by Melissa Haag
“There’s a diner not far from here that my dad recommended. They serve breakfast all day.”
The diner, only a few blocks away, was tucked in the lower level of a large building, just like every other business in the area. The light scent of breakfast foods teased my nose as soon as I got out of the car. My mouth watered.
Within minutes, we were seated at a table, sipping juice and waiting for our food.
“While I was talking to the dragon last night, he called you an enforcer. What does that mean?”
“When you work for any of the councils, your role is technically to enforce the Mantirum laws.”
“He also said you’re suppressing their rights. Apparently, he wants to be able to toast some humans if it strikes his fancy.”
“Some of the old-timers are still having a hard time adapting to the laws created over five hundred years ago.”
“Holy crap. He was that old?”
“Probably a little older,” Oanen said.
“Wow. How old is your dad?”
“In his sixties. Mom’s a lot older.”
His dad didn’t look nearly that old. Late thirties, maybe. Just like his mom. I itched to ask more but didn’t want to be overheard.
“I don’t really know how old my mom is,” I said.
He reached out and placed his hand over mine.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about now. I talked to Eliana last night after you fell asleep. I let her know how important it is to find out what happened once your visitors arrive.”
“Oh no. What did you tell her? I didn’t go into detail because I didn’t want her to worry.”
“I told her the truth. Someone tried taking you from me.”
I tugged my hand from his and scowled at him.
“Eliana’s probably freaking out now, thinking I’m in danger.”
“No. She’s going to try to figure out if there’s a way to get your friend to talk sooner.”
The waitress came with our food, distracting me from my annoyance. The stack of pancakes on my “side” plate made my mouth water just as much as the over-easy eggs, hash browns, and sausage.
It wasn’t until I stuffed the last bite of syrup-soaked pancakes into my mouth that my thoughts circled back to our conversation. No matter what Oanen said, Eliana would worry. That’s just who she was. I needed to prove to her and Oanen that I was fine, and the only way to do that was to prove no one intentionally drugged me.
“The burger wasn’t even meant for me.”
Oanen studied me from across the table, an amused light in his eyes.
“Do you want more?” he asked.
I looked down at my empty plates.
“I don’t think I could eat another bite.”
“Then why are you talking about burgers?”
I leaned forward and lowered my voice.
“Last night. I took the burger the dragon ordered because he’d left without touching it. I don’t think anyone was trying to drug me. I think someone was trying to drug the dragon. Whoever the—Elbner’s friend was, he told Elbner to let me go. Why drug me and let me go if I was the intended target?”
“Why drug a dragon?” Oanen said with a thoughtful frown. He reached for his wallet. “We need to get back to the Gizzard.”
“I thought we were going to check out the warehouse first.”
“You sure your stomach’s up for it?”
“Please. I never get sick.”
He frowned at me.
“We agreed to pretend that never happened,” I said.
He exhaled heavily, placed some money on the table, stood, then held out his hand. I slipped my fingers through his and followed him out the door. A new tingle of annoyance traced down my spine and pulled my attention to a man in a business suit, crossing the street.
I took a step in that direction, and Oanen’s hold on my hand tightened. I turned back to him with a scowl, ready to tell him to let go.
The sight of his hard, golden gaze killed the words.
“You don’t leave my side today,” he said, leaning close. “Got it?”
“Yeah. Got it.”
Oanen narrowed his eyes as if he didn’t believe me then started toward the car. When he reached the door, he released me.
“I know you’re strong. But I also know you can be hurt. Your safety matters more than Eliana’s feelings. More than dead trolls. More than anything else. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Oanen. I get it. I’m glued to you from now until the end of time.”
Something flashed in his eyes before he shut them, and he took a slow, deep breath.
“Get in, Megan.”
Annoyed and confused, I did as he asked only because arguing would just waste time. He shut the door and walked around toward his side.
“No one likes a bully, Oanen,” I said, crossing my arms.
His gaze swung to me through the windshield.
“Stupid bird hearing,” I mumbled.
He opened the door, slid behind the wheel, and turned to look at me.
“No,” I said, firmly. “No lecture. I’m right next to you, so there’s nothing you need to say except let’s go look at a dead troll.”
“I think there is something I need to say.” He reached out and gently trailed his fingers along my hairline.
“I love you, Megan Smith. And, ‘from now until the end of time’ is exactly how long I want to be with you.”
Chapter Five
All I could do was stare at Oanen. Love? That was big. I’d known how he felt about me, but I hadn’t thought we were to the saying it stage. Saying it was one step closer to white picket fences and babies.
Swallowing hard, I fought the stomach bile rising at the thought of kids. I didn’t have my own shit together yet. I couldn’t be responsible for someone else. Not for years. And maybe even more years after that.
“Megan, it’s getting warm in here,” Oanen said. “Why does telling you that I love you make you panic?”
“Can we please not talk about this right now?”
He studied me for a moment.
“You’re right. This isn’t the place. We’ll talk about it tonight.”
That did not make me feel any better.
He started the car then carefully pulled into traffic. It took over thirty minutes to reach the warehouse and another ten to find the home of the second troll.
“Who found the body?” I asked, desperate to break the silence as we walked inside the run-down building. “And why just leave him here? Wasn’t there a chance a human could stumble across him?”
“This troll had family who found him. They’re with him now.”
Oanen knocked and the door immediately opened.
“He’s in the bedroom,” the troll said, moving aside.
Given my knowledge of trolls, I expected one or two surly relatives. This guy had at least twenty glaring behemoths crammed into a very human-sized apartment.
Oanen took my hand and led the way through the room. I didn’t mind his hold this time. My skin crawled with the need to ask the younger troll with the twin black eyes what he’d done.
Only the dead troll waited in the bedroom. He lay on the bed, the mattress bowing under his weight. The smile on his face seemed so out of place after passing through a living room full of scowls.
Oanen released my hand, and I wandered around the room, opening the closet, looking out the window, under the bed.
“I don’t know what we’re looking for, but I’m pretty sure it’s not here,” I said, straightening.
Oanen lifted his gaze from his study of the troll.
“You’re right,” he said.
A shadow filled the doorway behind him a moment before the boy who needed a beating stepped forward. I moved around the bed, but Oanen blocked me. Setting my head against his back, I closed my eyes and listened while trying to ignore my growing anger.
“He knew it was coming,” the young troll said.
“Knew what was coming?�
�� Oanen asked.
“His death.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I got into some trouble a few weeks back. News spreads fast here. Especially with the old timers. Gramps caught wind and beat me for it. A fair punishment. Better than I’d get from you or the fury I hear is in town. I didn’t hate him for it. But, he thought I did. He called me the night before last. Told me he loved me. Shocked me stupid.”
“That seems to be a theme today,” I mumbled.
Oanen reached back and set his hand on my thigh. Just a simple touch, but it let me know he wasn’t mad about my reaction to his declaration.
“Gramps told me to use my head and follow the laws because he wouldn’t always be around to watch out for me. Then he hung up. I came by this morning with some goat to let him know we were okay. I found him like this.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Oanen said. “Thank you for sharing what happened with us. You mentioned a fury in town. Any idea where we can find her?”
“No. You know how they work. They can be anywhere.”
That made furies sound like the damn boogeyman for supernatural creatures.
Steps shuffled away, and I lifted my head from Oanen’s back.
“You all right?” he asked as he faced me.
“Yeah. But, I’ll need you to hold my hand on the way out. Whatever that kid did, I want to give him a second beating for it.”
No one talked to us as we left, and Oanen didn’t release my hand until we reached the car. Anger still poked at me, though. Not from the troll several stories up but from the man walking down the sidewalk.
Oanen’s phone chirped as he opened the door for me. I quickly got in and clasped my hands in my lap as Oanen closed the door. The man looked at me through the window, his dark eyes assessing.
Oanen looked up from his phone.
“Keep moving.”
I almost grinned at Oanen’s possessive tone of voice. Almost. Until I remembered what he’d said last night and just after breakfast.
He waited until the man moved on then went around to his side of the car.
“Please tell me that text had an answer to the smiling troll riddle,” I said as he got in.
“No. I had my dad check to see who owned the building you were in last night. The city. Which doesn’t help.”
“Seriously, Oanen. I don’t think whatever was on that burger was meant for me.”
“And I don’t think it’s a coincidence you were dosed with something at the same place that the two trolls, who are now dead, liked to frequent.”
“Well, when you put it that way, no, it doesn’t sound like a coincidence.”
He started the engine and turned around to head back the way we’d come.
“Not to rock the boat, but if getting drugged at the Gizzard is the commonality here, why aren’t I dead with a smile on my face?”
His grip on the steering wheel tightened.
“Think about it,” I said. “We were there last night, and that troll wasn’t.”
“We don’t know that.”
“So we need to go back to the Gizzard and ask.”
“Exactly.”
We parked a block from the bar and walked the distance in silence. Once again, the atmosphere of downtrodden old people welcomed us when we opened the door. Only this time, the wickedness crawled under my skin as soon as I stepped inside.
With his hand on my back, Oanen steered me toward the bar. The same bartender from the night before came to ask us what we wanted. While I felt anger toward many of the patrons, I didn’t feel much for him.
“I want to know what that grey-green powder was on the bacon last night,” I said, taking a stool.
“There’s no powder on any of the food. Just grease and salt,” the man said.
“She ate a bacon cheeseburger here and woke up somewhere else. We need to know what happened,” Oanen said.
The bartender studied us for a moment, then the creatures sipping their drinks at the bar, before waving us toward the side door. I glanced at Oanen, and he shrugged and took my hand.
No one paid us much attention as we went to the door. The bartender waited for us just inside the hall coming from the kitchen. Instead of turning that way, the man went to an office to the right.
“I have cameras,” he said without preamble. “Five in the main bar, one in the hall, two in the kitchen, and one in this office.” He pointed to the monitor on the desk showing nine frames. “The system keeps two months of live feed then purges every ten seconds of video, leaving still frames for six months beyond that. Help yourself.”
Oanen sat in the chair and, within a few clicks, had rewound then paused the video to the point where I sat at the bar the night before.
“Has anyone new been coming around?” Oanen asked.
“The odd fellow in the cloak started showing up a few weeks back.” The bartender tapped the screen on top of the guy who sat two stools from mine. “Comes every night. Has a drink or two. Talks to whoever’s at the bar. Then, he leaves.”
“Do you remember if he talked to either of these two trolls?” Oanen asked, pulling up the pictures of the dead, smiling trolls on his phone.
“I serve hundreds of drinks every night. Do you think I remember everyone?”
I had a hard time believing he sold that many drinks, given the meager crowd last night, but I managed to keep my doubt to myself.
Oanen diplomatically did the same and hit the play button. On screen, I watched the dragon turn toward me. Behind him, the cloaked man moved.
“Is there a different angle?” I asked, nudging Oanen.
He pulled up a different window synced at the same timeframe. We all watched the cloaked man reach over, lift the bun, and sprinkle something.
“Right on the damn bacon,” I mumbled.
The cloaked man left. The dragon did the same shortly after. I watched the bartender speak with me briefly before I started to eat the burger. Four bites in, I put the burger down and just walked out through the side door.
“I don’t remember doing that,” I said.
Oanen switched views to the hall outside the office. I went straight out the emergency exit without stopping.
“Did I seriously walk myself to that warehouse?”
“You were gone over three hours,” Oanen said. “It’s possible. It would explain why you were so cold, too.” He turned toward the bartender. “Any idea what he would have put on that burger or where we can find him?”
“I don’t know his name, but I can ask around. As for the powder, you might learn more at the Tabernam. I’ve never heard of anything that trances us.”
“Tabernam?” I asked.
“A place where any spell caster can find what they need,” Oanen said. He stood and looked at the bartender. “Put the word out that I’m looking for information.”
He gave the guy the address of our condo.
* * * *
The smell of herbs, grass, and a hint of smoke filled the air as soon as we opened the door. I inhaled deeply and immediately felt more relaxed.
“I like this place,” I said, stepping into the store room filled with aisles of racks. Little bottles and baggies lay in neat rows on each shelf. Some had labels with weird names. Some just said “ask sales associate.”
“I’ll like this place if we can get some answers,” Oanen said.
“You go talk and do your thing, and I’ll look for the powder.”
“Not a chance. We stick together.”
I rolled my eyes and followed him down the center aisle toward the back where a woman stood at a register. She smiled as she watched us with her dark eyes. The curve of her red lips reminded me of a snake. Anger pooled in my stomach. I reached for Oanen’s hand to anchor myself. It didn’t help much.
He glanced at me and gave my hand a squeeze before turning to the woman.
“Hi. We’re looking for a grey-green powder that would put someone in a trance and possibly make them walk somewhere wit
hout remembering it.”
“I don’t sell spells. Only the ingredients to make them.”
“What are the ingredients, then?”
She walked around the counter and led the way to the far-left corner. Everything there was labeled with “ask sales associate.” A shiver of disquiet raced through me when I saw a bag half filled with deep green powder.
“It’s not safe to dabble with things you don’t understand,” she said, looking at Oanen.
“Do you tell all your customers that?”
“Only the ones who don’t look like they have a clue.”
“I need a list of names. Everyone who purchased the ingredients needed to work the spell I mentioned.”
One side of her mouth lifted in a wry smile.
“I don’t ask names. Just for this reason. Anonymity keeps this place in business.”
Oanen released my hand and crossed his arms.
“The Council allows a business to continue only through the cooperation of its owner when problems arise.”
Her smile faded.
“I don’t have any names to give you.”
“What do you have?”
The bell above the door chimed. Through the aisles, I caught sight of a cloaked figure walking in.
“Excuse me,” the woman said. She quickly headed toward the new arrival.
“Is that the person from the bar?” Oanen asked.
I shook my head. The vibrant red of this cloak couldn’t have been further from the dark grey of the cloak from the night before. That, and boobs were filling out the front of it.
“No. It was a man with a dark beard. Not as old as the rest of the crowd in the Gizzard, though.”
The saleswoman spoke softly to her new customer and led the woman to another area in the store, closer to us. The lower half of the woman’s face felt familiar to me, and I frowned as I strained to hear what they were saying.
“I think I know her,” I said softly to Oanen.
“You do?”
“I’m not sure.”
I pretended to browse the contents of the racks so I could move closer to the pair. The woman noticed and looked toward us. From behind me, Oanen quietly groaned.
The woman’s eyes rounded, and she pushed back her hood.
“Oanen?” she said. She walked to the end of the aisle. Oanen slowly did the same with me now trailing behind. Near the register, they both stopped.
