Good idea. It was a quarter mile back to the trees and more cover. If I ran, Shaygor would hear my footsteps.
As he dove to skim along above the pavement, nostrils quivering with his sniffs, I slipped carefully off the trail and into the water. Moving far more slowly than I wanted—I didn’t dare go fast enough to leave ripples on the surface of the water—I waded out toward some of the logs wedged in the mud and reeds on the far side of the pool. The water might help hide any scent I was leaving behind. But I might also end up being snapped up next.
Shaygor flew past in front of me, sniffing as he glided three feet above the trail.
I drew Chopper, expecting him to catch my scent on the ground and veer toward me. Fighting when I was waist-deep in water wouldn’t be ideal, but the water had been my only hope of hiding my trail.
Shaygor kept coasting along, flapping his wings when he reached the trees, but only enough to rise up over them. He continued to follow the trail back toward town, his gaze locked on the pavement below.
Soon, he soared out of sight and out of my range, but I waited a long time before leaving the water. I kept expecting him to come back and hunt down the trail in the other direction.
The reeds rustled behind me, and I jumped. But it was only Sindari. He’d found something of interest and was climbing out of the water and heading into the woods.
I waded the other way and scrambled up the slope and back onto the trail. All that remained of the bike were a few bent, broken pieces of the frame and the little flag. I walked over to pick it up. Even it was damaged, with a distinct fang mark through it.
I rubbed my face, wondering how much the bike cost—and how I would explain its utter destruction to the rental shop owners. Would they believe a horde of roving sasquatch had come out and ripped it piece from piece?
Val? I caught sight of a goblin. I’m seeing if I can catch him.
Good.
Maybe something positive would come out of this.
Never mind. He disappeared.
Disappeared? From your superb tracking abilities?
I think he has the goblin version of your charm. He was definitely here, up in the branches watching the dragon incident.
The dragon incident. Maybe I would put that down on whatever form the rental owners asked me to fill out in regard to their destroyed bike. There was a “dragon incident.” That hadn’t worked with the car insurance company when I’d reported my demolished Jeep, but maybe they were less stringent out here.
There’s sign of more goblins back here, Sindari added. Lots of footprints. They’re gone now, but they were here.
Any sign of sasquatch or maybe sasquatch costumes or robots designed to look like sasquatch?
Not that I can find. Just the goblin footprints.
All right. Thanks for looking.
Even though I’d been sent to investigate the goblins, I was more worried about the dragon. Had I made a mistake in not going with Zav so he could protect me? Maybe, but I couldn’t spend my life hiding behind his tail. And I couldn’t leave here, knowing my family was in danger.
8
The five-plus miles I’d biked from town were a lot slower walking, and I was getting a headache from straining my senses, trying to guess where Shaygor had gone. Hopefully, he hadn’t been able to follow my scent all the way back to the campground and to my Jeep. If I arrived and found it smashed and up in a tree, I was retiring. To hell with this job.
Sindari was still with me, but searching the woods off to the side of the trail, hunting for more signs of goblins.
As I walked between two vertical rock walls, I eyed the tops, imagining a dragon or other predator jumping down onto me. I was so focused on the terrain that I almost missed the familiar green Subaru driving across the trail ahead.
I blinked and stared. Had that been… my mother’s SUV?
There was a driveway that crossed the trail there, heading out to a house on a point. I grabbed my phone and pulled up the address of the vacation house Thad had rented. And almost fell over. I was right next to it.
For a moment, I stood there, completely flummoxed and indecisive. Should I go say hello? Or run past and hope nobody saw me?
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Let’s act like a seven-year-old. Always a good plan.”
Val? Sindari asked.
Sensing him nearby, I looked up toward one of the rock walls. He stood on the top, gazing down at me.
Yes?
Who are you talking to?
Myself. Don’t act like you haven’t seen that before.
Occasionally. I found more goblin tracks in the wooded areas between the human domiciles.
We call those houses.
They do not exist on Del’noth. We live in dens.
Is it hard to get cable internet run to those?
He gazed down at me, too confused—or too mature—to answer.
Never mind. You say there are a lot of goblin tracks?
Yes. Either a dozen goblins who’ve been extremely busy or dozens of goblins who’ve been moderately busy.
Dozens?
Maybe hundreds.
I didn’t realize that many goblins had come to Earth.
Because they’re all located here.
I heard my mom’s voice and then a voice I hadn’t heard in years. Thad.
Anxiety stampeded into my gut. Why was the prospect of this meeting so much worse than the prospect of being killed by a dragon? Or having to battle impossible odds in a shifter’s secret basement compound? There was definitely something wrong with me. Maybe I should have called my therapist before leaving Seattle. Mary wouldn’t be pleased when I canceled the coming week’s session because I’d be out of town. She thought I needed help. A lot of help.
Keep looking for interesting things, will you? I’m going to go see my mom and… my ex-husband. Amber was the one I most wanted to see and the one I most dreaded being rejected by.
But I braced my shoulders, turned off my cloaking charm, and continued to where the rock walls ended and the driveway crossed the trail. The pavement meandered out to a solitary property on the point, the lake on three sides and the rocks providing privacy to the east. Mom’s Subaru was parked next to a BMW on the north end, her door still open. She had gotten out and was talking to Thad, who stood on the huge wrap-around deck of a beautiful two-story Victorian house that probably had a view of the lake from every window. I knew it was a rental, but the nightly fee had to be exorbitant. Thad did well for himself, as the BMW attested.
Rocket woofed from the grassy bank next to a tire swing, and Thad and Mom turned to face me, Mom with a grave nod, Thad with a gape. Maybe he hadn’t checked his email since I’d sent it. It had said I would be in the area, but he was looking at me like he’d believed I’d been on Mars and was beaming down from my spaceship.
I glanced back to make sure there wasn’t a dragon looming behind me, but the trail was empty. Even Sindari was out of sight.
“Hi,” I said, and waved like an idiot. “I was, uhm, walking down the trail.” I waved behind me, not even tempted to explain the bicycle and the dragon. Thad wouldn’t believe it, and Mom would worry. “I tried to get a room at one of the hotels—the two small hotels in town—but they didn’t have anything, so I’m staying at the campground.”
Thad looked me up and down. At first, I thought his gaze lingered on my chest and he was checking me out, but it quickly drifted lower. My jeans were still damp and marsh grass draped my combat boots.
I bent and plucked it off. “There were puddles along the way. Did it rain here yesterday?”
“Are you all right?” Mom squinted at me as Thad looked toward the blue sky over the lake.
“Yeah. I’ll give you some details of my work later.” Did Shaygor count as my work? It wasn’t as if I wanted anything to do with him. “How’d you get here, Mom? All the roads are washed out.” I wouldn’t have guessed the Subaru, SUV or not, could replicate the feat my Jeep had accomplished.
“I actually took the scenic route and came up from the south, through Plummer and over to St. Maries. I’m just now learning about the destruction to the other roads.” She waved to Thad.
She must have just missed the destruction that had happened along her route. The police officer had mentioned it being recent. Maybe she’d stopped in town for provisions before finding this place.
“Did you see anything peculiar on the way in?” I resisted mentioning goblins and sasquatch.
“Not until you walked down the driveway.” Mom smiled, but there was tension around her blue eyes.
Maybe she expected this meeting to go poorly. I wished I could reassure her it wouldn’t.
“Funny,” I said as Rocket bounded up and nuzzled my hand.
I patted him on the head.
The dog’s arrival stirred Thad from whatever startled thoughts my appearance had prompted. He came forward to greet me. He’d gotten older, some gray at the temples of his short black hair, but he was still lean, almost skinny, so he probably still got wrapped up in work and forgot to eat. He wore khaki shorts and a black T-shirt with a flowchart of tips for “debugging your code.”
“I’m sorry, Val. I was just—wow, you really haven’t changed. You look good.” He lifted his arms, leaned in for a hug, but then paused and lowered one arm as if to offer a handshake. Then he shook his head and lifted them again, his face screwed up with uncertainty.
It was as bad as me trying to figure out how to greet Zav. I hoped I wasn’t that intimidating to Thad. I stepped in and gave him a hug. That he was greeting me with one instead of flinty hostility put some relief in my heart. I hadn’t truly expected hostility—he’d only lost his temper a handful of times in all the years I’d known him, and it had never been at a person, just at some software that was vexing him—but I’d always wondered if he’d resented me for leaving. He’d never truly understood my work—or why I felt compelled to choose it over them—so I’d let my doubts run rampant.
The hug was awkward and brief, though it was sadly the best one I’d had in a long time. Before letting go fully, Thad gripped my arms and studied my face.