Honeyed Words (25 page)

“You refuse me the tribute I am due,” the great beast yelled, arching its neck down toward the now-weaponless man. “I only ask for one of your daughters to have as my own, dwarf. Not even the youngest; I leave it to you to pick.”

“Die, wyrm!” the dwarf yelled. “You canna have another of mine.”

“So be it,” the dragon said, his voice a knife that cut through the wailing. In a blink he leapt from the roof of the long house and landed in the central square, crushing the well and snatching the dwarf from the ground in his great-toothed maw. Blood showered the square.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t run to this beast, to find a weapon to stop his murder. He knocked down a large hut, and one after another killed or ate the inhabitants. It was horrible beyond anything I’d seen. Even the battle with Jean-Paul had not been this matter-of-fact, this blatantly one-sided.

The next evening, as the fires faded with the final rays of the sun, a strapping young dwarf crawled out of the ruins of the smithy. That first night the boy buried the remains of his family, a piteously small task, and fell asleep in the ruins of the long house.

The following evening, he began to clear away the wreckage from the smithy. Once he had the forge cleared, he dug through the family’s home, carrying out a box of intricate design.

For six nights he worked, beating the shattered fragments he pulled from that box into a recognizable shape. Every night, he tied the family bull to the ruined well, feeding and watering the great beast, singing to it songs of glory.

On the final night, as he fired the blade for one last time, he crooned to the bull, apologizing for what was to come, and calling on the gods to take the beast into the golden pasture. Then he stalked across the yard and plunged the glowing blade into the heart of the tethered bull. The great beast bucked and frothed as the blood boiled and ran steaming around the blade, filling the night once more with a coppery stench.

The bull shrieked as it died, a death I could not begin to imagine. After a moment the youth pulled the blade forth and held it toward the sky.

“Woden, One-Eye, You who have forsaken my family. I have reforged the blade you sundered. My father and his fathers before him kept the shards at the command of your son Thor, until such time as the world would have need of the blade again. I claim this in your name, to slay the great dragon who has hunted this land for far too long.”

Of course I recognized the blade. How could I not, as the runes along the furrow glowed in the deepening night? Thunder rolled in the distance, and the boy crawled into the ruins of the lodge, away from the coming of the dawn.

In the distance, atop a rocky outcropping, I saw the dragon, watching the boy and laughing.

Then the dragon paused, turning his head toward me, and his laughing ceased.

“Smith? Is that you who haunts the dreams of my youth?” Frederick Sawyer asked. “Be gone from me, meddler. Mine is not for you to observe.”

And I awoke to the sound of screaming.

Thirty-four

Well, not screaming, but the sound of the coffee grinder was enough to jerk me awake. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in my bed. Every muscle in my body was cramped, and my neck hurt from being cocked in one position too long. The lingering mockery of Frederick’s rebuke filled my head with anguish. I tried to raise up, but got tangled in something draped above me. I fought against it, struggling with the thick clothes that hung around me. My guttural cry of anger and frustration must have been what signaled Julie, because the next thing I saw was her opening the doorway, bathed in light.

That’s about the time my brain finally kicked in. I was in the hall closet. I’d taken refuge there in the night and curled up on the floor with the boots and fallen scarves, single gloves and broken umbrellas.

“What the hell are you doing?” Julie barked at me. She leaned on her cane, clutching her chest. “You about gave me a heart attack. I thought you’d gone to Katie’s.”

I climbed out of the fallen coats and hangers, crawled over the assorted debris, and rolled out onto the floor, ending up flat on my back, spread-eagled.

“Pretty,” Julie said, shaking her head and turning toward the kitchen. “Why don’t you get dressed?”

I looked down. I had on a T-shirt, socks, and panties, but nothing else. Not exactly a graceful moment. How the hell had I ended up in the closet?

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Julie said, putting the coffee grounds into a filter and assembling the coffeemaker she’d purchased, “but considering the fact you were in the closet … why was that again?” She glanced back at me. “Some metaphorical psychological experiment around your sexuality?”

Bitch … she was teasing, of course, but I was a little jittery.

“Nightmare,” I said. “You know, the usual: dragon, sword … that type of thing.”

“Sorry,” she said. Julie had been through worse than me in the whole fiasco in the spring. Burned out by a dragon, mauled by trolls and giants, beaten, and eventually broken. Hell, at least I got to hunt the bastard down.

The jeans and bra I’d worn the night before lay crumpled in the floor by the hide-a-bed, and I shimmied into the jeans. “No worries,” I said, zipping up the fly. “What time is it?”

“Four.”

“Holy…” I paused, reaching for my bra. “In the morning?”

Julie took a coffee mug and saucer from the cabinet and set them both on the counter. “Yes, the morning. Like five hours after I went to bed.”

Dawn was a good two hours away. Not a great way to start the day. But I was wired, the adrenaline was pumping, and my senses were aligned to “Danger Will Robinson” levels.

“By the way,” I asked, as politely as I could through clenched teeth, “when did we get a coffee grinder?”

Julie shrugged. “Last week. Cheaper than going out for coffee every day.”

True enough. Still … “I like Monkey Shines, though, and they have crullers.”

The look she gave me was not sweet or pleasant. “One day, Sarah Jane Beauhall, you will be concerned about your weight and”—she opened the fridge and pulled out a huge grapefruit—“you’ll be worried about what you eat.”

I flipped the couch back together and sat down on it, pushing the overhanging blanket down between the arm and the cushion I was sitting on.

“Might as well head out to Anezka’s place, see if she got home and all.”

I looked up at the sound of a knife striking a cutting board. Julie had just cut her grapefruit in half, but the force was a little beyond expected parameters. Was she pissy about Anezka?

I stomped my feet into my Docs and tied them loosely. “You okay, boss?”

She just mumbled something and pulled the chair out, sitting down with her cup of coffee and her half a grapefruit.

There wasn’t a better teacher than Julie. I’d tell anyone. Not only did she have me pegged on life issues, but she knew where I needed work, how the metal sang, and how the fire was to be wielded. She’d let me grow up, find my way, in a way no one else had ever done … well, no one but Sa Bum Nim Choi, but that was a totally different thing. I wasn’t eleven anymore, and this wasn’t Tae Kwon Do.

I sat at the table, flipped my hair out of my eyes, and pulled her coffee cup away from her reach.

“Hey,” she said, looking up at me—definitely pissy and hurt.

“Julie…” Too proud, I saw then. Hurt, angry, and falling behind in the big game. “Anezka is a loose cannon—out of control—and horses shy away from her.”

There was no budging there, just fatigue, almost … was it defeat?

“I was thinking about heading over to the U District tomorrow after work, seeing Gunther at his shop, maybe. Want to go with? Maybe get some Italian?”

She squinted at me, not quite up to full-on stink eye, but dubious all the same. “Dinner? You sure?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely,” I assured her. “Things have been crazy lately, and I’d love to get your take on a few of the more interesting items. Very weird items.”

She reached over and took her coffee back. “I’ll have to tell Mrs. Sorenson I can’t make it over for rummy.”

“I’d really appreciate it,” I said honestly. “It’s just not the same without you kicking my ass and giving me advice.”

She harrumphed me, picking up her coffee. “You never showed up before nine in the morning. What’s so damn exciting about Anezka’s place that makes you want to head right over?”

“That’s part of what I want to discuss.” I got up, grabbed an apple from the basket on the table, and took a large bite. “She’s not…” I chewed quickly, mumbling the words around the pulpy fruit, “half the farrier you are.” I swallowed.

I looked down at the apple in my hand. It was the most delicious apple I’d ever eaten. “Oh my god, this is great. Where’d you get these?”

“Bought them from a guy on the corner, set up a stand with stuff from eastern Washington.”

There was a crisp tartness there that I’d never experienced before. For a second my head swam and my vision wavered. “Kinda light-headed,” I said, sitting down again. “Any chance these are poisoned?”

She grabbed the apple from my hand and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Nope,” she said finally, turning her attention to her grapefruit. “When was the last time you had a glass of water?”

Hydration. Check. “Too long,” I admitted. Stupid of me.

“You smell like beer, too,” she said, digging out a section of grapefruit.

It was my turn to give her a look. I pulled out the edge of my shirt and took a quick smell. She was right. Besides, I didn’t have to get over the mountain this early. I wasn’t even sure Anezka made it home last night.

“Fine,” I said, standing and stripping my T-shirt over my head. Julie covered her face and groaned.

“I liked you better with body issues,” she said.

I walked over to the bathroom, leaving a trail of T-shirt, boots, socks, and finally my jeans.

“You’ll pick those things up, young lady,” she called after me as I shut the door.

Yep, good to see her fighting back.

I turned the shower on full hot and let the steam fill the room before I stripped out of my delicates. Once the mirror was obscured I wrote in the steam, backward—“no peeking”—and climbed into the shower. Needed to get a better handle on my nutrition. Heck, my cardio wasn’t doing great these days. Maybe I needed to go for a run later tonight. If I wasn’t naked, and had thought of it, I should have gone for a run before showering. C’est la vie.

When I got out of the shower (wrapped in a towel, mind), Julie had on her iPod and was vacuuming the living room. She made a particular point of going around my clothes, which I thought was hilarious.

Not sure I remembered owning a vacuum, though.

I picked up my clothes, went into the bedroom, and dumped them into the hamper. Before Julie had a chance to finish, I was dressed once again and ready to start my day.

Thirty-five

By seven I’d stopped at a coffee shop in Leavenworth and grabbed a couple vats of joe and some pastries. If Anezka was as hungover as I expected, she’d want some fortification. Hell, she might not even be there.

The road to Chumstick was devoid of any traffic, which was no surprise. I wasn’t even sure anyone else lived there. I parked on the side of the road and crossed to her spread. Once again, I felt the pressure, the energy barrier, that surrounded her place.

She wasn’t up, but her truck was parked around back, very close to one of the metal warriors. Not a real quality parking job, there. I took the coffees into the shop, grabbed an apron, and began cleaning up. The place was more filthy than I recalled, dust and metal shavings all over. Had I left it like this on Monday?

Things went well at first. I didn’t snoop, open any of the lockers or anything. Then I knocked into a stack of steel rods, sending them clanging across the concrete floor. It sounded like the dragon sculpture had shaken off half its scales.

I was cleaning up the rods when Anezka came staggering out of her place, dressed in a pair of running shorts and a wifebeater and carrying a shotgun.

I sat back on my behind, holding my hands in the air … “Don’t shoot.”

She stumbled to a stop. “Fuck, Beauhall. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

I grinned at her. “Just cleaning up.”

The barrel of the shotgun wavered for a minute; then she lowered it, grunting and grabbing her head with her free hand. “Gawdawful hangover,” she moaned.

“Glad you made it home last night,” I said, standing up and brushing off my jeans.

She threw me an evil look. “Almost had company, too,” she said indignantly. “But the damn bartender asked me if I’d give him my daughter’s phone number.” She pointed at me, and for a moment I thought she was going to shoot me. “Stupid country fuck.” She turned back to the house, waving her empty hand in the air. “I’m going back to bed. If you wake me up again, I
will
shoot you.”

She slammed the door, but I saw her wince when she did it. Been a while since I’d been that hungover, but not so long ago that my stomach didn’t churn a little in sympathy.

To play it safe, I grabbed my coffee and walked cautiously out back leaving the iron pickup sticks where they’d fallen.