Firestorm Forever: A Dragonfire Novel (69 page)

“Two more,” Donovan said. “That brings us to seven.”

“But not many survivors, so far,” Niall noted.

“I have to wonder how many of them there will be in total,” Donovan said and paced the room again.

It was Marco having his firestorm, unless Niall missed his guess, and he could glimpse the mate in the brilliant light of the firestorm.

She had to be the one throwing flares at
Slayers
.

“Some mate,” Alex said, watching over his shoulder. “She’s kicking
Slayer
butt.”

“Works for me,” Rox agreed. “I like her already.”

“But when the
Slayers
disappeared, where did they go?” Alex asked.

Niall was more worried by the soundtrack. Had he really heard Marco ask Jorge for the Elixir just before they disappeared?

No matter how many times he watched and listened, Niall couldn’t be sure.

“You’re worried,” Rox noted, as observant as ever, but Niall didn’t reply.

“Does it sound to you like he’s asking for the Elixir?”
Donovan said in old-speak and Niall winced before he met the other
Pyr
’s gaze. That Donovan thought the same wasn’t reassuring.

“Old-speak!” Alex and Rox cried together. “No fair.” The
Pyr
exchanged rueful glances.

“Maybe Sloane knows,” Niall said.

“Knows what?” Alex demanded.

“What aren’t you telling us?” Rox asked.

“Maybe Sloane is too busy to answer questions,” Donovan noted.

Alex came to stand right in front of him, her stance determined, as Ahern roared. “Spill it,” she insisted, and Donovan sat down with the two women.

“It sounds like Marco is asking Jorge for the Elixir, right before they disappear,” he admitted. Alex and Rox were horrified by that and began to ask questions. “The sound isn’t very clear, so we can’t be sure.”

Niall didn’t want to interrupt whatever was happening at Sloane’s place, but he couldn’t stand the suspense. He’d just decided to call and ask for more details when his phone rang.

The caller was Sloane. Niall grabbed the phone, held up a hand for quiet, and answered. “Was it Marco’s firestorm?” he demanded by way of greeting. The others watched him intently and he knew Donovan would hear both sides of the conversation. “Did he really ask Jorge for the Elixir? What happened to the
Slayers
who look like Boris Vassily? Are Brandon and Thorolf okay? Where were their mates?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Sloane said tersely. “Drake’s mate is here in quarantine, and now Drake is hurt, too.”

“You’ve got to tell me something!”

Sloane sighed and updated Niall in a hurry. Even though he spoke quickly, there was a lot to tell and Niall sank to a chair in surprise. He didn’t know Marco very well, and he could see why Erik had his doubts, but it was hard to believe that even the darkfire could be strong enough to convince a reluctant
Pyr
to turn
Slayer
. He also couldn’t believe that Marco would hurt Rafferty. He said as much to Sloane.

“That’s my thinking. Plus the firestorm heals. Even if he had any inclination to change his perspective, the spark of the firestorm should have brought him back to our view.”

“Just the way it did with Delaney,” Niall agreed.

“Exactly. Erik’s rattled, though. I wonder whether he knows more than he’s telling us.”

Donovan frowned and got up to look out the window.

Niall recalled Erik’s gift of foresight. In his experience, Sloane had a good measure of it, too. “That’s not why you called, though, is it?” he said, remembering the Apothecary’s earlier agitation.

“No. I need your help.”

“You said Drake was hurt.”

“He’s lost a scale and the pain is emanating from that point.”

Donovan spun to face Niall and their gazes met. The women looked between them. “That’s what happened to Brandon when Chen took his scales and broke them.”

“Right, but Chen’s dead. I’m wondering whether Jorge learned how to do this from him. Lee is trying to undo it, because I don’t know where to start.”

“How about Ronnie? Did your antidote work?”

“It helped, but it didn’t cure her.” That frustration was back in Sloane’s tone. “The thing is that I don’t know enough about human physiology. The antidote should have worked, but it just pushed the virus back to its latent phase.”

“Is that possible?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so, but maybe the darkfire is affecting that, too.”

“Is she going to die?’ Niall asked with concern. Rox’s eyes widened when she overheard his question. The silence that followed was a little bit too long to reassure Niall. Donovan looked, if anything, even more grim than he had.

Sloane sighed again. “She might if I don’t get help. If it gets worse again, I’m afraid it’ll progress more quickly the second time.”

“Tell me what I can do.”

“I need you to dreamwalk to someone.”

“Deal. Tell me who and I’m on it.”

Sloane made a growl in his throat. “You should know that Erik doesn’t approve of my plan, but it’s the only way I can see to solve this. I need to ask for help, and that means I need to reveal my nature to someone who doesn’t know what I am.”

And it was someone who wasn’t Sloane’s mate or could otherwise be expected to keep his secret. Niall frowned. Erik wouldn’t like a deliberate breach of the Covenant, though he could appreciate that Sloane wanted to save Ronnie. “But who is it? Do we know her at all?”

“I do,” Sloane admitted. “There’s a doctor in the news casts. She’s the one pushing the gurney in the footage of Drake’s rescue of Ronnie.”

“Dr. Samantha Wilcox. They’ve posted an interview with her about Ronnie…”

“That’s her,” Sloane said, interrupting Niall with uncharacteristic terseness. “Can you walk her dreams? Will you?”

Niall understood that Sloane was warning him about Erik’s reaction. “Do you know where she is?”

“Not exactly. She might still be in Virginia, or she might have gone back to Atlanta by now.”

“Any idea what or who she dreams about?”

Sloane made a sound of exasperation. “I’d like to think it was me, but I doubt that.” Niall straightened, wondering just how well Sloane knew Dr. Wilcox. “I’ll guess that she dreams of her dead son. He was the first victim of the Seattle virus.” Donovan blinked, then sat down with care.

“What?”
Alex mouthed, seizing his hand. Donovan shook his head, his eyes glittering as he listened.

Niall had caught his breath. “What’s she going to do when she finds out you’re a dragon shifter?”

“I don’t know. I don’t actually care, not if she comes and helps Ronnie.”

Niall doubted that was true. It sounded as if Sloane cared a lot about the doctor’s reaction.

Sloane continued with resolve when Niall was silent. “Look, if we can heal Ronnie, and Sam can replicate the antidote and save all the humans Jorge infected, we’d be doing what we were born to do. We’d be defending humans as a treasure of the earth.” His voice hardened. “Even if the price is spilling my secret. That might be the price of the cure.”

“But Erik doesn’t agree?”

“You know how he is about the Covenant. I know what I know about being Apothecary, though.” Sloane sounded exhausted. “So, can you do it? Will you do it?”

“I will. I’ll try.” Niall had to believe that the doctor’s dreams of her son would be vivid and emotional. “If I could dreamwalk to her, what would I say?”

“You don’t have to say anything. Just find a way to provoke her memory of Ronnie.”

“I doubt she’s thinking of anything else. She sounded pretty angry in that interview.” Niall didn’t add that the good doctor was furious with dragons and dragon shifters, much less that she had refused to accept a distinction between
Pyr
and
Slayers
when prompted by the interviewer.

“And show her my tattoo,” Sloane said, as if Niall hadn’t spoken.

“The caduceus that Rox did?”

“That’s the one.”

“But…” Niall started to protest, only to be interrupted by Sloane.

“Tell Donovan to call Erik. He wants him to find Marco,” he said, then terminated the call without waiting for a response.

“He really is getting grumpy,” Niall muttered, then spoke to Rox, who was still feeding Ruark. “Do have any pictures of the tattoo you did for Sloane?”

“Sure. Preliminary drawings, final sketch and pictures of the finished tattoo. I’ve got the full documentation of that one, even on my phone.” Donovan retrieved Rox’s purse, and Alex followed him, rocking Ahern as she demanded to know what he’d learned. Their voices dropped to a murmur. Donovan pulled out his phone to call Erik.

Rox smiled at Niall over their son’s head. “It’s one of my favorites.”

“Don’t let my Phoenix hear that,” Niall said, referring to the splendid back piece Rox had done for him.

Rox’s eyes shone. “Your Phoenix knows she has pride of place in your hoard.” They smiled at each other for a moment, and Niall doubted he was the only one remembering the prophecy of the Phoenix and the Dragon from their firestorm.

Then Alex returned with Rox’s purse, and Rox scrolled through the images she had saved on her phone. Niall replayed the news. He’d never met the doctor, didn’t know her scent or her location, but this was a matter of life and death. He found the footage of her son being exposed to the virus by Jorge and watched it closely. It didn’t look like the woman holding the boy’s hand was her. He went back to the interview, concentrating on her features and the sound of her voice.

He had to find a way to dreamwalk to Dr. Wilcox, for the sake of Drake’s mate.

“Can you do it?” Alex asked.

“I have to,” Niall replied. Sloane’s concerns made it clear that he had to succeed and do it soon.

Donovan returned, his stride filled with purpose. “And I have to find Marco. Wherever he’s gone.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sam sat straight up in bed. She’d had a dream, a dream of a man talking to her, but as soon as she tried to recall it, the dream broke into shards. They faded like mist, but in their place, a network of associations formed in her thoughts. She could remember only the last image the man had shown her.

It was Sloane’s tattoo. A caduceus with dragons instead of snakes.

Veronica Maitland had been abducted by dragons.

A dragon had spread the Seattle virus.

The big blond guy helping out in Sloane’s shop had a dragon tattoo.

The trailer on the black truck in Sloane’s driveway said ‘Here Be Dragons’.

Sloane’s father had been called the Apothecary and that Asian man had called Sloane by the same title.

Sloane had gone to Chicago and then New York, in rapid succession. Sam threw herself out of bed and turned on her computer, navigating straight to the videos that had been uploaded recently featuring dragons. Six months before, there’d been a dragon fight in Chicago, then one immediately afterward in New York, both of which had left dragons badly injured.

The dates matched Sloane’s sudden departures from California.

After her dream, Sam could guess why. Sloane was a very specific kind of Apothecary, one who treated dragon shifters.

Having injured dragon shifters drop by without notice would explain why Sloane was so private.

She didn’t understand why it should be so, but her dream meant that dragons had taken Veronica to Sloane. Once she would have scoffed at this conclusion, but Sam trusted her intuition more than she had. As soon as she connected the dots, she knew it was true. No doubt, Sloane was going to try to heal Veronica Maitland but even with his extensive reading, his treatment might make her worse. Maybe he wasn’t even doing it by choice. Maybe the dragons were making him do it.

But Veronica Maitland was Sam’s patient and Sam’s responsibility. Sam wasn’t going to just step aside and let dragons do whatever they wanted to that woman.

Sam called the airline on her way to pack. She needed a flight to San Francisco and she needed it now. Sloane Forbes had been less than honest with her, and it was past time he explained himself.

Sam refused to consider the tingle of excitement she felt at the prospect of seeing him again.

This was
business
.

* * *

Marco needed a plan.

Preferably, it would be one that didn’t feature him or Jac dying during their firestorm.

He was a bit spooked by how readily his body shifted shape as soon as he discerned a threat, and how the firestorm made him feel less in control of his own body. His need to protect Jac was strong but the firestorm made it all-consuming. He couldn’t think of anything else, not when there was a
Slayer
in close proximity.

He was in the living room without realizing he’d gone there, in dragon form, confronting a
Slayer
who had drunk the Elixir. The intruder was in human form and stood by the sofa, as if waiting for an invitation to sit down. He smiled at Marco, something glittering in his eyes that might have been envy, then sat down with care.
“Ah, the heat of the firestorm,”
he said in old-speak. He smiled coldly.
“Is she worth it?”