Sinister Magic: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 1)

by Lindsay Buroker

  I was fast enough that I managed to get the sword halfway out of its scabbard before his power locked on to me again, but that only made me feel like an idiot with my arm stuck over my head. Sindari growled again, but he appeared as frozen as I was as Zav stepped in close.

  Again, he reached for my head. This time, he laid his hand on the side of it and stared into my eyes in some parody of a lover’s gaze. But there was no love in his expression. He didn’t hurt me or dig his fingers into my scalp, but his eyes were as haughty as always as he stared into mine, and the power that crackled around him skittered over my skin and made my nerves tingle with something closer to pain than pleasure.

  “It is an honor to serve a dragon, to be selected as a personal minion,” he said softly, “and you will serve me. Bring me the dark elves, and bring me the artifact, and do not question me further.”

  A new type of power gripped me, something more subversive than his raw strength. It altered my thoughts, and I envisioned myself doing as he wished, dragging his enemies out of some tunnel to lay before him, then dropping at his feet and lifting the egg-relic up over my head to him, so eager to do his bidding, eager to please, hoping for a pat on the head like a dog…

  I couldn’t voice the words “Fuck you,” but I was pleased that I managed to think them. Unfortunately, that didn’t drive the eagerness to please him out of my mind. And he only smirked as he stepped back, releasing me again. Weirdly, my body missed that power crackling all around me and through me.

  Without another word, he walked toward the balcony door, the curtains swirling on a gust of air again. He looked back over his shoulder as he strode out, but I couldn’t read his expression. Then he was gone, springing off the balcony railing and shifting in the air back to his dragon form.

  I released my grip on Chopper, the sword sliding back into its scabbard, and sank to my knees. A new level of exhaustion came over me, and I dropped my hands to the floor, needing the support. As I stared at the rug, two things sank in. First, I’d made a mistake in not negotiating until I’d found a reward that he would give me—a dragon could make a charm or something even more useful that would help me. Second… even though he’d left, and his aura was fading as he flew farther away, he’d imparted an urge in me that I couldn’t deny.

  I did want to bring his enemies out to lay at his feet. I longed to please him, to have him touch my head again and tell me what a good girl I was.

  Snarling, I balled my hands into fists and thumped them against the floor. I was going to deny that urge. His dark elves could stay in their lair, having orgies all over his precious artifact. I’d die before I helped the smug bastard.

  18

  When the waiter at Bitterroot BBQ brought my tray of brisket, ribs, beans, and collard greens, I dug in with enthusiasm, wishing I could eat Dimitri’s share too. He sat across from me, looking cheerful and perky as he grabbed his cornbread. I couldn’t believe he’d slept through the entire dragon encounter, snoring in oblivion while I was getting my mind diddled.

  I also couldn’t believe that, once I’d finally fallen asleep, I’d spent the night dreaming of riding a black dragon over the city, over the mountains, and across the Sound—and loving it. Laughing as we dipped and soared, looking down at a passenger ferry from high above and startling sea lions sunning themselves on a beach. Either my mind was messing with me or Zav had left the notion in there, along with the one of me eagerly doing his bidding. Maybe that was the reward he thought I would want, though I had a hard time imagining him deigning to let a mongrel ride on his back. More likely, my sleep-deprived brain had come up with the dream all by itself.

  I shoved a rib in my mouth, gnawing on the bone far harder than pleasure would have demanded. At least my stomach was happy. We hadn’t eaten since driving back from Bend the day before, and I’d woken up at noon, ravenous and with no food in the apartment that hadn’t been thrown on the floor and trampled.

  “You all right?” Dimitri asked.

  “I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to collect everything I need to get when I don’t even know how to get down there.” The restaurant was busy with people eating at tables close to ours, so I refrained from mentioning dark elves and secret underground tunnels. “Did you really not wake up at any point last night when Zav was in my apartment?”

  “Nope. I was passed out.” He’d woken up even later than I had.

  I’d had to prod him off my couch with the promise of food.

  “He really asked you to fetch some, uh, bad guys for him?” Dimitri glanced at one of the side tables where the couple was cheerfully chatting about their plans to visit the Chihuly Museum and go to a Mariners game. What must it be like to have such a normal life?

  “Yes. I don’t get it.” I leaned closer and lowered my voice. “Couldn’t he smash through the building or street or whatever is on top of the tunnels and reach in and pluck them out? You didn’t see him on the rooftop. He’s huge.”

  “Maybe he’s not supposed to destroy cities to do his job.”

  “Even if that’s true—and I have a hard time imagining his justice court caring about lowly vermin cities—then why couldn’t he walk down there as a human and get them? Why send me? A puny little mongrel.”

  He lowered his voice. “I’m sure you know more about dragon shifters than I do—”

  “Not much more. This is my first one.”

  Dimitri raised his eyebrows. Maybe I did have a problem with interrupting.

  “I wonder if he’s less powerful in that form and worries that an entire clan of dark elves—how many live down there?—might overpower him.”

  “He incinerated bullets and froze me in my tracks while in human form. He froze Sindari, too, and he’s at least moderately resistant to magical attacks.” I didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that Zav was afraid to go down there, not when I had no choice but to go in.

  “I said less powerful, not a wimp.”

  “I don’t know.” I scraped collard greens onto my fork and shoveled them into my mouth while I considered. “He’s so arrogant that even if he was less powerful, I think he’d still believe he could kick all of their asses.”

  “Maybe he’s just busy then. Long list of criminals to catch.”

  I snorted. “He does sound aggrieved by that. And pissed that it’s forcing him to visit our lowly world. Who gave him this task, do you think?”

  “Someone higher up on the totem pole?”

  “His mom?” My snort turned to a snigger as I imagined Lord Cocky getting taken by the ear—the horn—and being given the to-do list as punishment.

  Dimitri’s mouth twisted with skepticism.

  “He did mention that female dragons are powerful and run the show. Maybe that’s why the males, embittered by their pitiful status in society, take their aggressions out on smaller species.”

  “Maybe you can run that hypothesis by him next time he lands on your roof. If he kills you, at least you’ll die at home.”

  “Flattened like those poor deck chairs.” I set down my fork as a new unpleasant thought surfaced. “What if he’s still pissed at me for interfering with his arrest of the wyvern, and he’s trying to get me killed? By giving me an impossible task?”

  “Couldn’t he have killed you last night in your apartment if he wanted you dead?”

  “Or any of the times we’ve met, yes, but maybe that’s against the laws he’s upholding. I don’t think he killed any of the werewolves, though the ones that caught fire might have eventually died.” I grabbed another rib. “You know what I should have done? Told him he’d have to come with me down into that lair and that I’d help him get his dark elves, but only if he and his bullet-incinerating body stood in front of me while I hunted down the alchemist.”

  The baseball couple glanced at me. Maybe I hadn’t lowered my voice enough. The waiter brought their check, which they hurried to pay without waiting for change and then hustled away from the table with a few backward glances toward me.


  I waved a rib at them.

  “He would be a powerful ally,” Dimitri said, “but can you really imagine a dragon working with anyone but another dragon?”

  I didn’t want him for an ally anyway. I worked alone. That wasn’t going to change. It was bad enough I’d let Dimitri go see the vampire with me. It had almost gotten him eaten by a haunted house.

  “Until I figure out how to find this lair, it’s a moot point.” I dug out my phone and tapped open the map application again, thinking of Zoltan’s implication that the alchemist would have to have access to a body of water large enough to hold a kraken.

  I’d been attacked twice by dark elves in hoodies, so it wasn’t as if they couldn’t travel outside, at least at night, but it would certainly be convenient for the alchemist if she didn’t have to go far to collect blood from sea life. Maybe there was a tunnel exit right by the water.

  Puget Sound would be the most obvious bet for housing something as large as a kraken. It connected to the Pacific Ocean, and, as a quick search told me, was a lot deeper than Lake Union or Lake Washington.

  But how would someone on land or a boat get close to a kraken? Weren’t they supposed to be hundreds if not thousands of pounds? Could a kraken be lured up to shore? And trapped for long enough to give a vial of its blood? Or its venom. Zoltan had gotten an excited gleam in his eyes when he’d spoken of that. Even if it had nothing to do with the potion—formula—that had taken down Willard, maybe a dark-elf alchemist would be just as excited by kraken venom and try to collect it regularly.

  I closed the social media application I’d had open, checking on a status update from my daughter’s latest swim meet, and did some searches for Puget Sound plus sea monsters, giant squids, and krakens, to see if anything came up. Nothing within the past decade. Hm. More on a whim than because I thought I’d get lucky, I did the same search with Lake Union and the ship canal. Willard’s words about the Underground tunnels extending under the lake came to mind. A ship could pass from the Sound through the ship canal, Lake Union, and Portage Bay into Lake Washington, so wasn’t it conceivable that a kraken could too? The idea of it correctly timing its passage through the locks was a little amusing, but maybe they were smart.

  “Ah, what’s this?” I murmured.

  “Leftovers?” Dimitri pointed to my plate. “Are you going to eat that cornbread?”

  “Go ahead. I’m reading about a recent sighting of the Loch Ness monster in Lake Union. Several of them. From residents living in the houseboats there. How interesting.”

  “Does that have something to do with dark elves?”

  “It may. Look at the dates.” I showed him my phone screen. “There was a flurry of sightings about eight weeks ago, then nothing, and then more sightings last month. Could my alchemist be luring the kraken into Lake Union for easy access? And then maybe coming up from some subterranean tunnel to trap it or stab it with something that gives her a vial of blood?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but since you’re letting me eat your food, I won’t object.”

  I finished off my brisket while explaining what Zoltan had said about kraken blood being necessary for the formula that had taken down Willard.

  “Something must be happening once a month to make that the ideal time for her to lure in the kraken and take her samples. Eight weeks ago probably would have been about the time she was collecting ingredients for the potion that waylaid Willard.” I still didn’t know why the dark elves wanted to kill Willard, but I would be sure to ask the alchemist while I was wringing her neck.

  “If there were sightings eight weeks ago and four weeks ago, maybe we’re due for another one.”

  “If she still needs ingredients, that could be. Maybe she’s making lots of these formulas to take out lots of enemies, but she can only bring the kraken in to get fresh blood once a month. It was dark last night, wasn’t it? Even without the clouds, I don’t think there was a moon.” I snapped my fingers and tapped in a new search. “Hah, that’s it. There was a new moon eight weeks ago, the night the first sightings were reported. The sky would have been extra dark that night.”

  “Safe enough for a dark elf to pop out of its hole?”

  “Her hole. Dark elves must be able to come out any night if they properly protect themselves, but maybe darker nights are preferable. Or maybe the kraken only shows up on the darkest of nights.” Dread and anticipation mingled to create a weird sensation in my gut as I scrolled further down the page and checked the date. “There’s a new moon tonight.”

  “So if we hang out on a houseboat tonight, we might see a kraken?”

  “If the alchemist is following the pattern and luring it in again.” I couldn’t know for certain that the dark elves were responsible for these Loch Ness monster sightings, but this was the best lead I had. Besides, who but someone with a use for kraken blood, and a need for it to be delivered close to the dark-elf tunnel system, would invite such a creature into Lake Union? “If she’s already got all the blood she needs, she might not be. But it’s either investigate this or sneak into the Underground tour and knock on the walls, hoping to find a hollow one that could be knocked down, and that would lead into the rest of the tunnel network. But you’d have to think there’s some separation between the tunnel systems for the dark elves to have avoided notice for all this time.”

  “It sounds like we’ve got until dark to figure out what we need to invade a dark-elf lair.”

  “We need? Dimitri, I appreciate you driving me around yesterday, but it’s too dangerous for you to go. The dragon didn’t even want to go.”

  “Maybe he just hasn’t figured out where the door is.”

  That was a possibility. The dark elves might have some enchantment in place to keep people, magical and mundane, from stumbling onto the entrances they use. And as powerful as a dragon was, some magic did work to camouflage things from them—I’d seen that with my own cloaking charm. Weaker beings throughout history had probably made an art of hiding from dragons.

  “We haven’t exactly figured it out either.” I leaned back in my seat as the waiter took our trays. “Is the tunnel entrance just near the lake or… is it possible it’s in the lake? There has to be a reason the alchemist chose that spot to lure the kraken to. Maybe I need to shop for SCUBA gear today.”

  Except that I didn’t know how to SCUBA dive, and the impression I’d always gotten was that it took instruction and some practice. Maybe I could free dive. I was a good swimmer and could hold my breath for a while.

  According to my searches, Lake Union was only fifty feet deep at its deepest point. Lots of spots were shallower. Swimming with my boots and weapons would be a pain in the ass, but it could be doable if I knew exactly where to go. Maybe I could find some bathymetry maps and make some guesses about where a tunnel entrance might be. There would have to be an airlock to keep water from flooding the tunnels, and the door would be magically hidden to keep mundane humans from noticing it. Would I be able to find it?

  I scratched my jaw. Was all this likely, or was I following a hunch down a rabbit hole? Maybe the alchemist simply came out on the beach at Gas Works Park and summoned the kraken from there.

  “Do people do that here?” Dimitri asked. “The water is really cold, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is, and yes, they do. In cozy warm wetsuits.”

  Out of curiosity, I searched for SCUBA rental outfits. There were a couple right by the lake. “Interesting. Wreck diving in Lake Union is a popular hobby. I didn’t know that. This says there are a whole bunch of old ships down on the bottom. Maybe one of them is on top of my theoretical entrance to the dark-elf lair.”

  My phone rang, and I jumped. It was Mom, so I hurried to answer. I’d tried calling her as soon as I’d woken up earlier but had gotten her machine again.

  “Hello?” I answered warily, afraid one of those agents might have gone back to her cabin and was using her phone.

  “It’s me. Are you all right?”

/>   “I’m fine, Mom. Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I hung out behind the trees on the top of the cliff, and I think they thought I’d disappeared for good. They left once they got their tires fixed. They did come back this morning, so I took off for a few hours, but they’re gone now, hopefully for good.”

  “They should all be up here chasing me now.”

  “Care to explain why?”

  “It’s a long story. Willard is being investigated too. I’m going to clear our names though. Is her cat all right?”

  Mom hesitated, but she decided not to question me further. “Maggie is doing fine. She’s claimed the loft and keeps knocking things over up there. Rocket can’t get up the ladder, so he barks at her to let her know how naughty she is. The last time he did, she pushed a book over the side and it almost whacked him on the nose. I’m positive that book was on a shelf in a bookcase, not on the floor. This cat isn’t magical, is it?”

  “No. Just obstreperous, from what I gather.”

  “Hm. She’s eating and doing fine, if you want to tell your boss.”

  An unexpected lump formed in my throat at the thought of the cat possibly not seeing her owner again. And of Willard possibly not seeing her cat again. I wished I’d brought Maggie by the hospital before I left town. I had no idea if that was allowed—probably not—but I should have done it anyway.

  “Thank you. Stay safe, Mom.”

  “I think I’m supposed to say that to you. Stay safe, and don’t let my roommate get in trouble either. He owes me his three hundred dollars next week.”

  I imagined government agents outside my apartment, police competing with dark elves to find me, and killer krakens swimming around in Lake Union. Somehow, I doubted staying safe was going to be a possibility for me. But I said, “I’ll try,” before hanging up.

  “Mom’s okay,” I said to Dimitri’s inquiring expression. “And you better drive back and sell some yard art. Your rent is due next week.”