Page 69 of Fiendish Delights
‘There!’ Enger snapped his fingers. ‘There we go. You cannot takeanythingfrom any dragon.’
Obviously it was time I helped out. ‘We will ask her togiveus the item in question. We won’t just take it. But the dragon is in very real danger. There are fiends who know about this item. It’s magical, you see, and if a fiend gets their hands on it then?—’
It was my turn to be interrupted. ‘Fiend?’ Enger asked. ‘What the hell is a fiend?’
‘Your worst nightmare,’ Hugo said.
Enger shook his head. ‘Nope. Never heard of any fiends. And my worst nightmare is the paperwork this visit of yours is going to generate.’ He pointed to the door. ‘You’re not getting any more information out of me or anyone else. It’s time for you to leave.’
‘But—’
Enger stood up, narrowed his eyes into an officious glare and stood on tiptoe so he could match Hugo for height. ‘The door is behind you. Goodbye.’
And that, I thought sardonically as we were escorted outside, is what happens when you kept secrets like fiends from the wider public.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Otis wasn’t happy. ‘But what are we going to do now? We have to find the dragon!’
‘I’ll go inside and find what we need,’ Hester said. ‘We sneaked into the Royal Elvish Institute’s library, so we can certainly sneak into that grey council hellhole before anyone notices us.’
I wasn’t convinced that even the brownies could find the information we needed but before I could say that, a couple marched out of the front door of the building. Without a glance in our direction, they started scattering salt and muttering an incantation. Oh. They were setting up a ward; no doubt it was specifically designed for our group.
‘We need a Plan B,’ I said. ‘There must be another way to locate the dragon’s lair. We’re not in vast plains or endless steppes – Wales isn’t that big. If we scour the map, taking into consideration where Strata Florida Abbey is and where there have been other sightings of the purple dragon, we should be able to narrow down possible locations.’ I glanced at Hugo. ‘Can’t you set the Primes at Pemberville Castle onto the search as well?’
‘They’re already looking.’ His mouth was set into a thin line and I guessed he was still annoyed by what had happened with Arnold Enger. ‘So far they’ve narrowed it down to about two thousand square metres. That’s a huge area to cover and the lair will be shielded by magic. We won’t simply stumble across it.’
I continued to look on the positive side. ‘Surely if we can’t find it, a fiend can’t find it either.’
‘Their powers have evolved – fiends are far more sensitive to magic than we are. That’s probably how Zashtum latched onto Mud in the first place. If there’s a fiend out there looking for that lair, sooner or later it will find it.’
Ah. I scratched my head. That was vexing.
‘But I doubt any fiend has located it yet,’ Hugo went on. ‘So we’ve got time. I don’t know exactly how good the fiends’ magic-tracking skills are, but general wisdom seems to think they need to be close to powerful magic to sense it.’ He shrugged. ‘Five miles, maybe ten at a push. They have more chance of stumbling across the dragon’s lair than we do – but this is far from over yet.’
‘You must have some old-school network contacts who can help.’
He grimaced. ‘I’ve tried that route already. If anyone knows, they’re not talking. We have to do this ourselves, I’m afraid.’
‘This would have been a lot easier in the nineteenth century.’ Hester’s bottom lip jutted out. ‘Back then everyone knew where the dragons lived. People used to go to the lairs and sit outside them with picnics.’
‘And occasionally hunt the dragons, kill them and sell the contents of their lairs and their corpses on the open market,’ Otis added.
Hester’s shoulders slumped. ‘It’s true,’ she said sadly. ‘People did do that.’
Hugo grinned suddenly. ‘You’re a genius, Hester.’
She blinked, genuinely startled. ‘I am?’
Triumph glittered in his eyes. ‘I know exactly where to go to find the information we need.’ He turned and glanced along the pavement away from the centre of Aberystwyth. ‘It’s within walking distance. We can leave the car here.’ He took off without another word, obviously expecting the brownies and me to trail after him.
I frowned. A little explanation would have been nice.
‘He’s so masterful,’ Hester sighed. Otis and I glanced at her. She shrugged. ‘What? He struts like a hero. You don’t walk like that, Daisy. You walk as if you’re a Labrador puppy that’s scented a sausage.’
I pursed my lips. I rather liked that idea. ‘So?’
