activities. . . .”

  Mr. Chen became very agitated, so agitated that he dropped both his notebook and his pen. “There is pr-pr-procedure! Please. I must do my job to the b-b-best of my abilities.”

  Cassie didn’t think that was a very high standard, but she would do the right thing. “Be right back,” she said to Stacy, who sighed and waved for another drink. “Is there a quiet room in this hotel?”

  “Right over here,” Mr. Chen said, showing surprising purpose as he guided her across the lobby. “I used this r-r-room earlier.”

  Cassie’s confidence was bolstered when a security guard waved Mr. Chen into a locked service area. His identification must have been validated by the hotel. She was thinking that it was a bit sad that the feds were employing people who appeared to be so incompetent, thinking that it was no wonder that criminals got away with so much, and wondering just how long this would take when Mr. Chen shoved her through a doorway.

  He pushed her so hard that she stumbled.

  “Hey!” Cassie protested in surprise, just as she heard the door lock behind her.

  “Cameras are out,” JP said from one corner of the room.

  “Excellent,” Mr. Chen said, his voice much more confident than it had been. Cassie stared at him as he smiled and ripped off his glasses.

  There were flames dancing in the pupils of his eyes.

  “No!” she shouted, but JP seized her from behind. He clapped one hand over her mouth and held her head so that she couldn’t look away from Mr. Chen. She might have closed her eyes, but Mr. Chen began to shimmer blue.

  He shifted shape right in front of her, becoming a massive red dragon with gold talons. He smiled and seized her chin, his eyes widening so that she could see those mesmerizing flames.

  Cassie tried to avert her gaze, but his first words captured her attention. “You want to save Lorenzo,” he said in a melodic tone.

  Cassie couldn’t help but agree. She nodded and JP uncovered her mouth. “I want to save Lorenzo,” she heard herself saying. She fought against the beguiling, but felt her willpower losing ground to his.

  Mr. Chen smiled more broadly. “So you will do exactly as I say. Or Lorenzo, you, and your unborn child will die.”

  Cassie didn’t want to agree with him. She didn’t want to echo his words, but she couldn’t deny her desire to save Lorenzo.

  “Promise me,” Mr. Chen said. “You will do exactly as I say.”

  “I will do exactly as you say,” she echoed, and saw Mr. Chen’s dragon smile flash.

  “Sleep now, mate,” he murmured and Cassie felt her eyes drift closed. She felt JP relax his grip upon her, and felt her body slide onto a sofa.

  A cell phone rang and she was vaguely aware of JP answering it. Her sense of time was out of whack. She had to fight Chen’s influence.

  Cassie fought against exhaustion. She fought against the beguiling. She tried to stay awake, tried to listen to their plans.

  Maybe there was a way she could warn Lorenzo.

  “That was the housekeeper,” JP said with satisfaction. “She delivered the inside info, just as we anticipated she would.” His voice could have been coming through a fog from Cassie’s perspective, or from the other end of a long corridor. She fought the urge to sleep, determined to listen. “The old dragon is dead. The body is being picked up this afternoon.”

  Salvatore was dead?

  “Excellent,” Mr. Chen said. “I do enjoy when a plan comes together.”

  “You’re going to make more Dragon Bone Powder, aren’t you?”

  Cassie struggled to hang on to consciousness. What was Dragon Bone Powder?

  “I like to have some inventory.” Mr. Chen sounded far more purposeful and clever than he had in the bar. “Get rid of the other one and come back here.”

  “You don’t want me to intercept the hearse?”

  “No.” Mr. Chen seemed to be thinking. “I sense Erik Sorensson’s presence and I wonder what his role in all this will be.”

  “But Lorenzo isn’t allied with the Pyr,” JP protested.

  “Erik doesn’t care. He stands by all of his kind.”

  His kind. Cassie remembered that the British guy was Erik.

  Mr. Chen chuckled. “And if he is custodian of Salvatore’s body, then I will have even more Dragon Bone Powder in my inventory.”

  Mr. Chen was going to kill Erik, too. Just when Cassie thought the plan couldn’t get any worse, it did.

  “And then,” Mr. Chen said with glee. “And then, it will be time to spring the trap.”

  Cassie wanted to hear the rest, but she lost her grip on consciousness. Darkness closed over her. She was lost and there was nothing she could do.

  Not to save herself.

  Not to save Lorenzo.

  Erik fought a sense of doom all day long.

  He’d actually sensed it since he arrived in Las Vegas. It just kept getting stronger. Some plan was coming together and he wished with all his heart he could figure out what it was.

  At least Eileen and Zoë were safe.

  The sun was setting, smearing the sky with orange and red. He had the visor down on the hearse as he drove back from Lorenzo’s mansion toward the city. Salvatore’s corpse was in the back and Erik was wearing a dark suit.

  He’d rented the hearse, no questions asked.

  But then, Las Vegas was an amazing place in more ways than that.

  He was checking the presence of the other Pyr in the world, confirming their locations and welfare. He could sense the other Pyr and when he was troubled, Erik went through his inventory of dragons.

  He was pleased to ascertain they were all pretty much where he expected them to be. As far as he could tell, they seemed healthy enough. Lorenzo was beginning his last performance, albeit in a sour mood.

  He knew that Balthasar was in Las Vegas and that Lorenzo had beguiled him for some purpose. The Slayer wasn’t very active, which perhaps was part of Lorenzo’s plan. He couldn’t sense JP anymore, which was worrisome. Where had he gone?

  He had the definite sense that something was being hidden from him.

  Slayers who had drunk the Elixir could disguise their scents. How many were left? Balthasar, who was evidently too drunk to bother. Chen. Just the thought of that Slayer troubled Erik. Jorge. That Slayer had been buried alive in Wales in December. Erik had a hard time believing that entombment would kill Jorge, or that the vicious Slayer would stay put. As he had done repeatedly since December, Erik reached down the conduit in his mind for that cave on Bardsey Island.

  But this time it was empty.

  Jorge was loose. Erik’s eyes widened in shock.

  That was when he saw the woman picking her way along the side of the highway. She looked like she was drunk, her path weaving from one side to the other. There was no sign of another vehicle, but Erik worried that she would be hit if she kept wandering like that.

  He stopped the car and backed up on the shoulder. He was shocked to realize that it was Cassie.

  Lorenzo’s mate.

  She was shaking her head and moaning.

  What had happened to her? Erik was out of the car in a heartbeat.

  She took one look at him and ran.

  He raced after her, catching her easily since she was so unsteady on her feet. “Nooooooo,” she said when he took her elbow. She fought against his grip, but seemed to be sedated.

  “Cassie!” he said crisply. “I’m Lorenzo’s friend, Erik. You must come with
me.”

  “No!” She fought against him with renewed strength.

  Erik had little trouble tugging her toward the safety of the car, despite her protests. His mind was filled with questions. How could she be drunk? How had she gotten here? He urged her into the passenger seat and just before he shut the door, she flung her purse into the desert.

  He went after the purse, seeing too late that Cassie had used it as a diversion. She stumbled out of the car as soon as he left her side and went in the opposite direction. What was her problem?

  Erik swore. He snatched up her purse and pursued her, catching her up against his side as she fought him. He turned back to the hearse in time to see a red dragon descending out of the sky.

  Chen.

  His heart sank.

  “Sorry,” Cassie moaned, as if fighting her way free of a sedative.

  Or a beguiling.

  Erik understood with sudden clarity.

  She’d been beguiled, and sent to distract him. “Stay here,” he instructed, putting her down beside a large rock. She clutched his sleeve, struggling to tell him something.

  “Dragon Bone Powder,” she managed to whisper.

  Erik was shocked. “He wants Salvatore,” he whispered.

  Cassie poked Erik in the chest with a heavy fingertip, her expression anguished. It was killing her to not be able to communicate.

  It was amazing that she’d managed to fight the beguiling so well.

  Erik looked into her eyes. “Sleep. You have helped Lorenzo,” he murmured, and he felt her shudder with relief. “Sleep.”

  And somehow Erik would save her.

  Chen spiraled down toward the hearse as Erik shifted shape and leapt into the sky.

  Lorenzo was exhausted when he took the stage for his last performance in that theater and he was rattled. Where was Cassie? He’d called the hotel time and again, but she hadn’t been in her room. He’d gone to the hotel, but hadn’t been able to find her. Her scent just disappeared, as if she’d been snatched up by fairies and carried away.