I hope I have never, ever, in my life, claimed to be smart. Maybe smart-aleck’d, but I hope I have never given the entirely false impression that I was possessed of any particular kind of genius.<\/p>\n
I reflected on this as it hit me in the shower that the troll (if he had a name I’d forgotten it) called me a Dragonslayer.<\/p>\n
I knew that to be wrong. In my heart of hearts I knew Nellie was alive and out there somewhere. I couldn’t recall whether or not I had been ejected back through the portal back into my native plane of origin through her or my own doing, but some part of me knew she was still alive.<\/p>\n
My memory had a chance of being faulty, especially when considering that it had also had parts of it gone walkabout. I didn’t come out of it with a note, or runes scratched into my forehead saying, “I’ll be back.” I came out of it with bad dreams about wolves. Large wolves. They might be giants, even.<\/p>\n
I did think about what it meant to be a Dragonslayer, and something in me knew I wasn’t… I don’t know …changed enough? <\/p>\n
Something of the Shadow King had touched me. Robbed me, more like, from the way I was feeling, but …heck, I’m a guy. I say I work from my gut because working from my heart is a girlie, girlie measure.<\/p>\n
But word on the street meant people were talking about it, and my street is a many-fabled land indeed. One of the houses on the block, so to speak, was Nellie’s, and I didn’t want to be called a liar when she tore the hinges off her own front door and started shouting about the kids on her lawn, metaphorically speaking.<\/p>\n
I could only continue to deny it, and make it clear it wasn’t out of any sort of sense of modesty. (The way I pranced around nude now that Doloise was– the way I didn’t have any clean towels sort of proved it.) <\/p>\n
Maybe I wounded her and now I could spread scary stories of the brooding, injured beast, plotting revenge at any time.<\/p>\n
Stories like that just don’t impress the smart women. Something about, “Sure, you’re fun to hang out with, and I really like you, but I don’t want a semireptilian myth breathing on me while I share serious cuddle time.” I mean, who can blame them? That’s a pretty big shadow to get out from under, let alone with which to share the spotlight. I mean, let’s face it, Sylvie has had much less of conscious brain time (although to be fair, she did share some of my thoughts while in the shower) than Nellie has, and I wouldn’t sleep with Nellie.<\/p>\n
Ahem. One thing at a time, E.<\/p>\n
As far as I knew, once an incubus had been banished, it had been banished, but really, our introduction did have a lot to do with an increased…um… passionate mood? Plus, it’d been the best kiss I’d had in a long time.<\/p>\n
I was considering that idly, leaning back on the bed when my phone rang. Have I mentioned that I love my phone? Sure, it doesn’t get reception in the Beyond, but I still had notes. If I’d been smart, I’d have taken pictures. Published them and called them art. Of course, the gravestones and weirdness of Ivan’s world were really Ivan’s art. Maybe I could set up a charity for old Russian wizards. Or orphans.<\/p>\n
I didn’t recognize the number, but it was local.<\/p>\n
“Hi, is this E?” the voice was kind of breathless, a little girly. I’d like to say I never forget a voice, but it’s mostly that I can recognize if I’ve heard one before, not necessarily who it is attached to… and this one I’d heard before and, well, it didn’t ring any bells as to who it was attached to, but since it definitely wasn’t a Dragon, I was game.<\/p>\n
“Um, yeah,” I said, with the eloquence you’re beginning to suspect of me. That’s me, Mr. Smooth.<\/p>\n
“Hi!” she said again. “This is, um, Ro. Rohana. I left you the books at the hospital?”<\/p>\n
“Oh! Hello! I meant to call you and thank you. I’m enjoying them quite a bit.” I was trying not to be awkward, but what were the odds?<\/p>\n
“I’m so glad! I was afraid you’d probably read them, but Maggie said that she hadn’t seen them at your place, so I figured it was worth the risk. Besides, the whole place was beginning to smell like a greenhouse and I thought maybe you’d like something to take your mind away from the pain rather than just your nose,” she giggled.<\/p>\n
I smiled. “You guessed right. Where do I know you from?”<\/p>\n
“You argued with me about getting a sundae back a few blocks from Dairy Queen on Colfax,” she said, sounding a little bit older.<\/p>\n
“I did?”<\/p>\n
“You’d taken a blow to the head, I was pretty sure. So maybe you don’t remember. But I’ll give you this one. I’m emergency services.”<\/p>\n
“Oh. Oh! I remember.” I grinned. “You’ll have to forgive me, I’d been hit by a car.”<\/p>\n
“A car? I wrote a Dragon in my report.”<\/p>\n
“You did?”<\/p>\n
“Of course not, silly.” She laughed. “Officially it’s a missing black SUV, but you talked in your sleep.”<\/p>\n
“Oh.” Is there anyone in the world comfortable with that thought?<\/p>\n
“Got you again,” she teased.<\/p>\n
I groaned.<\/p>\n
“Hey, you made it easy for me. Anyway. I um…” She took a breath. “I wanted to know if maybe you wanted to go out sometime?”<\/p>\n
I paused. “Sure!” It was pretty easy, really. I mean, she didn’t follow all the rules, but she asked and, well, I was available.<\/p>\n
“Would tonight work?” she asked.<\/p>\n
Sylvie! “Um, I am kind of already…” I thought quickly, “scheduled for tonight.”<\/p>\n
“Oh.” She did sound disappointed, which caused immediate conflicting feelings in me. Disappointment that I disappointed her, and then a surge of self-esteem, and, well, other stuff.<\/p>\n
I didn’t know if I was really scheduled for tonight, but having a backup plan is a sneaky snaky thing to do and always gets you in trouble in the sitcoms.<\/p>\n
But I didn’t say I was smart.<\/p>\n
I just wasn’t stupid. “Um, are you part of the coven?” I asked, carefully. She knew Mags, and Mags would only know a broom closet as some place to make out.<\/p>\n
“Adjunct, why?”<\/p>\n
That was a fancy word. I dithered for a moment.<\/p>\n
“You’re going out with Sylvie, aren’t you?” she asked. She laughed. “I should offer to naked jello wrestle her.”<\/p>\n
I couldn’t help it. “Yes, you should.”<\/p>\n
She laughed again. “I’d win. Call me. My schedule varies, mostly night shift, but I’ll fit you in somewhere.” She gave it a moment. “That was pretty good innuendo, wasn’t it? I’ll leave you with that, cutie.” She hung up.<\/p>\n
I took a deep breath and the phone rang in my hand again. I nearly dropped it out of surprise, but my reflexes were a bit faster than my wits.<\/p>\n
It was Sylvia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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