Demons in My Driveway (7 page)

She scratched her chin and set aside the leather-bound diary she was leafing through. “Dragons are quite old. Bruce, for example, is over two hundred years old.”

I widened my eyes in surprise. “He’s so small. I always figured he was more like my age.” That was a partial truth. When I’d
first
met him, I’d thought he was a baby. And a girl because, due to a nasty cold, he was pink.

“He is, dear. In dragon years.” She shook a piece of aged paper loose from a green book with black letters. After examining the paper, she sniffed it, then put it back.

“Can we talk to his parents, maybe? Grandparents? If dragons live that long, we might be able to find someone who knows more about the Covenant.”

Aggie fixed me with a sad look. “Dragons are rare these days. Only the pygmy version survived the Crusades.” She folded her hands in her lap, almost as if in prayer. “Bruce lost his whole family in the name of religion. And his egg stayed dormant for centuries before it hatched. He’s spent most of his life looking for others like him.”

My throat tightened. “So, he’s alone? He’s never found anyone?”

“He’s found others. Not very many though.”

“Oh.” I flipped through the book in my hands, barely looking at the pages while I thought of poor, dog-sized Bruce, spending his days searching for others like him. I’d never asked him about his past. If I hadn’t needed Molly to translate for me every time Bruce came around, I might have had deeper conversations with him—deep enough to share his life, and not just borrow jewelry from his stash.

The pages fluttered through my fingers. The book’s gold edging left a powder on my skin. I had no idea what the title of the book was, since the cover was too worn to read and the first several pages had fallen out. As I flipped through, heavier cardstock appeared every so often with faded but still beautiful hand-painted watercolors of Hidden creatures—many of which I couldn’t identify.

Somewhere toward the middle, I spotted a painting of a snarling woman with pointed teeth and wild hair. Blood dripped from her face, and a young boy lay at her feet with his eyes closed. The label at the bottom of the page said Aswaang in Vampirrik Forme. I turned to the front of the chapter and found the title “Aswaangs of the Olde World.”

“This might help.” I snapped the book shut. “It won’t explain the Covenant, but it might give me tips on defending myself.”

Aggie made no sign of having heard me. Her lips moved without sound, and her eyes stared over my shoulder, as if the bookshelf behind me held some deep, startling secret.

“Aggie?” I wasn’t sure if I should disturb her. The longer I watched, the more I was convinced she was in some sort of trance. She didn’t seem to be in any distress, so maybe this was how she got all the crazy information she always had. Maybe this was normal for her, and I hadn’t seen it before.

Or maybe she was having a stroke and I was sitting there like an idiot, marveling at her ability to focus on the spine of a handmade book on making alpaca cheese.

“Aggie, are you okay?” I crawled across the floor and touched her leg. My voice was higher than I’d expected it to be, revealing more worry than I tried to let on.

The movement of her mouth stopped, then her gaze cleared and she looked at me sitting at her feet.

Her eyes looked so sad they made my heart hurt. She made an attempt at a smile, but it wasn’t convincing. “I’m fine. Did you find something?”

I scrambled to where I’d been and recovered the watercolor book. “I found a chapter about aswangs.”

“That’s wonderful, dear.” She didn’t sound like she thought anything was wonderful. More than anything, she sounded distracted. “I could use a fresh cup of tea.”

I followed her into the kitchen and refilled the kettle, ignoring the goosebumps along my arms. We sat at the table to wait for the water to boil.

I took her hand in both of mine. “Where did you go in there, Aggie?”

She pressed a finger against her lower lip and took a deep breath. “I was... I watched my own death.” She paused. “Again.”

She’d told me some time ago that she’d seen her death, and then had reassured me that her demise remained some time off in the future. She’d seemed almost chipper about it then. Now, not so much.

“We still have time, right?” I frowned when she didn’t answer immediately.

Finally, she shook her head, sending all those small ringlets jiggling on her head. “Not as much as I’d thought.”

My stomach dropped like I’d been shoved off a skyscraper. “How soon?”

She shrugged. “We can never be too sure of these things.” She patted my hands then went to make the tea.

“You’re usually pretty sure of things you shouldn’t already know. You said something was coming last year, and it came.”

She measured tealeaves into each cup. “I also said you’d take care of it, and you did.” The kettle made a low hum on its way to a higher pitch. She took it off the burner before it started screeching. “But something worse is on its way. Something I can’t see.”

She poured water into the cups and brought them to the table.

I pulled my cup close to me, but it couldn’t warm the icy dread running through me, making me shiver. “Is it an aswang?”

“No.” She bent her head and inhaled the steam. “It’s something very old yet, at the same time, something very new.” Her gaze rose to meet mine and pinned me with its weight. “And it’s going to be the end of me.”

Chapter Seven

Tashi walked me home with a solemn face, as if she sensed my sadness. At the edge of my property, she turned to go but I stopped her.

“Do you need anything, Tashi? For you? For the babies? You know if you want anything at all, you just need to tell Molly so she can let me know, right?”

Tashi smiled and shook her shaggy head. She ruffled my hair, then loped off into the trees.

“I guess she doesn’t need anything.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and faced the house. Nothing moved through the windows, but the calm was deceptive. Six more people might have shown up in the time I was gone. I released a melodramatic sigh, braced myself, and marched.

Inside, the deceptive calm was even more convincing.

“Hello?” I moved through the silent house, poking my head through doors, calling out to the missing people. “Anybody?”

There weren’t that many rooms to go through. I came in through the living room, checked all three bedrooms, both bathrooms and the kitchen. Not a soul.

Frowning—and more than a little worried, since Mom shouldn’t have left the protection of the house—I stepped through the kitchen door and into the magical invisi-bubble surrounding my back yard.

Somehow, with my head ducked and my own voice grumbling in my ears, I’d missed the smell of roasting meat and the sound of people’s voices when I’d come through the edge of the bubble on the side of the house.

Mom, Sara and Kam sat in folding chairs around a campfire, chatting and poking long sticks at an array of roasting food spread on a grate above the fire.

“Finally,” Sara said. “We thought someone would have to go get you.”

Maurice unfolded another chair and pushed me into it. “Sit, sit, sit. I’ll get you a drink.”

Kam leaned into me from the chair next to mine. “Andrew and Daniel are coming soon.” She lowered her voice, as if sharing a shocking secret. “They’re bringing cake.”

I considered pinching myself. The scenario held a sort of dreamlike quality, as if I’d dozed off and currently lay facedown in a plate of spaghetti. I’d left a crowded house full of tense people and came home to a camping trip in my backyard.

In November.

Break out the marshmallows and the plastic margarita glasses.
Zoey’s gone over the edge and they’re staging an old-fashioned
,
backyard-barbeque intervention.

As if he were reading my thoughts, Maurice reappeared by my side and handed me a margarita.

I took a grateful sip. “Where did Riley and Darius go?”

Mom held up her glass and smirked. “Tequila run. You got the last of it.”

I frowned. Was everyone insane? Two of our heavy hitters went on an alcohol run, leaving a closet monster whose threat was largely illusion and a djinn who was trying to save her magic. Yes, we were inside the bubble, so probably couldn’t be found—but if we were, I’d rather have a mothman and a reaper there as muscle. I’d seen them fight. We were all safer with those two around.

Maurice hummed to himself while he painted sauce on a rack of ribs. Sara and my Mom struck up a debate over kitten heels versus wedges. Kam—who for some odd reason was dressed in cutoffs, work boots and a flannel shirt and
had
to be freezing—pulled her hair to one side and braided it.

Maybe it was me who had lost her mind. I was twitchy and stressed, but everyone else acted as though it were a perfectly normal day.

No. Not a normal day.

A
great
day.

A day to celebrate, have some fun, and spend time together.

I narrowed my eyes and watched everyone more carefully. The dark circles under Sara’s eyes were more pronounced than a few days before. Mom’s hand shook a little as she raised her glass to sip her margarita. Kam’s foot tapped at a fast pace, as if all the calm she showed had forced her tension into one foot that had to release the tension or shoot off her ankle from the built-up pressure.

There was so much food on that grill, an army couldn’t finish it all.

And
that
was the biggest giveaway of all—Maurice cooked when he was nervous or upset.

This wasn’t a picnic. This was an end-of-the-world party.

The realization of what was really going on should have made me nervous, but it had the opposite effect. My friends weren’t trying to talk me down from a nervous breakdown, and I wasn’t in a ditch somewhere suffering from head trauma after hitting a moose. This was how we coped with the possibility of death in my family—we celebrated life.

I sank deeper into my chair and sipped my drink.

My position faced the house, so when Andrew and his partner, Daniel, showed up, I saw them coming—and the little ball of fluff they’d brought with them. Once the men had stepped inside the bubble, Andrew bent down and released his squirming charge.

Milo streaked across the grass, tongue hanging to the side, and threw himself at me as soon as he was close enough to make the leap. The excited fennec fox was my biggest fan, and he covered my face in foxy licks and kisses, darting back and forth across my lap as if he could barely contain his exuberance. I handed my drink to Kam and wrapped both arms around Milo, to force him to be still and to hug the stuffing out of him. I planted a firm kiss of my own between his ears—one ear enormous and tall, the other cut short in a terrible accident—then released him. He hopped down, then ran around the circle, greeting everyone.

I rose, grinning, to give the guys hugs. “Milo was exactly what I needed.” I kissed Andrew’s freckled cheek. “Thanks for bringing him.”

“He can only go a few days before he starts pining for you. You know that.” Andrew squeezed me hard with one arm, then pulled back without releasing me so he could look me in the eyes. “How are you holding up? Are you okay?”

I shrugged. “I’m fine. Just a little stir crazy.” I pointed at his other arm wrapped around a blue plastic box. “Is that cake?”

His blue eyes sparkled. “My girl needs cake. I bring her cake.” He released me, and Maurice dragged him into the house with the dessert.

I turned to hug Daniel, then stopped, my eyebrows raised. I pointed to the mound of brown, unmoving fur in his arms. “What’s this? No.
Who’s
this?”

Daniel smiled and shifted the weight he held. “This is Howard.”

A very serious, sober bunny face twitched its nose at me, then, having decided I was neither a threat nor of any particular interest, looked away.

Daniel squatted and placed Howard in the grass. The large rabbit took a single hop forward, then settled himself in to nibble, ignoring everyone around him. Milo noticed and bolted for his friend, leaped over Howard, then turned and leaped again, as if the two were in the circus.

Howard twitched his nose at Milo, then resumed eating.

“Not exactly a lively playmate for Milo to blow off steam.” I grinned, already in love with the grumpy rabbit.

Daniel chuckled. “He tolerates Milo, but Milo adores him.”

I put my arm around Daniel’s waist and hugged him. “I’m glad Milo’s got a brother.” I kissed his cheek. “Come sit down. I hear more tequila is on its way.”

Once I understood the meaning behind this spontaneous, rather elaborate get-together, I relaxed. Maybe knowing my friends had gathered for one last hurrah before everything collapsed should have alarmed me. It didn’t. It reminded me why I wanted to protect the world I was living in. Why I wanted to keep everyone safe.

Riley and Darius returned, bearing copious amounts of alcohol, multiple bags of ice, and a brotherly affection I’d never noticed before. They used to detest each other. Now they appeared to have been childhood best friends, working together to unload the car, gathering more chairs from the other campsites farther out in the yard, and cracking jokes with each other.

I tapped Kam on the arm and lifted my chin toward Riley and Darius. “What’s up with that?”

She followed my gaze and her lips quirked in a half smile. “Your mom tore them a new one. That’s a saying, right? Anyway, she lectured them on putting away their differences for the common good. Yada yada.” She waved her hand and gulped her drink. “It’s making
my
life a hell of a lot easier.”

The two men dragged a tarp full of firewood across the grass. Riley’s muscles flexed with every tug, and the wind blew his dark blond hair over one eye. I wanted to hurry over to him and brush it out of the way. I knew how soft his hair was, how it would slide through my fingers like silk. His cheeks were pink with exertion and cold, and stubble grew along his jawline. I knew what that stubble would feel like against my palm.

I shook my head and stopped watching, instead, concentrating on a rock by my foot. We weren’t together anymore. Riley wasn’t mine to touch. It didn’t do either of us any good for me to sit there spying on him like a brooding teenager.

Another time. Another place. Maybe someday things could work out between us. But, as long as the threat of one of us getting killed hovered over our heads, and as long as I was responsible for the safety of so many others, having a boyfriend—even one in the know—was an exercise in self-delusion. The world took too much of me. I didn’t have enough left for him.

As evening fell, more of our friends showed up, ate a little, talked, laughed and moved on. This also explained why Maurice had provided so much food. Tashi drifted around the edges of the firelight. She wouldn’t touch the offered spareribs, chicken legs or burgers, but she ate a salad that filled my punch bowl. Apparently yetis were vegetarians—or at least mine was.

Having crawled out from under one of the beds in my house, Stacy stepped out of the house, dressed in a chartreuse tutu, tights covered in cartoon kittens, purple high tops, and a ruffled top. Maurice, oblivious to the way she mooned over him when his back was turned, treated her no differently than any other guest. She danced alone around the fire, sipping her drink and telling any who would listen stories her father used to tell her when she was a little girl of brave under-the-bed monsters.

From time to time, Maurice took a break from hosting and sat beside Sara. He kept his large yellow eyes fixed on Sara’s face as she assured him she was alright. No, she didn’t need her drink freshened. Yes, she’d had enough to eat. No she wasn’t cold.

My heart hurt for Stacy. Maurice’s attention was so fixed on Sara, he never heard the squeaky tremor in Stacy’s voice as she tried to distract herself with the story of Horatio Cobbswacker, the heroic attic monster who conquered the legion of devil dogs from beyond the Great Badoonga Tree. I saw the sadness in her eyes and the defeat that lay across her shoulders.

Sara saw it too, and Stacy’s sadness reflected in Sara’s eyes. No matter what my friend felt for Maurice, she never wanted Stacy to get hurt.

The brightly dressed under-the-bed monster swallowed hard, lifted her chin and turned away to continue her story for the half-listening group near her.

I gave Sara a small, reassuring smile across the fire. One more thing for us to sort out when everything was over.

Molly the brownie brought her family and stayed for a while. The older kids played with Milo, and even Howard tolerated being ridden around the yard like a chubby stallion. He did a good job of looking stern and grumpy, but I was pretty sure he enjoyed playing with the kids. He took long, loping hops in the grass with his ears folded back around the kids, as if he were keeping them safe from falling off his back. From time to time he stopped, wiggled his nose and gave a bunny scowl, then took off at a faster pace than before, causing little Abby to squeal with delight from atop her noble mount.

Howard was a pushover.

Bruce, the pigmy dragon, showed up around eleven. The fire had died down some, and, with a single hot breath, he fed the flames to near bonfire proportions.

“Bruce!” Maurice hurried to his side. “It’s great to see you, buddy. Sit, sit, sit! Are you hungry?”

Bruce snorted and growled, and smoke rings puffed from his nostrils. He plopped down next to my feet, leaning against my left leg, much the same as Milo was positioned, sleeping against my right leg. I was penned in. Unlike earlier in the kitchen, I found comfort in the closeness. This was where I belonged.

I scratched the crest at the top of his dark green head, and a low humming erupted from his throat. “Hey, Bruce.” I patted his side and felt the warmth of his belly furnace against my palm. “How’s every little thing?”

Bruce gave me an affectionate look, grunted, then dropped his head to his front legs. Molly was the only one in our continually growing family who spoke dragon. She’d left to put the kids to bed an hour ago. But Bruce and I understood each other enough to get by—the same way Tashi and I did.

Love was common language enough.

Okay, that was kind of a lie. I would have much preferred a real common language—one with nouns, verbs and adjectives, instead of clicks, grunts and chuffs.

When Maurice reappeared, he had a large silver mixing bowl filled with raw meat marinated in...something. He placed it in front of Bruce and patted him on the shoulder. “There you go, buddy. We’ve all been gorging ourselves. No reason you shouldn’t too.”

Bruce sniffed the contents of the bowl, then sent a snaky, forked tongue across the meat. His eyes widened and he snorted.

Maurice nodded. “Yep. Brimstone. I’ve been marinating the meat in it for three days. Enjoy!” Without another word, he grabbed my empty glass and took off with it.

I sat in my folding metal chair in front of the fire, a pygmy dragon and a fennec fox at my feet, a blanket around my shoulders, soft music playing somewhere nearby, and low voices murmuring around me. Contentment settled over me and made me drowsy.

Mom and Darius finally went inside sometime after midnight. Mom stopped and kissed me on the forehead, much like she used to do when I was little. Trailing her hand over my curls, she left without a word.

The entire damn night was so weird, I didn’t know what to think. It had the feel of a gathering of forces for a final confrontation, but there was nothing to fight. Not yet anyway.

And most of the people showed up, stayed a little while, then departed. If they’d left gifts in their wake, I might’ve worried that it was a last goodbye.