by Julia Mills
“Aye, that is why Maddox said I should hurry, to teach Pippa how to use her fire, is it no?” Fury tried to be patient, tried to control his need to roar and set fire to the trees below at the frustration of once again hearing of prophecies when all he needed was to be given clear direction.
Finally, after another pregnant pause, Zachary went on, “Yes, you will need to teach her control, but it is my earnest belief that she soon will be able to share many, if not all your talents, maybe even that of transformation.”
“And ye’ve waited until now to tell me, ya daft sod? Did ya’ think that no important?” Fury bellowed, doubling his speed, making a beeline for the northeast coast of the Canada. Since it would be light in just a few hours, making the chance of being seen and wasting more time using his magic to obliterate the memory of humans who may see him, looming over him like a dark cloud, the Seer decided he wouldland in the Blue Mountains of Ontario on the southern banks of Lake Huron's Georgian Bay. There his beast would adopt the form of a water dragon, swim from Lake Huron through Lake Michigan and reach land in the northern part of Illinois.
“That is a splendid idea,” Zachary agreed, reading Fury’s thoughts as quickly as they appeared. “I wondered when you would don your gills again. It’s been nigh on two centuries, hasn’t it?”
“Aye, it has. It takes a bit more out of Amarock, not to mention, I hate the icy waters.”
“You know few of our brethren know of your sea dragon. I wonder…”
“Ye’ll be wondering nothing. That is something better left unsaid.” Fury thought of the others he’d known, those whose dragons were two- or even three-natured themselves. The brethren he’d lost in battle or because they simply disappeared without a trace, all who had shared his unique abilities. He prayed one day he would see them again, if not on Earth in the Heavens. The pain of their loss still lived and breathed within him, but sharing it with Zachary was not a luxury he could afford at the moment. “One day we will talk about those taken from us long before their time, but now, I must focus, prepare for whatever may come in Serenity.”
“You are right. Just know that I am always available, deartháireacha go deo, any time, day or night.”
Fury felt the smile curving the massive muscles of his dragon’s jaw as he answered, “Brothers forever, my friend, in this life and in the Heavens. Thank you.”
“Be well, Fury MacTavish. I look forward to meeting your Pippa very soon.”
“As do I, Zachary, as do I.”
Chapter Seven
“Wake up, Sleepyhead,” Pippa chirped as she threw open the curtains in Bobbie Jo’s room, picked up the dark, teakwood tray table and waited as the waitress rolled over, cracking open one eye with a low groan.
“Come on, BJ. It’s my last morning here and I made you breakfast. I’ve got homemade blueberry pancakes, fluffy scrambled eggs and fresh squeezed orange juice just like you said your mom used to make.”
Throwing back the comforter, Bobbie Jo popped straight up and clapped, “Hell, yeah, girlfriend. I haven’t had anyone make me breakfast in bed in ages.” Laughing out loud, she added, “Bring on the feedbag,” as Pippa placed the feast in front of her friend, took her own steaming cup of black coffee from the tray and sat down in the soft, overstuffed chair to the right of the bed.
Watching Bobbie Jo smell the pancakes and smile from ear-to-ear, Pippa sat back and waited patiently to hear if her cooking passed the muster. It wasn’t long before the waitress took a big bite of pancake, dripping with syrup and moaned, “Mmmmm, Mmmmm, good,” with her mouth full.
Pleased that she’d remembered Sister Mary Margaret’s recipe and even happier that Bobbie Jo liked it, Pippa smiled, “It’s the least I could do, after all, you saved me from falling on my face in the diner and let me campout on your couch.”
Reaching into her pocket, she took out a small pair of angel earrings she’d gotten at a rest stop on the Texas/Oklahoma border. Handing them to Bobbie Jo, Pippa explained, “And I want you to have these. Angels have always been special to me. When I was younger, I thought it was because of the nuns and being raised in a Catholic home for girls, but now I think it’s just because of the hope they symbolize.”
Looking at the framed, cross-stitch sampler over Bobbie Jo’s bed, chuckling as she realized that it depicted two angels, wings spread wide, looking down at the words, ‘Angels Watch Over and Keep You, My Child’, Pippa pointed, “I see you do, too.”
“Oh, yeah,” the waitress looked up, continuing, “My momma, God rest her soul, made that for me when I was in grade school.” She took a drink of OJ then added, “I’ve carried that with me since I was ten years old. Now that she’s in heaven, I think of her as an angel, along with my granny, sitting on their porch in Paradise, gossipin’ and rockin’ and laughin’.”
It was a sweet sentiment, to say the least. Pippa had gotten a few flashes of Bobbie Jo’s mother, Mary Ellen, and her grandmother, Betty Sue, the original owner of the diner, and could attest to the fact that both women were good-hearted, generous, God-fearing women. The PI had no doubt that if there was a heaven, those two women were among its inhabitants.
Done with her pancakes, eggs and orange juice, Bobbie Jo picked up her mug of cooling coffee and sat back, patting her stomach with her free hand. “Girl, you need to stay right here and take Old Bud’s job. People would come from miles around for your blueberry pancakes.”
Nodding, wondering what her life would be like if she cashed it all in and stayed in Arrow’s Bend with it’s one flashing stoplight, a grocery store, a post office, a fire department, and Bobbie Jo’s diner. Life would be so simple. She wouldn’t have to worry about reading people’s pasts because she’d be cooking and if she did, by chance, touch someone, it would most likely be one of the one hundred and eighty-nine people who called the small-town home. Once she’d seen someone’s past, she rarely relived it, except in the case of those close to her. How many people in a place named for a road out of town that was shaped like the shaft of an arrow and bent at a right angle around an ancient American Indian burial ground, would have something more tragic than what she’d already seen? The answer, not many, if any.
But what about Fury? He HAS to be real. There’s no way that voice was a figment of my imagination…
“What you over there thinkin’ so hard about, girl?”
Thankfully, Bobbie Jo’s words cut off Pippa’s thoughts. Plastering a grin on her face, the PI snickered, “Just dreading getting back in the Jeep.” She squirmed in her seat, exaggerating the movement, and added, “My butt falls asleep, and I hate that tingling sensation like I’ve got ants in my pants when I move.”
Laughing so hard, she nearly spit a mouthful of coffee onto her white, frilly duvet, Bobbie, wiped her chin and chuckled, “You gotta stop that, Pip. I swear your wit’s sharper than a porcupine’s quill.” Pointing at the PI with her index finger, the waitress winked, “You should be a comedian. You’d having them laughing til they cried.”
“Are you saying, I’m washed up as a private investigator?” Pippa raised a single eyebrow and pretended to be offended.
“No way, Sister,” Bobbie Jo hurriedly explained. “It’s just that…well,” she shrugged. “You seem like you’re searching for answers, looking for your next big thing, leaving the past behind and movin’ on. I just figured that meant your job.” She winked, “Or maybe you’re going dragon huntin’.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Pippa rolled her eyes. “Now, you’re just making fun of me.”
“Am not.” Bobbie Jo furiously shook her head. “I’m rooting for ya’. After the way you were smilin’ and mumblin’ in your dream, I’m hopin’ with all my might you find that man while you’re still young and can enjoy him.” She snapped her fingers three times in the shape of the letter Z and gave a wolf whistle. “You gotta git while the gittin’s good.”
Bursting out laughing the two unlikely friends had tears running down their faces when a loud knock on the front door cut through their fun. Jumpi
ng to their feet in unison, the women collided in the tiny space between Bobbie Jo’s bed and the chair. Dishes went flying one way, the tray the other, and before it was over, Pippa was covered in the leftover syrup while Bobbie Jo had three pats of butter stuck to the side of her lopsided beehive.
“Well, shit,” Bobbie Jo laughed. “Don’t we make a pair?”
Another, louder, more persistent knock cut off whatever else she was going to say, as the waitress turned to go just as Pippa called after her, “You’ve got butter in your hair.”
“Well, damn, there sure as hell is.” Came Bobbie Jo’s half-chuckled response, a few seconds before the door opened and Pippa could hear Bud’s low, raspy voice.
“I can’t get the pilot light on the stove to come on, and there’s people awaitin’. That little waitress you hired is about to lose her mind.”
“Alright, Bud, I’ll be right over. Tell everyone that breakfast is on the house and to give me a minute.”
“Hurry up,” Was the cook’s only rude retort before Pippa heard the screen door slam shut followed by the crunch of Bud’s shoes against the asphalt leading back to the diner.
The visions she’d seen of Bud’s past came flooding back. She knew the son of a bitch was still running drugs through Bobbie Jo’s diner, knew he was endangering her new friend’s livelihood, as well as her freedom, making Pippa immediately so mad she could feel the flames building inside her body.
Marching into the guest bathroom, Pippa stripped out of her light-blue, long-sleeved Harley Davidson T-shirt, washed the maple syrup off her hands, face and chest and put on her favorite red-plaid flannel shirt. Looking in the mirror, she recited the promise she’d made on her eighteenth birthday to Sister Mary Margaret, “I will only ever use my God-given gifts for good and to defeat evil. I will never knowingly harm another person, place or thing.”
So, I’m stretching the boundaries a little…
Then added, “I think I’ll take out the trash while I’m at it.”
Poking her head into Bobbie Jo’s room, she called out, “I’ll go help, Bud. I’ve started a fire or two in my day. You take your time.”
Stepping out of her bathroom, the waitress winked, “You’re a lifesaver, Pip. I forgot to iron my uniform last night, and there’s almost nothing I hate more than going to work all wrinkly.”
“Take your time,” Pippa assured. “I gotcha covered.”
Turning on her heels and heading straight out into the bright Oklahoma sun, Pippa called the local sheriff as she jogged up to the backdoor of the diner. Hanging up a half-second before popping in the open door, she called out, “Show me to your pilot light. I come in peace,” in her best imitation of Marvin the Martian.
“It’s over here,” the ex-con turned drug-dealing-fry-cook pointed behind the old, cast iron flat top grill. “I keep telling Bobbie she needs to replace this damned thing, but it was her granny’s, and she says, ‘If it ain’t broke, I ain’t fixing it’.”
Pippa didn’t appreciate the mocking way Bud had emulated Bobbie Jo’s voice, nor his vegetable cooler drug business, or… in truth, anything else about the louse. An idea flashed in her mind, one she knew she could enact to both scare the crap and the truth out of the asshole while helping her friend to be rid of the threat to her livelihood and her heritage.
Crossing the kitchen, Pippa smiled sweetly and nodded, “Let me get back there, and I’ll have you back in business in no time.”
Feeling Bud’s stare switch from her chest to her ass as she squeezed behind the stove. Pippa only had to let the visions of the lowlife piece of shit’s illicit actions flow through her mind, to make flames dance on the tips of her fingers. Quickly lighting the pilot light, listening to the pop and sizzle as she took a sniff to be sure there wasn’t a gas leak, the PI scooted out the way she came in, leaving her hands behind the cast iron frame until Bud’s hand landed flat on her ass.
Thank God, for the predictability of a dirtbag…
Squealing like a little girl, playing up his attention as she tried to keep from throwing up, Pippa counted to three, before kicking back with her foot and jamming it into Bud’s family jewels. Dropping like a sack of potatoes, his hands covering his crotch, struggling to breathe, the drug-dealing jerk squealed like a stuck pig when Pippa sat on his chest and shoved her fiery fingers into his face.
Leaning forward, her nose nearly touching his, she growled, “I know all about your side business, you effing waste of space, and so do they.” She pointed the flame on the tip of her thumb over her shoulder. “Hear those sirens? They’re coming for you, and you’re gonna take your punishment like a good little boy.” Touching the curled-up sides of his handlebar mustache until the smell of burnt wax and hair filled the air, Pippa went on, “And you’re gonna make it crystal clear that Bobbie Jo had nothing to with your shitty little enterprise. Also, don’t forget to rat out all your slime ball friends.” She leaned closer still, her flaming index fingers pointed right at his eyes and added, “Because if you don’t, I’ll come back, burn you alive and throw your ashes in the remotest, deepest hole in the middle of nowhere, where no one will ever find you. Ya’ get me?”
Whimpering and nodding, Bud curled into a fetal position as soon as Pippa stood up. Clenching her fists to put out her fire, she reached for the image of a cool, babbling brook. The one that always helped extinguish her flames, but instead this time, Pippa found alluring brown eyes with the slightest hint of a twinkle in their dark depths and heard a whispered, “An lasair de mo maité.”
Still surprised that she understood Fury’s strange language and sure she was losing every single one of her marbles, but enjoying the trip, Pippa answered without thought, chuckled, “So, you’re who I have to blame for my love of fire?”
She missed his reply as the image of her dragon popped from existence, replaced by the real live Broken Arrow Sheriff and his deputy, guns drawn and pointed at Bud. The older man, so close in looks that he could’ve been Shep’s brother, asked with a gravelly tone caused by way too many cigarettes, “You Pippa Sparks?”
“Yes, sir,” she nodded and smiled as she pointed at the ground. “And here’s the man responsible for the drug trade in your town.” Moving to the side, she wiped her hands on her jeans, before adding, “You’ll find his stash in the walk-in, hidden behind the wooden crates of vegetables and the rest in the panel of the door on the passenger’s side of that old red Ford out back.”
Thankfully, the sheriff had confiscated the drugs and had Bud in the car before Bobbie Jo blew into the diner. Cooking breakfast for the customers, Pippa promised to stop by the station on her way out of town and said goodbye to the officers. As soon as everyone had their food and she was alone with Bobbie Jo, Pippa explained what had happened the best way she knew how, while skipping over the part about her seeing people’s pasts and controlling fire like a human torch.
With tears in her eyes, Bobbie Jo leaned against the corner of the counter and sniffled, “I’ll be damned. I really am clueless, just like they used to tease me about in high school. How could I not know what was going on right under my own roof?”
Closing the distance between them, Pippa took a chance and laid her hand on the waitress’ shoulder. Surprised that she wasn’t looking through Bobbie Jo’s eyes, reliving her past, but pleased at her sudden control, the PI comforted, “This is not your fault. Hell, if anything, it shows what a good person you are, trusting an ex-con, giving him a job. In my book that makes you something real special.”
Tears streaming down her face but smiling ear-to-ear, Bobbie Jo threw her arms around Pippa and sobbed, “Thank you, girl. Thank you so damn much. I’ve never known anybody like you.”
Thank the Lord in heaven…
Stepping back and wiping her eyes, the waitress added, “I’ll be thanking the man upstairs for years to come for having you stop in my little diner and letting me get to know you.”
Unable to speak past the lump in her throat, feeling just as happy to have met Bobbie Jo, Pip
pa nodded as she whispered, “Right back atcha, BJ.”
Chapter Eight
“So, what did Zach say?” Kayne asked with a chuckle. The demi-god still amazed Fury with the way he’d picked up the modern slang so naturally after a century in Hell. The golden dragon always was the most laid back of all the Guardsmen, and now, they had proof that not even the Devil himself could ruffle the old sod’s scales.
“His information was the same as Doxie’s, just more detailed and personal.”
“Now, that sounds interesting. Go on. Spill the beans. Don’t leave me hangin’,” the demi-god pestered.
“No.” Fury was adamant. “I’ll not be wastin’ time on things that will no help me get to my Pippa. Now, are ya’ goin’ ta listen, or do I need ta call Doxie away from that mate of his?” Fury could hear his brogue getting deeper with every word and hoped his brethren took the hint and got on with it.
“No, no, no,” Kayne chuckled. “Maddox has always been and always will be, shall we say, eccentric,” the demi-god barked out a laugh. “But now that he has Calysta, all bets are off. He’s right crazy about his witch and will fight for every minute alone he can have with her
“As it should be,” Fury readily agreed, images of Pippa filling his mind, brightening his disposition, and making him feel whole for the first time in his life. She was the missing piece of his soul, the one he hadn’t known was absent until the moment she appeared.
“Yeah, I can see you’re already a goner, too. Put another tick in the ‘blissfully mated’ column,” Kayne snickered, hurrying to add, “And man, I’m so happy for you. I can’t think of anyone who deserves happiness more than you.”