Dragons and Magic

by Blair Babylon

  A turquoise mouse scurried up the witch’s trouser leg and sat on her shoulder, watching with its beady, blue eyes.

  The rest of the mice jumped into a pile, becoming a small, pink anteater that hoovered up the last of the dust and then cannonballed into the wastepaper basket, disappearing in a shower of cool, blue sparks.

  The witch held out her arm, and the turquoise mouse sprinted down to her hand and leaped into the air, swan-diving into the sparks, and disappeared.

  The birds, likewise, popped back to the magical dimension from which they had come with aerial twists and flourishes.

  Math grabbed the corner of the desk for balance, a slow grin spreading over his face. She was exactly what the casino needed. “Can you do that on a larger scale?”

  The witch pressed her lips together in a prim smile. “Of course. It just takes longer to draw the incantation.”

  “You’re hired.” He turned back to the hiring manager. “She’s hired, effective immediately. I don’t care how much she costs or where you get the money. Wait, actually, I do care. There’s been enough sloppy accounting in this casino. I will make sure the money is in place for her salary by this afternoon from the Draco family finances.”

  The hiring manager scowled at him. “This position isn’t salaried. It’s a temporary independent contractor position.”

  “Whatever. I’ll have the money ready for you.” He spun back to the witch. “Come with me. You have an enormous job to do, and I will pay you whatever you ask if you can get this casino ready for the angel investors that are coming in a month.”

  “A month? The whole casino? That is an enormous project. I don’t know whether I can do it.”

  “Hire whomever else you need. Hire workers or teams or subcontractors.”

  “I don’t need to hire anybody. I just have to conjure the helpers. But that takes time.”

  “I will pay you whatever you want. I will make it rain dragon’s gold on you if we’re ready for the investors’ walk-through.”

  Her coy smile warmed his skin, and she cocked out one curving hip and braced her fist on it. “Well, that offer would be hard to refuse.”

  “Come with me. I’ll show you the worst parts of it that absolutely must be cleaned up before this dog-and-pony show for the angel investors. It’s scheduled for one month from today, whether we’re ready for it or not. I don’t even know what to call you. What is your name?”

  “Bethany Aura. Are there going to be real dogs and ponies at the angel investor show?”

  “I’m Math Draco,” he introduced himself, “and no, it’s a figure of speech. No dogs or ponies, shifter or natural.”

  Her frown made a cute crease between her slim eyebrows. “That seems disappointing.”

  Math grimaced. “Real angels, though.”

  “Oh! They’re quite imposing.”

  “To say the least. I’d rather have live dogs and ponies.”

  Math tried to slow his stride so she could keep up, but the little witch, Bethany, trotted at his side, mincing along in her high-heeled boots.

  Those sparkly, shiny, fascinating, violet, high-heeled boots. He watched the purple flashes under her trousers out of the corner of his eye as they walked.

  She said, “Math is an interesting name.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot. It’s short for Mathonwy, who was an ancient king in a Welsh area called Gwynedd.”

  “Family name? Bethany is a family name. That’s why I sound like I’m someone’s ancient great-grand aunt from England.”

  “Yeah, it’s a family name, in a manner of speaking. Most dragons have traditional names.”

  “Oh! You’re a dragon shifter!”

  Her surprised tone lilted in his ears. He wondered what she sounded like when she giggled. Maybe like music. “This is the Dragon’s Den Casino. It’s a den venture.”

  “I didn’t realize you were a supernatural, too.”

  “What, I don’t look like I’m a supernatural?” Math stopped in the middle of the hallway, and he grinned down at her with his head canted to the side.

  Lord of Magic, he was trying to be particularly nice to her. What was wrong with him?

  Absolutely nothing. This little witch was going to save his scaly butt, if she could indeed clean up and organize this wyrm’s nest before the angels got there.

  Math would bend his knee to anyone who could do that.

  That was an odd image, himself down on one knee.

  Now, why would he think about that?

  Math the Magic Dragon

  “I don’t like to make assumptions.” Bethany looked up, far up at the man she now knew to be a dragon in human form. Shifters weren’t particularly rare as supernaturals go, more common than vampires or divines but less so than witches. Wolves and bears were the most common shifter subtypes, followed by lions, tigers, cougars, dolphins, and wolverines. Rare, mythical shifters like dragons and phoenixes almost never walked through natural society because their powerful magic could draw too much unwanted attention. “And I’ve never met a dragon before.”

  Math the Dragon stuck out his hand to shake hers, which appeared to be a perfectly normal human hand, except perhaps that it seemed larger than usual. He was a bit larger than usual, towering well over six feet tall, and perhaps closer to seven. His fingernails, while blunt and clean, had an unearthly black-silver sheen to them, like dragon claws.

  Bethany lifted her chin and reached for his hand, determined to shake as if she were a confident and competent witch. Yes, she could. Positive attitude was everything.

  Heck, she had managed to conjure up those cleaning genies in the HR office without any mishap whatsoever. Maybe Ember was right about attitude.

  Bethany couldn’t quite look away from Math’s eyes as their hands neared each other.

  She had thought his eyes were hazel, but his irises were flecked with light that looked almost like sparks. They looked like sunlight shining on a dragon’s hoard of gold.

  They were brilliant, really brilliant, and she felt like she was falling into them.

  As their palms touched, a ripple of magic surprised her. Gentle power flooded from where their hands clasped, skin against skin, and through her flesh like a calming wash of warmth.

  Holy cow, she’d heard dragon shifters held a powerful magic, but his touch was like placing her hand in the center of a conjuring circle.

  Bethany said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Math the Dragon.”

  He rumbled, “Ah, Bethany, the pleasure is all mine.”

  Construction Accident

  WHEN they reached the main floor of the Dragon’s Den Casino—where wreckage littered the floor and was heaped on the furniture—Math spread his arms, encompassing the enormity of the problem.

  Frustration felt like it was leaking out of his skin. “You can see it’s a mess. I just took over this operation. I flew in this morning, and when I walked in, I found this. I can’t believe it got so bad before my dragon clan discovered the chaos that has been happening here.”

  The witch danced along beside him, skipping in her little, high-heeled shoes to keep up. “I know that it seems like an enormous job, but this is exactly the kind of thing that I like to do. I take chaos and make it into order.”

  “I like the sound of that, but this is a catastrophe.” The main floor of the casino was supposed to be entirely finished, but it wasn’t. Not even close. Some of the furnishings and machines had been installed. Long banks of slot machines stood silent and dark, waiting for the soft opening in two months and then the gala opening, three months hence. Horseshoe-shaped blackjack tables stood in rows.

  But the order ended there. Broken bits of lumber and carpeting scraps covered the floor. Sawdust piled half an inch thick around the chair legs and by the walls. Chairs lay on their sides or had been shoved away from their appointed places at the tables.

  He said, “This place is over budget and behind schedule. And every day, it’s like the contractors are trying to leave things a bigger
mess than when they got here.”

  As the little witch looked over the mess, her dark eyes widened.

  That was a bad sign. “If this is going to be too much for you, you need to tell me now. If you tell me, I can hire other people to work with you or for you, but this job has to get done.”

  The little witch, Bethany Aura, drew herself up to her full height, which amused Math too much. Even when she was standing as tall as she could, and even wearing those glittery purple witch boots, the top of her head still didn’t quite reach Math’s shoulder. She said, “This is the job that I said I would do, and I can do it. Yes, I can.”

  “That’s the spirit,” he said, worried about how much she was having to psych herself up. “Can you show me how you would clean up this sort of area?”

  “Sure?” she said, taking out that pad of paper again.

  He really didn’t like the sound of the indecision in her voice, there. Math didn’t like things that weren’t rock-solid precise and accurate. He liked columns of numbers that added up and lists of checkboxes with appropriately sized checkmarks in them.

  Bethany’s paint pots zoomed out of her bag and into the air, hovering.

  Again, she went to work on the paper, inscribing delicate swirls on the drawing pad. The paints must have been scented because Math could smell fresh apples and flowers as she drew.

  Or maybe he was smelling her shampoo because he had drifted so near her that he was close enough to nuzzle her ear.

  His dragon soul was awake and watching the witch through his eyes.

  She turned and looked up at him, her dark eyes as wide as a cat’s. That golden glow shimmered on her face. “Can I help you with something?”

  Math jumped back. “No! No. I’ve just never seen a witch work before.”

  “Really?” she asked absently while she added curlicues and paisleys to the diagram. “You can’t swing a black cat without hitting a witch around Las Vegas. How have you not seen someone perform spellcraft?”

  “I’ve stayed down in the dragons dens outside of LA most of my life. I mean, I went to a natural college. Everyone goes to college, right?”

  The little witch muttered, “Some of us didn’t go to college.”

  Dammit, he’d said the wrong thing. “I mean, I had to get my MBA. That’s why I’m the Chief Financial Officer of Dragons Dens, Inc.”

  Bethany lifted a slim eyebrow at him. “You’re the CFO of the company that owns this casino? Why are you personally hiring housekeeping contractors?”

  Math sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m taking over operations because it’s such a damned mess. Are you sure you’re okay with a project of this magnitude?” It had been impetuous of him to hire her on the spot.

  “Yes,” Bethany replied. He was pretty sure she was gritting her teeth. “It’s ready.”

  The little witch held the paper out and sucked in a deep breath.

  Well, she was probably going to blow on the paper to activate the spell like the last time, so maybe she needed that much air. Maybe she wasn’t just sucking wind, trying to fortify herself.

  Math tried not to notice the way that her deep inhale stretched her white blouse over the soft swells of her breasts, but he did.

  Bethany blew on the paper, and it lifted off her hands.

  The drawing hovered in the air, caught in a strong beam of sunlight from the skylights above, and then exploded in an airless blast of scarlet and pink fire into a few dozen chimpanzees and lemurs that scattered over the messy room.

  Some of the chimps sprinted for the trash bags that were draped over chairs where the construction crews had left them. They twirled the bags in the air, inflating them, and ran to the center of the room.

  Meanwhile, the smaller lemurs scooped up the trash and began stuffing it into the bags the chimps held. The smaller monkeys swarmed over the poker tables and under the banks of slot machines, meticulously collecting every sawed-off lumber end, stripped screw, and bent nail and hurling them all in the trash bags.

  One of the lemurs trotted over and started patting Bethany’s leg and tugging on her trousers. Without breaking her conducting, she scooped it up to sit on her shoulder, where it clung to her neck and watched its fellows work.

  The chimps lurched and caught the flying debris with the bags, making sure that not one bit of trash went astray.

  Bethany directed the madness like a conductor, whirling her arms and orchestrating the chaos. The look of utter concentration on her face was endearing.

  Well, endearing to someone else, of course. Math was a busy man. He had a lot to do in his life. He really should run off to the accounting division and demand to open the books and spreadsheets, but he couldn’t quite seem to tear himself away from this demonstration of Bethany’s magic.

  In fifteen minutes, the litter was picked up in the section where they stood.

  Bethany waved her arms and bowed her back like she was raising a heavy load, and the lemurs spun in the air, becoming blobs. The lemur that had been clinging to her neck leaped off to transform in mid-air into another blob. It zoomed toward the others.

  Jellyfish, Math recognized. They were tentacle-trailing jellyfish.

  The hyperactive jellyfish attacked the surfaces, their tentacles slipping into the crevices and cracks of the slot machines and poker tables and scrubbing like bottle brushes, wiping up every speck of dust and squeegeeing behind themselves, leaving a bright polish on the glass and wood.

  When the casino gleamed, the jellyfish popped, and the scent of roses and spicy incense floated where they had been.

  The chimps hauled the bags out of the room, presumably toward the refuse collection area.

  Bethany was bent over, panting and bracing her knees on her hands.

  “That was spectacular!” Math told her.

  “Yeah!” she said, her dark eyes wide and laughing. “It really was, wasn’t it?”

  “Are you all right?” He rubbed her back, her spine warm under his hand as he stroked her. “Can I get you a glass of water or a cup of coffee?”

  “I’m fine.” She waved him off. “Just winded. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

  Math straightened. “This would have taken a crew of twenty naturals all day to do. That’s exactly the sort of thing we need. Do you need recovery time? Is there a limit to how large an area you can work with? What sort of timetable—”

  Above them, scratches and creaks wafted from the balcony above.

  Math glanced up.

  The casino’s floor plan had been designed to be spacious and elegant, with walkway balconies crisscrossing the main floor. When the casino opened, high-roller guests would be admitted to the upper floors. From their lofty perch and baccarat tables, they could gaze down at the teaming masses gambling at the more common varieties of games like slot machines and craps.

  But now, a wide slab of plywood teetered on the edge of the railing above them and began to tilt down.

  Sawdust floated in the sunbeams, falling all around them.

  Shims and shavings fell off the slab of wood and tumbled toward them in the sunbeams.

  Math grabbed Bethany around her waist, propelling them both backward and aside, just as the heavy plywood loaded with lumber and boards smashed to the floor where they had been standing.

  His dragon’s wings shot out even though he still held onto his human form, lifting them farther from the falling wood and plaster.

  He snapped his wings back under his skin, but the two of them were still sailing through the air.

  If Math landed on her, the weight of his heavy dragon bones and muscle would probably crush the slim, fragile witch, so he ducked his shoulder and rolled over the top of her. His arm was tight around her torso as they tumbled on the thick carpeting. He took his weight on his shoulders and elbows to keep from crushing her.

  “Oh! What are you doing! Mr. Draco, sir! Get off of me!” the little witch protested as he saved her life.

  Math ended up flat on his back with Bethany
draped over his chest and stomach.

  The casino spun around him like he must have bonked his head on the floor, though his thick skull didn’t seem sore anywhere. His spine felt a little bruised, and his thighs and stomach quivered from jumping so hard.

  And the little witch in his arms?

  Bethany Aura was a fragile, fragrant, soft and tender bit of fluff pressed against his body. The scant warmth of her skin seeped through their clothes and felt like the most pleasant scorch of fire. He thought he should unclench his arms from around her waist and shoulders where he’d grabbed her, but releasing her seemed like the most wrong thing he could do.

  Instead, his hands moved over her back, his fingertips exploring the contours of her ribs and spine under the silky black clothes she wore.

  Math lifted his head, glancing down at where she lay on his chest.

  Bethany had raised her head and was staring at him, wide-eyed, from just below his chin. Her cheek had been lying on his pecs.

  His heart thudded inside his chest.

  Her black hair was straggling over her face. She clawed it aside with her fingers, somehow managing to look even more startled after she was done.

  She scrambled sideways to peer over her shoulder at the heavy boards and tile still clattering to the floor behind them.

  Her body moved on his stomach and chest, sliding over his clothes and skin, and her thighs spread open over his hips.

  Images of her bombarded him—her naked body splayed over his, her legs straddling him as she moved, her hair wild, and her eyes half-closed in pleasure as she rocked back.

  He had to get that thought out of his head. That was not professional.

  From somewhere above, a man shouted, “Hey! Is someone down there? No one is supposed to be down there!”

  Bethany turned back to Math, her eyes still huge and frightened. “Are you okay?”

  He sucked a deep breath of air into his lungs because he had forgotten how to breathe.