“I can make you some—”
“Nope.” I lifted a hand. “I enjoy your food very much, but let’s get something else for a change, eh? Something you don’t have to cook.”
“I should not leave my truck.”
“You have an assistant.”
Nin looked from the line of customers to her kitchen helper manning the window and up to her security camera—or maybe the spot where the graffiti had been. Her fingers twitched, as if she would grab the corner of the truck if I tried to pull her away.
“You’re not sleeping here, are you?” I asked.
“No. I cannot park the truck here overnight. It is stored at a secure commissary and truck yard.” She waved vaguely to the south. “They do not allow you to sleep there.”
“You know this because you’ve tried?”
She hesitated. “Maybe. I am concerned right now that I will lose the truck—and my business. I have set magical traps in case someone tries to go inside, but…”
“I understand. I’m not trying to drag you away for a week. Just for lunch. I’m buying. You could use a break. I can tell.”
Nin appeared more reluctant than grateful about my offer, but she did tell her assistant to call someone else in if she got busy, and she walked resolutely out of the square with me. She let me drive us up the hill to Capitol Cider, where I sat facing the windows so I could see any trouble coming. I ordered the fish and chips and fire-roasted pepper cider. I could pass on wine or beer, but I was a Washington girl, and apples were my favorite fruit. Juice was too sweet for my taste buds, but hard cider was perfect and not a stiff enough drink to impair my reflexes or judgment.
Once Nin had ordered a suspiciously healthy-sounding mushroom-and-kale grilled cheese sandwich, I leaned in to ask, “You seem to get a lot of gossip from your clientele. Have you heard anything more specific about the silver dragon?”
I’d left a message on Willard’s voice mail that morning, asking for everything she had on the Northern Pride, but I didn’t know if she would get back to me before Monday. And now I had a new problem.
“I have heard of one being sighted but not much more. What are you trying to learn?”
“Where he’s hiding. And ideally why he’s hiding. This is the ugly brute that almost toasted me over on the peninsula. He gave me a message to give to Zav, which I’ve done now, but apparently, he’s playing coy and not letting Zav find him.”
“I know very little about dragons. Until last month, I would not have believed they ever came to Earth.”
“If a dragon would kidnap children to attract attention, would he also kidnap joggers?”
“I do not know. I would expect a dragon to kill people outright.”
“Dead people can’t be used as bait.”
As I sipped my drink, the spicy dry cider leaving a smoky note on my taste buds, I poked around on my phone, looking for news stories mentioning the missing pedestrians that Nin had brought up. The news sites were worthless—for years, the mainstream media had been looking the other way, presumably under government or corporate influence, and not admitting to the existence of magic or magical beings. The socials were more reliable, but even they only mentioned that a couple of joggers had gone missing that morning, one from Log Boom Park near Lake Forest Park and another from a secluded stretch of the Sammamish River Trail between Woodinville and Bothell. There were trees in both of those areas, I decided, closing my eyes to picture the different sections. A dragon swooping in early enough could have grabbed joggers without being noticed, especially if he had means to camouflage himself. If Dob could hide from Zav, he could definitely hide from humans.
“Here’s another missing person. A walker disappeared from Cold Creek Natural Area in Woodinville.” I dropped pins, zoomed out, and gripped my chin as I studied the map. “The three spots are almost in a straight east-to-west line. Too bad the times when the people were kidnapped, if that’s what happened, are imprecise. With that information, we could tell where he started and which way he was going when he picked up the last one.” I tapped the map. “The farmers market in town is roughly on that line too. I saw him yesterday, not this morning, but that could indicate his lair—that was what Zav called it—is nearby.”
“What does a dragon lair look like?”
“My Dungeons and Dragons experience tells me it’s a cave full of mounds of treasure. Dragons are the Scrooge McDucks of the mythical kingdom.”
Nin’s forehead furrowed in confusion.
“I’m going to be disappointed if neither Dungeons and Dragons or Scrooge McDuck exist in Thailand.”
“I do not know. I was not familiar with them. But I have heard young men at my food truck speak of the dungeons. It is a game, yes?”
“Yes. There are books too.”
The food arrived, and my mouth watered at the aroma of the batter-fried cod sitting atop a mound of fries with a lemon wedge and tartar sauce on the side. I hadn’t eaten before going to the yoga class, so this was my first food of the day, and I stuffed fries in, determined to set my phone down and appreciate them. But I couldn’t keep my gaze from straying back to the map.
To the west of the first missing-person location, Log Boom Park, was the populous suburb of Shoreline and eventually, Puget Sound. Unless I was way off on what dragons liked for lairs, it was hard to imagine a promising spot existing among the houses and apartment buildings of the area. Or out in the Sound with the krakens and dolphins. I supposed the dragon could be shape-shifting and staying in a hotel, but if he was kidnapping people and not eating them, storing them at a Motel 6 would be tricky.
I scrolled to the east, my finger drawing an imaginary line. “Somewhere around Duvall, maybe? There’s a lot of farmland out there, but also a lot of forest, and eventually, you get up into the foothills of the mountains. There are some hiking trails, old logging roads, and an access road to the Tolt River reservoir and the water-treatment facility out there but not much more. Some topography to the area.” I typed in a search to see if information on any caves popped up.
“Has your colonel assigned you to find this dragon?” Nin was nibbling at her sandwich.
“Not yet. She promised I’d have an assignment coming, but I think it was related to those dark elves, not dragons. That was before people went missing.” I set down the phone, realizing Nin might be wondering why I was obsessing about this rather than researching her problem. “I ran into Zav this morning. Or maybe I should say he stalked me down. We made a deal. I’m helping him find the silver dragon, and he’s going to help me negotiate with the panther brothers.” Assuming I succeeded in assisting Zav in dealing with his foe first, and the silver dragon didn’t kill us both.
“Negotiate? Are dragons good at that?”
“He mentioned hurling fire and brimstone as a tactic.”
“Hm. I wish the Pardus brothers would simply leave me alone. I have no wish to see anyone burned or otherwise harmed.”
Remembering the brothers’ willingness to force me to have sex with them, I had no such objections. “We’ll figure something out. Promise.”
“Good. I like it here, and I am making progress at saving up the money I need. I do not take any days off, because I am working toward a goal.”
“Nin, you should take days off. People who don’t know how to relax develop health issues and end up being prescribed a bunch of drugs and being tortured by breathing loudly through their glottis because their therapist insisted.”
She gazed blandly at me. “I do not know what a glottis is.”
“I don’t either. I think it’s in here somewhere.” I waved at the front of my neck. “Take it from me, you need to enjoy a day off now and then.”
Nin pushed her plate to the side, her sandwich only half-eaten, and linked her fingers on the table. “I want my family to come to America. I am appreciative that technology lets me see and speak with my mother and sisters, but their lives are not good. They are cramped in their apartment, because work that pays well is so hard to find there. And I am… missing something. In here.” She touched a hand to her chest. “Because I am not with them. I grew up with all my siblings and my mother and grandmother. It is difficult not to be with them.” She blinked moist eyes. “You must have a family. Do you understand?”
“Our situations are a little different…” A pang of self-doubt and regret filled me as I thought of Amber again, of her working on a book report this weekend while I was tramping around the city, dealing with hostile shapeshifters and arrogant dragons. “But I understand.”
“This is why I must work a lot, and this is why I cannot let the Pardus brothers drive me out of the city. After many years, I am established here. To start over would be very difficult. It would delay everything.”
“I know. I get it. They’re not going to drive you out of the city.”
“Thank you.”
The waiter brought boxes for our food—I hadn’t finished my mountain of fries—and I paid the bill, then reached for my phone to look at the map again. My fingers paused mid-air.
Did I really need to spend my day researching for Zav when I knew exactly where the people who were threatening Nin were? Yes, Zav would make a good ally were I intending to negotiate with them, but I’d handled dens of shifters on my own before. With some high-powered grenades from Nin and the element of surprise, I could take out the Pardus brothers and their house and weapons supply. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t killed magical beings before. I just didn’t make a habit of doing it if they hadn’t been condemned as criminals and someone wasn’t paying me, usually the government. Freelance stuff was iffier, but I’d always been careful to stick to criminals where footage or other strong evidence showed their evil-doing. I’d never counted crimes against myself as a justifiable reason to kill someone, since they all hated me. But was there truly any doubt about the Pardus brothers? They’d threatened Nin, not just me.