Dragon Consultant

by Mell Eight

  Quicksilver was another name for Mercury. That connection wasn't hard to find, given that Mercury had already stated that he was behind the attacks. What was hard to fathom was who was behind the labs and the news articles. Who wanted Mercury caught and convicted by the viewing public without a long trial that would expose the truth behind those labs?

  They were government labs, but just because the government was funding them didn't mean they actually knew what type of research was being conducted inside. However, not just anyone would be cruel enough to conduct experiments on helpless dragon kits.

  Speaking of kits, there was a small hand on Dane's knee. Dane looked down and saw Lumie staring imploringly up at him. Lumie's eyes were wide as he waited for Dane to pick him up and show him what he was looking at on his computer.

  Dane's office was warded. Even Mercury, an adult dragon with precious magic that Lumie would never have access to, would have trouble getting through without Dane's permission. It also wouldn't be a quiet process: Dane's wards were supposed to let off a siren should anyone try to breach them. Despite all that, Lumie had somehow gotten past his wards, through the closed door without opening it, and all the way across the room without Dane noticing him.

  "How did you get in here?" Dane asked sharply.

  His tone went through one ear and out the other without Lumie acknowledging he had even heard Dane. The damned kit was sucking his thumb, and when Dane showed no signs of picking him up, he wacked Dane's knee with his free hand again.

  Dane sighed. Why had he let them into his home again? He could still throw them out and let them create a territory in the forest portion of his property instead of inside his house. Lumie wacked Dane again, and in the interest of remaining bruise-free, Dane had no choice but to relinquish his misgivings and pull Lumie up into his lap.

  "You're very strange," Dane told him. Lumie ignored Dane again, the damned brat, in favor of angling Dane's computer screen so he could see it better. Lumie made a distressed sound in the back of his throat when he saw the picture. He had been recently rescued from the facility in the photos, Dane remembered, and probably recognized the images.

  Lumie glanced upwards from the computer to look at Dane. His eyes were imploring, but also slightly accusing, as if he couldn't decide if Dane's interest was a good or bad thing.

  Dane had to explain, if only to keep Lumie from deciding he hated Dane. Dane had a bad feeling that despite his superior knowledge, magic, and strength, it wouldn't end well for him.

  "Your dad asked for my help finding the facility holding the air dragons hostage," Dane reminded Lumie. "I was just reading up on the other labs to see if I could find a clue. We have to save them too."

  Lumie nodded solemnly, the suspicion gone from his eyes. He angled the computer screen back to Dane's height before curling up in Dane's lap. He tucked his head against Dane's stomach and proceeded to fall asleep right there.

  Dane looked around the room warily, checking to make sure there weren't other kits prepared to pounce when he wasn't looking. Aside from Lumie, the room was dragon-free. Dane shut his computer off with a sigh. There was no way he could wade through the mystery of the government labs with a kit in his lap. He slid one arm under Lumie's body and stood. Dane needed to find Mercury.

  He wasn't hard to find, luckily. Mercury was getting stronger every hour, but he still spent most of his time in bed. Dane knocked on the propped open door perfunctorily before letting himself in.

  Nickel was curled at the end of the bed, thankfully in human form; Dane would fear for the state of his sheets otherwise. Scales ripped cotton very easily. Nickel popped one suspicious eye open, saw it was Dane, and went back to sleep. Mercury was sitting up in bed reading a book. He tucked a bookmark into the pages and set the book aside as Dane walked over to his bedside.

  "Tell me about Lumie," Dane asked, settling into a chair that one of the kits had no doubt dragged there. Lumie was still sleeping comfortably in his lap.

  Mercury tried to hide a smile, but he failed. His voice was full of suppressed laughter as he spoke. "Where did he magically appear this time?"

  Dane's own voice sounded overly grumpy even to his ears when he replied. "Inside my locked and warded office."

  This time Mercury could not stifle his snort of laughter. "The first time Lumie did that to me, I was inside what should have been an impenetrable spell circle trying to locate an air dragon I thought might have helpful information. I finished the spell and looked down to find Lumie sucking on his tail at my feet. I about jumped a mile."

  "Wards don't affect him?" Dane asked, staring down at Lumie incredulously. If that were true, he was one of the most dangerous creatures in the world. The little bundle of clingy cuteness curled in Dane's lap could go anywhere, infiltrate anything, and no one could hold him captive should he be caught.

  The mirth in Mercury's eyes faded as he looked at Lumie. "I don't honestly know. He was in an egg for most of his time at the facility. I know they were running experiments on the eggs, but I have no idea what chemicals and magic they injected him with. He hatched only a few days before I arrived, but he's been jumping through wards and spells for as long as I've known him."

  "And the other kits?" Dane had to ask, his throat tight as he suppressed a snarl. Those bastards deserved to die for what they'd done to Lumie.

  "They were all hatched before they were brought to their facilities. I know there were some experiments with dragon's bane—'Ron is inordinately allergic—but I think they were mostly pincushions for the blood and bone needed in the experiments on the eggs."

  "So the egg Copper is inseparable from?" Dane led curiously, although the weight in his heart already told him the horrible answer.

  "Might never hatch," Mercury growled angrily, "or the creature that comes out of it might be better off dead. There's no way of knowing what they did to the poor thing, and Copper is so damned hopeful that he'll have a little brother or sister to nurture that I don't know what he'll do when it hatches."

  "It'll be really sad," Nickel added softly. "I don't want that egg to ever hatch."

  Lumie yawned widely around the thumb tucked in his mouth. He sat up slowly, wobbling unsteadily as he crawled across Dane's lap and onto the bed without actually opening his eyes.

  "It'll hatch," Lumie mumbled, as if he were talking in his sleep. He crawled into Mercury's arms and pressed his face into Mercury's chest. "And he'll be the most beautiful dragon you'll ever see." His breathing evened out as he slipped back to sleep.

  And that wasn't cryptically creepy, not in the least. Dane told his sarcastic side to shut up and focused on Nickel rolling his eyes in exasperation, as if Lumie interrupting in his sleep like that was a common occurrence.

  Dane had met plenty of seers and prophets in his lifetime; Lumie was neither. Dane couldn't say what Lumie actually was, aside from a red dragon with very strange magical powers, but he lacked the omnipresent air of someone who could see the future. There was only one way to see if Lumie did have a touch of prescience: wait for that egg to hatch.

  Mercury resettled Lumie in his lap with a fond sigh, but before anyone could think of something more to say Chrome walked into the room.

  "I found him," Chrome crowed into what Dane recognized as his own damned cellphone. He had left the thing in his bedroom, in his own territory. Didn't any of these kits have some semblance of the territorial urge? "Your pants were ringing," Chrome explained as he held the phone out towards Dane.

  Dane took it from Chrome, but he didn't know what to say. Should he scold Chrome for going through his things or thank Chrome for actually bringing him the phone instead of eating it? Dane just held it up to his ear and said, "Hello?"

  "Sounds like you're having an interesting weekend," Becky said. She was laughing at Dane.

  "You could say that," Dane agreed dryly. He patted Chrome on the head before heading out of the room so he wouldn't disturb Lumie.

  Becky continued to chortle. "Dragons, dragons everywhere
, and not a spell to stop them."

  "What do you want, Becky?" Dane asked, his temper fraying slightly. She wouldn't have called without good reason, and making fun of Dane wasn't actually a good one no matter what she might think.

  She sobered up almost immediately. "I was in the area, and since I wasn't sure if the office would be open tomorrow, I thought I might as well stop in to at least check the phone messages. There were two. First one was from Mrs. Hempstead. According to her rather irate message, the creature that has been destroying her rose bushes pulled one clear out of the ground last night. She's refusing payment. I've already forwarded the case on to your lawyer."

  That wasn't enough of a reason for Becky to have called Dane at home. Mrs. Hempstead was a minor annoyance. The centaur he employed as a lawyer would rake her across the coals without Dane's help. Dane waited somewhat impatiently for Becky to get to the point.

  "The second message was from Mr. Jacobson. He is threatening to revoke your private investigations license over what he's calling false business practices. He's talking about having you arrested, Dane."

  Now that was surprising. "Did he say why?" Dane asked incredulously.

  She snorted, so Dane took that as a no. "He babbled something about how you were supposed to apprehend the dragons, not move them. I'm not really sure."

  "I see," Dane replied slowly. He thought he really did see. Those military-grade photographs hadn't been about identifying a target to take out. No, they were just about pure identification. It sounded to Dane like the enemy had wanted to know which dragons were running loose in order to tuck them back into the labs they had escaped from. Mr. Jacobson had clearly gotten far more involved than Dane had originally thought. "Are you still at the office?"

  "Yes," she said immediately.

  "Do me a huge favor and call Mr. Jacobson back. Act like I'm very concerned about his threats and that I want to make amends. Tell him I could still apprehend the dragons if he would like me to and beg for a face-to-face meeting so I can express my apologies in person."

  Dane could practically hear her smug smirk through the phone line as she spoke. "Right away, sir." She hung up and Dane turned his phone off and tucked it into his pocket.

  "You're going to turn us in to the bad guy?" Chrome asked tearfully. Apparently he had followed Dane into the hall and overheard his conversation. Chrome sounded betrayed and heartbroken, as if Dane had broken his trust.

  "I'm not," Dane insisted. He knelt down to Chrome's height. "I'm making the bad guy think I could in order to get him to like me."

  "And then Dane's going to bite him when he's not looking," Nickel said fiercely from behind Dane, who jumped again. How did these damned kits keep sneaking up on him?

  "Biting is good," Chrome agreed. He hurried back into the bedroom, no doubt to explain everything he had just overheard to Mercury.

  "I'm going with you to that meeting," Nickel said softly so Chrome wouldn't overhear another private conversation.

  Dane was at a loss for words again. How did he explain to Nickel that Nickel was still a kit and kits should be playing? Dane had seen Nickel play with a grasshopper and run around with his siblings; Nickel knew how to act his age and enjoy it. Yet the look in his eyes at that moment was cold and calculating. There was nothing childish about him aside from the fact that his body hadn't hit puberty. It was the face of a man who had hunted down his prey and killed it cruelly and without remorse.

  All of the horrible experiments the scientists were conducting, stealing children and eggs and chemically and magically altering them for an unknown final purpose, were nothing in comparison to what they had done to poor Nickel. All of Dane's joking aside, no child should ever have that look in his eyes.

  "I'll have to see what Mercury says," Dane replied finally. Mercury knew Nickel better than he did. Dane still didn't know enough about dragon development to be able to say for certain that Nickel wasn't old enough to handle it all. Lumie was barely a few months out of his egg and he was walking and talking like a human three-year-old child. For all Dane knew, Nickel might be emotionally and mentally fully grown and was waiting for his physical body to catch up.

  There had to be some information about dragon development that Dane could get his hands on. If the Internet didn't provide a reliable link, he was certain the library would have something. Dane needed to find that information before the kits drove him insane.

  *~*~*

  Monday morning rolled around without any further word from Becky. Daisy, on the other hand, had made it quite clear multiple times that Dane wasn't properly providing an adequate play area for the kits. His answer had been to point outside where the plants were flowering, animals were building nests, and bugs were creeping along just waiting to be pounced. It was the perfect playground for younglings of many different species, and it wasn't Dane's fault that the kits were more interested in staying close to Mercury than going outside to enjoy it.

  Daisy's answer hadn't been repeatable in polite company, but luckily her own brats had decided to catch a nasty stomach bug at school and she had gotten distracted. Still, Dane knew that if he hadn't addressed the issue before she came back, she would blister his ears again. It also meant she wasn't able to come to his house to feed and clothe the kits. Lumie was sitting in his favorite spot, on Dane's foot, while 'Ron and Chrome waited impatiently at the table. Dane gave the oatmeal bubbling happily in the oversized pot on his stove another stir and mentally willed it to cook faster before the kits started eating his kitchen furniture. 'Ron's head barely reached the top of the table when she was sitting, which unfortunately put her teeth at the perfect height to start chewing the luckily already-scratched wood. It had been a nice table before that werewolf cub had gotten to it and although Dane could afford to replace it should the kits get destructive, he didn't really want to have to make that effort. There were too many other things he needed to focus his attention on at the moment to want to add furniture shopping to the list.

  Finally Dane deemed the oatmeal softened enough to be yummy and began filling the colorful plastic bowls Daisy had left in his kitchen. Dane added a spoon to each bowl and handed them out to the three kits. Luckily, Lumie decided to let go of Dane's foot so he could sit on the floor and eat. Dane filled two more plastic bowls and two regular ones, put them on a tray, and headed upstairs where the rest of the dragons were hiding.

  Copper barely left the bedroom he had commandeered for himself. The incubator was tucked into a corner. Dane thought Copper put the egg there the few times he ventured out, but for the most part he and the egg stayed curled in a nest he had built of blankets and pillows on the full-sized bed. Dane knocked on the bedroom door first before opening it and stepping inside.

  "I have your breakfast," Dane called into the darkened room. Two eyes popped open from the direction of the bed. They glowed slightly, reflecting the light in the hallway. Dane felt the magic in the room shiver briefly and watched as those eyes changed position on the bed as Copper shifted from dragon form to human. His scales must have shredded Dane's poor sheets, Dane thought with a wince.

  A boy with brilliant red hair and bright red scales covering his chest untangled himself from the blankets. Copper hopped off the bed and strode quickly over to Dane, as if he didn't trust Dane enough to allow him near his precious egg even though Dane had held it briefly not too long ago. Copper was wearing a pair of loose pajama bottoms—red, of course—that Daisy had forced him to wear, and he took the red plastic bowl from Dane's tray without asking which was his.

  "Thanks," Copper mumbled perfunctorily as he spun around and hurried back to his nest with his prize in hand.

  "Make sure that ends up back in the kitchen," Dane admonished. He knew Daisy had been trying to instill some sense of propriety into the otherwise wild kits and that she would be appalled to learn Dane had allowed Copper to keep dirty dishes in his room.

  Dane closed the door behind himself when he left and headed down the hall to Mercury's room. This time
he waited for the okay after he knocked before he opened the door. Dane walked inside and closed the door behind him so the other kits would hopefully stay out. Nickel was sprawled on the end of the bed and Mercury was tucked under the blankets. They both sat up and took their bowls. Dane sat in the chair still pulled up to the bedside and took the last bowl on the tray for his own.

  "There's still no word from Jacobson," Dane began after everyone had had a chance to eat a few spoonfuls. "But I think I should go to the office anyway. He probably thinks that letting me sweat will make me more repentant and eager to do his bidding, so I want to be there to pretend anxiousness when he finally calls."

  "Sounds like a good idea to me," Mercury replied after a moment of thought. "Bring Nickel with you," he added.

  Nickel scowled, but he didn't argue. Apparently they had already had this conversation. There was no way for Dane to know whether Nickel was coming along just in case Jacobson did get in contact today, or whether he was there to watch Dane closely to see if he was really an enemy. Clearly, Dane would have to work hard to convince Nickel that he was only going to help.

  "Finish your breakfast, then change into some outdoor clothes." Dane knew Daisy had outfitted the kits with at least one pair of jeans and a few matching shirts. "Meet me in my office when you're ready." Nickel nodded in agreement, but he didn't get up to dispose of his empty bowl and get changed. Dane knew he would remain at Mercury's side until Dane left the room first or Chrome wandered in to take over guard duties. One glance at Mercury showed Dane that Mercury had noticed how overprotective his guard dog was being and that he didn't have the heart to send Nickel away. Mercury's beautiful lips were twisted slightly as he shook his head sadly when Nickel wasn't looking. Dane agreed completely. No kit should have to ensure such a heavy burden, yet Nickel did it like it was his duty.