Mercy Burns (29 page)

He didn’t finish the threat. He didn’t need to. Neither Leon nor I were in any doubt as to what he meant, although I certainly had doubts as to whether Leon would actually survive this encounter anyway.

“What do you want to know?” It was sullenly said, but the fire in Leon’s brown eyes suggested he’d far from given up. Yet the Leon from my past knew when to fight and when to roll over, and his bravado here just didn’t sit right.

The tension in Damon’s body suggested he thought
the same. “Tell me about the draman towns you’ve been destroying.”

Leon snorted. “Even if I
was
aware of such a thing happening, what would it matter to you? Draman are nothing more than parasites living off the riches of the cliques.”

“Draman do all the dirty work,” I cut in. “And we’re responsible for the day-to-day running of the cliques. You need us, even if you won’t admit it.”

Damon gave me a warning look, then pressed his hand down harder, fingers glowing. This time a hiss of air escaped Leon’s lips. “Do not play games with me, Leon. We know you’re involved. We know Seth and Hannish are also involved. And you will answer our questions or I will ensure a fate far worse than death befalls you.”

Sweat popped out along Leon’s forehead and his skin began to get a drawn, ashen look. It wasn’t dangerous, not yet, but it was evidence enough that Damon meant what he said.

“All right, I’ll cooperate.”

And despite the desperate edge in his words, I could taste the lie. Something was going on here—something we didn’t understand.

“Then tell me why you’re destroying the draman towns.”

“We were paid to. The Nevada king wanted the parasites away from his boundaries, and when they refused to move, he acted.”

It all sounded perfectly reasonable—or as reasonable as dragon culture sometimes got. And yet I didn’t believe him. He might have had his reasons, but they weren’t the ones he was currently quoting.

“Marcus Valorn would not have ordered such destruction, so quit the lies and give me the truth.”

Leon’s dark eyes narrowed. “Why would a muerte be worried about what’s happening to a few small draman towns in Nevada?”

“If it was only draman being destroyed, perhaps I wouldn’t be. But a king’s son was killed in one of the incidents, and that’s a whole different kettle of fish.”

Leon absorbed that news with barely a flicker of his eyelids. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Like hell he didn’t. Damon obviously thought the same, because the glow around his fingers flared again.

Leon screamed. “He saw Hannish! We had no choice.”

“So he
is
behind the push to take over the Nevada clique and make it one of the largest?”

Again, there was little reaction, but the sudden flash of fear riding the air spoke volumes. “Why would Hannish want that? He and his dad aren’t even on speaking terms.”

“But if Marcus suddenly dies, Hannish steps in as king. And with his recent land purchases, he suddenly becomes large enough—and powerful enough—to take over as head of the council.”

Damon’s voice was matter-of-fact, like we had all the pieces of the puzzle in hand when in truth it was little more than guesswork.

“Why would Hannish be stupid enough to kill his king? The council wouldn’t look kindly on such a deed.”

“The council has been known to turn a blind eye, especially if other cliques back the move.”

Leon snorted. “And in what world is that likely to
happen? The cliques
I
know wouldn’t support a murdering upstart.”

“They would if some of them were also controlled by other murdering upstarts.” Damon raised an eyebrow. “Just when does Seth plan to kill
his
king?”

Leon didn’t answer. Damon glanced at me. “You want to go up to his office and sort through his paperwork? It’s through the door to the left of the bar, and up the stairs.”

In other words, things were about to get a whole lot messier down here, and I probably wouldn’t want to see it. He was right about that. Feeling little sympathy for Leon, and half wishing it were Seth lying there, I turned and walked through the open door at the end of the bar.

As I did so, Leon screamed. I closed my eyes for a second, part of me savoring the sound and part of me hating it. Because in many ways, it made us no better than those men, and that was a vile realization. Even if we were doing it in the name of justice.

And yet, if we didn’t, more would suffer. And all those people who died in Stillwater and Desert Springs would not be alone in roaming the netherworld between this existence and the next.

Thankfully, the screams didn’t follow me up the stairwell. I lit a flame across my fingertips, the light penetrating the darkness just enough to see. The old metal stairs were grimy and creaked under the weight of each step. The door at the top was also metal, although dented and holed in several places. Evidence, perhaps, of unhappy customers or deals gone bad.

I opened the door cautiously, keeping to one side until I was absolutely sure no one else was inside. The
room was as dingy as the rest of the place, and again smelled heavily of cigarette smoke. A large desk dominated the middle of the room and the walls were adorned with bulletin boards. There were several windows directly opposite the doorway, but these had been boarded up. Leon obviously had some pretty nasty enemies if he felt the need to avoid sunlight, especially given that it was the fuel for a dragon’s flames.

But then, maybe Leon relied more on his brawn and human weapons than his flames to protect himself.

I walked behind the desk and sat down on the old leather office chair. The desk was a mess. Loose papers sat in various unwieldy stacks among the Coke cans, take-out wrappings, and several overflowing ashtrays. I wrinkled my nose at the moldy, smoky smell, then grabbed the nearest stack and began sifting through it. It was nothing more than bills and other business stuff. The remaining stacks proved to be more of the same.

I tried the drawers next, and found his wallet in the top one. A quick investigation uncovered three driver’s licenses and eight credit cards, all in different names, none of them Leon’s. Seth was probably also using numerous aliases, which is why Leith had been unable to track him.

I tossed it back and continued searching the drawers. Other than a cache of weapons that included knives as well as guns, there didn’t seem to be anything of interest.

But maybe Damon already knew that. Maybe his intent in sending me up here was nothing more than a need to get me out of the way.

I leaned back in the chair and studied the room again. My gaze fell on one of the bulletin boards, and
there, right in front of my eyes, was the information I’d been looking for.

It was a map of Nevada.

Excitement surged and I leaped to my feet. Six towns had been ringed, five of them crossed out. Two of those five were the erased towns we knew about. The remaining one was a little place called Red Rock—not a place I’d heard of, but that wasn’t surprising given these places were basically little more than bumps in the road that few people would drive past, let alone visit.

Along with the ringed and crossed-out towns were what looked to be boundary markings. The lands owned by the Nevada clique were shaded in black, but there were huge tracts of land between it and the towns that were either shaded in or marked by a red or yellow pin. I couldn’t see a legend of any kind, but if Damon’s theory was right, then those markings represented land already bought, being purchased, or wanted. If they succeeded in getting everything that was marked, then they’d own a sizeable chunk of land. It would certainly rival that of the three largest cliques, and would make Nevada the largest once the land was combined.

I searched the drawers again until I found two different colored pens, then set about replacing the pins with colored dots. With that done, I took down the map, folded it up and shoved it in my pocket. It was a start.

I continued searching, but I didn’t see anything else that stood up and waved a clue. I couldn’t find any sort of legal document—especially not anything relating to
land purchases. Nor was there anything to suggest that Leon was working with anyone else.

But he had to be. Leon wasn’t the voice I’d heard when I’d been half drugged, and Angus had referred to that man as the “boss.”

Besides, Leon had always been the brawn, not the brain.

Which meant there
had
to be something else here. Frowning, I stood with my hands on my hips, studying the room and wondering what I was missing. It wasn’t possible that someone so involved in this mess would have nothing more than a map in his main office.

Presuming this was his main area of work, of course.

I scanned the walls again, looking for anything that might be hiding a safe. But there was nothing.

Frowning, I turned around, looking at the placement of the furniture. I couldn’t see him going to the effort of dragging out filing cabinets every time he wanted to get something out or put something in a safe. But a drinks cabinet had definite possibilities.

I walked over and opened a couple of doors. There were several racks of glasses and bottles of alcohol, but nothing that couldn’t be easily shifted. And despite the fact that the cabinet was both heavy and old, it wouldn’t be that hard to move. Not for a dragon.

I shoved my weight against one edge and forced the cabinet away from the wall. Sure enough, there was a safe behind it. I squatted, studying the lock. It wasn’t particularly up to date, and even if it had been, it wouldn’t have stopped a determined dragon. Or a half-dragon.

I cracked my knuckles, then set to work and had it open in a couple of minutes—almost triple the time
my brother would have taken, but then he was a professional. I just played at it occasionally.

I opened the door. Inside sat several manila folders, some bulging with papers, others not.

I grabbed them all, shut the door and tumbled the locks closed, then moved the cabinet back. I grabbed the map, shoved it on top of the folders, then headed back down the stairs.

Leon wasn’t moving. His skin was ashen, a sharp contrast to Damon, who seemed to positively glow.

“What are you going to do with him?” I stopped several yards away and studied Leon’s chest. He was breathing, so he wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t sure whether to be happy about that or not. If anyone deserved to die, it was him. But if he
was
killed, then people would know, and that was the one thing we needed to avoid. “We can’t afford to leave him here alive, and we can’t risk taking him with us.”

“Which is why I’ll be flying him out to sea.”

And Leon wouldn’t be flying back, if the angle of his arm was anything to go by. He’d drown, because few dragons were good swimmers and Leon was worse than most. His death would be long and pain-filled, and I really couldn’t get upset about that, if only because we needed as much time as possible before Seth realized his lover was dead.

But his death was one of the ones I needed to save Rainey.

“I found a safe filled with paperwork,” I said, “and a map that might prove useful if we can find the key.”

“Good. Go back to the apartment and sort though those papers. I’ll be back by seven.”

Meaning he was going to fly Leon a
long
way out to sea. “Be careful.”

He gave me a smile that made my insides curl, but his eyes were still hard. Still doing the job, still concentrating on the kill, even if he hadn’t yet killed.

“Keep an eye on the windows, Mercy, and see who else comes into the club.”

I nodded, then turned and headed out. Once back in the apartment, I made myself coffee then settled down to read the paperwork. I started with the thinner folders, but it wasn’t until I was on my third cup and had started in on the fattest of the folders that I found something.

And it was the one thing I didn’t want to find.

The town of Red Rock was slated for destruction.

In less than six hours’ time.

G
od, we had to stop it from happening.
Had
to.

And yet even if we flew there, what could one draman and one muerte do against the force that these people seemed to have behind them? Damon might be a trained assassin, but all it would take would be one bullet to bring him down, and I had no doubt these men would do just that. After all, it was what they’d done to Angus, and he’d been far less dangerous.

We needed help.

I ran to the phone and quickly dialed Leith’s number.

He answered on the second ring. “Phoenix Investigations, Leith Nichols speaking.”

“It’s Mercy again.”

He reacted to the note of panic in my voice, his own filled with urgency. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you know of a place called Red Rock in Nevada? And if so, how long will it take me to drive there from San Francisco?”

“Hang on, I’ll google it.” The sound of tapping keys came down the line, and after a few seconds, he added, “Okay, you’re looking at a good eight-hour drive from San Francisco. Why is this information so vitally important and why do you seem so stressed?”

“Because Red Rock is slated to be destroyed at midnight, meaning we need to contact someone in that town ASAP to see if we can arrange an evacuation.”

“Shit.” Leith blew out a breath. “Where’s your muerte?”

“He’s not my anything, and right now he’s flying Leon—the man running under the alias of Jake—out to sea.”

“Why the hell didn’t he just kill him?”

“Because that would tell his kin something was wrong, and we need to avoid that right now.”

“Fuck, Mercy, you’re dealing with seasoned criminals here. The men behind all this probably already
know
you have him.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Can you help me with Red Rock?”

“I’ve got some friends in Las Vegas who might be able to fly out there, but it’s going to be a close thing to get everyone out in time.”

“All the inhabitants have to do is take flight.” Except that not every draman could take flight, and our felons might already be watching the roads.