Forged in Fire (14 page)

Deidre thought about it. “Good plan,” she said. “Sarah, if you can arrange it with Skella, we’ll use her to travel between the mirrors here and a mirror out in Chumstick. We’ll get her a cell phone in case we need a special delivery, but we’ll have a normal schedule.”

She was already into heavy project-management mode—thinking of ways to make this work while keeping some modicum of control over it all.

“Three shifts,” she continued. “I’ll help schedule it all. What do you think?”

“Brilliant,” Katie said. “Jim will hate it.”

“True enough,” Deidre agreed. “But what do you think, Sarah?”

“Seems reasonable. Let me get with her, make sure she’s even vaguely interested.”

“Fair enough,” Deidre said, and gave us a grin.

We spent the next couple of hours watching Bub and the kids while making plans for how we were going to set up an encampment out at Anezka’s place. Someone had to know when things went even more hinky than they were now. Besides, I know I could use all the intelligence we could gather on the place.

A ley line ran down from the mountains, right under Anezka’s place out in Chumstick. Quite a few lines ran through the Pacific Northwest. It was a regular nexus of power. This particular line came to the surface in a cavern below the house. That’s where Justin had blocked the line. It burned me that he’d used my shield—the one I’d gotten from the Valkyrie, Gunnr. The very shield I used to help kill the dragon, Jean-Paul Duchamp.

I’d left it on the battlefield and Justin had recovered it. He’d worked his dark magic on it and shoved it into the ley line, disrupting the flow of energy and flooding the region with tainted magic. Of course, he’d been murdering people on those grounds for a year or more by that time.

Now, I just needed to get past the dome Qindra had over the place, remove my shield from the ley line, and bring Qindra home.

Piece of cake.

Nineteen

W
e left messages on the mirrors at
B
lack
B
riar and at home. It took a few days, but Skella finally saw one of the notes. I knew she was keeping an eye out for contact. We arranged to meet at Monkey Shines. I hadn’t been there since I heard about Camille, and we wanted to pay our respects.

The place was fairly packed. Gail was working the drive-thru as usual, but there were a couple of new girls running the front and the line was pretty long. We knew what we wanted and had more patience than some of the idiots in front of us. At one point, I thought I was going to have to kick some guy’s ass, but his girlfriend got him under control. Did no one have any patience these days? Didn’t they know how fine this coffee was?

“Look,” Katie said, pointing to a small stand-up on the counter when we got near the front.

There was a cardboard sign with Camille’s face on it. In front of the placard was a fishbowl half full of singles. The sign read:
HELP US REMEMBER OUR FRIEND. CAMILLE PRESTON MEMORIAL FUND. HELP SEND GIRLS IN AFRICA TO SCHOOL. IT WAS CAMILLE’S FAVORITE CHARITY
.

“Damn,” I said, fishing in my pocket for my wallet. “I talked to her for years. I never knew she supported kids in Africa.” I dropped a twenty into the jar, and the angry guy in front of us glanced our way. At least he had the decency to look abashed when he walked away with his coffee. He didn’t donate any money, and I bet he didn’t tip.

The new girls were perky and solemn at the same time. It was a little creepy. We ordered coffees and worked our way to the back of the shop, hovering over the good chairs until they were vacated; then we claimed them before anyone else could.

“What the hell are we going to do about this necromancer guy?” Katie asked, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her cup cradled in her hands.

I looked around at the other patrons. A vital part of this place had been brutally murdered and people were sitting around doing crosswords, texting and chatting like the world was safe.

“I don’t know,” I answered, trying to keep the frustration from my voice. Katie’s look told me I hadn’t succeeded. “I think once Skella gets here, we might be able to get some answers.”

Luckily we didn’t have too much longer to wait. I had barely dented my huge mug o’mocha when Skella walked out of the hall leading to the bathrooms. The mirror down the hall was fairly secluded. It was also one of the ones Gletts had kept tuned to when he’d been stalking me, before I’d really met them.

I waved Skella into a seat we’d been saving—much to the annoyance of the other patrons—and she beamed at us.

“I’ll grab you a coffee,” Katie said, standing.

“Hot chocolate, please,” Skella said.

Katie nodded and began to swim her way back upstream of the crowd at the bar. I put my feet in Katie’s chair, to keep the guys behind us from taking it.

“I have a proposition for you,” I said, launching right in.

She didn’t say anything for a bit, just listened with wide eyes.

“Of course I’ll help,” she said, bouncing in her chair. “Gran is making me crazy. All we do is sit with Gletts and mope. All those families sitting around the infirmary, hoping their loved ones will wake up someday. It’s like being at a funeral all the time. I mean, come on. The battle was only a month or so ago. Give the people time to heal. But just sitting around all the time. I’d kill for a diversion.” She grinned at me. “Gran said some days she has a hard time believing I’m an elf.”

Katie arrived at that moment with a vat of hot chocolate and three plates of blueberry crumble.

“We hope it’s all pretty mundane,” I said, sliding a plate of crumble to my side of the table. “No real excitement.”

“At least I’d be helping the good guys,” Skella said, picking up her drink. “Thanks,” she said, inclining her head to Katie.

Katie nodded back. “We’re hoping for dull and boring, actually. We’ve had enough excitement.”

In the end, we settled on a salary I thought was criminally low, and Skella thought a king’s ransom. That and we promised to provide her a cell phone and cover the monthly bill. She was in heaven.

I finished the crumble and set my mug aside, considering the young Goth elf. “How’s your brother?”

“Fine,” she said, her face suddenly neutral. “No change, really. Gran insists we sit with him every day, so he knows we need him to come home.”

“What do you think?” Katie asked.

“He’s out there, somewhere,” she said, wistfully. “I just can’t find him.”

I looked at her, suddenly nervous. “You’re looking for him? Like where?”

“The sideways,” she said, lowering her voice. “His body is strong. I know he could come back, if he could find his way home.”

“So, he’s a ghost or something?” I asked.

“Something like that. If he doesn’t come back soon, his body will begin to die. Then he will be lost to us forever. Gran is getting quite desperate.”

I thought back to how the dwarves of the Dragon Liberation Front had forced Skella and Gletts to act as their taxi service while they kidnapped Ari and used him to make their blood mead. Not all dwarves were evil, but that crew definitely had bought a franchise into bat-shit crazy land.

“Your gran isn’t thinking of doing anything drastic, is she?” I asked.

Skella just shrugged. “She doesn’t tell me. But I know she has no love for dark magic, nor blood magic, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I shrugged. “No. She seemed like a lovely person. I just know that grief and fear can drive rational beings to do some pretty stupid things.”

“Which brings us back around to the necromancer,” Katie said.

There was a sudden lull in the conversations around us, so we all paused. Once things got back to their usual dull roar, we huddled close over the small table between our chairs, and spoke in earnest tones.

I explained everything that had been happening, from the death of the girls in Vancouver, to Camilla’s murder, and even the horse, Blue Thunder. Skella hadn’t heard anything, alas.

“I’m almost positive it’s the guy from Anezka’s place,” I explained. “The one who worked for the dragon up your way, the necromancer.”

“Blood magic, yes.” Skella looked very uncomfortable. “Before you killed Jean-Paul, Gletts had met the necromancer a couple of times. That’s how we knew to find you at the house in Chumstick. Gletts had taken some of the dwarves out there to meet this blood mage, Justin.” She paused, toyed with her cup. “He never liked it, you know. No matter how he may have come across to you. Gletts hated them. Hated what they forced us to do.” She sighed, looking up at us in turn. “He said we had to fight fire with fire. I think he may have dabbled in a few things he wasn’t proud of.”

I thought back to the crap in my life, the current relationship I had with Nidhogg. How could I argue?

“They never included Gletts in their conversations, but the dwarves, Kraken and Bruden, let things slip from time to time.” She set her cup on the table and scrubbed her face briefly. I could see the tears in her eyes. “They were arrogant and cruel. I’m happy they’re dead.”

Katie reached over and patted her on the knee. I loved that about her. Always reaching out to make sure others were okay.

“Well, we may have broken up the blood cult, but Justin is still out there wrecking havoc. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of facts,” I said. “We just know that he’s killing people around me. We think he’s trying to figure out who I am.”

Skella looked at me for a long time, a look of resignation on her face. “Sarah. I don’t know much, but based on what Gletts shared with me, I’d guess he already knows who you are. I think if he wanted to kill you, he’d have already tried something.” She shrugged. “I’m just guessing, but based on the things Gletts had picked up, I think he’s doing something else. Something he doesn’t want you messing with.”

“You think he’s trying to scare me?”

Katie pulled a face, but didn’t say anything.

Skella thought for a moment. “He knows someone killed the dragon. To do that, they’d have to be pretty damn powerful.” She smiled at me.

“Which we know is totally true,” Katie said with a laugh. “Kick-ass warrior chick.”

I shot her a look. “Seriously?”

Skella snickered when Katie leaned over and kissed me.

“So,” Skella went on, “I think he’s still on the path he was on before, only now he knows you’re out there and he’s trying to keep you going in circles.”

Made a kind of sense. “Any clue to what he was planning?”

“Not much,” she said, glancing at Katie. “He was always looking for an item of power. Gletts never could figure out what it was, but they think it’s down here somewhere, in your neck of the woods. Whatever it is, the dwarf, Bruden, always claimed it was a game changer.”

“And they were in league with dragons who want to rule openly?” Katie asked.

Skella nodded.

“Why the hell would anyone want to help the dragons rule openly?” I asked. “It would be mass murder.”

“He thinks he’s getting something out of the deal,” Katie said.

Skella shook her head. “I can’t imagine what would be worth all that.”

Katie grimaced. “He’s a necromancer. I’m thinking he’d love a lot of death. It buys him something.”

“If he just wanted massive carnage, he could blow up a building or something.” I sat back and ran my hands through my hair. “There’s something else he’s after, I’m sure of it. We’re missing something crucial.”

We let the subject drop, each lost in our own thoughts.

Justin had been in league with the Dragon Liberation Front. And they were in league with the psycho dragon cult that wanted to rule openly.

How did I play in all that? Could he be after Gram? She was built to kill dragons. Maybe he needed her to tip the balance of power somehow—take out one or more of the ruling dragons, start a civil war. It was a thought.

Damn scary thought.

Twenty

W
e were home doing laundry on Saturday a week later. I was whining about how much I hated doing laundry, which explains why most of my clothes were jeans and T-shirts. I rarely took them out of the laundry basket once I’d washed them. Katie decided I needed to be retrained, so we played strip laundry. It was pretty fun. We were folding clothes, and if we both took out a similar piece of clothing, the first one to get that piece folded and in the basket got to make the other remove something.

I was down to one sock, panties, and a T-shirt. Katie was wearing nothing but a stocking cap and thigh-high boots. I’d just about given the laundry up in favor of other activities when my cell phone rang. Katie made me answer it and ran around the other side of the bed, away from my reach.

I answered the phone. The number was out of area, which likely meant it was a sales call.

“Smith,” a gravelly voice said on the other end. “You should turn on the news.”

“Who is this?” I asked.

Katie was busy on the other side of the bed doing something rather intriguing with a bottle of baby oil.

“There’s a report coming on right now that involves a girl getting murdered that may interest you.”