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I waved a rib atthem.
“He would be a powerful ally,” Dimitri said, “but can you really imagine a dragon working with anyone but anotherdragon?”
I didn’t want him for an ally anyway. I worked alone. That wasn’t going to change. It was bad enough I’d let Dimitri go see the vampire with me. It had almost gotten him eaten by a hauntedhouse.
“Until I figure out how to find this lair, it’s a moot point.” I dug out my phone and tapped open the map application again, thinking of Zoltan’s implication that the alchemist would have to have access to a body of water large enough to hold akraken.
I’d been attacked twice by dark elves in hoodies, so it wasn’t as if theycouldn’ttravel outside, at least at night, but it would certainly be convenient for the alchemist if she didn’t have to go far to collect blood from sea life. Maybe there was a tunnel exit right by thewater.
Puget Sound would be the most obvious bet for housing something as large as a kraken. It connected to the Pacific Ocean, and, as a quick search told me, was a lot deeper than Lake Union or LakeWashington.
But how would someone on land or a boat get close to a kraken? Weren’t they supposed to be hundreds if not thousands of pounds? Could a kraken be lured up to shore? And trapped for long enough to give a vial of its blood? Or its venom. Zoltan had gotten an excited gleam in his eyes when he’d spoken of that. Even if it had nothing to do with the potion—formula—that had taken down Willard, maybe a dark-elf alchemist would be just as excited by kraken venom and try to collect itregularly.
I closed the social media application I’d had open, checking on a status update from my daughter’s latest swim meet, and did some searches for Puget Sound plus sea monsters, giant squids, and krakens, to see if anything came up. Nothing within the past decade. Hm. More on a whim than because I thought I’d get lucky, I did the same search with Lake Union and the ship canal. Willard’s words about the Underground tunnels extending under the lake came to mind. A ship could pass from the Sound through the ship canal, Lake Union, and Portage Bay into Lake Washington, so wasn’t it conceivable that a kraken could too? The idea of it correctly timing its passage through the locks was a little amusing, but maybe they weresmart.
“Ah, what’s this?” Imurmured.
“Leftovers?” Dimitri pointed to my plate. “Are you going to eat thatcornbread?”
“Go ahead. I’m reading about a recent sighting of the Loch Ness monster in Lake Union. Several of them. From residents living in the houseboats there. Howinteresting.”
“Does that have something to do with darkelves?”
“It may. Look at the dates.” I showed him my phone screen. “There was a flurry of sightings about eight weeks ago, then nothing, and then more sightings last month. Could my alchemist be luring the kraken into Lake Union for easy access? And then maybe coming up from some subterranean tunnel to trap it or stab it with something that gives her a vial ofblood?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but since you’re letting me eat your food, I won’tobject.”
I finished off my brisket while explaining what Zoltan had said about kraken blood being necessary for the formula that had taken downWillard.
“Something must be happening once a month to make that the ideal time for her to lure in the kraken and take her samples. Eight weeks ago probably would have been about the time she was collecting ingredients for the potion that waylaid Willard.” I still didn’t know why the dark elves wanted to kill Willard, but I would be sure to ask the alchemist while I was wringing herneck.
“If there were sightings eight weeks ago and four weeks ago, maybe we’re due for anotherone.”
“If she still needs ingredients, that could be. Maybe she’s making lots of these formulas to take out lots of enemies, but she can only bring the kraken in to get fresh blood once a month. It was dark last night, wasn’t it? Even without the clouds, I don’t think there was a moon.” I snapped my fingers and tapped in a new search. “Hah, that’s it. There was a new moon eight weeks ago, the night the first sightings were reported. The sky would have been extra dark thatnight.”
“Safe enough for a dark elf to pop out of itshole?”
“Herhole. Dark elves must be able to come out any night if they properly protect themselves, but maybe darker nights are preferable. Or maybe thekrakenonly shows up on the darkest of nights.” Dread and anticipation mingled to create a weird sensation in my gut as I scrolled further down the page and checked the date. “There’s a new moontonight.”
“So if we hang out on a houseboat tonight, we might see akraken?”
“If the alchemist is following the pattern and luring it in again.” I couldn’t know for certain that the dark elves were responsible for these Loch Ness monster sightings, but this was the best lead I had. Besides, who but someone with a use for kraken blood, and a need for it to be delivered close to the dark-elf tunnel system, would invite such a creature into Lake Union? “If she’s already got all the blood she needs, she might not be. But it’s either investigate this or sneak into the Underground tour and knock on the walls, hoping to find a hollow one that could be knocked down, and that would lead into the rest of the tunnel network. But you’d have to think there’s some separation between the tunnel systems for the dark elves to have avoided notice for all thistime.”
“It sounds like we’ve got until dark to figure out what we need to invade a dark-elflair.”
“We need? Dimitri, I appreciate you driving me around yesterday, but it’s too dangerous for you to go. Thedragondidn’t even want togo.”
“Maybe he just hasn’t figured out where the dooris.”
That was a possibility. The dark elves might have some enchantment in place to keep people, magical and mundane, from stumbling onto the entrances they use. And as powerful as a dragon was, some magicdidwork to camouflage things from them—I’d seen that with my own cloaking charm. Weaker beings throughout history had probably made an art of hiding fromdragons.
“We haven’t exactly figured it out either.” I leaned back in my seat as the waiter took our trays. “Is the tunnel entrance just near the lake or… is it possible it’sinthe lake? There has to be a reason the alchemist chose that spot to lure the kraken to. Maybe I need to shop for SCUBA geartoday.”
Except that I didn’t knowhowto SCUBA dive, and the impression I’d always gotten was that it took instruction and some practice. Maybe I could free dive. I was a good swimmer and could hold my breath for awhile.
According to my searches, Lake Union was only fifty feet deep at its deepest point. Lots of spots were shallower. Swimming with my boots and weapons would be a pain in the ass, but it could be doable if I knew exactly where to go. Maybe I could find some bathymetry maps and make some guesses about where a tunnel entrance might be. There would have to be an airlock to keep water from flooding the tunnels, and the door would be magically hidden to keep mundane humans from noticing it. Would I be able to findit?
I scratched my jaw. Was all this likely, or was I following a hunch down a rabbit hole? Maybe the alchemist simply came out on the beach at Gas Works Park and summoned the kraken fromthere.
