Honeyed Words Read Free

all laughed.
    Jimmy slipped his phone into his pocket. “That sister of mine sure can pick ’em.”
    “Aye,” Gunther agreed. “First Melanie, now Sarah.”
    “Oh, she’s dated more than those two,” Jimmy said, running both hands through his hair. “Drove me and Deidre crazy in high school. The drama and the angst of teenage love.”
    Stuart picked up the crystal decanter and poured himself another scotch. “Love ain’t nothing but drama and angst,” he said. “Been burned myself one time too many.”
    “I’ve been lucky,” Jimmy said. “Deidre is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
    “Hear, hear,” Gunther said, raising his glass.
    Jimmy retrieved his glass and stepped toward them. Stuart stood, and the three of them held their glasses high.
    “To the women in our lives,” Gunther said, clinking his glass against first Stuart’s, and then Jimmy’s. “May they always find their way home to us.”
    They drank, draining their glasses. Stuart lowered his glass and performed the sign of the cross. After a moment, they set their glasses on the table and Stuart picked up the decanter once again.
    “Now, about Sarah,” he said, pouring a strong dash into each glass. “Who is this girl? What do we really know about her?”
    Jimmy went back to pacing, but Gunther stepped over to the map, following a series of lights that filled Central Europe like a cluster of stars.
    “Maybe she’s one of the two ancient lines of gods—Æsir, Odin’s crew, maybe, or one of the older lot, the Vanir,” Stuart suggested.
    “Doubtful,” Jimmy said, striding to a case and pulling down a sheaf of papers. “According to the records my father uncovered in Reykjavík, the dragons have a covenant to kill all of them on sight.”
    “Sure,” Stuart said. “But how do we know when we find one of the elder gods? Can the wyrms really tell the difference?”
    “According to Markús Magnússon,” Jimmy said, pulling a page from the middle of the stack and setting the rest down on a glass case filled with golden armbands and torques, “in 1288, the last known of the Vanir had been killed by a young dragon in Düsseldorf. She was only an infant, but he describes her as a glowing child, with hair like spun gold and a laugh that would quiet the meanest heart.”
    “Who does he think she was?” Stuart asked.
    “Freya…,” Gunther replied, not turning from the map, “… is the last we know to be reborn. The dragons have feared their return for as long as the monks and scribes have kept hidden records.”
    Jimmy and Stuart exchanged a glance.
    “My order,” Gunther continued, “kept records of each Æsir or Vanir that was reborn, and their inevitable demise at the tooth and claw of one of the drakes.”
    “And,” Jimmy continued, placing the parchment back on the pile with the others, “Sarah has met at least two dragons in her life, and neither of them thought she was an elder god returned to exact her vengeance.”
    “Well,” Gunther said with a grim chuckle. “We don’t know what Jean-Paul Duchamp believed, may his carcass rot in hell.”
    “True enough,” Jimmy said. “But this Frederick Sawyer in Portland has seen her on multiple occasions, and all he’s tried to do is invest in that movie company she works with … oh, and buy the sword.”
    The three of them looked to the left, to the black blade that hung from a coatrack by the blood-encrusted leather rigging Sarah had worn into battle with the dragon.
    “I think that is the key,” Gunther said, turning from the map and limping toward the sword. “This blade is the crux of things.”
    “Gram,” Stuart breathed. “How did she come by it, much less wield it?”
    “Katie says she bought it at an auction a few years ago. Some estate sale where the original owners had both died. Kids were selling off everything since they lived in Florida.”
    “Quite the coincidence there, Jim. Don’t you think?” Stuart asked.
    Gunther stood in front of