Faeted

by ReGi McClain

  “It is unless you have some internal bleedin’ I don’t know about.”

  “That must be it.” Although the chance of internal bleeding sent a shiver of fear down her spine, knowing her mind remained intact and only suffered the delusions of illness gave her great comfort.

  “What must be it?”

  “The dragon I saw outside.” She flashed a rueful smile. “I must be bleeding internally.”

  “Eeh, nope. You saw a dragon, all right.”

  Her eyes snapped open and she gaped at him in disbelief. “What? How? Where’d it come from?”

  “The Native American dragons further south crossed the land bridge from Russia into Alaska and gradually made their way down, much like the native humans, but the ones living up north here are mostly European dragons who followed Leif Erikson and a few lesser known Viking explorers over. The one out there’s a bit of both.”

  Fascinating, but not what I meant. “No, I mean, where was it hiding?”

  “Far as I know, that one doesn’t hide very often.”

  “But it’s a dragon!” Maybe I misheard. She glanced outside to confirm the presence of a scaled beast, then looked back at Don. “You said it’s a dragon, right? You did say that?”

  “Yup.”

  “A ginormous lizard living further north than any reptile could possibly survive?”

  “More or less.”

  “Where wildlife is tagged and monitored, and drones and satellites are things? Alaska’s ecology is monitored just like everywhere else on the planet, isn’t it?”

  “S’pose so.”

  “Where was it hiding?”

  “Like I said, she doesn’t really ”

  “Am I dreaming?” I must be dreaming. “I am, aren’t I?”

  “Here. Ralph sent over some real nice ointment for your leg. Lie back while I fix you up. Drink this first.”

  Harsha gulped down a pill and a cup of unpleasant tasting, room temperature tea. Ayurvedic medicine, she suspected, given Gauri’s origins and a scent she associated with the memories of her great grandmother. Before Don finished his ministrations, she fell into dreamless sleep.

  She woke to darkness and the sound of snoring. Zeeb slept on the floor with his back to the couch. She flexed her leg, experimenting, and was glad to find the combination of ointment and medicine working. Pain coursed through her wounds with every beat of her pulse, but not enough to call agonizing. Her head felt clearer, as well. A little too clear. She should still be sleeping.

  For lack of better entertainment—and to get him to stop making that horrible snuffly, snorty noise—she shook Zeeb.

  “Hmm?”

  “I saw you talking to a dragon.”

  “I know.”

  “Can I talk to it?”

  “Does she count as a faerie?” He rolled to look at her. “I don’t want to keep moving with your leg gashed up. I’m not willing to whether you’ll count her or not. Your wound could attract predators.”

  An unpleasant possibility occurred to Harsha. “Like the dragon?”

  “No.”

  “Is there really a dragon? You and Don aren’t just messing with me?”

  “Yes, there’s a dragon.”

  “Where did it come from? Why is it here ? Specifically. Is it, like…” Knowing that dragons existed produced so many blank spaces, chasms where old schooling and new knowledge diverged, she struggled with what questions to ask. She changed the subject. “What exactly happened this morning? How did we get here so fast? And where is Seraph? Don said she went to get medicine for me, but I have that, now.”

  Zeeb rolled back onto his side. “You should really be sleeping.”

  “I slept most of the day.” She gave him the chance to start explaining, feeling she deserved an answer to those last three questions if not the first few. He didn’t speak, so she shook him again. “Come on, Zeeb.”

  “What do you remember?”

  She tried to sort out her memories of the first moments after the bear attack. “I remember falling.” She suspected the drugs kept her from reacting to the memory, given her usual panic when she thought about the Rice Clinic, and she smiled with gratitude toward Don and Gauri and the fabled Doctor Ralph. To her chagrin, the next memory put a little heat in her cheeks. “And you carrying me.” She hadn’t noticed at the time, but now she realized she’d felt his strong, steady heartbeat contrasting with her own wavering pulse, and the softness of the couch suddenly reminded her of the firmness of his arms. Assuming Gauri used an herb that doubled as an aphrodisiac in the Ayurvedic tea, and sure it inspired her uncharacteristic attraction to the hairy man on the floor, she pressed on without letting herself be embarrassed about it. “I thought I saw Seraph once, but I haven’t seen her since. Where is she?”

  “Outside.”

  Harsha’s stomach did a flip-flop. “But the dragon will eat her!” Seraph, with her coppery tresses and cat-like grace, seemed like the perfect princess sacrifice for appeasing hungry monsters. Harsha grabbed Zeeb’s shoulder and shook with all her pitiful might. “You have to bring her in. You have to keep her safe.”

  He rolled to face her. His eyes laughed, but he pressed his lips into a thin line, hiding them behind his mustache and beard.

  Why is he letting her stay outside with a dragon? Seraph said he was her best friend. She felt betrayed on Seraph’s behalf and pushed at his shoulder to get him going. “Please!”

  Putting a hand over hers, he asked, “Do you remember what I said earlier? After ” He gulped and cleared his throat. “After the bear?”

  She cast her mind back, searching his eyes for the moment as much as she searched her memory. “You said Seraph was fine.”

  “Mmhm.”

  She sensed an and attached to that hummed response and voiced it. “And…”

  He waited.

  “And that not much could hurt her when she was…” Like pieces from two different puzzles fitting together, a picture formed.

  “Angry. Seraph is the dragon.”

  “But she’s human!”

  “She’s pretending. Dragons can shift their cells around.”

  “But!” There were too many objections to list them all. Her head swam. “I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Wake up.”

  Harsha, offended at being told to wake up when her body ached and her leg throbbed, opened one eye to see Seraph nudging Zeeb with her foot. Her heart skipped a beat. Then she remembered the many hours she’d spent with Seraph—and biology class—and decided she need not fear this dragon . Instead, she feared what she might have babbled about while she dreamed, because she must have been dreaming. From under her lashes, she watched, trying to gauge how much of her delusion they knew about.

  Seraph held a plate stacked high with food that looked like pancakes but smelled like meat. “I made moose pancakes.”

  Don walked into the room and snagged one off the plate. “Good morning.” Munching, he bent down to look Harsha in the face. She shut her eye, hoping he hadn’t noticed she’d awakened. She heard the smile in his voice when he said, “I’m just going to take a look-see at your leg.”

  Busted. She opened her eyes when the blanket lifted away.

  “How’s it feelin’?” Don asked.

  “Good morning, Sunshine.” Seraph held the plate out to Harsha, her eyes downcast and a blush coloring her cheeks.

  The pancakes turned out to be hash browns laced with red meat. Harsha took one to be polite and smiled her thanks. “It hurts,” she answered Don.

  “Doc Brown says no red meat for this patient.” He winked at her. “Zeeb, go and ask Gauri if we have some fruit. If we do, it’s canned, but it’ll serve.”

  “Okay.” Zeeb got to his feet, grabbed a pancake as he passed Seraph, and left the room, calling as he went, “Gauri! Do you have any fruit?”

  Seraph held out the plate again to let Harsha return the meaty hash brown. “I saved your backpack for you. Do you want me to bring you som
e tea?”

  “Yes, please, and my candy, if you don’t mind.”

  Harsha watched Seraph walk into the other room and tried to envision her as the enormous dragon she thought she’d seen the night before. Or rather, the enormous lower half of a dragon she thought she’d seen. The partial glimpse rendered a nebulous image. When Seraph returned with tea and candy, it vanished altogether. This gentle, sweet woman fit the picture of a dragon as well as Harsha fit the picture of a linebacker. It was more likely she’d dreamed the whole thing.

  Of course, the sasquatch tending her leg belied the dream theory. “Looks all right, for now.” Don replaced the blanket and left the room, off to do whatever Sasquatches did when not playing doctor for wounded humans.

  As Don exited, Zeeb entered. The two did a brief after you dance before achieving the exchange of place. Zeeb shook his head. “No fruit. How about rice?”

  “Maybe later, thanks.” With her cup of tea cradled in one hand, Harsha sank her teeth into a piece of Turkish Delight, closing her eyes to savor the citrusy goodness and set aside all notions of mythical creatures. She took her time chewing to extract all the flavor before she opened her eyes and selected another piece. Zeeb sat in the nearest easy chair, sipping coffee and watching her with quirked brow.

  Seraph sat against the couch in front of her. She wrinkled her nose. “That candy was sticking halfway out of your bag when I found it. Were you eating it when the bear attacked?”

  “Mmhm.”

  “And you still like it?”

  Harsha shrugged, feigning nonchalance. True, the toothsome treat delighted her less than usual, but she intended to overcome any and all negative associations attached to Turkish Delight. “I feel safe.”

  “You feel drugged up.”

  “Don says the drugs aren’t that strong, but you’re probably right. I’m probably lying in some hospital bed raving. You’re not really here and the Turkish Delight is merely a representation of bitter irony.” She took another piece.

  Seraph laughed. “You must like bitter irony a lot.”

  Harsha put the half-eaten piece of candy back in the box and swallowed the bite in her mouth, pushing it past the hard lump forming in her throat. She set the box and her cup of tea aside and clasped her hands in her lap. The window blinds hung open, allowing her a view of a well-tended vegetable garden. She turned her face away from Seraph and Zeeb to look over the neat rows of cabbages, zucchini, and root vegetables.

  Three rows of cabbage. Six cabbages to a row. Eighteen cabbages. I wish life were as simple as numbers.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  Harsha heard Seraph’s question as from a distance. Her thoughts floated among counting leaves on trees, contemplating the futility of all her efforts, and trying to determine if her current circumstances were real. For all I know, I’m bleeding out in a warehouse in Los Angeles and nothing since then has actually happened.

  “Harsha?” Seraph put a hand on her shoulder.

  With an effort, Harsha pulled herself out of her glum reverie to smile at Seraph. “No. Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Hmm. You know, I can search your soul and find out for myself if I want.”

  Zeeb scoffed.

  Harsha ignored Zeeb. “Search my soul?”

  “Yes.” Seraph sat taller.

  “No,” Zeeb contradicted.

  Seraph shot him a dirty look, then turned back to Harsha with her nose tilted upward, looking a bit snobbish. “Dragons can do that.”

  Harsha sucked in a breath. She said it herself. She called herself a dragon, but it can’t be. She’s teasing . “You heard about my hallucination?”

  At the same time she asked her question, Zeeb drawled, “No they can’t.”

  Seraph reached to thwap Zeeb on the shin. “Like you would know.”

  Zeeb opened his mouth to say something, but Harsha cut him off, gently scolding. “It’s not nice to tease.” In fact, it hurt coming from Seraph.

  Zeeb looked stricken. “No! We wouldn’t. We’re not.”

  Seraph turned back and shook her head. “You didn’t hallucinate. Is it so hard to believe, after all you’ve seen?”

  Harsha considered it for a moment. “No harder than believing in faeries.”

  Zeeb smirked, set down his coffee, and clapped. Harsha quirked her lips at him.

  Seraph looked from Harsha to Zeeb, and back to Harsha, her nose wrinkled. “When did you two pull together an inside joke?”

  Zeeb shrugged, picked up his mug, and went back to watching Harsha over the rim.

  Seraph rolled her eyes. “Anyway, whether you believe your own eyes or not, I am a dragon.”

  All right. If Seraph wants to be a dragon, she can be a dragon. It’s more fun to play along. “A greedy one, considering how much I’m paying.”

  Seraph went back to her plate of meat, but Harsha caught an amused glimmer in her eye. “Dragons are greedy. ’Tis a fact of life everyone knows. We still get paid for the whole summer, right?”

  “Sure.” Harsha felt generous.

  “Double, right?”

  She didn’t feel that generous. “Contract says ‘faerie.’”

  “Foo.”

  “I’ll pay double if you can help me, though.” She tried to sound facetious. To her horror, she sounded hopeful.

  Seraph’s neck muscles strained to twist her head to meet Harsha’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

  Committed, now, Harsha pressed on, telling herself she was playing along with Seraph’s game, not spilling her guts. “I came on this cockamamie trip for a reason. I’m not your average faerie hunter.”

  Zeeb lowered his coffee. “Do tell.”

  She opened her mouth to answer with the truth, and faltered. “Seraph first. Convince me.”

  Seraph spread her lips in a gentle smile. “Here. Take my hand.”

  Harsha, wondering how it would prove anything, took the offered hand. “Nice and warm.” She smiled. “As usual.”

  Seraph huffed, apparently amused.

  Harsha held her smile and waited for Seraph’s proof. The moment stretched until Harsha felt awkward. More awkward. She opened her mouth to ask what Seraph wanted to achieve. Instead, she gasped and snatched her hand back. “What did you do?” She blew on her hand, cooling the reddened skin.

  “It’s my bolugine. I can turn it up.”

  Harsha flapped her hand, glad the sting was already fading. “Your what?”

  “Oven belly. Whenever ”

  “Oven belly? Are you saying can breathe fire? ”

  Two little spurts of flame popped out of Seraph’s nostrils, then disappeared, leaving little trails of smoke.

  Harsha jerked in her spot, too distracted by her astonishment to take note of the pain the bouncing caused. “What the ”

  “Stay calm,” Seraph admonished.

  “You just blew fire out of your nose!” She intended to add, “How am I supposed to stay calm?” but all that came out was a strangled squeaking noise.

  “Only a little bit.”

  “Fire!”

  “Yes.”

  “From inside you!”

  “Yes.”

  “You blew fire!”

  “Yes, we’ve established that.”

  “You burned my hand and shot flame with fire from inside your belly!”

  “Not my belly. That’s just what the humans called it where I was born. In my mother’s speech, it’s ”

  “I think we’d better leave instruction in dragon languages for another time,” Zeeb interrupted.

  Seraph looked sheepish. “Right.”

  Harsha looked back and forth between them, her heart pounding and her breath coming in gasps. They waited, watching her. Neither looked concerned, but Harsha caught a watchfulness in Seraph’s face, as if the redhead, the dragon , monitored for signs of shock. Harsha’s mind raced, trying to reconcile new information with old beliefs, and failing. She had so many questions, so many doubts, but with them came a flood of hopefulness she did not dar
e to acknowledge even to herself. Not yet. She wrestled herself away from hysteria and forced herself to sound politely interested in her tour guides.

  She nodded toward Zeeb. “H h how’d you two meet?”

  Zeeb shifted in his seat. “Hiking around. Two people looking for the same solitary place.”

  Harsha lifted an eyebrow.

  Seraph answered the question before Harsha asked it. “No. We’re not a couple. I’m too young for breeding and our species don’t mix well as far as mating is concerned.”

  “But you get along fine with humans?”

  Zeeb lifted his mug again, seeming to find his coffee fascinating. He peered into the cup, the tip of his nose hidden by the rim.

  Harsha narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not human either, are you?”

  “We non-human sentients—hiders, we call ourselves,” Seraph answered, “have a hard time getting along with humans, so we just sort of tune into each other without meaning to.”

  Harsha stared at Zeeb. “What are you?”

  “You know the wolf you saw a few days ago?”

  “That was you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you’re a dragon.” She nudged Seraph. “And you’re a werewolf.” She nodded at Zeeb. “And I’m sitting on a sasquatch’s couch.”

  Silence descended while she let the new information find its way into her reality and pondered how much to tell of her own story, and how much to leave out. Don knew, and Zeeb’s father. If they existed. Either she lay on a couch belonging to a sasquatch who was treating her under the guidance of a werewolf’s father, or the bear had shredded her and she was lying in a hospital bed on heavy painkillers and delirious.

  She debated with herself until Seraph asked, “So, what is it you are after, if you’re not a normal fae hunter?”

  There wasn’t much to lose at this point. If she was delirious, no one would believe anything she said, anyway. “It’s funny what you said about being drawn to each other.”

  Seraph whirled to face her. Zeeb set down his coffee and leaned forward. They searched her face.

  She smiled back. “Doctor Brown thinks I’m the descendent of a fae-mermaid.”

  Seraph touched Harsha’s temple as if to take her temperature. “ The fae-mermaid, you mean. There was only one.”