Chapter 10, Hot Smoke Summary

Zane's caseload is light, giving him 30 extra minutes before his next appointment. He goes early, to Nevada, where a virginal girl has sold herself to be sacrificed to a dragon in order to help her indebted family. The dragons are from an endangered species called Hot Smoke Dragons that only eats virgins and is protected by a group called Dragoons. There is a theory that the Hot Smoke Dragons only eat virgins because at one time there was a bad outbreak of venereal disease. Virgins were likely to be unaffected by the disease, and so the Hot Smoke Dragons that ate virgins were likely to survive. The dragons evolved to only eat virgins.

Luna suddenly appears by the caged virgin. Since Luna is dying anyway, she has chosen to take the girl's place. She is a virgin, technically, since...