With luck, Thad had opted for the excitement of the larger city. It was hard for me to imagine teenage Amber wanting to sit on a dock and fish.
“Got it,” Mom said. “They’ve got a rental house on the lake for a week in Harrison.”
I leaned back against one of the alley’s dumpsters and groaned.
“Is that a problem?” Mom asked.
Yes.
What I said was, “I’ll make sure it isn’t.”
4
I left early in the morning, but it was noon by the time I passed through Coeur d’Alene and turned off the interstate to follow a road south along the lake to Harrison. I hoped I would get there before my mother, since Seattle was a more direct route than coming from Bend, but I doubted I could solve all the problems and wrap everything up simply by arriving two hours earlier.
Besides, Mom could take care of herself. She probably had her Glock in the glove box and Rocket riding shotgun. I was more worried about Amber and Thad.
The night before, I’d emailed him for the first time in years, letting him know I’d be in the area and trying not to feel silly talking about goblins and sasquatch. We’d been married for two years, and he’d never quite seemed to believe that magical beings existed or that I was half-elven, despite my mother sharing the tale of how she had met my pointy-eared father in the woods, and despite Thad knowing what my job had been in the army. He’d seemed to find my mother delightfully quirky and me… I’m still not sure what he saw in me, other than that he’d approved of my fantasy-novel collection. He was a good guy, and he’d been my attempt to settle down with someone nice and stable, to have a normal life and forget about being an assassin. That hadn’t lasted long.
The tree-lined road grew windy quickly, and I had to concentrate on the drive. In spots, a cliff rose steeply on the left and the lake fell sharply away to the right.
There wasn’t much traffic, so I didn’t have any warning when I came to a spot where the road had been washed out. No, more than washed out. It looked like sky giants had come down and ripped up the blacktop and land around it, sending it all tumbling down into the water. Logs lay scattered along the slope, further blocking the way. The roots were freshly uprooted, dirt still dangling from them.
I stared dumbfounded. There hadn’t been any warning of a road closure on the GPS, nor were there any cones or barriers set up to keep drivers from careening off down the slope and into the lake. This had just happened.
“Coincidence? Or does someone want to keep me from getting there?” It seemed hubris to believe this might have been done because of me, but in the past, magical beings had shot up neighborhoods, attempted to bomb a yoga studio, and successfully bombed a parking garage, all in an attempt to kill me.
I rolled down the Jeep’s window and stuck my head out, looking at the pale blue sky as I reached out with my senses. This could have been done by lesser magical beings than dragons, but for a dragon, it would have been easy. But Dob was dead, Zav wouldn’t tear up a highway, and I didn’t sense the powerful auras of any other dragons around. Nor did I sense the lesser auras of other magical beings, neither in the sky, nor in the woods upslope from the destroyed road.
Movement caught my eye in the distance between two evergreens. Something dark and furry and standing on two legs. As soon as I tried to focus on it, it disappeared into the undergrowth.
“A bear?” That was my guess, but I couldn’t help but add, “A sasquatch?”
I tapped the charms on the oft-repaired leather thong around my neck, tempted to summon Sindari to try to chase the creature down, but it had been at least a half mile away. The magic of his charm only allowed him to get a mile away from it before he snapped back to his own realm. If that furry critter could run quickly, it would be out of range before he could catch it.
Besides, I would need Sindari’s help with the investigation in Harrison. This wasn’t the only road into town. I would have to backtrack and go around.
As I turned my Jeep around to head back to I-90 and over to the next major road heading south, I wished I could call Mom to warn her. But she hadn’t entered the twenty-first century and didn’t own a cell phone. I’d have better luck telepathically communicating with her dog, Rocket, than leaving her a message. Nonetheless, I sent her a quick email in case she stopped somewhere with computer access along the way.
While I was in my inbox, I noticed that Thad hadn’t responded to my email from the night before. I also noticed I only had one bar of cell reception. Hopefully, there would be coverage in Harrison.
Before I’d driven more than a mile back north, the powerful magical aura of a dragon washed over me.
I groaned. “I knew it.”
It wasn’t Zav.
I couldn’t think of any benign reasons for another dragon to be following me. Uneasy, I drove faster than was wise on the windy two-lane road, hoping in vain to get back to the highway before it showed up. As much as I would have liked to believe this was a coincidence, I highly doubted it.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it back to the highway before a dark shadow fell across the gray pavement behind the Jeep. With trees hemming in the road on either side, there was nowhere else to go.
I stuck my head out the window again for a look. The dragon was huge, wings spanning wider than the road, and flying in the same direction I was going. And it was silver. Just like Dob.
For a moment, I thought it was Dob, somehow healed by his people and returned from the dead to avenge himself on me. But even if this dragon was the same silver color and looked similar, my senses told me the aura was different. This was a new dragon.
“Like that makes anything better.”
The shadow increased speed, quickly going from behind the Jeep to in front of it. A bend in the road forced me to slow down, but as soon as I was around it, I floored the accelerator.
Getting back to the interstate might not do anything to help me, but I had a delusional hope that the dragon wouldn’t attack if there were lots of witnesses, such as the drivers of semi-trucks barreling by on their way to the pass.
The dragon landed on the road dead ahead.
An unwise urge to keep my foot on the accelerator and plow into him came over me, but I quashed it and threw on the brakes. I couldn’t crash another vehicle this year. This Jeep wasn’t even mine.
The tires squealed, and the dragon didn’t move an inch or show a sign that it was worried. The Jeep halted two feet from its forelegs. The dragon was crouching on muscled rear legs and smaller forelegs, sleek silver scales gleaming in the sun. Yellow eyes glowed as it lowered its head to regard me through the windshield.
Zav had once warned me that his eyes glowed as a warning or when he was calling upon his magic. In other words, never for a reason conducive to the health of the person looking at them.
I gave in to my second unwise urge of the minute and honked the horn. If the dragon was new to Earth, maybe the noise would startle it into jumping out of the way. But if a Jeep careening toward it with the tires squealing hadn’t scared it, the horn wouldn’t likely help. In my experience, it didn’t even work on cattle.
Get out, a male voice spoke into my mind, the dragon not flinching at the noise.
“You forgot to say please,” I called out the window.
Get out now. This time, a mental compulsion laced the command, and I almost flung open the door and prostrated myself on the pavement before I caught myself.
Growling, I grabbed my gun and sword from the passenger seat. Only Chopper had ever done anything against a dragon, and even then, only when the dragon had been so wounded that his magical shields had been down. Unfortunately, this big fellow did not appear wounded. He radiated the same kind of intense crackling energy that Zav did, and my skin crawled as I stepped outside and fully into his influence.
“What can I do for you?” I closed the door and leaned casually against it, wondering if any of the gear in the vehicle could help me if he picked a fight.
The only other things I had brought along were a tent, sleeping bag, hatchet, and my travel kit, with shampoo, soap, clothes, and extra ammunition for Fezzik. None of the contents would be useful, though I amused myself briefly imagining squirting toothpaste out of the tube and into his eyes. A heinous attack certain to debilitate him.
You are insolent for a lesser species. I am Lord Shaygorthian of the Silverclaw Clan. You will address me as your lord or master.
Ugh, Dob had been from the Silverclaw Clan. If this was some vengeful relative… I was in trouble.
“Your master,” I said. “Got it. What can I do for you? You’re blocking traffic.”
Not that there’d been much traffic, but a yellow pickup truck was heading this direction. Maybe Shaygor here would be less likely to kill me if there was a witness.
Shaygor looked back, his fangs on display as his serpentine neck bent over his shoulder.
Tires squealed as the truck braked, drove off the road and around trees, knocking off one of its mirrors, and then back onto the road in the other direction. At top speed.
So much for my witness.
The great scaled head turned back toward me. I have been appointed as inquisitor by the Dragon Justice Court to investigate the death of my son, Dobsaurin.
His son? I kept my face as neutral as I could, but inside, it was hard not to tremble in fear. As soon as this guy figured out I’d killed his offspring, he would slaughter me.
“That’s not a conflict of interest?” My fingers strayed to the flame-shaped charm on my necklace. It would protect me somewhat if the dragon breathed fire at me, but he could kill me with magic as easily as with heat.
Lord Zavryd’nokquetal has stated before the court that he killed my son in self-defense, but he is a poor liar, and he refused to open his mind to the arbiters for a telepathic scouring.
“Huh.” My mouth was dry. What happened if this guy did a telepathic scouring on me? Why else would he have come?
It is extremely suspicious. That is why I am here. To find the truth and make certain, if he slew my son as part of a premeditated plan or out of sheer malice, that he will be properly punished. Or killed. To kill a dragon is the ultimate crime, but sometimes, punishment and rehabilitation are deemed too lenient. I hope that will be the case on this occasion. His voice pierced like ice in my mind, making me shiver with cold. And fear.