J.R. Rains Vampire for Hire World_Dragon Lessons

by Eve Paludan

  Yep, it was a nauseating and constant stream-of-consciousness from the smitten werewolf as he mooned over my vampire mom. Ha-ha, yeah, I said, “mooned.” And “smitten.”

  I couldn’t help myself, and I went back into Kingsley’s horn-dog mind and dug up these morsels:

  Maybe the fact that Sam is so dangerously bloodthirsty is what makes her even sexier to me. I love looking at her. She dislikes her vampire eyes, though she is unable to see herself in a mirror. She imagines that her eyes appear like bottomless pools of scary-looking doom, but I adore them. I could fall into those deep dark eyes, the same color as the sky on a moonless, starless night and never want to climb out… such unexplored mysteries do they hold. And such depths. Their darkness is beautiful.

  “Kingsley,” I could hear Mom saying, as if from afar, “I know you’ll guard my children with your life, but if anything happens to me—”

  “Nothing will happen to you, or them,” old Wolfie assured her smoothly. He was looking at her with his pupils all dilated and thinking, My mind drifts back to her appeal. Her curves, dear heaven, are not the teensy bit of flab she fears she carries—she’s always jogging to combat what she perceives is a too-thick waist—but I see her as this perfectly proportioned dark-haired Venus rising from every step with the utter grace of a black panther. Yet, she thinks of herself as a klutz and covers up that spectacular figure with high-waisted mom jeans and baggy sweatshirts. Go figure.

  Her lips are like moist, almost-black rose petals covering perfect white teeth and her undead skin is like smooth marble with faint shadows of gray veins. When she’s undressed and devoid of makeup—I secretly hate the stuff—I just want to devour her with my lips, my paw-like hands and of course, my massive—

  And it was then that I screamed aloud and got the hell out of Kingsley’s head.

  “Tammy, what’s wrong?” Mom asked, concerned.

  “Kingsley’s thinking disgusting things about you at a time like this!”

  “Stay out of my head, you nosy little mind reader!” Kingsley said to me.

  “I’m sorry, but—” I looked at Mom. “He’s broadcasting far and wide like he has an, ‘I Love Samantha Moon’ pay-per-view channel. I can’t not look at this mess in his mind. It’s like an R-rated train wreck in there!”

  “Only R-rated?” Mom quipped, as if disappointed.

  “Hey, Tammy,” Kingsley said. “How about a little respect for my privacy, please?”

  “Kingsley!” Mom barked at him at a pitch higher than her usual honeyed alto. “Stop ogling me! It’s written all over your face what you’re thinking! I don’t need to be a mind reader and look at poor Tammy. Can you restrain your mental gushing about me? We have real problems going down, and your mind is still about last night.”

  “Last night?” I said in horror. “What happened last night?” I asked, though now I knew because he was thinking about it, replaying it in his head and I gave a little scream again that Mom and Kingsley did it in our house!

  “Sorry, but not sorry,” Kingsley said with an embarrassed laugh. “You’re as beautiful as midnight. It’s hard not to notice and feel something…”

  “Mom, he’s thinking about—”

  “Tammy, get out of his head this second or I will ground you even longer!” Mom said.

  “Sam, I’m sorry!” Kingsley said to her and then gave me an angry look with his fierce amber eyes.

  She sighed. “You’re supposed to be here to help guard my children while I fight evil. Focus, please!”

  “Yeah, Kingsley!” I said in his direction.

  “I will. I’d do anything for you, Sam.” He gave her his most loving eyes and she punched him hard in the shoulder, a love tap that would have taken down any human man.

  “For the final time, Kingsley Fulcrum, Esquire, I’m asking you to wipe that dreamy bedroom expression off your face in front of my kids.”

  “Fine,” he said, and with great effort, started thinking of me and Anthony instead of her. I heard him think this crap:

  Tammy, Sam’s mini-me teen, has this annoying, ongoing rebellious attitude and quite a mind of her own. And Anthony, what to do about him to help him? He’s a teen boy who idolizes me to the point that he starts worrying about not measuring up to a werewolf.

  It was all about the subtext with Kingsley. He would say something to Mom and then be thinking all this stuff that he never said aloud. Honestly, he was worse than a mortal in his thought processes and twice as gross as any high school boy, in my opinion.

  Apologetically, he said to her, “You know how I get just before the full moon, Sam.”

  “Spare me the locker-room excuses.” She gave him the classic Samantha Moon eye roll, which was spooky, considering the whites of her eyes no longer existed and it was all dark in there.

  “It’s not my fault. It’s our chemistry.” And then in Kingsley’s head, there was this:

  Every time I see you, I perk up everywhere.

  “Excuse me, I need to go throw up,” I said, giving Kingsley my raised eyebrow glare.

  Mom folded her arms. “I’m about to go head to head with the devil incarnate and you just can’t stop, can you, Kingsley?”

  And then in her head, her own inner voice continued, Can’t stop sniffing my—

  “Sammy, I’m done now.”

  “Then come ‘ere, you big, hairy oaf,” she said.

  Ugh, I wanted to scream when she pulled Kingsley behind the tool shed where Anthony and I couldn’t see them. At that point, I just quit spying on their minds because I was ready to hurl. I knew they were kissing, and I had had enough of them. And apparently, Thorn had, too, because he walked away politely, out of earshot, which I probably should have done, too.

  Aloud, I did hear Mom say, “Kingsley, when all this is over, with this battle, we’ll get together and have some ‘us’ time, I promise.”

  “I’ll hold you to it, Sam.” He hugged her until her spine crackled and gave her a kiss.

  Of course, Anthony and I were watching out for danger and danger, of course… happened.

  It was sunset, and we were looking up at the spectacular colors when a three-horned, gray-scaled dragon came screaming across the sky—like a T-Rex crossed with a pterodactyl on steroids—with the ugliest, creepiest wings I could’ve ever imagined, let alone seen. And he was dragging a stinky, yellowish sulfurous smoke trail that burned my nose and eyes and made me gag.

  “Mom! Kingsley!” Anthony shouted, “Look out!”

  Chapter 24

  KINGSLEY FULCRUM

  I saw Tammy frantically looking for Thorn, but I didn’t see him either.

  The shrieking of the scaly gray dragon in the sky vibrated my sensitive wolf eardrums at such a high frequency that it truly hurt to hear him release those obnoxious sounds from his throat. His shriek sounded like a chainsaw cutting into steel.

  He also spewed noxious lake-of-fire types of flames that reminded me of a volcano I had once visited in Iceland. And he had, I swear to God, huge testicles that clanged every time he flapped his wings. Yes, clanged!

  “This is it, Sam!” I said.

  “Mom, he’s here. Evil incarnate! And he’s trying to break into my mind!” Tammy shrieked.

  “Don’t let him, Tammy,” I told her loudly. “If he can break into your mind, maybe you can break into his and relay his battle plans to your mom.”

  “I’ll try to block him and hack him at the same time,” Tammy yelled in my mind. Which was weird.

  In a blur, Sam slipped from my embrace, sprinted behind a big oak, and started shedding her clothes so she could transform.

  “I just want to make sure. That isn’t Thorn up there, is it?” I called to her.

  “Oh, hell no. That’s not Thorn!” Sam said, exasperated that I couldn’t tell one dragon from another. “He’s a copper color.”

  “Who is it, then?”

  “The devil in his dragon form. Straight outta Revelation 12:9, Kingsley. Keep up!”

  “Oh, hell!” I said.r />
  “Exactly.” And then, Sam’s wings opened out as she transformed into her own magnificent dragon form. In a blink, she zoomed up into the night sky like a dragon-shaped rocket. I wondered if she was going to break the sound barrier. I got my answer a moment later when I heard a boom that set off every car alarm in the neighborhood. I touched my ears to see if they were bleeding. Luckily, they weren’t. But they sure were ringing.

  A split-second later, I stepped behind the oak tree to shuck my own clothes and transform to the giant, shaggy werewolf who bounded across the yard to get between that thing and Tammy. When I came out in my werewolf skin, Tammy threw her arms around my massive neck and she screamed into it like… frightened prey. Anthony followed, without the screaming into my neck, thank God.

  “If I only had wings,” Anthony said, “I could help Mom.”

  True that.

  The three of us stood together, touching, and watching the epic battle of dragons unfurling in the evening sky. They were circling each other. Sam and the gray devil dragon. I was scared for Sam, more scared than I have ever been for her. For one, this thing was huge, a leviathan almost.

  Suddenly, a coppery-scaled dragon passed overhead and let out a roar of his own. And shot flames, too.

  “It’s Thorn!” Tammy shouted.

  Now, it was two dragons against one, but I worried that the devil dragon, possibly old Satan himself, looked like he was ten times the size of either Sam or Thorn.

  I herded the kids under the cover of some trees, where we couldn’t easily be spotted from the air, but could still watch the battle royale of good versus evil.

  “I can read Mom’s mind. She’s scared!” Tammy said.

  “She’d be a fool if she wasn’t,” Anthony said.

  “I can’t look. I’m scared for her!” She buried her face in my thick fur. Oh, the utter bane of being able to read the minds of others. I couldn’t even imagine how her greatest gift must torment her. Especially, right now.

  I didn’t look at Sam’s children, who, for all I knew, after this night, might end up as orphans under my care, or under Mary Lou’s, Sam’ sister. My werewolf eyes stayed riveted to the drama set against the sky. I couldn’t think of any way that either of these brave-hearted dragons could beat the devil dragon in his current incarnation. Not even together.

  Anthony choked out, “Kingsley, I have to go!”

  I looked at Anthony. I shook my shaggy head and growled my most firm, “No!” in wolf language. But he broke away from me and ran out the gate.

  His arms turned to flames as he ran to the top of the nearby hill and positioned himself for shooting flames up into the dragon battle.

  Anthony, as the Fire Warrior, had returned.

  Chapter 25

  NICK NORTH, WINGMAN

  Talk about being connected to someone I knew from another lifetime…

  In my mind, I heard Tammy’s desperate plea for help, so I dropped everything I was doing and drove my Mustang as fast as I could to her house. When I got to the Moons’ driveway, it was already full of cars, so I just hopped the curb and braked to a skidding halt in the front yard. I just hoped Ms. Moon wasn’t going to kick my butt for smashing her hydrangea bush and leaving tire tracks through her nice lawn.

  I heard a lot of screaming in the backyard, so I vaulted over the wood fence, splinters in my hands and all. I ignored the splinters because what I saw next was definitely the most surreal moment of my life.

  Tammy was screaming aloud and in her mind, too. She had her arms wrapped like a tourniquet around a massive wolf’s neck, whether for support or because she was trying to stop him from doing something, I couldn’t tell. He looked like a pissed-off dire wolf, straight out of a prehistoric horror flick. With his mouth dripping saliva, he snarled and bared his huge white teeth at me. I wasn’t even close to him, but his breath was awful!

  I screamed, “Tammy, what is that thing and what has he been eating?”

  “Werewolf. And, carrion, most likely.”

  “Geez, I can smell it from here.”

  “He can understand you, Nick.”

  I got scared. “Sorry, Mr. Werewolf.” Lame, I know.

  Tammy said, “Kingsley, this is my friend, Nick North, and he’s here to help us kill the gray dragon! Nick, meet Kingsley.” She looked at me. “Mom and Thorn are the other dragons, so don’t hurt them.”

  My jaw dropped. “Tammy. What is this? A joke? What are you talking about?”

  “No joke. Look up,” she said.

  I got an eyeful of a noisy air battle between three dragons, two smaller and one very much larger. It was like three monsters were fighting in a circle.

  I was stunned. “They’ve got a dragon battle going on.”

  “Duh, why do you think I called you in your mind?” She looked at me and said, “Nick, this is my mom’s boyfriend, Kingsley, and he’s a—”

  “You already told me. A werewolf,” I said, watching the battle above us of three dragons, one of them scaly gray, massive and butt-ugly with pterodactyl-type wings.

  “We already established that he’s a werewolf. I was going to also say, he’s a lawyer.”

  “Oh, so… Your mom is a vampire and a dragon, her boyfriend is a werewolf lawyer and yep, I already met Thorn—but who’s that over there on the hill with two flamethrowers?”

  “That’s my brother, Anthony,” Tammy said.

  “Is he wearing some sort of high-tech suit that fits him like a wetsuit? Because it looks like the flames are coming straight from his hands and forearms.”

  “No, he’s not wearing a high-tech suit. That’s all him.”

  “Good God, what is he?” I asked.

  “He’s a Fire Warrior.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  “Neither had we. Nick, listen, there’s not much time to explain, but my mom and Thorn are the good dragons and the much-larger gray dragon is the evil dragon. He might even be the devil in dragon form.”

  “What the eff, Tammy! Are you always going to spring this crazy paranormal stuff on me without warning?” I asked.

  “Probably.” She looked apologetically at me. “I need your help. My mom could die and so could Thorn. Please?”

  “How? What? Tell me. They’re killing each other! And what’s Anthony doing?”

  Anthony increased his height and his flame-throwing reach to many hundreds of feet. I hoped he didn’t hit his mom by mistake. Or Thorn.

  Thorn and Ms. Moon joined forces and sped after him on her rapidly flapping wings, staying on his spiked whip-like tail and Thorn was blowing flames straight up that devil dragon’s hindquarters.

  Bong! Bong!

  “What’s that clanging sound?” I asked.

  Tammy said, “I think those are the devil’s nards clanging like church bells.”

  I gagged. “This is an unholy situation.”

  “I know,” Tammy said.

  Suddenly, the devil dragon screamed a horrific sound I hoped never to hear again. His pain and rage were obvious. His hind end was on fire!

  Anthony the Fire Warrior was jumping around like a football player who’d just made a touchdown and was doing a victory dance in the end zone.

  Balls aflame, the gray devil dragon turned around and went after Ms. Moon and Thorn, and now, they split up so he couldn’t follow them both. He went after Thorn and then, Ms. Moon went after the devil dragon. There they were in a line of fire, lighting up the night sky with flames shooting out of all of them. Good. Evil. Good.

  This was turning into one hell of a fiery night. Tammy let go of the werewolf and came next to me now.

  “What kind of family do you even have?” I said in wonder.

  “A freak-filled one,” Tammy said proudly.

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  Kingsley growled at me and showed his teeth, letting saliva drip.

  “What did he say to me?” I asked Tammy.

  “I think he said, ‘What do you think you’re doing, coming into this mess?�
�”

  “Well, you called me, Tam. In my mind.” I was daunted. “What do you expect me to be able to do about this?”

  There was a high-pitched squeal from above as two flaming missiles whistled down out of the sky and bounced on the ground before rolling into a tree well, still smoking.

  “What was that?” Nick asked.

  Tammy gagged and said, “My brother just finished what Mom and Thorn started.” She paused. “They’re the devil’s nards. I just hope Kingsley doesn’t wolf them down.”

  She clutched my letterman’s jacket. “You’re a quarterback, aren’t you?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “You could throw something accurately.”

  “At that giant gray dragon?” I asked.

  “Yeah, at Satan. You could knock him out of the sky and then, Kingsley here, plus Anthony and Mom and Thorn, can probably take him out. Together.”

  I perked up my ears, interested. Was Tammy suggesting a battle strategy that actually made sense?

  “What do you mean ‘probably’? I’m no dragon slayer.”

  “How do you know unless you try? Let’s do this, Nick.”

  I shook my head back and forth in agitation.

  “Nick, you know I’m right,” Tammy said as she read my mind quickly.

  “What do I throw? A rock or something?” I asked.

  “A pendant on my necklace.” She pulled up the chain from inside her shirt to reveal a silver cross with a sharp end on it.

  “A cross?” Nick asks.

  “It’s my protection from vampires.”

  “From your vampire mom?”

  “No, Nick, from other vampires. Are you crazy? Mother vampires don’t drink the blood of their own children. Sheesh.”

  “Well, I don’t know the vampire rules,” I replied.

  “Guess what? There aren’t any,” Tammy replied and handed me the cross.

  “So, vampires can die from crosses?”

  “No, from silver. Werewolves can, too.”

  “You want me to throw a piece of jewelry a couple hundred feet in the air and stab the devil dragon in the heart with it?”