Home > Mist and Magic (Death Before Dragons #0.5)(11)

Mist and Magic (Death Before Dragons #0.5)(11)
Author: Lindsay Buroker

“Have you learned anything about Michael yet?”

That meant she hadn’t heard anything. I regretted answering.

“I have a couple of leads I’m investigating.”

“That means no, right?” She sounded frustrated and cranky.

Probably tired and worried, I told myself, trying to see things from her side. Julie and I had never gotten along because she thought I was the bad influence who’d lured Michael away from his solid finance job, but that wasn’t true. His family had pressured him into that career, and he’d hated it. If it hadn’t been treasure hunting, it would have been something else. Something they didn’t approve of.

“I got the address that was in the dead ogre’s pocket translated,” I said. “I’m heading to Bellingham to check it out.”

Google Maps had laughed at me when I’d tried to click for a street view of Misty Loop Lane. None of their camera cars had ever ambled down it to take photos. The best I’d been able to tell from the satellite view was that it was a dirt road. I hadn’t spotted any caves or castles along it and hoped I wasn’t going on a wild goose chase.

“Bellingham? Who kidnaps someone and takes them to Bellingham?”

“I don’t know, Julie. I’ll call you when I find him.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

I wanted to end the conversation so I could focus on driving—if anything, the rain was getting worse—but I didn’t want to snap at her. “Not unless you can get his phone unlocked and it holds all his secrets.”

“The phone carrier said the only way to unlock it is to reset it.”

At which point, his secrets would be gone. If they were on there at all. I had a feeling his biggest secret was sleeping on my passenger seat.

The cub was so quiet that I reached over to touch her and make sure she was still breathing. It seemed impossible that such a young vibrant being could be in danger of dying, but if she truly didn’t belong in this world and weakened the longer she was in it…

My throat tightened up with emotion. I’d barely known the cub for a full night and day, but I didn’t want to see her die.

She barely stirred at my touch, but she was still breathing. That was something.

“I’ll let you know if I learn anything new,” I said.

“Good. You better… I hope he doesn’t…” Julie’s own throat sounded tight with emotion.

I was worried about Michael, too, but I was good at my job, and I believed I could find him, so I hadn’t yet started to think of the possibility that I wouldn’t. Or that I would be too late.

“He wouldn’t know about any of this stuff if it weren’t for you,” Julie said, the accusation hanging in the air.

“I know.”

I’d never tried to deny that. One of the reasons we’d broken up was the same reason I’d broken up with my ex-husband. The bad guys that I hunted down and killed tended to have brothers or sisters—or pack- or clan-mates—who came after me and tried to avenge their deaths. More than one innocent bystander had been taken out by drive-by shooters that had been aiming at me. That was horrifying enough, and a guilt I lived with every day, but the idea of losing someone I cared deeply for that way…

Julie hung up.

The rain pounding on the Jeep’s soft top sounded like hail. Or bullets. My headlights barely pierced the water gushing from the sky, and I started to envision cows out on the interstate and how I’d never see them in time to swerve or stop. Wind railed at the doors, and I finally gave up and pulled over to the side of the highway to wait for the rain to abate. I wouldn’t do Michael any good if I ran off the road and died in a crash in some farmer’s field. Or in their cow repository. I snorted at the goblin’s words, but at least he’d given me intelligence on the cub.

As the rain kept hammering down, I leaned my head back on the rest and closed my eyes, thinking I should have waited until morning to leave.

But Willard was already up there, possibly getting herself in trouble, and Michael was…

“Where are you, Michael?” I murmured.

A stack of bills sat on the table in front of me, payment for the completion of my last assignment. My focus was on the golden liquid in the mug in front of me. It had started out in a shot glass, but that had been insufficient for my needs.

My front door opened, and I had Fezzik out and pointing at it before the intruder walked in. It was Michael.

I lowered the weapon to the table. “Some people knock before they barge into people’s houses.”

“This is a studio apartment with a view of a brick wall, not a house, and I figured you’d welcome my entrance, given the triumphant success of our last rendezvous.” He wriggled his eyebrows, unconcerned that he could have ended up with a bullet in his chest. Or maybe he trusted that my reflexes were better than that.

“The last time we rendezvoused, we had sex in the Jeep.”

“Triumphantly.”

I grunted, far less ebullient over it. The gear shift had made me second-guess our choice that night numerous times.

Michael closed the door and ambled over to sit opposite me at the table, resting a thick book next to Fezzik’s muzzle. “Nice wad of cash.”

“I got paid for the Bellevue Bandit.”

“The Bellevue Bandit who kept murdering the people in the meat-packing plants he was robbing?”

“He won’t be murdering anyone else.”

“That’s good. Was he a shifter?”

“A troll with some magic to mask himself. If Hobbs hadn’t brought in someone who could see through that—” I tapped my chest, “—the troll might have gone on evading the law.”

“So, you were key to stopping crime. Again.” Michael grinned. “Why do you look so glum? And what are you drinking? That looks more concentrated than your usual poison.” He waved to a six-pack of hard cider resting on the counter by the fridge.

“Applejack.”

“Very colonial. I’m sure George Washington would have approved.”

“If you mock my drink, there will be no sex tonight.”

“I thought that was already off the table, given that you greeted me with a gun and a glower.”

“Isn’t that how I usually greet you?”

“I suppose it is. Yet I’m here anyway.” He flashed another grin. “You’re lucky to have me.”

“Yeah.” I sipped from the mug and set it back down. “The troll bandit had a kid. A whole community of trolls that he was providing for. I tracked him back to them, confronted him, and killed him. He was still wearing the shirt with his last victim’s blood on it, so there was no questioning his guilt, but… I wish his family hadn’t been watching.”

“Maybe if he had a family, he shouldn’t have been murdering the people he stole from.”

“He was a berserker troll—temper more explosive than fire ants crawling up your leg. I’m not sure he meant to kill people, but when he got backed into a corner…” I shrugged, wrestling with my feelings over the day. “Hobbs wanted his head. I brought in his head. He wouldn’t have been backed into corners if he hadn’t been thieving.”

“So that should be a celebratory drink rather than a drowning-your-sorrows drink.” Michael arched his eyebrows. “Right?”

“Yeah. I just keep seeing the kid. And wondering if he’ll try to come hunt me down someday.”

“How old was he?”

Another shrug. “Six or seven maybe. It’s hard to tell with trolls.”

“You’ve got at least six years before he’ll be able to threaten you with more than a slingshot.”

“Maybe.”

Michael scrutinized me, maybe guessing that this wasn’t the only thing contributing to my glum mood. Every time I made a new enemy, I worried that it would be as likely to come back to haunt him as me. Was I being selfish by allowing myself the comfort and camaraderie of a relationship?

“How’s Thad? And Amber?” Michael was the only person who knew about my business and the magical community and who also knew about my previous life. Or maybe it was more appropriate to call it my interim life.

I’d met and married Thad in the army, and we’d had Amber after getting out, at which point I’d vowed to settle down and lead a normal life, not be anyone’s hired killer. I’d gotten as far as taking business classes from U-Dub, envisioning some future where I balanced books and helped Thad with his software company. Then an influx of magical refugees had come to Seattle, murders had skyrocketed, the police had been flummoxed by their mystical powers, and I’d made the choice to return to this work. As a freelancer this time—not some obedient soldier—able to call my own shots and continue to be a mom and a wife. Or so I’d thought.

Until the night a pack of werewolves, angry that I’d taken out one of their buddies, tracked me down at my house. They hadn’t cared that he’d been a criminal. They’d come for me anyway. Out in the street in front of our suburban house, I’d fought off six werewolves and nearly died.

Thad and Amber had slept through it all. I was glad they had, glad that I’d been awake and sensed the shifters approaching before they’d lobbed the grenades they’d carried through the bedroom windows.

The next week, I’d left. It had been hard to walk away, to file divorce papers, but I’d realized that I couldn’t have a normal life and a family and also be an assassin. I’d had to choose. Years later, I wasn’t positive I’d made the right choice, but I did know that a lot of people were alive today who would have otherwise been dead if I hadn’t stayed in the business. This was what I’d been trained to do, what I had the blood to do. And because I’d left and done my best to make my relationship with Thad and Amber disappear to the public, they were still alive too.

“Val?” Michael nudged me with his foot under the table, his humor replaced by a frown. “Are they okay?”

   
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