Page 14 of Dragon’s Rogue

She sat down at the table, letting the pendulum dangle over the map. It was solid brass, formed into an upside-down teardrop shape with the point at the bottom. She held the thin brass chain loosely between her thumb and forefinger.

Blaze whispered the words of the spell, cleared her mind, and waited.

Gradually, the pendulum began to move. It pulled in a certain direction, dragging her hand over the map. Towards the river, and upwards to North Portland. It stopped over St. Johns, the small, friendly community between downtown and the commercial ports at the very northern tip of the city, where the Willamette and Columbia rivers met.

The pendulum swung in small, tight circles, until it came to rest over a single point on the map. Gradually, a holographic image bloomed in the air. An overhead street view, as though from a satellite photo.

Blaze put down the pendulum, grabbed her tablet off the table by the door, and pulled up the map function. She zoomed in until the computer image matched the magical one. An address came up. 11435 Maple Street. A small house, barely visible beneath the trees in the yard.

Blaze touched the screen, dropping an electronic pin in the map and sending it to her phone. There.

That was where her thief was now.

And tomorrow, she would go and find him.

Right now, she had a difficult, finicky, time-consuming window-repair spell to do.

Chapter 9

Rebel stood in the shower of her little rental house in St. Johns, scrubbing her arms with lye soap. Damn it, there had been some kind of dye pack in the box.

Who would have thought someone would have a fracking dye pack inside a box that was locked in their own fracking vault?

Although, it wasn’t exactly a dye pack. The red dust had lost its color on contact. But it had gone right through her clothes. She could still feel it on her skin, prickling her.

What the hell was it? Some kind of toxin? That would suck even worse than her botched burglary.

She scrubbed her forearms harder, angry. Rebel Smith never botched a job.

She’d ditched her clothes, leaving them in the woods near where her car had been parked, changing into the spares she kept in the car. So if there was some kind of radioactive dust on her clothes, she wasn’t carrying it with her. But it wouldn’t fucking come off her skin.

Hell, it felt like it was percolating in her bloodstream. Fuck wizards and sorcerers and the goddamn horses they rode in on. Now she was probably going to wake up dead, as one of her foster brothers used to say when he was throwing-up-passing-out drunk.

Finally her skin stopped prickling and the residue washed down the drain. She hoped. She might have to pay some hedge witch to do a magical cleansing on her and hope whatever it was didn’t make her skin peel off in rotting strips in the meantime.

Rebel climbed out of the shower, wrapping a big bath sheet around herself and tucking the edges in.

She padded down the hall into her bedroom and stopped short.

Jack The Asshole Harper was sitting on her bed, with his goddamn Doc Martens on her goddamn bedspread. Fidgeting nervously with the chain around his neck, and looking strung out as all hell.

Rebel strode forward and shoved his feet off the bed.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Get out of my room!”

“The boss wants the artifact,” he said. “Like, now. You didn’t call in, and—”

“I’m supposed to call when I have it,” she interrupted. “I don’t.”

He stumbled to his feet, grabbing her arm with surprising strength for someone who looked like he hadn’t eaten in a week. Or showered, either, to judge by the smell.

He was sweating, his free hand clenching and unclenching, his fetid breath all up in her face. “What do you mean you don’t have it?” he demanded. “Jesus, Rebel! How could you fuck this up? I’m fucking dead. We’re both fucking dead. I told him you were the best…”

She was ready for his swing. She caught his fist in her palm, and then she flipped him over her hip and onto the floor. The breath huffed out of him with an audible ‘whoosh.’

“Keep your fucking hands off me,” she said. “And also, I am not having this discussion dressed in a towel.”

She went over to the dresser and pulled out some sweats, leaving him to push himself up into a sitting position, gasping for breath. Then she dropped the towel and started to get dressed.