“Next time?” Willard didn’t watch as Zoltan set up the IV. I watched, making sure there were no vampire shenanigans. “Are you seeing him regularly? This sounds like the start of a relationship.”
“It’s a long story. He wants to use me for bait to help catch the criminals he’s after here on Earth.”
“Do you have a favorite song yet? A place to make out? Do I need to book a wedding on my calendar?”
“You’re hilarious for a mortally ill person.”
“I’m always hilarious.”
“That’s not what your neighbor said. He thought you were a humorless drill sergeant.”
“You have to be appropriately firm with young people.”
“That should do it.” Zoltan left the IV draining into her vein and returned to put his equipment away and fold up his table.
“What exactly is it doing?” Willard asked.
“Removing the magical triggers embedded in your system that told the DNA in your replicating cells to unravel while refusing to obey their programming for apoptosis,” Zoltan said. “You’ll still need your conventional treatment to get rid of what’s there, but it should be much more effective now. I also used a drop of the dragon blood to mix into a potent immune system enhancer. The dragon blood alone would fill you with youthful vigor. If I had more of it, I would be tempted to hook up an IV for myself.”
“Can vampires feel youthful vigor?” I asked.
“The better the quality of the blood we consume, the better we feel.”
Willard prodded my arm. “This is the same reason I always tell you to eat organic.”
“You and my mom would get along great.”
“I’ll see myself out.” Zoltan picked up his suitcase and started to open the door but lurched back, crying out in distress. He pinned Sindari with a disapproving look. “The lights are back on.”
I didn’t do it, Sindari told me.
If there’s nobody out there, would you mind turning them off again?
It’s a long hallway, and I’m past the time I should be returned to my realm.
A service animal would do it. And bring a couple of beers back on the way.
Funny. Sindari padded into the hallway, and it soon grew dark.
Zoltan, mumbling something about his burned retinas, walked out.
I texted Dimitri. If the vampire comes back to your van, will you drive him home?
Without you?
I want to stay and keep an eye on Willard.
It’s a good thing Nin let me borrow one of her weapons. I was hesitant to take it, but now I’m glad I did. I’m not convinced the cervical collar is enough to save me.
I’m not either. Carry whatever weapon she gave you in your lap.
Actually, it’s on my finger. It’s a pistol ring.
Is that more manly than it sounds?
No, but she wasn’t willing to lend me the submachine gun since I only had forty dollars for a deposit and she doesn’t take credit cards. She promises it packs a big punch though.
You can trust her. But make sure to take pictures if you have to use it. I snorted, imagining a pistol ring on one of Dimitri’s big sausage fingers.
It was only after Zoltan and Dimitri were gone that I remembered the notebook I’d taken from the dark-elf laboratory. I assumed it was written in that special alchemical language of theirs and that Zoltan was the only one around who could read it. I wished I’d thought to ask him to take a look. Oh, well. He hadn’t needed it to concoct Willard’s formula. If I saw him again, I would ask him about it. It was probably just a recipe book, but one never knew.
“Feeling any better?” I waved at the nearly empty IV bag.
“I’m not sure,” Willard said, “but my veins are tingling.”
“That must be the dragon blood. Zav is…” I groped for a way to explain the electricity of having his aura nearby. “Tingly.”
“Tingly?” Willard raised her eyebrows. “When the wedding invitations come, make sure you spell my name right.”
“Ha ha. I don’t even know your first name.”
“Good.”
She lay back and closed her eyes. I dismissed Sindari for a night of rest, then pulled up a chair for myself.
Epilogue
“I must admit, I didn’t think you’d be back,” Mary said.
“It’s been a rough week.” I sat in her chair—this time, she had it turned so the back didn’t face the door—and looked out on the sun beaming down on the lake.
From here, the sinkhole in Eastlake wasn’t visible, but recent news reports promised that construction crews were working around the clock to fix it. The media hadn’t mentioned dark elves, statues made from bones, or upturned vats of blood, but a few citizen reports had made it onto the various social networks. The Loch Ness monster—now the Lake Union monster—was being blamed even though the damage was several blocks inland. Tourists and locals were flocking to the sinkhole for closer looks, and the police were busy shooing them away. Nobody had tried to arrest me. I kept expecting it, but maybe Willard had pulled some strings.
To my surprise, only a couple of people had posted footage of a black dragon in the night sky, and all of it was blurry. There was an argument in the comments section of one video about whether it was a dragon or a UFO streaking chemtrails over Seattle to poison us all.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mary asked.
“Not specifically, but maybe we could look at some ink blots or something.”
She snorted. “We don’t use those anymore.”
“You’re disappointing my preconceptions.”
“So sorry. Do you want to talk about your family this time?”
I bit down on my instinct to say no. If I wanted to figure out how to master my stress and get healthier—and make sure my new weaknesses weren’t a liability when fighting bad guys—I had to take this seriously. And probably all the other stuff my doctor had recommended too. Yoga. Deep breathing. Meditation. I wanted to gag, but I would try it all. I had to try. I couldn’t afford to have weaknesses.
“Sure,” I made myself say.
“Good.”
I let myself talk about my daughter and admitted that I didn’t like the distance I’d created, but after so many years, I didn’t know how to fix it. Besides, nothing had changed as far as my job went. It was still dangerous to know me, or even stand next to me. I wondered if Mary would one day be used against me, and a half hour into the session, I felt more bleak instead of better.
A honk came from the street below the window. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but my phone buzzed. Mary frowned at the interruption when I checked it and lurched to my feet.
“I’ll be right back. You can keep billing me.”
I ran down the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator and burst out onto the sunny sidewalk. Corporal Clarke, one of the army couriers who occasionally delivered orders and physical materials to Willard’s office, stood next to a black Jeep almost identical to the one I’d lost. It was newer than the one I’d lost.
“Ms. Thorvald? This is for you, from Colonel Willard.” He waved at the Jeep and handed me an envelope.
Pleasure spread through me for more reasons than my fondness for Clarke’s Jamaican accent.
“She said to show you the manual, PMCS forms, and mileage log, and to make sure you know it’s a government loaner until you replace your personal vehicle. Or until a dragon hurls it into a tree.” His dark eyes twinkled. Clarke had always been someone I could sense coming, so I was certain he had a magical ancestor.
“Are you supposed to know about the details of my missions?”
“I’m the courier. I know everything.”
“You’re a corporal. Corporals rarely know how to find their asses in the dark.”
“I’m special, ma’am. And my ass practically glows.” The eyes twinkled again. Definitely magical blood. Probably fae.
“Colonel Willard isn’t back at work already, is she?”
“St
ill receiving treatment, but she’s doing better. I witnessed her issuing orders briskly over the phone while blowing open a scandal that… will be classified, so I’m supposed to pretend not to know about it.”
I imagined a pit-bull version of Willard taking a chomp out of General Nash’s ass—I was sure his didn’t glow—and approved, even if Willard should be resting.
“Much like with dragons hurling Jeeps into trees?”
“That’s right. Colonel Willard also said to inform you that your name has been cleared with the police, and you’re back on the job. You can expect new assignments soon.”
I wanted to hug him. No, I wanted to hug Willard. But now that she was on the mend, she’d probably go back to barking orders and being terse with me, no touching between colleagues. And that was fine with me.
“Here you go.” Clarke tossed me the keys, waved at the binder on the seat, and headed to a waiting car that looked a lot like the one I’d borrowed from Lieutenant Sudo.
“Corporal. Is that Sudo’s vehicle?”
“Not anymore.” He smirked over his shoulder. “He’s been reassigned to South Korea, up near the DMZ.”
“Has he? That’s a shame.”
“The shame is mostly that he didn’t clean his vehicle before dropping it off at the motor pool. There was weird cat and dog hair all over the inside.”
“That is weird.”
I clasped my hand around the keys, tempted to take the new Jeep for a spin. But Mary was waiting for me to return for the second half of my therapy session. If Willard was contemplating new assignments for me, I needed to get as healthy as possible as soon as possible.
As I walked back toward the building, the twang of a familiar aura plucked at my senses. High above, almost indistinguishable from an airplane, a black dragon flew over the city.
I needed to get as healthy as possible for a lot of reasons.
THE END
The adventure continues in Book 2, Battle Bond.
Afterword
Thank you for giving the first Death Before Dragons novel a try! I hope you had fun spending time with these characters. If you’re ready to read more, you can order your copy of Battle Bond (Book 2) now.
If you enjoyed Sinister Magic and want to see many more installments in this series, I would appreciate it if you took the time to post a review. The more people reading and reviewing the books, the more dragons that are likely to come to Earth to pester Val!
(Don’t tell her I said that, please. She has a really big sword, and Sindari likes to gnaw off people’s feet.)
Bonuses
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Right now, I’m working on a series of scenes from Zav’s point of view that will let us see what he’s thinking during some of these interactions with Val. There’s also an interview with Sindari (which he says is far more important than anything about dragons). Lastly, when you sign up, you’ll get Beginnings, a bundle of Book 1s from four of my completed fantasy series:
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Sinister Magic: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 1) Page 26