Page 93 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“I do not know in inches or centimeters, but taller than the roof of a modern house.”

“A ranch-style one-story house, or a two-story?” Nicky asked.

“One story.”

“So, he’s sixteen to twenty feet tall in dragon form,” Nicky said.

“Can he fly?” Edward asked. NoHoly cow, a dragon, just practical questions.

“No,” Jake said.

“If we can isolate him somewhere away from civilians, a LAW might do it,” he said.

“Law enforcement?” Richard asked.

“Light antitank weapon,” I said, “LAW.”

“How do you have an antitank weapon?” Richard asked.

“Never ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” I said.

He frowned at me.

“Save questions that won’t help us kill Deimos until later.”

Richard held up his hands like he was giving up, but he nodded.

I turned back to Edward to ask, “I thought we used the last one you had on that case in Washington State?”

“That was years ago, did you really think I wouldn’t have more by now?”

I grinned, almost laughed, and said, “Silly me, okay, but if we blow him up, will the fire-breathing part make the explosion something we can’t plan for?”

“It depends on what type of fire breathing it is.” Edward put his fingers up in quote marks aroundfire breathing.

“Okay, Jake, explain the fire breathing to us?” I asked.

“Have any of you heard the term ‘Greek fire’?”

“It’s like ancient Greek napalm,” Peter said.

I looked at him. “How do you know that?”

He pointed at Edward, who offered him a fist bump, which he took grinning. “It was supposed to be worse than modern napalm, or even the Greek fire that survived into later Greek history.”

“So, there are two types of Greek fire?” I asked.

Edward answered, “The first was supposed to be so deadly that nothing could stand against it. It clung to things like modernnapalm, or a phosphorus grenade, and like phosphorus, getting it wet made it burn harder, but it was supposed to be worse than anything we have now.”

“It was, or I suppose is,” Jake said.

“I hadn’t thought about one of you being old enough to know the lost recipe for original Greek fire,” Edward said.

“History does say the recipe for it was lost, but they also say that the Greek heroes didn’t use poison in battle, and neither is true,” Jake said.

“What are you saying, or rather, say it more clearly,” Jean-Claude said.

“The original Greek fire was not lost; we, the Harlequin, killed all the demigods that could spew it from their bodies. The Greeks had to re-create it from ingredients they could find, because our dark queen declared that beings that could create a substance that burned through armor, flesh, anything it touched and could not be extinguished were too dangerous to vampirekind to be allowed to exist.”

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