Someone saw Sindari walking out of an alley and shrieked and pointed. A deputy sheriff gaped at him in alarm and reached for a gun.
You might want to camouflage yourself now that you’ve scared away the enemy, I noted.
Sindari was heading in my direction, but he paused to look at the deputy. Then opened his fanged maw and roared. The deputy fired. Sindari anticipated the trigger squeeze and crouched low on the pavement as the gun went off. The bullet zipped over his back and into the corner of a brick building.
Sindari faded from everyone’s sight but mine. Casually, he straightened and continued walking toward me.
The deputy with the gun out scanned the area, frowning at where Sindari had vanished. His gaze chanced across me. I’d put away my weapons and started walking back across the park, making my limp more pronounced. Just another victim here. No need to come over and question me. Besides, I didn’t want to talk to the clueless law man. I wanted to go examine the artifact and get the projectiles out of my leg.
There were quite a few people wandering around who’d come out in the aftermath of the chaos, and the deputy didn’t come after me. He holstered his weapon, checked once more for Sindari, then went back to calming scared citizens.
Let’s get out of here, I told Sindari. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.
But you acquired something. Sindari caught up with me and nosed the platter. Is it the key to solving this problem?
I eyed the salvaged—or stolen—signs welded together dubiously, but the platter did radiate magic, and this was the kind of detritus goblins liked to use to make artifacts. From what I’d heard, there wasn’t a word for junk in the goblin language. Everything had value.
I certainly hope so, I thought.
Do you have a means to heal your injury? Sindari had noticed my limp.
Pliers.
The preferred tool of surgeons.
Will that be sufficient? He sounded skeptical.
As long as the thorns hadn’t fully sunken into my calf…
I certainly hope so, I repeated.
18
I sat on a bench looking out over the lake, examining my pilfered goblin artifact and eating a sandwich from the trading post. Mom had called it the hardware store, but, as I’d learned, it was a grocery store these days, with ice cream and a deli inside.
The more I considered the artifact, the more I believed it was what had allowed the goblins to control the sasquatch. There was even a tiny tuft of shaggy black fur stuck to one of the seams on the back. Did that mean I’d thwarted their plans and they wouldn’t be able to use the big animals anymore? Or was this one of ten artifacts the goblins had crafted out of the county’s road signs?
“If you are one of a kind,” I murmured to it, “they’ll want you back.”
Maybe it could be my turn to lay a trap.
My phone buzzed. It was the same number that Mom had called from the night before, so I answered, assuming it would be she again.
“Hey, Mom.”
The caller paused. “It’s Thad.”
“Oh. Is Mom okay?” I hadn’t expected him to contact me again.
“She’s fine. She’s checking the bandages she put on Rocket’s paw yesterday. And lecturing him because he went in the lake and got them soggy.”
“She has more conversations with that dog than she ever had with me when I was growing up.”
I’d meant the comment as a joke, but Thad said, “Maybe the dog is easier to talk to.”
I doubted he’d meant it as a dig—he’d never been as quick to tease or mock as I was—but the truth of the words made them sting.
“Probably so.” I strove for a casual tone. “He’s definitely cuter than I am. That little head tilt and ear quirk he does could get him modeling gigs for dog-food bags.”
Thad snorted. “I’m sure you could get modeling gigs, too, if you wanted.”
For a second, I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t been fishing for compliments. Maybe he’d realized his earlier words might be insulting and was trying to make up for it.
“I don’t know. My ears really aren’t soft and cute. So, what’s up? It sounds like everything is okay at the house? You haven’t seen any—” I stopped myself from saying dragons, since he wouldn’t be able to see Zav or Shaygor unless they wanted him to, “—weird stuff?”
“No, but I’ve been watching the news. The county’s attempts to fix the roads leading into town keep getting sabotaged. Equipment is vanishing from under the crews’ noses or ceasing to work. An entire engine disappeared from a bulldozer. That’s definitely weird.”
“Yeah,” I said, though it sounded exactly like the kind of mischief goblins were known for.
“People are starting to get antsy and want to get out of town.”
“That may be the desired result.” I didn’t know if Mom had mentioned the sasquatch or goblins, so I didn’t bring them up. I didn’t have to read the local paper to know it hadn’t printed anything about magical beings. The mainstream media never did.
“Uh, all right.” Thad sounded confused, but he didn’t ask for clarification. “I called to ask you about something. Amber has this new little trinket, and it reminds me a lot of the ones you have on that necklace you were wearing the other day.”
“It is one of them. I lent it to her.”
“Oh, did you? She said she saw you in town, and you gave it to her, but I was worried she’d taken it.”
As if I couldn’t keep a teenager from swiping things from me if she tried.
“A couple of years ago, she went through a phase where she was stealing things. Not from stores or anything major but from friends’ parents and stuff. I think she was bored and upset that I wasn’t around that much. I’ve been trying to work from home more often and it got better—or she got better, and I’m not catching her. I don’t know. She may have grown out of it.” He sounded like he was confessing, that he believed this little mishap made him a bad parent. As if I could judge anyone for that.
“It’s fine. The charm, not the thieving. I think the police object to the latter.”
“Yeah,” he said glumly.
I’d meant that as a joke too. Had Sindari truly believed my abrasiveness was more witty than Amber’s? Maybe he was being diplomatic. He did keep calling himself an ambassador.
“I’m sure you’re doing great with her, Thad. I…” I paused, debating how much spying I should admit I did. But I’d already told him that Willard’s office kept an eye on them. Maybe he would believe the government was my source for information. Was that better or worse than me being a snoop? “I know she gets good grades and works hard at her swim-team practices and does well at meets.”
“She does, yes.” He sounded mollified. “She insisted on sports and gave up on intellectual extracurricular activities after only one summer of robotics and programming camps, but I don’t mind. The exercise is good for her, right?”
And less likely to get her beaten up than programming or robotics hobbies, yes. Though at six feet, Amber didn’t have to worry about being stuffed in lockers. Maybe broom closets.
“Yes, it is. You could see if she’s interested in martial arts at all. They teach integrity and perseverance and all that.” And I’d feel better knowing she could take care of herself, at least against mundane humans. And a solid kick to the groin could faze even an orc.
“She hasn’t shown… martial tendencies.”
I had a feeling he’d almost said something else. Brutal? Violent? Thugly? Like her mom?
“She wants to enter the Miss High School America beauty pageant when she’s a junior. She has her dress picked out. Three of them, actually.”
“My daughter wants to enter a beauty pageant?” I stared down at my dusty combat boots. “How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know. I think she just wants the dresses.” His tone turned dry. “Have you ever worn a dress, Val? Because when we got married, you wore your dress greens.”
“With the skirt. That’s like a dress.”
“I promise you it isn’t.”
“You wore your dress greens too.”
“I know. We were poor then and both still serving. It made sense. Still, I’d be tickled to see you in a dress someday.”
I imagined wearing my gun’s thigh holster under a poofy, frilly dress and couldn’t keep from curling a lip at the phone.
“I’ll keep your request in mind.” I almost made a joke about not caring what I wore at my own funeral, but that was a bit morbid, and he might not find it funny.
“There’s another reason I called.” Thad paused again.
“Oh?” Something about the leading sentence and the pause made me nervous. Or maybe it had been the dress comment. Was it weird that he would say something like that? Or was he just being friendly? We’d been friends once. And lovers. But more than ten years had dulled the feelings, at least for me. Maybe it hadn’t even been the years. As horrible as it was to admit, it had been harder to walk away from Amber than from him. I’d always felt bad about that since Thad was a good guy, but I’d never felt for him the molten passion that one read about in romance novels. He’d been the good friend that I’d married because it had seemed like the smart, mature thing to do. Settle down, get out of the army, have kids, lead a normal life…
“A friend in Sandpoint invited us to come up for a few days,” Thad said. “Originally, I wasn’t going to drive out of the way up there, but with Harrison turning crazy, I’ve rethought that. If things settle down and get resolved here… Do you think they’ll be resolved?”
“Yes. Because I’m going to resolve them.” I was annoyed that I hadn’t already.
“If that happens, we’ll come back. I paid for the house for more than a week. But if things don’t get resolved… Well, I’m sure you’d hoped to spend some time with Amber. I hate to leave when you’ve barely talked, but we found a boat service, and my friend is going to drive down to Coeur d’Alene to pick us up.”