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13
Twilight was fallingby the time we neared Puget Sound, the city lights of Olympia off to the side. It was late enough that the traffic wasn’t too bad. Soon, assuming the police didn’t catch up to us in this last stretch, we would reach Seattle. I wished I had a better idea of where to go. I hoped Nin had more local magical contacts than I did and that she could point me to an alchemist—or someone who knew all the alchemists in thecity.
Since Dimitri was still driving—I’d offered to take over, but he said he didn’t let strange women hold his steering wheel—I pulled out my phone. I’d tried calling Willard earlier but had been shunted off to voice mail. This time, I texted her, asking if she’d heard anything about dark elves inSeattle.
After that, I called Mom’s house again. Even though I doubted the government would harass her because of my actions, I couldn’t help but worry. She was the kind of person who could wander off into the woods in one state and reappear three months later in another state, without having suffered any adversity along the way, but she was also law-abiding enough to hang out and wait to be questioned. And she would have felt obligated to watch Maggie. A burden I had imposed upon her. Igrimaced.
All I got was the answeringmachine.
Shortly after I left another message, the phone rang. It was Willard’s office number, notMom’s.
I made the mistake of answering before I realized it was unlikely Willard was in the office. “Hello?”
“Thorvald, where are you?” That sounded like Lieutenant Snotty. “Did you resist arrest? Your ass is dead meat. If you don’t get back here and turn yourself in by dawn, I’llhave—”
I made a hissing sputtering sound, my best imitation of static. “Hello? Sorry, I’m—hiss—having trouble hearing you. Driving through—hiss—tunnel. Is this—hiss—pizza guy? Just leave it at the door. Long tunnel, about to lose you.” I hungup.
Dimitri glanced over atme.
“Wrong number,” I toldhim.
“Darn, I was hoping forpizza.”
“They don’t chase you down to deliverit.”
“No? I hear delivery drones are coming. They ought to be able to find you on the freeway.” He braked in response to three lanes of brake lights ahead of us. We’d hit Tacoma. So much for the light traffic. “Especially when traffic isslow.”
I glanced at the phone. No response to my textyet.
“Where in Seattle am I going?” Dimitriasked.
“OccidentalSquare.”
“Oh, Trinity is near there. They have a dress code though. And might sneer atBessy.”
“Bessy?”
“Bessy.” He waved a hand toward the interior of the yellow-carpeted van, the back seats replaced with a bed and boxes of clothing and personal items. The galaxy-colored curtains on the side windows were pulled, and an alien-head bobble doll on a crate wobbled as we started and stopped in the traffic. “Bessy would fit in more on CapitolHill.”
I doubtedBessyfit in anywhere. “I just need a few minutes to talk to a friend. She’s got a food truck she usually parksthere.”
“She? That’s a sketchy neighborhood at night, isn’tit?”
“She sells a lot of her merchandise to the sketchyclientele.”
“And they refrain from mugging herafterward?”
“She can take care of herself. Trustme.”
Dimitrishrugged.
“Thanks for driving me up here, by the way.” I should have said that five hours ago. “And helping me with the agents. I hope you won’t get in trouble for that. I was a little surprised that you helped, given that you barely let me on the premisesyesterday.”
“They shoved their way in and were asking me questions before you got there. I asked them if they had a warrant to come into the house, and they got real pissy. Turned it into an interrogation. Like they already had me pegged as a criminal who’d brokenprobation.”
I eyed his scarred, buzzcut head, pockmarked face, and black metalhead T-shirt. Even in a tutu, he would have looked like some mafia dude’s bodyguard. All I said was, “Rude.”
“That’s what I told them. They found out I live in the van, not the house, and told me to go wait there and stay out of the way. I was tempted to knife their tires even before you and Sigrid showedup.”
