Live and Let Fly

by Karina Fabian

  "Not unless you don't find me some."

  He looked at me like I'd grown a new head. "And this will make you feel better?"

  "You've no idea."

  He shrugged. "I'll do what I can."

  Heather stirred and nuzzled a little deeper into the crook of my arm. Calloway gazed at her. "She going to be okay?" he asked.

  "Hope so," I grumbled.

  He shook his head disapprovingly. "Grace wanted her to go to church, but she refused to leave you alone. So Grace just left her. I mean, I know she's a nun and all, but..."

  I felt my lip curl. Who was he to judge? He had no idea what we'd been through, no idea how piddling our magical advantage was compared to McThing's technological one. Not to mention Grace had lost her arsenal when I saved her from being chopped in two by a huge mechanical rodent. She'd been operating on her own inherent resources and the grace of God from then on; and if she didn't have enough to heal me, hide us, or even figure out a way to call for help, she'd been tapped dry. And, unlike what some Mundanes thought about a Holy Mage's abilities, God was not a vending machine to whip out miracles when she said the right words.

  She needed to go to Him: to pray, to worship, to receive the Sacraments, to be comforted before she could comfort anyone else.

  A voice I didn't always like to hear said, He doesn't know that, does he? Explain it to him.

  I was too tired and cranky. "When's the last time you went to church." I didn't ask; I scolded. Then I stuck my head back into the pail. The water was cool and felt so good.

  "Does it matter?" he asked.

  From by the barn door, my favorite voice called, "I'd say it matters a great deal."

  I pulled my head out of the pail. There was Grace, back in her summer blue habit and wimple, hands on her hips, a wry smile on her face that said, "I've no idea what you were talking about, but what a cue!" Behind her stood a priest in a cassock with a black book bag over his shoulder.

  I felt lighter than I had since I jumped off Skyhopper.

  "Feeling better?" I called.

  "Mm-hmm, and I've brought someone to help you feel better, too." She took his arm and led him in.

  I shrugged my shoulder, nudging Heather awake. "Heather? We've got company; good company," I added quickly, before she got scared. She shook her head and wiped her eyes. She looked like the Costa's youngest waking from a nap. Grace noticed, too, and smiled at me. Leave it to her to understand what had happened. I sat up straight and polite, pleased I could do so without grimacing. God had blessed me once already through Heather's tears; now it seemed Grace had arranged for Him to bless me again.

  Grace addressed us all. "Father Jacob, I'd like you to meet my partner Vern, our friend Heather Haskell, and Agent Eugene Calloway of the FBI."

  Father Jacob took Calloway's outstretched hand, but his eyes never left me. "Sweet Mary!

  A real dragon."

  I grinned my most harmless grin. "But not like in Revelations. Just one head."

  "I'm glad of that!"

  Grace patted his arm reassuringly. "I told Father Jacob within my Confession, how Vern, Charlie, and I rescued Heather from her kidnappers. We've already visited Charlie. He's doing fine, Heather, and sends his love. Vern, I explained about your unique situation, and Father Jacob agreed to hear your Confession and then give you Communion and Anointing of the Sick."

  "Gonna baptize him, too?" Calloway muttered. Grace glared at him.

  I gave him a mild “shut-up-before-I-eat-you” look before bowing my head to the priest.

  "Thank you, Father. I'd be honored." I raised my head slowly, but that didn't stop the dizziness.

  My vision grayed for a moment.

  Grace stepped toward me, her hand out, a prayer spell on her lips. I caught her hand with my tail. "Save your magic. We're not home yet."

  She nodded and stepped back without argument. I knew then just how scared that thought made her. "Well," she said with false brightness, "why don't we leave these two alone to talk?

  Gene, perhaps you can explain to me why you're not practicing your faith?" She grabbed him by the ear and led the crouching, staggering, and protesting federal agent out. Heather swallowed a giggle, made an awkward curtsy toward Father Jacob (like she had learned to do for Bishop Aiden of Peebles-on-Tweed), and followed.

  Which left me with a tongue-tied priest.

  We stood there a moment like two kids being told to make friends while the moms went off to have coffee and gossip. He toyed with the strap of his bag. Some of the numbness in my wing and arm was wearing off, and my front paw had prickles. I lifted it some and splayed the fingers, stretching them out.

  "Well!" He mimicked Grace in word and tone and fell silent.

  I decided to give us both a break. I jerked my head, gingerly, toward the tarp-covered hay bale. "Would you care to sit down, Father?"

  "I…Yes! Yes, I think I would."

  I followed in his wake, doing my best not to reveal what each step cost me.

  Once he'd settled, he reached into his book bag, pulled out his stole, and blessed it. It seemed to give him confidence, because he managed a couple of sentences this time. "You'll have to be patient with me, I'm afraid. This is the first time I've done something like this."

  "Heard Confession in a barn?"

  He smiled. "Yes, yes. That, too."

  "Well, it's new for us both. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been four days since my last Confession."

  "Really?" He sounded surprised, though that might not have had anything to do with my species. He spoke his greeting, and I began listing my sins. I decided to go easy on him and work up to the big ones, so I catalogued the usual things he'd heard a thousand times before: moments of greed, resentful thoughts about my pre-George predicament, my nastiness toward Kitty McGrue. Once I saw his neck and shoulders relax, I moved into the more serious ones. I started with my threatening behavior toward Phil A. Minion—sans the jokes, though I confessed I still found it funny—then confessed to pouncing on Sally and scaring her out of ten years of life.

  Finally, I came to the big one.

  "I'm not quite sure what Grace told you about the rescue, but it got pretty dicey, and talking and making threatening pounces weren't going to cut it. In the chaos, I...bit off a guy's hand." I waited for his reaction.

  I didn't get what I expected. "I'm sorry. I'm really quite new at this. Is eating another sentient being considered a sin for dragons?"

  My lip curled in a smile. Good question. Points for the newbie. "For dragons under normal circumstances, no. My case is...special."

  He nodded. "Go on."

  You know, this could be the beginning of a beautiful spiritual friendship. And he'd made it easier for me to say what I had to say next. "For a moment, I enjoyed it, Father. I really enjoyed it. Like I haven't enjoyed something in nearly a millennium. And humans are not my first choice for a meal." I shivered with the memory of how good it had felt.

  "Grace did tell me a little more of what happened. You were not yourself then, were you?"

  "Injured, poisoned, imprisoned, my friends threatened. And I was hungry. So, no."

  "You've been given a great temptation in a time of extreme physical weakness and mental distress. But you did pull back from the brink of greater sin. Having tasted that temptation—" he winced when he realized his words, "you must redouble your efforts to resist it. I hope that makes sense?”

  "A lot of sense." See? I said to the Holy Spirit. How come you never do that for me when I ask for inspiration?

  He paused a moment, and when I didn't add any more sins, said, "Now, I'm not sure how dragon minds work, but what would be a normal penance for you? Five Hail Marys? Fifty?"

  "The usual for a human will do. Father Rich likes to make the penance fit the offence as well."

  "Ah, as do I. All right, then. I want you to pray an Our Father and a Hail Mary for each person you frightened or injured in the course of the rescue, plus a full rosary, meditating specifically on how Je
sus resisted temptations and kept to God's plan for his life. And you should apologize to Kitty McGrue. You may say your Act of Contrition."

  I recited the words, and I did mean them; but in the back of my mind, I was thinking that, despite everything we'd just gone through, I had an even tougher task ahead of me when I got home.

  Apologize? To McGrue?

  * * * *

  Father Jacob stuck around for a couple of hours. We shared stories of previous cases and talked about the differences between the Faerie Catholic and Roman Catholic rites. The pixies woke up and came out, to his delight, and put on a fair performance of their adventures in the ventilation shafts where, after our capture, they and Grace had retreated and had spent a frustrating hour crawling around trying to figure out where we'd gone.

  Some of it was kind of funny because, well, Operisiel was trying to lead her to us, and they kept moving us from one place to another. The pixies felt they could help by scouting ahead; but of course, they didn't know what they were looking for, and they argued over the easiest route versus the most likely route.

  In one scene, a tired, frazzled Grace—played by Matina—crouched in a major junction while MacLeery and Terce traded round after round of "This way!" "No, this way!"

  MacLeery cried, "Who's in charge of this expedition?"

  Matina/Grace plucked both pixies by their wings and said (in the perfect imitation of Grace's “you've-no-idea-how-much-effort-it's-taking-me-to-be-patient-with-you, -but-you'd-better-thank-the-Lord-I'm-making-it” voice), "God is in charge."

  Terce asked, "Which way does He say we go?"

  As Matina/Grace raised her eyes heavenward—or, more accurately, into the up shaft—

  they moaned, "But we just came from there!"

  We all howled.

  I'd settled myself down onto some reasonably fresh straw, feeling much better. "Normal"

  seemed as distant as the Bermuda Triangle from my vantage point, but at least I could move and talk and laugh without too much discomfort, which was more than I was expecting when I threw myself onto that truck half a lifetime ago.

  Heather still stayed close to either me or Grace, but she'd managed to brush off some of her horror and told Father instead of the heroics of her Charlie.

  "So then he shouted, 'Bets, Gail, to me!' And his dagger just, like, appeared in his belt and his sword in his hand. And there was this guy about to shoot us, but Charlie swung and sliced his gun in half! Serious! And then he sliced through the handcuffs like they were butter. And he made me run for cover, then he tried to get to you, Grace, and he was so fierce and brave and..."

  She sighed and clasped her hands to herself.

  We gave her a moment to recover. Then Calloway said, "Swords, machine guns, a fire-breathing dragon. It's a miracle no one got killed."

  I glanced at Grace, caught her slight, satisfied smile. Cat that saved the canaries. No wonder she was tapped out magically.

  "Thank God," was all she said.

  "He could call his sword into his hands? Like Thor's hammer? And he called them 'Bets'

  and 'Gail'?" I could tell Calloway didn’t know whether to geek out or feel disappointed.

  I nodded. "Made by Scandinavian dwarves in the service to the Norse demigods. They were actually Charlie's grandfather's, a gift from Thor for heroics in the Great War. Named them for a couple of herding dogs he'd had as a child. They always came when called, too. Charlie hasn't told you his grandfather's war stories yet, Heather?"

  She shook her head. "Guess that's where he gets it then."

  She set her chin in her hand, her eyes taking a faraway look. She sighed, and a couple of the female pixies did, too.

  I turned away. I couldn’t afford to lose my lunch.

  Father excused himself to return to his parish for Confessions and afternoon Mass, and Calloway took his rental car to go fetch Charlie. Matina decided Heather needed a makeover before seeing her returning hero. She gathered Foxglove and Crystalis, and the three pulled Heather to a corner of the barn where they could do her hair and trade celebrity gossip. The male pixies hung around, bored, until I suggested I could use another rabbit. Gleefully, they headed out on a hunt.

  That left Grace and me some quiet time. I stretched out and then curled into a more comfortable position. Grace settled herself against my good—well, less hurt—flank. A nun and her dragon. Too bad the scene was more restful than our conversation.

  "We're out of our league," she said. We spoke in Klingon mixed with Tolkien's Elvish in case anyone might be listening. You'd be surprised how useful speaking fluent make-believe is.

  "I'd noticed. What happened to our cavalry?"

  "Problem with the warrant. Judge didn't like 'McThing complex.' They had to write up separate justifications for the museum and the mansion. Calloway was beside himself when I called."

  I grunted. "He should have been beside us in the first place."

  "This is America, Vern. They have rules they have to follow—"

  "So BILE is using us to get around them."

  She nodded, her gaze thoughtful and worried.

  * * * *

  Calloway returned with a sore yet mobile Charlie, which made Heather squeal with glee, and four large pizzas, which nearly made me squeal. The pixies had managed to get me a rabbit, but a deep dish pizza with everything? No competition. He set the pizzas on a tarp, then went back to the car and returned with a cooler of beer and sodas.

  On the third trip back, he carried in a gallon of ethanol and a gallon of ninety-three octane. Chilled, even.

  I glanced from the red plastic gas cans to Grace. She shrugged. Calloway was trying to make amends.

  I unscrewed the cap, sniffed. "Texaco?" I asked.

  "Hope that's okay."

  "Domestic's fine." I lifted the can to my lips, took a long swig. It burned down my throat and made a nice warm pool in my stomach. I'd have to force myself to go slow. I lowered the can, licked my chops. I swiped myself a slice of the Extreme Extravaganza.

  Heather's glance flew from the pizza in my claws to the cans at my feet. "Eww."

  The next few hours went without incident. We munched pizza, made small talk about nothing, and tried not to wonder where McThing was, or what would happen next. When we heard the engines of Skyhopper, we all let out breaths we didn't even know we were holding.

  Charlie and Heather went on ahead with the pixies while Calloway held the barn door for me and Grace.

  The barn sat in a large open field, surrounded by trees. Of course, "large" is a relative term. Skyhopper filled the space like bread dough that had been left too long to rise in the pan.

  The ramp was open, and Stan Rakness, a.k.a. Reporter Randy, and Clarisse stood on either side of the opening, waving their arms at us like madmen.

  "Hurry! The pilot says she can’t take much more of this!"

  "You’re a reporter, not an engineer!" I shouted. “What kind of ship do you think you’re on?”

  "One with warped balloons!" Rakness retorted.

  I broke into a painful lope.

  As soon as my back feet cleared the ramp, Clarisse punched the button to retract it. I had to pull my tail in fast before it got caught.

  "We have them, sir!" she called, and I heard cheers from the bridge. The ship was rising before we left the gangway. Clarisse smiled at me, embraced Grace briefly, and handed Heather a blanket. Despite the fact that it was still in the eighties, she thanked the flight attendant and drew it around herself like a cloak, clasping it with one hand while she returned the other to Charlie's waist.

  Rakness went straight to Heather. "Miss Dakota. Randy Stapleton of the Denver Times.

  I'm so glad to see you're safe. Perhaps on the way back, you would share with me your reaction to your captivity?"

  "Bugger off!" Charlie snarled. Pulling Heather protectively (and just a bit possessively) closer, he followed Clarisse to the passenger area.

  Rakness watched their retreating backs then shrugged at us.

  "
Do you ever think you enjoy your job a little too much?" Calloway snarled as he brushed past. He made a point of bumping Rak with his shoulder.

  Rak gaped at him, before turning our way.

  "Don’t look at me. We don't like you, either," I said as I snaked my way around him.

  Grace shrugged at him as she passed, but she didn't contradict me, either.

  We walked down the main corridor in silence, but when we got near the smaller rooms, Grace said, "I'm going to join Charlie and Heather awhile."

  I tried not to smirk. Daring rescue, close escape from death, injured knight, and exotic and comfortable transportation? Add that to True Love, and you need a chaperone.

  Chapter Eleven: Mage Storm Rising

  "You know," I ventured, "maybe I should go check on Grace and the kids—"

  "Siddown and fill out your paperwork like a-a dragon," Calloway said as he handed me yet another form.

  I looked at the number on the bottom: US-BILE Form M1-00P5-135 Incidental Damage to Private Property. I snorted. This was the best part of the forms; they must have had some Leetor assigned to giving these things designations.

  "So are these just my oopsies, or any damage caused in the fight?" I asked.

  "Anything you caused incidental to the investigation but not part of an actual physical confrontation," Calloway answered.

  "I see; because I listed all that in the kick-ass form?"

  "BILE Form 1-K1K-455, you mean?"

  Not so much as a grin. Either these guys were the best straight men I'd ever met or neither spoke Leet. I shrugged and returned to filling out the form. Half of the information, I'd already written on the half-dozen forms before it. At least my injured shoulder wasn't connected to my writing side. I ached everywhere, but the alcohol had dulled the pain enough to get me home. At least, I hoped it would. I hadn't accounted for the mental pain of government paperwork.

  They were checking my forms for errors. Rak snickered. "When they ask for a description, I don't think 'Evil Overlord with Six Sigma training' is quite what they meant."

  "I calls them like I sees them." I dipped my pinkie claw into the ink well and scribbled what I could remember about Grace making an open door with the truck.