Enchantment Emporium полностью

When the pigeons crowded back under the newspaper box, she braced herself.

There.

And gone.

And not alone.

“Great.” Allie finished her coffee in one long swallow. “We’ve got dragons.”

“If Catherine allowed herself to be eaten by a dragon, I have no sympathy for her at all. Unless you’re a virgin sacrifice, which she most certainly is not, they’re easy enough to avoid.”

“They know where the store is, Auntie Jane.”

“Of course they do, they can sense the power. If you follow them, you’ll probably find them acknowledging every power signature in Edmonton.”

“Calgary.”

“What?”

“I’m in Calgary.”

“Are you asking me to join you there?”

“No!”

“Then don’t start complaining to me about geography. Dragons are not this family’s business.”

“Unless one ate Gran.”

After a long pause, Auntie Jane sighed. “Yes, unless one ate your grandmother.”

“How do I…?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Alysha, just consider it for a moment. You’ll need to examine the scat for the nasty indigestible bits.”

She was almost afraid Auntie Jane hadn’t been kidding.

When she paused in front of the mirror and murmured, “Dragons?” her reflection lifted a familiar tabloid. The headline read “Not all THUNDER LIZARDS Come out of the Ground at Drumheller.” And under it, in slightly less strident type, “Thousand-Year-Old Lizard Baby.” She was worried for a moment that the tabloid had already been reporting on the dragons when she saw that the date on the paper was closer to the end of the month.

“Trust me, I wasn’t going to tell Graham about this.” Giving the frame a quick pat, she moved on into the store figuring she could use the ninety minutes until opening to begin cataloging.

Joe sat tucked up into the small offset of the door, head against the glass, arms wrapped around his knees.

Allie dropped her laptop on the counter and hurried across the store. When she turned the lock, his head jerked back and he stared up at her with wide, terrified eyes. Then he blinked and only looked tired as he pulled himself to his feet, one palm against the door.

“Joe? What are you doing here?”

“You want me here. You do want me here?”

“Of course I do. I only meant that it’s early.”

“I don’t…”

… have anywhere else to go.

The subtext was so loud, he might as well have said it.

She stepped aside and watched how his shoulders relaxed when he crossed the threshold. Whatever had happened to him, he believed it couldn’t follow him into the store. She hated to disillusion him, but down here in the store, Gran hadn’t set things up to keep anyone out. She’d just wanted to know what was coming.

When the lock snapped into place, he raised a hand and brushed his hair back out of his eyes. He probably figured that Allie’d ignore the way his fingers were trembling.

Not likely.

“Have you eaten?”

“What?”

“Breakfast? Have you eaten? No, of course you haven’t. Come on, then, upstairs. I’ll make pancakes.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “You’ll what?”

“Make pancakes. Unless they call them flapjacks out here in the west, then I’ll make flapjacks.”

“Upstairs?”

“It’s where the kitchen is.” Hand in the small of his back, not terribly happy about the way she could feel the knobs of his spine through his sweater, she moved him across the store toward the other door.

“I can’t…” His need for sanctuary rolled off him like smoke. He wasn’t fighting her, he hadn’t even stopped walking, but he needed reassurance.

“Why can’t you?”

“Your grandmother…”

“Isn’t here. I am. Don’t look in the mirror, just keep walking.”

If he’d been Human, he wouldn’t have made it up the stairs. She could feel him trembling, forcing each leg to rise and pull himself up the next step. She didn’t help, but she made it clear she’d be there if he fell.

When he was standing, staring stupidly around the apartment’s big open room, she gave him a gentle shove toward the bathroom. “Go shower and toss your clothes out, I was going to run a load of laundry, and I can easily throw them in. If you don’t mind that it says Niko, I’ve got sweats you can wear until they’re dry.”

“Niko?”

“Misprints. There’s a couple of boxes of them in the spare room. Go on,” she added when it looked like he might be gathering enough energy to argue. “Pancakes will be ready when you are.”

He blinked at her, shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe he was doing it, and shuffled off to the bathroom.

Allie snorted as she pulled the big mixing bowl down off the shelf. Twenty-four years of handling Gale boys made handling the Fey a piece of cake. She’d been getting David to the table since she was five.