“The glottis,” Nin read from her phone, saying the unfamiliar word carefully, “is the part of the larynx consisting of the vocal cords and the opening between them.”
I shook away my musing and smiled. “Yes, that sounds right. Thank you.”
“Perhaps I will recommend it to my word-of-the-day apps.”
“Is that how you learned English?”
“I took night-school classes. I thought I knew English when I came to America, but nobody could understand me. It was strange.”
“I’m sure.” My phone buzzed. “Hey, Willard.”
“Some people address me as Colonel Willard.”
“I could do some research, learn your first name, and call you by that.”
“Willard is fine.”
“I thought so. Did you get my message?”
“Yes, and even though it’s Sunday and I’m relaxing and recuperating, I went to the office to do some research for you.”
“You were at the gym again, weren’t you?”
“I was doing a leisurely bike ride along the Burke Gilman Trail.”
“If it’s more than twenty miles, you can’t count it as leisurely.”
“You’re a nag, Thorvald.”
“I know. Watch out for dragons while you’re on that trail.” I eyed the phone. “You weren’t looking for the new one, were you?”
“No. I only found out about the missing joggers when I came in. You think this silver dragon took them?”
“He’s into kidnapping. I’m trying to pinpoint the location of his lair, especially if those joggers may still be alive in it.”
“Good. Your next assignment may get preempted if there’s a hostile dragon to deal with.”
I grimaced. “I don’t have a weapon capable of dealing with a hostile dragon.”
“Point the other one at it, open the chute door, and slap him on the ass.”
“The chute? Zav isn’t a bull. Also, your countriness is creeping me out.”
“I can’t help it. I was stationed in Texas for six years. Just be ready. If we have to find a way to deal with him, you’re going to be our best bet. Especially if he’s lurking around the city. We can’t send bombers to drop nukes in the suburbs.”
“I’ll try to get him out of the woods. Did you get my request on the Northern Pride?”
“Yes. I’m putting together a file for you with everything I have on them, and I’ll email it over. But tread carefully around them, all right? Or avoid them altogether. There are a lot of those cat shifters in the North End. They’re well financed, and it’s going to be a legal hassle if we irk them.”
Nin had been reading on her phone, not trying to listen, but she must have heard enough, for she looked up and frowned.
“In other words,” I said, “don’t get caught if I blow up the Pardus house?”
Willard sighed. “You can’t blow up a house in the middle of a mobile-home park.”
“I can if there are ten crabby shifters inside.”
“Don’t do anything unwise, Val. I appreciate that you helped me out, and you do good work, but there are only so many times I can get your ass out of legal trouble.”
“I know, I know.” The file came through. “Maybe I’ll point Zav at their house and try that open-the-chute thing.”
“Don’t forget the ass slapping.”
“I’m sure that’ll excite him.”
“I’ll expect the wedding invitations by next spring.”
“Ha ha. Later.” I pocketed my phone, grabbed my little box of fries, and waved to the door. “I’ve got some files to study. Let me give you a ride back down the hill.”
Nin nodded and headed for the door. Out of habit, I trotted past her so I could go out first.
A dirty white van squealed around the corner at Broadway and Pike, almost mowed over two pedestrians in the crosswalk, and sped toward us. The side door flew open, and two masked figures with guns leaned out.
13
“Get down!” I yelled, aware of people dining at sidewalk tables to either side of the door.
As I shoved Nin back into the restaurant and dove behind a parallel-parked car, the two gunmen hanging out of the van fired. Those gunmen had the auras of magical beings.
Glass shattered and wood splintered as bullets hammered into the building and parked cars. But from the way the masked men twisted and leaned out the door to track me, I knew I was the target.
I reached for Fezzik as the van sped past, but there was no way I could open fire on the busy street. Instead, I sprang out from behind the car and yanked out Chopper as I sprinted after the van. They would have to switch from the side door to the back door to target me—which could happen. But I planned to catch up with them first.
The van did its best to peel away at breakneck speed, but traffic didn’t move fast on Pike at the best of times. They made it to the next block and roared up on the sidewalk to go around a car and make a right turn. They knocked one of their mirrors off on a stout wooden lamppost peppered with flyers, and their wheels wobbled as they dropped back down into the street.
I cut the corner closer and caught up with the van. The men leaned out the side door to fire again, but I sprinted and leaped onto the back fender before they could target me. As the van picked up speed on the straightaway, I pulled myself onto the roof.
When the driver zigzagged in his lane, trying to hurl me off, I plunged Chopper through the metal roof to create a handhold. Someone inside shouted.
Realizing I was vulnerable if they fired through the roof, I started to crawl to the right so I could swing down through the open side door. But the driver veered again, taking us up on another sidewalk and knocking over a trash bin. The roof tipped as the wheels on the right side ran along the curb. The van shuddered as it crunched into a newspaper vending machine. Metal squealed, and if not for my grip on Chopper, I would have flown off the roof.
Before I could pull the blade out and swing down into the van, a low-hanging tree branch almost took my head off. Swearing, I flattened myself in time to avoid being clubbed. My enemies chose that second to open fire at the roof.
Hot fiery pain blasted my side as a bullet sank in. I swore, pulled out Chopper, and rolled sideways, flipping down and through the open door. My boots entered first, and I adjusted my swing to ram each of the sturdy gunmen in the chest. My momentum knocked them backward against the far side of the van—the seats had been removed so we had an open arena.
Good. My side hurt like the fiery circles of hell, and I wanted to take it out on someone.
Using the pain to fuel me, I plowed into the gunmen. There wasn’t room to swing Chopper, but I punched and kicked and bashed skulls with the weapon’s hilt. And my enemies had thick skulls. No matter how hard I hit, the masked beings didn’t cry out in pain, only grunted and snarled. Orcs, I guessed, though the driver was masked, too, and I couldn’t tell for sure.
When I stunned one of them with an uppercut, Chopper’s hilt cracking his teeth, I almost threw my back out hurling my foe out of the van. Three hundred pounds of solid muscle.
The other one leaped toward the back of the van, trying to give himself room to aim his rifle at my chest. But I didn’t cooperate. I found the room to slash Chopper into the weapon before the gunman could fire. The blade cut through the barrel as easily as it had the roof, and it almost shaved his knuckles off with it.
The orc cried out and threw the destroyed rifle at me as I lunged in, the point of my sword leading. I dodged, and the weapon sailed past, cracking against the back of the front seat. The driver grunted and veered down an alley, the van going up on two wheels as it turned too fast.
My opponent was hurled against the side. I sank low, keeping my balance, and used the opportunity to grab him and throw him out the door as we veered onto another street.
He swore, twisting in the air and catching the edge of the door. I launched a side kick at his fingers. He let go and bounced three times before landing in a heap on the sidewalk.
I was alone with the driver. He kept glancing back, kept swerving as if doing it hard enough would also hurl me out of the van. It didn’t. I lunged up to his seat and pressed Chopper into the side of his neck.
“Park it.”
Cursing, he tried to jerk away from the cold kiss of my blade and managed to run the van up on the sidewalk again. It clipped a telephone pole before slamming into a tree. I grabbed the seat with my free hand, sinking low for balance. The van pitched sideways and landed on its side in the street. Keeping my feet under me was like staying up on a surfboard in a tsunami. We had been heading down a hill, so the momentum carried the van half a block, metal squealing and smoke pouring from the hood, before it slowed to a stop.
I sliced the driver’s seatbelt strap, grabbed him, and tried to haul him out of the van, but even with the strength of my father’s blood, three hundred pounds was too much for me to lift from a dead stop. I pressed Chopper’s blade against his neck again.
“Get out. We’re going to have a chat.” I glanced through the broken windows, expecting the other orcs would come running up.
“Got nothing to say to the Ruin Bringer,” the orc growled.
I yanked off his ski mask, revealing blue-tinted skin and a short snout full of pointed teeth, including two tusks that hung over his lips, giving him a lisp when he spoke English.
“You attack me just for fun or were you after something else?” I could question him here as well as anywhere, but the wail of sirens in the distance promised it wouldn’t be long before the police showed up. I kept my ears and my senses open so I would know when the other two orcs came close.
“Not for fun. To kill you.”
“I take out some relative of yours?” I’d killed two orc rapists the winter before—they’d sworn a biological imperative forced them to take women to breed and repopulate their species here on Earth—but none since then.
“You hunt the magical, you tray— traitor— traitorous bitch.”