“Oh, very,” Marci said. “Why do you think I roasted it first? Well, microwaved, to be precise.” She nodded to the first bracelet on her wrist, a blue plastic ring which was still steaming slightly. “The Thaumaturgical code of safety and ethics forbids the use of magical combustion in urban environments, which eliminates most combat fire spells. So I created a variation on the college staple ‘No-Microwave Microwave’ spell that does basically the same thing, only without the actual fire part.”
Julius gaped at her. “Why?”
“Because the microwave spell is horribly underutilized as a mere cooking charm,” she replied authoritatively. “As you see, the weaponization possibilities of a spell that instantly boils water particles inside organic matter are potentially—”
“No, no, I understand that part,” he said. “I meant, why did you randomly kill a crater vole?”
Marci blinked at him. “For the bounty, of course. Crater voles are an invasive, non-native species. DFZ Animal Control pays three dollars for every one you bring in.”
“Hold up,” Justin said, stabbing his finger at the smoking mutant rat in her hands. “You killed that thing for three dollars?”
“Hey, three dollars is three dollars,” Marci said, hefting the heavy carcass as she walked back to her car.
Justin stomped after her. “But three dollars isn’t even worth the drive to turn it in. Why not go after the bigger bounties?”
“Because I don’t want to die,” she answered, grabbing a trash bag out of her trunk and shoving the dead vole inside. “And maybe three dollars isn’t worth it to you, but when you’re broke, you can’t afford to leave money just waddling around on the side of the road.”
Julius heard the rumble of his brother’s reply, but he wasn’t actually paying attention to the argument anymore. He was too distracted by the storm drain Marci had yanked the crater vole out of. Specifically, he was staring at the deep cuts in pavement around the drain’s metal grate.
From across the street, you couldn’t see them at all. Standing directly over the storm drain, however, the grooves were impossible to miss, and obviously man-made. This was no natural cracking. Someone had deliberately cut a thin line around the edge of the drainage grate with a cement saw. It wasn’t until he’d squatted down for a better look, though, that Julius understood why.
“Marci,” he called. “Can you come over here, please?”
He heard a trunk slam, and then the loud slap of Marci’s boots as she stomped over. “I can’t believe that jerk is related to you. And where does he get off wearing a sword? What century does he think this is?”
Julius wasn’t touching that question with a ten foot pole, so he changed the subject instead, pointing down at the cut in the pavement and the thin copper strip covered with etched markings he’d spotted at the bottom. “Is that a ward?”
Tirade forgotten, Marci squatted down beside him, squinting through what Julius suddenly realized was probably very bad light for a human. “I think it is,” she said. “But it’s a really weird one.”
“A shaman ward?” he prompted, holding his breath.
She nodded. “Without question. No Thaumaturge would be caught dead putting down notation that sloppy.”
He could have hugged her. “This is it!”
She gave him a strange look. “This is what?”
“Lark didn’t give me the wrong address,” he said, pointing at the storm drain, which was located directly in front of the parking deck, right where Lark’s address said it would be. “They’re not in the Underground, they’re underground. The shamans we’re looking for are in the sewers! Right here!”
Now that he said it, it all made perfect sense. Where else would an alligator shaman live in a city like this? Lark had even said they were living in the pipes. If that was right, then maybe Katya was here. Maybe he wasn’t dead after all!
“Why are we staring at a drain?”
Julius jumped at the sound of Justin’s voice, but even that couldn’t bring down his newfound good mood. “Justin, look!” he said, hopping to his feet. “We found them!”
Justin gave the old grate a distasteful look. “The crater voles?”
“No, the shamans. The people we’re looking for.” He moved closer, dropping his voice to a whisper only dragon ears could hear. “The ones Katya’s hiding with.”
Justin’s eyebrows shot up. “That was easy,” he said, breaking into a grin. “How do you want to do this?”
Something about the way he said that made Julius decidedly nervous. “What do you mean?”
Justin heaved an enormous sigh and wrapped his arm around Julius’s neck, dragging him away from Marci. Normally, Julius would have been grateful for his brother’s unusual thoughtfulness in not blurting things out where she could hear. Right now, though, he was too busy trying not to choke to pay proper attention.
“What are you doing?” he gasped when his brother finally released him.
“Keeping you from screwing up,” Justin snapped. “You can’t go in the front door. That’s where all the traps are.”
Julius stared at his brother in astonishment. “You’re worried about traps?”
“No, but I’m not the one who’s sealed, am I?” He crossed his massive arms, looking Julius up and down. “This isn’t some mortal you’re chasing, idiot. You can’t just show up at a dragon’s stronghold and expect to negotiate like equals. She’s not going to listen to a thing you say while she’s in her lair, surrounded by her troops.”
If this had been a dragoness like Svena, or any of their own sisters, that would have been a good point, but Julius didn’t think his brother had the right of it this time. “I don’t think it’s like that,” he said. “We’re not assaulting the Three Sister’s ice palace. The humans down there probably don’t even know Katya’s a dragon.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s not going to act like one,” Justin said, glaring over his shoulder at Marci, who’d been steadily edging closer to them in a not-so-subtle attempt to eavesdrop. When she got the hint and backed off again, he continued. “Look, it’s very simple. All we have to do is sneak in and take out her humans before she knows what’s up. Then, while she’s reeling, we take her down. Once we’ve got our boots on her neck, she’ll do whatever we want.”
Julius suddenly felt queasy. It wasn’t that he thought Justin’s plan wouldn’t work, but taking out a commune full of the sort of mages who hung out with Lark felt…wrong. And then there was Katya herself, who was on the run from her clan, which was to say, ruthless hunters who thought like Justin. Two dragons busting into her safe haven to put their boots on her neck would terrify her, and no one fought harder than a cornered, terrified dragon. That would be a real shame, too, because given the humans she’d chosen to hang out with, Julius had the feeling Katya wasn’t a fighter. He had no idea how to explain all that to Justin in a way his brother would understand, though, so he tried another approach.
“I don’t think we need to do that,” he said, keeping his voice reasonable, rational, and completely without challenge. “The whole reason Ian picked me for this job was precisely because I wasn’t someone Katya would consider a threat. If we go in guns blazing—”
“We don’t have guns.”
Julius sighed. “Fine, if we go in like dragons, she’s just going to bolt, and then we’ll have to hunt her down all over again. But if we go in nicely and give her the chance to see us as allies instead of enemies, we might not have to fight at all.”
Justin stared at him. “Really? That’s your plan? Talking?”