Dragonslayer (Twilight of the Gods Book 3) (2 page)

“Chickens.”

“Anything can get a chicken,” he said. “Coyote, hawk, dog.”

She accepted that with a nod. “That’s what my supervisor told the sheriff when he called.”

“But the sheriff didn’t accept that?”

“Well…” She paused, gave him a look like she was weighing how much to say and then lowered her voice. “The thing is, a man was attacked three nights ago. He said it was an animal that shredded his leg, and I’m here to follow up on the missing animal reports to make sure it’s not all related.”

“What kind of animal did the man say attacked him?”

She shook her head. “Didn’t get a good look at it. Apparently he was pretty drunk at the time. His leg was so badly damaged the doctor can’t even confirm it was a bite. A truck driver found him on the edge of the road but saw no sign of an animal. The man might have only stumbled into some barbed wire, but he reported an animal attack and the local paper called my boss yesterday with questions for a story she’s running. Missing chickens didn’t trigger an alarm, but this…” She held up her hands. “Here I am.”

“Here you are,” he echoed. “Animals die or go missing, especially this time of year with the turn we’ve had in the weather.”

“It’s not only the number. It’s also the fact that they’re all clustered in this area in a relatively short amount of time.”

“Where? I manage a co-op and talk to farmers all day. Word of an animal attack would have been all over town within a few hours.”

“That’s the funny thing. There haven’t been
any
reports out of Ragnarok. This town is like a bullseye with all the reports occurring in a circle around it, all of them within a ten-to twenty-mile radius.”

“Do you think someone might be stealing the animals?” It might explain the bullseye. The town was warded to keep out casual visitors. Nothing drastic, just a subtle touch of redirection. The wards wouldn’t keep out someone like Jacey, who was actively trying to get here, and they didn’t affect animals, but they would repel teenagers who were causing mischief.

“Don’t know yet. There aren’t many predators in this area, not big enough to attack a human. Although…” She opened the folder and rotated it so he could see. “There is a report here from a few years ago of a wolf in the area.”

He didn’t try to stifle his laugh. That one was Grace. When she’d first rolled into town, she’d run down a demon. She’d panicked and called the local sheriff, who hadn’t been able to see through the glamour as Grace had. Carl still thought Grace was a little loopy. “It wasn’t a wolf.”

Jacey looked up sharply, and since he couldn’t tell her that it had actually been a demon, a fire jötunn from Muspelheim by way of Asgard, he said, “German Shepherd. A woman who’d recently moved from the city ran into it on a gravel road. She’d never seen a dog that size before.”

“The sheriff said wolf.”

“It had been run over by a car a few times. When they examined it, the vet determined that it was actually a German Shepherd. Is that not in the report?”

She scowled at the piece of paper in her hands. “You’re sure about that?”

“I’m sure.” Her disappointment tugged at his heart, but he ignored the sensation. “Sorry. No wolves. They found a mountain lion in Des Moines last year, but they usually don’t make it this far east. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find tracks.”

“It’s not that.” She gave him a wry grin that brought out the dimple in her cheek. “Just one more thing I had to follow up on. What kind of predator leaves nothing behind?”

Not any kind she was likely to be familiar with. “You’re the wildlife biologist. What do you think it is?”

“I guess I’ll have to stick around until I figure that one out.”

“That’s not all bad,” he said, and then mentally cursed himself. Because it was bad. Really bad. They couldn’t have a Midgardian snooping around, not even one with dimples.

She blushed and looked down at her drink. “It’s inconvenient. Especially when there’s not a hotel nearby.”

He felt a fleeting temptation to offer her a bed, but he knew she’d never take him up on the offer. He didn’t really have any experience with normal Midgardian women, but he was pretty sure saying something like that would only make him sound like a creep. There was also the fact that Aiden would kill him for bringing an investigator into town because he was bored and lonely.

“We’re not much of a tourist destination. I would go back to the highway. Head south for about twenty miles and the motel will be on your right.”

She pushed her drink aside, still half full. “Well, I’d better get going then. Thanks for your help…”

“Christian.”

“Christian.” She smiled fully, a sweet, guileless smile that felt like sunshine on his heart. “It was really nice to meet you.” She nodded at her card. “Call me if you hear anything, okay?”

He took the card and slipped it into his pocket. “Happy hunting.”

He watched her swing her ugly coat around her shoulders as she walked toward the door. She braced herself for the cold before pushing the door open. A gust of wind slipped inside as she left, sending a chill over his skin. A moment later, Beth rejoined him.

“You heard that?”

“Every word,” Beth said.

“Keep it to yourself for now. I’ll let Aiden know.”

Beth took a sip from her drink. “Can’t be a jötunn. Even if one slipped past us, it couldn’t survive that far away from the fault.”

Especially not since Raquel replaced the wards. He stood up and reached for his coat. Beth’s expression held all the worry he felt.

When he turned to leave, she put a hand on his arm. “What are we going to do about it?”

He forced his voice to remain steady. “We find whatever is out there before Ms. Morgan does, and then we kill it for her.”

Christian pulled into his driveway and sighed when he saw the light through the curtains. Company. There was no car parked out front, which meant it was someone who lived close and didn’t mind walking. He had a pretty good idea who it was, and for a heartbeat he thought about turning around. It was a stupid impulse. McGuire’s was closed now, the roads were shit and he couldn’t drive more than an hour from the fault—the thin spot in the wall between Midgard and Asgard—without getting sick. He literally
couldn’t
run away from his problems. Raking a hand through his wind-blown hair, he stepped through the unlocked door.

“Honey, I’m home.”

“In here,” Raquel called out from the family room. “Hope you don’t mind I let myself in.”

After stripping off his coat and gloves, he hung them up in the mudroom he’d had built to accommodate a family. He’d built the house years ago when he was still engaged to the witch sitting in the next room—before she’d fallen in love with his best friend and called off the wedding.

He’d told Beth the truth tonight. Despite what some of the people in the clan thought, he wasn’t bitter over it. Not really. It might have bruised his pride, but he was happy for Fen and Raquel. They were happy together. He’d become good friends with Raquel over the past year, but it was strange for her to be here so late without her husband.

She clicked off the television as he walked in, and something twisted in his chest at the sight of her. She looked right at home—her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, a smile in her blue eyes and her legs tucked up beneath her on the couch. It was exactly how he’d always imagined his life would be.

He went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of beer. “Want one?”

She shook her head. “I can’t stay long. You were later than I expected.”

“Something came up.” He moved around the island to take the seat across from her. “Where’s Fen?”

“Working a deadline on a design project.” Her lips turned up at the corners. “He knows I’m here, if that’s what you’re asking.”

That wasn’t what he’d been asking, but it was good to know. The three of them were still working out the finer details of their relationship. He took a pull from his drink and then set it aside on one of the coasters his sister had sent him for Christmas. Pictures of his niece and nephews sealed beneath clear, hard plastic. His sister had married a man in the Ozark clan. Three kids and she was still riding with the hunt. He should ask Raquel about scheduling a portal jump once this thing with Jacey blew over. It would be nice to take a little vacation, and he hadn’t seen Wendy or the kids for months.

“What’s up?”

Her smile faded just a bit. “I don’t really want to bother you with this, but Aiden…well, with Grace gone…”

“Aiden’s prickly as a thorn bush. I know. It’s nothing personal, you know that, right? And he wouldn’t turn you away if you needed help with something.”

Although Fen would have been able to handle just about anything. Which meant whatever was bothering her wasn’t something she’d shared with her husband. Which meant…

He sighed. “This is about Kamis, isn’t it?”

She nodded, and he groaned. Kamis was the Vanir witch Raquel had placed a geis on in order to permit him to live on Midgard. It bound him to her as tightly as the bindings that tied her to her husband. Fen didn’t like that one bit, which would explain why Raquel might not want to discuss the problem with her husband.

She blushed a little. “It’s probably nothing. He’s new to this world. It only makes sense that he’d want to explore it, don’t you think? He was trapped there for so long.”

Uh-huh. Centuries trapped on a broken, sunless world where time and space were oddly warped. It was exactly why he, Aiden and most of the town worried that Kamis wasn’t entirely stable. Exactly what they didn’t need right now was a powerful, mentally unstable witch stirring up trouble while an investigator was sniffing around town. He rubbed at his head again. He should’ve grabbed aspirin and water.

“Did he do something or are you worried he’s going to do something?”

Her hesitation did nothing to reassure him.

“Raquel…”

“Here’s the thing,” she said, pausing for a beat before blurting the rest out in a rush. “Kamis isn’t at the house and I can’t feel him through the bond.”

“We need to tell Aiden.”

“No,” she said sharply. “You know what he’ll do.”

“Aiden will do what needs to be done.” Just like he always did.

“It could be nothing.”

“If Kamis has found a way to block you then he’s doing it for a reason.”

She untucked her legs and put her feet on the ground. Leaning forward, she said, “You could help me find out what that reason is. I think we need to know that before we take any kind of drastic action.”

He opened his mouth to argue that, but before he could speak, she continued, “If Aiden kills Kamis, I don’t know what it will do to me.”

His mouth snapped closed and he stared at her.

“It might be fine, but I just don’t know. I’ve been poring over the old records trying to find more information. Lois won’t know the answer and Kathy will only go to Aiden. Kamis understands how the geis works, but I can’t trust him to give me a straight answer.”

“Have you confronted him?”

“Not yet. So far, he’s only tampered with the bond when he thinks I’m sleeping. I noticed it a few days ago when I woke up in the middle of the night.” She hesitated again, a guilty flush rising to her cheeks. “That’s when my own shields are unreliable. This is the first time he’s tried it while I was awake. I think he’s testing his boundaries. I haven’t let on that I’ve noticed anything strange.”

“You haven’t told Fen this. Why?”

She bit her lip and looked away, suddenly seeming to find the fern on the bookshelf fascinating. “Fen worries too much as it is.”

“And you’re trying to save him from himself?”

“Of course not. I’m trying to save him from me.” She dropped her head into her hands. “I screw everything up.”

That brought him up short. It wasn’t that she thought Fen would turn her away. That wasn’t it. Fen was a hound…all in on this relationship. There was no turning back for him. But being permanently bound to someone didn’t necessarily guarantee a good relationship. A lot of hounds ended up hating the person they were stuck with. Christian couldn’t imagine that happening to Fen and Raquel, though. He’d never seen a couple more perfect for each other. It was why he’d stepped aside in the first place.

“You had a fast courtship,” he said carefully.

She nodded miserably and then lifted her head. The look in her eyes made him want to move over beside her and wrap her up in a hug. With anyone else in the clan, he would have done just that. With Raquel, he couldn’t. He was careful about boundaries with her. For Fen’s sake as much as his own. This conversation felt perilously close to crossing one of those boundaries.

“Fen knew what he was getting into with you.”

Her eyes flashed as they met his. “Are you sure about that? At the time, he was a lot more concerned about making sure I knew what I was getting into than the other way around.”

“He knew.” He smiled. “Fen’s a lot smarter than he looks.” That earned him a pillow tossed at his head. He caught it and tucked it behind his back. “I can’t believe after everything you two went through to be together that you’re getting cold feet now.”