Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

lord otherwise, so I don’t make a big deal about it. You sure you’re OK? Hey, put your head between your knees or something—you’re as white as Cecile’s underbelly fur.”
    I did as the dog—demon—suggested, wondering where I knew him from. Before I could even complete that mental sentence, I corrected myself. Demons, I remembered hearing one of my mage instructors say, were always referred to by means of gender- neutral pronouns. Why, I had no idea; it just was. “You said I know you?” I asked after a couple of minutes of trying to get a little blood back into my brain.
    “Now you’re all red,” it said, giving its shoulder a lick. “You don’t remember me?”
    “I don’t remember anything,” I said with more honesty than I liked.
    “Yeah?” Its eyes narrowed on me. “That looks like an interdiction on you. Kostich kick you out of mage’s camp?”
    I looked down to my chest where a faint blue swirly pattern glowed. “I’m not even going to ask how you know that, because frankly, if I have to listen to one more bizarre thing today, I’m just going to curl up in a little ball and pretend I’m a hedgehog, and then where would Brom be?”
    “Who’s Brom?”
    “My son.”
    “Oh, man! You have a son? Does Baltic know about it? If he doesn’t, promise me I can be there when you tell him, because he’s going to go totally psycho dragon. Well, more psycho dragon than he already is, which I gotta tell you is pretty wacked out.”
    I took a deep, cleansing breath of the grass-scented air. “For the sake of my sanity and my son, I shall now pretend you aren’t saying anything. In fact, you’re not even here. I’m all alone. And now I’m going home.”
    “Where’s home?” the demon asked, getting up as I gathered up my purse and started off toward what I hoped was the street. It didn’t seem to take the slightest offense to my comments, but on the other hand, it also didn’t seem inclined to leave me alone.
    “Barcelona.”
    “That’s gonna be a hell of a walk.”
    “I’m staying with some people in town.”
    “May and Gabriel, yeah, I heard Ash dumped you off on them because you’re Baltic’s long- lost love. What’s it like doing the humpy-jump with a crazy dragon?”
    I glanced down at it as I walked. “You are the single most strangest demon I have ever met.”
    “Face it, babe—I’m the best, aren’t I?” it asked, cocking a furry eyebrow at me. Catching sight of someone, it yelled, “Hey, Suzanne! Look who I found!”
    A small blond woman hurried over, a leash and a plastic bag in her hand. “Jim! There you are! I thought I’d lost you. Oh, you’re Ysolde, aren’t you? Hello.”
    “My name is Tully,” I said. “Although to be honest, I’m about ready to give up and change my name because no one listens to me.”
    “Ysolde’s feeling crappy,” Jim told her. “I think we should take her home. Wouldn’t want her to turn into road pizza because no one was here to watch her.”
    Suzanne glanced at her watch, but agreed.
    “That’s not necessary. I’m quite fine on my own. I’m just a little insane, not bad enough I would do something crazy like take off all my clothes and dance on Nelson’s Column.”
    “Damn,” Jim said, looking disappointed.
    “I think perhaps we should accompany you,” Suzanne said, giving me an astute look. “You seem somewhat distraught.”
    “Distraught . . . insane . . . it’s really a moot point by now.”
    They came with me as I strolled toward Gabriel’s house, my thoughts a jumbled mess that I didn’t want to examine. Jim chatted nonstop all the way, insisting on accompanying me inside.
    “If you want to pay back my chivalry with belly scratches, go right ahead,” it said, rolling over onto its back at my feet when I collapsed bonelessly onto a leather couch in a green-and-brown-toned study.
    I complied silently, my thoughts still tangled around the vision, Gareth’s cruelty, and my newly granted membership in the Club of the Mentally Bewildered.
    “Suzanne says you’re not feeling well?” May said, coming into the library with Gabriel on her heels. “Jim, really! Do we need to see that?”
    “Can’t have belly scritches without barin’ Jupiter, Mars, and the really Big Dipper,” Jim answered, its back leg kicking slightly in the air as my fingers found a particularly itchy spot on its stomach. “Oh, yeah, baby. I really dig chicks with long nails.”
    “Time to go,” May said, prodding the demon