Pacific Fire (32 page)

And if that's where the firedrake was going, Daniel would go there, too, as surely as if he were an iron filing drawn to a magnet. North, where a different Hierarch reigned. North, where his mother was grieving her murdered son.

Moth came up with a white paper bag clutched in his paw. It smelled of roast pork. “What's next on our itinerary?”

Daniel looked at the photo Argent had given him. It was grainy, taken with a telephoto lens, and overexposed against the daylit sky: a thin S-shape, like a serpent, with the smudged suggestion of wings. It was labeled with the map coordinates where Argent's pilot had taken the photo, and the letters
PF
.

Pacific Firedrake.

Daniel scratched some of the charred dirt at his feet and smelled beneath his fingernails. He got out a pen and crossed out the
PF
.

In its place, he wrote
Sam
.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and always, profound thanks to my wife, Lisa Will, for all the things, big and little. Thanks also to my editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, his assistant Miriam Weinberg, Patty Garcia, Leah Withers, Theresa DeLucci, Irene Gallo, Bethany Reis, and the entire team of professionals at Tor Books for art direction, design, copyediting, proofreading, sales, marketing, promotion, publicity, and all the many, many things that transformed my manuscript into a book and helped get it into your hands. Thanks as well to my agent, Caitlin Blasdell, for representing my interests so well.

I owe a great deal to the fine folks at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, in particular Patrick Heffernan and Maryelizabeth Hart, for their constant support and championing of my work.

Thanks to Fred Kiesche for submarine neepery, and to Chad Collier for airplane neepery. People are really nice to me.

And a very big thank-you to Deb Coates and Jenn Reese, for friendship, camaraderie, and cheerleading. And an especially big thanks to Sarah Prineas, who sent me an e-mail refuting my claim that I'd just written the worst book ever. In the end, I found some of her arguments at least worth considering.

Finally, thanks to my officemate, Dozer. He is a dog.

 

OTHER BOOKS BY GREG VAN EEKHOUT

Norse Code

Kid vs. Squid

The Boy at the End of the World

California Bones

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

GREG VAN EEKHOUT is the author of
California Bones
and several other novels, including
Norse Code
and two middle-grade SF novels,
Kid vs. Squid
and
The Boy at the End of the World
(a finalist for the Andre Norton Award). He lives in San Diego, California.

 

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

PACIFIC FIRE

Copyright © 2015 by Greg van Eekhout

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Cliff Nielsen

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-7653-2856-4 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4299-4569-1 (e-book)

e-ISBN 9781429945691

First Edition: January 2015