“Show us your rain of fire,” Mr. Kim said in a snotty tone.
“Don’t think I can do it, do you?” I said, wondering wildly what my stupid bravado had gotten me into. I didn’t dare ask Rowan how to make it rain fire, which meant I either had to do something to distract the men or put my money where my mouth was. What was a rain of fire? It was little blobs of fire dumping onto someone. The question was, how did I get the fire going? I looked around the room, spied Mrs. P’s handbag, and said, “Fine. Give me just a sec.”
All three men watched with interest as I dug through her bag, finally pulling out a silver lighter, the old-fashioned kind that people in black-and-white movies used. With the lamp tucked under one arm, I screwed up a room service menu and lit one end on fire.
“Fire,” I told Rowan, nodding toward the two hoodlums. “Now I’ll make it rain on them.”
“I look forward to seeing that,” he said politely.
I eyed him for a few seconds wondering if he was being sarcastic, but he just looked tired, so I figured he was being supportive in a non-obvious way. I turned to face the two men, held out the burning menu, and tried to force the fire onto them.
It just burned down the paper.
“Well, crapballs.” I gnawed my lower lip as I watched the fire, strangely captivated by it.
“Allow us to show you our rain of fire,” Mr. Kim said.
“Maybe I’m doing something wrong with it… wait, what? Your rain of fire?”
Mr. Kim smiled, and out of nowhere, little balls of fire began to fall from the ceiling onto me. I shrieked and dropped my lamp to slap the fireballs when they hit me, feeling both relieved when they didn’t burn me and confused as hell.
“You’re a dragon, too?” I asked Mr. Kim, picking up my lamp with the fire stopped falling.
“We are demons, servants of Lord Bael, the premier prince of Abaddon. We have dragon blood in our veins, but we are demons first and foremost, and now you will give to us the ring that the thief stole from our master, or we will kill you right here and now.” As if to prove he meant it, both men pulled long, wickedly sharp daggers from sheaths strapped to their thighs.
I looked over at Rowan. “Are they telling the truth?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, strolling over to stand next to me.
“They’re demons.”
“Demon-dragon hybrids, to be exact.”
Quickly, I ran through my options. I didn’t like the way that Mr. Kim was lovingly caressing the blade of that dagger, and I had little hope that there were such things as good demons around. Which meant I had to do something to save Rowan and me.
“We tire of your games,” Mr. Kim, said, gesturing to his friend. “Elton, slit the mortal’s throat. I’ll take great pleasure in separating this mate from her head, and then we will search the room for the ring.”
“I don’t like them,” I told Rowan. “I don’t think they play nicely with others.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up, and I had the worst desire to kiss it. That shocked me out of my sense of befuddlement, which is why no one, least of all Mr. Kim and Elton, were expecting me to rush forward, lamp held forward with one hand, and my burning menu in the other. To my surprise, just as I thrust the menu forward, a ball of fire shot from it and hit the two men, sending them staggering backward to the window.
“Scarlet dragons to the rescue!” I yelled, and whacked Mr. Kim over the head with the base of the lamp. It shattered into a bazillion pieces of ceramic, but I didn’t wait to see how he handled that: I whipped around, and with a kick that I had no idea I could do, planted my foot squarely on Elton the demon’s chest, and sent him tumbling through the window.
Mr. Kim roared in fury and lunged at me with his dagger in hand, blood pouring out of a jagged cut on his forehead, but before I could try to coax another fireball from my almost-burned menu, Rowan was there in front of me, knocking the knife out of Mr. Kim’s hand and kicking his knee, causing him to crumple. Rowan grabbed Mr. Kim by his shirt collar and, twisting it viciously, dragged him over to the window. “I’ve had about all I’m going to take from you. The next time you bother us will be your last.”
Mr. Kim tried to spit out an oath, but Rowan’s stranglehold was effective enough to keep him from doing anything but making garbled noises. Rowan heaved the upper half of the man out of the window, and added, “Tell your master the ring is lost,” before shoving the man’s legs out with the rest of them.