Page 32 of Magpies & Mayhem
“You know the sleeping quarters are always open for your use,” Augustus answered, sounding like some old-world butler. Who was this guy?
“Yeah, well, I wanted to try things her way first.” He pointed a thumb at me. “Do we have any real-people food?” Jordan asked. I squawked at his inference that he wasn’t a real person. He placed his hand over my whole head to shush me.
Augustus watched our interplay with interest. “We do not, but I would be delighted to place an order for you. What would you like?”
Jordan turned his head to me, apparently waiting for me to answer.
“Uh, a burger? Noodles? I don’t care,” I croaked. “And a burnt rat, but that’s not for me.” Huck didn’t actually need to eat, but it would be funny to see this stuffy looking guy try to procure a burned rat.
Augustus simply blinked at me. “As you wish.” A short nod and then he smiled at Jordan. “The VAC made a blood drop earlier this evening, as well.”
“Fantastic.” Jordan was already on the move.A blood drop?He walked down a hall and into a kitchen, pulling open a cooler with the words “Vampire Advocacy Committee” stamped onto the side. He rifled through the blood bags inside while Huck looked on curiously until he found one that was apparently more pleasing than the others and pulled it out. The whole bag went into a pot of water he brought to a simmer on the stove. “Bottle warmers are definitely easier,” he muttered. Whatever that meant. Huck was getting antsy and flapping too much for my comfort, so I fluttered over to the back of a chair at a nearby table and perched on the back.
“You don’t have to watch me eat this. I can take you to one of the sleeping quarters to rest while you wait for your food.”
Was he embarrassed about the blood? I mean, it was gross, but it wasn’t that bad. I squinted at him. “I’m good.” If he could eat it, I could watch.
Jordan just sighed. “Suit yourself, I guess.” He pulled the blood bag out and felt it, shaking up the contents gently and then piercing the top with his fangs. He drank straight from the bag, looking just like a kid with a juice box. I was glad I couldn’t involuntarily smile with a beak.
“Does this Committee have a body farm where they drain people on the regular?” I had a hard time imagining that the government would be cool with that, but what did I know?
Jordan’s expression melted into a glower as he drained the rest of the bag. “They bring us unusable donated blood from the medical centers.” I guess that made more sense. “Come on, let’s find an open room so we can let this guy down to roam.”
That was a terrible idea.
Chapter 20
IfollowedJordandownthe maze of hallways to one of the last doors at the end. He stepped in and to the side, revealing a simple bedroom with a double bed, a wooden desk and chair, cabinet, rug, and private bathroom. I hopped into the room and fluttered up onto the dark gray bed sheets that smelled faintly of him. “You saw what he did to my house,” I said to Jordan, cocking my head to watch him as he lifted my backpack from his shoulders and set it down with more care than I ever have.
“Sid, please trust me. I’ll keep you safe.” He waited until I made eye contact with him and then set his helmet on the bed. He carefully wrapped his arm around Huck, bracing him while he reached behind his head with his other hand to unclip the buckle. The dragon bucked twice and then calmed. “Hah, see? I learn fast, little guy.”
I huffed a laugh at Jordan’s smug attitude.
He wrapped his hands around Huck’s torso, careful to keep his wings pinned, and lifted him from the carrier to set him carefully on the floor. Huck immediately scuttled under the bed.
“He’s gonna pee under there,” I grumbled.
“Then I’ll clean it up.” He reached out to run his fingers down my feathers—oh, heck yes—and then unclipped the rest of the carrier and draped it over my backpack. I gave a disgruntled chirp at the cessation of petting, but he didn’t notice. Instead, he bent to roll up the rug and gathered it and the desk chair to carry out of the room. He came back several seconds later for the desk and lifted it with ease to haul from the room as well. When he came back, he eyed the cabinet and then dismissed it. “I’m not taking the cabinet out, but now he can’t damage the other flammable things. The bedding was made for me specifically, so it’s wool.”
I blinked at him. “You have your own sleeping quarters?” I’d have figured they were just for whoever was working, but they did smell like him.
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you just live here?” I asked.
“I don’t want to live at work.”
That’s fair.“Is this where you came when you left your apartment after I showed up?”
He hesitated a beat before answering. “Yes.” He turned to the door. “I’m going to go check on your food and see if we have a uniform in your size.”
That gave me pause. “Why do I need a uniform?”
“They’re fireproof. It’ll protect you better,” he said as he walked out, leaving me alone with the chaos demon that was Huck.
Since I didn’t want to risk getting eaten by the dragon toddler while we were alone and the private bathroom was calling my name, I decided it was worth the energy drain to shift forms again. The mattress creaked quietly under my added weight, and I crawled off the bed to peek at Huck. He was curled up in a little ball with his tail wrapped around him and a wing draped over his head, peeking out at me from underneath it. Poor buddy was stressed out. I decided to leave him to decompress and shut the bedroom door to keep him from slipping out while I made use of the facilities.
The bathroom was pretty spartan, but the water from the shower reached an appropriately scalding temperature, so I wasn’t going to complain. I stood in the water far longer than I needed to before finally bothering to look around for shampoo and soap. It just felt so nice after hanging out in all the dusty sand with nothing but wet wipes. The soap didn’t smell like anything I’d scented on Jordan before, so it must not have been something he used often. I tried not to think about why that felt disappointing or why I wanted to coat myself in something that smelled like him in the first place, focusing instead on getting clean.
