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“Yes. I asked for all the information they had. Are you a practicing oncologist when you’re not slaying monsters? How did the wyvernsgo?”
I took the second question to mean she would rather not talk about details. She must have already startedtreatment.
“Got the last one. I ran into a dragon though.” I moved around the bed to pick up thefolder.
“Adragon?”
“He wrecked my Jeep. And almost me with it. We were after the same wyvern, and I… tricked him and got itfirst.”
“How did yousurvive?”
I would have liked to talk about how clever or skilled I’d been, but the truth was, “He let me live. And warned me never to get in the way of his workagain.”
“His work? I’ve never heard of a dragon here on Earth, not since ancient times. They used to consider this a purgatory of a sort, at least for themselves. My understanding from the data I’ve gathered from the various magical informants and witnesses we’ve worked with is that dragons are why so many of them came here to start with, to avoid the so-called justice of the Dragon JusticeCourt.”
“Yes.” I looked up from the scan—the angry blobs on it did not look good, but I couldn’t sense anything magical from a picture itself. “That’s exactly what he called it. He said he was a Lord Zavryd-something-unpronounceable.”
“Lord? Not anarbiter?”
“I didn’t catch everything he said before I got my translation charm turned on, but it sounded like he was basically a cop, there to drag criminals back for punishment and rehabilitation—that’s what he called it. The wyvern was quaking in herscales.”
“Whatever he is, I’m sure he’s more than a beat cop. All of the dragons consider themselves a sort of nobility. Everyone is either a king or a queen or prince or princess, though females are born less frequently than the males. They’re often more powerful, and they’re usually the rulers—the males fight each other, often to the death, for the right to present themselves as mates to one of the females. I guess since they kill each other off, it doesn’t matter that the numbers areskewed.”
“We didn’t get into all that.” I was more concerned about whether I would run into Zav the Self-Righteous again, not if he had the grit to find a dragon mate. “I asked him if he was going back to his realm, and he said no. He had more work to do here. That’s when he warned me to stay out of hisway.”
Willard leaned back into her pillows, looking tired, as if the speaking wore her out. Should I leave? Maybe the coffee would revive her, though she hadn’t taken much more than that first longswallow.
“If for some reason the dragons have decided to police the problems they’ve inadvertently caused for us, then that could be a good thing, but this is, if not unprecedented, something that hasn’t happened for a thousand years. Magical beings have come here, fleeing the reach of the Dragon Justice Court since humans were smacking flint together in caves to make fire.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wehavebeen wondering why so many more magical beings have appeared in our world lately. Wyverns didn’t used to swoop down and eat children in broad daylight. Or at all. We had more than twenty years after the elves and dwarves left when there weren’t any sightings of the magical atall.”
“Yes, my blissfulchildhood.”
She glanced at me. “I always forget you’re older than youlook.”
“It’s the elvenblood.”
“Must be nice.” Willard flicked a few fingers. “If you see the dragon again, you better stay out of his path. If he’s dragging off the beings that have committed crimes here, then there’s no point in killing them. Though from what I’ve heard from talking to some of the snitches, that punishment and rehabilitation is not pleasant. There’s a reason they flee to Earth and the Wild Worlds to avoid it. You may have been granting mercy in killing that wyvern before the dragon tookher.”
After what those wyverns had done, mercy hadn’t been in my mind. “Well, if the dragon is going to handle all the criminals—admittedly, it sounded like the wyvern had committed crimes in their realm, not that he was here because of the children on Earth that were killed—then I guess I canretire.”
Willard snorted. “And dowhat?”
Good question. A few years earlier, I’d finished my bachelor’s degree in aviation, mostly so I could get a raise, but it had been almost twenty years since I’d flown anything. When the army had discovered I healed quickly and had a few other preternatural abilities, they’d hustled me off into a special program to learn to be a goodkiller.
“I’m pretty agile. I could probably get a gig with Cirque duSoleil.”
She snorted again. Which was the closest I’d ever gotten to a laugh fromher.
I set down the folder since my aviation training couldn’t tell me anything about the scan, other than that the blobs vaguely resembled cumulus clouds, but my gaze drifted toward her abdomen again. There was definitely somethingthere. And it seemed to be in the area of the tumors. Was it possible this wasn’t a natural cancer? What if it wasn’t cancer at all? Could some magic mimic the disease? Or cause it to start up and develop far more rapidly than usual? And if magichadcaused it, could magic cureit?
“You seem pensive,” Willard said. “Is it because I look that bad? Or are you imagining yourself whirling through the air, thrown by hunky male circusperformers?”
I debated whether or not to tell her what I sensed. I didn’t want to give her false hope about a cure, especially since I didn’t know any alchemists or magical healers who might be able to suss out what was wrong and come up with a way to fix her. Maybe it was foolish to even think such a thing could be possible. But she was the only one who would know if she’d rubbed someone in the magical community the wrong way or had been attackedoutright.
“I’ve told you about my run-in with a dragon. Haveyouhad any run-ins with magical beings? Especially in the weeks leading up to this…this.” I waved at the hospital and her inbed.
Her browsrose.
“Unless you’re wearing a magical belly-button ring or lying on some charm or artifact, there’s something magical aboutyou.” I pointed to thespot.
