Burn(73)

It was a gold filling.

Just one? She’d eaten many people yesterday—

Then she realized. It was her own. From back when she was Veronica Woolf. The only foreign body left in or on her when she . . . became who she was always meant to be. Her clothes had torn off immediately, she’d no longer needed her glasses, and the small studs she wore as earrings had long since vanished to who knew where.

This was the very last part of her that had been human, and her dragon body, her proper body, was finally rejecting it.

She dug a hole and buried the filling. The start of a hoard. She was a dragon, after all.

Grace did not like Sheriff Kelby. She knew she should have felt sorry for him because of the cast on his arm, and her father would probably say you had to give people lots of room to be who they are if that’s what you expect in return.

But she did not like him. Not one little bit.

“Describe for me again what you saw, please,” her father said, smiling patiently.

The sheriff made a weird gurgle of anger. “I told you. A great big thing flew over the Dewhurst farm then disappeared up the mountains. But that’s not why I called the general—”

“I know why you called the general—”

“There were three people, three strangers at Darlene’s farm. Two I didn’t recognize and one who was the spitting image of her daughter.”

Her father glanced up from his notes. “Why do you say ‘spitting image’?”

“Well, her daughter died two years ago, didn’t she?”

“And you’re sure about that?”

Sheriff Kelby’s face went hard. It was probably never really soft, Grace thought. She hoped this man didn’t have children.

“I know when people in my town die, Agent,” he said, with an anger that hadn’t let up since they arrived.

General Kraft had caught her father before he’d left the building. They really were going to go to her grandmother’s this time, as the rest of this mission was no place for a little girl, her father had told her, if in kinder words. But the sheriff of the town he was going to anyway had just called about some unusual strangers. Her father was to drive there immediately, and he was a man who followed orders. He’d looked at Grace, given her a taut-lipped smile, and back into the Oldsmobile they went. She’d at least had time to eat her waffles.

“How many times do you want me to tell you the same thing, agent?” the sheriff asked.

“I’m sure you have the same procedure, Sheriff,” her father answered, calmly. “You have someone repeat their story often enough, you get new details.”

“Or they make a mistake. Which is what we do with suspects. What am I suspected of?”

“You have to admit, these are pretty wild things you’re suggesting.”

Grace didn’t blink at that. She knew sometimes her dad had to tell little lies to get bigger truths out of other people, even if just to catch them off guard or make them really sure they were telling the truth. They had seen pretty wild things themselves. Her father just wanted to make sure the sheriff really had, too.

“The general didn’t seem to think so,” Sheriff Kelby said sourly.

“Did he not?”

“No.” The sheriff had a crafty look now. “I tell him things that would make my own grandmother think I was soused, and he just says, ‘Go on.’ Like that. ‘Go on.’ As if some flying monster and a teenage assassin were normal parts of his morning.”

“Teenage assassin?” her father said, and she saw Sheriff Kelby realize he’d let something slip. Having him repeat his story over and over again had worked.

Sheriff Kelby gave him a look. “Which I’m sure your general told you.”

Her father smiled. “He did not.”

The sheriff shifted uncomfortably. “Well, that was the one thing he was skeptical about. Not the flying monster, mind you, but the teenage assassin.”

“That’s an interesting phrase.”

“He’s a teenager, and he’s an assassin. What else do you want me to call him? He’s one of yours.” Her father didn’t answer, just kept the small smile in place. Kelby’s own face fell. “He’s not one of yours.”

“We don’t train teenagers to kill, Sheriff,” her father answered. “Whatever other horrors you may hear about us.”

“Who was he, then?”

“One would have thought you’d be the person to find that out, Sheriff. They’re in your town, after all.”

“Well, I would have, but . . .”

“You had your fall.”

Grace knew the look on her daddy’s face. It was the one when he caught her in a mistruth and was waiting for her to fess up to it. He never got really angry if you fessed up immediately. She found herself wanting to tell the sheriff that.

The sheriff rolled his eyes. “Fine. He did this to me. I got a few good licks in, but he had no trouble at all taking down a full-grown sheriff. He broke my arm and was threatening to kill me with these blades he kept hidden in his sleeves.”

“Blades?”

The sheriff lifted his chin and showed two bandages on his neck. “They said they were some of your people and that I should leave well enough alone.”

“But you didn’t.”