by John Conroe
“Sorry, figure of speech. Means to relieve him of his guard duty,” Stacia said, smiling.
“Not the other kind of spelling. Hey, what are those? Drinks?”
“Yes, for the Speaker,” Stocan said.
“Anyone test them?” she asked, leaning over and smelling each. As she leaned back, there was a whirring blur and Pancho was hovering over the tray, hands on hips as he glared at Stacia.
“By all means, have at it, puck. Or is it stupid little f—” she said, but it was Mack’s turn to intervene.
“Fine fellow. A fine warrior fellow with lots of other warriors,” Mack said, giving the puck a smile and Stacia a look of warning.
“Whatever,” she said, moving over to check on Ashley, who was silently conferring with her dragons.
Pancho gave her back a glare, then hovered down over the pitchers and the glasses, sniffing each carefully.
“One of their traditional roles is poison detector. They were bred to have unparalleled senses of taste and smell for just that purpose,” Stocan said, not at all bothered by the double check of his delivery. “Nothing but the best defenses for the Winter Queen.”
“Stacia, how is everyone at the apartment?” Ian asked the blonde girl when she circled back from Ashley.
Her eyebrows rose in confusion for a second, then the light bulb went off.
“Oh. Yeah. Everyone’s fine. Jetta and Declan are playing cards. They’re both cheating,” she said.
“No illness or dizziness?” Ian asked intently.
“No, everybody is over their travel… nausea,” she said.
“Okay, just checking. Your particular skills with dizziness won’t be needed in the next hour?” Ian asked.
“No. Plus you have Mack. He’s got a bit of skill in that regard too,” Stacia said.
“I do?” Mack asked, not sure if he followed everything they weren’t saying.
“Yes, you moron. Roomies have skills,” she said archly.
“Oh. Yeah, you’re right. No problems, Ian,” Mack said, finally understanding. He did have some ability to talk his dangerous roommate off the edge of destruction if it came to that.
Two more white-clad elves came up to the balcony, each holding a folded stack of greenish-yellow leather. Mack could see some black in there too.
Stocan saw them and nodded at them. The two elves set their burdens down, bowed, and backed away. “Gargax has ordered dragon leathers for the Speaker and her party. She gave us your measurements and we made these from skins the dragons provided.”
Stacia was holding a shirt up and examining it critically before anyone else could even move. Ashley had heard the comment and was coming over with a smile on her face.
“This one is for you, Lady Wolf,” Stocan said, handing Stacia a different set. “The Speaker specified that your pants and shirt must break away at the seams when you transform.”
“Like what? Stripper clothes?” Mack said, trying to look innocent while simultaneously jumping back.
Stacia just gave him a raised eyebrow. “That’s right, you are the expert on strippers. Always traveling across the Canadian border to visit the stripper ballet in Montreal.”
Normally that wouldn’t have bothered him, but having Ashley right there was more than a bit embarrassing for some reason.
“If you’re taking these to the Speaker’s apartment, I’ll go with you,” Mack said to Stocan, moving around behind Ian to get past his roommate’s very dangerous girlfriend.
“Nervous, Mack?” she asked sweetly.
“Around you? Always, Bombshell,” he said, using the nickname he’d coined for her when Declan had first introduced her. He’d turned to Declan when Stacia was walking away and whispered “That’s one blonde bombshell who really could explode.” Naturally she’d heard him, wolfish hearing and all. Oddly, she seemed to kind of like it, taking it as a complement.
“As you should be, Mackling,” she said as he picked up a stack of the dragonskin clothing. “Remind Declan he needs to be here in an hour.”
He gave her a bow and touched his forehead with the fingers of his free hand in some sort of obeisant gesture. “As you wish, Lady Wolf.”
“Hmmpf. You mock what can bite, little man,” she sniffed, making a show of examining her new dragonskin armor. Then she started to unbutton her shirt, which caused Ian to spin away from her, embarrassed, and Ashley to cover her mouth in surprise.
Mack gave her a cheeky smile and left with Stocan, who had watched the byplay with great interest.
Two hours later, Declan and Stacia escorted Ashley back to the apartment, all three wearing their dragon leathers, with an aerial guard provided by Pancho and two of his clan. Jetta had her dragonskins on, but Mack and Ian hadn’t changed into them yet.
Stocan led a group of elves in right behind them, carrying trays of meat, cheeses, fruits, and richly grained breads.
“The dragons got hungry so they called a lunch break,” Ashley said as the little group entered the apartment. The room shook and heavy footsteps sounded across the ceiling before the building shuddered. “That’s Gargax headed to the herds,” Ashley said, going just a little pale.
“How do you keep your cool?” Mack asked her. “The biggest, baddest carnivores ever and you work with them?”
“It would be easy for you to understand if you heard them as I do,” Ashley said, pointing at her head. “They are highly intelligent beings who view things differently. Yes they’re immensely dangerous, but really, are they any less dangerous to humans one-on-one than, say, Stacia or her pack?”
Mack glanced at the blonde werewolf girl who spun around and gave the room a wolfish grin.
“Well I can see that, I guess. I can talk to the weres and understand them as you can with the dragons. I guess that’s the part I can’t wrap my head around because I don’t hear them like you do. Still, any one of them could gulp down even Dellwood in about two chomps. Even Awasos is tiny compared to them,” Mack said. “We can at least fight a werewolf, no matter the odds. We have no chance against dragons, except…”
“Except what?” Stacia asked from where she was filling a plate with food.
“Not what—who. Declan, you must have already come up with an anti-dragon spell or two?” Mack asked.
“Dragons are immune to magic,” Ashley said, maybe a bit smugly.
“Direct magic, yes. Indirect, no,” Mack said. “Remember my bucket ’o’ shit?”
“No,” Stacia said, “because I wasn’t there and Declan didn’t even get pictures.”
“Oh! I have photos on my phone, Stacia,” Jetta said. “I just don’t want to run low on power here with no way to recharge.”
Declan cleared his throat. “First, let’s not be mean, Jet. Second, as long as any of you don’t drain you batteries completely, you should be fine. Omega is keeping them charged from the solar cells in his micro bots. The spells I put on each of your phones allows him to broadcast power to them. He just doesn’t have a whole lot of resources here. And third, I’ve got some ideas about dragons, but—” he held up one hand to Ashley’s beginning cry of protest— “they’re just the kind of automatic contingency thing that Tanya and Chris and Stacia beat into me last summer.”
“Omega’s charging our phones?” Jetta asked at the same time Ian spoke. “You have spells that could damage a dragon?” he asked.
“Yes, and yes,” Declan said. “Ashley, you’ve played enough Wytch War to know the kind of thing I’m talking about.”
The pretty Speaker had her arms folded across her chest and a frown on her face. “Why are we even talking about harming the dragons? I’m here to help them,” she said.
“Of course. But we make contingencies for everything. That’s what Arcane teaches us. The dragons are good. But are all of them?” Declan asked, then shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe there’s one that doesn’t want the status quo to change. It’s all theoretical, Ash. Not like we’re plotting against Gargax or Trygon. By the way, did he supply the skin for these su
its? We were wondering.” He glanced at his werewolf, who nodded as she chewed a slab of something that looked a bit like beef.
“Yes. He’s younger, so he still molts every five years or so. The older dragons might only molt once in a hundred years and their skins are too thick and heavy to make clothing out of,” Ashley said.
“This stuff seems really tough,” Stacia commented between bites.
“It’s not as bullet resistant as Kevlar, but it is way more slash and stab resistant,” Ian said, pulling a knife from his waist and slashing at his own forearm. The blade made absolutely no impression on the yellow-green dragonskin. “It’s some of the best armor around, as it’s relatively light like traditional leather, but much tougher. That’s why the Hunters and Guardians wear it, but it’s in severely limited supply.”
“The dragons haven’t supplied new skins in a long, long time. It’ll be one of the biggest items the queens bargain for,” Ashley said.
“I like it. Easy to move around in and you were thoughtful to make mine breakaway, Ashley. Thank you,” Stacia said.
“Yes, thank you for making hers breakaway,” Declan said with a lecherous grin, immediately receiving an elbow from his girlfriend. “No, honestly. Thanks for these. Makes me feel better about all the pointy-stabby things the elves carry,” he said.
“They won’t stop Black Frost blades in the hands of an expert like Neeve or Greer, but they are proof against the arrow darts the elves use,” Ian said.
“They’re also a pretty big message to the two Courts,” Mack said. Everyone looked at him, interested in his comment. “Big advertisement for quality dragon armor while also saying that the Speaker and her guards are part of dragon nation.”
Ashley nodded, looking mildly impressed. “That’s exactly the message that Gargax wants to send.”
“Probably wants to send another message by calling for lunch, then tearing apart some poor herbivores right in front of the elves,” Declan said, moving to fill a plate from the table.
“And here we thought Stacia liked you for your pretty blue eyes,” Mack said, following his friend’s lead to the food.
“I like those too, but an occasional glimmer of intelligence is not unattractive,” the beautiful blonde said with a smirk.
“In that regard, I would like to chime in and inform you that I am monitoring conversations around the complex that indicate a desire to inflict harm on members of this party. You must all be on your guards at all times. As Father indicated, my resources are limited on this world at this time, but I would like to equip each of you with a micro unit so that we may all be in contact at all times,” Omega suddenly said from Jetta’s phone, causing the girl to startle and almost drop it.
Almost instantly, the collar of Declan’s leather shirt moved and a tiny robot crawled out. He didn’t appear to be surprised by it.
“As you may note, they are small and unobtrusive. Hiding under a collar or in a pocket until we need to communicate.”
“They won’t run out of power?” Ian asked as a dozen of the tiny units flittered into the room and started to alight, a few on each of the team members.
“The units can convert both light and heat to electrical energy. When hidden, your body heat will power them.”
“They don’t bite or pinch, do they?” Jetta asked, looking at two that were climbing her arm with an expression that was half fascination and half grimace.
“While they appear insect-like, they are not. There will be no biting, pinching, or burrowing, although they will keep watch while you sleep. Should anything trip their sensors, you will be alerted.”
“That’s definitely something,” Mack said, holding still while three of the micro units shifted under his collar before going absolutely still. Each was no bigger than a dime, tiny four-legged micro centaurs of silvery metal.
“Also, please be aware that one of my micro units has been found by the creatures known as pucks and taken to the Queen of Winter. I expect there will be questions,” Omega said.
“Great. Now they’ll accuse us of spying,” Ashley said.
“Did you know about them?” Declan asked. She shook her head. “Then you can answer truthfully that they are nothing to do with you. Technology from Earth, but not yours nor under your control. I assume they can detect lies?” he asked.
“That is true,” Ian said. “He’s right, Ash. Not your tech. It came from Earth but hey, lots of interested players there.”
“Omega, you need to break the entanglement so they can’t follow it back to you with sympathetic magic,” Declan said.
“An excellent idea, Father,” Omega said. “Already done.”
At that moment, there was a knock at the door and Mack went to answer it. Stocan stood outside. “May I come in? I have a message for the Speaker.”
Mack led him to the others.
“Speaker, Queen Morrigan has sent me to convey you to her presence,” the tall elf said.
“In other words, she demands my presence,” Ashley said.
“That is another way of phrasing it, and not untrue,” Stocan said.
Declan went to his pack and started to rummage, quickly bringing out a blue nylon zippered case. He opened it and started to hand out Bluetooth units.
“I brought lots of spares. If we each have one, we can stay in communication and Omega can translate all the Elvish we hear,” Declan said.
Ian was nodding as he clipped his to his ear. “This is a really good idea. Let’s also weapon up. We don’t want to look weak,” he said.
Mack clipped on his own earpiece, then almost ran to his room to grab his rifle. The Springfield SOCOM CQB was a shortened semi-auto version of the military’s venerable old M14. When Declan declared he was buying Jetta and him rifles for Christmas, Mack had chosen the gun closest to his familiar old Ruger Mini-14. The SOCOM was mostly the same rifle, just bigger and chambered in .308 Winchester or what the military called 7.62 mm, which packed a much bigger punch.
Jetta had chosen a bolt action Mossberg MVP, also in .308, which could use the same ten and twenty round magazines as her brother’s semi-auto.
Mack grabbed his combat vest, which carried five extra twenty round mags for his rifle, five extra Glock mags, and a thirty-three rounder for the pistol as well. Plus his hawk, a couple of small blades, and his uncle’s hideaway .44 Special revolver. His pistol and bowie knife were already on his belt.
He arrived back in the main room just as his sister came back from gearing up herself. Her short, scoped rifle was cradled in one arm and she had already put on her chest rig, which carried three rifle mags, three Glock mags, a hidden Kel Tec .22 magnum pistol, and a spare magazine of .22 hollowpoints. On her right hip, her Glock rode next to her own knife and on her left hip were two pouches, one long for a thirty-three round pistol mag and the other more squared-off to hold the little fifty round drum magazine for her Glock. Her Kydex-sheathed tomahawk hung down her back, Declan style.
Mack was certain she had much more squirreled away around her athletic frame because he did as well.
Stacia had looped two bandoleers across her torso, bandito style, and her little DP-12 shotgun was slung in front of her. Her teenage witch had his messenger bag of magic, compact .357 Magnum, and his tomahawk. Ian looked like a recruiting poster for some special ops warfare group, bristling with weapons and gear.
“Everyone ready?” Ian asked. At their nods, he turned to Stocan. “Lead the way. Mack, you’re tail end Charlie. Ashley, you’re smack dab in the middle.”
