Page 19 of Bewitching the Dragon
“She’s a human,” Rahu said, and then he clarified, “Well, actually, she’s a witch who thinks she’s human.”
Mildred nodded from her perch on the couch, where she sat primly, holding what was probably a whiskey sour in one hand. “That makes a great deal of difference.”
“Technically, she’s half witch, half gargoyle,” Ketu said. “And what do you think we should tell her?”
“Fascinating,” Mildred murmured.
“What do we need to tell her?” Ketu repeated.
“What she is,” Rahu answered.
“No,” someone said from behind him. He turned around to watch Argyle stride into the room.
“Why are you alwaysaround?” Rahu asked, throwing up his arms.
The exceedingly tall and maybe a little scary-looking man straightened his shoulders, which added another couple of inches to his already impressive height. “I do what is necessary to protect my daughter.”
“Who’s his daughter?” Hank asked.
“Becca, I assume,” Mildred replied.
“How do you know that?” Rahu asked.
She lifted that shoulder again. “Ketu said she’s part gargoyle, and he’s definitely a gargoyle.” She did a two-shoulder shrug this time.
Rahu shook his head and looked up at Argyle, who had come to a stop next to the couch, standing there like a soldier awaiting his next command. Except it felt like he was the one in charge.
“She needs to know so she can protect herself,” Rahu argued.
“She has survived for twenty-five years believing herself to be human,” Argyle stated.
“Okay, maybe that’s true, but until now, no warlocks were aware of her existence. But they are now. Which means she’s in serious danger. She needs to know, so she knows what to look out for.”
“My entire brethren are on alert and watching out for her.”
“She thinks her aunt has a hoarding problem.”
Argyle furrowed his brows.
Rahu flapped his arm. “All the gargoyles that keep appearing on her lawn? Becca thinks her aunt is buying them as lawn ornaments, and she’s worried Pacey is buying too many.”
“That’s funny,” Mildred piped up.
“She’s planning to buy baby clothes to put on all the gargoyles in her yard,” Rahu added.
Argyle’s dark complexion paled several shades.
“That’s funnier,” Mildred said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Argyle said, shaking off his apparent fear of baby clothes. “So long as she is safe.”
“That’s the problem,” Rahu argued. “She isn’t.”
“I beg to differ.”
“You can beg all you want, but the truth is, the second she steps foot out of that house, she’s vulnerable.” He flung himself around to face his best friend. “She was at this deli today, and I don’t know how she did it, but she summoned me. I swear. One minute, I was, er…” He’d actually been thinking about her, but he was pretty sure that had nothing to do with what happened, since he hadn’t stopped thinking about her since he ran into her at the bar on Friday evening.
“I was watching TV when all of a sudden I had this crazy urge to protect her. So I stood up and left the house and walked straight to this deli down the street. And when I was half a block away, three Rojo dragons left the deli and hurried down the road in the opposite direction.”
