I froze, my body unwilling to disobey him. As I knew from past experience, it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d had Chopper with me.
As he strolled up with the boxes, walking around my unmoving form to face me again, I gritted my teeth. I wanted to curse at him and his presumptuousness, but my lips and tongue weren’t working either.
“You know how to research the locations of magical beings in this world. Can you locate Dobsaurin for me?” Zav flicked a finger and muscle control returned to me.
“Maybe,” I said slowly, realizing someone from another world and without a phone and a cell plan would have a hard time using the internet on the fly, “but—”
“This would be more efficient than if I flew all over the mountains, hoping to unmask the camouflage he has placed on himself. Yes, this is a good plan. You will do this for me.”
“Pardon you, but I’m on my own quest right now.” I glowered at him.
If he said I owed him because he’d healed me, I would aim a kick right at his groin and find out if he was as anatomically correct as he promised.
“I understand this. Once we have found Dobsaurin and dealt with him, I will assist you in negotiating with these panther shifters who are an obstacle to you.”
“I don’t want to negotiate with them; I want to blow up their house and drown them in the river.”
He gave me that judgy look again. “I am impassive in regard to them. This will make me a superior negotiator.”
I wanted to argue, mostly because he was trying to make all the decisions, but I’d already admitted I couldn’t rightfully kill the Pardus brothers unless they did something worse than attacking me and painting graffiti on a food truck. If they had killed people with that grenade, it would have been different, but I couldn’t feel anything but relief that they’d failed.
“The fact that you can breathe fire and melt people probably helps with negotiations too.”
“People do not melt. They char and incinerate.”
“Good to know.” I rubbed my face and tried to set my ego aside to agree to his deal. Negotiating on Nin’s behalf was what I’d had in mind, and it would be a lot easier to cow the brothers—convince them to comply—with a dragon standing at my side. “All right, I agree to your proposal, but if we’re going to work together for even a moment, we have to establish some rules.”
“I agree. I am bound by the laws and regulations of the Dragon Justice Court. You will swear an oath to uphold the same laws.”
“That’s definitely not what I had in mind. I’m talking rules—boundaries—between me and you.” I imagined Mary talking about the distance I created between myself and others and almost laughed. “You promise to stay out of my head. None of that magical compulsion bullshit. No freezing me in place while you stalk around me and touch my stuff. No using me for bait to get this silver dragon to come calling. And finally, no making me want to obey and please you.” I still wasn’t positive the compulsion he’d put on me weeks earlier had faded. Maybe I was only here talking to him because he’d made me want to be nice to him.
Zav gazed at me. I couldn’t tell if it was a thoughtful and considering gaze or if he was ignoring my speech while making a mental to-do list. Whatever that looked like. Clean the cave, pick up fresh sheep to eat for dinner, compel innocent maidens to service him.
“I find you a surly mongrel,” he said, “and do not care for this manipulation.”
“Tough. You want me to research your silver nemesis, you agree to my stipulations, or forget it.”
His eyes narrowed. They were glowing a soft violet, and I remembered what he’d told the kid. It occurred to me that he might be able to magically compel me to go do that research for him, while massaging his feet and pumicing his corns. Especially since Chopper was in the Jeep instead of in my hand.
“Listen.” I lifted my hands in a placating gesture that probably worked better on humans than dragons. “I’m my own person, and I’ll do my best work if I’m a willing participant. If you were in my shoes, you wouldn’t want someone with superior power manipulating you, would you?”
“It is the way of the Realms that those with superior power use it to maintain their dominant positions.”
“Yeah, yeah, survival of the fittest. But you wouldn’t like it if someone more fit than you manipulated you, right?”
“It happens. That is the way.”
“It’s happened to you?”
Zav lifted his chin without answering. Great, did that mean that some other more powerful dragon could come along and compel him to do things? Like Dobsaurin?
“I will agree to your terms for the duration of this time that we are working together,” Zav said, “but you may wish to rescind your rules if we encounter Dobsaurin. If you are under a compulsion from me and under my control, it will be more difficult for him to put a compulsion on you.”
“I’ll risk it. Besides, I’m researching where he is, not going with you.”
“You will come with me to make certain we can find his lair and deal with him.”
“No, I won’t.”
Zav tilted his head. “You already agreed to this.”
I reviewed the moments of our conversation, wishing I’d thought to record it. Already, it looked like he was treating this as a binding agreement. As I thought about it, I realized that, yes, he’d said he would help me with the Pardus brothers after we found Dob and dealt with him. Damn it.
“Why do you want me along? Won’t I just be in your way?”
His eyes went from a faint violet glow to full-on beaming. “You will be in his way.”
12
When I walked up to Nin’s food truck, the graffiti had been removed—or painted over—and she was outside on a ladder installing security cameras while men in the lunch line offered suggestions. There weren’t as many customers as on a weekday, but they all had opinions about installing cameras. Nin thanked them politely, smiled, nodded her head, and ignored them in favor of carefully following the instructions.
“Hello, Nin.” I wished I had better news for her. “I visited your competition, found them unpleasant, handsy, and with unexpected allies. I’m in the process of researching and regrouping and coming up with a Plan B. I can’t openly go back to their house, since they had their lawyer complain to my boss, the whiny gits.”
I didn’t mention the new dragon duties I had to fulfill before I could finish Nin’s assignment. Since Zav’s departure, I’d started researching the social-media sites for news on the silver dragon, and I’d found a few videos of him that had been posted the day before, when he’d been spotted flying around the Woodinville and Redmond areas. Unfortunately, a dragon could fly hundreds of miles a day, so there was no telling where he was now.
Nin climbed down from the ladder and regarded me solemnly. “I am sorry that your yoga studio was attacked.”
“Oh, you heard about that?”
“There are many rumors going around—my customers share them with me. A new dragon threat has arrived, pedestrians are being plucked off the Burke Gilman Trail, and a yoga studio with the Ruin Bringer in it was assaulted.”
“Pedestrians are disappearing?” I grimaced. I hadn’t stumbled across that yet, but I’d been searching specifically for news of the dragon. Any number of people, magical and mundane, could be responsible for missing persons. Still, I’d seen the silver dragon soaring toward the Sammamish River Trail, a trail that turned into the Burke Gilman Trail once it hit Lake Washington. Coincidence?
“Three that I have heard of so far. The demand for dragon-slaying weapons is increasing. I have fielded many inquiries but have been forced to admit I cannot make anything that powerful. I worry that people will believe the Parduses’ claims and go to them.”
“I’m afraid of that too.”
Nin hesitated. “Do you think they are the ones who attacked your yoga studio?”
I also hesitated, since I didn’t want her to feel bad about getting me involved with this. “It’s not my yo
ga studio. That was my first class there. We were only halfway through, and I hadn’t even figured out what ocean breathing was yet.”
“Val…”
“Yes.” I sighed. “It was probably them. Like the manly men they are, they had a boy deliver a message for them.” I fished it out of my pocket and showed it to her.
She shook her head as she read it, her pink pigtails flopping sadly forward.
“Don’t worry about it.” I rested a hand on her forearm. “I get threatened all the time. It’s part of the job. And nobody was hurt.” I shuddered to think what might have happened if I hadn’t reacted quickly enough to throw that grenade back out. “I’ll just avoid being barefoot and without my weapons in enclosed spaces full of people until I get this resolved. And I plan to. Zoltan pointed me toward the person who’s supplying their magical bullets, and I’m going to visit tomorrow and find out what I can. Maybe see if I can convince the person to take a nice vacation for a while. I’m also thinking about going back to the brothers’ house tonight and sneaking around—not going in, mind you, since I have orders not to do that—to see if I can figure out who they’ve got working in the basement. I don’t think either of those two lumps of coal has enchanting skills of their own.”
“I wish you would let me pay you, Val. This is dangerous work.”
“I’ll take some ammo. A lot. I have a feeling I may need it.”
“To fight the Pardus brothers?”
“Maybe.” I decided not to mention how Zav thought I should go with him to vanquish his dragon nemesis. “Why don’t you take a break? Let’s get some lunch.”
“I can make you some—”
“Nope.” I lifted a hand. “I enjoy your food very much, but let’s get something else for a change, eh? Something you don’t have to cook.”
“I should not leave my truck.”
“You have an assistant.”
Nin looked from the line of customers to her kitchen helper manning the window and up to her security camera—or maybe the spot where the graffiti had been. Her fingers twitched, as if she would grab the corner of the truck if I tried to pull her away.
“You’re not sleeping here, are you?” I asked.
“No. I cannot park the truck here overnight. It is stored at a secure commissary and truck yard.” She waved vaguely to the south. “They do not allow you to sleep there.”
“You know this because you’ve tried?”
She hesitated. “Maybe. I am concerned right now that I will lose the truck—and my business. I have set magical traps in case someone tries to go inside, but…”
“I understand. I’m not trying to drag you away for a week. Just for lunch. I’m buying. You could use a break. I can tell.”
Nin appeared more reluctant than grateful about my offer, but she did tell her assistant to call someone else in if she got busy, and she walked resolutely out of the square with me. She let me drive us up the hill to Capitol Cider, where I sat facing the windows so I could see any trouble coming. I ordered the fish and chips and fire-roasted pepper cider. I could pass on wine or beer, but I was a Washington girl, and apples were my favorite fruit. Juice was too sweet for my taste buds, but hard cider was perfect and not a stiff enough drink to impair my reflexes or judgment.
Once Nin had ordered a suspiciously healthy-sounding mushroom-and-kale grilled cheese sandwich, I leaned in to ask, “You seem to get a lot of gossip from your clientele. Have you heard anything more specific about the silver dragon?”
I’d left a message on Willard’s voice mail that morning, asking for everything she had on the Northern Pride, but I didn’t know if she would get back to me before Monday. And now I had a new problem.
“I have heard of one being sighted but not much more. What are you trying to learn?”
“Where he’s hiding. And ideally why he’s hiding. This is the ugly brute that almost toasted me over on the peninsula. He gave me a message to give to Zav, which I’ve done now, but apparently, he’s playing coy and not letting Zav find him.”
“I know very little about dragons. Until last month, I would not have believed they ever came to Earth.”
“If a dragon would kidnap children to attract attention, would he also kidnap joggers?”
“I do not know. I would expect a dragon to kill people outright.”
“Dead people can’t be used as bait.”
As I sipped my drink, the spicy dry cider leaving a smoky note on my taste buds, I poked around on my phone, looking for news stories mentioning the missing pedestrians that Nin had brought up. The news sites were worthless—for years, the mainstream media had been looking the other way, presumably under government or corporate influence, and not admitting to the existence of magic or magical beings. The socials were more reliable, but even they only mentioned that a couple of joggers had gone missing that morning, one from Log Boom Park near Lake Forest Park and another from a secluded stretch of the Sammamish River Trail between Woodinville and Bothell. There were trees in both of those areas, I decided, closing my eyes to picture the different sections. A dragon swooping in early enough could have grabbed joggers without being noticed, especially if he had means to camouflage himself. If Dob could hide from Zav, he could definitely hide from humans.
“Here’s another missing person. A walker disappeared from Cold Creek Natural Area in Woodinville.” I dropped pins, zoomed out, and gripped my chin as I studied the map. “The three spots are almost in a straight east-to-west line. Too bad the times when the people were kidnapped, if that’s what happened, are imprecise. With that information, we could tell where he started and which way he was going when he picked up the last one.” I tapped the map. “The farmers market in town is roughly on that line too. I saw him yesterday, not this morning, but that could indicate his lair—that was what Zav called it—is nearby.”
“What does a dragon lair look like?”
“My Dungeons and Dragons experience tells me it’s a cave full of mounds of treasure. Dragons are the Scrooge McDucks of the mythical kingdom.”
Nin’s forehead furrowed in confusion.
“I’m going to be disappointed if neither Dungeons and Dragons or Scrooge McDuck exist in Thailand.”
“I do not know. I was not familiar with them. But I have heard young men at my food truck speak of the dungeons. It is a game, yes?”
“Yes. There are books too.”
The food arrived, and my mouth watered at the aroma of the batter-fried cod sitting atop a mound of fries with a lemon wedge and tartar sauce on the side. I hadn’t eaten before going to the yoga class, so this was my first food of the day, and I stuffed fries in, determined to set my phone down and appreciate them. But I couldn’t keep my gaze from straying back to the map.
To the west of the first missing-person location, Log Boom Park, was the populous suburb of Shoreline and eventually, Puget Sound. Unless I was way off on what dragons liked for lairs, it was hard to imagine a promising spot existing among the houses and apartment buildings of the area. Or out in the Sound with the krakens and dolphins. I supposed the dragon could be shape-shifting and staying in a hotel, but if he was kidnapping people and not eating them, storing them at a Motel 6 would be tricky.
I scrolled to the east, my finger drawing an imaginary line. “Somewhere around Duvall, maybe? There’s a lot of farmland out there, but also a lot of forest, and eventually, you get up into the foothills of the mountains. There are some hiking trails, old logging roads, and an access road to the Tolt River reservoir and the water-treatment facility out there but not much more. Some topography to the area.” I typed in a search to see if information on any caves popped up.
“Has your colonel assigned you to find this dragon?” Nin was nibbling at her sandwich.
“Not yet. She promised I’d have an assignment coming, but I think it was related to those dark elves, not dragons. That was before people went missing.” I set down the phone, realizing Nin might be wondering why I was obsessing about this rather than resear
ching her problem. “I ran into Zav this morning. Or maybe I should say he stalked me down. We made a deal. I’m helping him find the silver dragon, and he’s going to help me negotiate with the panther brothers.” Assuming I succeeded in assisting Zav in dealing with his foe first, and the silver dragon didn’t kill us both.
“Negotiate? Are dragons good at that?”
“He mentioned hurling fire and brimstone as a tactic.”
“Hm. I wish the Pardus brothers would simply leave me alone. I have no wish to see anyone burned or otherwise harmed.”
Remembering the brothers’ willingness to force me to have sex with them, I had no such objections. “We’ll figure something out. Promise.”
“Good. I like it here, and I am making progress at saving up the money I need. I do not take any days off, because I am working toward a goal.”
“Nin, you should take days off. People who don’t know how to relax develop health issues and end up being prescribed a bunch of drugs and being tortured by breathing loudly through their glottis because their therapist insisted.”
She gazed blandly at me. “I do not know what a glottis is.”
“I don’t either. I think it’s in here somewhere.” I waved at the front of my neck. “Take it from me, you need to enjoy a day off now and then.”
Nin pushed her plate to the side, her sandwich only half-eaten, and linked her fingers on the table. “I want my family to come to America. I am appreciative that technology lets me see and speak with my mother and sisters, but their lives are not good. They are cramped in their apartment, because work that pays well is so hard to find there. And I am… missing something. In here.” She touched a hand to her chest. “Because I am not with them. I grew up with all my siblings and my mother and grandmother. It is difficult not to be with them.” She blinked moist eyes. “You must have a family. Do you understand?”
“Our situations are a little different…” A pang of self-doubt and regret filled me as I thought of Amber again, of her working on a book report this weekend while I was tramping around the city, dealing with hostile shapeshifters and arrogant dragons. “But I understand.”
Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 2) Page 10