“I was as honest as I could be. Would you have believed me?”
Wyatt shakes his head. “I’m still not sure I saw what I saw.”
“He’s a good kid. He doesn’t need any more trouble. All I want from you is your word you’ll forget what you just saw.”
A long moment passes before Wyatt shakes his head. “I can’t.”
Grandpa pulls back his arm, his fist a solid hammer of meat. “Wrong answer.”
Right Place, Wrong Time
“It’s a dragon, Kera.” Leo cautiously moved to the left for a better view and licked his dry lips.
She tugged on the braided strip of ivy she’d rigged as a leash to keep Blaze’s attention on her instead of Leo. Wound around his jaws and neck, it also kept Blaze from spitting fire whenever he chose.
“’Course,” Leo dragged the word out nervously, “I’ve never seen one up close, or far away…well, not one this big. Faldon had a little one about as mean as a feral cat, but…yeah, from all the manga drawings and video games Jason and I have pored over, that’s a real big dragon.”
“Why are you so surprised? I told you I had a dragon.”
“I don’t know.” Leo folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head for a better look at Blaze. “I guess I was thinking along the lines of a tiny lizard you can buy at the pet store, not a fairy-tale creature that doesn’t exist.”
After all he’d seen, Leo still didn’t believe in what the human world deemed impossible? She tugged on Blaze’s leash when he stretched too close to poor Leo, who quickly jumped back. The dragon huffed, turned away, and stared over Kera’s shoulder at a section of the barrier separating the two realms.
Unlike the official gateway heavily guarded on both sides by men and iron, some areas of the barrier had deteriorated almost completely. The incordium blade Lani had used to slice through the barrier and secretly enter the human realm had damaged those places so badly, Kera didn’t even know how to begin to fix them. Left unguarded, those spots were perfect entry points for any creature to use. It’s how the monster came through, and fearing more would follow, she and Blaze had patrolled the area for most of the morning.
“Well, he exists and he needs looking after.”
“Are you suggesting you want me…oh crap, you are.” Leo’s dark skin turned a sickly tan. “Is he…dangerous?”
Her fingers caressed his knobby head and scratched under one of his loose scales until he purred. “I’d call him mischievous. He has a tiny temper, but if you keep him fed and play with him, he’s perfect.”
“How do you play with a dragon?”
“Hide-and-seek mostly.”
“Yeah,” Leo’s voice dipped. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
He was taking it all fairly well. Then again, she found it difficult to see past his comically stunned expression. “He needs more to eat.”
Leo took a step back, his face mirroring his wariness. “I’m not dinner, am I? Look at me.” He held out his arms and turned in a circle. “Scrawny. Chewing on me would be like chewing on the bones of last week’s dried-up supper.”
Kera ran her hand down Blaze’s bony back and smiled. “Bones are his favorite chew toys. The fresher the better.”
She tried not to smile, but Leo’s horrified expression had her giggling.
“Not funny,” he said, waggling a long finger in her face.
She finally caught her breath. “He’s actually quite affectionate. Tame…mostly. He’s growing fast and I can’t keep up with his appetite. I need to feed him properly.”
Though Leo had relaxed, he still didn’t move any closer to Blaze and leaned against a nearby tree thoughtfully. “Tanner butchered the cows your people fried when they came over to play the other day.”
That Leo could equate the destruction of what Navar and his minions had done to the human realm as play took Kera aback. She still had a hard time understanding many of his odd phrases, but she understood this one. Navar loved killing. To him it had been fun.
“I’m thinking, since Tanner can’t sell the meat—big shock none of his vendors trust him—I could get it cheap, but it’s still going to cost.” He pulled out a crisp twenty and handed it over. “This is all I have.”
“I can try to replicate it—”
“And bring down the FBI on our heads? No, thank you! They go ballistic about that kind of stuff here. I don’t want to end up rotting in some secret jail cell for the rest of my life.” He snatched the money back. “Too bad you’re not a jewelry junkie. We could sell the gold.”
“Gold?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty easy to off-load at this pawn shop I know. The guy doesn’t ask too many questions when something shiny is placed on the table.”
She rubbed her thumb across her bottom lip, concerned with the consequences of what had popped into her mind. “Come,” she told Leo, and tugged on the leash for Blaze to follow.
Leo’s long-legged walk quickly brought him beside her. “Where are we going?”
She needed to concentrate and held her finger to her lips for silence. Sending out her magic, she probed the earth for gold flakes, and found traces of gold in a stream up ahead. As if they were magnetized, the flakes pressed together, slowly building into a bigger nugget.
When they came to the stream, she waded into the middle and plunged her hands into the cold water. Minutes ticked by, but she stood still. Waiting.
The click and clatter of rock hitting rock grew louder and then suddenly stopped. When she drew her hands out of the water, she held a yellow, bony rock. She retreated from the water, using magic to instantly dry her clothes as she went. It was hard for her not to stop and marvel at the accomplishment. The more she flexed her magic, the stronger she seemed to become. The feeling was addicting. Her confidence soared like never before. Kera stopped in front of Leo and presented the rock. “Here.”
The rock glittered in her hand, but Leo didn’t move to take it. “Gold jewelry, yes. A huge there’s-gold-in-them-there-hills rock? Are you out of your mind? I can’t sell that in town. People would ask questions. Overrun this place.” He stepped closer, the flesh around his lips pinched. “People have been known to kill for half of what you’re holding.”
Her confidence wavered. There was so much she still didn’t understand about the human realm, but she wouldn’t give up because of one slight miscalculation. She knew all sorts of tricks, theoretically, and had done a few using the magic she’d borrowed from her father, but that magic was never consistent. Until now, she’d never had her own powers. It would be interesting to see how far they extended.
She closed her fist and when she opened it, a bright gold necklace sat in a shining heap within the middle of her palm. The world tipped for a brief second, giving her a woozy feeling, but it didn’t stop the grin that split her lips. It had worked better than she thought. She dangled the necklace over his hand, and let it drop. “Better?”
He examined the necklace. “Yeah.” Excitement glimmered from his eyes. “Hey, do you do that all the time, ’cause chicks dig stuff like this, and it’d be totally sweet if you could—”
“No.” He didn’t understand the cost of magic. It drained the body, and if done too much, could kill, and she was still very much a novice.
“Oh.” Disappointment clouded his face. “It was just a thought.”
“Using magic for selfish reasons is frowned upon in my world, but you and I have no choice. We can’t let Blaze suffer for lack of funds.”
“Right, ’cause there’s no personal agenda when it comes to saving your metabolically challenged dragon here.” Leo whipped his hair out of his eyes. “Actually, is it wise to do anything? They were hunted into extinction for a reason.”