Home > Sinister Magic (Death Before Dragons #1)(15)

Sinister Magic (Death Before Dragons #1)(15)
Author: Lindsay Buroker

“Amber and Thad came up this past winter,” Mom said as we rounded a bend, ponderosa pines stretching up to the blue sky on either side.

“Oh?” I asked neutrally. Carefully. Mom had lectured me on my relationship with my daughter before, and I couldn’t imagine anything but judgment coming out. “To ski?”

“Yes. They were going to stay in some overpriced vacation rental, but I gave them the loft and the spare bedroom.”

“Who got the spare bedroom?” I’d always thought that was an ambitious label for the little office with the twin-sized Murphy bed that flopped out of the only drywalled wall in her cabin—the bathroom was on the other side, and I was convinced the builders had only made that wall flat because they hadn’t been able to figure out how to install a toilet-paper holder on a log.

“Thad. Amber always claims the loft.”

“Always? I didn’t realize they came that often.”

“Almost every winter over the school holidays.” She slid me the judgy look I’d been expecting. “Don’t you talk to them?”

“No.”

I’d been at more of Amber’s swim meets and softball games than anybody knew, but I watched from a distance. Like a stalker, not a mom. It bothered me, but I wasn’t going to admit it. Mom wouldn’t understand. Oh, she probably grasped that my job was dangerous and would put anyone close to me in danger—I was worried that even coming here had been a mistake—but she’d told me more than once to get a new job. A normal job.

But I was good at this job, better than anyone else around, and with my fast healing and ability to sense magic, I was the ideal person to send after the magical. Having had special training and twenty years of combat experience didn’t hurt either.

Even if I did quit, as I’d done once when I married Thad, I would feel compelled to go back to the hunt every time something like those wyverns popped up. That was what had happened thirteen years ago. The regular authorities didn’t have what it took to deal with the magical.

“You shouldn’t have had a kid if you weren’t going to have anything to do with her,” Mom said.

“You know why I have to stay away from them. I’ve told you.” I gritted my teeth and focused on the road. “The same reason I don’t come here.” I lowered my voice to mutter, “I shouldn’t have come this time either.”

“It’s that bad here? Didn’t you like the cookies that Dimitri made? I thought they were good.”

“He made those? I assumed it was you.”

What kind of six-foot-six, yard-art-crafting landscaper had pastry chef ambitions? Dimitri looked like the kind of guy you hired to bounce people out of your strip club.

“When have you known me to bake anything using sugar?”

“You use dates and honey and maple syrup. It’s all sweet. I can’t tell the difference.”

“You’ve got a refined palette. Maybe you can go to culinary school when you get tired of being shot at for a living.”

“Sometimes, I do the shooting.”

“That’ll come in handy if you specialize in desserts and wield a frosting gun.”

“I’m sure that’s very similar to Fezzik, yes.”

“Fez-what?”

“Fezzik. From The Princess Bride. That’s the name of my gun. Nin said my weapons would have more power if I named them. My sword is Chopper, from Stand By Me. The dog that sics balls.” I reminded myself that Mom hadn’t met Nin—and probably hadn’t seen more than ten movies in her life. “I don’t know what the sword’s real name is. The zombie lord I killed to get it neglected to give me its pedigree.”

Mom shook her head. “When you joined the army, I thought you were going to be a pilot. I didn’t think I’d get a hitman for a daughter.”

“I’m a hitwoman, thank you.”

The first of the parking lots came into view. Thank God. I’d forgotten that keeping Mom safe from my dangerous life wasn’t the only reason I didn’t visit often.

“Go ahead and park in that one.”

As I turned off the road, Rocket barked, startling me.

“He wants the window rolled down,” Mom informed me.

“Sindari figured out how to do that on his own.” I fiddled with the controls—better to have the dog barking out the window than in my ear.

“Which of your weapons is that?” Mom eyed Chopper and Fezzik in the seat well behind me.

“I’ll introduce you to him later. He’s a new acquisition.” And he would be offended if I called him that. “A new ally,” I corrected.

A new friend, I added to myself, thinking of the therapist’s suggestion that I should make more friends. Did magical tigers count?

We parked, and I strapped on my weapons, having an inkling that I might need them. Mom slung a pack on her shoulders and fastened a special dog one on Rocket, who sat patiently instead of tearing off after the ducks loitering near the boat launch. She pointed toward a trail that headed through some reeds and tall grasses along the lake.

“Do you have water?” She touched her backpack, which appeared to have everything, including emergency flares and a hatchet strapped to the outside.

I took the bottle of carbonated lemon water I’d been drinking in the car and stuffed it in my vest pocket.

“You said it was a short walk,” I pointed out to her disapproving look.

“You shouldn’t go into the woods without supplies.”

“Can we do this without lectures, please? I’m having a rough week.”

She pressed her lips together, grabbed Rocket’s leash, and headed down the trail. I followed the brisk pace she set and tried not to think about how much time I might be wasting. If this acquaintance of hers couldn’t shed any light on that sigil, this whole trip would have been for nothing. Already, I wished I’d hunted down a forensics person to try scraping residue out of the vial to identify. But I still had that niggling feeling that whatever had been in there wasn’t listed in Wikipedia.

A familiar tingle went up my spine, a warning that someone—or something—magical was nearby. I paused to look out over the lake, its tree-filled slopes rising up on all sides. The sky was blue and clear, which made it easy to pick out the huge black dragon soaring over the ridge on the opposite side.

“Shit,” I breathed, almost calling Sindari for help.

But I caught myself. Since there was a limit to how many hours he could stay in our world each day, I had to save him for when I needed him.

“Mom?” I trotted to catch up and started to point out the dragon to her, but he’d dipped behind the ridge and out of sight. “Where does this trail go?”

“Around the lake. We’ll take a detour on the other side.” She pointed toward the forest the dragon had been flying over.

Wonderful.

We’d gone three miles and were almost halfway around the lake when Mom walked off the path to head inland. We’d passed several groups of hikers along the way, but I doubted we would see any more. There wasn’t any hint of a trail now, and if anyone else had been leading, I would have asked if she knew where she was going. But Rocket bounded ahead of us, apparently knowing where we were going. And Mom had warned me we were taking a detour.

My fingers strayed to my necklace and the cat figurine again. I could still sense the dragon. Now that we’d turned, he was dead ahead of us. He seemed to be staying in one position. Maybe he’d caught a raccoon and was enjoying a nice appetizer before the main course arrived. Did dragons eat humans? Or dogs?

“You might want to have Rocket stay close,” I warned. “The dragon who wrecked my Jeep is a couple of miles ahead of us.”

Mom frowned over her shoulder. “What’s he doing here?”

“He neglected to file his itinerary with me.”

“Is he hunting you?”

“I hope not.” I wasn’t cocky enough to believe I could have bested him if he’d truly wanted to kill me. My charm might keep me safe from fire, but he had all kinds of alternative magic he could hurl my way. Not to mention those fangs and talons. “Honestly, I don’t know why he would be. I’m not here to ki— deal with anyone. Just ask some questions of your mysterious acquaintance. How far away are we now?”

I tried to make that question casual and not let on that I was nervous about going deeper into the woods with the dragon out here. Not that we’d be safe if we made it back to the parking lot and the car. As I well knew.

“Not far. There’s a tunnel up ahead.”

“A tunnel? Like a lava tube?”

“Originally, I’m sure it was. Now it’s being used as a passageway.”

“By your acquaintance?”

“Among others.”

Before I could comment on Mom’s deliberate vagueness, Rocket zipped past us, planted his paws on a tree, and barked at a squirrel. The squirrel chittered back at him from the safety of a branch thirty feet up. Rocket waved his tail vigorously, barked again, and looked over at us.

“I think he wants you to do your part and get that squirrel for him,” I said.

“Squirrels are a lot of work to skin and debone for not much meat.”

“Gross. I was joking.”

“You’ve eaten squirrel before. Remember that stew we used to have when you were a kid?”

“The one you used to make on a campfire made in a sawn-off oil drum? Yes, and now I wish I didn’t.”

“Those were tight times. Sometimes, squirrels and asparagus scrounged along the roadside were all we had.” Mom kept talking, wandering off into some weird nostalgia territory, which had to be for her lost youth because she couldn’t possibly miss being broke and living in a bus, but something twanged my senses, distracting me.

The dragon?

No, I sensed more than one magical aura this time, spread out across the woods ahead of us. None of them were as significant as the dragon’s, but the number of them was disturbing. Ten? Twelve?

   
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