Page 31 of Magpies & Mayhem
“Thank you,” he said gruffly, and then took off into the desert at a slow jog toward the far end of the city. Huck flapped his wings the whole way, imagining he was flying as far as I could tell—what a cute little doofus—and I clung to Jordan’s jacket as he ran, feeling as happy as I could remember feeling in a long time.
He took us into a section of town filled with office buildings, each one like the next, big adobe constructions full of dust coated windows, and the street carts were empty, all the vendors gone home for the night or off to revel with the desert people alongside the rest of the city. The building he stopped in front of was as boring as the rest of them, no signage or anything to set it apart. He pulled the front door open and stepped into an unlit hallway with a solid door at the other end. A spectral flickered in front of him and disappeared. He waited several seconds before it appeared again. “Let me in, assholes. They’re with me,” he said, irritation plain in his voice.
“You some kinda woodland princess now, Houjin?” a booming voice answered through the spectral. “What’s with all the wildlife?”
“Piss off, Tobias. Cyrus, open the door.”
The sounds of chuckling echoed through the spectral before the door clicked open. Jordan pushed through into a maze of hallways and doorways and climbed a set of stairs to the second floor, which opened into a room lit with the dim glow of conjured lights. Several people looked our way as Jordan stepped into the room. There was an enormous mountain of a man—he had to be at least part giant, I didn’t even know how he could have gotten in here unless he squeezed in the doorways like a snake—with fair skin and short brown hair hunched over a relatively smaller elvish man. The elf was a dark-elf like Elara’s dad, with the same graphite colored skin and white hair, and he controlled an astounding number of spectral images from calling stones on the desk in front of him. Both men wore wicked looking grins and the overwhelming smell of vampire made me puff up my feathers. It hadn’t even occurred to me that he worked on a team of vampires and visiting his office would mean being surrounded by them. I wondered if any of the windows were open, and I could bail out.
An orcish lady with short spiky hair and a lorelei man—I’d noticed it seemed like the merman-orc hybrids often got along well with their orcish cousins—sat at another desk, poring over a file full of papers, and a second elvish man stood against a wall in the back of the room talking through his own spectral messenger. They all reeked of vampire, making my adrenaline spike and my heart pound in my chest. The orc and the lorelei had both tusksandfangs, which was justwaytoo many poky teeth if you asked me. The desire to shift forms and start kicking everything within reach had never felt stronger than it did this second.
“Whatever you’re thinking about, don’t do it,” Jordan said under his breath, reaching up casually to run his fingers down my back. I flattened myself further against his shoulder and tried to focus on enjoying the pets.
“Dude, what are you wearing?” asked the giant. It was the same booming voice that had spoken through the spectral at the door.
“Is that ababy carrier?Wait, you found one of the dragons?” squealed the orc lady, jostling the lorelei man as she scrambled up to get a better look at Huck.
“The rookie brought pets!” said the giant.
“Shut up, Tobias. You’re still the rookie. You’ll always be the rookie,” said the lorelei. He had dark, mottled skin with even darker hair, and his eyes looked positively devilish with their slitted yellow irises.
Tobias, the giant, frowned at him. “I’ve been on the team forfifty yearsnow. Houjin got hired on months ago. He’s the rookie.”
“You’re still the rookie,” said the lorelei, going back to his paperwork.
“He comes in here with a dragon in a baby carrier and a bird on his shoulder like this is his normal Tuesday and no one but me bats an eyelash?” asked Tobias incredulously.
“Tobias, listen to me. We are vampires. When was the last time one of us had a normal Tuesday? Maybe this is what the youth are into these days.” The lorelei didn’t even bother to look up as he spoke.
“This isn’t normal,” insisted Tobias.
“Watch out, Allie,” Jordan said, motioning the orc back. “He spits fire.” Allie pouted, which was strangely adorable on a big, burly orc woman.
“Perfect pet for you, I guess,” she muttered wryly, giving a little smile to Huck, and making kissy noises at him. He flapped his wings. “You look socuuuuttte,” she said, dragging out the word in a squeal.
“They’re notpets,” Jordan said flatly. “This is Sidney, the shifter who found the dragon eggs in the Void.” He gestured to me. “And this is the dragon hatchling that she was caring for, not one of the missing ones. Sidney, this is Alejandra,” he gestured at the orc.
“You can call me Allie,” she said with a bright smile. She looked like she could break me in half, even in my human form.
“That’s Lucas,” he said, pointing at the lorelei. Lucas raised his clawed finger in a lazy wave. “The guy with the big mouth is Tobias.”
“It’s not just my mouth that’s big,” said the giant with an eyebrow waggle. I liked him already, even if his neck was bigger around than my human torso.
“Gross. And that’s Cyrus,” Jordan said, gesturing toward the seated elvish man with all the calling stones. “He does our surveillance. Cyrus and Lucas were both at the Void site with us, along with Augustus.” I wasn’t going to be able to keep all of these people straight. He looked toward Allie. “He said you guys had new info?” he asked, glancing at the man standing at the back of the room.
“Yeah, we’ve narrowed it down some. Let me know if you need a break from dragon-sitting duty,” she said, moving back to her desk.
“You’re not fireproof,” Jordan responded as he made his way to the back of the room.
“Eh, but I heal fast,” I heard Allie mutter from behind us as we walked past.
The elvish man leaning against the back wall wasn’t a dark-elf like Cyrus and Elara’s father, but he was every bit as debonaire and noble-looking. He had the same light-colored hair, but his skin was a light green color that reminded me of my sylvan friend, Solandis. He glanced at me, and the dragon hanging from Jordan’s chest, and shut his calling stone down with a delighted expression. “Jordan!”
“Augustus,” Jordan returned, his tone more reserved. “You remember Sidney,” he said as he gestured toward me. “Although not in this form.”
The man nodded toward me. “Pleasure.” I eyed his fangs, which were a little more prominent on Augustus than they were on Jordan. He studied the dragon in the baby carrier for a moment. “What an interesting contraption! I suppose that is the safest place for it currently, all things considered. Team Six has relayed that they’ve been approached by known Phantom operatives who were looking to find a buyer for some exotic animals. While pretending to be interested, they were able to ascertain that the animals were dragon hatchlings. So now that we know for sure who we’re dealing with, we can focus on narrowing down their location.” Augustus had a predatory kind of gleam in his eye that made my skin prickle. “Once we find our area, I’ll send you out with Lucas to scout around, yes?”
“Sounds good. Is it okay if we crash here for now?” Jordan asked as Huck wiggled in his carrier.
