Everyone agreed.
“I'm not a tracker,” Modja said to Ty. “But I can watch your back.”
“There's no one I'd rather have at my back than you.” He kissed her cheek.
I hoped Ty's faith was warranted. He was a good guy, and I'd never seen him so smitten. To bring a girlfriend to one of our meetings without asking was completely unlike him. There could be only one explanation—Ty was in love.
But I had bigger things to worry about than my brother-in-law's love life. As I waited for Torrent to hand out assignments, I picked my crew. I chose Re and Odin. I knew Artemis would be joining us as well because she went where Torr went. So that gave us three guards.
Que teamed up with Viper and Pan; Trevor went with Thor and Morpheus; Kirill chose Teharon, Karni Mata, and Az; and the rest of the Squad would be teamed up with Froekn trackers. We decided to wait on the Intare. If they were needed, we could call them in later.
“Ready?” Torrent asked our team.
We went into the stairwell again, this time going downstairs and to the tracing wall. I know I said most gods have tracing chambers instead of walls, but there wasn't enough room for that. Not with all the over-day rooms for vampires down there. Space was money, so there was only a wall. Odin, Re, Artemis, and I held onto Torrent so he could direct our trace, and then he touched the wall.
It was still daytime wherever we had gone. So I was able to clearly see the concrete dam before us. It was a big one, with water pouring out of one side while a lake stretched to the other. Impressive. It was even kind of pretty, set at the base of some velvety mountains.
“Where are we?” Odin asked.
“Ice Harbor Dam in Washington,” Torrent said. “This was the site of the most violent attack. There were about forty people on duty at the time. The beavers broke down every barricade they erected and the workers had to flee.”
“What's the purpose of the dam?” I asked.
“Ah! Good question,” Torrent said. “I was doing some digging earlier, and I discovered that there are a lot of whatpeople call deadbeat dams around here.”
“Deadbeat dams?”
“Yes. Dams that were created for frivolous purposes mostly. Like making a lake for a summer camp. And then the camp goes belly-up, but no one dismantles the dam. These useless dams can cause havoc on the wildlife in the area. Here, in the Pacific Northwest, they say the greatest threat dams pose is to the salmon. But that's only because people want salmon, so they notice when the fish are in danger. The threat is actually to the whole ecosystem. Dams can lead to toxic algae growth and—”
“Torrent,” I said gently. “We get it. Dams are bad.”
“Well, not all of them. But the useless ones that have been abandoned definitely are. And then there are dams like this one. On the surface, this dam appears to be beneficial to the area and the environment. It's a hydropower dam, so it's technically making clean energy.”
“Which is why Azrael wouldn't have destroyed it,” I said.
“Exactly. But here's the thing. This dam is part of a series of dams in the Columbia River Basin. The salmon runs have dwindled to nearly nothing because of them and the Native American tribes in the area have other options for clean energy. They don't want the dams. But the company that owns this place has been selling the extra energy made from the dams to California, so it's too profitable to shut down.”
“They can just transport energy?” I asked. “That's wild. I mean, yes, of course, electricity is transported all over the place. I know that. I just never thought that it would be sent across state lines. I assumed every state made their own power.”
“They do, but some states need more power than others—an issue that has gotten worse since Azrael's clean energy law.”
“All right, so we know why the beaver god targeted this place,” Re said. “But that's not a revelation. We already concluded that he has his reasons.”
“Or she,” I said. “Let's not be sexist. The Beaver God could be a Beaver Goddess.”
“All the myths about beaver gods refer to them as male,” Torrent said. “I'm not saying they couldn't be a female, just that this is the reason I refer to him as a male.”
“Great. We've got his pronouns straight,” Artemis drawled. “I'm sure he'll appreciate that. Can we get to the tracking now?”
“Okay, okay.” I headed out across the dam, toward the center where a large structure rose from the wall. I assumed that was where the hydropower thingies were. And yes, that's their proper name.
Along the way, I shifted to my dragon senses, and the world brightened with streaks of color. That's where it got tricky. I didn't know the beaver god's scent. Normally, this would render tracking useless. But we knew he had beaver magic, whatever that was, and many beavers had been at the dam. If I could find a scent that held some beaver colors in it but wasn't a real beaver, I could assume it belonged to the god. Or goddess. I was still unconvinced of the beaver's masculinity. Maybe he was male but identified as female. You never know.
Back to the tracking. I immediately saw the beavers. They were all over the place, great globs of musky beaver scent permeating the concrete. It was strong stuff. No amount of rain could have diluted it. Only bleach would have done the trick, but no one had bleached the area. I didn't know if that was a good sign or not. The trickster knew about bleach and the damage it could do to a shapeshifter's nose. I knew he knew because he had used it to cover his tracks before, back when he left tracks. So, ifit hadn't been used here, either the beaver god hadn't been there, he didn't know about bleach's power over shapeshifters, or the trickster wanted us to find the beaver god.
I quickly ruled out the first option.
“Holy cannoli,” I whispered. “I think I found him. And it's definitely a him.”
