Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

door with bits of the bed and chairs when two shimmery figures suddenly appeared on the other side of the door.
    “Baltic?” I asked, and dropped my bit of broken chair to squint at the figures before I realized that neither of them was even remotely as big as he was.
    “What the hell have you done?” a man’s voice asked as the door was opened.
    I snarled something extremely rude, and lunged for the two figures. Gareth screamed, then stumbled backward at the same time his wife, Ruth-who I had spent the last ten years thinking was my sister-in-law-leaped at me with her fingers curled into claws, forcing me back into the room.
    “Where’s Brom?” I bellowed, belching fire at Ruth, who shrieked and started slapping at her clothing to put out the fire. “You bastard, if you’ve hurt him-”
    “You’re not supposed to be here, you stupid woman! Why the bloody hell can’t you just do what I ask?” Gareth yelled back at me as Nico and Holland leaped forward to keep me from strangling Gareth where he stood in the doorway. “You never listen to me, do you? I don’t know what’s wrong with you that you can’t even follow simple directions! I told you what to do; I gave you very specific instructions, but did you bother to listen? No, you did not. Instead, you had to drop in on us at the crack of dawn, interrupting my sleep. You know how I hate that!”
    I stared him down, my fingers itching to draw the most vile spell I knew, but given that was one to cause the unplugging of bowels, I curled my fingers into fists and fought the desire to use the broken chair on Gareth, saying instead, with great deliberation, “Where. Is. Brom?”
    Gareth scowled at Ruth as she continued to slap at herself. “What are you doing, woman?”
    “She set me on fire!” Ruth snarled, stabbing a finger at me.
    I smiled.
    “For god’s sake, will you two stop fighting? It’s enough to drive a sane man crazy.” Gareth narrowed his already beady-eyed gaze on me, waving his hands toward us. “Well, you’re here. Nothing I can do about that, I suppose, although just once I’d like to see you do what I tell you to do. Still, it could be worse. That dragon of yours had better bring the gold with him when he comes to get you, or he’ll find himself going home without his precious mate as well as the kid. If you’re done causing havoc, I’m going back to bed.”
    “I don’t think so. I think you’re going to take me to Brom in the next ten seconds, or this very badass dragon here is going to beat the crap out of you, while this equally badass ... er ... mine ghost will help him.”
    “Knocker,” Holland said helpfully, then cracked his knuckles while looking menacingly at Gareth.
    “Sorry, badass knocker.” I slid a glance toward Ruth, who had moved closer to Gareth. “And while they’re doing that, I’ll call down fire unlike anything you’ve ever seen. I bet you that even an oracle and a necromancer can be roasted alive.”
    Gareth sputtered in anger while Ruth made some pretty scatological threats that I ignored, but in the end, all it took was Nico’s shifting into dragon form, and my setting fire to both Gareth’s and Ruth’s shoes before they conceded.
    “You can see the brat, but the others have to stay here,” Gareth spat out, jerking me by the arm, his fingers biting painfully into my flesh.
    “We will not leave Ysolde,” Nico said, starting toward us.
    “You stay or she doesn’t see the kid,” Gareth snarled.
    “It’s all right,” I said, pulling my arm from Gareth’s hold, rubbing the resulting bruises. “You boys stay here. Gareth isn’t stupid enough to hurt me, not when he knows Baltic will skin him alive if he even thinks about it.”
    Gareth made a rude noise, slammed the door closed on a still-protesting Nico and Holland, and shoved me toward the stairs. “Hurry up. I want to go back to sleep, and you’re wasting my time.”
    I walked carefully in front of them, bracing myself for the feeling of Ruth’s hands on my back. I wouldn’t put it past her to try to shove me down the stairs. Luck, however, was with me, and I arrived at the landing one floor down without injury.
    “Maybe you can get the kid to stop his whining all the time,” Gareth said, unlocking the door. “Nice job you did raising him. All he does is complain.”
    I shoved past him and ran into the room, stumbling over a chair when I lunged toward the small bed that sat under one of the arched windows.