Nia: There Be a Mage

"Nia, can you stay in the back of the truck with us. I'd feel better if you were there to shoot any assassins, your not the only one getting money on her head."

"No problem Twitch, I think we are going in two cars anyway. Consuela if you could have a big dinner ready for us we will pack up and head home at five, so be here about seven." Consuela looks over at me and nods.

"I will make a nice pie or two and of course a very big dinner, perhaps run for ice cream I did not buy any yet." I sigh and look down to pick up my Barrett and shotgun.

"I would love to have a beer honestly. I'm not big on ice cream, the pie sounds lovely. Make sure you have something for Twitch and the kids, in case hunting is slim."

I giggle when I see the truck fitting in back is easy it's a very big truck. I have to pry Prissy and Dissy away from my Barrett and shotgun a few times. Twitch doesn't say anything to me while we are in the city the girls ask a few questions especially on the first street light. With the scant bushes and cacti streaming past Twitch lets out a breath and looks at me.

"Nia this might be a strange question, but when you look at me what do you see?"

"A happy mother, very good dungeon master, and great friend so what led to this question?"

"My sister, she always says I chose to stay in the wrong place, like out here is so much better than New York." I sigh and turn to look at Twitch better.

"There are not many differences between here and there, there is more open land here, there is less humidity and it is about forty degrees hotter. To be honest it sounds more like your sister is finding something to lord over you because she isn't happy." Twitch giggles and nods.

"Perhaps, I find it is warm here, I would prefer to get under some shade and stay. Home I look for the sun and lie in it during the day as much as possible. Ben teases me about being a house cat." I laugh, that is a very good way to put it.

"Which puts your home land somewhere between New York and Arizona in temperatures. That puts you as starting in Italy or Greece I would think." Twitch nods.

"We are not sure where we started there are dragons in all ancient writings. I would like to see a Chinese or Japanese dragon, possible they are us, the Japanese ones some look like a lion which we resemble a little."

"Closer to a tiger I would think, lions are thick in the chest your more of a sleek killer like the tiger."

"We are not striped." I giggle and nod.

"No but a tiger is striped because it lives in the jungle. Dragons are not striped because they are through Europe, forests and plains galore there. I say started in Italy or Greece because both are forest or plain. Mountain lions and lions are the same color pattern as you are, forest and plains only in their habitat."

"Seems odd we start there, it is said all life began in Middle East." I shake my head.

"Civilization started there, scientists now are saying man started in Africa. Would make sense that dragons, goblins, ogres, and trolls start elsewhere different environment different top species. Perhaps not different top species, all besides dragon can mate with human, perhaps subjected to a chemical or radiation of some sort to mutate."

"So your saying that maybe most of us started human and little green men came along?" I laugh Twitch does to that was a good joke.

"Perhaps, who knows we should set the scientists to looking into that. Still leaves us with dragons and cockatrice, cockatrice there is no explanation, there's not a need for those. Dragons are needed because of cockatrice but there's still no reason." Twitch sighs and nods.

"We don't know, dragons have no written language, we don't have a spoken one either. As far as we know we growled and grunted at each other until the trolls came upon us. We were the second species to join with the trolls after the minotaurs. The magic users came a little later, while we were trying to take out the big trolls. It is unknown how much help dragons were, our claws may not have been thick enough to hurt a forest troll. What little remains of the time speak only of minotaurs killing the trolls."

"Likely you served the same purpose your doing for us, helped look and warn of danger. Your sense of smell is incredibly good, besides I doubt a forest troll has flesh to thick for your claws." Twitch laughs then lets out a breath as we turn off the road and bounce around.

I end up kicking Twitch when we stop. We stop fast making her slide at me I had to put my feet up to stop her. I'm yelling at Falco Twitch giggling as we get out the back of the truck. Falco is apologizing to Twitch, the two other dragons watching us come laughing. I look back to see Twitch limping, Sam looks and starts to giggle.

"Twitch stop limping or you can stay at the trucks."

Twitch lets out a breath and stops limping, I take this opportunity to look at our other backup. A very big golden dragon is on the right side, not only longer but taller than Twitch. Her scales are a shiny golden color, glinting in the sunlight a very dazzling look. The dragon next to her is smaller than Twitch he is a tan color looking more like a walking pile of dirt than a dragon. Twitch moves up next to me giggling.

"I can't believe my sister mated with him." I giggle myself.

"When you got to have sex you can't be choosy." Twitch laughs her sister lets out a breath and walks toward us.

"He's young I admit it, darn it all sis you should know how hard it is to say no, would you like me to share who your first mate was?" Twitch stops moving, her kids buzz me making me stop moving.

"That was a low blow Goldy. I admit I'm not one to talk, my next heat I'm letting the nearest male mate with me, he's pink." Goldy laughs, I'm surprised I hadn't known dragons came in pink.

The tan dragon walks over followed by a farmer. The farmer is tall with blonde hair he seems to be covered in dirt. I move that way and meet the farmer letting the dragons have their little bit of talking to each other.

"Thank you for bringing those two over here. I'm Nia, I promise to return all three of your passengers in one piece." I hold out my hand, he looks down then takes it firmly.

"No problem at all, I'm happy to do it I get a break from my wife, she's been a little cranky of late." He has a nice voice, not deep, not high just right in the middle.

"Well then I'm happy to get you away from your wife." He chuckles and smiles at me.

"So what are we doing?" Twitch asks as she comes over with her sister and the other dragon trailing.

"I'm thinking we go up over there and take a look around. Get an idea on good places to explore." I say pointing to a small hill, there isn't anything taller for quite a ways.

I get startled looks when I load a clip into the Barrett and put a bullet in the chamber. It's loud to do that the bullets are so big it has to have a lot of friction just to keep the gun from flying apart with one or two shots. We head up the little hill the dragons going first. At the top we look around to see the area littered with outcroppings of rocks.

"It's going to take us a month to go through this." Falco says with a sigh.

"No, we split up into three groups. Dragon and a couple of us, I'll go with Sam and Twitch. I suppose you guys should split up for agent and minotaur with a dragon. Twitch you three figure out where you go we will follow you."

Twitch nods, the dragons get in a little huddle talking low. After a second or two they split up, the tan dragon heads to the left, Twitch goes up the middle and Goldy goes to the right. Finding this a strange arrangement I follow after Twitch, Sam falling in to step beside me. The minotaurs take longer they drop their cases and produce really big double sided axes. Falco and Ben-Ben curse when they change to their real look.

"Twitch I gotta ask, why are we in the middle?" Twitch giggles and keeps looking side to side.

"Because your gun will kill anything in a wide area, you can support either side. Goldy is on the right because the farms are that way, cockatrice wander large area in Arizona for food."

"Nia this rifle won't just be full auto will it?" Sam asks looking a little nervous.

"No it's set for three round burst it will kick a little up but not much, just aim at what you want to shoot."

It is slow going the rock outcroppings are not always stable. I have to twice save Sam from a fall, I almost fall once. Prissy and Dissy start yammering excitedly while we are paused for a drink. Twitch picks up their excitement and yells for everyone. Not understanding why we move to a dirt pile, Twitch starts digging at it and we all gasp. Under the dirt is a trapdoor, carefully we clean it off to find the outer end of a rope to pull it closed.

"Vampires?" Ben-Ben asks looking a little frightened.

"No, vampires would not have come out during the day. Unless the gang got lost and came to the spot we parked after dark we are not looking at vampires, likely worse necromancer."

"Necromancer is not worse, just tougher to reach. We will go first, zombies stop working chopped up." Charlie says he and Linus start playing rock, paper and scissor.

"Unless the tunnel is too small, then I'll go first." They stop to look at me, their huge nostrils flaring then nod.

While they are playing rock, paper, and scissor we work on getting the trap door open. Ben-Ben seems to be rather scared that its vampires still, Sam and I trade a glance then start giggling. With the door open we peer in, there is a ladder going down, a metal one. The tunnel itself looks to be wide and tall the ladder is at least seven feet.

"Nia we can't go in there, dragons and ladders don't mix." Twitch says after looking down.

"Likely the point, stay here or look for other entrances, this probably is the only one."

Twitch nods to me then moves off with the other two dragons. Charlie heads down apparently he won their game and gets to go first. Linus follows him down then I get to climb down. Charlie goes first followed by me on the other side of the tunnel with Linus breathing down my back. The tunnel keeps going, twists and turns here and there in a downward direction. Sounds of pleasure get us to stop and look at each other before continuing on to a large chamber.

The chamber is not so much tall as wide with rugs littered on the floor. There is a bench along one wall with holes in the top. In the far corner is a crowd of maybe forty men and one woman, she is being fucked and many of the men are fucking other men. We move closer to see better these must be the missing gang members, she looks like a regular woman. I get a little moist watching her being fucked, the man on top of her is really moving with passion. Her hips are moving with him, I can see his butt rising and falling.

The other men are getting sex, mostly with a man under another. They are both moving with passion some moaning as if they are really enjoying the gay sex. While we are watching the man on top of her finishes, when he pulls away I get a brief glimpse of her pussy leaking a lot of white fluids. Another man gets on her, not before she notices us she screams to kill the intruders and the men save the one on her stand up.

I raise the Barrett aiming at where I think she is behind all those men and fire. Bodies explode in the line of the bullet dust settling down over us at the deafening boom. I fire again having a clearer view on the bed and the woman. She is sitting up staring at me wide eyed mouthing something when I fire. The bullet hits her a little below her breasts right in the middle.

There is only a hole in the front, the splatter of blood and other things on the wall of dirt behind her saying the exit is worse. She falls back hidden in a cloud of dust as I drop the Barrett the dust coming down now worse than it was for the first shot. I pull up my shotgun and fire on the man closest to me. His chest explodes sending him backwards a few feet trailing blood. I shoot another in the face, his head poofs into a cloud of dust parts of his head hitting me.

Charlie goes past me standing almost fully up the chamber is not quite tall enough for eight feet plus horns. His huge axe swinging, cleaving two to three men in half with each swing. I back away with my Barrett in hand to watch as Linus and Charlie wade through the small number of men remaining. It does not take them long to finish these men off. There are parts of men everywhere, the rugs covered in blood as I walk to the bed.

The woman is still alive barely she is mouthing something at me as I get closer. I lean in to hear her to find she is trying to cast a spell. I pull out the Colt and shoot her between the eyes. Sam's shriek has me running that way to find her staring at a big grill with human bones behind it. Looking at the skulls combined with the number of men there were with her I realize she was feeding them and her with them.

"I don't think we should tell anyone about this." Falco says looking haunted.

"I think that would be best, the casters are all registering and giving addresses anyway. Something like this would get them killed, what was she?" I say looking at Charlie.

"That was a magic user I've never seen one go cannibal. They can pull food from elsewhere and have it appear with them if they really need."

"Wait if they can summon items to them then they must be able to teleport themselves. Shit that might have been some ones wife and she only fed them with them."

We all trade a glance and curse, the farmer said his wife was cranky lately. We run for the ladder I go up first hoping that the dragons are still here. Two of them are, the tan dragon is somewhere else, Goldy and Twitch are still here talking they turn to look at me as I come out.

"Goldy we just killed a magic user she turned the missing gangbangers into love slaves and fed them to each other. Please tell me your ride is not married to a mage." Goldy and Twitch let out long breaths, staring at me eyes wide in shock.

"Chris is married to a vampire. There was a crazy lady wandering around, she disappeared just a little before the gang did. Possible the crazy lady is your mage." Goldy says standing up Twitch joins her as the last of us exit the tunnel.

"Why is his wife cranky of late?" I ask as we set out on our way back.

"She wants to be pregnant like you are." I look over at Goldy and sigh.

"Tests were run Constance and a few of the female vampires in New York, all tested as barren no life to come from them. Artificial might work I suppose, tell Chris to call up a clinic and see if they would. Have to be an egg donor but if she can work as a host it's as close as she can get." Goldy let's out a breath, Sam comes close and takes my arm.

"Perhaps fertility drugs men die and return working there shouldn't be a reason the women can't."

"Sam, remember the men come back barely working, I got lucky with Ben knocking me up as soon as he did. Besides there is a difference between working sperm and working ovarian tubes, I'm not sure you can create life in a dead woman."

"A chance of it is better than no hope. I'll be sure and tell Chris." Goldy says with a little bounce to her step.

"If they can't afford treatment and the clinic doesn't just call around and ask for help have them call FCI headquarters. We are not just a police force we are here to help get everyone working together in as much harmony as we can." Falco says as we crest the hill to see a cop car parked next to our trucks.

The cop appears when we come down the hill, he's talking to Chris. They look like they know each other and gives us a wave as we reach the bottom of the hill.

"I've been told to ask if you found them." The cop says as we get close enough o talk, his voice is nice and strong.

Sam leans in to me with a soft moan, I agree his six foot something frame is very well taken care of. His arms are not body builder formed and toned but thick from honest work. His big hands carelessly resting on his belt, his feet looking big sticking out of his pants. He's not police a sheriff's deputy instead, almost the same thing in Maricopa County.

"Ignore the woman we aren't good enough eye candy for them. We found them and they are all dead, they found a tunnel that collapsed after them. We should have a forensics and recovery team on the way." Falco says as Ben-Ben heads for our truck.

"A shame that, for their families of course. I don't mind being ogled it's nice to be looked at appreciably." The deputy says with a smile looking at us.

"Nia would it be all right if I go home with my sister? Me having twins has gotten her to forget that she's bigger and I want to just talk to her, been so long." Twitch says nudging her head in to me as Chris yelps and cheers over by the trucks.

"No problem Twitch, I haven't even seen the house yet and I'm sure Ben has things in mind for me. I think we are supposed to have food waiting for us." Twitch looks at the deputy he looks at us and smiles.

"Of course I do, whole bunch of the buck doubles from Burger King and three good sized roasts. I wasn't sure if you would be happy with just burgers for the dragons." Twitch lets out a breath and looks up at me.

"I like him, feast of kings and I can have my girls eat bread. Can we keep him Nia?" I laugh as we move toward his patrol car.

The deputy brings out the roasts one at a time, each wrapped in butcher paper. The three adult dragons take their roast and move away from us and each other to eat. I set two of the burgers on the car and unwrap them for the kids while the rest of us take the bags and go sit in the dirt around them. There isn't much talking as we eat the first burger, Chris and Linus are on their third burger before we relax enough for conversation.

"How long have you been a deputy?" Falco asks looking interested.

"Working on my sixth year, the report I got to read never said dragons eat apart like that." I look over at the dragons and giggle.

"I suppose you have never had more than one dog or cat, predatory animals prefer to eat alone. Cuts down on competition for food that they catch. Kids are an exemption though in this case the burgers are enough probably take those two burgers with them. Makes me wonder why the trolls think dragons used to be a mated pair."

"On ranches we can have a second dragon with us. Usually a male and a female that mate when she goes in to heat." Twitch yells at us, I sigh and shake my head.

"Thank you Twitch, your hearing is to good sometimes." All three dragons laugh, Sam leans in to me.

"What's your name?" I look at Sam surprised, the deputy just chuckles.

"Sam Barnes pleased to meet you ladies." He gets up to bow as he says it.

"Are you a centaur?" It's a valid question I've never seen anyone else bow when introducing themselves he looks at me a little shocked.

"Well no, I'm a weretiger actually. I'd appreciate it if you didn't go around saying it, the sheriff is on the racist side of things and he can fire me without cause." We all laugh as Twitch yells Sam-Sam Ben-Ben looks around then opens his mouth.

"How does one become a wereleopard?" I reach over and swat him on the back of the head.

"There are two ways, being attacked and living through it nobody does that anymore, and having a parent that is. That way can alter in the transfer, my dad is a wolf." Sam sighs against me her hand wrapped around my arm.

"Can vampires feed on weres?" We all look at her she looks around then up at me. "What he's a hunk and Constance could use a boyfriend, you remember the story on the Great Depression she loved a wereleopard. Tiger is close enough perhaps, and he's a hunk." I sigh and tap Sam on the head.

"I think the first question should be if he's single, not if he can feed a vampire. Second question would be if he wants to then you ask if he can, Sam sometimes you think with your pussy to much." Sam giggles and looks at the deputy.