Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [48]
“Illicit?”
“Inappropriate,” he said. “As for your first question, no, we have not found Fiat, although I believe his trail is fresh. I hope to have him by the morning.”
“I miss you,” I told him, glancing around to make sure I wouldn’t be overheard. “I miss you a lot.”
“And I you, little bird. But now I must go. We are taking portals to our destination in order to conserve time, and you know how they discompose me.”
“Bon voyage,” I said, smiling at the memory of how rumpled portals made Gabriel and the other dragons feel. “Wish me luck with the police. So far, they believe the story of an unexplained bombing, but that has much to do with Cyrene hysterically recounting a tale of a militant extremist boyfriend.”
“I should have been an actress,” Cyrene said with a smug look on her face. “I really am good.”
It took another two and a half hours before the police, firemen, and emergency services people were willing to release us. As I surveyed the wreckage of Gabriel’s rented house, I didn’t blame the police for wondering how we’d all survived unscathed. The other silver dragons who had been present when Baltic made his midnight second assault had left on my advice—I felt we had a better chance at glossing over any trouble points the mortal police might raise with only a couple of us to be explained.
“Jim, you can talk, but if you bitch at me one more time, I will do something extremely unpleasant to you,” I told the demon as we slumped into the back of a sleek black BMW, Nathaniel behind the wheel.
“Like being hit on the head by a chair as it flew out the window?” it quipped. “How about losing the hair on half of my head? Or making all my whiskers drop out? Oh, I have it—how about pointing out the fact that I was almost blown to smithereens a couple hours after I returned to you?”
I lifted a finger. “Anything more?”
“No, sheesh. It’s not worth getting banished over. My magnificent coat will grow back, even if I look like a leper until then. I wonder if they make prosthetic whiskers?”
“I’m sorry about your hair and whiskers. You don’t look like a leper,” I said, averting my eyes from the singed side of its head. “And I told you I’d take you to be groomed as soon as possible. I owe you something after you found those two cats for the lady next door. Although you didn’t have to drool on them quite so much.”
“Eh. It was no biggie. Those cats were too bony, anyway. They wouldn’t have made a proper meal.”
“You made Mrs. Patterson deliriously happy by finding them; that is counting heavily in your favor,” I said, patting it on the furry side of its head. “But don’t push it. It’s been a long day for all of us.”
“Yeah.” Jim slumped for a moment, then perked up. “I can’t wait to see the look on Drake’s face when we all come trooping in and tell him Baltic blew up your house. He’s going to be torqued.”
“I just wish we’d been able to find Magoth,” I answered, more worried over the missing demon lord than about Drake. “I wonder where he got to? He couldn’t have been hurt, could he? He’s not technically a demon lord anymore. He’s not really anything.”
“Just immortal,” Jim agreed. “If you didn’t find his severed head, oozing and smoking and covered in guck, then he’s alive somewhere. Probably got the hell out of Dodge while the getting was good.”
“I wish I’d thought of doing that,” Cyrene grumbled, pulling the blanket tighter over her chest when Jim ogled her mostly visible breasts.
I don’t know how most people would react to a small army of dragons showing up on their doorstep, but Drake was completely unconcerned . . . until Aisling hauled herself downstairs to find out what was going on.
“Judging by the fact that Jim’s coat—what remains of it—is smoking, Cyrene appears to be naked under a blanket, Maata