Mercy Burns (Myth and Magic 2)

“If you were an honest man,” Damon said, “you wouldn’t have been involved in mass slaughters.”

Our captive didn’t say anything. But then, the dangerous edge in Damon’s voice would have scared even the strongest soul.

I flicked through the cards until I found a black one with red writing. “It says—in somewhat pretentious gothic print, I might add—Deca Dent. Under that is a number.” I looked up at him. “What the hell is Deca Dent? A name or a place? And how is that related to the guy who pays you?”

Damon gave his captive a shake, and he stammered, “Deca Dent is a bar. I have no idea how the bar and the man are related to the money or my jobs. I get paid, and that’s all that matters.”

I shoved the card in my pocket and resisted the urge to ask about all his victims, and whether they’d mattered. It was obvious that they hadn’t.

Which made me study Damon and wonder if there was anything that mattered to him. Or whether I was looking at two sides of the same coin. One light, one dark, and both intent on doing the job and caring for little else.

“Is the man at the bar draman or dragon?” Damon asked.

“Dragon.”

“And is he the man in charge of the whole operation?”

“I told you, I don’t know. He just gives me my orders and I report to him when I’m done. I swear, that’s it.”

“And has he got an elegant-sounding voice?” I asked.

Damon glanced at me, then shook the man when he didn’t immediately answer. “Not really. It’s more gruff than elegant. Please, the wire is fucking hurting.”

“You can thank my lovely assistant for the fact that that’s all it’s doing,” Damon said, and frog-hopped him back to the lounge.

He repeated the process with the other three men, but none of them had anything else to add. The first man was obviously the brains of this outfit. Or at least, the one who made contact.

“What are we going to do with them?” I said as Damon pushed the last man back into place.

“We stop them from escaping.”

I frowned. “The minute we leave, they’re going to flame themselves loose.”

“Not if they haven’t got any flame to begin with,” he answered, and then touched the last man lightly on his forehead.

Damon closed his eyes and power began to crawl through the air. It was dark, that power—as dark and as dangerous as the man wielding it.

The man he was touching screamed—a short, sharp sound that was filled with pain and fear. I swallowed heavily, my gaze jumping between the two men, wondering what the hell Damon was actually doing. The man was alive—I could see him breathing—but he looked as if someone had ripped his heart out.

What the hell was Damon doing to him?

He moved on to the next man. I frowned and stepped forward, touching the first man lightly on the shoulder. His flesh was icy, even through the thickness of his shirt. But it was more than just the chill of stolen fire, and my stomach did an odd flip-flop.

No, I thought, he couldn’t have. I reached down inside myself and unleashed the dragon, letting her energy swirl into the stranger. But instead of fire, she found nothing. Not even the broken, scattered ashes where once the soul of a dragon had lived.

He hadn’t just stolen his heat, as I’d threatened to do. He’d completely erased it.

“How is that possible?” I murmured as I glanced at Damon, feeling sick. “How can you extinguish someone’s very essence?”

He didn’t open his eyes. “Any fire can be put out, Mercy. You just have to know how.”

I swallowed heavily, but it didn’t ease the dryness in my throat. “Can you do that to full dragons as well?”

“It’s harder, but yes.” He dropped his fingers from the last man and looked at me. “It beats killing them, doesn’t it?”

“But—”

“They’re alive, Mercy. They just can’t flame.”