Gods and Swindlers (City of Eldrich Book 3) (43 page)

Behind her, Meaghan heard a man clear his throat. She whirled around.

Cooper stood behind her. “I know we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, but there’s no reason we can’t be friends.”

“Wrong foot?” Meaghan took a step forward. “You call kidnapping and torture and trying to kill me and everyone I love getting off on the
wrong foot
?”

Cooper took a step backward. “Well, yes, I realize you might have some hard feelings about that, but we’re allies now.”

“Allies?” Meaghan’s voice went up an octave. She could feel a tiny vein in her temple start to pulse.

“Of course,” Cooper said. “I gave you access to the archive and your father’s lost records. I gave the smith his powers back to help you fight the fair folk.”

“A fight I wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t given the fair folk access, too,” Meaghan said through gritted teeth. “The archive could have been burnt to the ground along with me and half the town.”

Cooper waved a dismissive hand. “Collateral damage. You can’t fight a war without casualties.”

Meghan thought of Luka’s ravaged eyes, remembering how the blood had run down his blistered face like tears. “Collateral damage? You call what you did collateral damage?” The pulse in her temple began to thrum as her heart beat faster. “Get the fuck out of my town.”

Cooper sneered and leaned over her. “Make me.”

For a moment, Meaghan saw the balding wizard in her mind. Then white-hot rage swept through her like a flash flood, even as time seemed to slow.

“I should have known you were too small-minded to realize what I’m trying to do for you,” Cooper said, his hand snaking out to grab her arm. “You need to learn your place.”

At ‘you need to,’ she clenched her hand into a fist.

At ‘learn your place,’ she swung her arm upward.

Meaghan hit him square in the nose. She felt something crack.
My hand?

Cooper stumbled backward with a cry, crimson blood pouring from his smashed nose.

That’s what cracked.

Meaghan felt the anger drain from her, replaced by satisfaction. There’d be hell to pay for this, she was certain, but for this one moment, life was golden.

“You bitch,” Cooper said in a thin nasal whine. “I’ll kill you for that.”

“You’ll try, asshole. You’ll try. But a thousand pounds of dragon meat in my freezer says you’ll fail.” She turned, and without a backward glance, sailed out the front door, down the steps, and into her new car, a well-worn, ten-year-old Subaru Outback. She was done with luxury cars for the foreseeable future.

Her adrenaline rush carried her about a half mile down Main Street, then she had to stop before she wrecked the car. Hands shaking, she started to laugh and cry a little.

“That was either a breakthrough or a breakdown,” she said to the empty air.

Time to call Marnie’s shrink.

She pulled her new phone out of her bag and dug out the business card Marnie had given her. But before she could punch in the number, the phone rang. She yelped, but managed not to drop it.

Elena’s smiling face showed on the caller ID.

“Hey,” Meaghan said. “Good timing.”

“Where are you?”

“In my car. I just punched a wizard.”

“Where?”

“In city hall. He started it.”

Elena started laughing. “Like when you punched Eddie down the street when we were kids?”

“Actually, yeah,” Meaghan said, laughing along with her. “I think I broke the wizard’s nose, too.” Meaghan took a deep breath to steady herself. “It felt really good. What’s up?”

“You tell me. Freak snowstorms, dragon slaying, thunder gods—I’m hearing all kinds of crazy shit out here.”

“Yeah. Um. A lot of stuff has happened since I saw you. The thunder god lives across the street, and Russ is making dragon meat loaf for dinner tonight.” She smiled at the phone. “And I slept with John.”

Elena squealed. “Yes! Finally. So how was it?’

“Astonishing,” Meaghan said, “and it keeps getting better.”

“So, are you better? Are you over the . . . you know?”

“The attempted rape? Seems like, but I’m still going see a shrink. So much shit has happened in the past year. At some point, it’s all gonna catch up with me again.”

“It hasn’t even been a year,” Elena said. “This time last year, you were still in Phoenix, right? Blissfully clueless?”

It wasn’t blissful. It was miserable. I was all alone.
“Yeah, something like that. When are you coming to visit?”

“When the snow melts,” Elena said, “and Russ has run out of ways to cook dragon.”

“It was a big dragon. There’s almost a thousand pounds of meat. Even with Taco Tuesdays, it’s still gonna take a while to get through.”

“Taco Tuesdays?”

“Russ’s food truck. Some hare-brained scheme to make the magic types like me instead of fear me.”

“Like is okay, but fear is good too,” Elena said.

Meaghan didn’t have a built-in, hands-free phone system anymore, so she promised to call Elena in a few days with more details and hung up. But before she started the car, she made one more call.

She got the therapist’s voice mail. She almost hung up out of fear, but instead took a deep breath and left a message with her name and phone number.

If I can kill a dragon and punch Cooper, I can handle therapy.

When she got home, Russ was cooking and John was sitting at the table waiting for her.

“Where’s Annie?” she asked.

“She claims a last-minute thing came up at work,” Russ said, “but I think she’s scared of the dragon meat loaf.”

“Smart girl.” Meaghan dropped her bag and gave John a big kiss. “Hi, honey, I’m home.”

He smiled up at her. “How was your day?”

She decided not to mention Cooper. Maybe after dinner. “Same old, same old.”

It’s not exactly a lie. Fighting monsters is part of the job description after all.

When dinner was served, Meaghan eyed the meat loaf with trepidation. “Are you sure we can eat this?”

“I’ve been eating dragon burgers all week,” Russ said. “You’ll like it.”

“That was dragon you gave me yesterday?” John asked. “That was a good burger.”

“See, Susie Skeptical? Your boyfriend’s not too scared to try it.”

“Shut up,” Meaghan said. “Is there ketchup?”

“Philistine.” Russ sat down with his plate. “Try it first.”

Meaghan took a bite. The meat was smoky and sweet with a hint of heat. “This is really good,” she said. “Is there bacon in it? Chipotle peppers?”

“Nope,” Russ said with a proud smile. “That’s the flavor of the meat. You like it?”

She felt John’s foot snake around her ankle and she smiled at him. “I like it.”

They ate in companionable silence, Meaghan liking the dragon meat more with every bite. As much as she’d regretted killing the dragon at the time, she felt a curious sense of satisfaction eating it. This was what Russ was always going on about, how helping harvest your food made you appreciate it more.

She’d tell them about Cooper tomorrow. No need to spoil a pleasant evening.

Meaghan thought about her conversation with Elena. A year ago, she’d been in Phoenix, working a job she’d hated. She’d alienated her family and most of her friends, and she’d been so lonely she could barely breathe.

This was better. So much better. If the price was intermittent mortal danger, so be it. “That was great,” she said, putting down her fork and leaning back in her chair. “I like it,” she said, rubbing her foot against John’s leg. “In fact, I love it.”

Acknowledgements

Big thanks go out to my beta readers: JoAnn Bradley, Susan Emans, and Sarah Miranda. Thanks again to my editor, Susan Lindsey, Savvy Communication LLC (savvy-comm.com). And thank you to James T. Egan of Bookfly Design (bookflydesign.com) for the cover.

A Note to Readers

Gods and Swindlers
is the third of seven books in the City of Eldrich series. More information about the series is available at
laurakirwan.com
.