Sinister Magic: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #1) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,31
held the vial up to the sun, then shrugged off her pack, pulled out a lighter, and used the flame to heat the bottom.
“You’ve given up on flint and steel and embraced modern technology?” I asked.
“I still practice making fires from scratch, but this is easier if you’re stuck out looking for someone. It gets dark fast in the mountains.”
Loud snuffles came from Sudo’s car—Rocket had followed his nose back to it and had his feet up on the rear passenger window that Sindari had opened. Maggie, no doubt alarmed by the appearance of another predator, yowled a complaint.
Mom held the vial up to the sky.
“Can you see the sigil?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is it Elvish?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She lowered the vial and handed it back to me.
I looked at Dimitri. “Do you enjoy similarly monosyllabic conversations with my mother, or am I special?”
“I just met you, but I think you might be.” He glanced to where Sindari had been before he disappeared back into his realm.
“Guess the therapist was right.” I stared down at the vial in disappointment.
Mom might be wrong—she wasn’t a scholar of the subject, just an obsessed and abandoned lover of an elf. But either way, it looked like I’d wasted my time coming all the way down here.
“I’ve got some language books we can check,” Mom said. “Just to be sure. But if you’re trying to figure out more about that symbol, I might know someone who can help. If you don’t mind a short walk in the woods.”
I almost answered immediately that I didn’t mind, but past experience made me give her a wary squint. “How short is short? Will we be crossing a state line on foot?” I waved at her dusty bare toes.
I hadn’t forgotten the summer vacation I’d spent hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with her. A rite of passage, she’d assured me, while speaking about how her parents had taken her on days-long hikes through the mountains. I mostly remembered being bored out of my gourd and trying to hide my face behind my hair to protect against mosquitoes.
“Just a few miles,” she said. “Shoes are optional.”
Maggie yowled in the car, reminding me that she needed attending. Or that she didn’t like the big yellow furry head sticking in the window.
“Is that a cat?” Mom asked.
“Colonel Willard has assured me she is, though it’s possible she’s a demon or nefarious shapeshifter in disguise. Can you watch her for a while? Willard is… in the hospital. And her apartment building burned down.”
“Burned down?”
Rocket, having finished sniffing every part of the vehicle and ground that Sindari had touched, came over and nosed my hand in greeting before giving Dimitri a vigorous tail wag. He squatted down to pet the dog.
“I don’t know that for sure,” I admitted, “but the entire side of the building was heartily on fire when last I saw it. An elf threw a Molotov cocktail at it.”
“An elf? Elves all left the world decades ago.”
“And dragons left centuries ago, and yet…” I pointed to my phone full of crash photos.
“Huh. The world is getting interesting again.”
Before I could debate what that meant, Mom added, “Get the cat, and let’s see what we can find.”
9
We had to wait until morning to head off on Mom’s “short walk in the woods,” since, as she’d informed me, we didn’t want to be caught out in the national forest after dark. New residents had moved into the area, which made nocturnal travels a bit dicey. I asked what kind of residents were allowed to move onto government land but didn’t get much of an answer. By then, she’d had her head buried in her language books, flipping through old yellowed pages full of symbols. To my untrained eye, they were similar to the one on my vial, but I reluctantly admitted that none of them were identical. Also, there were two angry slashes on the top and bottom of mine that didn’t look anything like the flowing symbols in the books.
Now, we were on the highway in my borrowed government car, heading south toward Paulina Lake. Dimitri had the day off and had volunteered to watch Maggie while we were gone. She’d been set free to roam the log cabin after Dimitri had returned from the pet store with a litter box, an obvious thing that I, a non-pet-owner, hadn’t thought to buy. No wonder the cat had been crabby on her trip.