"Cheers," he said, and took along pull off of the chilled red wine. To quell my nerves I did thesame, emptying several inches from my glass. The alcoh...ol settled mynervous stomach, and gave me a feeling of warmth deep inside."If you're Rocco's nephew," I asked, trying to get a handle on thisman, "then I suppose that you're in the 'family' business with him?"He looked at me and smiled. "No, my mother didn't want that life forme. She insisted that I go to college, and get a degree, which I. Her father had toldher not to come to our house for extra training underany circumstance what so ever. The six of us listened,asked her questions, and then came to the sameconclusion. We wanted Francine to be under our controland out of her father’s reach. So we invited the CountySheriff to come over. We didn’t even bother to get dressbecause he was our best customer.After the County Sheriff listened to Francine’s story hetold her to stay here for the night with us while. MARISKA, his voice boomed inside our heads. It was something felt rather than heard, a psychic blast rather than a physical voice. YOU FOOL, he continued, SOMEONE WHO STILL CARRIES THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGONSLAYER YET LIVES.The blood of the who now!? Did he mean the lord paramount’s family?“That’s impossible, great Firelord!” Mariska pleaded, kneeled before the dragon, “The lord’s family was all in their box! I burned them all myself!”SILENCE YOU WORM! That time the voice boomed loud enough to. Iribis smiled as he flew over the trees trying to find her. He lost sight of her quickly. In frustration he roared in the air. He quickly stopped and listened and heard everything in the forest suddenly come to a halt except for one thing, a gasp. The human. Every other animal had stopped to wonder what made that horrible noise, and then ran the opposite direction. He followed where the gasp had come from and saw her emerge from the forest leading into an alley way. He darted his wings backward.