Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 2)

by Lindsay Buroker

  Golgitha shook her head. “We do not know. We have discussed putting together a team to look for our missing comrades when the dragon is not there, but we worry about traps. Dragons are not as clever as goblins—” she said that with a straight face, and I imagined an eavesdropping Zav rearing up in indignation, “—but they have so much power. They do not have to be clever to create effective traps.”

  “I’ll check it out. Thanks for the information.”

  “Good.” She drew the outline of a wrench in the air with her finger, a typical goblin gesture used for greeting and parting, then touched her forehead. “If you see our people alive in there and help them escape, we will be grateful. This is the only place we have found that is not claimed by others—humans or magical beings—and we would like to make it our place.”

  I imagined that Weyerhauser or whoever owned all the logging land out here would object, but I wouldn’t tell them. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Golgitha made the wrench-gesture again, then scurried back up the slope, disappearing with her comrades into the woods.

  Zav walked out of the cave and joined me beside the sapling.

  “We had a visitor. You missed it.”

  “I missed nothing.”

  “I thought you might be eavesdropping.”

  He eyed me. “That word implies improper behavior.”

  “Are dragons never improper?”

  “I am not. I waited inside so that my presence would not inhibit them.”

  “You are an inhibiting presence.” I was a little impressed they’d even had the gumption to come talk to me, their Mythic Murderer.

  “Not to you.” He sounded more irritated than pleased by it.

  “I’m not easily inhibited. Shall we go check out the water-treatment facility?”

  Zav gazed into the woods, not after the goblins but toward the north. I had a feeling he was looking toward the facility, perhaps already close enough to investigate it with his senses.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you sense anyone there? Dob?”

  “No, but I have not sensed him at all since I started looking for him. It is surprising, since even dragons must sleep, and there is a limit to how much manipulation of magic you can do while you slumber.”

  I was surprised they could do any manipulation then. All I managed to do in my sleep was have nightmares.

  “It is possible he has some artifact or tool that is assisting him. Something like your trinket.” He pointed to the collection dangling around my neck from my leather thong.

  “Oh,” I blurted, remembering my encounter with Dob at the windmill. “I’d forgotten—or hadn’t thought anything of it at the time—but he wore an oval-shaped black onyx stone in a gold setting that was either embedded in his scales—” I touched the spot just below my collarbones, “—or magically adhered. I didn’t see a collar or necklace.”

  “You did not think to mention this earlier?”

  “No. Like I said, I didn’t think anything of it. My experience with dragons is limited. I figured he was accessorizing.”

  “Accessorizing.” Zav gave me an exasperated look.

  “Yes, you should try it. Maybe a nice amethyst or sapphire gem to go with your eyes. Though neither of those is quite the right color. What’s the crystal the New Age woo-woo people like?” I snapped my fingers. “Sugilite. You should get a sugilite collar.”

  “A collar. Like one of your hounds?” It was hard to tell if he was truly disgusted or only feigning offense. Probably truly disgusted. I hadn’t yet seen much of the sense of humor he’d promised that dragons possessed. “Do you think dragons are similar to dogs?” he added.

  “No. Dogs are friendly, fun, and eager to please. You are… not those things.”

  “Neither are you.”

  “I cannot deny that.”

  He shook his head in disgust. “Come. We will search this facility.”

  I smiled at his back. It was immature, and I knew it, but somewhere along the way, it had become fun to goad him. The Mythic Murderer clearly had a death wish.

  22

  We took the Jeep to the water-treatment facility, though Zav grumbled at the delay, saying he could have flown there in minutes. I’d pointed out that if we found a bunch of injured people, it would be easier to get them out and back to town in a vehicle. As broad as his back was, I assumed there was a limit to how much weight a dragon could carry. And then there was the awkwardness of explaining the method of transportation to everyone who rode along.

  As I wound down muddy, weed-choked roads, jostling my refined dragon passenger, who looked very out of place sitting in the passenger seat of a Jeep in his robe and slippers, I did start to wonder if I should have driven back out and around via paved roads. The thought had seemed silly, since we were only a couple of miles from the facility, but this was anything but direct.

  I glanced at the dyspeptic expression on Zav’s face, not sure if it was for the bumpy ride, the delay, the company, or the overall indignity of sitting in a human vehicle. “You can go ahead on your own if you want. I won’t be offended if you’re not here at my side, regaling me with your sublime company.”

  Zav gave me a considering look, then focused on the route ahead again. “No. If he is there and sees you by yourself, he may attempt to circumvent me and come get you. Since he has this ability to hide his aura from me, it’s a real possibility.”

  “Why would he want me?”

  “To irritate me. Everything he has done here has been to vex me.”

  I would call Zav full of himself, except it had seemed true when I spoke with Dob at the windmill. The only reason he hadn’t killed me then had been because he sensed Zav’s aura on me. That pesky aura that I never seemed to be able to scrub off.

  “Why though? Why would he follow you through a portal to Earth?”

  “Because this place is lawless. I am the only representative of the Dragon Justice Court. If he kills me here, there would be no witnesses who could go back and tell my family, so there would be no repercussions for him.”

  “Why does he want to kill you?” I gunned the engine to climb up a hill that couldn’t possibly be an acceptable grade for a logging truck. I wondered if there was a map anywhere that covered the snarl of old roads and trails back here.

  “Because I support my mother.”

  “And she’s important on your Justice Court?”

  “Yes.” Zav didn’t sound like he wanted to speak of this further, not with some nosy half-elf, but there was definitely more to the story than he was telling me.

  Maybe he and Dob had personal history that went way back. Didn’t dragons live hundreds or even thousands of years? That was a long time during which to accumulate enemies. I knew. I’d accumulated plenty in the twenty years I’d been doing my job.

  The road flattened out, and we plowed into a surprise pond-sized puddle at the top. Mud sucked at the tires, and the water lapped at the side rails under the doors. The Jeep sturdily maneuvered through without much trouble, and I was glad Willard had arranged a loaner almost identical to my old rig.

  “Just in case you’re curious to know,” I said, “I owe eighteen thousand dollars on the Jeep that you threw up in the trees and that was too wrecked to repair. The insurance company refused to pay it off because dragons aren’t considered an act of God.”

  “Why do you tell me this?” Zav didn’t look at me. He was peering at a hint of black asphalt ahead.

  We were coming to the road that led into the water-treatment facility, and nervous flutters started up in my stomach.

  “In case you feel guilty now that we’re allies, and you want to pay off the loan for me.” And because I would rather talk than think about the dead goblins we might find on the floor of this place. Even though I’d just met the pack of goblins living out here, I felt protective of them after witnessing those poachers trying to kill them.

  “I do not have money.”

  “No money? No piles of gold in a cave somew
here? Our stories talk about how dragons hoard treasure. All kinds of knights went on quests to try to slay dragons and take their hoards.”

  “That is ridiculous. Money is of no value to us. We value strength and power and take what we need from nature.”

  “I guess that means you’re not going to chip in for gas money then.”

  This time he looked at me, but the look suggested he didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “I’m afraid, good Zav, that you’ll never star in a romance novel. In those, the women are always falling for the hunky billionaire who somehow manages to develop six-pack abs while working eighty hours a week to build his software company.”

  I drove us out of the mud and onto the nicely paved road, looking left and right. To the far left, I could make out the bend I remembered that would lead down to a gate and the main road. To the right, the water-treatment plant wasn’t in view yet, but I knew it was that way and turned in that direction.

  “Human women desire males with money,” Zav parsed this.

  “Not always, but it’s definitely a trend in romance novels.”

  “Is this what you desire?”

  “No. I would have stayed with Thad if that were what mattered. He does well for himself.”

  “You have been mated before?”

  “If by mated, you mean married, yes. I don’t need a man with money, but a man who pays for something he destroys would be nice.”

  He returned to studying the route ahead. “I am not a man.”

  “But you say you gave yourself all the anatomical parts.” I arched my eyebrows. I wasn’t sure what I was angling for. I didn’t truly expect him to pay off the loan, especially if dragons didn’t have money, but an apology would have been nice.

  It was interesting that he hadn’t objected when I called us allies. I’d assumed that, no matter what he’d agreed to when we’d finalized our deal, he still considered me nothing more than bait to be used to lure in his enemies. Like a wriggling worm on a fish hook.

  “You have acquired another conveyance,” Zav said, rather than commenting on his anatomy.

  “It’s a loan from my boss. I need to pay off the wrecked one before I can afford to take out another auto loan.”

  He gripped the dash and leaned forward as a locked gate came into view with the large treatment facility beyond that. Two city utility trucks were parked in the small lot. Everything looked normal from here. Maybe the goblins had been playing a trick on me.

  “I can open that with my charm.” I nodded to the locked gate as I slowed, intending to get out.

  Zav looked at it, and the lock fell away. The chain-link gate rolled open.

  “Never mind.” I parked next to the trucks and got out, eyeing the concrete walls, metal roof, and large timber supports at the front of the building. It was more architecturally interesting than I would have expected.

  As we walked to the front, where glass walls and two glass doors showed off a large, empty foyer, Zav waved at my weapons. “I should be able to handle Dobsaurin—the main reason he is a challenge for me is that he will use battle methods that kill innocent beings and destroy cities, whereas it is my duty to protect these things. Out here, I do not think that will be an issue. But stay close to me, and if you see an opportunity to even what he would doubtless try to make uneven odds, do so. Your gun will be useless on him, but the sword may injure him.”

  “You’re certain he’s in there?” I glanced at the foyer visible through the glass doors. “I thought everything looked normal.”

  “I sense people in pain inside.”

  “Maybe they don’t like their jobs.”

  “No.”

  I waved for him to go in, the flutters intensifying in my stomach. I was always nervous before a battle and tried to tell myself this wouldn’t be any different from usual. It didn’t work.

  The front doors weren’t locked. As soon as we entered, I joined Zav in believing something wasn’t right. The only light came through the glass doors. The wall sconces weren’t on, and when I found a switch and flipped it, nothing happened.

  Without hesitating, Zav strode toward a metal door that led deeper into the facility. I hurried to keep up, and we entered a vast chamber full of tanks and pipes, with catwalks barely visible in the shadows overhead. In here, there were no exterior windows, and the lights were also out, though the walls of computers and machinery were working, their colored LEDs glowing in the darkness.

  I drew Chopper and thought about using my new Dwarven word to brighten its dim glow, but drawing upon power might alert Dob that we had entered. Instead, I activated my cloaking charm and my night-vision charm. There had been too much daylight to use that one in that forest cave, the trinket designed to work in complete darkness, but the red and yellow computer LEDs weren’t bright enough to interfere.

  Zav paused and looked back, and I almost bumped into him. I took that to mean I’d disappeared from his senses.

  That one is effective, he murmured directly into my mind.

  Because he worried Dob was out there to overhear us?

  Good, I replied silently.

  If Zav couldn’t sense me, Dob shouldn’t be able to either. That would make it easier for me to jump out and make a sneak attack.

  Should I get Sindari too? If I’d been walking in alone, I wouldn’t have hesitated.

  Your choice, but even when he’s using his magic to camouflage himself, I can sense him when he’s within about twenty feet of me.

  You didn’t sense him in the wyvern cave, did you?

  Not at first, but I felt him coming before he sprang at me.

  That was good to know before we faced off against another dragon. I’ll wait until I see if there’s a battle.

  Zav nodded and continued on. He’d surprised me by speaking gently into my mind, not the booming headache-inducing demonstration of power I’d gotten from previous mental communications with dragons.

  After a few steps, he paused, lifting his nose in the air. He turned down a walkway between two big tanks. The sound of rushing water reached my ears, and we walked over grating in the floor with a channel of water running through ten feet below. To me, the air smelled faintly of chlorine, but Zav must have detected something else.

  He turned down another walkway, following it to the end where the only choice was to climb a ladder up the side of a tank or go back. He crouched and scraped at something on the textured flooring. My night vision wasn’t good enough to see what it was.

  Straightening again, he looked up, not at the tank but at something hanging from the high ceiling.

  I swallowed and followed his gaze. Four bodies dangled down from ropes tied to beams.

  23

  “They’re the missing goblins,” Zav said.

  I nodded numbly as I stared upward. At first, I’d thought they were children—my night-vision charm couldn’t distinguish skin color well—but the ragged clothing was similar to what the other goblins had worn. Only it was more torn and dark with bloodstains. The victims’ faces were mutilated, gouged by talons, and their throats had been slit open.

  I managed not to react with horror—I’d seen enough death to be somewhat inured to it—but I did spin a slow circle, searching the shadows above as I thumbed Chopper’s worn grip. All those towering tanks would make excellent perches for a predator—and what was a dragon but a massive predator?—to spring down from.

  Zav turned, brushed past me, and headed back to the main walkway. I will attempt to lead us to the people who are still living but in pain.

  Good.

  Be wary. I suspect they were only kept alive because Dobsaurin was laying a trap.

  As he had been doing with the children in the windmill. Had Zav been in the area a week ago, he might have walked into Dob’s trap then.

  I’m always wary, trust me. I followed him past more computer equipment as we paralleled the water streaming through the canal under the floor. Any chance he left a trap but isn’t here himself?

/>   Possibly, but I hope he is here. Better to face him here than in the middle of a populated area.

  I wasn’t sure I agreed, but I kept scanning the shadows and eyed the top of every tank we passed.

  Zav hopped over the railing and off the walkway. He strode toward the grate above the canal, but it wasn’t until he crouched down that I saw anything unusual.

  Pieces of rope were looped through the grate from below, attached to something out of sight. I came up beside Zav and tried to pick out what was in the dark shadows down there, mostly obscured by the grate. Something hung above the water. No, I realized as one of the shadows stirred. Someone.

  Three humans dangled from the ropes, which were tied around their wrists to hang them from the grate, their feet dragging in the current. Their heads were bent forward, and I couldn’t tell if their faces had been mutilated by dragon talons. If not for the movement one had made, I would have been certain they were dead. Were these the missing joggers?

  Zav touched the grate but jerked his hand back. He put a protective ward on it, no doubt to delay me. Keep an eye out.

  I will.

  I stepped back a few feet so I could see up and down the walkway, and I alternated checking that and peering at the tanks all around and the catwalks high above. Even though I couldn’t sense the other dragon, my instincts told me there was a threat here. Instincts that even humans had, the ancient genes that warned when something inimical was watching you.

  While I waited, I pulled out a fresh magazine for Fezzik. I fished out the three cartridges that Willard had given me, the ones laden with transmitters, and replaced three of the magical ones with them. Then I loaded my gun with the new magazine. I still didn’t think it would work, that those cartridges or Nin’s magical ones would pierce Dob’s hide, but I owed it to Willard to try.

  Once I’d re-holstered Fezzik, I caught myself gazing toward an alcove between two banks of computers. It was dark, and I could barely pick out an open door there. Had that door been open when we’d first walked by it?