I held my hands up innocently. “I only kill the bad guys and bring their stuff for your people to examine. It’s not my fault if you put it in the basement and strange things happen.”
Gondo shrugged. “He didn’t give me the details. He said I don’t have a top-secret security clearance.”
“That doesn’t keep you from knowing about everything that happens.” Willard waved for me to follow her.
“Goblins are resourceful.”
“Goblins are snoops.” Willard strode off down the hallway.
I grabbed my duster, weapons, and gym bag, though I wouldn’t need the latter. It wouldn’t be safe to take a shower in the women’s locker room, not when it was located adjacent to the men’s locker room Gondo would be working in.
“If goblins don’t use toilets,” I asked, jogging to catch up with Willard, “where does he go when he’s working here? I’ve seen how much coffee he drinks. There’s no way he holds it all day.”
“I see you haven’t come in the back way lately.”
“I don’t have a key for that door.”
“There are two bushes that are dying by the steps. I suspect the soil grew too acidic.”
“Ew.”
Willard knocked and entered an office I hadn’t been in before. Chunky, glasses-wearing Captain Brisco looked like someone who had to slide a five-dollar bribe to whoever ran the PT tests for the unit to ensure passing marks. But with three monitors competing for space on his desk and two wall-mounted televisions running news behind him, I trusted he made up for any physical lack with his intelligence-gathering abilities.
“Colonel.” Brisco grabbed a remote and flicked one of the TVs from CNN to the view from a security camera. It displayed a couple of the wide aisles in the basement artifacts room, a place that reminded me of a cross between a library and a Costco, except that instead of giant tubs of pickles and mayo, the shelves held magical doohickeys, weapons, and massive handwritten tomes in other languages. “We have a problem.”
“We heard about your toilet,” I offered, “and that your repairman lacks experience with them. My condolences.”
They both shot me humorless looks.
“One of the alarms went off in the artifacts room, and I got to the camera in time to see this.” Brisco clicked his remote to rewind until the display showed a stocky woman in a dark-blue parka with the hood pulled up, a cheek and a hint of short black hair just visible in the profile shot.
“Is that the thief we’ve been trying to catch for two weeks?” Willard demanded. “And that Thorvald is supposed to hunt down for us?”
“I believe so, ma’am.”
“I thought I’d be hunting her down on the dwarven home world,” I said. “Didn’t you say she’s got a portal generator and was last seen disappearing through it?”
“Apparently, she’s back,” Willard said.
Our intruder reached for a shelf full of books but paused and glanced toward the camera long enough for me to make out dark almond-shaped eyes in a face broader than typical of Asian ancestry. Willard had mentioned that the thief might be part dwarf. She appeared to be in her twenties, but if she was part dwarf, she might be like me and older than she looked. Dwarves, like elves, lived longer than humans.
The woman threw powder toward the camera, and a yellowish cloud filled the air for a couple of seconds before the monitor went dark.
“It came back online five minutes later,” the captain said, “but she was gone by then.”
“It was annoying enough when she was stealing from other people,” Willard said. “What did she take? And how did she get in? We have locks on the doors in addition to the alarms, magical and mundane, that should have gone off before she could get in. Did this just happen? I assume she didn’t waltz in the front door.”
“Maybe she came in the back,” I said, “undeterred by the forbidding dead bushes.”
“Will you be serious?”
“Is that a requirement of the job?”
“It should be.” Willard turned her glower from me to the captain.
“We don’t yet know how she got in or what she took.” Brisco waved at the monitor, which was back to showing the artifacts room, the aisle now empty of visitors. “From the camera, it looks like the books were moved around, but I can’t tell if she removed one or more.”
“Have you got someone running an inventory to check?”
“Not yet. We can’t get in. The door is locked and won’t unlock. The keypad is working—it thunks, as if the deadbolt is turning—but the door won’t budge. I thought someone with special blood could detect if something magical had been done to the door.” Brisco looked at me.
“Special blood. I guess that’s me.”
“You’re all kinds of special,” Willard muttered.
“Maybe she just braced a chair against the doorknob.”
“There aren’t any chairs in there.”
“Maybe she braced a sword against it.”
“How would she have gotten out if she did that?” Brisco asked.
I shrugged. “How did she get in? Her portal generator?”
“Maybe. We don’t know how to track her down and ask her.” Willard’s lips twisted in a sour expression. “That’s why I’m putting you on the job. You have a dragon who can make portals and chase people to other worlds.” Her lips shifted into a slightly different sour expression. “Assuming you can call him home, and he’s done telling people about the races and hunts he thinks will happen at your wedding.”
Captain Brisco raised his eyebrows at that.
“I can’t call him home, but I’m sure he’ll be back soon. We’re mates, after all.”
“Yes, I’ve heard how he enjoys spending time in the nest with you.”
Brisco’s eyebrows climbed even higher.
“Naturally. I’m amazing.”
“Uh huh. Go take your special blood and check the door.” Willard pointed at the video of the artifacts room.
Despite giving the order, she led the way out into the hallway, pausing to grab her pistol and holster from her office. I let her lead the way, but I would go first if we went inside. Fezzik, the magical, compact submachine pistol in my thigh holster, and Chopper, the even more magical sword in my back scabbard, were much better for dealing with otherworldly intruders than typical weapons.
Brisco joined us at the top of the stairs. He’d also armed himself.
When we descended to the basement and walked down the windowless cement-block hallway toward the artifacts room, the sturdy metal door started glowing a sickly green.
Willard swore, halted, and took several steps back, her hand dropping to her firearm.
“You needed me to let you know if there’s something magic here, Captain?” I asked dryly.
“It wasn’t doing that before.” Brisco also took several steps back. “It looks radioactive.”
“Don’t worry. Thorvald will check it.” Willard thumped me on the back. “She’s already got a kid, and I don’t think her dragon cares if she’s fertile.”
“Hilarious.” It was my turn to shoot dirty looks. “He might object if I glow in the dark in bed.”