“Which van?” Willard had already given the person my address. “The big one, I guess.” She paused for a response. “I don’t know how much the beast corpse weighs. Or what it is even.” She looked at me.
I’d never seen one before and couldn’t guess what species it was, so I offered, “It’s kind of like the scaly Klingon lizard-dogs.”
Willard frowned at me. “The what?”
“Klingon dog?” a male voice asked from her phone. “Original movies or Next Generation?”
“Original movies,” I said, “and bigger. This thing is probably four hundred pounds. Almost as big as Sindari but not nearly as regal.”
Certainly not. Sindari was in the process of washing blood off his foot and did not look up.
“Got it,” the man said. “Thanks, Val.”
Willard hung up. “You’re more of a geek than I realized.”
“Someone with a Garfield mug collection doesn’t have room to talk.” Trusting the van would show up soon, I pulled tarps out from under the porch and covered up the bodies, then jogged toward the back yard to check on everyone.
“Two mugs isn’t a collection,” Willard said, striding after me.
“It is if you add in all the Flintstones and Smurfs mugs on the shelf with them.” My heart lurched when I found the back yard deserted except for Clarke and the other two guys. What were their names? Jeremy and Juan. “Where’s my kid? And the gnome? And everyone else?”
“They took the gnome inside to put him on a bed,” Clarke said.
“Whose bed?” I assumed Dimitri’s, since his room was on the ground floor, but when I ran through the kitchen—Thad and Amber were standing around the table, thankfully unharmed—and peeked inside, there were too many boxes of reclaimed junk for his projects for anyone to lie down. “How could anyone who was living in a van a week ago have accumulated so much?”
Willard was following me, but she didn’t offer an opinion. Using my sense for the magical instead of common sense, I realized the gnome was on the second floor. So was Freysha. Why did it seem like they were in my room?
“This place is big,” Willard said as we tramped up one of the two staircases in the house and past a library, a study, and two bedrooms before reaching the turret. “But badly in need of work. What are those stains on the carpet?”
“Someone probably killed a Klingon dog.”
Afternoon sunlight streamed through the tall windows in the rounded walls of my bedroom. My theoretical bedroom since the mold on this floor had been bothering me and I’d been sleeping downstairs on the couch when nobody was looking. I was even less inclined to sleep in here now that there was an injured gnome lying on the pillows and comforter. The king-size, four-poster canopy bed was huge, which brought attention to how small he was.
Nin stood at the foot of the bed, nibbling on her knuckle. Freysha sat on the edge and held the gnome’s hand, though he was as unconscious as he had been before.
“You have a giant poster bed?” Willard sounded amused. “That’s new, isn’t it? It’s bigger than your entire previous apartment.”
“It came with the house. I doubt the previous renters could get it out.”
Freysha gazed across at me. “I don’t think his injuries alone would explain why he’s unconscious. He does have a lot of wounds, new and old, but I also sense…” She groped at the air with her long delicate fingers. “I believe there is something unusual in his body, something unnatural.”
“Uh.” I glanced at Willard, thinking of the something unnatural in her body that had nearly killed her a few months back.
Judging by her grimace, it came to mind for her as well.
But I’d sensed the magic that had been affecting her. Even when I stepped closer to the bed and examined the gnome with my senses, I couldn’t sense anything similar from him.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“I do not sense magic but something foreign. Something that does not belong.”
“Like a poison?”
“That is… possible.” The wrinkle to Freysha’s upper lip suggested skepticism, but maybe she didn’t have a better word for it. “Unfortunately, I am not a healer. If we could take him to my world, I could easily find someone who could examine him. It is also possible one of your Earth doctors would be sufficient.”
“Earth doctors don’t believe gnomes exist,” I said.
“That may make treatment problematic.”
“Is it possible to travel to your world, Freysha?” Nin asked.
“Certainly, but I am not skilled in travel magic.” Freysha spread a hand. “Lord Zavryd could do it easily. I sensed him here earlier. Would he help?”
“Probably, but he went home. He’s got some trouble of his own with his family.”
“Anything we need to worry about?” Willard eyed me. She hadn’t been happy when I’d passed along Zav’s warning that Earth had come more fully on the Dragon Ruling Council’s radar of late and that it was possible some officious dragons would come to see our world leaders.
“I don’t think so. Not this time. A relative of his has gone missing.”
“There is nothing that can be done to help here?” Nin gripped one of the bed posts. “I have not seen my grandfather for twenty years. When he disappeared, we all thought he was dead, that some angry client had killed him or he had been a hapless victim to violence. He was not the kind of man to leave his family, especially after my deadbeat father walked out on my mother and all of us.” Nin shook her head. “I do not know where he has been or how he found me here at your house, but we must help him.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that the gnome had been specifically seeking out Nin, but I realized he must have been. Chance wouldn’t have brought him to my doorstep—or my back patio, rather.
“Maybe Zoltan can do something once he wakes up.” I squinted at the afternoon sun, realizing it would still be several hours before our basement roommate stirred.
“He has medical training?” Freysha asked.
“Just the alchemy, as far as I know, but he researches a lot of stuff. Maybe he’s got a potion that would work.”
“I believe he would need a diagnosis to prescribe a formula. A healer would be ideal. Is there anyone here who treats those in the magical community?” Freysha frowned thoughtfully at the window. “I suppose I could ask Gondo if he knows of any goblin shamans. They mostly heal their own kind, but…”
Willard sighed dramatically—which was startling because drama wasn’t her thing. “I have someone I can ask to come take a look.”
She dug out her phone, her mouth twisting in displeasure.
“An ally or an enemy?” I asked.
“Both.”
“Really? Do I need to stand on my lawn with my gun again when he or she arrives?”
“It’s a he, and he’s some kind of cat shifter with the arrogance of a dragon, even though he’s lived on Earth his whole life, as far as I know, and has no right to be as cocky as he is.”
“I’m not sure if that answered my gun question.”
“He’s not an enemy, just vexing.” Whoever he was, Willard had his number programmed into her phone. “He probably won’t even come. He’s extremely sought after, or so he tells me. Whenever he comes to the office, he reminds me how much more he makes in private practice than by helping the government.”
“Such vitriol. This sounds more like an ex-boyfriend than an army contractor.”
“I’d gnaw my foot off before dating him.”
Her vehement denial made me want to probe further, but Nin was watching with pinched lips, and I reminded myself that she knew the stranger passed out on my bed.
“What’s his specialty?” I asked as Willard’s call dropped to voice mail.
She hung up and tried again. “Reconstructive surgery.”
“You’re calling a plastic surgeon to come help a mysteriously injured gnome?”
“That’s his current practice and how he makes his money, but he was in the army and can do just about anything. He started out operating as a GP specializing in magical beings, but the goblins, trolls, and orcs all wanted to pay him in chickens and daggers and stolen loot from muggings. He switched tracks, and now he fixes people’s faces if they get burned or mangled in a car accident. He also helps non-humans blend in if they want. He turned a teenage orc girl into someone who could fit into your daughter’s school and get hit on by football players.”
“You’re sure that was a service?”
“Apparently.”
“Colonel Willard,” a smooth male voice answered—it was quiet enough in the bedroom that I had no trouble hearing it, “you’ve called three times and refuse to leave a voice mail. You must be breathless with need for me.”
“Yeah, my female bits are aching.” Willard ignored my eyebrows flying up. “Also, I have an unconscious gnome that’s been poisoned and attacked by orcs. Can you come take a look?”
“It’s Saturday.”
“So you’re not busy? Good.”
He snorted. “Never too busy for you, Colonel. You’re at the office?”
“No.” Willard shared my address for the second time in ten minutes.
I doubted my new home was going to remain a mystery to the magical community for long. I hoped this shifter could be trusted. He sounded smarmy.
When she hung up, I asked, “Am I supposed to find some chickens to pay him?”
“No.” Her mouth twisted in distaste again. “He insists on cash and charges even more exorbitant fees than you do for his consulting time.”
“I didn’t know charging more was an option.”
“Don’t get any ideas. It’s not.”
“But this doctor gets away with it?”