The Lost Dragon Princess

Chapter 7

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Can’t you give me some breathing exercises to do when I feel tense?”

“There are about twenty thousand meditation and breathing apps in the app stores,” Mary said.

“That’s your advice? Go download apps?”

“Actually, I don’t give advice. I’m just here to listen to you and help you figure out solutions on your own.”

“And that’s what pays for the leather couches and marble floors?”

“Those came with the building. I just rent the office.”

“Wonderful.” I checked the door to make sure there weren’t any threats about to barge in and closed my eyes. A headache was burgeoning.

“If you like, you can try the 4-7-8 breathing technique. Whenever you feel agitated, inhale through your nose for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, then exhale slowly for eight seconds. This helps switch your body from a flight-or-fight state to a relaxed state by activating the parasympathetic nervous system.”

I opened an eye. That sounded vaguely useful.

“Are there other people like you?” Mary asked. “In your, ah, industry?”

“Yes. I sent the pictures.” I made a face at the phone, specifically the insurance agent on the phone. This was some kind of senior agent that my case had been escalated to. “You sent someone out to see the crash site, right? I’m still trying to arrange a tow.”

Arranging it wasn’t the problem. Paying the huge fee for a truck to drive from the nearest city out along that dirt road was another matter. If the insurance wouldn’t cover it, the wreck could stay there.

A car honked, almost drowning out the reply. I was cutting across Capitol Hill on foot to make my meeting with this Lieutenant Mood, and the freeway traffic roared nearby. I had gotten a call from my Dad in the middle and asked about the car. I told him about the tornado and how it was caught up when I was inside the cave. He asked me if I was ok and when I assured him on video call that I was fine only then had he relented.

“Sig, you gotta tell me how come you are the only one who lands into trouble every single time. The insurance agents are calling me and asking me questions which I have no idea about.”

“You have to divert them to me, Dad. Then I will handle them. And I will come home soon. After I submit my samples to my geography professor. Can we have dinner together tonight?” I asked and my father paused for a moment and said,” I would love that very much.”

I was glad that I was bonding with my father. After the close cutting with the dragon today I knew that even though I would have very much liked to find my parents, the real ones, I could not very likely forget the ones who had made sure that I had a chance at life. And if what the dragon said was true it was really difficult to come to terms that I was a mongrel with elf and dragon blood.

I know it sounded very crazy to me as well. But before I could deal with any other thoughts that were coming to my mind I looked at my phone screen and found that it was another insurance agent again. These guys were getting on my nerves.

“How did it get in a tree?” the agent asked, suspicion lacing her tone.

I wished I’d opened with reporting a tornado strike. Oregon wasn’t known for tornadoes, but an internet search had revealed that a couple had touched down there before, if decades apart. It seemed too late to change the story now, especially when I’d already tried two.

“I was off-roading and I had to swerve to avoid hitting—” a dragon, “—a bear. The Jeep flipped and rolled and bounced off a log or something—I couldn’t quite see what. I was thrown out before it ended up in the trees.”

“This is the fourth accident you’ve been in in three years.”

“I know, but I’m in a dangerous line of work.”

“You said you were off-roading.”

“I was. It wasn’t recreational.”

“And what line of work did you say you’re in?”

“I didn’t. It’s top secret. I’m a government contractor.”

“I don’t think we can cover you anymore, ma’am.”

“That’s fine, but you have to pay out on this claim. That’s why I’ve been paying you every month.” That and because the auto loan required it.

The line went dead.

I resisted the urge to whip out Chopper and take out my aggressions on a fire hydrant. Was I supposed to eat it on the Jeep? I still owed twenty grand. My combat bonuses went to paying off informants, buying ammo and gas, and replacing the gear I lost in fights, not making extra car payments.

With an angry huff, I reached the Starbucks Reserve Roastery on Pike and stalked through the big wood doors. It was packed, as usual, and I grimaced at the noise of dozens of conversations, voices raised to be heard over the grinding and transporting of beans through the elaborate equipment on display. This was Colonel Pariah’s favorite place, so we always met here, but I was less inclined to endure the hordes of tourists and scents of burning coffee—people who actually liked coffee called it roasting, but it smelled burnt to me—for some substandard replacement contact.

I spotted Mood immediately. He wore a suit and tie rather than his army uniform, but the short buzz cut screamed military, and he had a familiar manila folder on the table in front of him. As I walked over, I couldn’t help but grimace again. He was even younger than I’d imagined—if he’d graduated from OCS, it must have been that year—and kept glancing at his phone.

“Where’s Colonel Pariah?” I sat down facing him, glancing at his small black mug with a pattern in the frothy milk mingling with the coffee.

Annoyance flashed across his face, but he tamped it down. “In the hospital.”

I forgot my own annoyance. “What hospital? What happened?”

He gave me the name of a local hospital, not the army medical center on Fort Lewis I would have expected, then grimly said, “Cancer.”

“Cancer?” I struggled to imagine the forty-five-year-old, tough-as-nails colonel being susceptible to anything so mundane. She competed in triathlons when she wasn’t busting people’s faces in some martial art or another. Coffee was her only vice, as far as I knew, and she ate more servings of vegetables than a goat with a tapeworm.

“Yes. I have your bonus.” Lieutenant Mood pushed the envelope across to me. “And I must let you know—”

“Wait. You can’t tell me Colonel Pariah is in the hospital and drop it. Is she just getting treatment or what? She didn’t have to leave her home, did she?” I waved vaguely toward North Seattle where a few officers who worked in the city, running intelligence and keeping an eye on the magical beings that showed up here, had apartments.

“Her condition is quite advanced. She’s in the hospital for the rest of… until they’re able to get it under control.”

“Quite advanced? How can that be?” The now-familiar tightness returned to my chest. And my throat. I struggled to calm the emotions welling up and squeezing everything. I wasn’t going to use the inhaler in front of this kid. And I definitely wasn’t going to cry. “She has to have been getting all of the usual screenings,” I said reasonably, logically. “She’s not the kind of person who would put that off.”

“I’m not her doctor. Listen, here’s your money—bringing cash is highly unorthodox, I’ll have you know—and I’m here to inform you that we won’t have more work for you until I’ve finished my investigation.”

I blinked slowly. “Investigation?”

Was this kid old enough to investigate more than his comic book collection?

A waiter came over, so Mood didn’t answer right away.

“Can I get you anything?”

Mood shook his head and waved at his cup. As if the guy had been asking him.

I started to also shake my head but thought of the colonel. “Do you have any bottles of that cold nitro stuff?”

“Yes. Sweetened or unsweetened?”

“Definitely unsweetened.” I had laid a five on the table, then wondered if that was enough for hoity-toity coffee.

The waiter went to get the order without commenting.

Once he was out of earshot, Mood answered my question. “I’m an accountant. General Nash—Colonel Pariah’s boss—ordered me sent in to see if everything is legitimate and a genuine expense that the taxpayers need to foot.” He pinched his lips together as he regarded me.

“The taxpayers that don’t want to be eaten by wyverns, orcs, or trolls are probably okay with it.”

He curled a lip. The gesture reminded me of the dragon—Xervan. But Xervan, at least in human form, was handsome enough and old enough to make it look like that aloof haughtiness was perfect for him. Mood just looked petulant, like someone had stolen the comic books he’d been investigating.

Suddenly suspicious, I opened the envelope to see if there was actually cash in there. I never would have doubted it with Pariah.

Mood’s hand lifted toward it, but he dropped it. He glanced nervously around, as if afraid someone would see us exchanging bills. I couldn’t care less if an undercover police officer came over to talk to us. Mood could impress the guy by showing him his military ID with accountant stamped on it.

“This is only twenty-five hundred,” I said after counting it. “I usually get a five-thousand-dollar combat bonus.”

“I know. It’s completely unacceptable. Soldiers who go into war zones overseas don’t get that much nearly as often as you’re getting it.”

“Soldiers who go into war zones overseas don’t have to buy their own magical weapons from people who don’t accept credit cards, not to mention traveling all over the Pacific Northwest and staying in hotels without TDY pay, which I don’t get because my position doesn’t officially exist. Pariah’s whole office doesn’t officially exist.”

“Giving you that much money is ridiculous, and it’s one of the reasons I’ve started an investigation. Magical weapons.” He scoffed.

I was suddenly certain he’d never encountered a magical being himself. Well, too bad. If he was going to work in Pariah’s little unit, he’d learn soon. This wasn’t Fort Lewis out in the tree-filled boonies. Seattle was a port city and a hotbed of visitors of all kinds. All kinds.

“And how old are you? You should not be even doing this. Do you parents know? How will they like it when they come to know that their daughter does this for pocket money?”

And my temper which I had been reining in for quite some time after the dragon fiasco snapped. And wind whipped inside the café unseen and the small jar of salt which was on the table burst out causing small glass shards to fly in Mood’s direction and they embedded themselves on the back of his hand as he cried out in pain.