I mouthed: “one, two, three.”
Then I stepped to the side, exposing the unicorn at the same moment Ryder pivoted and bent so the dragon pig and the unicorn/mini-horse were eye to eye.
The pig rumbled, a very not-pig sound.
“This! I object!” Xtelle said.
The pig’s eyes widened, going shiny with fire. Two puffs of smoke curled up from its little nostrils. The rumbling got louder.
“Huh,” Ryder said. “That’s weird. He’s usually really good meeting new people.”
“Unicorns and dragons do not mix,” Xtelle whispered again.
“Hey,” Delaney said as she approached. “What’s going on?”
“Just doing a little community relations,” Ryder said. “Did you know dragons and unicorns don’t mix?”
Delaney reached over and tugged the dragon pig’s ear. “I don’t think dragons and most things mix. Isn’t that right?” She scratched the little pig’s eyebrow and the pig blinked, its eyes going back to more piggy and less dragon-y. “We’re still a little fond of it.”
“Our fondness is severely tested when the dragon eats his way through the junkyard,” Ryder said.
“Again?” she asked, exasperated.
“Yep. Just a riding lawnmower this time.”
“We said no eating vehicles, didn’t we?”
“I think we mentioned no eating cars or trucks.”
She lifted the pig’s chin and stared it in the eyes. “No eating any kind of equipment. If you need metal to keep you going, we can get you some scrap buildings. Someone around here is almost always tearing down a shed or something. We can just say a strong wind destroyed it, okay?”
The pig wagged its little curly tail.
“No,” she said sternly. “The cute will not work on me. I need your word that you will not eat any vehicle or piece of equipment of any sort in this town unless you ask me or Ryder first. Yes?”
The dragon pig rumbled, and it sounded like laughter.
“That’s not a yes,” Ryder said. I had no idea he was picking up dragon-speak.
The dragon pig oinked once.
“Good.” Delaney gave it one last tug on its other ear. The dragon pig looked inordinately pleased with itself.
“It’s up to something,” I said.
“Yeah,” Delaney agreed. “It usually is. How’s it going, Xtelle?”
“Better before I knew there was a dragon in town,” she said.
“That makes two of us,” Ryder said.
Delaney made a face at him. “Yeah, well, this dragon has been very handy. More than once. So. I’m glad it’s here.”
Ryder got that sappy look that meant my sister was the world, the stars, and the moon to him. She was looking right back at him with the same gooey bliss.
Last winter, the dragon had saved Ryder’s life. He’d been coming back from a job and had been in a car accident in the middle of a snowstorm. Bathin, who is good at finding and moving people, hadn’t wanted to bring him directly home.
It turned out the dragon was an amazing demon tracker.
