But Mom and my aunt Opal, their familiars really broke the mold. Opal’s familiar was a huge, talking Macaw parrot. And Mom’s? Yeah, Mom had gone with a bearded dragon.
More to the point, a bearded dragon named Drakken who really, really didn’t much care for me.
“Now, dear, you know that isn’t true,” Mom said. “You just haven’t spent enough time getting to know him. This might just help that, too. Kill two birds with one stone. Only, I’d like Drakken to still be alive at the end of all this, mind you.”
Yeah. So would I. I’d like to be alive too. Time to gird my loins and buck up. Mom never asked me for much. No way could I turn her down now.
“All right. But you need to walk me through it.”
She smiled at me. “No problem, dear. I’ll make you a list.” She hesitated. “And you’ll need to go to the pet store and pick up some more crickets. The small ones.”
I just looked at her. “Crickets?”
She nodded. “Yes, dear. Drakken has to eat, you know.”
Goddess help me. I almost thought dealing with Kalfu would be easier than what I’d just volunteered for.
Lucky for me, I had that to distract me too, huh?
Yeah, I was in so much trouble.
WE SPLIT UP AFTER THAT. I waited with Mom while Arc and Archie drove home to collect a few things and pack a bag for Mom’s overnight stay here. Well, a few nights’ stay, actually.
There were no delusions among us that this was going to be an easy one. Quite the contrary.
Karen went upstairs to her little studio apartment to watch the monitor feed for the last few days, and the Shaman headed off home for a night’s rest and to gather what we would need to complete the more permanent protection circle the next day.
The plan was for them to create the circle, and then I’d help them activate it. I planned to have a few magic-filled crystals to add to the points of the pentagram. I rather thought those would pack a lot more power than ordinary candle wax. Any day of the week. Especially as the magic that filled them was tied directly to me. If the magic depleted, I’d feel it.
Sounded like a good warning device to me.
I stalled for as long as I could, but it was getting pretty late. And Mom reminded me that the pet store closed at nine. I needed to leave if I was going to make it in time to get those blasted sacrificial crickets.
How could our team’s main healer have a familiar that required living sacrifices to eat? Yes. I knew that they were just crickets, and at the very bottom of the food chain. Even so, those tiny beady eyes seemed to look at me and know what their role in things was.
I grabbed a few dozen crickets and drove out to Archie’s house. Technically, it was Mom’s house too. I knew that. But to me, it would always be Archie’s place. It was far more of a mansion than a home. Almost castle-like, really.
Not that I was jealous or anything like that. I was perfectly happy with my own little estate. Nobody needed a place like this one. They could house a small army in that thing. And with it just being the two of them now?
Really, what did they do with all that space? There were probably rooms in that house that Mom hadn’t seen the inside of in weeks. Or longer.
Or maybe that was just me trying to distract myself from the task at hand. Namely, feeding Drakken and making sure he was set for the night.
I took a deep breath and opened the door to his room. Yes. The bearded dragon had his own room. I believe I’ve mentioned all the space my parents have? It isn’t all that strange when you thought about all that space, right?
Okay, so it was still weird. But I was trying to make it more normal, dang it. Putting Drakken on a bit of a pedestal by giving him his very own room didn’t help matters in my mind. Gave him delusions of grandeur.
You could see them in his little twitching eyes. Eyes that, for the record, latched onto me the instant I crossed his threshold.
Not that he moved other than his eyes, mind you. He could have been a statue for all the movement he was giving me. I had to look extra special close just to make sure he was still breathing.
He was.
“Okay, Drakken, here’s the deal,” I said, taking out the little box of crickets and showing them to him. “I’ve got the stuff you want. Food. But to get the food, you have to agree to play nice. Can you agree to that? Let bygones be bygones and start fresh?”
Although to be honest, putting bygones behind me would be a tough thing to do. Drakken had bitten me on the way home from the pet store twenty years ago. I’d only been four at the time, and I remembered it like it was yesterday. He had put me in my place the day we first met. And things hadn’t really gotten better between us in the meantime, either.
I had a healthy respect for my mom’s familiar. And for his part, he had no respect for me whatsoever. Not fair, but that’s how things shook out, anyway.
Looking from Drakken to the background of his aquarium, I frowned. That wasn’t right. Mom must have gotten behind the times. The colorful backdrop behind him was still set on Halloween mode. That had been months ago.
Maybe if I showed a little effort and gave the little beast something new to look at, he’d give me a break.
I walked over to the side of the room and opened his wardrobe. Yes, he had one of those too. Only his wardrobe wasn’t filled with clothes. Goddess forbid you would try to dress the scaly thing. You’d lose a finger for sure doing something like that.
No. His wardrobe contained all the hanging backdrops for his living space. A few for each season of the year. The poor thing had missed the Christmas backdrop altogether, and as bright and cheerful as it was, it didn’t seem right to put it up now that the holiday had passed.
We were well into January at this point. I flipped through them. There really weren’t any winter scenes to choose from. Then I remembered that Drakken was more of a tropical kind of beast. Not really one to appreciate snow and ice, no matter how pretty they were.
I chose a nice beach scene with sand, water, and palm trees. That should make him happy. Looking into that landscape would make me a darn sight happier than the spooky graveyard scene he was currently surrounded by.
I lifted the lid of his big glass residence and reached in to undo the backdrop.
Drakken sprinted across the cage. Dang, but he was fast when he wanted to be.
I jerked my hand back a split second before he latched onto it. And yes, his little mouth was wide open and in the space my finger had just been occupying.
So much for the two of us having an agreement.
“Look here, Drakken. This isn’t getting off to a good start. I’m just going to change out your background.” I put the new image up against the front of his cage. “See? I can understand you being all gloomy, being surrounded by grave markers and such, but I’m going to change that for you. Make you a bit happier, okay?”
The only indication of his listening to me was his twitching eyes. Although he did shut his mouth.
I stared at him in consternation. No way was I going to try again with him just sitting there staring at me.
Maybe I could distract him with a few crickets? Eating dinner always distracted me.
Turning back to the crickets, I realized I still had to transfer them to their very own kennel. At least their last few days on earth were pleasant ones. Fresh water, and all the orange block thingie they could eat.
It took a few minutes to get them organized, and then I shook out a few crickets into my hand and turned back to the aquarium.
The now empty aquarium.
Ah, bloody crapsnackles.
Chapter 14
Just great. I guessed I lived there now.
At least my old habit of closing doors that I had opened helped to lessen the damage control. My eyes flew to the firmly closed door to the room and my breathing got a lot easier. How hard could it be to find a bearded dragon in one lonely room?
Answer: very, very hard. I was beginning to think the scaly beast was part chameleon. Ab
le to blend in with his surroundings. It was the only thing that made any sense to me. Especially after a full hour’s search still left me empty-handed.
And I had had such high hopes for the evening. Feed the stinking dragon, then drive home and get on the internet to check out the Lake View employees that Karen had forwarded me. Then, around midnight, when my man got home, have a nice after-work snack ready for him.
Then a bit of much-needed one-on-one cuddle time, and a good night’s rest. Archie was backing Mom up tonight, and I knew I could trust him to call me if they needed me. Plus, they had those crystals too. If they needed a bit of extra oomph for a spell or two, all they had to do was pull it from the crystal.
We’d worked it so that once their crystal was depleted, there was a link to my office and all the filled crystals ready and waiting there. To make a long story shorter, my parents had access to a ton of my magic whether I was in the room with them or not.
I wouldn’t have it any other way, either. And it wasn’t just my parents, either. The same held true of each and every Team Destiny member. That should tell a person just how much I trust my team members.
Any spell they cast using my magic would have a tinge of my magic signature. That, in turn, means that if any of them used my magic for evil, I’d never be able to prove it wasn’t me that had done it.
Hence the trust thing.
And yes, I was trying to think of anything and everything except for the fact that I’d let my mother’s familiar loose to create havoc and destruction. How much damage could a single bearded dragon do in a few hours' time?
I really didn’t want to find out. Especially as I was already a full hour into the search and no closer to laying hands on the little... rascal. Even though that wasn’t the word my brain was calling him at the moment. Not by half.
Digging out my phone, I made the call.
“Hey, babe. What’s up?” Trevor asked.
I took a deep breath. After all the time I’d known Trevor, I didn’t know where he came down on the issue of lizards and dragons. It was kind of hard to believe that the subject had just never come up.
Well, that would not be true after this.
“Um. You know Mom’s bearded dragon, Drakken?” Silence from his end of the phone. “Trevor?”
Finally, a very tired voice came over the phone. “No, don’t say anything else. Let me take a wild stab at this, okay? I want to try out that sheriff’s intuition Dad keeps talking about.”
I glanced at the tauntingly empty aquarium. “Go for it.”
“Well, you stayed with Martha last night, right? So your Mom probably volunteered for tonight’s overnight duty. Am I right so far?”
“Okay, but anyone could have guessed that. I mean, the others have jobs you know.”
“All right. So with your Mom, and probably Archie as a backup to your Mom, staying with Martha, she probably asked you to stop by and check on Drakken on the way home. Maybe even feed him.” He paused, but I didn’t say anything. So far, his intuition wasn’t really impressing me all that much. It just sounded more like logic to me. Anyone could apply logic to a situation. They didn’t have to be a sheriff to do that.
“So, you’re at your parents, you go to feed the dragon, and somehow, someway, that could only happen in your singular world, he gets loose.”
I blinked at the phone. Okay, so maybe there was something to this sheriff’s intuition thing after all. Taking a deep breath, I nodded. And yeah, I realized I was on a phone. That didn’t however stop the nod.
What could I say? I was tired. It had been a stressful couple of days. I really didn’t trust myself to speak right now.
“You’re nodding your head right now, aren’t you?” He paused. “Still nodding, I’m guessing.”
What could I say? He was right on that one, too.
“And with you still not saying anything, I’m going to guess you’re about to lose it.” He didn’t say it, but I knew exactly what he meant. He didn’t say it because that superior intuition of his must have told him that if he did, it would come to pass.
And my man couldn’t take me crying.
“It’s a quiet night here at the station. I’ll cut out a little early and head over to you. Can you make it to the front door to let me in?”
I had keys to their house. He didn’t. I nodded again into the phone. Then I realized that he really did need an answer to that one.
“Yes.” The staggered breath after that single word probably gave him an indication of just how close I was to losing it, too.
“I’ll be there in half an hour. Hang tight, okay?”
He disconnected the call before I could ask him to stay on the line. That was probably a good thing. How pitiful would that have been?
I mean, we’re talking about a bearded dragon, not a full-grown massive thing of myth and magic. Right? Although, being Mom’s familiar, the thing did have magic. A good, healthy share of it too. That thought didn’t help my heart or brain when I glanced up from the phone to find two steely beady eyes staring down at me from the top of a curtain rod.
So help me, Goddess, I think the thing was planning to jump on me. What did he think? I was a giant cricket or something?
I’M NOT PROUD TO SAY that I was sitting out in my car when Trevor got there. I was, but I’m not proud of the fact.
To give Trevor credit, the man never even cracked a smile. He must have been taking acting lessons in his spare time. Whenever that would be.
He parked next to me and then came over to my car, motioning for me to roll down my window. Not too hard to do as I had the thing running just for the heat.
His face was deadly serious as he leaned down to me. “Where did you last see him?”
“On top of the curtain rod in his room.”
Trevor hesitated. “And which room is his?”
Oh yeah, he probably didn’t know that, did he? “Second floor, third room on the left.” I swallowed. It didn’t feel right to send my man in there against the magical beast of a dragon without backup. “You need me?” There, I asked.
He shook his head and stood, squaring his shoulders. “I’ve got this.”
I bit my lip. The man needed to know what he was up against. “You should know that Drakken bites. Hard.”
He stretched out his fingers on both hands so that I could see. Oh. That’s right. The man had department-issued leather driving gloves. A little of my guilt eased off. I was thinking I’d called the right man for the job after all.
It had been a close thing between him and Arc. Kind of an eeny-meeny miny-moe thing. Trevor had won.
Within fifteen minutes, he was back on the front porch waving me in. I opened my car door slowly and got out, staying behind the door. “Is the beast contained?”
His acting skills were starting to slip the tiniest of bits. I saw the glimmer of a smile at the corners of his lips.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s back in the aquarium and no blood was shed in the transfer. All systems go.”
I looked deep into his eyes. It was a very good thing that I trusted my man not to lie to me. I shut the car door and slowly walked up to stand beside him. “You put the lid back on it, right?”
“Yes.” His one-word answer let me know that his struggle was real. The man was that close to losing it, and the battle wouldn’t be lost to tears. It would be lost to laughter.
I took a deep breath. It wasn’t fair to make him bottle it all in. Even I could admit that my fear of Drakken was more than a little irrational. I mean, I was what? One hundred times his size? How much harm could he really do to me, even if doing damage to me did seem to be his sole purpose in life?
At least it appeared that way whenever I was around. I’m sure he had other priorities in life when I wasn’t.
“So I’m just locking up then?” I asked hopefully.
He shook his head. Dang. So close.
“He still needs to be fed, and I don’t know how to do that. You’ll need to show me.” He hesitated. “I t
hought we might camp out here tonight as late as it is, then I could feed the lizard...”
“Dragon,” I interrupted.
“Huh?”
“He’s a bearded dragon, not a lizard.” I don’t know why, but the distinction seemed especially important to me right now. I mean, who could fault someone for being afraid of a dragon? Totally not the same thing as a teeny tiny little lizard. They were even kind of, well, cute.
I bet their teeth weren’t nearly as sharp either. If they even had teeth. And no, I don’t know that much about lizards. Dragons either, apparently.
Trevor lost the battle. He laughed. I stalked past him and into the house. He waited until he got himself under control before he followed.
His mask of seriousness fully back in place, he looked at me. “As I was saying... if we stay here tonight, I could feed the dragon in the morning before we go back home. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about coming back here until the next morning.” He saw my slightly panicked look for what it was. “And I’ll be with you when you come then too.”
I hugged him. “Thank you.” I could have gone into details as to why I was thanking him, but it wasn’t necessary. Both of us knew that full well.
Steeling myself, I forced my feet to take me up those blasted stairs and down the hall to Drakken’s room. Trevor reached around me to turn the knob and open the door.
My eyes flew to the aquarium. And straight into the gloating gaze of Drakken the dragon. Two Drakken, zero me. Sounded about right.
It wasn’t easy to walk across a room while still maintaining eye contact with the beast, but I managed. I also realized that I’d missed my opportunity to do Mom the favor of switching out his backdrop. That would have been pretty easy to do when the cage hadn’t been occupied. Now, it was back to being impossible.
For me, anyway.
I picked up the container of crickets and handed it to him. “Mom says he gets ten a day.” I grimaced. “She also said I should take my time with it and not give them all to him at once. But at this point, I say we dump them in and run.”
Team Destiny and Archie's Apparition (Team Destiny Paranormal Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 9
