Dragon's Flame by Jory Strong

little too long on her as far as Taine was concerned. “It took a while to follow it to this spot. This is absolute ground zero. And because there is a focal point, the symbols here should tell us what the sorcerer was after.”
    Kristof anchored the mesh with small spelled stakes. He studied it a moment longer then triggered a working with a softly spoken word.
    Inch-high flames erupted. They burned a pattern into the magical weave then died.
    “You recognize it?” Kristof asked.
    “Phoenix,” Gaige said, answering for all of them. “Pull one of those into this world and the city would be burning. That’d make the spell a fail.”
    Kristof removed a small dark purple bell jar from his backpack. “I’m thinking success. An egg would account for the damage. The astrologist can confirm it.”
    He filled the jar with ashes. Stoppered it with magic.
    Gaige took the jar from him, handed it to Taine with a smirk. “You do the honors. The astrologist always works faster when you’re the one asking for help.”
    “We’ll head there now,” Taine said, hoping Kristof was wrong about the sorcerer having succeeded in pulling a phoenix egg into the human world. If he wasn’t wrong, then Saffron would be in danger.
    The prospect of it had Taine fantasizing about stashing her somewhere safe, somewhere he wouldn’t have to worry about her, somewhere like the dragon realm.
    Instinct demanded it, but follow through and Saffron might never forgive him. Especially if people she cared about perished.
    They returned to the sedan.
    Saffron’s heart was still beating too hard and too fast as she dropped into the front passenger seat and accepted the jar holding the ashes. It was one thing to be mildly interested in the supernatural but to actually witness proof of its existence…
    But still… “A phoenix? Seriously? We’re talking a mythical creature that rises from its own ashes.”
    She tightened her hand on the small purple jar. It was cool against her palm but she hadn’t imagined what’d happened with the cloth Kristof had laid out. Not that the end result could be explained by embers or residual heat.
    There’d been no smoke. No glow. Besides that, fire didn’t burn what looked like precise, intricate script.
     “There’s truth in myth,” Taine said.
    “So I’ve heard.” Both Sabra and Lia loved to say that very thing.
    Taine reclaimed her hand. “Is it so hard to believe that there are parallel universes? Many a physicist argues it’s not only possible but likely. Magic is power. Spells are focused power. And power is ultimately energy that is capable of displacing matter and creating a pathway.”
    Saffron’s mouth went dry. “You mean a portal between parallel worlds.”
    “Exactly.”
    The approval in his voice and eyes made her heart somersault like a cheerleader after a touchdown. That was totally not her. Reaching the concept of portal was a logical progression given that alternate universes weren’t more difficult to believe in than sentient beings evolving in a different galaxy or beyond what humans could currently see or reach in the Milky Way.
    “Why a phoenix or a phoenix egg?” But as soon as she asked, her heart banged harder and faster against her ribs. Crew had said that San Diego would burn, but it didn’t have to be this city, her city.
    “What if it’s meant to be used in a terrorist attack?” That would explain Homeland setting up Supernatural Ops and IRE. A phoenix could serve the same purpose as a massive bomb.
    “A sorcerer who used a spell to ensure that there were no casualties as a result of his working isn’t likely to be involved in that kind of a plot. The sorcerers we police are inevitably after more personal power. When we determine who, we’ll have a sense of why.” Taine stroked his thumb over her knuckles. “I’ll keep you safe.”
    Her heart did a little roll, going girly-girly as if she weren’t SDFD and damn good in a firefight. “I can take care of