Page 7

Aware that it wouldn’t take the thug long to escape my potion’s ten-mile radius, especially if he got on a motorcycle, I grabbed the vial and raced down the street to collect Duncan.

As Bolin had said, Duncan perched by a koi pond, plucking a set of keys off his magnet while the fish hid on the far side from him.

“The local thugs robbed Rocket Coffee.” I waved for him to join me.

“The same thugs who took your sword?” Duncan laid the keys on the stone wall framing the pond and trotted over to join me. He wound his rope around the damp magnet and stuffed it all into a jacket pocket.

“I don’t know if they were involved in my robbery, but I’ll bet this one knows who was.” I held up my phone with the photo that Dubois had sent.

“And will be happy to tell us?”

“If my hand is around his throat, absolutely.”

“I do love a woman with a brutish streak.” Duncan grinned at me.

Since the coffee shop wasn’t far, we hoofed it. By the time we arrived, the police cars had left, and there was no sign of the thugs. I hoped at least one was on his way to jail.

When I texted Dubois, she admitted that the one who’d been leaping the drive-thru cars had escaped, but she had people out looking for him. Two other thugs had been captured and were on their way to the station for questioning.

“Our guy is still on the loose.” I held up the Elixir of Locus with a determined grimace. “Let’s hope this works.” I bared my teeth at the vial, working up the stomach fortitude to chug it.

“It must be as bad as you said if not worse,” Duncan commented, watching my face.

“Oh, it is.”

As I thumbed off the cork, Duncan walked up to the drive-thru window to examine the menu.

The burglary hadn’t prompted the barista—or maybe that was the owner—to close the business.

Even as I watched, three cars turned off the street and veered for the drive-thru, getting in line behind Duncan.

In the Seattle area, it took a lot to stop the delivery of espresso to caffeine-addicted consumers.

Tears threatening before I lifted the vial to my lips, I tilted my head back, pinched my nostrils shut, and dumped the contents down my throat.

The viscous slug-slime-like liquid was as bad as I remembered. Maybe worse. It burned my throat like a propane-fueled weed-killing torch, and I struggled not to cough the potion back up as tears streamed down my cheeks and my esophagus undulated in distress.

Hell, was a magical sword worth this? If it hadn’t been a gift from Duncan, and I hadn’t felt so bad about losing it, I would have uttered a vehement no . Not that I could utter anything at the moment.

Duncan returned to my side. “That’s a dreadful sacrifice you’re making, my lady.”

“Tell… me… about it…” I rasped.

Wiping my eyes, I stood and took a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. If it was like last time, I would have heartburn for a few minutes before my esophagus started tingling and guiding me in the direction of our target.

Duncan stood with two different types of bottled water in his hands, as well as a caramel mocha.

“To help you wash that down,” he offered.

I took a swig from a carbonated water, then sipped the mocha and swished it around in my mouth. Normally, I didn’t drink anything that sweet, but, at that moment, I would have chugged a Yoo-hoo with a Snickers bar floating in it. Anything to get rid of the taste.

As I drank and wiped my eyes again, Duncan delved into a pocket. He pulled out a bag of white- and brown-speckled chocolate-covered coffee beans.

“Did you order one of everything on the menu?” I accepted the candies as he poured them into my hand.

“Almost. You looked like you needed a lot to wash that down. And possibly a visit to the ER.”

“I’ll pass on that.” I crunched down the sweet beans.

“A doctor might notice the strangeness of my blood.” I grimaced at the growing pain in my chest. The candy beans and mocha helped flush the foul taste out of my mouth, but they couldn’t assist with the heartburn.

“After all this, our brute had better not be more than ten miles away.”

After another swig of the mocha, I thanked Duncan for getting all the items for me. My esophagus started tingling. It was the same sensation as the last time I’d drunk one of the potions and accompanied by an urge to turn my chest in the direction of the freeway.

“It’s going to work,” I whispered, pointing.

“Excellent. Can you tell how far away he is? Do you want me to get my van?”

“I can’t tell that, no, but… my tingling chest insists that I go that way.” Worried the guy would move out of range if we delayed, I hurried off on foot, clutching the mocha and water bottle.

Duncan looked toward Sylvan Serenity for a moment, then decided to trot after me. I didn’t know if eschewing the van was the right decision or not, but the tingling led me to cut down an alley, through an unfenced backyard, and around thorny blackberry brambles.

Had the thug gone this way? Maybe the potion was simply pointing me along the most direct route to catch up to him.

Duncan matched my pace, turning when I turned and cursing at the thorns when I cursed—actually, he called them cheeky little buggers .

“What happens if we have to cross the freeway?” he asked when the rumble of traffic grew louder.

“We’ll get to test our abilities to dodge six lanes of traffic whizzing by at sixty miles per hour.”

Duncan slanted me a look. “From what I’ve observed of the gridlock freeway traffic here, we’re more likely to encounter an unmoving car park.”

“That’ll make dodging easier.”

Before we reached the freeway, the tingling prompted me to turn parallel to it, jogging through trees and parking lots. To one side, a light-rail train whizzed past. Before the station came into view, I had an inkling of where we were going.

“Huh.”

“Huh?” Duncan asked.

“The potion might be leading me along the exact route he took rather than pointing me in the vague direction of his current location.” I gestured to the back of the station, the tracks heading to it.

“Then I’ll hope he was as scraped up by those thorny brambles as we were.”

“Maybe he was more scraped up. He’s a big guy.”

The tingling wanted me to go through a back door of the train station, but I opted for the front.

Inside, commuters were standing ready to get on the next train.

I hoped to spot the thug in one of the queues—or, more likely, brutalizing people as he shoved them aside to cut to the front—but didn’t see him.

I got the sense from the tingling, which wanted to draw me south as well as toward the doors leading to the tracks, that he’d already departed.

My feet led me to one of the doors as a train pulled in, but I halted.

“I didn’t bring my purse.” Not that it would have mattered. I hadn’t taken public transportation in a while and doubted my ORCA card had any money on it.

“Allow me, my lady.” Duncan stepped forward, fingers delving into his pockets.

My first thought was that he meant to use his magnet to trick the pay machines into letting us pass, but he fished out handfuls of change. Damp change.

“Is that from the koi pond?”

Duncan grinned at me as he fed coins into the machine. People behind us in line sighed at the slowness of using physical currency, especially currency dropped in one dime or quarter at a time.

“I thought you said American money isn’t magnetic,” I said.

“It’s not, but the pond wasn’t deep.”

“You fished out coins people threw in to make their wishes come true? That’s kind of…”

“Noble.” Duncan waved us through when the machine indicated we’d paid enough for two fares.

“Noble?”

“Coins can be toxic to fish, even those not large enough to accidentally eat them. They corrode and release metals into the water.”

I squinted at him, wondering if he’d made that up.

“I read a news story once,” Duncan continued as we boarded, “that a turtle in Bangkok died from blood poisoning in such a pond.”

“Are you sure you just didn’t want a coffee and you forgot your wallet in your van?”

He grinned again. “I believe the mocha and chocolates did come in handy when you needed to wash that dreadful potion from your mouth.”

“Does that make me an accomplice to your theft?” I grabbed a rail as the train started, the tingling now pointing me straight south, in the direction the tracks would take us.

“That makes you an accomplice to nobly saving koi from impure water.”

“You’re an interesting person, Duncan.”

“As we’ve established.”

The train didn’t travel far before the tingling in my chest intensified, wanting me to turn east.

“He might have gotten off at the next stop,” I said.

“The potion can tell that?”

“My esophagus thinks so.”

“It’s amusing that you believe I’m the interesting one.”

“Drinking weird potions tends to elevate one’s quirkiness level.” I headed for the door as the train slowed.

Duncan followed me out onto the platform and across a street heading east. It lacked a sidewalk and headed straight into a residential neighborhood with small ramblers that had been built in the mid-fifties.

I thought of the convenience-store owners, Minato and Mayumi.

Minato had shown me a photo of his house, and it had looked similar to these.

The tingling grew warmer, as if signaling that we were close.

“I expected their hideout to be in a box under a freeway or maybe a seedy motel,” I said, “not a house in a normal-looking neighborhood.”

“That one has overgrown grass and numerous cars on the lawn.” Duncan pointed to a house across the street and around a corner that we were approaching. “Oh, and look at all the junk on the porch. Is that an old fridge?”

I snorted. “Those are signs of a hoarder, not a criminal.”

“Are you sure? Those motorcycle thugs spend their evenings victimizing innocent people and vehicles in car parks. That may indicate a lack of time to devote to straightening and decluttering.”