“Thanks. You too.”
That was unlikely to happen, but I smiled as if I was sure I’d have a great time here, then lifted a hand in parting. His fingers twitched, as if he might raise his arms for another hug, but I hurried down the trail before the thought could come to fruition. In case Shauna was a good match for him, I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.
As I hustled away at a speed-walking pace, I prayed that dragon wasn’t still hunting by scent and that he couldn’t truly tell someone was my offspring by smell. If he could, Chopper and Sindari and I would pitch our tent on the top of one of those cliffs and keep an eye out for Amber.
9
The Jeep hadn’t been destroyed. Maybe my luck was turning.
Since the core of town was so small, I left it in the campground parking spot I’d been lucky enough to get and walked up the hill to Cliff Way. The street the mayor had named as having a house that had been ransacked, it looked down on the handful of restaurants and shops in town and had a view of the lake between the trees.
Sindari caught up with me as I walked along the street, looking for a vandalized home.
That odious hound insisted on following me and barking at me halfway back to town, he informed me.
“Rocket? He’s pretty friendly. Even Maggie the-cat-who-loathes-everybody didn’t find him odious.”
Didn’t your mother say she threw books at him?
“Yes, but I assumed that was a sign of affection. She wanted to play.”
Abusively. I do not regret scent-marking your colonel’s new apartment. The small feline must learn to respect larger, stronger predators.
“I knew you weren’t just scratching an itch on that exercise bike.” I stopped at an empty driveway covered in shattered glass. The front windows of the house looked like someone had put fists through them. Large fists. “I have a hunch this is the place.”
I headed to the front door, intending to walk right in. Nobody was around, and I doubted there was anything valuable left inside. Who would object?
The door was locked. I almost laughed. All the glass in the window next to it had been knocked inward, and toppled furniture, bookcases, and an umbrella stand were visible.
I could have gone through the window, but as long as I had a lock-picking charm…
You sense anyone magical inside? I asked before getting started.
Magical? No. There’s a dubious animal scent wafting out, and I can hear rats scurrying around in a back room. They are gorging themselves on food.
We can probably handle rats. Do tigers mouse?
Mouse?
Hunt for and catch mice. Like a cat.
Sindari snorted. Or maybe that was a tiger version of a haughty sniff. I do not hunt such weak and meager prey.
I guess we can’t do the homeowners a favor, then, and get rid of the pest problem. I rested my palm against the door and willed the lock to open.
You may get rid of them if you wish. Should we encounter dakyar or dual-horned wildebeests, then I will take care of them.
The lock clicked open immediately. This mundane door was nothing compared to what I’d asked the charm to handle lately.
When I stepped inside, glass crunched under my boots. The place smelled like an animal den and also decaying vegetable matter, like fermented foods that had gone bad. Was that even possible? The stench permeated everything.
Sindari slid past me, going first even though we didn’t sense a threat. I do not believe the rats are the primary problem for these homeowners.
You could be right. I wandered in after him, more glass crunching. There was so much of it that I couldn’t avoid stepping on it.
It was as if a horde of goblins had surrounded the house and fired slingshots at the windows. And stink bombs. Though I didn’t actually see any signs of projectiles thrown through the windows. That was surprising. Maybe someone had used a baseball bat.
The rats are in the kitchen, as are numerous boxes of partially devoured crackers and cereal, Sindari said.
Cereal and crackers wouldn’t account for that stench.
There is also rat feces.
I curled a skeptical lip. Unpleasant, but whatever the smell was, it wasn’t dried scat.
The odor is present all over the house. I believe it is the smell of an animal, like a muskrat but stronger.
“Much stronger.” I had to fight not to gag.
I crossed from the tiled entryway to the carpeted living room. Great chunks of drywall covered with textured popcorn paint were scattered on the floor. There were holes all over the ceiling, as if someone had been throwing basketballs at it. Hard. One side of an overhead light fixture was broken off, a bulb shattered below, and a dark clump of hair—or was that fur?—had caught on the jagged corner.
“That doesn’t look like goblin hair.” I was tall enough to reach the clump and pull it down. It was coarse and dark brown, the strands five or six inches long. “Bear fur?”
I held it to my nose, gagged, and almost pitched it out the window. Or pitched myself out the window.
Sindari padded in from the kitchen to find me clutching a hand to my nose and wobbling, uncharacteristically off-balance.
Problem? he asked.
“I found the source of the stench.” I held up the tuft of fur, then pulled out my phone to run a search for sasquatch + odor. “Don’t tell me this isn’t searing off the insides of your sensitive nostrils. It’s worse than an open sewer.”
I realized it was unlikely the stench in the entire house was coming from one tuft of fur. The creature—no way did goblins smell like this—had to have been oozing an odor of its own. Like a muskrat, indeed. Maybe it had slept in the house after breaking in.
My nostrils are sensitive but perhaps more accustomed to gamey scents than yours.
“This is more than gamey. This is… I feel like I should bag it and take it back to Zoltan in case he’s willing to pay for it. This has to be an ingredient called for in some potion or another.”
That is very possible. Malodorous substances seem to figure prominently in his craft.
“According to this, er, reputable online source—” the website was called Finding Your First Bigfoot, “—ten percent of sasquatch sightings involve someone remarking on a strong animal stench.” I lowered my phone. “Strong is an understatement.” I needed to get my nose and my stomach out of the house, but we’d barely searched it. “Why don’t we check outside for giant footprints that might go with this?” I waved the tuft of hair.
I’ll do that.
I almost followed him out, but on the chance that Zoltan truly would find this valuable, I wandered into the kitchen to look for a zip baggie. Maybe ten of them. Then I could zip this up like a Russian nesting doll and hope that would dull the odor. Even so, I would tape it to the bumper of my Jeep so it could ride on the outside on the way back to Seattle. If he didn’t want it, Willard might take it for the evidence room.
As I finished wrapping it up, my phone buzzed. Thad’s name popped up with an incoming text. Even though I never called him, I hadn’t taken him off my contacts list. I’d always wanted to be able to call him—call them—if there was trouble.
Hey, Val. Good to see you today. I asked Amber about lunch, but she doesn’t want to meet with you. Don’t take this the wrong way—I’d forgotten that was his catchphrase—but she was really curious about you a few years ago. That would have been a better time for this. Since she hit middle school, she’s been more, well, teenage, and now that she’s in high school it’s even more pronounced. You know how it is. Sorry.
Actually, I didn’t. Other than a vague sense from hearing other mothers talk about their kids. I’d missed seeing Amber grow up and grow into being a rebellious teenager.
“My choice,” I muttered and walked outside, needing fresh air more than ever.
Sindari must have still been checking the property. I sank down on the stoop and rubbed my face. The rejection was expected, and surely being rejected over an impersonal text message was better than in person, but it still depressed me. Maybe because Thad had been so reasonable, even friendly. He hadn’t seemed bitter and jaded. Maybe he never had been.
I took my charm necklace off and looked at the mixture of bone, silver, and ivory trinkets, all emanating magic of one kind or another. Over the years, I’d sought them all out, and I knew what they did, all save one. A silver heart. I’d found it in a bear shifter’s woodworking shop out near Forks in the dark, mossy Olympic National Park. He’d been killed by his crazy vampire lover, a woman who’d murdered ten other lovers before him. After I’d killed her, per my orders, I’d sent the location of the shifter’s shop to Willard, to have the office do with it what it wanted—he’d had no next of kin that we’d been able to find—but I’d found the little heart charm sitting in a treasured spot on the hearth. Usually, I wasn’t sentimental, and I didn’t collect useless things, but it had called to me, so I’d taken it. There was some magic about it, but I’d never figured out what it did. I’d always thought that someday I would and maybe it would put to rest the spirit of a man who’d been killed by the woman he loved.
I sense you.
The voice reverberated in my mind, and I dropped the charm necklace even as I swore at my stupid mistake. By taking it off, I’d deactivated the cloaking charm. I lunged at it and started to tug the leather thong over my head again, but my brain caught up to my instincts. That was Zav, not Shaygor.
A momentary lapse of judgment, I replied, deciding not to explain that my emotions were getting the best of me today and that maybe I’d been unwise to accept this mission. Maybe Thad and Amber would have been safer if I’d never come. I would most certainly be safer standing in the same city as Zav, even if it galled me to admit that. I hated to admit to needing anyone’s protection or even help. Where are you?
Waiting until dark so that I may hunt the dark elves. In the meantime, I captured a roc in your town called Mountain Vernon.
Mt. Vernon, I corrected, not that he would care what our cities were called.