Mercy Burns (Myth and Magic 2)

Angus looked at me and said, “Okay, it’s a deal.”

I took my wallet from my pocket and dragged out the cash, but I didn’t hand it over yet. “Tell me how a sea dragon came to be in a town of outcast draman.”

He smiled. Again, it was a bitter thing. “It was bad timing, nothing more. My parents and I were swimming to Australia to spend the winter, but a bad storm caught us. I was small for my age, so Mom decided to make for shore.” He hesitated, and the ghosts of the past seemed to crowd the room for just a moment. I shivered and rubbed my arms. “The little seaside town seemed ideal.”

“Seaside?” That surprised me. Both Stillwater and Desert Springs were situated in the semiarid wastes of Nevada. There were rogue towns outside Nevada, of course, but as far as I was aware, none of those had been hit as yet.

Of course, I couldn’t actually be one hundred percent certain, because no one really knew just how many rogue draman towns there were. As Angus had said—and I’d discovered—the council didn’t give two hoots about them. Their main concern was keeping the thirteen main cliques in line.

The bartender arrived with our drinks and a strange, forced smile. Obviously, he wasn’t that happy about being treated like a waiter. Angus paid the man, then waited until he’d gone before saying, “Aye, and a pretty spot it is, too.”

“You’ve been back there, then?”

Again, sadness briefly clouded his eyes. “I lost my parents in that town. I go back there every year, on the anniversary of their deaths.”

“So is the town still vacant? Or has civilization encroached?”

“Only ghosts reside there, even now.” He shrugged. “I’m told the kin of the people who owned the land are keeping it as some sort of memorial.”

“So is the land draman-owned?”

“Dragon-owned. At least it is now.”

“Who by?”

He smiled, but there was nothing warm about it. “Jamieson.”

My clique. Great.

And while that didn’t mean they were in on this whole cleansing business, I wouldn’t put it past them. The bastard we called king certainly wouldn’t be above a little outlawed cleansing if it suited his purposes—and if he thought he could get away with it.

“But you’ve never seen anyone else there?”

“No.” He shrugged again. “I just lay my flowers and leave, lass. That’s enough for me.”

It would probably be enough for anyone. I dragged the Coke toward me and took a sip. The chill of it sent a shiver down my spine. “Has this town got a name?”

He hesitated. “Whale Point.”

I took another drink of Coke, then said, “Never heard of the place.”

“Well, yeah, because the town and the road into it are all but destroyed.”

It was a reasonable-sounding statement, and yet there was an edge to his voice. My gaze flickered to his arms. If not for those scars—which fit every scrap of information I knew about the destruction of the draman towns—I might have been tempted to believe that this was some odd con. “Meaning the town isn’t on the Cabrillo Highway?”

“No. The highway bypasses Whale Point and most of the surrounding area is state park. The track running into the town has been left to ruin, and it’s easy to miss if you don’t know what to look for.”

His voice held a tiredness that made me want to believe him. And yet, part of me didn’t. I wasn’t sure if it was my long history of distrusting the motives of just about everyone, or whether it was simply disbelief that answers might finally be at hand after months of Rainey and I finding nothing but ruins and dead ends.

And now I had only five days to find my answers and solve this crime.

Panic swirled, briefly making it hard to breathe. I pushed it away fiercely. I could do this.

I had to do this.

He took a long swig of beer, then added, “Whale Point’s down by Limekiln Beach State Park, a good two and a half hours’ drive from here. When do you want to go?”

I glanced at my watch. It was nearing four now, and I didn’t fancy walking around an abandoned town at dusk, let alone at night. I might not be bereft of fire come darkness—an oddity no one could explain given most dragons and draman were—but I still wasn’t about to be caught at night in a place I didn’t know and with a man I didn’t trust.