by RJ Blain
“Raymond was obviously busy while I was taking a nap.”
“Ray was a walking disaster area and needed to be kept busy, so I assigned him to handling every little thing I could think of. In good news, Ray did a spectacular job of handling your parents, who were more of a mess than he was.”
“Sounds like you all had quite the party without me.”
“It was a pity party, and we didn’t have fun.”
I smiled at that. “Okay. I’ll go get Eddy and the boss straightened out, but I demand to be coddled and fed afterwards. I’m tired, I’m sore, and I’m sore.”
“You said you’re sore twice.”
“I’m that sore, Luke.”
“Are you all right?”
“No, but I have to go rein in some idiots. After I’m done reining in the idiots, I’m going home, I’m whining, and you can’t stop me.”
“Yeah. About that.”
I considered beating my head into the wall. “That’s what I tell you when the ‘going home’ part of the speech isn’t an option.”
“Remember that kraken?”
“No. I absolutely do not, and we never speak of the kraken ever again.”
“Well, that kraken is playing around the Golden Gate, and we need you to ask it very nicely to go away. We think it wants to speak to you.”
“Why do you think it wants to speak with me?”
“A pair of koppa oni said so. We asked if they could wait until you helped some friends out of a tough spot. They said that was fine, but they’re expecting you this afternoon.”
“I’m dying, and you’re telling me I have to work?”
“You’re not dying, Olivia. If you were dying, they wouldn’t have released you from the hospital.”
My damned uppity minion was enjoying my suffering. “Are you done having fun at my expense?”
“After you deal with the kraken, there’s been a kelpie sighting near Alcatraz.”
“The nice kind of kelpie?” I asked despite knowing there was no such thing.
“Nice try, Olivia.”
“The kelpie is stupid enough to share water with a kraken?”
“Honestly, we think the kelpie went on shore to get away from the kraken. In good news, it hasn’t bothered any of the tourists, but everyone is pretty edgy, and we don’t want to send anyone but a water elementalist to deal with it.”
I hated my job, and I hated that Luke was right; I’d have to deal with the damned kelpie. “You all must hate me so much when I do this shit to you.”
“I wouldn’t say we hate you.”
“I would. I really hate you right now, Luke.”
He laughed. “No, you don’t.”
Damned uppity minion. “Anything else?”
“As a matter of fact—”
I hung up on him, sorted through keys until I found a set of motorcycle keys with my name on a keychain added, and stomped to the garage. A sleek, baby blue sports car took up one spot, my new SUV took up another, and two motorcycles barely fit between them. I recognized the bike I’d stolen, and a helmet waited on the seat. I shoved it onto my head, grumbled curses over riding a motorcycle in a damned dress, and grabbed the extra garage clicker from the shelf near the door leading into the house, and pressed the button.
A smug Luke and his quad of bastards waved from the other side of the door.
“I hate you all,” I announced.
“Would you like to get changed into the bike leathers that were acquired while you were napping?”
I pointed at the slit in my skirt. “I’m good. There’s a slit.”
“Wearing a dress while riding a bike can’t be safe.”
“It’s not a billowy dress. It should be fine.”
“Get your ass back in the house and get changed,” he ordered.
“I can’t get out of the dress without help. I can’t reach the zipper.”
Luke rolled his eyes and stepped into the garage, grabbed my shoulders, and turned me around. “I can operate a zipper. Get your ass in the house and wear appropriate attire.”
“But I would have looked so badass taking out two dragons in a dress, Luke.”
“No dresses and motorcycles. It’s unsafe.”
“So drive me around and toss my motorcycle and its leathers in the back of your SUV.”
“It won’t fit.”
I frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“That’s unfair.”
Isaac hopped forward, grabbed me in a hug, and stole my keys out of my hand. “I’ll grab your leathers and ride your bike. When you’re done beating up two dragons in a dress, you can get changed and handle your workload for today.”
I could work with that. “Deal.”
“Let’s go before the Washington folks get tired of babysitting the idiots.”
Two gem-encrusted garden sheds with wings and long tails duked it out on the slopes of Mt. Diablo, and if I hadn’t been so annoyed with the siblings, I might’ve taken a few minutes to admire the scenery. However, with a kelpie on the loose and a kraken to deal with, I didn’t have time for a pair of magic-crazed idiots.
I dug through the back of Luke’s SUV and claimed two of the odder items I insisted every quad take with them: a baseball bat and two balls. I took my weapons closer, eyed the pair, and set one ball on the ground. I tossed the other, gave the bat a swing, and aimed for the egotistical emerald-green head of my boss.
The ball hit the bastard right between the eyes with a satisfying thunk.
Luke whistled. “Holy shit. Nice aim.”
I grabbed the second ball and tossed it in one hand. “Eddy, you change back right now, or this ball has your name on it. And once I’m out of ammunition, this bat and your head have a date. You hear me?”
Both dragons focused on me. My boss blinked, shaking his emerald head to clear it.
Eddy hissed at me, and her ruby scales glistened in the sun.
Baseball to the head it was. I tossed the ball, aimed for her pulsing throat, and swung like I meant it. The ball struck true, and she spluttered, recoiling from the blow.
“Why the hell aren’t you playing Major League?” Luke demanded. “I’ve never seen you use a baseball bat in my entire life, yet you’re pulling a Babe Ruth.”
I rested the bat on my shoulder and stomped up the hill. “Eddy,” I warned.
The dragoness hissed at me.
I hissed back and thumped the bat against my shoulder, which hurt far more than it should’ve. “Hey, Luke?”
“Do I want to know?”
“Add a trip to the hospital for checkup of my shoulder to my agenda today. I probably broke it again doing this shit.”
“Seriously?”
“It hurts,” I whined. “And I can’t wear a formal dress with a sling, so I didn’t.”
“You’re a menace.”
“Blame these two assholes.” The two assholes complained at me in hisses, and I walked right up to them and waved the bat in the faces. “Unless you two want more of this, I really recommend you curb the draconic bullshit, get shifted, and go home and sleep it off. So help me, if I don’t get to go home tonight because I’m wasting time dealing with you two, I’m going to need to get a new bat because I’m going to break this one off in your ass.”
My boss snorted in my face, and the snort came with a hefty dose of dragon spit.
Like a little twig under foot, my temper snapped, and I went for the pair armed with my baseball bat. If they wanted to play, I’d play. I smacked my boss between the eyes, stepped on his nose, and went for his sister with the same self-preservation of a rabid badger.
I didn’t need any magic to deal with a pair of overgrown lizards with a gemstone fetish. The dragons roared, but they endured their beating with as much grace as I could expect from a pair of overgrown, jeweled garden sheds with wings. When Luke finally pulled me off the draconic siblings, he dared to laugh at me. “You’ve been beating them up for an hour. They’ve surrendered, Olivia. T
hey can’t shift if you don’t stop beating on them.”
I snarled a few extra curses at the pair before dropping my bat on the ground. “Fine. But if they don’t shift, I’m bubbling them both.”
The pair slinked away in the direction of the SUVs. The Washington quads—all three of them—stared at me with wide eyes. “What’s your problem?”
Luke kept a tight hold on me. “You just beat up two dragons armed with nothing more than a baseball bat. There are twelve of them, and you did what they couldn’t do without the use of magic.”
“And?”
“Olivia.”
“What?”
“You’re pissy.”
“Yes, I am. I have to go deal with a kelpie and a kraken, and I have to fit a trip in to the hospital, and what else do I have to do today? Of course I’m pissy.”
“You could probably talk to the kraken and have the kelpie problem fix itself. The kelpie is being careful not to go after anyone on your turf. They’re dangerous, but they’re not stupid.”
“I still have to deal with the kraken today. I don’t want to. It’s the reason I’m one big ball of broken bones.”
“The koppa oni said it just wanted to talk to you.”
“This is the worst day ever.”
“Even worse than yesterday?”
I thought about it. “Yes, even worse than yesterday.”
Unless someone worked a miracle, I really wouldn’t make it home in time for my rescheduled seduction with Raymond.
Sometimes, life truly wasn’t fair.
The kraken lurked beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, and idiot that I was, I opted to test my luck and walk across the water to have a chat with it. Like some species of squid, cuttlefish, and octopi, it changed colors, and it displayed brilliant splotches of blue over gold. In a way, it reminded me of Hypnos.
I couldn’t tell which one scared me more.
“You wanted to see me?”
A koppa oni, which rested on one of the kraken’s arms, splashed into the water and swam to me. “I talk to you. You don’t speak its language. I do.”
All right. Having a translator involved might help—or it might confuse the message. I couldn’t tell which. I wasn’t sure I cared, either. “Okay. I’m here. What does it want?”
“He wants to know how you feel.”
“Tenderized.”
“Tenderized?”
“Sore. In pain. Aching. Hurt.”
I needed to remember the koppa oni often had limited vocabulary despite having the intelligence the match of most humans.
“He says he’s sorry.”
“Well, I’m grateful I didn’t taste good. I’ll heal. It’s no problem. Can you please tell him that I’m the custodian of these waters, and that my job is to keep the peace?”
“Custodian?”
“Guardian. Watcher.”
The koppa oni grinned and showed off his teeth. “I know guardian. Protector.”
“Yes.”
The koppa oni spoke to the kraken, who omitted low-pitched rumbles in reply. In addition to the odd sounds it made, its mantle changed colors, flashing in bright patterns.
“He say he wished you no harm. He unaware you protector. Thought you like other, threat.”
“The other was a threat, yes. It’s no problem.”
“He also ask a favor.”
“What favor?”
“The broken thing makes his home taste nasty. He would like you to remove the broken thing.”
The ruins of the nuke. Of course. I wouldn’t want to live somewhere contaminated with radioactive material, either. I bowed my head, retrieved my phone, and called Luke.
“What do you need, boss lady?”
“I need a boat, a radioactive containment chamber, and a crane capable of lifting bomb fragments out of deep water. I can locate the fragments and help hook them to the crane, but I can’t do the heavy lifting. The kraken is upset the bomb is making his home taste bad.”
“You just can’t win, can you?”
“I don’t suppose we have a water elementalist in the area who can handle a deep sea dive?”
“Afraid not, Olivia.”
“Today sucks. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.” I hung up. “I can get a team to clean up the bomb, but you’ll have to show me exactly where the contamination sources are so I can deal with them. Also, there is a kelpie on the island over there.” I pointed in the general direction of Alcatraz. “To deal with your problem, I need the kelpie to peacefully relocate himself to the outer uninhabited islands. He’s freaking out the tourists. Depending on how many pieces the bomb is in, it may take us a few days to get it all out, but we’ll remove the radioactive parts first.”
The koppa oni and the kraken discussed, and I waited, doing my best to pretend I wasn’t aching from head to toe.
“He says he will make certain the kelpie safely leaves your waters and doesn’t harm any you protect,” the koppa oni announced.
“All right. I need to coordinate some others so we can move the contaminated material, but we can get started today.” I hoped. I was pretty sure someone had a ship nearby big enough to handle the bomb core and any pieces we needed. “Can you show me where the contaminated water is?”
“I know where. The pieces glow in the kraken’s water. He marked them with his ink. The bad pieces glow.”
Well, that was convenient. “How many pieces?”
“Many.”
That wasn’t so convenient. “Thank you.”
“He go escort kelpie now. I guide you to the bad waters.”
I nodded. “Give me a moment to make a call to someone, please.”
“Call?”
I pointed at my phone, and then I looked through my contacts until I found Raymond’s number. I tensed and connected the call.
“Detective Davis,” he answered.
“Do you want the good news, the bad news, or the really bad news first?” I asked.
“You need to work late tonight?”
“I’m standing below the Golden Gate, and I just had a chat with a kraken, who would appreciate it if we removed the trashed bomb from his home. I have to play deep sea diver today, as there’s no one in the area qualified or capable of doing it. I probably broke something in my shoulder again beating up my boss and his sister with a baseball bat, and I want to go home.”
“I get off work at six. I’ll give Luke a call to find out if you’re still diving, and if you are, I’ll hitch a lift to the boat so I can take you home tonight. You’ll be too tired to drive, and if you hurt your shoulder again, someone needs to look at it, so I can take you to the hospital with a set of dampeners.”
“You’ll need to get them from the FBI. They have a set designed specifically for me.”
“So I was told. I’ll take care of it. If you finish the dive earlier than expected, give me a call, and I’ll leave work early if I can.”
“Okay. Will do. You’re not mad?”
He chuckled. “No, Olivia. I’ll never get mad at you for that. You called as soon as you knew you might have to work late tonight. Remember what I said? We’re all good as long as you don’t forget about me.”
“I’d say I forgot about you for a whole week,” I mumbled.
“When you’re unconscious doesn’t count.”
“Well, that’s something at least.”
“Be careful, give me a call if you need me, and don’t worry about tonight. We have all the time in the world, although I really hope that we get to our plans sooner than later.”
“Me, too. I’ll see you tonight, then?”
“You can count on it.” Raymond hung up, and I went to work. The sooner I finished everything, the sooner I’d get to actually having a life of my own for a change.
Maybe.
Who the hell was I kidding? With a warlock still on the loose, a kraken openly lurking in my waters, and a hot cop to tame, I’d have my hands full for a long time to come. However, for the first time in years, I wouldn’t ha
ve it any other way.
About the Author
RJ Blain suffers from a Moleskine journal obsession, a pen fixation, and a terrible tendency to pun without warning.
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When she isn't playing pretend, she likes to think she's a cartographer and a sumi-e painter.
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In her spare time, she daydreams about being a spy. Should that fail, her contingency plan involves tying her best of enemies to spinning wheels and quoting James Bond villains until she is satisfied.
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RJ also writes as Susan Copperfield and Bernadette Franklin. Visit RJ and her pets (the Management) at thesneakykittycritic.com.
Follow RJ & her alter egos on Bookbub:
RJ Blain
Susan Copperfield
Bernadette Franklin
Books by Bernadette Franklin
Claustrophobic
Shammed
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Upcoming Bernadette Franklin Novels:
Murder Floof
The Run Around
Ginger Snapped
Books by RJ Blain
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Magical Romantic Comedies
Playing with fire
Hoofin’ It
Hearth, Home, and Havoc (Novella)
Serial Killer Princess
Whatever for Hire
Last but Not leashed (Novella)
Fowl Play (Novella)
Owl be Yours (Novella)
No Kitten Around
Cheetahs Never Win
Burn, Baby, Burn (Sequel to Playing with Fire)
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Other Series by RJ Blain
Witch & Wolf
Seeking the Zodiacs
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Books by Susan Copperfield
Storm Called
Null & Void
The Captive King
A Guiding Light
