Dragon 7 Chapter 2

Pixie was moving around my office, seemingly ordering and reordering everything endlessly. She had on a pair of glasses on at the moment, but I was sure she didn’t need them. She was just playing a part.

I had a stack of finance documents, my half according to Morgana, to look through.

“When are the agents getting here?” I asked Pixie.

She checked her watch. “They should be here soon. If you aren’t going to dive back into those, mind if I talk to you about something?” She slid over onto my desk, perching her tight rear on the edge.

I paused, then decided I’d readily take a distraction over looking at boring documents. “What’s up?”

“It’s your nymph situation.” She pursed her lips. “I know it’s only been a few days, but since you made me your personal nymph, they are coming to me.” Pixie leaned forward, giving me a wonderful view.

I was fairly certain she didn’t mean to be seductive at that moment, it was just a part of how nymphs naturally moved and operated.

“What’s wrong with the nymphs?” I stared at her eyes, but my damn peripheral vision kept glancing at her assets.

“Well, they didn’t feel comfortable coming into your home until they were attached to you or one of your women. They very much want to meet you and try to fill one of the other two personal nymph spots you have.” Pixie tilted her head to the side as she waited for my answer, and she looked adorable. It was hard to say no to her.

“Okay, are you doing that on purpose?” I frowned at her.

“Huh? What?” She leaned forward, looking down and trying to figure out what I was referencing..

“That.” I pointed at her chest.

“No! I’m just. Well, Yes.” She frowned and breathed before sitting up straight starting again. “I left the top few buttons undone because you enjoy it, but I’m not putting them in your face on purpose. Nymphs just…”

“Are just sexual creatures.” I finished the sentence for her. I’d heard it many times already.

“That.” She smiled. “So, back on the topic of the other nymphs.”

I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. “So, how many are we talking about?”

Pixie slid off my desk and came around the back of my chair, massaging my shoulders once more. “An army would come if you let them. But you already have your summer nymph.” She had some hesitance in her eyes as she declared that she was my summer nymph. It wasn’t quite a question, but she wanted confirmation.

“Yes, I do.” Maybe I should do something to make that more official. Reaching into the desk I had stuffed a few coins that I’d picked up around the manor. Apparently, people were going to be tracking them around as they came and went from my hoard.

Sometimes words just weren’t enough and they shouldn’t be for the dedication that Pixie was giving me.

Pulling out the gold coin, I held it up for her to see. “My gold, and you know how dragons are about their gold.” Part of me ached even in doing this.

She nodded vigorously and watched the coin.

I reached into my bracer and pulled out a small black string. I laid it on the table before I shifted a claw and punched a hole at the top of the coin. Then I scratched a simple enchantment into one side, then the other.

One of the enchantments marked it with my presence, my particular magical signature would radiate from it. The fae were all fairly magically intuned, so I knew that they would feel it.

The second enchantment was a calling spell. It would tug the coin in my direction if I activated it.

Pixie watched with interest. “Oh. Yes. That makes sense.” She nodded, her bouncy pink hair bobbing with the motion.

“There. We’ll find a nicer material later, if that’s okay.” I raised it, expecting to put it on her wrist, but she stretched her neck out instead.

I opened and closed my mouth before shaking my head and going with her wish, putting it on like a collar. “Yeah, we’ll find something nicer. If you could help me with that?”

She frowned. “We got off the topic of the other nymphs again.”

“Did we?” I smirked.

She narrowed her eyes. “You asked me before to find some wild nymphs that weren’t Ikta’s pets. If I’m honest, if they aren’t associated with Ikta, they are associated with The Dreamer. There’s only a few that are powerful enough on their own to be separate from those two.”

I steepled my fingers in thought. “Okay, let’s let those nymphs in. A few can spend time helping in my office. I’ll need your help to keep an eye on them though. Actually just bring them here and let me meet them.” I’d like to weed out any bad eggs early on.

“Of course.” She nodded. “Winter Nymphs?”

“I have Evelyn.” I figured that made one less complication.

Pixie pursed her lips but nodded. “Fine, but they won’t be happy.”

“Tell them Maeve is looking for more nymphs.” I chuckled, only to get a dour look from Pixie.

“None of them are stupid enough to be pushy with Maeve.” She replied.

“But they’ll be pushy with me?” I raised an eyebrow.

Pixie squirmed a little under my gaze. “Not so much pushy, but they’ll try and tempt you.” She scribbled down a note on her pad of paper.

There was a knock at the door.

Pixie hurried to answer it, the gold coin flapping against her collar as she moved. She opened the door as she reached it. “Hello, right this way.”

“You could get lost in this place.” Agent Till stepped in alone.

“No Helena?” I asked, glancing at the door and waiting for another to step in.

Agent Till made herself at home in the large chair on the other side of my desk. She had the biggest of smirks on her face. “What? Looking to go another round with her?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” I kept a straight face.

“Sure.” She dragged the word out. “There’s absolutely no reason why my partner mellowed the fuck out. I mean.” She drew a straight line through the air. “She lost all her barbs for a solid few days. They are coming back, but slowly. I give it another week before she tries to get down again.”

I stared at her across the desk, keeping my face impassive as her grin only grew wider.

“Tell no one.” I warned her.

She mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key. “I can keep a secret. What about Pinkie here?”

“Pixie.” I clarified for her. “And she’s my personal nymph. She’d never tell a soul my secrets.” I was pretty confident that Pixie knew how to be a good servant, and keeping my secrets was clearly within that job description.

I paused, wondering how many years of experience Pixie had; I wasn’t even sure her current age. Previously she was working in Summer’s Chateau, so she was likely the cream of the crop of nymphs for Summer to pick her.

I just wasn’t sure how long she’d been at it.

“Would you like anything to drink?” Pixie asked Agent Till.

“Coffee, with two sugars?” Till asked and looked over her shoulder as Pixie wove a little magic in the air. “Not going to pop out here?”

“No, someone’s going to make it downstairs, then I’ll summon it up.” She smiled. “Fae magic doesn’t just make things, unless they are temporary.”

“Nifty.” Agent Till was suitably impressed. “Do I get a nymph? Even Helena has one tailing her.”

I chuckled at the thought of that poor nymph. “Sure. There are plenty around the manor, but they seem to come to you rather than the other way around.”

Agent Till looked at Pixie. “Is there a trick?”

“We like magic and are drawn to people with lots of it. You unfortunately have none.” Pixie bit her lip. “I can tell the others though that you are interested.”

“I have a golden plushie if that helps. Jadelyn is trying to convince me by telling me all the magical properties of his semen. Apparently, it’ll make me younger. Not sure how that’ll go over at the bureau though.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye as if to confirm that particular magical property.

I grunted. “It’s true. But we have other matters to discuss. Where’s Helena?”

“Busy. Norton is up our ass after the small scene at the coffee shop. He pulled the camera footage, but then it went missing. I don’t think he wants anyone to know that he can get slammed through a table and come up without even a bruise.” She clicked her tongue.

I nodded, glad the footage had been destroyed. I didn’t need the FBI swarming me, and it explained why Regina nor I had seen any repercussions from her aggression.

“He’s blessed by Iapetus. Saw it in his eyes.” I clarified.

She nodded along. “By the way, we are both terribly sorry for how that went. He’s been a hard ass, but it’s been more of a ‘by the book, stick up his ass’ kind of hard ass. I wasn’t expecting what happened. He was far more aggressive with you. Apparently the rules go out the window for him when it comes to you.”

Pixie opened the door and turned around with a steaming to-go cup of coffee.

Agent Till greedily accepted it with a big grin on her face before taking a sip and letting out a moan of pleasure. “Fuck me. I really need a nymph.”

I let her enjoy her coffee, thinking over what she’d said and how much I wanted to share with her. “When I went down to the underworld, I picked a fight with Iapetus, the titan of mortality. He governs humans and had managed to sink his hooks into Winter via a deal of some sort.”

Till just sipped her coffee loudly and nodded along.

“After severing the connection to Winter, I fled and Typhon, the father of monsters, aided me along and gave me his blessings.” I looked down at the enchanted bracer with a serpent wrapped around it. That serpent had come from the ones dancing on his head. Though, it was now biting into my skin, removing any chance I had at ever removing the bracer without removing my arm.

“Okay. So titans, the greek ones before gods?” Till clarified.

“Yep. I don’t know how much of that myth resonates. But my father was also once Zeus and seemed familiar enough with them.” I traced the bracer on my other arm. It was the same, but gold. It was my golden elemental and had gone quiet, just slowly feeding on my mana.

Goldie rippled a little from my touch, but otherwise didn’t stir. She was still feeding from my mana, so I knew she was okay.

“Okay. So either way, Iapetus has a grudge against you. But when I looked into Norton’s record, he’s had a few superman moments before the one at the coffee shop. They go back almost a year. He also just made director, which might be why he’s still playing cowboy in coffee shops.” Agent Till put down the now empty coffee cup on my desk.

Pixie whisked it away.

“A year?” I asked. That was new information.

She nodded. “Yup. About a year ago he took down a big operation in Montana. Helena helped me read between the lines a little; we are pretty sure it was a werewolf commune. The unofficial report reads like Norton went in and thrashed a few dozen wolves on his own.”

I leaned forward. “You think he’s specifically going after paranormal?”

Till got distracted watching Pixie take away her empty coffee cup, clearly longing for a bit more before she looked back up and realized I was waiting for an answer. “Yep. Can’t read all of his case files, but it is pretty normal to look at your bosses past when they roll you up under them in the bureau. We think in the last year or so he’s been cracking some paranormal skulls.”

“And now he’s here.” I frowned down at the papers in front of me. “Does this matter?”

“He’s going to be sniffing around you and everything paranormal in the city. So yeah, that’s a chink in your armor. I heard he scared off Morgana’s accountant.” Till got up from her chair and started to walk around the room inspecting my office. She was nervous.

I didn’t like the seasoned FBI agent being nervous. “Yeah. The accountant is a gnome and a flighty one. Apparently he didn’t want to get stuffed in a room with IRS or FBI forensic accountants. Morgana made it sound like no one would touch us with that on the horizon.”

“Probably not. At least, not ones you want to be in your books.” Till pulled one of the books off the shelf and opened it up, flipping through it. “Huh, an actual magic book.” She put it back. “So, then the big question is what are you going to do when he starts to dig into the vampire attack.”

I glanced at the nymph in the room. “Pixie, get me a meeting with Elaine Walachia. We need to talk.”

She scribbled it down.

“Damn it. I really need a nymph.” Agent Till went to the window overlooking the park and turned the crystal that had Tia and Bart in it. Though, this generation’s Tia had stuffed her memories into it now and was misbehaving. Hence having it looking out at the park to calm her down.

“You should point that out at the window. They like to see what’s happening.” I said quickly.

Agent Till quickly righted it. “Sorry.”

“No. You’ve come and dropped problems in my lap, but they are things that I need to take care of.” I let out a heavy breath. “I have responsibilities now.”

“It’s tough being king, huh?” Agent Till slipped back into the comfy chair, relaxing into it as her eyes continued to scan the room.

“What do you have about Norton though? Any chinks in his armor while he looks for mine?” I wasn’t looking to just play defense. I needed an offense strategy.

“Plenty. He’s rash and apparently not against abusing his authority. But no one is going to correct him or stuff him in the penalty box unless he does something public.” She picked up a pen and played with it in her hands.

That wasn’t great news. “I’m playing by the rules and he isn’t.”

“Yep. The only real check to his power is public disapproval forcing some senators’ hands. When that happens, they tell the FBI to button up, but even that  is usually just temporary.” She shrugged.

I nodded along with her. “Rotten apples my ass. The whole bunch is rotten.” She glared at me. “Most of them. Okay, so he’s going to be a jerk, and push me. I need to be ironclad, and then I need to let him get comfortable so that I can get him to do something in the open.”

“Or you could just quietly murder him and stuff him in Faerie to decompose.” Pixie added helpfully.

Agent Till shrugged. “Not the worst idea I’ve heard. But let’s get him to go off the deep end first. If he disappears, there will be heavy investigations.”

“Can you look through your information to give me a little more intel on him? I’d love to know his normal pattern, if he has a number two, that kind of thing.” Going up against the FBI was going to be harder than The Dreamer.

The Dreamer’s goals were much easier. She just wanted me to make dragon babies with far too many nymphs.

“He’s got a few that hover around him at the bureau. I’ll get a list sent over to… Pixie?” Till hesitated.

The nymph shook her head. “I don’t have a phone.”

“We’ll fix that.” I shrugged. We could always put her on Silverwing Mercenaries’ phone plan or something. “Does this fit his pattern, that he’s coming for me?”

Agent Till nodded. “He thinks you are the center of this. And to be fair… you are. There are other people running things in Philly, but it seems you’ve been put on a little bit of a pedestal. As for pattern, my guess is he’s going to try and start low. He’ll need to catch and flip a few people as he moves his way up to you.”

I frowned trying to think how he’d get to me when it hit me. “Fuck. I’m the bad guy now, aren’t I?”

She winced. “I mean, you’ve killed people for arguably just reasons. But… you’ve killed people without exactly going through the court of law. So, technically, yeah, you’re the bad guy this time.”

Agent Till paused before meeting my eyes, a little flicker of devilishness entering them as she asked, “Maybe it’s time to start acting a little bad?”