Sinister Magic: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #1) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,25

duty off on someone else.

“Yes.” I traveled so much that I couldn’t even keep the plants in my apartment alive, but I would figure out something.

“Good, good.” Dan patted me heartily on the shoulder. “Do you know how she’s doing? The sergeant?”

“She’s a colonel, and she’s… receiving treatment.”

“Oh, is she? She yells at me a lot about my posture and cleaning up my apartment. I assumed she was, like, a drill sergeant or something.”

“She was once.”

“I knew it.”

Fire engines wheeled into the parking lot, and uniformed men leaped off, issuing orders for people to get back. Dan went one way, and I went another, Maggie complaining loudly about her night thus far.

I paused at the sidewalk to make sure I still had the vial. If I’d lost that, I would have lost my only clue.

It was still in my pocket. I held it up to the light of the fire to make sure it hadn’t been cracked. And twitched in surprise. Some kind of hieroglyph or sigil glowed red on the bottom of the clear glass.

“That was not there before,” I muttered. No way would I have missed that.

It was surprisingly intricate considering the diminutive size of the bottom of the vial. It reminded me of the books in my mother’s house, books I’d flipped through as a child, books on the elven language.

As the soft drizzle fell on the vial, the sigil faded. Was it heat activated? Or magic activated? I had no idea if that had been a magical explosive or a mundane one.

The elf got away, Sindari admitted from wherever he was. She opened a storm grate, jumped through, and locked it behind her with magic. She ran into a passage flowing with water, and by the time I got into it, I’d lost the scent. And picked up odious other scents. Do your people defecate under their cities?

Sounds like a sewer passage. I thought those were all in pipes these days, but who knew where Sindari had ended up. I was too disappointed that he’d lost the elf to worry about it. It wasn’t his fault, but how frustrating that the person who’d bombed us, and might have had something to do with Willard’s mysterious disease, had gotten away. I would have loved to question her, ideally while wringing her neck.

It’s disgusting, not a fitting place for an ambassador.

I know. I pushed my damp braid over my shoulder. Come back, please. If the elf is gone, we’ll have to search for answers the old-fashioned way.

Where?

I thought again of my mother’s books, of how much knowledge—useless knowledge, I’d often considered it—she had on elves. We’d barely spoken in years, and she had strong opinions about my choice to stay away from my daughter, so I didn’t enjoy spending time with her, but she might be able to help.

Maggie screeched again, sounding more like a Halloween banshee than a cat.

My mother also liked animals. Maybe I could foist Maggie off on her while I hunted down Willard’s saboteur.

To visit my mom, I replied.

You have a mother?

Yes.

You’ve never spoken of her.

We don’t have a lot in common.

Does she like tigers?

It hasn’t come up.

Strange.

Yes.

8

It was a lot sunnier and warmer on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains. A lot browner, too, with the densely packed firs and spruce and ferns of the western side of the mountains giving way to more sparsely distributed ponderosa pines and junipers and eventually just sagebrush as I drove down Highway 26 toward Madras. When I’d packed, I’d grabbed my duster, jeans, and durable polyester tops. Maybe shorts and tanks would have been a better choice.

Bend, where my mother lived, was another hour out and six hours total from Seattle. The cat had complained the whole way.

Maggie was part Siamese, a breed, the internet informed me, known for vocalization. Even though the car was climate-controlled, and I’d stopped often to check her food and water, it was clear she did not like her road trip. Or maybe the fact that she was stuck in a cat carrier for it. But I didn’t want to risk her escaping, especially not when I’d seen a coyote cross the highway earlier.

The only good thing about the trip so far was that some of Maggie’s hairs were floating out and nestling themselves into the fabric of the seats. I didn’t know how much longer I would have this car, but the idea of Lieutenant Sudo getting it back covered in cat hair pleased the immature part of my