Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #2) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,39
specific about the silver dragon?”
I’d left a message on Willard’s voice mail that morning, asking for everything she had on the Northern Pride, but I didn’t know if she would get back to me before Monday. And now I had a new problem.
“I have heard of one being sighted but not much more. What are you trying to learn?”
“Where he’s hiding. And ideally why he’s hiding. This is the ugly brute that almost toasted me over on the peninsula. He gave me a message to give to Zav, which I’ve done now, but apparently, he’s playing coy and not letting Zav find him.”
“I know very little about dragons. Until last month, I would not have believed they ever came to Earth.”
“If a dragon would kidnap children to attract attention, would he also kidnap joggers?”
“I do not know. I would expect a dragon to kill people outright.”
“Dead people can’t be used as bait.”
As I sipped my drink, the spicy dry cider leaving a smoky note on my taste buds, I poked around on my phone, looking for news stories mentioning the missing pedestrians that Nin had brought up. The news sites were worthless—for years, the mainstream media had been looking the other way, presumably under government or corporate influence, and not admitting to the existence of magic or magical beings. The socials were more reliable, but even they only mentioned that a couple of joggers had gone missing that morning, one from Log Boom Park near Lake Forest Park and another from a secluded stretch of the Sammamish River Trail between Woodinville and Bothell. There were trees in both of those areas, I decided, closing my eyes to picture the different sections. A dragon swooping in early enough could have grabbed joggers without being noticed, especially if he had means to camouflage himself. If Dob could hide from Zav, he could definitely hide from humans.
“Here’s another missing person. A walker disappeared from Cold Creek Natural Area in Woodinville.” I dropped pins, zoomed out, and gripped my chin as I studied the map. “The three spots are almost in a straight east-to-west line. Too bad the times when the people were kidnapped, if that’s what happened, are imprecise. With that information, we could tell where he started and which way he was going when he picked up the last one.” I tapped the map. “The farmers market in town is roughly on that line too. I saw him yesterday, not this morning, but that could indicate his lair—that was what Zav called it—is nearby.”
“What does a dragon lair look like?”
“My Dungeons and Dragons experience tells me it’s a cave full of mounds of treasure. Dragons are the Scrooge McDucks of the mythical kingdom.”
Nin’s forehead furrowed in confusion.
“I’m going to be disappointed if neither Dungeons and Dragons or Scrooge McDuck exist in Thailand.”
“I do not know. I was not familiar with them. But I have heard young men at my food truck speak of the dungeons. It is a game, yes?”
“Yes. There are books too.”
The food arrived, and my mouth watered at the aroma of the batter-fried cod sitting atop a mound of fries with a lemon wedge and tartar sauce on the side. I hadn’t eaten before going to the yoga class, so this was my first food of the day, and I stuffed fries in, determined to set my phone down and appreciate them. But I couldn’t keep my gaze from straying back to the map.
To the west of the first missing-person location, Log Boom Park, was the populous suburb of Shoreline and eventually, Puget Sound. Unless I was way off on what dragons liked for lairs, it was hard to imagine a promising spot existing among the houses and apartment buildings of the area. Or out in the Sound with the krakens and dolphins. I supposed the dragon could be shape-shifting and staying in a hotel, but if he was kidnapping people and not eating them, storing them at a Motel 6 would be tricky.
I scrolled to the east, my finger drawing an imaginary line. “Somewhere around Duvall, maybe? There’s a lot of farmland out there, but also a lot of forest, and eventually, you get up into the foothills of the mountains. There are some hiking trails, old logging roads, and an access road to the Tolt River reservoir and the water-treatment facility out there but not much more. Some topography to the area.” I typed in a search to see if information on any caves popped up.