Page 34 of On A Rift's Edge
“I have a fresh travel cup waiting and your clean clothes are in the bathroom.” Kat turned to go back into the living room, and Lyall thought about trying to restart their conversation, then decided to wait until he was less irritable and more caffeinated.
A little less than an hour later, after Kat had picked up two other wranglers who were part of his carpool group and had driven everyone to the ranch, Lyall was cursing himself for waiting to talk to him. Instead, Kat chatted with a visibly nervous Javier and an oblivious young wrangler who had accepted Lyall’s grunted “security” when asked what he was doing at the ranch.
He didn’t get another chance to get the young human alone. Kat and the other wranglers headed out to their duties, and Lyall was left standing next to Kaveh.
The Azdaha drakone had been waiting for them as they arrived and took a quick moment to put a hand on Kat’s shoulder and murmur a few words to him. Lyall hated the thought of leaving Kat for most of the day, but if he had to turn the human’s safety over to someone, it would be Kaveh.
The ranch’s protections should have been strengthened since the phantom attack several months ago, and even Arimanius wouldn’t take on a drakone who could fry him alive with poisonous fire.
“No further trouble, I take it?” Kaveh turned to him as Kat walked away, and Lyall tried not to transform from frustration and fear for the young human’s safety. “I have some time this morning. Maybe we can go in back and have a cup of coffee.”
That was a polite way of saying that Kaveh wanted to talk to Lyall, now. It was a good idea anyway, as was more caffeine.
They walked into the ranch’s main building, which had a laid-back elegance, with wood panels and beams, along with a large stone fireplace. A wagon-wheel chandelier hung from the ceiling. There was plenty of natural light from the floor-to-ceiling solar windows, which Lyall considered a security risk. On closer inspection, though, there was guardweed draped above each pane, and there was something odd about the delicate crystals dangling from the top of the window frames. The stones glinted in the early dawn sunlight, casting rainbows across the large patterned rug that covered the floor.
Lyall stopped to take a sniff, and even with the sheep smell coming off the wool carpet, he detected a familiar scent.
“Shield crystals.” Lyall jerked a thumb at the glittering objects. “Looks like you upgraded security.” The living rock could expand rapidly, encasing the walls in a crystalline barrier that was all but impossible to penetrate.
“With help from the guardians, yes.” Kaveh didn’t have to share details of the ranch’s defenses with him, and Lyall was grateful that the drakone trusted him with the intel. Granted, Lyall had been given permission to visit the ranch and monstertown. But he was still a hellhound on drakone territory.
Kaveh had as strong a desire to protect Kat as he did to protect Remi, and the drakone knew Lyall shared that goal.
What Kaveh didn’t know was how badly Lyall wanted to protect Kat and why.
It was time to tell him.
“I understand hellhounds use a similar rift organism for defense.” Kaveh paused to reach out and touch one of the crystals, and a gold glow came from the stone, then faded as he took his hand away and walked Lyall into a back-room office off the main space.
“Ours are a hell of a lot less sparkly.” Lyall entered the room and would have waited for Kaveh to take a seat first, but the drakone waved at him to sit in one of the two comfortable-looking chairs at a small table. On the opposite wall was a large leather-covered desk. Photos of the ranch owners, Garreth and Chrissie, along with family, guests, and various horses were mounted behind it.
“Garreth doesn’t mind if I use his office, and he won’t get in until later.” Kaveh busied himself with setting up the coffee. The ranch owner’s office had a non-electric version, with an ordinary Earth metal pot and a Riftworld heating stone. Versions of the device, which was actually a crystalline organism, were common in the various rift communities around the world. It wasn’t that unusual for humans who lived near rifts to have one, but this particular heat stone was wildly elaborate, with rich ruby crystal divided by veins of gold.
Lyall watched with interest as Kaveh adjusted the temperature on the stone with a few taps before adding the grounds and part of an eggshell to the water in the pot. “I’ll make some extra for him. The matriarch sent out a round of apology gifts from the Keep, and this was one of them. Now Garreth can have cowboy coffee even when he’s stuck behind his desk.”
It wasn’t surprising the flying snakes would need even their heating stones to be worth a fortune, or that Xiang Jao would try to deal with the aftermath of the phantom attack on Moon Star Ranch by sending out parts of her hoard as bribes.
Lyall didn’t want to probe too much into Kaveh’s family issues, but the discussion was going to get personal in any event. “It totally sucked when I visited my family in Mt. Hood. I hope things with your clan are going better.”
“Not by much.” Kaveh took a seat across from him. “I’ve talked a few times to Tarasque when I needed to, like yesterday. But I’ve made it clear I don’t intend to rejoin the clan.”
“What’s been happening with the phantoms?”
“They’ve caused issues for the matriarch’s clan.” Kaveh’s careful phrasing emphasized that the veterinarian no longer considered himself a part of her family. He had chosen Remi over them, and Kaveh didn’t have to add “and that’s their fucking problem” for Lyall to get his meaning. “No major attacks, though, and the phantoms have moved to the most remote parts of the Saguaro Rift territory. I’d guess they’re licking their wounds and waiting for the effects of the control object to fade away.”
“Do you think Arimanius could be working with the phantoms?” Lyall had few illusions about the mafia boss’s sense of morality, but he’d be unlikely to put his personal safety at risk negotiating with the killer jellies.
“Directly, no, but if Arimanius was looking for a place to store a dangerous species in stasis where no one would find them, it’d be hard to think of a better place than the military base. It’s in a drakone riftland and until recently, none of us could enter it.”
“According to what Kat told me, Teo knew who I was and even assumed Arimanius had sent me to get him out.” Lyall wasn’t surprised that the don had set up a plan like this years ago. He had always been good at the long game. “I’m assuming Teo left the riftland and made contact with Arimanius as soon as he could. Hopefully his new capitán will pull him back to the Colony in Boston.”
“Not if Arimanius wants you and the control object back and to punish Remi for staying with me.” Kaveh’s normally calm facade broke for a second on that last part, as true anger flashed across his face. He got up to check on the coffee. “Teo might be right where Arimanius wants him. I also can’t rule out that Kat’s the target.”
“You think I’m putting him in danger.” Lyall felt a rush of resentment, then pushed it down. Hewasdangerous to Kat, both by attracting enemies who might try to harm him and wanting so desperately to keep him.
Why had the Matchmaker pulled this shit?
“I could as easily consider myself a threat to Kat’s safety, at least as far as Arimanius is concerned.” Kaveh returned with two cups of the cowboy coffee, as he had called it. “There is another reason I’m concerned. Remi is good at—not telling the whole truth. He’s not good at doing that with me.”
