22: does the fire department handle dragons?

Half my apartment building is gone.

I mean, the day's already pretty sucky, considering I'm stuck working with a pixie (he's yet to find out exactly what I am, and I plan to keep it that way), but then the three of us are walking back to my place, and I realize I no longer have a place.

I should have guessed from the plumes of smoke rising in the distance, bursts of black in a sky that's otherwise blue, but maybe I was just trying to be optimistic. We round the corner, however, and that's when I see it: half of the building is charred and black, the wall blown out. People are gathered on the street below it, looking up in wonderment, and there's faint sirens sounding down the road.

It takes all I have not to just end it here. I'm just so tired of crap like this.

And then I remember there were people in there—people I actually care about.

Midge reaches out to grab my arm. "Grey!"

I ignore her, breaking into a sprint. As I meet the crowd of people surrounding the entrance, I melt into the background—literally—people yelping in confusion as they're jostled by someone they can't see. I would stop to laugh, if I had the time, but I don't. Rocco and Jamie were there, even Safiya. She's annoying as hell, but that doesn't mean I want her dead. She's flammable, after all.

Materializing myself again, I have to slow down when I reach the stairs. The air's laced thickly with smoke, and each breath burns in my chest. Tears prick my eyes as I step in pile after pile of ash, struggling the last few steps. Goddammit, I should be stronger than this.

"Rocco?" I call as I reach the landing. "Jamie? Are you guys in here? I thought I told you not to blow anything up!"

There's a loud, dismal howl from around the corner that serves as my answer. Scoffing, I grip the doorjamb, swiveling around into my apartment—or at least what was my apartment. Most of it's burnt away. The windows are melted glass, my television's shattered, and the floors are littered in ash.

Jamie, a wolf, is pacing the floor with his head hung, his white fur turned black and gray with soot. Every once in a while a distressed bay escapes his mouth, his strides growing faster and faster. Safiya kneels not so far from him, her eyes round.

I glance at the two of them with a heavy sigh. "Jamie, what did I tell you about changing inside my apartment?"

He looks up at me with puppy dog eyes. Like that's going to work.

"Your apartment's in smithereens, demonboy," comments Safiya, rising unsteadily to her feet. "In case you hadn't noticed."

"I have, thank you," I say with a cough, wiping dirt away from my eyes. "What happened here? And where the hell is Rocco?"

Jamie melts back into his skin, his t-shirt decorated with burnt holes, his pale hair a dimmer gray. He and Safiya exchange a concerned look I don't know the meaning for.

"Hey," I warn. "Someone has to tell me why the hell my apartment looks like Mount Vesuvius erupted in it, and someone has to tell me where Rocco is. And someone has to tell me right now."

Jamie sniffles incoherently.

"What?" I snap.

His sniffle rises to a wail. "Dragon!"

My eyes zip to Safiya's to make sure I heard that right, but she just exhales and rubs the white ash from her hair, gnawing gently at her lip with a fanged tooth.

I blink. "You're telling me a dragon did this?"

Jamie nods almost shamefully. "I was sleeping, and there was a loud crash. He came through the window. I tried to fight him, but he took Rocco, and he burned everything—"

"Wait, shut up," I say, stopping him there. Dear God, the day can't get worse. It just can't. I should've never let him in on this. I should've—he's my best friend, I'm supposed to protect him... "The dragon took Rocco? Are you serious?"

"Yes, the mutt's serious," Safiya says, her heels like thunder upon the blackened wood. The air smells like barbecue, but less satisfying, and all I want is to double over and throw up. Or sleep. Or something. I don't even know. I just feel so...sick. "He was trying to fight the dragon off when I came in, but it was no use. Once he had his hands on Rocco, he left. I have no idea where he went."

A tear makes a clear streak down my cheek. Not because I'm upset, I don't think. That would be pathetic; I don't cry in front of people. Just because the air's so damn stringent that it's choking me. I hope Midge stayed down there with River. I wouldn't want her breathing any of this crap in.

I plop down on the part of my couch that hasn't been eaten by flames. "But dragons nowadays...they don't just roam around, if I'm right. They're raised by someone. Domestic pets, if you will."

Safi arches one dark eyebrow. "So?"

"So you know what all this means, then, don't you?"

"No," she snaps. "Frankly, I don't. I'd just prefer to never have to deal with another dragon attack."

"Everything's that going on is personal," I infer. "We're catching on to something, and whoever's behind this doesn't want us to find out anything else. That's why he's got Rocco."

"Don't be an idiot," Safiya retorts, her arms folded tautly around her chest. "You're jumping to conclusions. You're saying the guy who raised the dragon is the same guy who's behind all the loco wolves and vampires lately? That's ridiculous."

I peer down at the floor for a moment, then back up at her. Her disbelief's written all over her face. Maybe I don't want to believe it, either, but I can't ignore what's right in front of me. "It makes sense whether you want it to or not. None of this is a coincidence. I know that now."

"Who would want to do that?" asks Jamie, his voice barely a squeak. He's still kneeling on the floor, his shoulders just barely shaking, his wolf's eye a duller amber than usual. "It's mean."

Mean is an understatement. Most things Jamie says are understatements; the poor kid doesn't know much else besides teeth and claws and blood. Dammit. What am I doing, feeling sorry for people? It's all Midge's fault. It is. It has to be. "Look, I...I don't know what we're going to do. But right now I need to breathe. Midge is downstairs with a pixie guy who says he's going to help us—"

"Help us do what, exactly?" demands Safiya.

"I don't know," I reply with a bit too much haste. Safiya jolts backward in surprise, like she wasn't expecting me to be snappy. And I don't mean to be snappy, nor do I like it. I've said it before; when I'm surly everyone links it to the demon side of me rather than the me side of me. The judgment's inescapable when there's not a lot of you. "I don't like the guy either, but if he can help me find Rocco somehow, then hell, I'll take him. Now can we go, please? I'm going to die if I don't get out of here."

"Sure you will," remarks Safiya as she follows me out the staircase, which is still shrouded in a haze of gray-black smoke. "It's not like you're practically invincible, or anything."

"Says the two-hundred-year-old vampire?"

"Two hundred?" she replies. "Why, I'm flattered."

I pause. "Oh my God, you're actually old as dirt, aren't you?"

Safiya grits her teeth before jamming a quite pointy heeled boot on to my foot. I let out of a squeal of discomfort, then drift off into silence when she glares at me. Sometimes I forget just how Safiya Safiya is. I shouldn't mess with her as much as I do. She's got the shortest fuse of all short fuses.

We reach the street again, and everything's much too bright. The sun's a blaze of yellow in my bleary eyes, and I squint, barely making out a distressed Midge before she rams right into my chest.

I stagger backwards, hyperaware that Jamie and Safiya and the pixie guy are all watching us. And they don't know anything. Not that there's anything to know. Right? Ahem.

"Midge," I say quietly, but she ignores me.

Wrapping her arms tighter around me, she chides, "You idiot, running into a burning building like that! I thought you might die in there, I don't—"

"Well, it wasn't burning," I remind her gently, plucking her away from me. I look away, like that's going to allay the feeling of everyone's wandering eyes on me. Especially Safiya's. Safiya's feel like infrared lasers. "It was just smoking."

"I don't care," Midge announces, wiping soot from my face with her thumb. She smears it on her lampshade-like t-shirt mindlessly and places her hands on her hips. "You're still stupid. What happened, anyway?"

I glance back at Safiya and Jamie. Safiya's watching a bit too intently (lasers, I tell you), and Jamie hasn't looked up from the sidewalk since we got out here. My eyes meet Midge's again. "Yeah, uh, I'll fill you in on that. But first...you don't happen to have room for two new occupants in your house, do you?"