by J. A. Pitts
I pulled into a slot in the middle of the parking lot, across from a rent-to-own place. Qindra pulled in beside me in a subdued gray-and-black ragtop Miata. Very stylish, in a cute girl way.
She didn’t close the top. “Not worth it,” she said. “Besides, no one messes with my ride.”
“If you say so.”
She smiled at me, flashing a set of perfect teeth, and nodded to the bar. “Best damn martinis in the city. If you like that sort of thing.”
“I’m more of a beer gal,” I said, following her in.
The place wasn’t smoky, since that was illegal these days, but it stank of old cigarettes and sour beer. Not a bar in the world that didn’t have that amazing underlying stench. On top of that, however, was a wicked odor of cooked beef and something sweet and tart. I couldn’t place the smell, but my stomach told me I’d had enough to eat at Carl’s.
We stopped at the bar, ordered our drinks, and took them to the back. Place was nearly empty. An older couple, forties maybe, sat at the bar hitting on each other halfheartedly.
Near the door to the kitchen an old Asian woman sat nursing a cup of coffee. She had on a stained apron, likely the cook. She didn’t look at us as we walked past her.
We dropped our drinks on a table. Beer for me, and a dirty martini for Qindra—extra olives. She smiled at me, pulling the olives off the skewer with her teeth.
“You play darts?” she asked.
There were three boards along the back wall.
“I’m sure I can manage it,” I said.
“Good,” she said, walking back to the bar.
I took a sip of my microbrew and watched her as the bartender handed her two sets of darts. Real things, it turned out, metal tips.
I think I’d thrown darts at a cousin’s as a kid. Not a real memorable experience. Ended in someone crying, bleeding, things broken, whuppings all around.
“It’s easy,” Qindra said to me. “You hold the dart by the barrel like this.” She held one up so I could see. “The vanes here, or fletching, help stabilize it in flight.”
“Yeah, I get the general concept.”
“Cool.”
We threw three games. She kept some sort of score, apparently, and I ended up buying the second round of drinks.
I think she hustled me, but it held my attention.
Too many rules for my liking. Something about hitting certain sections of the board, not just the bull’s-eye. I thought it was all about the center. Go figure.
“You totally suck,” she said, walking back to our table. “Stick to blacksmithing.”
She was smiling and laughing as she said it, so I didn’t get mad. Mostly.
“Good plan,” I said, pulling my chair around backward and sitting in it with my chest against the tall back. “Besides the darts and the olives … just why are we here?”
“I think we have more in common than you may think,” she said.
I couldn’t pick out the genetic features in her face, but she was damn pretty. Knew it, too. She wasn’t exactly arrogant about it, but she used her looks as naturally as breathing.
Not really in my league. I glanced down at my boots and jeans, then over at her expensive suit and very nice heels.
“If you want to talk to me about your religion, or want me to sell some form of soap product as a member of your club, I’m really not interested.”
She shook her head. “Always the smart-ass, huh, Sarah?”
I shrugged. “Can’t fight nature.”
She just smiled at that and waited, like she was expecting something from me, but I didn’t call this little meeting. Really only one reason I could figure we were here, so why not jump into the deep end of the pool? “Why is Nidhogg interested in little ole me?”
“Interesting.” Qindra took a healthy drink of her second martini, keeping her eyes on me. When she set the glass on the table, she toyed with it, wetting her finger and running it around the lip of the glass.
“I know you have trouble controlling your anger,” she said finally. “I’m not sure if this is something new for you, or what?” She looked at me, expecting an answer.
“I’ve been a hothead most of my life,” I said truthfully. Da would agree.
“I thought perhaps it had something to do with that sword you made.”
I took a long sip of my beer. “I make lots of swords. You may want to be more specific.”
She sighed. “There is really only one blade we can be discussing.” She leveled her gaze at me. “Something Jean-Paul was willing to break compact over. A blade that Frederick Sawyer was willing to play his hand for…” She paused, watching me for a reaction. “It is not beyond their kind to covet something, to desire it above all other things.”
“Yeah. You work for some charming people.”
She held up one finger. “I am beholden to only Nidhogg.”
Great. Like that was different. “Fine, you and the oldest dragon of them all. I feel so much better.”
“You are too young to understand,” she said, dismissing my comment. “You were not raised to serve them, as I was.”
Raised to serve them? Was that any different from what Da did? Raising me to serve his dear and fluffy lord? But I had free will, after all. Didn’t Qindra?
“My mother served Nidhogg before me,” she said. “As did her mother’s sister. It does not always follow the parent, but it does follow the blood.”
“Follow the blood? Servitude?”
She shook her head. “No. Not exactly. We all serve someone, in some way. Surely you understand that much about the world.”
“There may be those to whom I allow my allegiance,” I said. “Friends, family, country, that sort of thing. But I don’t serve baby killers.”
“Always with the drama, eh Sarah?” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. “You share a lot in common with them. There is a light inside you that reminds me of them in a way.”
“I’m no dragon,” I said. Right? How could I be?
She laughed. “Of course not. They are rare and powerful, but they are not so easily hidden to those who watch for such.”
Those who watch? Did Nidhogg fear another dragon in her territory? Was that why she was so quick to stick it to Sawyer? Beyond the tit-for-tat politics of rival predators, maybe there was more here.
“No, you are not one of the scaled ones.” She was openly curious. “Nor do I believe you are one of the elder gods, returned to set my mistress afright.”
I was impressed, frankly. She was talking to me as if I was in the know—one of the in-crowd.
“Maybe,” I said, “I’m just a blacksmith who happens to have been in the wrong place at the right time.”
“Perhaps.”
Just perhaps. I didn’t like the level of scrutiny she was giving me. Hell, at this point I wasn’t sure why I had come here at all. As a matter of fact, this whole thing was starting to stink like bad cheese. I’m not the same as them.
“You serve them; you are complicit in their crimes.”
She nodded once. “Alas, you are correct. I have many crimes to atone for,” she said. “Things you would find unsettling in your immature view of the world.”
“Immature?”
“Oh, Sarah. You understand immature: childish, churlish, infantile.” Her grin was Cheshire in magnitude.
Now she was just pissing me off. I sat back, trying to keep the anger tamped down, making ready to stand. “Thanks for the dart lesson.” I said through gritted teeth. I stood and walked around the table, counting slowly in my head.
She was testing me. Looking for a weakness, a chink in my armor. I was really in no mood to play.
“How’s Katie?” she asked.
I whirled around, slammed one hand onto the table, and leaned into her personal space. “None of your fucking business.” She didn’t even flinch.
“I think something happened to you when you fixed that blade,” she said. “I know somehow you found a sword that had been broken an
d fixed it. My mistress had several bad nights around that time. Around the time you met the dwarf, Rolph Brokkrson. Around the time that Frederick Sawyer became entangled in Flight Test and the same time that Jean-Paul began nosing around Seattle looking for something that upset my mistress.”
Her breath smelled of gin and olives, but it wasn’t exactly unpleasant. We were practically nose to nose, and I could feel my pulse pounding in my ears.
I looked into her eyes, saw how startlingly clear they were, and pulled back, letting my anger ebb.
“I thought you were going to kiss me for a moment,” she said, standing up. “I think your passions run high, and you do not know why.”
What the hell?
She opened her purse and took out a card. “I think you need therapy,” she said. “But if you want to talk about anything, give me a call. I may not be as awful a person as you have painted in your head.”
She grabbed my hand and placed the card in the palm. I watched her face as she dragged her manicured nails across my palm.
“There are things in this world you should know,” she said. “Dragons are not the worst thing that has happened to the world. Maybe, if you delved into the history of things, you would understand that perhaps they are the lesser of two evils.”
“They kill people, eat them, ruin lives, and dominate people,” I said, crushing the card in my fist. “They hunt us and manipulate us, keeping us like herd animals, branded and culled for their individual needs.”
She slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder and shook her head slowly. “Sarah. It is a small price to pay for the lives most of us live.”
“Death before tyranny,” I said. “Better to die free than live in their shadow.”
“Willful ignorance is unbecoming in someone such as you,” she said. “There are those out there, cloistered groups, who study the world as it truly is. They know the depredation of dragons, and they chronicle the comings and goings of forces greater than either of us have ever known.”
She was pretty damn powerful as far as I was concerned. I’d seen her blow up a helicopter by scratching a painted rune off one of her fingernails, releasing the stored magic. And I’d felt her voice in my head, blocking the berserker in me.
“And I should find one of these groups and learn the truth?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling again. “You should. I believe your friends may have an inkling where to start.”
I studied her for deception, watched her face for malice or contempt. But there was none there. She was a blank slate.
“I honestly mean you no ill will,” she said quietly. “You are a wild card, Sarah Jane Beauhall. A powerful woman who cannot understand her place in the world.”
She had me there. “Life’s a bitch; then you die.”
She smiled. “Not always,” she said, letting the smile slip from her face. “Maybe that has been the greatest sin.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
She looked at me, considering. “There is a thought that perhaps the wheel is broken.”
A shock ran through me. Odin had said those words to me, spoken them to me in a dream.
“What wheel? Why is it broken?”
“Perhaps it has been hubris after all,” she said, her eyes unfocused.
I’m not even sure she was talking to me anymore.
“There are those who believe with the wheel broken, our world will drown in decay. I believe this is what haunts my mistress. I am afraid this is our downfall.”
“But, what wheel? Is this something we can fix?”
She focused on me again. “It is something to consider,” she said, letting the smile return to her face. “Perhaps that is your calling, my friend. Is it possible it is you who will right the wheel?”
“Me? I can barely take care of myself.”
She shrugged. “You have been granted knowledge few hold. I believe that you are someone with extraordinary gifts. Even if you do not see them.”
“Gifts?” I asked. “I didn’t want any of this. The price has been too high.”
She patted me on the arm. “It is often those who have greatness thrust upon them who protest the loudest. Not all gifts have strings, Sarah. Not all causes are equal. Take care.”
She strode away then, not looking back. She was impressive, that one. Sexy as hell, all the right parts in the right places, but she exuded power like no one I’d met.
I grubbed around in my pocket, pulled out a five, and dropped it on the table. She’d already left a twenty without my seeing her put it down, but I wasn’t letting her cover my portion.
The night was black by the time I headed to my car. My head was swimming. Part of me liked Qindra. She was fun to hang out with, funny, smart, and definitely easy on the eyes. But, I had to keep reminding myself: she was the mouth of Nidhogg. People died at her command.
Or so I assumed. Hell, I only knew Frederick Sawyer and Jean-Paul, and them only at a cursory level. Maybe Nidhogg wasn’t like the others. Maybe the female dragons were benevolent. The male dragons were right bastards so far, but we humans weren’t all alike by any means.
I drove home, thinking of how little I really knew about any of this. I needed someone with better intelligence. Katie would tell me anything, but she didn’t seem to have all the accurate facts.
Jimmy, likely. He, Stuart, and Gunther had those weapons they wanted hidden from the dragons. I guess it was time I pushed them for some answers. Any second now. Yep, I’m gonna jump right on that.
Or, I’d keep finding ways to avoid them. That was the more likely scenario for now.
Eighteen
Jimmy, Gunther, and Stuart huddled in the bunker, working at a table under the dragon map. Gunther tucked a jeweler’s monocle against his eye and examined the etched sigil on the stone. Jimmy and Stuart looked on, each having had their turn at the ring previously.
“It is hard to decipher,” he agreed. “It is definitely a monogram of some sort, identifying the family this gem belonged to.” He picked up the ring and held it up to the light, eschewing the monocle. “The fire does dance in it, though.”
Stuart sat back, rubbing his eyes. “Definitely dwarven. Probably magic in some form.”
“Possible,” Jimmy said, standing. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to use this to contact someone, hide it, use it for payment, or what?”
Gunther set the ring down and smiled at the two of them. “No use speculating. What you really need to do is decipher the note that accompanied it. Speculation rarely bears sweet fruit.”
Stuart grunted, but didn’t disagree.
Jimmy walked to a tall cabinet and pulled out a small wooden writing desk, placing it on the table between them. “I’ve been working on this,” he said. “I believe it is a cross between the Aquincum cipher found in the notes of Marcus Aurelius and a mathematical skip pattern involving a key I can’t determine.”
The three of them studied the page. “I could see if I can get some time on the Cray over at the university,” Stuart offered. “Translate it from the Latin and then work the numeric transposition?”
“Worth a shot,” Gunther said. “Save us getting lucky.”
Jimmy sighed. “This shouldn’t be so hard.”
Gunther laughed. “Jim. If it was easy, it would be pretty damn useless as a code, don’t you think?”
“But if my father wrote the code, he didn’t need to decipher it. Who was this meant for?”
“You, of course,” Stuart said, slapping the table. “I bet the key is some combination of your social security number, birthday, or something. He had to know you’d need help one day, after he was gone.”
Jimmy looked at Stuart, his eyebrows high on his forehead. “Birthday? Soc number? Seriously?” He leaned in toward Gunther and whispered loudly for effect. “Remind me to visit his computer at work.”
Gunther grinned.
“Hardy, har, har,” Stuart said, shaking his head back and forth. “I just meant it would probably be something perso
nal to you, ya know? Something he said or did that would trigger a recollection.”
“Wait,” Jimmy cried. He pounded up the stairs, whooping.
“I guess he knows what it is,” Gunther said, grinning.
“Ya think?”
After a few minutes, Jimmy came strolling down the stairs, flipping through an old Boy Scouts manual. In the margins on the page with constellations, there was a note scribbled in his own childish hand.
“Dad and I were out camping, around the time Katie was born. I’d complained that she was gonna chew up my toys, and generally make my life miserable.”
The twins smirked at him.
“Anyway, he took me out and taught me to find the North Star. Said it was critical to understand how to find your way in the wilderness. We found the North Star, and he showed me how to determine our longitude and latitude that night. I wrote it in the margins. He told me it would save my life someday.”
“Even with that, this is not going to be easy,” Stuart said, looking at the paper. “Could take us weeks.”
“That’s been hidden away for years,” Gunther said. “No reason to rush now. We’ll just take our time and do it right.”
“What about the other two statues?” Jimmy asked. “Maybe I should break into those, too. See what we find.”
Gunther studied him a moment. “You handled each of them, right?”
Jimmy nodded.
“And this is the one you picked, the one that spoke to you in the moment.”
“Sure.”
“Did your father leave you instructions to these?”
“Just this.” He got up and pulled a small cigar box off a tall cabinet. He set it on the table in front of them and opened the lid. Inside were odds and ends: marbles, jacks, two magnets, and a broken yo-yo. Taped to the inside of the box was a handwritten note.
“He told me that if I ever got into trouble to look to my treasures.” He took up the marbles and rolled them in one hand. The scritch of glass scraping on glass drove a chill through the room. “When they went missing in Iceland, I was at college, but this was still in my room, hidden under my bed. I hadn’t thought about it for years, but he knew it was there, knew I’d find it when I needed it.”