It was the thump-thump-thump of paws on his chest that woke Spike more than the frenzied shouting: "Spike! I've been robbed! I've been robbed!"
"What?" Spike sat up with a start and felt the weight fall from his chest to his lap. "What?"
A breeze sprang up in front of him, two dots of red whirling into view. "Thieves!" the voice rang out in the darkness. "Thieves! Right here! In this apartment!"
Spike slapped at the lamp on his nightstand and squinted into the light that flooded the room. Above his blankets rustled the little dragon, her eyes spinning, her wings a purple blur. His mind began to focus, and he managed to ask, "What are you talking about, Twilight?"
The dragon zoomed into his face and held out a paw, claws extended. "Five dimes from my hoard, Spike! Gone! Do you hear me? Stolen!" Her eyes blazed. "You've been dipping in for bus fare again, haven't you? Haven't you?"
"Are you nuts?" Spike swatted at the dragon, but she dodged. "I haven't even breathed on your hoard since you almost burned the place down the last time." He swung his eyes to the alarm clock. "Jeez, Twilight, it's four AM!"
"So my dimes just walked off, did they?" She was hovering in Spike's face again, wisps of smoke jetting from her snout.
"Will you—!" Spike swung at her again, missed again, and fell back onto his pillows. "Twilight, today is eventually going to be Sunday. The library's closed on Sundays, so I get to stay in bed all day if I want to, especially when I've been out with Rarity till quarter of one."
"Don't change the subject! A crime's been committed!"
"You've been reading too many mystery novels. The dimes probably just fell into the fireplace again." Spike snapped the light off. "We'll look when the sun's up, OK?"
There was a moment of silence. "When the sun's up?" Twilight's voice asked from somewhere above him.
"Uh-huh." Spike turned over and dropped back to sleep.
The next time the thump-thump-thump woke him, it wasn't so strident. "Spike? The sun's up. Can we start looking?"
His eyes creaked open to reveal the dragon peering down from his chest. Rolling his head to see the clock, he blew out a breath. Seven thirty-two. "OK, Twilight, OK...."
The dragon whirred upward, and Spike pushed himself into a sitting position, running a hand through his tangled red hair. Twilight settled into his lap, then, her eyes a calmer gray color. "Sorry about last night," she said with a little cough. "I get carried away sometimes."
"Yeah, Twilight, I know." Spike scratched the scaly ridge along her back. "Believe me, if you weren't so cute, I'd've sold you to the nearest research lab years ago."
"Ah, but then I'd have to break out and hunt you down like the filthy human scum you are."
"That's true." He stood, Twilight fluttering to his shoulder. "Well, let's have a look."
With a yawn and a stretch, Spike kicked off his sweatpants, pulled on his jeans, and moved from the bedroom, the morning sunlight spilling through the curtains and across the living room floor. He reached over the kitchen counter to flick the fire on under the kettle, then stepped around the sofa to the bookcase.
This whole corner of the room was filled with bookcase, it and its contents the only things he'd let his parents talk him into taking when he'd left home. Not that he'd had much choice: Twilight had claimed the top ledge as her aerie years ago, and she absolutely refused to change.
Eight or ten of his old stuffed animals sat along the top, too—a musical bear, the wind up key long ago pulled out; a gray squirrel, rubber bands holding its tail on—but they were only there so Twilight could pretend she was stuffed as well. Everyone who saw the whole tableau loved it; the librarians at work even gave Spike dimes for her sometimes. Twilight loved it, too; she said he should get out and make more friends.
Spike rubbed his forehead and yawned some more. "So tell me."
The dragon swooped up and settled with a jingle onto her hoard. "Well, I was doing some gloating last night, counting my dimes, running my claws through them, scooping them up and letting them trickle down my chest"—her eyes were swirling faster, her claws clutching at the coins—"sliding my tongue over their gorgeous, serrated edges, thrusting my head deep into them and inhaling their sweet—"
"Twilight? Hello, Twilight? Can we focus a little, please?"
"What?" She blinked. "Oh. Yeah. Anyway, I woke up when you and Rarity were finishing your coffee, and after she left, I couldn't go back to sleep. So I counted my dimes, and five were..." Flecks of red sparked at her eyes. "Missing. I counted again, but..." Shuddering, Twilight drew a ragged breath. "I panicked, I guess, but I felt so...so violated."
"Uh-huh." Spike got down and peered into the fireplace. "Did you dig around in here like I've told you to?"
She blew smoke at him. "Yes, I did, thank you so much for your concern. I even washed afterwards so I wouldn't get grime all over your carpet. I am considerate to my friends."
"Yeah, especially when you call them thieves and stomp on them at four in the morning." Spike picked up the poker and stirred the ashes till the kettle began shrieking, but nothing shone out in the gauzy sunlight. "Humph," he said at last. "Well, I'm going to get some breakfast."
"Excuse me?" With a whir of wings, Twilight perched on the arm of the sofa above him. "The crime of the century, and you're thinking about breakfast?"
"Y'know, I'd always heard that mystery novels could warp weak minds." Spike stood and went into the kitchen. He switched off the kettle and got down the cups and teabags. "Come on; get it while it's hot."
Twilight fluttered to the back of the couch. "Are you crazy? I'm not leaving my hoard unguarded for a second!"
"It's Darjeeling...." He blew the steam toward her.
Blue flecks swirled in her eyes. "Darjeeling? Really?" She wavered for a moment, her claws kneading the sofa back, then she snapped her head away to face the living room. "Thank you, no." She leaped upward and collapsed onto her pile of dimes.
Spike sighed, set the cups on the counter to steep, and there, shining up from the phone book, was a little stack of coins. "Oh, yeah. Rarity gave me some dimes for you last night." He poked at them. "Hey, looks like you broke even."
Smoke puffed from the bookcase. "What do you mean?"
"Guess how many dimes Rarity gave me?"
"My five!" Twilight hurtled across the living room and thumped onto the counter, her eyes whirling. "Are they my five?" She sniffed them, then kicked the phone book. "Damn!"
"What? You thought Rarity had taken your dimes?"
"No!" Twilight stalked across the counter top, her claws clicking against the tile. "I thought maybe she'd found them outside or something." She stopped with a jerk beside the cookie jar. "Now that you mention it, though...."
"What?"
Twilight turned and held up a paw. "I no sooner lose five dimes then your girlfriend gives me five. Coincidence?" She arched an eye ridge. "I think not."
Spike blinked. "You've lost your tiny reptilian mind."
"She was here! Think about it! It all adds up!"
"To what? Rarity steals your dimes and then returns them?"
"Ah, but she doesn't return them! She exchanges them!" Twilight waved at the phone book. "Those aren't my dimes!"
"You don't want them?"
"Of course I want them! But my five are gone, and I'll bet Rarity knows something about it! Spike, the game's afoot!"
"Oh, God, not Holmes again." Spike opened the refrigerator and got out the milk. "I think I'll go back to bed."
Wings fluttering, Twilight settled down by his cup. "Yes, this could be dangerous. Rarity lives nearby, doesn't she?"
"Just down the way." Spike narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
"I thought I'd go take a look around."
"You? Uhh, excuse me, Sherlock, but aren't you a bit conspicuous? Or can you pass as some purple, malformed crow?"
Twilight gave him a sour look. "It's my only lead."
"Lead? Twilight, it's a groundless suspicion."
"Nonetheless." She lapped at her cup. "Every possibility must be explored, no matter how remote."
"Or how stupid." Spike splashed milk into his tea.
"Fine. Be that way. I'll just go out by myself and track down the fiends responsible. I shouldn't expect a human to understand anyway."
"Oh, now, don't pout. Just let me eat, and we'll go snooping around Rarity's place. Maybe I should introduce you two; you've got a lot in common."
Twilight didn't say anything, but her eyes brightened; she even ate a corner of Spike's toast. Then Spike popped back into the bedroom to grab his shoes. "So," he called, "what's the plan, Sherlock?"
"Well, Watson," came her voice from the other room, "I'll go up the chimney and keep to the trees as much as possible. You stroll on over to Rarity's, and we'll see what happens."
Spike had to laugh. "That's it?" He walked out into the front room. "That doesn't sound too dangerous."
"Ah, so it doesn't." Twilight was settled on her hoard, smoke rings drifting from her snout. "But matters can develop with astonishing quickness. This case already begins to present certain features of interest."
"I swear I'm going to donate those Conan Doyle books to the library." He blew out a breath. "Can we get on with this? I've got loafing to do today."
The dragon arched an eye ridge, swooped through the fireplace screen and was gone. Spike shook his head, opened the front door and stepped out into the sunlight.
The sky was the off-blue of a mid-summer morning, sharp and hollow as a bell with just a touch of brown around the edges. Spike could hear sprinklers fizzing away, doing their best to keep the grass of Paradise Estates green against a sun who was convinced this should all be desert. He stretched, yawned, and started down the concrete path.
Shrieking clouds of sparrows burst from the trees ahead; Spike winced, but he kept himself from looking up. He and his hidden companion wound from the Estates' apartment blocks to the inner circle of more expensive condos. Spike had never understood why Rarity paid so much more for a second story and a square of grass with a wall around it, but she did have a thing about barbecues—they'd met at one of her parties—and Spike had to admit she was just a bit of a snob.
Rarity's condo was the first one in the Mariposa section; Spike took a quick look around, then slipped into the hedge between her wall and the wall next door. Twigs poked into various parts of him, and he cursed silently as he crawled further in, the stucco of the walls catching at his clothing.
Branches rustled above, and a familiar weight dropped onto his back. "What are you doing?" Twilight's voice whispered.
"Me? This was your stupid idea, not—"
"But you're supposed to go in and keep her busy while I look around! Don't you know anything?"
Spike managed to turn his head even though he got several sticks in the face. "What?"
"Will you keep your voice down?"
"Why didn't you say something back at—"
"Oh, well, excuse me for assuming you had half a brain. Everyone knows you need a diversion when you—" She broke off and cocked her head. "Did you hear that?"
Spike bit back his next comment and listened. "What?"
"Voices." The dragon grabbed some twigs and climbed into the hedge till she reached the top of the wall. She motioned with a claw for Spike to stand up.
As quietly as he could, Spike inched to his feet against the stucco; through the branches he peered into Rarity's backyard. The sliding glass door was open, and Rarity was stepping out. She was wearing plain gray sweats—clothes he'd never seen on her before—her long hair tied back in a simple ponytail and a black bag in her hands. Something the size of a large butterfly came darting through the doorway after her, something Spike couldn't make out.
"You're certain about this?" Rarity was asking. "I always assumed one needed dark, moonless nights for this sort of thing."
"Dweeb," came a reedy voice from somewhere. "Like you'd know anything about magic." The flying thing settled onto Rarity's shoulder, and Spike heard Twilight gasp. He squinted, but he still couldn't tell what it was: it had white wings and a white head with a beak like a sparrow or some other sort of small bird, but its body was brown with four legs and a tail lashing from its perch beneath Rarity's ear. Spike wanted to ask Twilight, but Rarity had stopped in front of the barbecue and was too close to risk it.
"But you're certain?" Rarity asked again as she raised the barbecue's lid. "After all, it's not as if I took these from a real dragon."
The thing on her shoulder squeaked a laugh. "Real? You've got no idea about 'real,' human. But trust me; this spell's designed to work even on worlds as sick and stunted as this one." It fluttered up to look Rarity in the eye. "Or d'you wanna count yourself out?"
"Out? Are you mad?" Rarity gave a strange, high-pitched giggle. "Magic? Dragons? Unicorns? If it's all as real as you are, do you have any idea what people will pay to see it?" She shook her head, and her eyes seemed to gleam in the light of the barbecue's white-hot coals. "I want to be right here on the ground floor."
"Good." The creature swooped into a position above the barbecue, its wings whirling the smoke into eddies. "Now!" it shouted. "Set it out now!"
Rarity undid the bag. Spike was watching so closely, he didn't notice that Twilight was no longer on the wall beside him until a purple blur slammed into Rarity's hands. "Hey!" she shouted. The bag hit the grass, and some sort of raw meat blorched out, five small disks shining up from it.
The bird-thing swarmed over Twilight. "Hurry!" it yelled, and Rarity bent down to scoop up the bag's contents.
Spike clutched the wall as Twilight spun and dove, the brown-and-white thing a sharp little cloud pecking at her. "Stop her!" came the dragon's voice. "Don't let her put the components on the fire!"
For a moment Spike stood frozen, then he clambered over the wall, the stucco biting at him, making him slip from the top and fall onto the grass. He scrambled to his feet, his hands stinging, and was just in time to see Rarity drop the chunk of meat with its dimes into the barbecue.
There was a sound like a water balloon hitting a hot sidewalk, and something rose out of the smoke, something the size of a small dog, orange wings flapping from a muddy-green body, orange horns curling along the sides of its head like a ram's. It screeched, and Spike saw it was another dragon.
The scuffling ball of white and purple overhead tumbled into a tree across the way, and only the bird-thing streaked back into Rarity's backyard. Spike stood and stared, the little thing swirling and cawing around the dragon.
Rarity was staring, too. "It worked," she whispered.
"So it would seem," the dragon said, its voice as guttural as a clogged drain. A clawed paw flashed, snatching the bird-thing from the air. "Gilda! Where am I?"
"My lord and my king!" the thing chirped as it hung from the dragon's claws. "To feel your touch again after so many cold, empty centuries—"
The dragon squeezed till the creature's voice choked into silence. He then flipped the barbecue closed with a hind paw and settled onto the lid. "Not in the mood, griffon." He let the bird-thing go, and it fell before him with a thud.
"My...lord...." It coughed, cleared its throat, then said, still sprawled in front of him: "This is the world of my exile, Majesty. After your banishment, I strove for years after the spell that would free you. I had just gained its form when your betrayers found me and exiled me to this forsaken slag heap. Ah, but now, Lord Torch, we are reunited!"
"I see." The dragon looked up from the quivering creature. "And you, human. You assisted my minister?"
Rarity's mouth hung partway open. "Wow..." she said after a moment. "I mean, yes, yes, I suppose I did."
The dragon rubbed his chin. "Can't say I care much for the scale of this world of yours; in the real world, a human would scarcely be a pawful for me. I thank you, of course, for your part in freeing me, but now, I feel I must ask you to play an even more important role in my reawakening."
"More important?" Rarity blinked. "Of course! Just name it!"
A black tongue flickered from the dragon's snout. "Breakfast," he growled, and he leaped from the barbecue toward Rarity's face.
"Hey!" Spike heard himself yell, then he was leaping forward, stumbling between the dragon and Rarity, his hands up and waving through the air the way he sometimes had to when Twilight got grouchy.
What met his flailing was something larger, sharper, and more solid than Twilight had ever been. It squealed the same way Twilight did, though, but this dragon flopped into the grass like Spike had hit it a lot harder than he had.
Another squeal, and the bird-thing flapped to the dragon's side. "Lord Torch!"
"Damn it, Gilda!" Torch shouted. "You know I'm still thawing out! Dispose of these creatures at once!"
Hands grabbed Spike's shoulders from behind, Rarity pressing in quite the distracting fashion against his back. "What? What? What?" she said, sounding more like the wind-up engine of a toy boat than anything else.
Spike couldn't answer, his gaze fixed on Gilda's, her piercing but tiny black eyes narrowing.
A purple and silver blur of movement pulled his attention away: Twilight streaking over the ivy, a metal garbage can clutched upside-down in her paws. "Run for the house!" Spike heard her shout, and the can dropped over Torch and Gilda.
Without thinking, Spike spun and shoved Rarity ahead of him, the two of them stumbling toward the open glass door. "In! In! In!" Twilight was yelling, then Spike was pushing Rarity over the threshold, a cacophony of scuffling and screeching behind him. He whirled away from Rarity as something purple flashed past his head, then he slammed the patio door closed, Twilight shouting, "Move! That won't hold them forever!"
"What?" Rarity was still saying, but Spike was pretty sure they didn't have time for that right now. Finding her hand, he pulled her along after him through her living room and into the hallway, Twilight hovering by the front door, her eyes as big as ping-pong balls.
Spike grabbed the knob, and glass shattered in the other room, a screech echoing through the house. He threw the door open and sprinted down Rarity's front walk, somehow managing not to trip over his own shoes or let go of Rarity. The planters blurred past, and when he reached his front door, she shoved it out of the way, pulled Rarity in, slammed the door, and bolted it.
Rarity's continued repetition of "What?" slapped as loud as as a leaky faucet at midnight against his ears. Shaking himself, he guided her into the kitchen, lowered her to a seat at the table, filled a glass with water, put it in her hand, and raised both glass and hand till the water sloshed against her lips.
That got her blinking, at least; she brought her other hand up, wrapped it around the glass, and proceeded to gulp in a way Spike knew she wouldn't have if she'd been even close to herself.
Watching to make sure she didn't choke, he heard Twilight's familiar flutter, the table thumping when she landed. "We've gotta get outta here!" she said, her voice as harsh as tearing paper.
Spike was shaking, panting, his throat feeling drier and drier with each swallow Rarity took. "That bird-thing," he finally got out, "and that other dragon! What the Hell—?"
"Come on, come on!" Another swish of purple, and claws were digging at his chest, Twilight clinging to his t-shirt, her eyes flecked with red. "We got no time for this! We've got to get out now!"
He could only stare down at her. "Get out?"
"Get out!" Twilight waved at the far wall. "We hafta be away from here before noon!" She brought her paw back and gripped his shirt tighter. "That's Lord Torch up there! We stay here, we're dead! Understand?!"
"Dead?" Spike could barely hear his own voice. "But...how? Why? What—?"
Twilight gusted steam from her snout, flipped over backwards, and landed on the table again. "Back home, my granny used to go on and on about Lord Torch nearly taking over the world; she'd been in one of his death camps just before the Court defeated and banished him. I was a hatchling when they finally tracked down Gilda and exiled her, and when I saw her on Rarity's shoulder today—"
"My shoulder?" Rarity started in her chair, her eyes wide. "The griffon! She...she told me I'd be freeing the king of the dragons! That he'd be eternally grateful!" Her lips went tight, and she slammed the glass onto the table. "She didn't say the thing would be so rude, however! Trying to devour me?" She leaped to her feet. "I've a good mind to march back over there and—"
"No!" Spike and Twilight shouted at the same time. Spike put a hand on her shoulder and went on: "Hang on, Rares. We don't know what's going on, and we don't—" He turned and blinked at Twilight. "Hey! How did this Lord Torch even get here? Magic doesn't work on this world! You tell me that all the time!"
"Exactly!" Twilight sprang into a hover. "Exiling criminals to worlds like this is the major punishment where I come from! Torch was a special case, so they sent him to the spaces between space, but others like Gilda, I mean, there's so little magic in these places, it shrinks us enchanted folks, and...I don't know, most of 'em probably get eaten by cats or weasels or something."
Spike stared at her. "You're a criminal?"
She shot him a look. "I came here to get away from all that magic garbage! Changing your wards twice a day to keep the curses out, going for a little flight and getting caught up in some wizards' duel..." A swirl of red came into her eyes. "People always stealing from your hoard for spell components..."
A gasp beside him. "Spike!" Rarity's carefully manicured nails clutched at his sleeve. "That's your little stuffed dragon flying around!" He could feel her shaking through the grip she had on him. "It's talking, Spike! Talking!"
And while this wasn't at all the way he'd imagined this meeting taking place... "Rarity, this is Twilight. Twilight, you already know Rarity."
Steam shot from Twilight's nostrils. "I'll say I do! She's the one who stole my dimes!"
Increasing weight started to pull Spike over sideways, Rarity not relaxing her hold as she sank back into her chair. "I left some replacements..." she more stuttered than said.
Twilight snorted again, flared her wings, and darted toward Rarity. Rarity squealed, pulled her hands away from Spike, and covered her face. Twilight then landed on Spike's arm and dug her own claws in. "We've got to go now! Major summonings aren't permanent till the summonee sees the sun at its full height: that's what my granny always said. Until then, the spell can still be—" She swallowed and shook her head. "Look, we just don't want to be here after noon!"
"Wait." Spike raised his arm so her could look her straight in the eye. "What can the spell be?"
"Nothing! Forget I said anything!"
"Twilight, if you know something that'll—"
"No!" Twilight spun back into the air above the table, her eyes glowing with sickly green specks. "Do you know what my granny said? Do you have any idea what I'd have to do?"
She was shivering; Spike reached out, caught her in his hands, and gently folded her into a hug. "Whatever it is, Twilight, I'm with you. Just tell me."
"We... We'd have to..." She tucked her head under his chin. "We'd have to go back up there, get one of my dimes, and I'd have to...have to melt it down!"
Spike pulled her away and glared at her. "That's it? Just melt one of the dimes? Jeez, you were making me think you'd have to tear your own head off or something."
"It's almost the same thing!" Twilight wriggled from his grip and burst into a hover. "That hoard's not just a pile of coins! It's...it's my soul, Spike, more a part of me than these wings or these claws! Without my hoard to reflect, I'm less than a wyvern, just a...just a skulking, flapping little lizard! They stole a part of my soul, Spike, and I'd rather let them have it than...than have to destroy it!"
"Well?" Rarity asked, and Spike flinched: he'd forgotten she was there. Her eyes were still wide, but she didn't look nearly as much like a vase about to shatter as she had a few minutes ago. "Let's call the police, then, or animal control. We can say a hawk or an eagle from up in the hills crashed through my patio door this morning, and as near as we can tell, it's still in the house and possibly injured." Her wide eyes moved to glance at Twilight, and she gave a flinch of her own. "I mean, you stopped them with a dropped trash can earlier: surely some burly officers with tranquilizer darts or stun guns should have some effect."
Twilight didn't answer, her ears tight against her head, and Spike found his mind heading toward worst-case-scenario territory. He waved at the clock on the kitchen. "That might take a couple hours, and it's already 8AM. Is this Lord Torch just gonna get stronger till noon comes? And what happens then? Does he stay the size of a dog, or does he get bigger? Will his scales deflect bullets? Does he start attacking the neighbors? Or does he try to tempt people to work for him like Gilda tried to do to Rarity?"
"I don't know!" Twilight started spinning in the air over the table, getting faster and faster till she was just a purple blur. "What I should've known was that my hoard would be a beacon to any exile who understood even a shred of magic! I should've had wards strung up to shield you and your friends from monsters like Gilda, shouldn't've been asleep, should've kept myself—!"
"Hey, hey, hey!" Spike leaped up and grabbed her from the air. "Don't you lose it on me, Twilight; don't you dare lose it on me!"
She squealed and writhed, but Spike held on, and at last she went limp, her heart shaking his arms with its pounding. "Gods, I despise magic!" she hissed.
"Indeed," Rarity said, her own voice more than a little ragged. "The question remains, however: what do we do? If this Dragon Lord is truly dangerous, I—" She swallowed. "It's my fault he's even here." Her eyes wavering, she started looking a lot more shatterable again. "Can I be arrested for summoning a fiend bent on global conquest?"
Spike looked from her to Twilight, the dragon still bunched against his chest. "We're the only ones who can do this," he said quietly.
"Fine." With a sigh, Twilight pushed herself out of his arms, her wings spreading to set her fluttering above the table. "We'll need a distraction, something to keep Gilda and Torch busy while I get at the barbecue. Torch won't be able to move more than a couple yards from the spell fire till noon, so likely they're both inside the house, probably near the door he shattered when we were there earlier. Gilda won't budge from Torch's side unless something big's happening, so..." She perched on the stove top and looked at Rarity. "Those windows upstairs that overlook the backyard. That's your bedroom?"
Rarity nodded. "Why?"
"You need to be up there to drop things on the barbecue."
"No." Spike stepped between Rarity and Twilight, his gaze fixed on the dragon, pulled his keyring from his pocket, and held up Rarity's, something she'd given him a month or so ago but which he hadn't actually used yet. "If anyone's doing anything, it'll be me."
"But Spike!" The panic in Rarity's voice made him turn; she was clenching her hands together, her eyes wavering. "I brought the thing here, so I should—"
"No," Spike said again, trying to come up with a legitimate reason. "You need to be our back-up in case—" He swallowed. "In case something goes wrong. It's your house, so you can call the cops from here if we get hung up." Stepping forward, he gave her a smile he didn't quite feel, stuffed the keys back in his pocket, and took her hands in his. "You're a lot better'n me at doing the whole 'outraged citizen' routine, so you'll be able to get 'em here in two minutes."
She leaped up and wrapped him in a hug that made him forget everything else in the world for a few seconds, then she was pushing him away, about half a glare on her face. "Nothing will go wrong, do you understand?" Her glare faltered, and she turned toward Twilight. "How long should I wait till I call?"
Twilight was pacing along the stovetop. "Give us ten minutes to get over there and another ten minutes to get Spike upstairs. Spike, you'll throw something down at the barbecue." She waved a paw. "Something loud and dangerous sounding. Torch'll send Gilda into the backyard to see what it was, and you duck out of sight. She'll do a sweep over the bushes, and I'll be waiting to grab her. You keep tossing things at the barbecue, and when Gilda doesn't come back, Torch'll come out to take a look. This time, though, you let him see you, and he goes up after you."
Spike stared across at her. "He goes up after me."
"Well, what else would he do?"
"I don't care about him! What'm I supposed to do?"
"Well, run back downstairs, of course. You'll have a head start 'cause you'll see him coming. As soon as he goes in the window, I swoop down, get the barbecue open, grab a dime, and...and, well, you know." She swallowed. "The spell gets broken, and Torch goes back to wherever."
"What about the griffin?"
"Oh, I'll already have bitten her head off, so—"
"What?" Rarity grabbed Spike's arm though she was still looking at Twilight. "I mean, yes, she tricked me into summoning this horrid dragon and then nearly fed me to him, but, well, she's a magical creature of legend! Can't we, I don't know, do something for her?"
Twilight's mouth went sideways. "You want to keep her as a pet?"
Rarity took a breath, but then she just blew it out. "Fine," she said, and Spike couldn't help a little smile, hearing her say the word exactly the way Twilight did when she was grudgingly conceding a point.
An indrawn breath of silence, then Twilight rustled into the air. "Okay. I'll go up the chimney again. Give me a minute, Spike, then head over. They shouldn't care if they hear the door open, but, well, you might want to be careful, just in case."
"I might want to, yeah." Spike didn't even try to smile at the little dragon. "See you over there."
"Yeah." A whisk of wind, a rattle of fireplace screen, and Twilight was gone.
Spike looked at Rarity. She looked back. Outside, a TV chattered, a car starting up, someone's leaf blower coughing to life: regular sounds for a regular Saturday morning.
He swallowed. "Twenty minutes," he said.
She squeezed herself against him again. "Don't make me call," she muttered into his shoulder. "Just vanquish the nasty thing, and we'll, I don't know, all go get brunch or something."
It took just about every ounce of Spike's willpower to push away from her, but he did with a nod: he didn't really trust his voice right then. Turning, he took the single step from the kitchen into the living room, the half dozen steps to the front door, and went out. Along the way, he stooped to grab stones from the flower beds; he had two in each pocket and one in each hand by the time he came to Rarity's little front walkway.
A couple quick breaths, and he tiptoed up to the door. After two or three tries he got the key into the lock, the sweat on his palms making his cuts sting. The tumblers clicked loudly as the key went in; Spike pressed his ear to the door and held his breath. He couldn't hear anything from the other side, so she put a hand to the doorknob.
The door moved easily. He nudged it forward an inch and listened at the crack. No wings rustled, no claws scrabbled, so he pushed till she could just peer around the edge.
Ahead of him at the end of the hall stood Rarity's coat rack, the little jog past it leading to the living room. On the left was the kitchen door, the stairs climbing upward to the right. Nothing squatted, waiting for him, so he crept inside and slid the door closed: not all the way, but just to the doorjamb. Then he was at the stairwell and slipping up, two rocks cradled in his left hand, his eyes fixed on the coat rack below.
Rarity had just put in new carpets; Spike could scarcely hear his own footfalls as he rose up the stairs. The top floor had only three rooms, but Spike knew that Rarity's bedroom gave the best view of the yard. He moved across the landing and pushed open the door.
He'd only spent a couple nights with her so far in that big, airy room, and the thought that this might be the last time he'd ever be here made Spike's throat go tight again. He forced a swallow, closed the door behind himself, and crept to the windows.
Outside, a couple feet of shingled roof sloped away to open air; below sat the barbecue at the edge of its concrete slab. Spike nudged the window open and set his rocks on the sill. He wiped a stinging hand against his t-shirt, took up a stone, and tossed it over the little roof.
The clank as it bounced off the barbecue's lid seemed to echo from the scattered apartment blocks, and Spike held his breath. The response was immediate; a caw rang out below, and a white streak dashed into the yard. Spike ducked behind the curtains and watched through them as a dot circled the barbecue, stopped by where the stone had landed, then slowly moved toward the ivy-covered walls. The hedge closed around it; Spike heard a scuffling, then nothing but the buzzing of lawn mowers and the croak of distant crows.
Spike waited a moment, then tossed his second stone.
The barbecue clanked nicely, but this time, nothing happened. He tossed the third, the fourth, and the fifth, and still, nothing screeched up from the yard. Spike set down his last stone and wiped his hands. Was he missing something?
Then he heard a sound, soft, not the sort of thing he'd been waiting for at all: just a quiet little click, like a doorknob turning. And it was coming from behind him.
Spike spun. The door clicked again and swung open, and the mud-green dragon was standing in the hallway. He seemed bigger now—Rottweiler sized, maybe—and his black eyes sparkled as he cocked his head. "Thought I heard something up here."
For a moment, Spike could only stare. The creature stepped into the room, reached back with a hind paw and pushed the door shut. "So we won't be disturbed," he said.
The door clicked, and Spike's mind finally snapped to life. He snatched up the stone and hurled it at the dragon, then he whirled and clambered out onto the little roof; his tennis shoes skittering, he slammed the window behind him and scrambled for the corner of the house. Glass shattered, and he flattened himself against the shingles as something whooshed past him, the wind from its wings slashing through his hair. He rolled to his feet and sprinted along the slope, his eyes set on the saplings that stood tied to their supports along the side of Rarity's place.
He knew the sound of swooping wings well enough from all the times Twilight had ambushed him, and he leaped for the trees just as the rush from above burst down over him. Claws tore into him, knocked him sideways, and he tumbled off into empty space. He managed to grab one of the trees, but it came loose from its moorings and teetered over; Spike was sure the thing would crumple and send him crashing to the ground.
But the sapling snapped back, flipping Spike up and nearly smashing him into the side of the house. He kept his grip, and as his eyes refocused, he found himself staring down into Rarity's backyard. Twilight was perched on the edge of the open barbecue, her head drawn back and her jaws open—
But something brown and white burst from the bushes and rushed toward her with a high-pitched squawk. Spike was about to cry out a warning when a whole series of things happened, all pretty much at the same time as far as he could tell from where he clung to the tree.
The yard's back gate crashed open to reveal Rarity, a metal trashcan lid clenched in both hands. She leaped through the gate, the lid sweeping back, and smashed the thing right into Gilda, knocked her away from Twilight and back toward the house. But another inhuman cry rang out, this one more a roar than a squawk: Torch, big and dark and swooping over the roof of the house down into the yard.
Gilda and Torch collided right above the glass-topped table on Rarity's patio, and that was when Twilight's head shot forward, fire whooshing from her jaws. Smoke poured out of the barbecue, but not upward: black and swirling, it shot to the side toward the tangled blur that was Torch and Gilda. The column engulfed them both, and Spike heard a screech like gears grinding.
That was when he noticed how much his side was screaming; a glance downward showed him his t-shirt soaked with blood. Shock and pain loosened his grip, and Spike dropped, tumbled, thudded into the bushes beside Rarity's house. Shapes swarmed toward him, human shapes that he vaguely recognized from around the complex. But the only voice and face he could focus on was Rarity's. "Spike?" Her eyes went wide. "Oh, my Spikey-Wikey!" She twisted partway around, hair flying loose from her careful braid. "Someone call 9-1-1! Hurry!"
He must've passed out, then, because the next thing he knew, he was blinking at the walls of a white room, a doctor standing over him, his side bandaged and throbbing. The doctor wanted to know what sort of animal had attacked him, and Spike said he wasn't sure: a hawk or an eagle or something.
The doctor nodded, gave him a couple prescriptions and a page of wound-care instructions, then asked a nurse to guide him through the tangled corridors to the emergency room's waiting area. That was where he found Rarity perched on a seat, her hair even more of a mess, and as wonderful as it was when she hugged him, he still couldn't stop a wince.
Even more wonderful, though, was the way she noticed immediately, stepped back with her hand resting in his arm, and asked, her voice overflowing with concern, "Are you all right?"
Saying something corny at that point was pretty much his only choice: he put his hand on hers, looked into her eyes, and said, "I am now."
She actually giggled, and Spike felt better than he had in hours. Leading him out to the parking garage and her silver mini SUV, she told him about talking with the police and animal control. "I can't imagine why that hawk smashed through my glass door that way," she said with a twitch in her eye, and Spike realized she was winking. "I spoke to Paradise Estates' management company, too, and after I explained the matter to them in carefully chosen words—one of which may have been 'lawsuit'—I convinced them that it was their duty to get a team working on repairs to my place this very afternoon."
They'd reached her car by then, and once they were inside, she added more quietly, "I also called your home number and left a message on the answering machine in case a certain other party might've found herself wondering about you condition."
The tightness in his throat threatened to squeeze water from his eyes. He blinked, swallowed, and managed to say, "Thanks."
He could almost feel her questions vibrating the air on the ride back to Paradise Estates, but since he had plenty of questions of his own, he figured the best thing to do would be— "You wanna come back to my place?" he asked as Rarity spun her SUV into her parking space. "There won't be any construction noise, and the three of us can talk."
"I'd like that very much," she said quietly, shutting off the engine.
As soon as they stepped onto the walkway that circled the parking area, she reached out and took his hand, and Spike had a hard time keeping his shoes on the ground after that. Till they came to his front door, of course. Because, unlocking the thing and stepping happily inside with Rarity, Spike got smacked square in the chest by something hard and fast and about the size of two fists on top of each other.
Fortunately, Rarity was right there to exclaim, "Gracious!" and act as a kind of backstop, the force of Twilight swarming him enough to push him sideways into the wall. Still, he brought his arms up to catch hold of her, her needle-sharp claws almost careful for once, digging into his shoulders, the blast of her breath more warm and caressing than molten and searing. "Idiot!" she wasn't exactly shouting, her head pressed against his neck under his chin. "Don't you ever do that again!"
Straightening, Spike opened his mouth to ask what exactly she didn't want him to do ever again, but Twilight, slithering up his chest and onto his shoulder, wrapped her tail under his jaw and forced it closed with a snap. "But thank you, Rarity," Twilight was saying, "for calling and leaving that message. I can't quite manage the landline, and Spike won't let me use his smart phone after I scratched it all up." He felt one of her front paws pull away from his t-shirt. "Claws can be a little tricky sometimes..."
"You're entirely welcome, darling," Rarity practically purred. "We'll have to see about getting you an old-style flip phone or something that's a bit sturdier."
"We?" Spike couldn't help turning to blink at her.
She was all smiles, but a loud clearing of throat from his shoulder interrupted anything she might've said. "Excuse me," Twilight steamed, the side of Spike's head growing warm and damp. "Some of us are trying to have a conversation here." The weight of her shifted on his shoulder, her head stretching over on her snaky neck to glare at him.
Rarity giggled. "Well, I certainly know where all my dimes will be going from now on." Her grin faded. "Still, I am terribly sorry for taking those five in the first place and triggering this whole unfortunate situation. I hope you can forgive me, Twilight."
Twilight shuffled on Spike's shoulder. "Yes, well, you did convince me not to bite Gilda's head off, so that's something. Griffons always give me the worst gas." Smoke gusted from her nostrils. "And you saved this big gorilla, too." Her head moved to brush Spike's cheek. "He's a part of my hoard that's a little harder to replace than a few dimes."
"What?" Spike put as much phony outrage into his voice as he could, but with the pain medication from the doctor kicking in, that didn't turn out to be a whole heck of a lot. "I don't know if I'm comfortable with—"
"You're fine." Twilight puffed another little smoke cloud.
"Indeed." Rarity nodded, stepping forward to put a hand on his arm. "Now, let's get you settled on the sofa with some tea, Spike-Wikey, and we can all discuss our future."
"Yes." A flutter of wings carried Twilight from Spike's shoulder to Rarity's. "I couldn't help noticing, for instance, the recessed bookshelves in your front room. They'd make a much more secure aerie for me and my hoard were Spike and I to move in with you."
"Well, now." Rarity cocked her head. "That sounds like a fine idea to me. What do you think, Spike?"
Smiling, Spike let her lead him into the front room, everything warm and wonderful around him. And not just from the pills, either...
Author's Note
The original version:
Of this story is a fair bit darker, actually, the way that the character I've turned into Rarity here is killed and eaten by the summoned dragon. But I couldn't do that to Rarity, so I've rewritten the whole second half of the story to let her survive.
In doing so, I'm following advice I ignored thirty years ago. One of the first places I sent the original story was Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, and in the rejection note I got back from its then-editor, Gardner Dozois, he said that killing that character off was just too jarring for the breezy tone of the story up to that point. If I wanted to rewrite the thing so no one died, though, he'd be happy to take another look at it.
I thought about it, but then I decided to submit the story as it was to other places first. If none of them took it, I'd do the rewrite and send it back to Dozois. But then it sold first to Algis Budrys for his magazine Tomorrow SF, and then to James King as a reprint for his Dragons anthology.
Ah, history...
Mike
