by Charley Case
A man in a black suit stepped out of the darkened arch and, one hand in his coat, leaned forward to greet them.
“Mr. Dragonbender and Ms. Winters. Mr. Meriwether has been expecting you. Please pull up to the main house and park at the front steps.”
He disappeared into the shadow of his arch before they could say anything in response, and the gate swung open on silent motors.
“Fancy,” Mila commented, putting the car in drive and rumbling up the long, tree-lined drive.
They drove for half a mile before the trees thinned out and they got their first view of the house. It was a huge, sprawling, conglomeration of pointed roof peaks and high arched windows set in stone walls. The drive split, one path leading around to the back of the house, and the other leading to a turnaround in front of the wide marble front steps. Mila drove to the front as she had been instructed and pressed the ignition button, the Hellcat rumbling to sleep.
“Well, this is impressive,” she said, leaning down to see past Finn and Penny and out the passenger side window.
“It’s nice,” Finn said. He wasn’t exactly unimpressed but growing up in a literal palace had tainted his expectations of wealth. “Are you ready to meet the man?”
Mila sighed and gave him a smile. “Sure. Let’s see how the other side lives, shall we?”
Finn pulled on the door handle and slid out of the muscle car, Penny climbing up onto his shoulder. They waited for Mila to come around the car, as she fiddled with the short, red leather jacket that he liked.
“I feel like I’m underdressed for this,” she mused, frowning at her black tights and calf-high, heeled boots.
“We’re here for work, not a ball. You look great, magic boots and all.”
He held out his arm, and she took it with a chuckle.
“These aren’t magic boots.”
He made an exaggerated face and leaned back to look at her behind over her shoulder. “Tell that to your ass.”
She smacked his arm but blushed slightly at the compliment. “Hey, eyes front, bub.”
He chuckled and smiled down at her.
They reached the top step, and Finn reached for the large, metal knocker on the two-story wooden door, but the slab opened before he could touch it.
Mila sucked in a breath as the door swung open and revealed a ten-foot-tall man wearing a black tuxedo jacket and a crisp white shirt underneath. Finn saw her glance down to the furry, naked legs ending in horse hooves, and smiled as he saw her brain catching up with what she was seeing.
The man took a step sideways, revealing the rest of the horse body that made up his lower half. He waved them inside, and in a haughty, slightly British accent, said, “Please, come in. Mister Meriwether is on the back terrace. I’ll show you the way.”
“You’re a centaur!” Mila blurted out.
The middle-aged horseman smiled at her and nodded. “That I am, Peabrain. Would you please follow me?” He turned and walked with deliberate slowness so as to not lose the two bipedal guests.
Finn was impressed. Centaurs prided themselves on their independent natures, and it was extraordinarily rare to see one in a servant’s position. Either this Preston fellow was worthy of the centaur’s respect and loyalty, or he was some kind of monster. Those were the only circumstances under which Finn had ever seen a centaur work for someone else.
They made their way through the enormous house that was, somehow, modern and traditional at the same time. The art on the walls leaned toward the modern, but there were a few impressionist paintings in the mix that kept the view interesting to his eyes.
The centaur led them to a large set of glass doors and opened one for them. Beyond the glass was a large, marble patio that looked out over beautiful grasslands, offering a view of the Rockies in the distance.
“This way. Mister Meriwether is at the table, having his breakfast.”
Finn glanced to the side and saw a large, wooden table with several serving plates containing everything from eggs and bacon to delicately rolled crepes stuffed with fruit. At the head of the table was a giant of a man in a thick, cream-colored sweater and dark blue jeans. He had a thick thatch of black hair, and a set of large, curved horns coming from the sides of his forehead.
As they stepped out onto the veranda, Preston Meriwether turned toward them and smiled, his large, bovine nose curling up slightly.
Finn, for the first time, was shocked. He had never met a minotaur before. They were a very private species and rarely traveled from their homeworld. Nothing he had found about Earth said there was a population of them at all.
Preston stood and ate up the distance between them with long strides. He held out his large hand, and Finn took it automatically, the size of his own hand small in comparison.
“Hello, Mr. Dragonbender. It is a real pleasure to meet you. Garret and Hermin can’t stop talking about you and your friend, Ms. Winters.”
His voice was deep and pleasant, and his eyes warm. He took Mila’s hand into his and nearly engulfed half her forearm in his palm. “A pleasure, Ms. Winters.” He then glanced up at Penny and offered her a finger to shake. “Ms. Penny. I am sorry, but no one has been able to tell me your surname. But I suppose a faerie dragon should have her secrets.” He gave her a wink that made her blush and puff out her chest in an unconscious show of pleasure. “Please, come and join me. I was just having breakfast.”
Finn guessed he was used to people not knowing how to take his true form, and was gracious in their shock, leading them to the table, where an elven maid in the traditional black and white dress of the position cheerily placed plates and silverware down for the three new guests. Finn noted her happy demeanor, making a tick in the ‘worthy’ column of the balance sheet he was keeping in his head about Meriwether.
After a second’s thought, Finn made two ticks; one for the happy maid, and one for the way Preston had handled their shock at seeing him.
Finn sat across the table from Mila and Penny. Penny was genuinely surprised when the maid provided a thin purple, embroidered cushion for her. They all settled in as a second maid came and filled their cups with coffee and orange juice.
“Please, fill your plates,” Meriwether encouraged, taking a sip of his coffee, but waiting to eat until they all had food.
Penny, not one to be shy, began working the large serving spoon in the scrambled eggs like a pro, even going so far as to drop a scoop on both Finn’s and Mila’s plates as they slowly began making their choices. Soon, everyone had a good, hearty breakfast piled onto the thin porcelain plates, but no one had more than Penny, who had taken the open invitation to heart.
Finn chuckled when two of the five sausages she had taken fell off her overcrowded plate. She quickly stuffed them in her mouth as if nothing had happened.
Once everyone else was eating, Meriwether dug in, not showing any reservations about doing so in front of guests. He was a large man, making Finn look normal sized in comparison, and he evidently needed to eat to maintain that size. In the span of twenty minutes, he ate four plates full and didn’t seem overstuffed in the least.
“This is wonderful, Mr. Meriwether,” Mila said, wiping at the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “I have to say, I’m a big fan of the charities you organize. I appreciate that there is someone out there with the wealth that you have, who genuinely cares about people.”
He waved the comment off. “I don’t do anything that most people don’t want to do. I have the means, and I enjoy solving problems, Ms. Winters. It’s nothing more.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Meriwether,” Mila pressed. “There are a lot of very wealthy people out there who don’t seem to care about much more than the number in their account.”
“First, please call me ‘Preston.’ ‘Mr. Meriwether’ makes me sound like a Bond villain.” He chuckled along with the rest of them. “And secondly, you’re right that there are a lot of people who only look to raise their status with their wealth, but there are just as many that work quietly in the
background to make the world better. Just remember that the news you hear is for-profit nowadays. The world isn’t nearly as bad as you’ve been told. I don’t think what I’m choosing to do with my money is anything special, just a product of my upbringing.”
He gave them a toothy smile. “My mother would twist my horns off if she thought I was being anything but generous. My altruism comes from fear, God rest her soul.” He folded his hands, resting his elbows on the table and his chin on his fingers. “Ask your friend here,” he nodded toward Finn. “He is a prince after all if those magical tattoos are real. He grew up with more money than there is on Earth, but here he sits, ready to help a schlub like me.”
Mila gave Finn a look he didn’t like all that much. It was an expression that he had come to dread in his exile, one worn by someone when they realized how much influence his name actually had.
He decided he needed to keep that look off her face at all costs. She was far too special to him to think of him as anything but the guy she’d saved at a Kum & Go on a random night.
“I haven’t been a royal for a long time…not the way you think of them, anyway.” Finn shifted in his chair and looked Preston in the eye. “What can the ladies and I do for you, Preston?”
Preston saw that he had hit a bit of a nerve with the dwarf, and wisely pressed ahead before Mila got caught up in it too much. He stood and waved for them to follow. “Come. I need to show you a few things before we get to the heart of it.”
Penny glanced from Mila to Finn and chose to ride on Mila’s shoulder, her presence distracting the woman while Finn frowned, his mood soured with the reminder of his family.
He made a mark in the ‘monster’ column in his mind.
Chapter Seven
Preston led them down the veranda to a path that wound its way through an ornate garden of exotic flora. Some of the signs warned passersby to not step off the path due to carnivorous plants. The walk was filled with pleasant talk between Preston and Mila, with Finn following a few paces behind, trying to figure the billionaire out.
He seemed genuine, and the comment about Finn’s past life had been dropped without much prompting, but still, Finn had a suspicion that there might be more to this man than the public image he portrayed.
Penny kept looking back to check on him, and he waved off her concern with a half-smile. She had seen him in his contemplative moods enough times to know not to bother him and turned back to listen in on whatever Preston was saying.
Fishing his box of Charleston Chews out of his jacket pocket, Finn ate a few, out of habit more than anything, and considered why he would help this guy. Money was not an issue, especially now that they had the mine up and running. But he needed favors. The expensive kind.
Over the last few weeks on Earth, Finn had realized that while the machine herself was running acceptably well, thanks in most part to the Elemental that the Huldu wouldn’t stop talking about, there were other threats to this great ship. And if treasure hunting had taught Finn anything, it was that the truly precious treasures needed protecting.
The Earth was riddled with wars and famine and all sorts of disasters, but the Peabrains had those under control, for the most part. And the magical phenomena that threatened to spill out into society was being taken care of by the Huldu and a few other notable entities. Seeing his place in the mess had taken him a few nights of hard thinking, but once it hit him, he felt like an idiot for not seeing it from the start.
On the original voyage, a large number of dwarves had booked passage, his distant cousin Fafnir among them. Most of the dwarves were weapon and artifact smiths, and they had brought almost all of their items with them; that was the original bit of knowledge that had turned Finn on to finding Earth in the first place. Now that the dwarves were all gone, there was no one left who truly understood the power of those artifacts, as was plainly evident the day before, when the elves had nearly destroyed an entire forest by a mere miscalculation.
The Earth needed someone like him to police the artifacts before those trying to use them got out of hand and did some real damage. To tell the truth, he was surprised the ship had lasted this long without a dwarf aboard. Now that he was here permanently, he understood it was where he could do the most good. And for that, he would need allies. And lots of favors.
“Here we are,” Preston said in his pleasant baritone as the path came to an end at a vine-covered brick wall. He swiped an electronic pad with his finger, and a metal door set into the brick unlocked with a ka-chunk and swung open.
When they stepped through, Finn was confused at first, thinking the brick was the wall of a long, low building, but he soon saw that it was, in fact, the perimeter wall of a large zoo. The path they were on was obviously a private entrance for Preston, but it quickly led out onto one of the main paths, and by an open-air enclosure that held several blue, glowing beetles, larger than a Great Dane. Dozens of people walked the path, stopping at the exhibit, including several children, who jumped and pointed at the lazy beetles sunning themselves on the rocks.
“Welcome to the Menagerie,” Preston said with a bovine smile that seemed more human than Finn thought could come from a bull’s lips.
They stepped off the private path and onto the public thoroughfare, several of the visitors smiling and waving to Preston, who returned every greeting in kind.
Mila sucked in a breath, looking at the beetles, and Finn glanced that way. All three of the hulking bugs had stood up on their rocks and were obviously staring at them. The one closest to the path raised its front leg and began to wave.
It was such an odd display that the people gathered around the enclosure’s edge began to look over their shoulders.
Mila shyly raised a hand and waved at the shiny blue beetle, who then took a slight bow before settling back down on its rock as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
The people, however, were buzzing with excitement at the odd show.
“I must say, Ms. Winters,” Preston said, giving her an appraising look before motioning for them to continue, “the scarabs have not been that active in a long, long time. They are rather picky about who they interact with. You must be someone special indeed.”
Mila reddened as they made their way past several more displays. “ Insects and I have always had an…understanding.”
Preston gave her a sideways, appraising look. “Interesting.”
They continued on, winding through what Finn was sure was a top-notch zoo. It rivaled anything he had seen on his journeys, making the one at his father’s capital look sterile and cruel in comparison. The enclosures mimicked the creatures’ natural habitat and gave them plenty of room to move around while keeping the observers and creatures all perfectly safe. Each of the enclosures was open to the air, but when Finn saw a particularly aggressive young roc try to fly out of its enclosure, the bluish glow of a magical barrier turned the large bird back. It was quite the show of power, to enclose zoo exhibits with magic.
Eventually, they made their way across the grounds, and Preston led them to another gate labeled Employees Only. He once again used his fingerprint to open the door, and led them into a building, raucous with barking and growling dogs.
The interior was made of cinderblocks, painted with shiny gray paint that gave the place a clinical look. There were several chain-link fences with gates that served as pens between cinder block walls. As they passed by, Finn was surprised to see that the dogs were not dogs at all—at least, not in the traditional sense. They were hellhounds.
The hounds stood nearly five-foot at the shoulder and had long, wide snouts full of glistening, silver teeth. Their coats were a motley of colors, from a drab brown to white and black, and every spotted combination between. Finn had seen hellhounds before, but these were a little smaller than ones found in the wild, and resembled a cross between a border collie and a Great Dane, with short body hair, and long hair on the tail and legs. All in all, they were very pretty dogs; except for the glowing red eyes.
Those were a little disconcerting.
“Hello, Anita.” Preston had to nearly shout to be heard over the constant barking.
A slender black-haired elf in a long, white lab coat nearly jumped out of her skin as she spun from the computer she had been working at on the counter.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he continued loudly. “This is Finnegan Dragonbender and his associate Dr. Mila Winters, along with Penny. They’re the ones I told you about the other day.”
Anita motioned for them to follow her, and she led them out the back door to a yard that was obviously used to let the hounds get some exercise, if the ripped-up turf and various half-destroyed toys were any indication. As soon as the party was outside, the hounds quit their barking, and Anita pulled earplugs out of her ears and dropped them into her pocket. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from the other pocket and lit one with a flame from the end of her finger.
“Sorry about that,” she said, nervously pushing a pair of wire-framed glasses up her nose and taking a quick pull on the cigarette. “The hounds did not imprint on me, so they tend to be a little rambunctious. Makes talking around them nearly impossible. Oh my god. Is that a faerie dragon? You have to let me examine it. I didn’t think there were any left! Where did you get it?”
Her ability to talk, smoke, and change subjects all in one breath made it hard for Finn to follow, but when she reached out to pick up Penny, he finally caught up.
However, it was Mila who took a step back, keeping Penny out of Anita’s reach.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Mila said with care. “Not if you want to keep all your fingers and your skin. Penny doesn’t like to be picked up.”
Penny puffed a yellow flame and narrowed her eyes at the black-haired elf.
Anita stopped in her tracks, a look of embarrassment crossing her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean any offense. I’ve just never seen a live specimen before. I’ve only read about them in Herchal’s journals.”
“Shir chchchi!” Penny shot another gout of flame to punctuate the point.