by Kate Baray
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”
Jack stared at the screen on his laptop. “No. Shut up—I’m working.”
Marin smacked the steering wheel. “You’re a f—”
“Tscht.” Jack located the cell GPS coordinates on the map. He did some rapid topography comparisons. Bingo. On the far southern edge of one the areas. “North. Drive north.” If he bothered to listen, Jack was sure he’d hear the grinding of Marin’s teeth. “You didn’t seem this moody in your interview.”
“You weren’t quite this much of an ass.” Her nose twitched. “And I wanted the job.”
“Huh.” Jack turned back to the computer screen. “The cell is located in one of Charlotte’s favorite collection spots. We’ll hit that one first. Then we’ll move clockwise to catch the remaining two.”
“So if you know exactly where we’re going now, can you at least plug in the location on my GPS? I’d hate for Charlotte to have to sleep out in the woods a second night because we got lost.”
“I think we both know Charlotte didn’t wander off a trail and get lost in the woods.” Jack lifted up his hands defensively when Marin glowered in his direction. “Okay, I’m entering it already.”
Two minutes, three at most, and Marin said, “What’s the plan?”
“Already told you: we look for Charlotte, her car, her phone, or any other sign of her at the coordinates Chris gave me. No luck there, then we check the collection area. No luck there, then we check the next collection area.” Jack pulled Aunt Sylvia’s letters out of his back pocket. He angled his shoulders away from Marin, hoping she’d get the hint. He couldn’t work with her chattering in his ear. Maybe having a driver wasn’t actually worth it.
Fifteen minutes later, they rolled up on a blue Volvo station wagon parked under a tree on the side of the road—just about where the GPS coordinates were pointing. As Marin pulled up behind the Volvo, Jack said, “That’s close enough.”
Jack retrieved the fact sheet Calvin had emailed him as Marin and he had driven to Miersburg. It was a simple form with some standard questions: name, age, basic physical description, description of her car.
Marin grumbled unintelligibly to herself.
“What? Speak up.” Jack compared the license plate of the Volvo they’d found to the number provided by Calvin. “That’s it. That’s Charlotte’s car.” He turned to Marin. Her lips were thin. “What?”
“I can’t believe you’ve had a cheat sheet all day and didn’t mention it.”
“I emailed it to Calvin when he called this morning. You think I was just hanging out and drinking coffee all morning?” Jack moved to open his door, then paused. “You ready to try to catch Charlotte’s scent?”
Marin sighed. “Magical signature—not a bloodhound. But yeah, definitely.”
They exited Marin’s car, and Jack watched as Marin circled the car.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that Charlotte left her cell in her car?” Marin opened the car door. She gave Jack a concerned look. “Her unlocked car.”
Jack circled the car, looking in the windows. “We’re three side roads off the main highway. It’s a small town, and she knows everyone. She’s a trusting person. She likes to work uninterrupted by the outside world. She forgot—”
“Okay. I get it.” Marin leaned in, had a quick look around, and then backed out of the car with a dissatisfied look. “I suppose it makes sense an earth witch wouldn’t do a lot of magic in her car.”
“Not getting anything?” Jack opened the passenger-side door and sat down. He popped open the glove box. “Cell was in the glove box.” He lifted it up to show Marin, but she’d disappeared.
Scanning the roadside, he found her two hundred feet off the road, down what looked like a path. If she didn’t want the dog analogies, she shouldn’t run off like a freaking hound on a trail. He shrugged. He’d catch up if she didn’t check back in within a few minutes. He checked the battery on Charlotte’s phone—no password required—and found it low. He quickly flipped through the recent texts, but nothing jumped out and grabbed him. Phone calls were the same; all came from saved contacts and most were from her son and husband.
He climbed out of the Volvo to find a pissed-off dragon waiting.
“What kind of earth witch doesn’t do some kind of magic out in the middle of all this vegetation?” Marin swatted at a mosquito, then turned to Jack. “Do you have any bug spray?”
Jack tried to hide a smile, then decided he didn’t care and grinned. “City dragon, huh?”
“Sure, if that gets me some mosquito dope.” She scratched at her neck. “I’ve got nothing in this area.”
“That sucks, since it’s still light for at least a few hours. Don’t suppose you can do a flyover of the area in full light?”
“Hm. I can, actually. Seriously, where’s the bug spray?”
Jack rifled through his go bag and pulled out the Ziploc that contained his outdoor stash.
As she picked through the rub-on repellent, sunblock, and high-Deet-content bug spray, Marin looked like she’d hit gold. “Thank God.” She slathered her neck with the ointment. “Bugs love me.”
Jack shook his head. “Don’t you heal fast?”
“Sure. But bites itch. And the buzzing—ugh.” She generously doused herself and only after she was thoroughly covered did she answer his earlier question, “I have some ability to camouflage. If you’re looking for me, it doesn’t work—but out here? I don’t see why not.”
Jack searched through what little he knew about dragons, and he definitely couldn’t remember anything about camo.
Marin sighed. “We’re just like you guys; we don’t all have the same talents. My nose for magical signatures isn’t great, so I have to be pretty close. But it’s easier for me to get closer since I have some chameleon talent.”
Jack blinked at the bright blue summer sky and puffy white clouds. “Chameleon? As in sky-blue dragon?”
“Jesus, Jack. This is why we don’t talk about this shit. For all you know, my dragon form is baby blue.”
Jack turned to Marin’s car and plugged in Charlotte’s cell. “Okay, whatever.” He hated to be caught in what might be perceived as juvenile curiosity. But seriously—baby-blue dragons? He turned back just in time to catch his bag.
“So, I can carry a cell but can’t use it without landing. You’ll have to keep an eye on me for a general direction of travel, and I’ll call in what I find after I land. And you’ll have to attach the phone to my dragon self. If I carry it in my jeans pocket, it won’t work until I land. My phone and clothes stay with my human form.”
Jack blinked. Weird. But that was his superpower. He seemed to have an infinite capacity to accept the weird, the wondrous, and the unbelievable. “Okay. Where’s the best place? I’ve only ever seen one of you guys, and that wasn’t exactly up close and personal.”
“Forearm, probably.” Marin gave him a probing look. “You’re not going to freak?”
Jack didn’t bother to answer, just dug around in his bag. He had some paracord packed that should work. As he worked on a cradle for the phone, he reviewed the plan. “You change. I attach the phone. You follow a search grid to cover the wooded areas north and east of here.”
Marin nodded. “Got it. The entire area has to be less than a hundred acres. It won’t take me long.”
Holding up Marin’s phone, now cradled in paracord, Jack said, “Land and send me your search info, including your landing point, if you see anything. Then call in and I’ll meet you.”
“All right, already. Let’s get going.”
“You know, something out there might have harmed Charlotte.” Jack paused, waiting for some kind of reaction from Marin. Nothing. He tried his damnedest not to roll his eyes. “I’m saying be careful.”
“I get it. I’ll be fine.” Marin stepped away from the car, and then she was gone.
She was every color and none. Or, rather, the dragon resting on its haunches about ten feet away was. E
very hue of the rainbow seemed to glint off a silvery backdrop then fade into a shimmer of . . . nothing. Giant wings flexed, and Jack could see her outline. Not clearly, but the shape and the impression of movement were there.
I’M MORE CLEARLY VISIBLE IN MOTION.
Jack clutched his head. The voice—Marin’s voice—screamed. Stabbing pain pulsed through his brain. Several seconds later, he blew out a harsh breath. It took him another few seconds before he could speak. “Ow.”
The iridescent dragon shimmered into view, again fully visible. Her long, sinuous neck flexed, displaying a rainbow of colors. It took Jack a moment to realize she was ducking her head.
“Don’t tell me: that was an accident.”
Reptilian eyes blinked and a bony head dipped in a nod.
Jack closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. When he looked up again, Marin was smiling—probably. “Any chance you can try for a whisper?”
Another nod.
“And maybe not smile? All those teeth are distracting.”
Dragon teeth immediately disappeared.
Better? The voice in his head was thin, reedy.
“Yeah. Feel free to knock it up a half notch. Not one of your better talents, is it? The dragon mind-meld. Or whatever you call it.”
Giant reptilian eyes narrowed to slits. Mind speech. And I don’t suck; you’re my first human.
“And that’s finally just right, Goldilocks.” Jack lifted up the cell phone. “Am I okay to attach this?”
Dragon Marin lifted her left foreleg and tapped the ground.
“My, Grandma. What big claws you have.” Okay, maybe the dragon was making him a little nervous. That or he’d reached a new level of cheesiness for some other, unknown reason.
As he leaned down to attach the phone, Marin flexed her claws. His breath caught. “Seriously? Charlotte could be injured in the woods and you’re messing with me?”
She leaned down and huffed hot air in his face. Nice.
He smacked her leg. “Done. Let me grab my glasses before you take off.”
Returning with his field glasses and a small handheld GPS unit, he said, “All right. Whenever you’re ready.” He still wasn’t completely comfortable with Marin venturing off alone, given her lack of concern for the inherent risk. But he certainly felt better after he saw her flex her wings and take flight. Witnessing a dragon shove its massive body into the air using muscular haunches, straining wings, and will power was terrifying. He was pretty sure he could admit that without being a wimp.
While her takeoff had been a demonstration of brute force, watching Marin in flight was something else entirely. Graceful. Beautiful, even. Jack took his field glasses out. As soon as she’d taken off, she’d shimmered into what looked like nothingness, but her movement let him pick out her camouflaged form from the blue of the sky. He could even make her out when she was gliding, but just barely.
As Jack watched her circle the search area in a spiral pattern, he had to wonder: how exactly could dragons fly? Yes, her wingspan in mid-flight was truly an amazing sight. But her body must be roughly the size of an elephant. Even as long and strong as her wings clearly were, her flight was a physical impossibility. And yet he watched her skim the treetops. She’d claimed to be a thing of magic, and here was the evidence.
Marin’s abrupt descent interrupted his thoughts. Her head lifted and her rear fell, almost as if she was standing in the air, and then she dropped from his sight. Magic. He noted a landmark near where she’d landed, and used that to determine his heading. He saved his current location on his GPS, made a rough estimate of the distance, and entered a destination waypoint.
Jack grabbed a small daypack out of his bag and scrounged around for the essentials. He wasn’t going far and shouldn’t be long . . . but he also should have received a text and a call from Marin by now. Fuck. He shoved every magical gadget and doodad he’d brought with him into his pack. Except his warded glasses. He replaced his sunglasses with a pair of warded horn-rimmed glasses. With these on, he should be able to see any wards—any magic, actually—that was in the woods. Not nearly as functional in this environment as Marin’s magic signature detector, because the glasses were limited to line of sight. And, unlike the spell caster who’d warded the glasses, he couldn’t interpret what kind of magic he was seeing. Not yet. He was hoping that with some practice, he might figure that out.
Still nothing from Marin. He called and her phone rolled immediately to voicemail. Dammit. He stopped and drafted a quick email with a brief sketch of the situation. He paused before he hit send, but he didn’t have much choice. Someone needed to know what the hell was going on in Miersburg, Louisiana, if he didn’t manage to make his way out of the woods.
CHAPTER FIVE
Fifteen minutes of light hiking in the woods, and Jack remembered with painful clarity how much he hated snakes. Every downed tree he climbed over, every sweep of knee-high grass he waded through, gave him the creeps. It wasn’t like he had an actual phobia, but he wasn’t ashamed to admit that snake gaiters and decent hiking boots took the edge off and made outings in the snake-infested outdoors less nerve-racking. Only, he’d left his freaking gaiters at home.
“What the fuck?” Jack scrambled backward, almost tripping.
The brown snake he’d startled disappeared into the grass.
Jack closed his eyes and counted to ten. He hated fucking snakes. His eyes popped open. What the hell was a brown snake doing out in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer? Just what he needed: suspicious snake behavior in the middle of the woods, where his dragon and his client had disappeared. Jack checked his GPS and then entered a small clearing, trying to push the thought of a freak snake attack out of his mind. His scalp was still crawling when he spotted the crushed grass impression of what must have been Marin’s landing spot.
Jack scanned the clearing for her exit point. He found it, but the crushed grass trail out of the clearing had definitely been made by a very human, two-legged Marin. Why hadn’t she called in when she landed? No signal in the clearing? He checked his phone and found four of five bars visible. He dialed Marin’s number, and again got her voicemail. At least his cell was working.
“You’re getting this message because I’m pissed and can’t yell at you in person. If you get this message before I get to you, call me. Immediately.” Jack pocketed his phone.
Maybe the phone had dislodged mid-flight. Given the spiraling flight path Marin had taken, no way would he be able to rule out that possibility by finding her phone. But she should have had the sense to stay in place at the clearing once she’d landed and found her phone gone.
If he found her in one piece, he might take her up on that offer of hand-to-hand that she’d made yesterday. As pissed as he was, he might just beat her.
Jack grunted in annoyance and pushed up the warded glasses that had slid down his sweaty nose. And there it was. Not plainly visible, just a faint outline of a shadow that wasn’t quite a shadow. He let the glasses slide down his nose and peered over the top of them: no shadow.
Jack fixed the glasses firmly in place and followed the dark outline. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see where it transected Marin’s path exiting the clearing. She’d passed directly through what might possibly be a ward. Certainly, the shadowy edge was magic. Had she walked through it, unaware? Or had she used her particular dragon skill of avoiding wards and “unexisted” herself to the other side?
As Jack contemplated his options, a scraggly rabbit darted through the clearing and disappeared behind that shadowy line. Jack dipped his head to catch sight of the rabbit with unaltered vision over the top of his warded glasses. But it was gone. Not hidden in tall grass or brush, just gone.
Well, that ruled out one possibility. He couldn’t follow Marin’s path through that smudge of magic, because who knew where he’d end up. Or what happened to whatever—whoever—crossed that line. How the hell had his ward-hopping dragon not seen it?
; Keeping a minimum of ten feet away from the shadow line, Jack followed the edge. It didn’t take long for him to notice the curve of the shadow’s edge. He checked his GPS tracks and saw he’d managed to traverse an almost perfect half-circle. It looked like about a half-acre, assuming the circle continued. He tried not to jump to conclusions, but it was looking like this little bubble had trapped Marin, whether she’d stumbled into it or ward-hopped through the barrier.
Jack was less than fifty feet away from where, he suspected, the dark shadow of magic he’d been following completed a circle. The oddly dark shading of the magic, the disappearing rabbit, the circular barrier, and two disappearances: the whole situation reeked of a trap. He had no clue how he was getting inside, and he’d almost completed his sweep of the perimeter. Jack started to run through a list of backup resources—he wouldn’t need them, but just in case—when an object hit him hard on the ass. He quickly scanned the area, looking for a threat. He found sunlight, a few birds, and a bold squirrel who appeared to be scolding him.
Looking at the squirrel, Jack muttered, “Don’t suppose you just nailed me with a nut?”
The squirrel chittered in response and ran up the tree he’d been clinging to. Jack turned his attention to the ground, looking for whatever it was that had hit him. And there it was. He picked up a phone wrapped in a bright yellow OtterBox case about four feet behind him. Marin’s phone. No way he’d missed that as he’d walked the shadow’s edge. He shoved his glasses up his nose and gave the phone a solid inspection. Determining it magic-free, he squatted down and flipped the thing over so the screen was face up.
A smile slowly spread over Jack’s face. “Brilliant.” He picked up the phone and stood up before he read the message on the screen.
Charlotte found alive & well. Trapped in warded bubble powered by death magic. Do NOT cross ward. Can see & hear you. Need water. Have shelter. No clue how to leave. C & I maybe not alone in bubble. Marin
Water was simple enough. He had a bladder in his pack and a bottle of water. He removed the bladder and chucked it with some force through the shadow barrier. The small bottle he kept for himself for now.