Firestorm Forever: A Dragonfire Novel by Deborah Cooke

darkfire crystals, its spark extinguished. He knew that Drake had returned this stone to Erik after the adventures of the Dragon’s Tooth Warriors, and that both Erik and Drake believed the stone’s task to be done. Marco wasn’t so certain. He took the extinguished crystal, as well.
    Then he moved to Seattle, drawn by a leyline sparked with darkfire, drawn to this particular apartment. His direction was nothing he could have explained clearly, but Marco knew that this was where he should be, that the one apartment—of all the ones shown to him—was the one he must occupy. He wasn’t sure why he was there or what he was waiting for, but he waited.
    When, one night, the darkfire had sparked in that darkened crystal, Marco had believed himself to be on the right track.
    To wherever he was going.
    That was the night Marco had heard one of Maeve’s broadcasts emanating from the apartment below him. He’d recognized the sound of the video with Jorge and heard Maeve’s call to humans to rise up and destroy the Pyr . He knew that the darkfire was right. He’d sauntered down the corridor of the floor beneath his own and passed his neighbor coming out of her apartment. Marco knew that she looked familiar but couldn’t place her.
    The darkfire urged him to find out more.
    A day of research made everything clear. The woman who lived below him was actually in that video of Jorge. She was part of the crowd spattered by the blood. She was holding the hand of a young boy, who looked up at Jorge in his dragon form with awe and then fear. She ducked and pulled her hood over her head, trying to tuck the boy protectively beneath her. He was fascinated by Jorge, though, staring open-mouthed at the Slayer . Marco saw the infectious blood flick from that severed arm into the boy’s mouth and shuddered as the boy cried in pain.
    The boy, too, looked familiar. It didn’t take much more research to reveal that he had been the first victim of the Seattle virus. The boy’s picture had been inescapable after his death, and the fury for hunting dragons had grown louder.
    The tragedy was that this Nathaniel had been the only child of a biologist who hunted viruses and isolated them to create antidotes and vaccines. She’d failed to isolate this one in time to save her son.
    She wasn’t the woman downstairs, though.
    Marco didn’t know his neighbor’s relationship to the boy. She’d known him, that was clear, and she’d loved him. Her expression in that video had revealed all of that.
    There were other signs of her affection, too. She’d lost weight since the video had been made and she seemed both focused and grim. Marco noted the purpose in her stride when she came and went from the building. He noticed how determinedly she worked out at the gym. He was aware that she alone in all of Seattle seemed driven by a fierce goal, one that demanded she train to the utmost of her ability, even to the detriment of everything else in her life.
    She was listening to Maeve O’Neill.
    The darkfire twinkled in the crystal and he guessed her plan. Vengeance, as they said, was a dish best served cold, and humans had a touching conviction in their own abilities to defeat evil. She didn’t have a chance against Jorge, if she could find that Slayer , but humans could accomplish more than was reasonable to expect when they were as driven as this one was.
    She might, at least, surprise Jorge.
    Marco realized that he’d like to see that.
    He wouldn’t, however, like to see Jorge’s reaction to that surprise, or his retaliation against Jac.
    So, Marco gave her the book.
    Then he waited for her to act, as still and observant as only the Sleeper could be.
    In fact, Marco dozed in his empty apartment in his dragon form, fairly daring his neighbor to discover his truth. He breathed dragonsmoke, weaving the boundary mark high and deep around his temporary lair, as much for the meditative value of the exercise as for his own defense. He knew humans wouldn’t