Dorina Basarab, Tome 4 : Shadow's Bane

Chapter One

The truck was old army issue, built back when even regular cars resembled tanks, and it could easily eat a Hummer for lunch and spit out the bolts. At least, it could have in its prime. But the years had not been kind, resulting in it landing at Stan’s Auto Emporium, a junkyard/car dealership in which it was often hard to tell the difference between the two types of merchandise.

“It’s as dependable as they come, Dory,” Stan said, patting its rusty hood. He was a tiny man, four foot something, with the something being mostly chutzpah. “This truck is rugged.”

I crossed my arms. “This truck passed ‘rugged’ a long time ago. This truck couldn’t find ‘rugged’ with a map. This truck is—what’s the phrase I’m looking for? A hunk of junk.”

“A hunk of junk you can afford, sweetheart.”

He had a point.

“How much?”

“Two hundred.”

“Two hundred? I could practically get a limo for that!”

“But you don’t need a limo.”

“I don’t need a hole in my wallet, either.”

Stan crossed his arms and silently chewed tobacco at me.

“I just need it for the night,” I told him. “I can have it back in the morning.”

“Fine. That’ll be two hundred bucks.” Something hit the concrete below the cab with an ominous rattle. Stan didn’t bat an eye. “Okay, return her in good condition and I’ll take ten off the price.”

“Good condition? You mean something other than the way it is now?” But I forked over the cash. Normally, I’d have driven a harder bargain, but I’d promised to help a friend and I was running late. And nowhere else was going to have the kind of steel-gauge construction I needed. This thing might be a hunk of junk, but it was solid.

Yet, fifteen minutes later, as my team filed in, it was also sagging and groaning, to the point that I feared for the tires—all six of them. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. I peered into the cavernous interior, and found it alarmingly full of troll.

“Here’s the thing,” I told the nearest four-hundred-pound slab of muscle. “We’re going to need room to transport the illegals, assuming we find any, not to mention the slavers. And I don’t think they’re gonna fit.”

Nothing. I might as well have been talking to the brick wall the guy closely resembled.

“I’m not saying that everybody needs to stay behind,” I offered, trying again. “Just, you know, two or three of you.”

Nada.

I waited another moment, because troll reasoning faculties can be a little slower than some and I thought maybe he was thinking it over. But no. The small, pebble-like eyes just looked at me, flat and uninterested in the yammering of the tiny human. I sighed and went to find Olga.

The leader of the posse currently straining the hell out of my truck was in her headquarters, which consisted of a combo beauty salon and what looked like the back room at Soldier of Fortune. It would have been an odd marriage in the human world, even in Brooklyn, but there weren’t many humans shopping at Olga’s. And the local community of Dark Fey seemed to like buying their ammo and getting their nails done all in one place.