Fire Song (City of Dragons) Read Free

grinning widely at them.
    One of them had a baseball bat slung over his shoulder. He swung it down to his feet and leaned on it. “Listen, lady, we’re here under orders. You know how this works. Just pay us.”
    “Never,” I said.
    He picked up the bat. He swung into the window in the front door.
    Glass shattered with a crash.
    “Your funeral,” he said, hauling back to swing again.
    I lifted my hands. Before, I hadn’t resorted to this, because I hadn’t wanted anyone to know what I was. But now it hardly seemed to matter. And fresh from a flight over the ocean, I was brimming with magic. I felt it crackling from my core, racing down my arms, over my fingertips.
    I pointed, and the vamp and the baseball bat both lifted off the ground.
    I separated the bat from the vampire, sent it hurtling to the ground, where it landed with a loud metal clank.
    The vampire let out a hoarse cry. He was scared, even though vampires could do this kind of magic too—well, they could if they’d had a nice meal of dragon blood.
    But most vampires seemed to just drink blood to survive, and that meant from animals. They got pints of it at their local butcher shop, and all that blood did for them was keep them alive, help them heal quickly, keep them strong.
    These vampires weren’t going to be a problem.
    “Hank?” said one of the other vamps. All of them had stopped whatever destruction they were in the middle of to stare at their floating friend.
    I slammed Hank into the wall, pinned him there like a bug on a card.
    “Hank, what are you doing up there?” said one of the other vamps.
    “I’m not doing it,” said Hank, gaping at me. “She is.”
    I pointed at another vampire, one who hadn’t spoken. He lifted from the ground as well.
    He shrieked. “Hey, lady, let me down.”
    “What is she? Some kind of mage?” said another one.
    “She’s not doing a spell,” said Hank. “Her lips ain’t moving.”
    “Talisman,” said another. “I’ll find it. I’ll get it off her.”
    I nodded at him. He fell flat on the ground. He struggled, but I used my magic to keep him down.
    “I can’t move!” he said, his voice full of fear.
    Abruptly, I dropped Hank.
    He crashed down to the ground and landed with a crunch.
    Ooh. I thought his leg was broken.
    He howled.
    “Get him out of here,” I said. “Get him out of here and don’t come back or I will do much worse than this to all of you.”
    I set down the other vampire. I let the third guy get up.
    They gathered up Hank and scampered out of the lobby right quick.
    I watched them go.
    Then I stared at the broken glass that littered the floor and felt a sob welling up in my throat. The lobby was trashed. I had customers checking in today. How was I supposed to do that when this place had been destroyed?
    “Thought you were keeping a low profile, Penny,” said the voice of my best friend Felicity Richardson.
    I turned to see her in the doorway to the lobby. “Hey.” I felt exhausted.
    “I saw you flying around out there. Other people probably saw too.”
    “There are dragons flying around all the time,” I said. “It’s not a big deal.”
    “Not down here in the south part of the city,” she said. She was right. Dragons tended to stay in the north. Safer there, amongst their own.
    I walked over to her, gingerly stepping around the broken glass. My feet were bare. “I had a bad night. I saw a dead body.”
    “I heard about that on the news,” she said. “When I was coming home, it was on the radio in my car. Some girl’s body washed up? She was a dragon?”
    I nodded.
    “They said she was a minor, so they didn’t release the name.”
    “Elena Watson,” I said.
    “Oh, she’s so young,” said Felicity.
    “I know.”
    My best friend Felicity was a drake, but she wasn’t like all the other drakes. She had fallen in with a bad crowd in college and gotten dosed with what she thought was an innocent brownie. Turns out the thing was laced with dragon flesh. When