Lena chuckled. “Your father’s an alien. Your mother’s a witch. What are you?”
“Oh, I’m a witch too,” Jessica said with a disappointed sigh. “But sometimes I wish I was an alien. They can make snow. I don’t know if witches can make snow.”
“Well, I’m not an alien or a witch. I’m just a plain, old human, but I really can make snow. I can do that because I’m a scientist,” Lena said, chuckling at the sparkle of excitement in the girl’s blue eyes.
“The Good IceyLaLa told me you were coming to Magic AND she asked me to tell you something. If I tell you, will you stay and teach me to make snow the scientist way?”
Lena shrugged. “I’ll stay if your mother talks the townspeople into letting me build a snow dome here.”
“Yay!!!” Jessica exclaimed, hopping around. Cuddling her slow melting ice ball, she started to run off. “Wait,” she said, braking to a stop and slapping her forehead. “I forget to tell you the message.”
“Right. I can’t wait to hear it,” Lena said, clapping her hands, but not really meaning it. She’d had about all the shocks she could handle today.
Jessica put a finger to the side of her head. “The Good IceyLaLa said you were fated to be a dragon. Only I don’t know what fated means. If you don’t know either, you’ll have to look it up… or ask my mommy. She cooks dinner for the Fates. Do you want to be a dragon, Dr. Very Glad? Don’t you like being a scientist?”
“I…” Lena blinked. Fated to become a dragon? The girl was still waiting for a reply, so Lena shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been a dragon before. Being a dragon might be cool. It’s hard to say since I’ve never even seen one.”
“Of course you have,” Jessica said as she giggled. “Sheriff Theo’s a dragon. And Deputy Calix is a dragon. But Elizabeth Crawley is not a dragon. She’s a wolf. I want her to turn into a wolf puppy so I can play with her, but mommy said it’s going to take a long, long time for her wolf to come out. Elizabeth Crawley has to be at least thirteen first. That’s very old.”
Lena nodded. To a small child like Jessica, thirteen probably seemed ancient. Wait… what did she say about her friend? She turned to Stark who was wincing over his daughter’s chattiness. “Magic has werewolves too?”
“Yes. Also people of many other shifter species. I once started to do a chart, but then I ran into hybrids. It would require a zoologist to sort them all out… or a geneticist. I find myself too busy these days to ponder it much. Perhaps I’ll take it up again as a hobby,” Stark said.
“My brain is now officially on overload. Who’s Elizabeth Crawley?”
“Jessica’s friend from school. My daughter talks about her constantly.”
“That’s not true, Daddy. I talk about other people too. Harvey the Third is a warlock which is like a boy witch. Harley the Third’s grandfather makes snow for his Christmas birthday present, but Mommy said the spell doesn’t last long. When I become a witch, my spells are going to last forever, and then Magic will have snow forever, and…”
“Jessica,” Stark said firmly. “Time to calm yourself.”
Jessica giggled at her father’s chastisement and raced to Mars to show him the ice ball.
Stark sighed as a laughing Jessica ran off. “I need to speak to my visitors about not indulging my daughter’s desire for snow. We don’t want any more men in black dropping in on us, especially not while they’re here visiting.”
Lena grinned. “Good idea. Guess I should get back to the inn. I have a lunch date with a dragon… and I can’t believe I just said that aloud and kind of meant it. I’ve been joking about it for two days.”
“If you’ve developed a fondness for Deputy Calix, I should warn you that dragons believe themselves to be the apex predator on this planet—even more so than humans. It makes them one of the most arrogant species you’ll find here on Earth. Despite their lack of humility, I find them to be very good protectors. Theo was the first friend I made in Magic.”
Lena’s mouth twisted with the irony of an alien talking about a dragon. “Until today, I honestly believed dragons were a myth. Now you’re telling me they’re not even the apex predator on this planet. What species is?”
Stark grinned. “Glacierans keep to the prime directive of letting each planet evolve into their own understanding. My daughter’s message—did it make sense to you?”
“Not really.” Lena laughed. “Neither did your statement about Glacieran prime directives. Magic isn’t a spaceship no matter how much I feel like I’m living in Star Trek Land right now.”
Stark grunted. “The message made no sense to me either. There have been no documented cases of humans being turned into a shifter of any species since the fourteen century of your Earth’s history. In the shifter-human pairings in Magic, the humans have stayed human. Most born shifters carry within them the blueprint for their animal’s form as much as they do their human form. Quite frankly, such a thing seems like an impossibility.”
“You talk like a scientist yourself,” Lena said.
“On my planet, I worked as an animal specialist. Nature works the same in most places. Going from human to a shifted animal form? That much of a DNA change in such a short period of time would be very painful and quite dangerous. Beyond the physical, the spirit within the body would be torn between two existences and be forced to choose. I hope for your sake that the message from Goddess Icela was metaphorical instead of literal.”
“Thanks—I think,” Lena said, not bothering to ask who the Goddess Icela was. She wasn’t her Goddess. “What are my odds of the message being only metaphorical?”
“When Frost came to Magic, no one on my planet—or any other as far as I know—believed witches were anything other than a strange myth spun by a primitive planet. Actual magic was inconceivable. I confess I didn’t quite believe the reports of it that Frost sent back to Glacier. Now I am mated to the most powerful witch who walks the Earth. I understand your shock quite well, Dr. Verglas, and how difficult it is to believe even when you see such things with your own eyes.”
Lena nodded and let Stark’s logic settle inside her. It helped ease her wariness—a little. “Will you tell your wife about me chasing away the men in black today? I want her to trust me.”
“I will indeed. I will also put in a good word for your experiment. I actually know a place that might be a perfect location for your snow dome.”
“Okay. Mission accomplished then. I finally found one person in this town willing to listen to me. I hope it doesn’t count against my campaign that it was an alien and not one of the other strange people who live here.”
Stark’s brow wrinkled. “Was your statement meant to be funny? I’ve been told my sense of humor is faulty.”
Lena laughed at Stark’s question. “Funny is subjective and my teasing is worse than most. I’m very glad we talked, Stark.” She looked across the yard and called to Jessica. “Don’t be asking for more snow yet, Jessica. It’s too dangerous. We need to build a dome to hide it first.”
“Okay. I will be very, very, very patient now that I know you’re here,” Jessica answered.
Chapter Eleven
After realizing she was two hours late now for her lunch with Calix, Lena left Stark talking to Mars and the others while Jessica happily played in what snow hadn’t melted.
Smiling, she walked back to her rental van alone. She couldn’t stop thinking about all she’d learned. It was so hard to believe and yet some of it instinctively resonated.
If she was honest, wanting to believe had hovered a lot lately in the back of her allegedly brilliant, scientific mind. Didn’t all she’d seen start to explain the many, many things science had failed to explain in her own studies? Scientists, more than most, should understand how little they knew for certain.
Pondering the wonders she was trying to fit into her new paradigm of the planet she occupied, Lena looked up in the sky where the black helicopters had been hovering earlier. All she saw now were blue skies and the moon sta
rting to rise against the backdrop of the mid-afternoon skies. It looked like a giant blue and white marble.
Her arms tingled as she stared at the moon and her skin started itching fiercely. She scratched the itch and then the scales that started popping out along her arms.
An unexplainable urgency hit her as she scratched. She needed to get back to the inn. Calix would be worried when he found both her and the van gone. She really didn’t want to make him mad at her.
When she pulled the handle of the van’s door, the metal broke off in her fingers. “You are a big old piece of crap,” Lena muttered, kicking the van’s tire. Her foot must have connected harder than she realized because it made a hole in the rubber. It had done so without hurting her toes even though she was wearing her sandals. How could that happen?
Lena stepped back from the van she was accidentally destroying and turned to glare at the sky. She opened her mouth to scream in frustration over her bad luck, but a wild animal sound erupted from her throat.
It felt so good and so relieving that she opened her mouth and made the sound again.
While the sound reverberated over and over, liquid fire shot through her and seemed to explode out of her back. Her dress ripped and fell away, but strangely Lena didn’t care. She now had a goal that was far more important than anything involved with staying on the ground.
She shot skyward, heading toward the moon. It had caused this—this feeling of frustration, of pain, of restless longing. The moment she’d seen the silver and blue marble glowing in the sky, the moon had mocked her very existence.
Screaming from the ground took her attention from her target. Lena saw a bunch of men below her running swiftly and calling her name. She bellowed at them to leave her alone—that she was fine. She had things to do.
Pain rushed through her and pushed out appendages from long-hidden places. Talons grew from all her extremities. Her wingspan spread and extended until she could feel stronger currents lifting her massive body higher and higher.
Wait… Wings? She had wings now?
Lena turned her head and saw a wing move instinctively to catch the wind. She turned the other way and saw another wing. She looked down where people were pouring from their homes and pointing up at her. They looked like tiny ants.
Then she looked up and saw the moon again. Instantly, the frustration returned. The rage she felt—the rage was so consuming.
She flew upward with renewed determination, her new wings folding along her back as she propelled like a bullet through the sky. This was how it was meant to be.
Lena roared again to let those on the ground know she was leaving, but inside her, she knew they would never understand. They weren’t dragons.
She was.
Calix helped Topper load the two large rabbits into separate cages, watched her magically disappear with them, and then finally took his leave of the Sheriff’s office while Theo made notes.
He hadn’t bothered to check the time. He knew from the position of the sun that he was super late for lunch with Lena.
It had taken all morning for Topper to make a decision about what to do. She’d spent hours trying to reason with the hyenas. Calix could have told her that the best reasoning in the world wouldn’t change the dark energy and miserable personalities of those two creatures.
When he got to the inn, Calix wasn’t surprised to see both Lena and her white rental van missing. He ran from the inn all the way back to the Sheriff’s office without stopping. He burst through the door and glared at Theo.
“Lena’s gone—van and all. I’m going to shift and search for her. Topper wanted me to lock her up by three and it’s nearly that now. I don’t even know where she went.”
Theo nodded as he rose. “I’ll shift and help you search.”
Human screams outside had them both running out the door without taking off their uniforms to shift. People everywhere were running indoors. Not wanting to do further damage to the street and shops with the size of their beasts, a still human Theo and Calix searched frantically for the source of all the alarm.
“Look up, Sheriff. It’s a dragon attack,” someone yelled in a panic.
Calix looked to the sky. A dozen dragons flew overhead and some were heading for the ground.
“It’s okay,” Theo yelled to everyone he could. “It’s not an attack. It’s just a visit from our family. They won’t hurt you.”
“Damn you, Theo,” Calix said.
“Now, Calix, don’t be getting mad. You weren’t listening to me. So I called in reinforcements. I figured just your parents would show up. I didn’t expect all of them to fly all the way here.”
Calix pulled off his Deputy hat and threw it on the ground. “I ought to fry your traitorous dragon ass where you stand.”
Theo grinned. “Well, you could try, Cousin… but you’d end up a pile of ashes. You better save that energy for tracking down your girlfriend.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? Lena’s not really my girlfriend—at least not the way you mean.”
Theo chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Damn it, Calix. She is too.”
Calix puffed smoke from his nostrils. He shoved Theo’s shoulder. Theo shoved back. Calix shoved again. Theo went to shove back but was stopped by a woman yelling at him.”
“Theosophus, do not strike my son. Be compassionate to your younger cousin. He is not himself at the moment.”
“My name is Theo, Aunt Calixta. And your son is about to be a big old pile of dragon ashes,” Theo announced.
“Theosophus… I gave you good Greek name when you were born. My sister—your mother—she liked the name. I will call you that and you will answer, or I will be the one frying asses. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Theo said, pushing his hat back so he could glare harder at Calix.
“My good, strong son is named for his mother. Calix is proof that my dragon mate keeps his promises.”
Calix watched as his mother dropped the bag she carried and pulled a long dress out of it. She dropped the clothing over her head while more dragons dropped from the sky one-by-one and shifted to human form.
Calixta grumbled and glared at her son while she dressed. “Why do they call this land in America the civilized world? There is no room on the ground for one dragon to land without folding their wings. How do you live here, Calix? Greece has mountain tops you can land on. No wonder you’re so testy when we talk.”
Calix watched his parents, his grandparents, and even his two younger brothers land one by one. The rest of the dragons overhead circled once more and flew off. He envied them their escape. His mother waved her hand at the sky.
“Your sisters and the children want to go visit the city, not your tiny town. We think it’s better the children not be here anyway.” Calixta put her hands on her first-born’s face. “Geia sou, gio mou. So now we know why you have not taken dragon mate yet. Like your Great-Grandfather Stamos, you have chosen to make your own.”
“No, Mama. Regardless of what you’ve heard, that isn’t the case.” Calix turned to glare at Theo again. “How could you tell them about Lena?”
Theo shrugged. “Maybe I wasn’t raised Greek like you were, but I know the value of family. You need them here for something this important. We don’t know what you’ve done to Dr. Verglas, but they might.”
“I’ve done nothing to her… and even that is none of your business, Theo. I never involved myself in your dating life.”
“You look good in your uniform, Calix. So where is your female?” Calixta asked, looking around her large son. “I want to meet the human who has claimed your heart.”
Calix looked at the rest of his family. The men were all smiling and looking at him so proudly. “Dragon turning is nothing more than a crazy myth, Mama. A human cannot be turned into a dragon. Tell me that is not why you are all here.”
His Grandmother Petra drew in a breath and pushed through the crowd. Calix heard the men in his family snickering because they knew how
much shit he’d started with his denial. The ancient dragoness remained the real matriarch of their horde even though his mother had become the figurehead.
Calix turned to Theo who was standing with arms crossed and grinning at him. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Calix demanded.
“You have no idea how much,” Theo replied.
“You dare call my father a liar? Your great-grandfather said nothing until his beloved mate was gone from world. He told story to warn you of the power. He told all his progeny. But my mother—may the dragon gods bless her eternal soul—my mother it was who first told me the story of becoming dragon. Over and over, I heard story as child. She spoke of great pain and of anger. For long time she was mad at world—for having to choose new life over old. It was love—love for my father—that smoothed the way.”
“With all due respect, Grandmother Petra, that was just an entertaining story your mother told to her child, probably to make you admire your father more.”
Calix was surprised when his grandmother shook her fist at him. She was always passionate, but he’d never seen her angry. He knew he’d overstepped when his grandmother’s mate—his very reasonable maternal grandfather—suddenly started swearing from the back of crowd while the rest of the men covered their mouths and laughed.
His grandmother was now on an official mission to tear him a new dragon ass. He had no time for this.
Petra stomped her foot and pointed her finger. “If my father were alive today, he would fly you to sky until you lost breath, then drop you on your stubborn dragon head. How did a doubter come from my daughter’s loins? Your mother believes. All in the family believe. It never happen to them, but no one doubts it could. Who do you think you are?”
Calix’s face wrinkled in confusion. “But that was generations before I came along, Grandmother Petra. Even if it were true back then—true for your father—that doesn’t mean it’s true now. The world has changed.”
Topper's Magical Christmas: My Crazy Alien Romance, Book 4 (Magic, New Mexico 40) Page 10
