If Clint had realized before Sunny turned around that it was her, he would have left the Bewitched Bean without ordering his usual Hocus Pocus Latte. He’d had an even worse day at work today than he’d had yesterday. So bad, in fact, that he’d decided to head home from the office an hour early. He’d wanted to clear his head, and he thought stopping off at his favorite coffee shop before heading home to continue working might give him the mental boost he needed to make some progress on the piles of research papers he needed to read through tonight.

The last person he’d expected to see working here was his new neighbor. He hadn’t asked her last night what she did for a living—he hadn’t wanted to engage her in any more small talk than necessary. Perhaps he should have known from her dog’s name that she was the barista type. After all, who would be more likely to name their dog Mocha than someone who made mochas for a living? But even if she was barista material, Clint would never have expected Sunny to be working the day after moving to town. Most people would have taken a few days to settle in, but she had jumped right into it. She must really be hurting for money.

It had been too late to turn around and walk out when he realized that she was there, though. So he’d stiffly ordered his drink and tried to act polite, although he knew the scowl on his face had given away his dark mood. Now, he was home and sitting on his front porch, sipping his latte and trying to calm down.

Why, of all the times for someone to move in, did it have to be this week? This week, when he was getting chewed out on a daily basis by the High Council for not bringing enough dragons to Torch Lake.

Torch Lake itself, the lake for which the town was named, shimmered in the sunlight now. Clint had a view of it from his front porch, but that wasn’t unusual. The lake was so large that most people could see at least a sliver of it from where they lived. Clint could see a few boats zipping around on the lake’s surface right now, and he felt a twinge of jealousy. He wished he was down there, taking advantage of the sunny weather. April was always rainy in Torch Lake, but this April had been the worst since Clint had moved here. His front yard was like a soggy, grassy sponge.

The sound of his cell phone ringing startled Clint out of his thoughts. He pulled it out of his pocket and stared at the caller I.D. screen, already feeling defensive. If someone from work was calling to give him more bad news, he was going to chuck this phone right into the middle of his soggy lawn.

But he relaxed when he saw the name Leif displayed across the screen. Leif was one of his best friends, and his former boss. Leif also worked at the Dragon Utilization Department, but his job was to prepare training programs for all the dragons that would be relocating to Torch Lake. All the dragons that Clint had been put in charge of helping the Dragon Recovery Bureau find and convince to move. So far, Leif’s programs sat empty, but, unlike the High Council, Leif didn’t blame Clint for it. In fact, Leif was doing everything he could to help Clint.

“Hey, Leif.”

“Clint! I’m glad I caught you. I wasn’t sure whether you’d be driving home already or not.”

“I’m actually home. I left the office early today after getting chewed out by the High Council again.”

“Again? Jeez, they’re really letting you have it.”

“Yeah. At this point it seems like the angry rants from them are going to be a daily occurrence. They’re frustrated and under a lot of pressure from the public of Torch Lake. They need a scapegoat to blame and they’ve decide I’m it, I guess.”

There was a long pause, and then a loud sigh from Leif. “I’m sorry, man. I don’t know why they’re blaming you for all this. It seems really unlike them to be so unreasonable about things.”

“Yeah, well. I guess no High Council is perfect.” Clint felt uncomfortable criticizing the High Council, even if they were in the wrong. He’d been brought up to always be respectful of clan leadership, and criticizing them to another government employee felt wrong. Luckily, Leif didn’t dwell on the subject.

“Anyway, I’m calling because I talked to Sofia like you asked me to.”

Clint perked up. Sofia was Leif’s lifemate, and a very talented wizard. She worked in the Dragon Recovery Bureau, too, but whatever project she was working on right now was top secret. She spent most of her time at work hidden away in a closed office. Clint had asked Leif to talk to her and see if she had any thoughts about what kind of magic the Dark Warriors might be using to thwart the dragon recruiting efforts. Clint’s heart started pounding with excitement, even though he had no idea yet whether she’d had any useful information. He was grasping at straws right now, and any help, however small, would be much appreciated.

“What’d she say?” Clint asked, somehow managing to keep his voice relatively calm.

“She said what you’re describing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

Clint frowned. “Oh, great. Another doubter.” He tried to keep his voice light and make the words sound like a joke, but that was hard to do. He was too worried about the whole situation to really make a joke out of it.

“Well, wait. Let me finish. She did have some insights into it. She said that what you’re describing does sound like a certain branch of magic, but it’s an old, old kind of magic that no one really practices anymore. They’re ancient spells that are hard to master, and I guess most of them aren’t even that useful in the modern world, so most wizard communities didn’t bother teaching them. There was only one wizard clan that still taught these spells with regularity, but that clan was completely destroyed by a fire in the Great Dark War. As far as we know, there were no survivors.”

Clint puzzled over this. “She’s sure it’s that kind of magic? Someone might have survived the fire. After all, good records weren’t really kept during the War. Maybe someone from that clan made it and was so angry about losing everyone that they decided to start working for the evil wizards. That’s pretty common, you know.”

“Yeah, but Sofia told me this fire was huge. Anyone who was in town at the time died. The only hope would be if someone hadn’t been around when the fire was set, but that seems unlikely. The clan leadership had apparently put the whole place on lockdown in an attempt to keep their members safe. Oh, look, Sofia just walked in from work. I’ll see if she can talk to you.”

A few moments later, Sofia’s voice came on the line. “Hey, Clint.”

“Hey. Thanks for looking into this for me.”

“No problem, although I’m not sure how helpful I’m being. Describe for me again what’s going on.”

“Well, we keep trying to go after dragons who are living in human towns. We have a long list, but so far we’ve been unable to bring in a single dragon. For each dragon, we send out a scout to make sure the dragon still lives where their file says they do. Once that’s confirmed, we work with the Dragon Recovery Bureau to send in a Dragon Recovery Specialist to convince the dragon to move to Torch Lake.”

“Right. Standard processes.”

“Exactly. The problem is that when our specialists get to the dragons, they’re gone. Even if we send someone out the very next day, the dragon has disappeared, and, what’s even more sinister is that there’s always a red “X” on the doorway. The first time we didn’t think much of it. We thought the dragon must have coincidentally moved or something. But now it’s every time. No matter how fast we move, the dragon is gone.”

“Yeah, that sounds exactly like an Evanesco spell. It’s an ancient spell that makes a person and all their belongings disappear and reappear somewhere else. Rumor has it that there’s always a giant red “X” left behind when the spell is performed.”

“So I’m not crazy! There is some sort of dark magic going on!”

“Well, it’s not exactly dark magic. It’s not an evil spell, just an ancient one. But yes, my guess would be that someone from the Dark Warriors is doing this. They’re tracking your scouts and making the dragons you try to recruit disappear.”

“How do I stop them?”

“Well, that’s the tricky part. I don’t know how they are even managing to do this, since everyone from the Eagle Thicket Academy of Ancient Magic presumably died in the war.”

Clint let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, but someone must have actually survived.”

“Yeah, someone. But you’ll need a second person who survived if you’re going to stop this. At least if you’re going to stop it anytime soon.”

“Why?”

“The counter spell is also ancient magic. And it’s rumored to be one of the most difficult of the ancient spells to perform. Even many in the Eagle Thicket Clan probably couldn’t have done it.”

“So what do I do?”

There was a long pause, and then a sigh on the other end of the line. “I don’t know, Clint. You need to talk to the High Council and tell them all of this. This problem is much bigger than just you. If the dragons keep disappearing at this rate, then we’ll never have more dragons in Torch Lake. We have too many people here to have so few dragon protectors. It’s not safe.”

“I’ve tried talking to the High Council.”

“Try again.”

“Sofia, they’re convinced that it’s my fault. They told me today that my scouts are sloppy and that we aren’t coordinating properly with the Dragon Recovery Bureau. They don’t want to hear my theory about it being the Dark Warriors.”

“Tell them what I told you. You have to make them understand, Clint. I know it’s not fun to stand up to them or get yelled at, but this is important. We need more dragons.”

Clint stared angrily off at the lake, not saying anything for several long moments. He was tired of dealing with the High Council, and tired of being blamed for the shortcomings of the dragon recruiting efforts. But Sofia was right. He needed to act.

“Fine. I’ll talk to them. But I’m going to need one hell of a vacation when this whole mess is over.”

Sofia laughed. “I hear you. But don’t start planning your trip to Cancun just yet. It’s probably going to take a long time to get this mess sorted out. My guess is the High Council is going to have to train a wizard on how to perform the counter spell. And it will probably take even the best and brightest wizard the better part of a year to learn it.”

Clint’s heart dropped. “Great. And in the meantime, we’re losing dragons left and right. Where do they go, by the way, when they disappear? Are they just gone forever?”

“No. The spell relocates them, but at random.”

“What? How does that work.”

“I don’t know, exactly. But the ancient spell sends its target somewhere completely random. Could be down the street, could be halfway across the world, could be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“What?”

“Yeah, like I said, completely random. Odds are good that most of the dragons that have been relocated will never be seen or heard from again.”

Clint felt sick. These dragon shifters had all been hiding away in human towns, trying to stay away from world of magic and shifters. But he had brought that world to them in the worst way, by leading the Dark Warriors to their doorsteps. Now, the shifters’ whole lives had been turned upside down, and they would never see their homes again.

“Clint?” Sofia asked. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Listen, Sofia, I think I need some time to think through all this.”

“Sure. Let me know if you have other questions or if there’s anything else I can help with.”

“Will do.”

Clint hung up the call, and for several minutes just sat there, staring at the lake again and trying to process everything he’d just learned. He had his work cut out for him, that much he knew. He didn’t know why the High Council was in so much denial about this being a Dark Warriors problem, but his first task was going to be convincing them to open their eyes and see that the longer they waited to deal with this, the more dragons they were going to lose.

The screeching of tires startled Clint, and he swung his gaze around to look at the beginning of the cul-de-sac, where Sunny’s car had just appeared. She had taken the turn way too fast on the slick, muddy road, and had nearly taken out the mailbox of the first house on the street. Clint scowled. There went his peace and quiet.

Sunny pulled into her driveway, parking her car at a somewhat crooked angle before hopping out. Clint sucked in his breath at the sight of her. As annoying as it was to have a neighbor, he had to admit that she was easy on the eyes. Somehow, even her Bewitched Bean apron managed to look sexy on her. It hugged her curves perfectly, and the deep purple color looked good with her olive skin tone and dove gray eyes. She turned toward him, then, noticing that he was sitting on his front porch. Her face brightened and she waved excitedly, like a kid at a school play does when she’s just spotted her parents in the audience.

“Hey! How was your Hocus Pocus latte?” she asked. “I’d never tried one of those before today. They’re pretty good, huh?”

Clint only grunted in response. Then he stood, grabbed the empty cup from his latte, and turned to go inside, letting the door slam shut behind him.