Extraits

1. Fire is Life

'Fire is life', said Jewel Grace. 'That's why I want to sommuon a dragon.'

'Do ... what?' I said, staring at the cute granola chick in the aisle seat me as if she were a crazy person. The gypsy-chic Bohemian had caught my eye from the start of ouf flight out to San Francisco: wry, curvy, curly-haired- and, from the way she surreptitiously checked out not just my tattoos and my Mohawk, but my breasts, a probable lesbian - but for the first two hours, i'd no time for flirting. I'd been preoccupied comforting my newly adopted were tiger daughter on her very first airplane ride. After Cinnamon finally fell asleep, Jewel and I started talking, and she'd seemed sane, until now; but who knew what bad wires lay beneath that mass of copper curls? 'I'm sorry, I thought you just said -'

'Fire is my life', said Jewel, stretching out lithe arms, making her intricate leather and chainmail bracers jingle- and making my eyes follow the deft movements of her delicate hands.

'I'm a professional fire magician, and I'm traveling the world, trying to summon a dragon.'

Jewel caught me looking and smirked -but then her eyes flicked to my bare, tattooed arms, gazing with delicious indecency ant my masterwork: a vast tribal dragon, my totem animal, a glorious, colourful, intricate tattoo covering half my body.

Roused by her attention, the Dragon stirred to life, sliding over my skin like magic.

No, not just LIKE magic; my tattoos ARE magic.