Don't Feed the Dragon: A Dragon Rider Urban Fantasy Novel (Setting Fires with Dragons Book 1) Read online

  Don’t Feed the Dragon

  S.W. Clarke

  Ramy Vance

  Contents

  Book 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Book 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Join The Clan!

  About the Authors

  Setting Fires with Dragons Series © Copyright <<2021>> Ramy Vance

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  For more information, email: [email protected]

  Book 1

  Chapter 1

  Ever broken into a mansion in New Orleans? Let’s just say it ain’t the “Big Easy.”

  As I stood under a second-story balcony with Louise, the name I’d given my seven-footer bullwhip, I caught a glimpse of the gibbous moon over the rooftop. And with it, the sound of jazz filtering from the French Quarter.

  “Man, Perce,” I whispered, “didn’t I tell you nighttime in this city is unlike anywhere else? I mean, compare this to Kentucky where I grew up ... Who am I kidding? There is no comparison to Kentucky.”

  A pause. Then, through the Bluetooth in my ear, “No. You never said that.”

  “Well, I meant to.” I eyed the distance between me and the edge of the wrought-iron balcony. Only twelve feet up—I’d climbed the backs of elephants taller than that. “I’m going in.”

  “Let me help you,” Percy said into my ear. “At least up to the window.”

  “Nope.” I shot Louise up with her tenterhooks extended. Her cracker wrapped around the railing and held on the first try. “I need you keeping watch on the street.”

  “The street’s dead,” he sighed.

  I gave Louise a tug and found her steady. When I jumped onto her and climbed her like a rope, she didn’t loosen a smidge—not until I climbed over the railing and unhooked her. She was my first-class girl.

  I wound Louise up, replacing her at my left hip as I stepped to the French doors. “Hey Perce, how much would you bet me this rich guy left his bedroom door unlocked?”

  “I wouldn’t bet you anything,” he said. “Because I’d lose.”

  I reached out with a gloved hand, tried the knob. It turned like butter, and I smiled as I pushed it open. “That’d be smart of you.”

  Inside, the moonlight provided my only view of the room. I unhooked my flashlight from my belt, flicked it on. A king-sized bed greeted me, perfectly made.

  Didn’t make it himself, I thought. If I knew one thing about members of the Scarred in the GoneGodWorld, it was that they’d never pick up a broom except to clobber someone. No way they were doing their own dishes, sweeping their own floors.

  Particularly this one.

  I swept my flashlight around the bedroom. Empty, clean, austere. I needed to get downstairs, into his office; that’s where I’d find the dirt. If he was who I thought he was, he’d have the evidence I was looking for. The Scarred didn’t hide their identities well enough. Not from me, at least.

  I opened the bedroom door, peeked out. The house was predictably empty; I’d waited until the car had left the driveway.

  “This one knows how to live,” I murmured as I came to the grand staircase. On the wall, I flashed the light on a portrait of a family—husband, wife, three children. I stared into his face. “And he sure knows how to procreate.”

  “Gross,” Percy said.

  He didn’t look evil, but did anyone ever really look evil in a family portrait? I stared a second longer, as though I could pick out evidence of his wrongdoings. It was always in the eyes. I swore I could see it there.

  I lowered the flashlight, started down the stairs. “Hey, procreating’s perfectly natural.”

  “Could you please stop using that word?”

  “How about reproducing?”

  “Worse. Much worse.”

  I chuckled to myself. As big as he was, Percy was still a kid at heart. And nothing made kids more uncomfortable than talking about birds, bees and fornication. “You’re the boss.”

  I came to the base of the stairs, turning a slow circle. Real nice digs—earned through blood, I imagined. Lots of it. “See anything out there?”

  “I’ll tell you if I see something,” Percy said. “I’ve got night vision twenty times better than you, you know.”

  “And you can smell a fart in a typhoon,” I added as I approached a second set of French doors.

  When I opened them, my flashlight shone over a classic office. In fact, this whole house couldn’t be more classic—big wooden desk, big-screen Mac atop it, a leather armchair in one corner.

  He even had a case of cigars on the end table.

  “Don’t mind if I do.” I opened the cigar case, lifting one out as I replaced my flashlight at my belt. I turned on the small end-table lamp and rolled the cigar between my fingers. “Straight from Cuba.”

  “What’s straight from Cuba?”

  “This here cigar I’m going to smoke later tonight.” I tucked it behind my ear, turned toward the desk. When I opened the drawer directly under the computer, I found a stack of bills. Decoys, all of them, just utilities and the mortgage.

  “Smoking’s bad for you,” Percy said.

  “You’ll see the irony in that statement when you’re older.” I sat in the comfy office chair, lifting out the manila folders and removing my gloves. I felt around the insides of the drawer, searching for an imperfection.

  Bingo.

  The bottom
of the drawer came loose, and beneath it I found the real drawer. And in it, a thick manila folder.

  I yanked my latex gloves out of my belt, pulled them on. Then I lifted out the folder and rolled the chair left to splay the first folder open on top of the desk. “Ah, well would you look at this.”

  Before me lay a stack of sheets profiling…gnomes. How’d I know? Because under the name on the first sheet, the race was listed as gnome. And paperclipped to the corner of the page was a photo of who I assumed was the gnome himself. Small, cute, childlike.

  I flipped through the stack. Nine profiles, all with photos.

  “Look at what?” Percy asked.

  “Say, Perce.” I flicked one of the photos with my finger; this gnome looked awfully childlike. “Do gnomes have children?”

  “How should I know?” Then, “Is this guy the one you’re looking for or isn’t he?”

  I was about to shrug, to tell him I didn’t know yet. But then my eyes fell on a framed portrait of the homeowner and a few of his buddies standing together on a golf course.

  I picked up the portrait, stared at it. That could be Peter standing half in shadow—the ex-vampire I’d spent five years hunting after he’d taken part in the murder of my family. Back then he’d been the right-hand vamp to the coven’s leader, and now it was very possible I was staring at a picture of him teeing off.

  Mortality really was a game changer.

  But that suited me fine. While he was getting fat, I was hunting the members of the coven one by one. I was going to make them pay for what they did to my family.

  Every. Last. One. Of. Them.

  “Yeah,” I murmured, tapping the glass frame. “This guy’s connected to them.”

  This man whose home office I was sitting in would lead me to the Scarred.

  I set down the portrait, returned to the manila folder. Whatever this guy was up to, it wasn’t good. Not unless he ran an Other adoption agency…and I somehow doubted that.

  This smelled like gnome trafficking. Did Peter have his finger in this pie, too?

  “Hey—remember the story of the king, the pauper, and the genie?” Percy asked through my earpiece.

  I made a face. This really wasn’t the time, but it was awfully cute. “Of course I do. A king and a pauper discovered a cave with a genie inside. The genie gave them each a wish. The king wished for—”

  “I remember all that,” Percy said. “But what would you wish for, Tara? Don’t give me anything cheesy like in the show.”

  “That wasn’t cheesy,” I said. “That was beautiful.”

  “Whatever,” he snorted. “Give me your honest answer—what would you really wish for?”

  “Well I don’t quite know, Perce. What would you wish for?”

  He gave a great sigh, full of longing. “All the mutton I could eat.”

  I half-smiled. “Now who’s being cheesy? What would you really wish for, Percy?”

  “I don’t know,” he said after a pause. “It’s such a hard question.”

  “You keep thinking on it.” I replaced the folder in the drawer. It was otherwise empty. I put the false bottom back in, spun the chair around. “Where else would this guy keep his dirt?”

  “A safe?” Percy offered.

  I snapped my fingers. “Good thought.” I was already surveying the room for a likely spot. My circus days had taught me that anyone who moved around a lot—like I suspected this man had—had a keener instinct for keeping their valuables hidden.

  I stood, approached a bookcase on the far wall.

  “Tara.”

  I paused. “What is it, Perce?”

  “I don’t know how to put this…”

  I glanced toward the shuttered window. “Tell me.”

  “Well, there’s seven tiny ninjas breaking into the house.”

  ↔

  My hand lowered, and I turned toward the ajar French doors. “What do you mean, seven tiny ninjas? If this is another one of your jokes and you tell me the place looks like it’s being attacked by ninjalinos from that stupid PJ Masks show, I’m banning TV for a month.”

  “No, I’m serious. There are seven tiny ninjas coming in right now. And yes, they do look like ninjalinos from PJ Masks, but that’s not my fault.”

  I hissed, turning off the desk lamp and edging up against the wall. I stared at the ajar French doors. “From where?” I whispered.

  “Front door. They’re all out on the front porch.”

  Tiny ninjas, all trying to break in the front door of a house? Now I didn’t personally know any ninjas, but my understanding from pop culture was they wouldn’t just go in through the front door.

  But sure enough, I could hear voices on the other side of the outer wall. It sounded like every one of them had sucked on helium and were having a whisper-argument.

  “Oh, just let me do it,” one voice said. “Your pin’s bent.”

  “We don’t need a pin,” a Scottish voice said. “Just slide this flat tool in through the side.”

  “You don’t even know what the tool’s called?”

  I couldn’t talk to Perce; if I could hear these ninjas through the wall, they’d definitely hear me. But maybe it wouldn’t be an issue, seeing as how they couldn’t even manage the front door.

  I decided to wait—

  The knob turned, and the grand front door swung open with a creak. The sound of small feet tapped across the marble foyer.

  Ninjas my pretty behind, I thought.

  “I could have gotten it, Ferris,” one of them said. “You know, you never let me have more than one chance. To truly be great, you have to fail and fail again.”

  “If you care so much about greatness, go see Tony Robbins,” the one called Ferris barked back in his whisper. “Until then, let me handle the break-ins.”

  I hung tight in the corner, my hands dropping to Thelma and Louise—my two whips—at each hip. If they were as tiny as Percy had indicated, I’d need Thelma for my close-range fights. But if they were actual ninjas, I’d definitely need Louise.

  “Tara?” Percy said into my ear. “Tara, are you there?”

  I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t make a noise.

  “All right,” Ferris said. “Everyone, disperse. You know your assignments.”

  And with that, all the small sets of feet flitted away through the house.

  Except for one.

  I stared at the doorway as a shadow appeared. A tiny shadow.

  And when I say tiny, I mean Yoda-tiny.

  Don’t come in. Don’t come in.

  GoneGodDamnit, he came in. His dark form slipped through the doorway, his feet tapping across the wooden floor in a very un-ninjalike way. I’d fully expected this to be the moment I’d have to crack him one across the head, but he … snuck right past me.

  Holy box of frogs, he didn’t even notice me.

  On he went toward the desk, his form still cast in pure shadow. I couldn’t make out anything except the general shape of him.

  As he opened the same drawer I’d opened, I took a soft, slow step toward the door. Given his lack of awareness, I might be able to make it out of the office and the front door without incident.

  That is, until he turned on the desk lamp.

  A tiny face came illuminated, the eyes shaded by a hood. The mouth opened, and he gasped. “You aren’t supposed to be here!”

  I spun through the doorway. I could still get out of the house; maybe they wouldn’t give chase.

  But as soon as I came into the foyer, I found the front door blocked by another tiny Yoda.

  This one had his arms folded, his whole form silvered by the moonlight. “I knew I heard whispers,” he said. “Who are you, human?”

  “Who are you?” I shot back. “I broke into this house first, you know.”

  He scoffed. “We’ve planned this break-in for months. And I don’t know who you are or what business you have with our target, but I can assure you, we have the greater claim to this break-in.”

  I pointed a
finger. “Now wait a minute …”

  One of his small hands rose when I pointed at him, and his fingers snapped. “Ninjas! To me.”

  Crackling whip, apparently tiny ninjas didn’t take well to fingers pointed at them.

  I yanked out Thelma and Louise as pattering sounded all around me. I was in a wholly vulnerable spot; there were entrances to the foyer from at least four different sides, not including the staircase.

  And a tiny ninja did, in fact, leap at me from off the banister. I was only able to roll away in time because his helium-filled yell resounded off the walls as he dropped.

  When I came up to a crouch, I was at the doorway to the living room. And a small, berobed creature was already flying straight at my face. His tiny foot hit me square in the nose, knocking my cigar from its perch behind my ear.

  I had to roll backward through a somersault to avoid having my nose broken. “Hey!” I said when I came up again. “That stung.”

  “Tara?” Percy said as soon as he heard me. “What stung? Do you need me to come in?”

  The ninja cackled, throwing off his robe. Beneath it, a belt full of throwing stars gleamed in the light from the windows. “You don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

  I slashed out at him with Louise, almost catching him across the shoulder. He evaded, like a ninja would. “No, Perce. Don’t come in. I’ve got this.” Then, backing away with both whips at the ready, “Now listen, I don’t want trouble. I haven’t got any quarrel with you … tiny gentlemen.”