Night of the Highland Dragon by Cooper Isabel

Author:Cooper, Isabel [Cooper, Isabel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc
Published: 2015-03-31T21:02:59+00:00

Twenty-two

The evening just got better and better.

Judith still had the faint taste of rat-thing in her mouth, and her head had started to ache, an unsurprising result of hearing the demons’ death cries. Several unpleasant ideas were circling her mind and getting ready to perch. Most concerned why the little monsters had come, why they’d been following her, and how much of the recent destruction was her fault.

Now William Arundell was standing at the edge of the clearing. She didn’t know how much he’d seen, but the way he was staring let her know that it had been more than enough. And he had a pistol leveled at her head.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “But I’ll defend myself if you make me. The bullets are silver.”

There was no question in his voice, no uncertainty that silver would hurt her or that she knew it. In his other hand, he held more silver: a flat disk that glittered with gems and shone with magic to her sight.

“What are you?” Judith asked.

“Human,” said William. “Which makes one of us, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not not human,” said Judith.

The silence of a winter’s night filled the clearing. Each of them stood staring at the other. Standoff, Judith thought, remembering American stories. Silver could kill one of her kind. In dragon form, if the shooter missed the head or the heart, it would usually take more than one bullet. From her memory, though, William was an excellent shot, and she’d transformed only a minute ago. She doubted she had the energy to do it again for a while, not after the fight.

With any luck, he didn’t know that.

William cleared his throat. Without moving the gun or taking his eyes off her face, he asked, “Did those creatures attack you?”

“The other way around. They were following me.”

“And so you struck first.”

“I’m sorry, were they friends of yours?”

His mouth twisted in distaste. “Hardly. I’m simply trying to get a sense of what happened.”

“Why?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Not if it wasn’t my concern. You haven’t explained how it’s yours.”

“I want to find out what’s happening here,” he said, “and I want to stop it.”

“A couple of minor demons and a few dead livestock? Why is that worth your time?” She drummed her fingers on her hip. “You’re clearly not an amateur. I’ll give you that. You can’t really be up here because you think that whoever’s responsible might switch to humans.” Judith watched William’s face as she talked. It was a careful blank. “So,” she asked, “who’s died already?”

William visibly weighed his options, then sighed. “The peddler I’d mentioned. Actually, a boy down in Belholm. I don’t know his name. He visited a friend of mine. Afterwards.”

“Your…friend of a friend?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“A month ago. More or less.”

“How do you know the killer was from here? Or that it wasn’t just a fight gone bad?”

“I saw the body,” William said and then after another short hesitation, “and I saw tracks. Magical ones. They led in this direction.”

“And you heard stories about a strange village with a stranger lady.

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