Chapter 7

Rasmus and Zara were avoiding me. They had disappeared after breakfast and I couldn’t locate their energy. For all I knew, the guardians might have abruptly ended their human vacation. Rasmus often left without saying a word. Believing that would have been my first reaction, except Conn said they were still around and I trusted him.

My demon familiar was ensconced in the library, making use of Henry”s elegant desk for his personal paperwork. It was always strange for me to see Conn deliberately doing something as human as working on his bills. He and I were spread out far more now than we’d been in the thousand square feet of our rentals.

During our time away from work, I’d taken to tracking everyone. Call it paranoia or my need to control my situation, but I felt no guilt for it.

Conn was easiest for me to energetically trace because of our connection. Maybe I was extra-sensitive after having experienced my first energy separation from him since I’d accepted our contract. It comforted me to know where he was, even though I don’t think he shared my separation trauma. He’d had centuries and centuries of working with my many predecessors. I’m sure that taught him not to be overly concerned.

Eventually, I ended up back in my room. Lunch had been a series of sandwich boxes everyone had picked up at their leisure. I grabbed mine and hid in my sitting room to eat it. Some of my temporary furniture was disappearing, though. I was down to one chair and a tiny side table barely big enough to rest a cup of tea on. Maybe Henry was nudging me to get serious about choosing furnishings for the room.

Not that I could go shopping. Dylan was out in my car.

I hated feeling so out of sorts. Boredom rarely happened to me.

Zenos, who was supposed to be helping me learn to use my magic more effectively, was also missing. He’d patted my shoulder as he left the table after breakfast and ominously promised to see me later. Well, several hours had passed now without him tracking me down.

I finally finished all my unpacking—well, all I could do until I went furniture shopping and found a chest of drawers.

The housing was buzzing with activity around me. Henry was busy preparing for Mulan’s parents to arrive. Gale was revising the meal plan to hopefully keep Mulan’s family from finding fault with their meals.

Ya could say I was waiting to play gracious host once Mulan returned with her people. Her family’s plane should have landed by now. Had she toured them around Salem on the way home? If so, she could have called to say she did that.

Time off didn’t mean I wanted to be lazy. After seven years in prison with nothing productive to do, I saw time off from work as time available for doing enjoyable activities. Waiting for Mulan to return with her family was everything but that.

Maybe I should go check on the greenhouse. A message from Gale informed me it would be finished today. Maybe I could make a list of plants. That would pass the time productively.

Grabbing a notepad and pen from one of my newly organized storage containers, I headed out of the house. A short walk later, I discovered the workers truly had finished it. Someone had also removed the tent and exposed my firepit to the elements once more. Workers had cleared away all traces of construction, and someone had sprinkled a handful of sage on the open ground to clear the negativity.

I prowled around trying to imagine pots full of blooming plants hanging from the beams and sitting on the shelves. I wouldn’t try to grow mugwort or mushrooms. Sarah Templeton’s shop supplied good quality ones. I would content myself with growing lavender, sage, lemongrass, and the simpler herbs needed for spells.

A sudden loud screech brought me out of the structure to investigate. Standing next to the firepit was a giant bird. When it saw me, it screeched loudly again.

I stared at the mystical creature in blinking shock until understanding dawned. I instinctively put a hand to my chest where the Dagda stone lived.

Then a voice suddenly boomed in my head. Do ya spend a lot of time feeling sorry for yerself? That’s such a waste of time, lass.

I bowed to the majestic Phoenix. “Ya’re only the second firebird I ever saw, Zenos. Give me a moment to get over my awe.”

His giant phoenix form faded away as I watched. Soon a fully dressed Zenos faced me as a human male. His change from creature to creature exuded magick yet appeared effortless.

I smiled at him. “Do ya see yer human form as just another version of yerself? I’ve always wondered how shifters prioritized their humanness. Most I’ve known had only two appearances—human or beast. Ya seem to become whatever ya please like a djinn.”

Zenos rolled his eyes. “What did they teach ya in that bloody school ya attended? A djinn is an elemental. They’re made of smoke, wind, and fire. I’m made of the same stuff ya are, Aran. I just control it better.”

“Indeed, ya do,” I said with a laugh. “And I wasn’t out here brooding. I was making a shopping list to buy some plants for my greenhouse.”

“Oh, sure ya were,” Zenos said with an eye roll. “Unhappiness rolls off ya in great waves, lass. If ya won’t be brutally honest with me, our working together is a waste of my time.”

I sighed. “Fine. I suppose ya could say I was a bit frustrated.”

“Yer unhappiness is not the watcher’s fault. That male will be back inside ya the first chance ya give him to do so.”

“That’s not why I’m unhappy... and his name is Rasmus. Her name is Zara. And they like to be called guardians, not watchers.”

Zenos grunted. “They changed their name because the things they did when they were called watchers still shames them. I’d have wanted a new title too after what they did. The males bred cannibal giants with human females because they couldn’t keep their too-powerful cocks in their pants. The watcher females bred with humans as well but their offspring became legendary heroes. Their children fought each other to the death. Yer precious guardians had to all but destroy the planet to kill their wicked offspring off.”

“That’s old news. What’s yer real problem with them? I’ve got a list but I seem to be the only person not fooled by their calm claims of superiority and their philosophizing about lowly humans.”

Zenos grinned at me. “Now I can see why they’re camped out with ya. They like a challenge.”

I snorted. “I doubt they see me as a challenge. I’m more like a thorn they stepped on and can’t pull out of their foot.”

Zenos shook his head as he chuckled. “I don’t hate them, Aran. I just don’t respect them.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Tell me why. I’d like to hear that story.”

Zenos spread his hands. “Dragons can sleep for ages, ya know, and often do. The ancient overseers let their creator people bring in other cultures while we slept. The watchers were a bunch of bored light beings who became overseers. But in this dimension on this planet every physical body, even if not completely human, comes with feelings and emotions that need to be dealt with. The biggest emotion for the watchers was lusting for those they guarded. Sex is a universal urge.”

I nodded. “Rasmus tells me he doesn’t feel human emotions but I know differently.”

Grunting, Zenos bent to the fire pit and rearranged the rock boundary. “A basic goodness from them having ascended once from physical to light is all that saves watchers from being evil. I’ve heard that humans closely resemble what they were like before they ascended into light being forms. Some, like yer two guardians, decided that repeating the life and death cycle was a less boring way to live. Instead of admitting that boredom, they cloak it in pretending they’re doing it for the sake of helping humans. Bullocks to that is what I say.”

Zenos was recounting the same stories Rasmus had shared with me. “Rasmus told me his original form looked nearly exactly like how he does now, except that he had two pairs of arms.” I chuckled a little. “I can see an extra set of hands being very useful during a fight.”

Zenos chuckled too. “Dragons possess two wings, as well as four legs and claws. I’ve used all of them many times.”

“Rasmus has wings. All the guardians do.”

Zenos nodded before smiling. “I asked for wings when I was a wee dragonling. Dragons are born with them now, the lucky buggers, but ya had to endure some painful magick to get your wings to grow back then. My mother was our hoard leader. She made me wait until I was nearly a century old before she allowed me to go through the process. When I think back on it, I believe that was just her way of keeping me around and out of trouble.”

“Wow,” I said as I remembered Zenos as a dragon. “Was it the flying part that appealed to ya most? Rasmus said wings were required for military dragons. He doesn’t bother sharing all the details of the whys and why nots with me. I end up having to connect the dots for myself.”

“Wings were for any dragon, but yes, military dragons were required to get them. I was a scholar in my early years, not a fighter. My heart ached for wings because they represented the ability to break free from earthly bounds and embark on grand adventures across the globe. I dreamed of nothing back then except getting away from the only life I’d known.”

“Aren’t we all like that when we’re young?” I asked with a smile.

Zenos shrugged. “I think some of us are that way forever. It was my nature to want to learn and I’m still like that.”

“So why didn’t ya stay awake and study all the other beings that got put on this planet? The stories I’ve heard were very interesting.”

Zenos looked off into the distance. His fierce glare was aimed at beings in the distant past.

“Long before humans were created, I made some mistakes with my mother’s people. That hibernation was me brooding about life. I woke when humans came along. Their hedonistic desire to survive was contagious. That was when I made the biggest mistake of my life and the one that cost me my original dragon form. So once again I chose hibernation over facing what I’d done.”

I nodded at the regret in his voice. ”No one can claim to have lived without experiencing a few failures and setbacks. Screwing up is part of living, isn’t it?”

Zenos shrugged. “Humans did terrible things to dragons for many years. And we did terrible things back. Yet dragons aren’t the only immortal beings who struggled with yer kind. When the watchers realized their horniness had created some tremendous problems for the planet, they woke us hibernating dragons to help them kill their monstrous children. After the dirty deed was done, though, they deeply regretted all that loss of life. So instead of showing gratitude to dragons for doing their dirty work, they blamed us for their emotional pain. They owe my kind an apology and they know it. I will hold them accountable for their misdeeds until they truly repent, which will probably be never. The assumption they have of their own superiority precludes any admission of having made a made a mistake.”

I huffed in disgust. “Yes, I’ve seen that for myself. Did ya go hibernate again after that?”

Zenos nodded. “Aye, I slept again and would have slept forever if people would have let me be.”

“What woke ya the next time?”

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell ya, lass, that all creatures bicker with one another. Humans are bad about starting wars and dragons are a close second. My father was one of the ancients—a black dragon who sacrificed his whole life to serve dragonkind forever. He’s like yer demon king in that regard. What remained of my mother’s dragon descendants wanted to kill me for some wrongs my family and I did. Some would say they had good reasons but taking yer revenge on a whole family is always unfair. My father learned of their treachery and woke me before they could succeed. I’ve stayed away ever since.”

“I learned about dragons in magick school, but it was The Dagda who shared most about them. I knew the stories of dragons still existing were real from seeing them in my work. I also knew they sometimes were a problem for humans. What I didn’t know was they were a problem for each other. Ya’re the first to tell me that.”

Zenos shook his head. “There’s less of that going on now because they’re being meditated by one of yer kind. I’m speaking of a multi-talented witch who ironically turned out to be a descendant of mine. She takes dragon form and has mighty magickal powers when she does. We dragons live mostly in peace because of her insistence that we do. Because of her I’ve returned to my scholarly ways and can’t say as I regret it.”

“Wow,” I said, thinking of what it must be like for someone born human to learn to shift into the most apex predator in the world. I’d never longed for shifting talent, but now I think having wings might have been nice.

Then I thought of the demon wolves. They were also humans who would have to master the skill of switching forms. Magick had altered their genetic makeup too much. The longer they lived as wolves—the more their animal natures developed.

“So... anyway,” Zenos said, getting back to his story. “After my father saved me, he said I shamed my dragon mother and their love that had created me by hibernating too much. He ordered me to live again and made sure I did. That was several centuries ago now.”

I stared at him in shock. “Goddess, Zenos, yer mother and ya lived the dragon version of what the watchers did with humans. Ya’re a child of a dragon god—a child who shouldn’t have ever existed at all. It must have been hard for ya to live all this time with no others like ya. My family is all that keeps me sane.”

Zenos stabbed the air in front of me with a finger. “Ya’re quite sharp for a middle-aged witch, Aran. I like that in a female. I bet yer guardian does too.”

I snorted. “Ya’re not the only one with secrets, Zenos. The real reason the guardians hang around me is that one of them claims to be my ancestor. They kept right on having sex with humans even after the mess they made.” I chuckled dryly when he froze. “Did I surprise ya with that information? It sure surprised me when I learned it. We’ve all heard the stories but it’s vastly different to be told ya’re related to one of them.”

“No, Henry didn’t share that bit of gossip about ya,” he said with a smirk. Then his frown returned. “I can’t believe those bastards kept knocking up human women. That proves they’re not as high and mighty as they claim to be.”

Laughter bubbled up from deep within me. “Goddess, I learned that about them almost immediately. My ancestor, Orlin, tells me he loved my grandmother. Now he shows up randomly to visit. He’s also promised me that they’ve learned to mate with humans without creating monsters—unless ya consider me one. I know a few people who would think that about me. He also says there will be no more offspring because they’ve finally perfected birth control for their male human forms to keep them from replicating. The females got new bodies. The male guardians made them sterile. As ya can imagine, the females are rightly pissed at that.”

Zenos laughed loudly. “Ya’re a fascinating person, Aran O’Malley. Henry said ya saved a female guardian’s life and got stuck with being her jailer. Is that true?”

“Yes, but I had reasons to make that commitment. If ya turn yer head, ya can see them running around in that pen over there playing frisbee with their demon caretaker. She turned two humans into animals.”

“I can’t believe a guardian turned humans into other creatures against their will. It’s against their precious code to interfere that much,” Zenos said with a sneer.

My sigh was long. Not a day went by that I didn’t worry about whether or not Zara would succeed in changing them back. “The female guardian combined new magick with ancient magick that she learned from a race who were here before humans. That race mastered genetic manipulation. No one knows that old magick but her because she loved a male among them. A grief older than the human race motivated what she did.”

Zenos stared hard at me. I swallowed nervously and wished I could read his mind, but I couldn’t, so I just went on talking. Why did I care if he understood my reasoning or not? He wasn’t there when I made the original decision.

“If I’d killed Zara, I would have killed any chance of her turning them back into humans. The guardians went to a lot of trouble to make Zara as good a prisoner as I could expect to have to keep tabs on. We both stand to gain from our agreement if she learns how to undo what she did.”

Zenos snorted as loud as a bull. “For the sake of the guardian’s victims, ya walk the edge of the wicked female remembering the truth. That’s not very smart of ya, lass. The bastards are using ya to do what they don’t want to do themselves. That’s the same thing they did to dragons.”

Shrugging off his warnings, I sighed again. “If Zara turns the demon wolves back into humans, all my troubles will be worth it. She originally intended to do that anyway, but now she gets a legitimate chance. The details of her story remain the same. Only the plot points have changed.”

The dragon mage laughed. “Ya Irish are so whimsical in yer views.”

“And where do ya hail from, Zenos? Ya sound just like me. I know ya must be Celtic.”

“My hibernation was in yer homeland but not on yer soil. It was farther up north.”

“Oh. Ya’re a highlander,” I said, wrinkling my face. “That’s like someone from the south calling someone a Yankee here.”

“I don’t concern myself with that level of detail. I slept inside the rocky cliffs there. I woke up and stayed for a while. Mostly, I still call that land home, but I don’t label myself with any human term.”

My ears pricked at the sound of a vehicle. “I believe I hear a vehicle coming down the driveway. That must be the Wu Shaman returning at last.”

Both of us rushed out of my sacred space and headed back to the house.

Zenos lifted a finger and pointed at Mulan’s rental van. “One of her family is hiding a big secret, Aran. I could tell ya what it is but then I would miss watching ya deal with it. Life is boring for immortals. We highly value our entertainment. It’s also going to be a lot of fun when the fairy pops free. Is yer life always this lively?”

I frowned at his predictions. Mulan’s people didn’t worry me, but Ezra escaping sure did. “Ya aren’t planning to aid the fairy in breaking free, are ya? Ezra wants me dead, Zenos. If he escapes, I’ll have to kill him.”

“Don’t be na?ve, lass. Surely ya know the fairy’s been working on his escape this whole time. Yer angel stopped him good but he’s not caught in a void. And as loaded up as the fairy is on power, the magick that bound him will not hold him as long as ya were told it would. Angels are full of themselves. They screw up less often than most but they do screw up.”

“Do they screw up more than guardians?” I asked.

Zenos laughed at my question. “I think it would be fun to do a comparison.”

I rolled my eyes. “Did ya come to teach me or just harass me for yer amusement?”

“How mad would ya be if I said I came for both?”

I heard the teasing in his question so I let it slide. “What do ya know about the Wu Shaman’s family that I don’t?”

“Something juicy,” he teased.

I was about to demand the juicy details when the wards halfway up the driveway hit Mulan’s rental vehicle and flipped it up into the air.

A startled Zenos barked out a spell that hung the van in the air. “I keep forgetting ya set wards on the place. My magick won’t hold them long. Let me shift to dragon and catch the vehicle when it drops.”

Conn ran from the house shifting into his natural form as he moved. By the time he reached the spot where Mulan and her people hung in limbo, he was as big as Zenos was as a dragon.

“Well, that’s impressive. Now I see why they still consider him their king even after all this time,” Zenos said, crossing his arms to study Conn.

The demon tried to grab the van but encountered a force field of some sort. Conn turned his demon head toward us and growled.

“No need to growl at me, yer majesty. It will fall in a moment,” the dragon mage bellowed at Conn.

And it did.

Conn caught it upside down and rolled it over in his giant demon claws before setting it gently on the ground. My eyes watched in horror while my mind quietly decided that wards were yet another good reason to always wear a seatbelt.

As I got closer, I could see Mulan slumped in the driver’s seat. I ran down the driveway to see if they were okay. Zenos stayed by the house and watched. When I glanced back, I saw Henry and Gale standing beside the dragon mage as well.

Once the van was safely settled on the ground, Conn shrunk to a more normal size and destroyed the seatbelt to release a now unconscious Wu Shaman from her seat. Being in the front, Mulan had caught the worst effects of the wards going off.

I glanced in the backseats at her family. They stared wide-eyed at a growling Conn while he checked Mulan for injuries. I pushed open the side door to release the four of them from the vehicle. One of Henry’s people zoomed up beside us in some sort of small vehicle with three seats and room for luggage. It had enough space to transport all of them to the house at once.

“I’m Aran. Do any of ya speak English?” I asked.

It took them a long time, but they finally tore their startled gazes away from staring at Conn to stare blankly at me.

“Do ya speak English?” I asked again, stating the question as clearly as my accent allowed.

A grinning Zenos appeared at my side. “Need some help communicating, lass?”

“I think it’s a lost cause. They don’t speak any English.”

Zenos said something in a Chinese dialect. When he got no response, he tried another. On about the fourth try, Mulan’s father answered him back. They seemed to struggle to communicate but at least partially understood each other.

“Ask if they’re hurt, Zenos.”

Zenos spoke to the father, who spoke to the others in the language I recognized only because Mulan often swore in it. The four of them looked at me and shook their heads.

“Good,” I said, nodding my head. “Tell them to get into the cart and go to the house. Henry will show them to their rooms and help them settle in.”

Zenos pointed to the cart and motioned them to come out. He spoke a few words and then bowed to them. They inclined their heads to him without replying before slowly exiting the vehicle.

Thankfully, Conn had shifted back to his human form by that time and remembered his clothes. He gently slid a moaning Mulan from the driver’s seat. “She’s not injured badly but I think she smacked the windshield with that hard head of hers. There’s a red spot above her eyes and she keeps passing out on me.”

“Put Mulan in my bedroom, Conn. She can stay there until we know she’s okay. Her parents will probably want to check on her. Ya don’t need them invading yer house to do it.”

Conn glanced at the people climbing into Henry’s clever transport. “I doubt her parents would care if she’d been killed. They haven’t even asked about her or shown any concern.”

I rubbed Conn’s arm as we walked. “I noticed. When Mulan comes around, perhaps we’ll ask them to leave. We don’t need this additional stress in our lives. We have enough.”

Conn made a growling noise before responding. “No, that would bother her too much. If I have to compel them to behave while they’re here, I will do that. I thought her father was a nice person when we met. How could he not care about her at all? She was driving them. She wasted her entire day waiting for them to arrive.”

I blew out a breath. “I know ya visited their country to talk to her parents, but did they ever see ya in yer demon form? If not, maybe they were in shock. Ya looked quite fierce in yer full demon glory and I’m sure they saw ya. What you did even impressed the dragon mage. He said he understood why ya were the demon king.”

The comments I relayed didn’t seem to matter. I knew that was because he was worried about Mulan. I was worried too. But babbling and talking was how I diffused tension, whether it was mine or someone else’s.

“I did this to her,” Conn bit out. “I reinforced the wards because of the fairy being here. It’s my fault she’s hurt.”

I shook my head at his ranting. “Don’t be an idiot. Only something dangerous would have set the wards off. This was no accident. Zenos told me someone in Mulan’s family had a big secret but the bastard wouldn’t tell me more. We’ll find out what it is in time and make sure it doesn’t hurt the rest of us.”

Conn’s reply to my determination was a grunt.

I followed him inside the house and sighed at the empty foyer as he carried her to my quarters.

Once Mulan”s parents were safely upstairs, Henry”s people retrieved the rental van and parked it in Mulan and Conn’s driveway. Outside of the now shredded seatbelt, it looked to be mostly unscathed, even after Conn flipped it over in his giant demon hands.

I didn’t believe for one moment that the wards had failed us. The purpose of them was to disarm and detain. They had mostly accomplished their task, even though Mulan had gotten banged up.

There was only the mystery of why to solve. If Zenos was right, then it was someone in Mulan’s family. I imagined whoever was responsible would be feeling relief to not have been discovered yet. If I had my way, that relief would not last long.

In the meantime, I would make sure the entire household got put on alert.