Page 7 of On A Rift's Edge
“Recording your criminal activities.” Kat had no idea what authorities regulated mysterious hot-spring hellmouths, but Zale didn’t know that.
Remi winked at Kat and rotated his wrist. “Nice comeback. Okay, Bug, show me what you got.” Bug crawled over to Remi’s watch and dove into it, its body shrinking down as it became one with the device.
“Hey, I only came here to check on you.” Zale gave Remi a pleading look, which the streamer ignored as he studied the information on his watch. “If your dragon daddy lets me stay, I could, like, investigate stuff.”
Lyall gave a low growl and moved back next to Kat. Did that mean anything? The hellhound hadn’t said anything to him yet, except to ask if he was okay.
“If Remi agrees he wants to talk to you, Zale, I’ll grant you guest courtesy for one Earth day.” Kaveh wasn’t amused by the half-kraken calling him dragon daddy, Kat could tell. “Any longer and you’ll need to formally petition me to visit drakone territory. That will come at a price.”
“After we edit and upload Remi’s great introduction to the monstertown, we won’t hesitate to give the authorities the video of what you did if you try any funny business,” Kat added, acutely aware of Lyall’s proximity. It was as if the hellhound couldn’t resist being right in Kat’s personal space, but maybe Kat was projecting.
Remi, who had been scanning the watch’s surface with an odd expression, cleared his throat. “I don’t think we’ll need to upload that part of the video. Or any part, actually.”
“Why?” Kat’s dramatic dunking and Lyall’s heart-stopping appearance could be edited out of the final cut. He was so relieved he had insisted on a pre-recording. His family would have had a collective heart attack about today even before a half-kraken popped out of a water portal and a hellhound pounced on him.
“Because Bug found a way to connect to Wi-Fi and sent the whole thing as a livestream.” Remi scanned his watch again and groaned. “Including the expression on your face when Zale pulled you into the water and Lyall’s overeager puppy act. I hate to break it to you, Kat, but you’re already going viral.”
3
Notwithstanding Kaveh’s courteous offer to let him stay in the monstertown, Lyall decided to set up his base at a Tucson motel. It was neutral territory, not far from the ranch, and he had little difficulty blending in with humans as long he didn’t have to engage in long and annoying conversations. He didn’t have a cyberbug to hack his way into human tech like Remi, but during his long indenture to Arimanius he had set up a human ID linked to a secret bank account. That worked well enough for check-in.
After casting several protective sigils around his room, he left the motel dressed in jeans and a tee shirt he had borrowed from José, with his living leathers dormant inside his fang necklace.
Kaveh had wanted to discuss the events of today earlier, but the tumultuous aftermath of the hybrid portal opening up hadn’t made it easy. They had agreed to meet at a coffee shop in the city after Kaveh personally escorted Kat back to the ranch. The young human had been frantic about his family’s reaction to the livestream and had rushed off before Lyall could build up enough courage to talk to him.
Lyall should have been the one to protect Kat against any threats, but explaining why to Kaveh, much less Kat, hadn’t been possible in all the confusion.
Plus, Lyall was dreading that conversation.
He arrived at the meeting spot a few minutes later. It was in a pleasant Tucson neighborhood, and the cooler air inside was a welcome respite from the outside heat.
By the time Lyall had purchased a quad shot—he had a taste for the Earth beverage, as long as it was black and full of caffeine—Kaveh had come through the door.
Lyall gave him a brief nod of recognition and sat at a table in the back. The drakone joined him a few minutes later, carrying his own coffee.
Dressed in no-nonsense jeans and a cowboy hat, Kaveh had nothing about him to suggest he was anything other than a good-looking human man in his early thirties. One of Lyall’s clan’s greatest strengths was the ability to transform their huge canid bodies into shapes that made stalking and spying easier. Lyall had the best human incarnation of his clan, but he had rarely met a Riftworld person of any species who could blend in as well as Kaveh could. The veterinarian had lived for years in human society without anyone noticing. That had changed when Kaveh had fought another drakone in a public duel over Remi.
The drakones weren’t supposed to be able to hold anything more than a modified version of their humanoid shape. Kaveh was an exception to that rule, but as the only known member of his clan on the planet, he was special in a lot of ways.
Prior to his visit to Moon Star Ranch, Lyall had thought that of the three main clans of the riftpeople humans called dragons, only two—air and water drakones—had been trapped on Earth during the Sundering. The third clan, earth drakones known as the Azdaha, had been the most powerful and violent, hunting even other drakones with a deadly poisonous green fire known as summ. No one had missed them or the threat they posed.
Finding out the mild-mannered veterinarian Remi had been sent to seduce was a killer Azdaha who had been adopted as a child by the Saguaro Rift air drakones had been an unpleasant surprise.
Having Kaveh turn out to be someone Lyall admired and trusted was an even bigger surprise. But a good one.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet me here.” Lyall stood and accepted the friendly handshake Kaveh offered before the two of them sat down across from one another. “I apologize again for trespassing on your territory without prior permission and for jumping on Kat.”
“You were trying to save him from a possible threat, so no apology is needed.” Kaveh took a gulp of his coffee. Although Lyall hadn’t known the man for long, he knew he didn’t like to lose his temper. “I shouldn’t have reacted so strongly to your arrival.”
“Well, I did show up right after a hellmouth opened and Zale attacked your human friend.” Lyall had to watch what he said, but the sheer fury he had felt when he had heard Kat cry out was fresh in his mind. “I’m happy to take care of Zale for you. Permanently.”
Kaveh held up a hand, but smile lines crinkled around his eyes. “A tempting offer, but Remi’s convinced me it’s better to have his cousin where we can keep an eye on him. The guardians are staying inside the town currently, and I’m sure they can handle any trouble he might try to cause.”
The guardians, who spent most of their time slumbering like statues in their lion-dog forms outside the monstertown, were members of an ancient and highly respected species known as komainu. They were nobody to fuck with.
“Who do they think created the hybrid hellmouth?” Lyall asked.
“They agreed with your suspicion the control object could be involved, and they’ve promised to look into it.” Kaveh sighed. “A full inquiry from them will take time. I’d like to hear more about your theory.”
