“It’s just that,” Aideen sighed. “You have two weeks until the Mating Ceremony, and all of Dragoon Bootay is coming. Everything is almost ready, and Maeve is just messing with you. I get it. It’s irritating. So, I have to ask, why did you…?”
“I asked Maeve to help me because Maisie has three babies with chicken pox, Kai is on a forty-eight-hour shift at the Fire House, and Zelda is busy with her own family.”
“But most of all, you didn’t want to do it all by yourself,” she stated confidently, knowing that was the real reason, because, well, we shared a brain.
“Okay, you already know that’s the real reason. So why make me admit it?”
“I’m not making you admit anything. I’m simply saying that you have to deal with Maeve or do it all by yourself. That’s the trade-off.”
“Well, shit,” I sighed. “I really hate it when you’re right.”
“I know you do, but you love me, and I love you, and that’s what matters.”
“You’re really starting to scare me. I keep waiting for you to burst out singin’ Kumbaya.”
“You really are a dork.”
“Yeah, well…”
“Are you gonna keep talkin’ to Aideen and ignoring me? If so, I’ll just…”
“You’ll just what?” I knew I was being a brat, but I couldn’t stop myself. “What will you do, Maeve?”
“Ummm, nothing,” she grumped. “At least, not without my coffee. What’s takin’ so long?”
“You!” I snarled.
Spinning back toward my big, beautiful espresso machine, I closed the distance and grabbed the small stainless steel pitcher. Going to the sink, I poured out the half-steamed milk because it had a yucky skin on top, then rinsed it with hot water.
Back to the machine, I grabbed the milk, filled the pitcher, and stuck it under the frothing wand. Growling under my breath about the advantages of just doing everything by myself, a howl sounded from Doggo Corner– the eight-foot-by-eight-foot space with a four-foot wall and ‘doors’ on the two outside walls in the corner closest to the counter and drive-thru window where I spent most of my time. It was where my boys– two Irish Wolfhounds named Arthur and Otis, respectively, and a chocolate Shih Tzu named Chewbacca aka Chewy–hung out while we were at work.
Twirling so quickly that I almost spilled the scalding milk and tripped over my own two feet, I barked, “What’s up, Arthur? Is everything…?”
But that was as far as I got before the front door of my coffee shop blew open and in raced one of my best friends in the world, Theresa Thomas. The White Tigress Shifter was a mess. Her long platinum hair with black lowlights was going every direction– something I had never seen, even when she was playing softball at noon in the South Texas heat. She still had her Dragoon Bootay Police uniform on, which meant she’d left her shift as a 911 operator in one hell of a hurry, and her big blue eyes were so big I had to wonder if they were about to pop right out of her head.
Trying to get my brain to work long enough to form words, I shouldn’t have wasted my time. Before I could even get all the way turned around, she was panting, “Barney Mackrelfresh escaped from Purgatory Penitentiary. The FBH is on the way. They think he’s coming here for you, Martha!”
2
Hitting the front steps of Hoopingarner House at a dead run, the heat of the flames tried to take my breath away–but I was an old hat at fighting fires. My turnout gear was streaked with soot, sweat soaking the collar of the light blue T-shirt I always wear, and my axe balanced across my left shoulder.
“The worst of the fire has been extinguished for almost an hour,” Theo, Kai’s best friend since they were wing-high to a firefly, bellowed over the scuffle of their teammates checking the surrounding area for residual flames.
“Yeah, but old houses are sneaky bastards,” Kai mentally responded.
“And there are still embers burning inside some of the interior walls,” Roy, the Fairy King with whom I shared my soul, grumbled.
Having served at the right hand of the Danu, he was a great source of information and Magic, and a serious old pain in the butt. He loved to remind me, ad nauseum, that he was the one and only confidant of the mother goddess of all Fairy Folk, the ultimate matriarch, and the ancestor of all Irish gods, goddesses, and Fairykind, from the very beginning, like right after Chaos Primordial goddess snapped her fingers.
Of course, I paid him the respect he was due… While also rolling my eyes and looking for the mute button.
“Oh, I’ll show you where the mute button is,” Roy snarled. “But first, you need to watch those size fourteen boots. Heat is really smoldering just beneath the floorboards.”
Stopping at the very edge of the misshapen circle of glowing sparks peeking through the antique flooring made of dense, rot-resistant Heart Pine, I pushed a wisp of Magic into the orangey light. A quick search told me that I was good to go.
Swinging my ax, I broke up the wood as Roy continued the monologue he always performed while we were battling a blaze: “Never forget that one missed pocket of flame could turn a hard-fought victory into a second disaster.”
“I am not going to let that happen,” I reassured. “Not to the oldest home in Dragoon Bootay.” Hitting the floor with a resounding blow, I kept right on going, “And most definitely, not to all my brothers and sisters who trust me to get them home safely.”
