“Among other reasons.” He walked into view carrying a sheet of paper. My invoice, no doubt.
I glanced at Ti to see what he thought of discussions with vampires, but his head had lolled off to the side, and he appeared to be sleeping.
“Zoltan.” I accepted the paper without looking—I’d try to get Willard to pay for his services before worrying if I could afford them. “Would the same formula you made to cure Ti work to fix up infected dragons?”
“I do not know. I would need to infect a dragon with the bacteria, wait for them to proliferate, and then dose him with my formula.”
“Can’t you just futz with the bacteria in a Petri dish or something?”
“Do you know nothing about science, dear robber?”
“Not much.”
“You are a cave woman.”
15
After killing time with a workout of sword katas by the glow of the solar landscape lights in the back yard, I sat on one of the retaining walls near the fence and gazed at the moon.
Zav, if you can hear me, now would be a good time to come back for a visit. I didn’t expect him to answer. Even if I was getting better at speaking telepathically to magical beings, my range seemed to be about a mile. And I had the niggling feeling that he had gone back to his world to discuss his dating problems with his mother.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a way to help Ti without Zav. I wasn’t that interested in risking my life to solve Ti’s problem even with Zav. It sounded like a suicide mission, and I had enough trouble protecting the citizens of Earth without wandering off to freedom fight on other planets. Still, if it would help the Stormforge clan—if it would help Zav—I would do it.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket, expecting it to be Nin asking how much room I had in my fridge and freezer. But it was Thad.
Hey, Val. What’s the name of Nin’s food truck?
Crying Tiger. Why?
She told me about it when we met at your house. I thought I would visit it for lunch sometime.
You’re going to drive from Edmonds to Pioneer Square for lunch at a food truck? Even without traffic, that was a long drive for some rice and beef, and Seattle was never without traffic.
I like to support local businesses.
Aren’t the businesses in Edmonds more local to your house?
I like to support local businesses owned by people I know. She seemed nice. She gave me marketing advice.
Do you need marketing advice? The last I’d heard, Thad did business-to-business stuff and had a network of contacts and plenty of work.
No, but it was sweet. She almost convinced me of the need to have a YouTube presence and post regular videos to promote my Customer Relationship Management Software.
Nice and sweet. I eyed my phone, wondering if altruism was truly what Thad had in mind. Had he and Nin spoken for long enough to make some kind of connection? I’d been too busy fighting orcs to monitor my houseguests properly.
I texted him the address and added, Ask her about her family and her dreams to buy a house here for all of them to live in. And about her plans for the coffee shop.
Are those the things that excite her?
Yeah. As far as I know, she doesn’t have any hobbies. She works all the time. So basically, she’s a cuter version of you.
I’m offended that you don’t find me cute.
You don’t have blue pigtails. Do you want her number?
He hesitated before answering. Do you think she would mind?
Probably not. It’s the same one she uses for her business and has listed on the website.
Okay. Sure.
When I put the phone away, I noticed that I sensed one less magical aura in the house than there should have been. Freysha was still in the kitchen studying those charms, and Zoltan was still in the basement, but… where was Ti?
I lurched to my feet. I didn’t sense him. The only way he could have left the basement was through the door not twenty feet away from me. Had I been that distracted by Thad’s conversation or my earlier exercises that I hadn’t noticed him walking out? Or what if someone had sneaked in and used magic to carry him out?
Swearing, I sprinted for the basement. If he’d been kidnapped from under my nose after Nin had specifically asked me to keep an eye on him, I’d beat myself with my own sword.
Ti’s chair was empty.
“Zoltan?” I spun toward the laboratory to find him puttering with a microscope. “Where did he go?”
Zoltan waved vaguely without lifting his face from the eyepiece. “He said he had to get something.”
“Get something? Get what? He fled his world as a refugee.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You’re a horrible babysitter.”
“I didn’t know that was a duty you wished me to take on. My hourly rate will go up if I must include gnome observation.”
I swore some more and ran upstairs and into the house. I put on the magical vest Nin had made for me and grabbed Fezzik and my sword harness for Chopper. “Freysha, can you sense Ti?”
She yawned and leaned back from her chair at the table. “Isn’t he…” Her gaze grew distant. “He’s not here. I didn’t notice him leave.”
“Me either. Your range is better than mine. Can you sense him anywhere in the neighborhood?”
“I will check. But first take these and put them on your thong necklace.” She handed me two of the charms that looked like they had been made by drunken goblins with crooked pliers. “My research tells me that is the one that will protect you from magical compulsion.” She tapped the ugliest one of them all. “And that one will protect you from storm magic, such as lightning strikes. They’re passive and don’t require activation words.”
“Can I just keep them in my pocket?”
She blinked and looked at me. “I suppose. You would not want to risk losing them.”
“This one looks like an owl hawked it up after eating a mechanical mouse. I’m not putting it around my neck next to Sindari.”
“As you wish.” Freysha closed her eyes to try to locate Ti.
Where would he have gone and for what? Was it possible some enemy out there had magically compelled him to leave the house? Some enemy who didn’t want to battle me, Sindari, and Freysha?
While she scoured the neighborhood with her senses, I pulled out my keychain and hung the ugly charms next to the house key. If they proved themselves invaluable, maybe I would paint them and move them to my neck thong.
As I stuck the keychain back in my pocket, I realized that I was taking Freysha’s word on this. After being tricked by that first elf, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to trust another elf. But Freysha had helped me survive Velilah’s wrath that afternoon and she was staying in my house and teaching me magic. If she’d meant to betray me, she could have done it already.
Logical thoughts, but I vowed to have Zav double-check the charms later.
“I sense him near the lake less than a mile away,” Freysha said slowly, her eyes still closed. “He is moving about in the trees behind a fence on a hill.”
I groped through my memories, trying to think of a fenced area near the lake. “The dog park?”
“I do not know. There are not dogs or people there now.”
“No, because it’s been dark for two hours. Okay, I’m going to go get him.” And sling him over my shoulder, carry him back, and shackle him to that anvil in the basement until Nin got back.
“Do you wish assistance?” Freysha didn’t manage to hide another yawn.
“Do you sense any dragons or orcs or anything else nefarious between here and there?”
“Not currently.”
“Then I’ll risk the trip alone.” I grabbed the Jeep key and ran for the door. “If Nin comes, tell her that Gramps needed fresh air and we’ll be right back.”
Not exactly a lie. I hoped. Maybe Nin was busy flirting with Thad through text messages by now and wouldn’t beat me back. I could hope.
When I pulled into the parking lot, the dog park was dark and empty. As I got out with my weapons, a raccoon scampered away from a garbage can. Frogs croaking across the street at the lake competed with distant traffic noise.
I sensed Ti up the hill and behind the fenced area, much as Freysha had promised. What the heck was he doing?
Trees grew densely in the area, and there weren’t any streetlights in this part of the park. If not for my ability to detect magical beings, I would have struggled to find Ti. But my senses took me up the hill toward the clump of trees where he was hanging out.
Had he grown claustrophobic in the basement and needed some nature? If so, I might kick his butt. We had trees in the back yard he could have visited.
A faint rustle sounded as Ti whirled toward me. He crouched between two trees, and I could barely pick him out and wasn’t sure if he had a weapon, so I stopped and lifted my hands.
“It’s Val. What are you doing?”
“Val? The dragon slayer?”
“And hunter of wandering gnomes, yes.” I worried he wouldn’t get that I was joking and started to clarify, but he sighed in relief.
“Thank goodness. I am in such a weakened state that I am struggling to employ a levitation spell. I should have asked you to come along from the beginning.”
“Yes, you should have. And you should have explained what you’re doing.”
Ti lowered his voice to a whisper and glanced around. “Getting your payment.”
“Right. Withdrawing from the Bank of the Woods.”
His English had been pretty solid earlier, if heavily accented, but maybe he had the wrong word now.
He hesitated. “I hid it here before I sought you out. I wasn’t sure… Even though Belohk said you were a good person, I did not want to risk losing this after I scrounged from everyone I knew to get enough.”
“Enough what?” I walked forward slowly, imagining him handing me an envelope of some gnomish currency that I would have to travel to Gnome Land to spend.
“Gold. It still has value here, yes?”