Dragon Consultant (12 page)

"I think we both are," Nickel answered as he joined them in the kitchen. Nickel was determined to find the missing dragons and had apparently decided that working as Dane's sidekick at Dane's consulting firm was the answer. Lumie was Lumie; Dane had no idea what, if anything, went through his head. Sometimes he joined Dane at work with Nickel and other times Dane didn't see him for an entire day. The kits certainly made Dane's life interesting, which he couldn't complain about in the least.

When they finished eating, Dane helped Nickel and Lumie rinse their bowls and put them in the dishwasher. Mercury and Daisy were working on teaching the kits how to do chores in order to instill some sense of responsibility into the otherwise crazy creatures. It was a fool's errand as far as Dane was concerned as Copper, Nickel, and Zinc were barely old enough to understand why, but Mercury persisted with it, so Dane had to support his efforts.

Lumie latched onto Dane's leg, his arms and legs wrapped around Dane's ankle as he used Dane's foot for a seat. Nickel just put his hand on Dane's elbow. Dane let his magic sweep them away. They reappeared inside Dane's office a moment later.

A new, child-sized desk had appeared in one corner of the room a few weeks ago. Dane didn't know when Becky had gotten it, but it was covered with Nickel's paperwork. Becky had him doing research for some of Dane's own cases, which he tackled with the same persistence as he had his continuing search for the dragons. Lumie also detached himself from Dane's leg. He hurried over to Becky and stuck one hand out.

"There's a man on hold on line two," Becky told Dane as she dug into a candy jar that had also appeared on her desk in recent weeks. "He insisted on waiting until you got to the office." She turned to Lumie as Dane walked into his private office. "What do we say?"

"Please!" Lumie chirped with a grin. Becky immediately grinned back and dropped a wrapped Cinnamon Bomb into Lumie's outstretched hand. "Thanks!"

"You're very welcome, Lumie," Becky replied.

Lumie took his sweet off to a corner to suck on. Dane closed his office door, sat down in his plush chair, and picked up the phone.

"This is Dane. How may I help you today?" he asked politely into the receiver.

"My name is Ames Stockton. I'm the regional deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigations. As I'm sure you saw on the news, the body of Miles Jacobson, the regional director, was found last week. Your agency comes highly recommended in these sorts of issues and I was wondering if we could hire you to supplement our own investigation." Stockton's voice was deep and gravelly. Dane thought he had met Stockton once at a SupFeds convention. He was a big man with deep black skin and sharp eyes. Dane didn't remember Stockton being as idiotic as Jacobson. If he were the one promoted to director, which was very possible, Dane could expect a very different relationship between the SupFeds and his firm. Dane needed to tread carefully here, yet he was also holding back ironic laughter. Not too long ago he remembered thinking to himself that Jacobson's successor would be calling to have Dane investigate Jacobson's death. Dane never thought at the time that he would be the one who killed Jacobson, or why.

"I'm not going to take that case," Dane began. There was no way he was going to investigate himself, but he couldn't leave Stockton hanging after their first business conversation. Dane still wanted Stockton to call back with a different case. "But I will give you some free advice. Have you read the news reports on the magical earthquake that destroyed a large part of the pier along the Chesapeake Bay about two months back?"

"I have," Stockton replied slowly as if he were wondering where Dane was going with this and why.

"Some stations and papers have also started reporting about one warehouse where what appears to be a lab and some jail cells were hidden below," Dane continued despite Stockton's growing distrust.

"Those news agencies believe that the government has been hiding the fact that they've been doing illegal experiments on dragons." Stockton's voice sounded scathingly disbelieving.

"Those news agencies aren't wrong." Something Dane knew they had gotten correct because he was the one who had leaked that tidbit of information to them. "All of Quicksilver's attacks on government labs have been to save dragons that were being experimented on in secret. You might want to look into Jacobson's involvement in those labs as I'm certain that is why he was killed."

"Experimenting on dragons," Stockton scoffed. "You really expect me to believe that?"

"When you find the connection between Jacobson and those labs, I would appreciate it if you could forward me a copy of those findings. I'm trying to find the rest of the dragons they have imprisoned."

"Why do I think you had a hand in Jacobson's death and now you're trying to distract me from the truth with this fool's errand?" Stockton snarled. The phone clicked as he hung up on Dane.

Dane sat back in his chair and smiled. Skeptic or not, half correct or not, Stockton would still have someone look into what Dane had said if only to disprove him. When Stockton found the evidence, he would call back. Dane had no doubt of that.

With that handled, Dane pulled forward the paperwork Nickel had left him for Madame Boothby and her molting son. Spending the afternoon trying to figure out how to tell her that her son was experiencing the normal male pattern baldness that came with hitting middle age was going to be an interesting, and aggravating, task for the afternoon.

Luckily, Mercury was waiting for Dane at home. Dane smiled involuntarily and picked up the phone to call Madame Boothby's secretary to set up a meeting.

When Mell Eight was in high school she wrote a short story for an English class. The assignment was for no more than five pages, yet she had turned in ten and the story wasn’t completed. Her teacher was impressed, but writing stories for fun was her main source of procrastination from homework; handing in an assignment that actually asked her to write fiction was too good to pass up. Since then Mell has continued writing, posting in many online communities for fanfiction and original fiction and eventually branching into slash fiction. She mostly writes paranormal or fantasy stories, but has been seen exploring the real world once or twice.

For more information on Mell’s stories and future writing plans, visit her website:

http://melleightfiction.weebly.com/