Willard’s lips thinned, but she didn’t object further.
“Now, if you’ll allow me to work—” Walker patted the medical kit he’d brought along, “—I’ll suture his wounds and set up an IV to hydrate him and give him some nutrients that may help his liver.”
“You can do that in someone’s house?” I asked.
“I can. As you pointed out, a gnome arriving in a hospital would flummox the staff. And I find it unlikely he has a health insurance card.” Walker opened his kit. “If I’m not able to rouse him, I may have to insert a catheter as well.”
“Uh.” I raised a finger. “Could we take him to a guest bedroom before messing with his bladder?”
“Who’s going to monitor that stuff?” Willard asked. “Thorvald’s about as likely a nurse as a sasquatch.”
“Hey, I completed the combat-lifesaver course in the army.”
“Were catheters covered?”
“Not… explicitly.”
“Have no fear, Colonel,” Walker said. “I can send someone over to help with nurse duties this weekend, and I’m capable of turning this into a first-rate care facility.”
“I’ll show you to the bedroom you can use for that.” I pointed out a guest room, then went outside to get some fresh air.
Dimitri’s barbecue guests had left, only a sad platter of charred hot dogs and cold burgers evidence of his attempt at an afternoon shindig. He’d switched to poking into the various raised planters around the back yard, digging out weeds and putting in fresh bark. I remembered he’d worked for a landscaper back in Oregon, something that had paid the bills better than his yard-art-creation hobby.
“How are Nin and her grandfather?” Dimitri asked when he saw me.
“She’s worried. I hope they get Ti to wake up, because I’m sure she has questions for him. I have questions for him. Like how did he know to find her at our new house? And did he know he was leading a passel of trouble to us?”
Dimitri’s phone rang. “It’s the shop. I hope Tam doesn’t need me to come in. This is the only day I’ve taken off all week.”
I spotted Freysha walking out to the conservatory and left him to talk to his barista.
“Hey,” I said, joining her inside. “I kept an orc from compelling me to bare my neck to his sword. The lessons are paying off.”
“That’s excellent.” Freysha didn’t head to her growing plant collection, as I’d expected. Instead, she pulled out the box of LEGOs that Willard had given her and started setting up piles on the brick floor.
“New project?”
“Gondo and Tari are coming over for a block-construction contest. Also, to look over my homework for my engineering class.”
“Are you sure you want input from goblins? They’ll probably suggest you add more repurposed auto parts and road signs to whatever it is you’re designing for your homework.”
“A sewage-treatment plant.”
“Carburetors add flair to those, I hear.”
“Val?” came Nin’s voice from the kitchen. “Freysha?”
“Out here,” I called.
“The doctor found something in my grandfather’s pants.” Nin ran out with a folded paper clenched in her hand, her expression extremely earnest, so I resisted the urge to make jokes about what men—and presumably male gnomes—kept in their pants. “But he cannot read it.”
Nin stopped in front of us and unfolded the paper. No, that looked like parchment. She held it up toward us, and I gaped at a portrait drawn in black ink.
“Is that a picture of me?”
“It looks very much like you.” Nin pointed to two columns of symbols below the portrait along with another small drawing. It was of a sword that looked a lot like Chopper.
“That’s the most predominant of the three dwarven languages.” Freysha held out her hand for the parchment.
“Dwarven?” I asked. “Not gnomish?”
How many races were mixed up with Nin’s grandfather?
“Dwarven, yes.”
“Can you read it?” I scratched my head.
Did this mean Nin’s grandfather had come looking for me? Not Nin?
“Yes, I believe so.” Freysha laid the parchment on one of the potting benches and scrutinized it.
Behind her, Nin paced.
“Val,” Freysha said, “have you ever met a dwarf named Belohk?”
“Uh, yes. A few months ago. He was chained up and being forced to make magical ammunition for some shifters up in Bothell.”
“He signed this.” Freysha pointed to four symbols at the bottom of the parchment. “He may have written the whole page.”
“And the page says what?”
“It speaks of a mighty half-elven warrior who fearlessly battles dragons and carries what he believes is one of the original Dragon Blades from more than ten thousand years ago.” Freysha glanced over my shoulder, though I’d removed Chopper’s scabbard after the battle. She realized that and turned her gaze toward the open kitchen door. Her eyes grew unfocused, as if she was using her senses to study the sword for the first time. “I do not know enough about dwarven workmanship to know if that’s true. It is a powerful sword and certainly made with superb workmanship.”
“So I’ve heard. But why was this guy writing about me? This isn’t a bounty poster or something like that, is it?” I’d thought I’d parted on good terms with old Belohk.
Freysha ran her hand along the ragged top edge of the parchment. “I believe this was torn from a workbook. It looks much more like a diary entry or a letter than a mass-produced document. There is no mention of a reward or bounty.”
Dimitri walked in, sticking his phone in his pocket. “I need to go to the shop. Trolls got in a fight and broke more of Zoltan’s tinctures. I’m going to have to build some kind of troll-proof display case. I’m envisioning poured cement and transparent aluminum.”
I lifted a hand to acknowledge the Star Trek reference but was too distracted by this new development to look away from the parchment.
Dimitri followed our gazes to it. “Everything okay here?”
“Dwarves in other realms are writing about me in their diaries,” I said.
“Did that answer my question?”
“I don’t know. Freysha, what else does it say?”
“It reemphasizes that you’ve got one of the ancient Dragon Blades and that you’re a great warrior who has slain dragons with it.”
“That isn’t something I want getting out. So far, every dragon I’ve met has taken exception to that, and it’s only the fact that Zav claimed me and told his people he’ll be responsible for my further actions that I haven’t been shackled by the Dragon Justice Court for years of punishment and rehabilitation.”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to help me clean up the shop while I build the display cases,” Dimitri said, “but I see you have problems of your own to deal with.”
“No kidding. I’ll help you with the display cases later if you help me tear out the walls in the bathrooms upstairs, dry out the framing, and repair the leaks.”
Dimitri looked puzzled. “I said I would. I didn’t realize it was that urgent of a project.”
Only if I wanted to be able to sleep in my bedroom without crazy nightmares and my inhaler clenched in my hand. I didn’t say that out loud. I hadn’t told Dimitri about my weak lungs or susceptibility to mold, and I was hesitant to bring it up now. Or ever. Even if these people were my friends, I didn’t want to admit to my weaknesses. Wasn’t that why I was seeing a therapist? I’d complain to her at my next appointment.
“Freysha,” I said, “any idea how Nin’s grandfather—her gnomish grandfather—got ahold of a dwarf’s diary entry?”
“No. The only person who knows is unconscious in your house.” Freysha looked contemplatively at me.
“I do not understand,” Nin said. “Why would my grandfather be interested in Val? Does he want her sword? He is not a warrior, and he knows how to craft magical weapons of his own.”
“Maybe he wants Val,” Dimitri said.
“I’m kind of tall for him, don’t you think?” I smiled, but nobody else did.
Freysha folded the parchment back up and returned it to Nin. “I believe the only way to get answers is to figure out how to wake him up so you can ask.”
“Or wait for some more orcs to come attack me and ask them.” That wasn’t the option I would prefer.
“Let’s hope the doctor figures out how to heal and rouse him,” Freysha said.
After Dimitri left, I guided Nin out of the conservatory. She drew the parchment out to look at it again.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “I’m sure the doctor will figure something out. If not today, then when his lab analyzes the blood sample.”
“Yes. I will be fine. I am just…” Nin lowered the parchment. “Is it wrong of me to have hurt feelings because my grandfather came to Seattle to see you instead of me?” She waved her hand in front of her heart. “I feel upset. It is childish and not important right now, but… it is my feeling.”
“It’s not wrong to have feelings, but maybe we should get his story before we judge him.”
“I do not wish to judge him. I am merely admitting to feeling hurt.”
“Let’s get his story before you feel hurt.” I patted her on the shoulder.
“I wish he were awake now. I so badly want to talk to him.”
I wished I could help her more.
Willard walked out of the house and joined us on the patio. “Walker has done everything he can for now and said he’d drop the blood off at his lab and send a nurse to help. I’m heading home.”
“Wait.” I lifted a hand, realizing we had access to another lab that might be as viable as Walker’s. And that could run the sample tonight. “Can he get another vial of blood before he goes? For our vampire in the basement?”