Sinister Magic: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #1) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,27

the trees on her lot, and a lava-rock cliff rose up behind the cabin, so it was still relatively private and unchanged by time, or at least it had been three years earlier, the last time I had visited. Now, as I drove down her road toward the end, a tingle raised the hairs on my arms, a warning of a magical being or perhaps magical artifacts. I hoped my mom didn’t have a witch or a werewolf for a neighbor.

I turned off the paved street and onto her long gravel driveway and frowned. There was a beat-up orange camper van parked in the dirt that didn’t look anything like her Subaru SUV. Was it hers? I’d spent the first twelve years of my life living in a school bus that she’d converted into a house on wheels, long before the term “tiny home” had become trendy. But after settling here, she’d seemed to give up her itchy-footed ways.

Stranger than the van were the new lawn ornaments—stands of metal flowers, miniature windmills, bears holding fish like bazookas, and peacocks made out of rusty bicycle parts. They were all over the patches of grass that managed to thrive in the splotches of sun between the trees. Not only were the ornaments of dubious design, but they oozed magic, much like the charms on my necklace. They were what I’d sensed from up the street.

“Did she move? Without telling me?” I stared around.

The log cabin itself hadn’t changed much, with the roof still in need of pressure-washing—though the moss growing up there would surely object to such an activity—and the greenhouse and garden beds in use. There was a blue kayak mounted on the side of the one-car log garage that might have been there last time, but I couldn’t remember.

What makes you wonder that? Sindari had figured out how the automatic windows worked, and his big furry silver head was hanging out from the back seat. The magic?

The magic and the, uh, flavor of the magic. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Mom was collecting elven artifacts, but it was hard to imagine an elven or even half-elven hand involved in the making of the rusty recycled art. Can you tell what those yard ornaments do?

No. Maybe your mother acquired a mate.

That’s impossible.

Is she not sexually active?

No! I mean, I don’t know. She’s seventy-one. I knew people of all ages enjoyed sex, but this was my mom we were talking about. She’d never dated anyone the whole time I’d lived with her. She always said that her elf—my father—was her one true love, and that she would never fall for another.

That sounds lonely.

Yeah, tell me about it. Not that I did any better in the romance department. I’d never even had a true love. My ex-husband was… a nice guy, but I’d fooled myself into believing I was passionately in love with him and wanted to settle down and lead a normal life. That delusion had worn away quickly after we’d married. But unlike another man I’d had a relationship with, he was still alive, so maybe it was for the best that I’d left.

My chest grew uncomfortably tight as I surveyed the changes to Mom’s property. The situation, or maybe the yellow juniper pollen dusting the street behind us, had me wanting to reach for that inhaler again. I felt like a drug addict needing her daily hit.

I made myself count through some of the slow inhalations and exhalations that Mary had suggested. I couldn’t tell if it helped. What if my condition got worse instead of better? What if I ended up having some massive asthma attack while I was on a mission, and I had to go to the hospital? Or I died in front of a creature I was supposed to slay?

“Stay here and watch the cat, please,” I told Sindari, giving up on activating my parasympathetic whatever.

A plaintive yowl came from Maggie’s carrier.

The small feline has no wish to stay with me.

“I won’t be long.”

Are those geese? Sindari asked as I got out and walked up to the front door.

I glanced toward the river where a group of them were hanging out on the bank. Yes. I’m sure they don’t want to meet you.

Such an assumption to make. I am the equivalent of royalty in your world. They will be honored to make my acquaintance.

I really doubt that.

As I walked up to the front door, I wondered if Mom even knew I was in town. The