I almost jumped right out of my scales. I whipped my head to the left, to see Luce standing less than ten meters away, almost invisible within the shadow of a tall pine. "Damn it, man," I hissed "don't do that!" Luce just stood there, wearing his little smile as he watched me recover. Finally I made a wry gesture. "Well, thank Stefan for teaching me how these people think. First chance I get, I'm going to get that guy the biggest steak I can find and cook it for him myself."
"Cook it?" His smile grew fractionally wider. "I thought dragons liked it raw."
"When it's fresh-killed and still warm, yes," I allowed. "Otherwise, medium-rare, so it's warm inside. Not cold; that's carrion."
"Ah." He fell silent for a moment, then continued. "Max, I--"
"You did a good job," I stated, cutting him off. "How the hell could any of us have anticipated a dragon who could change her shape? I know I didn't, and I should have." I made a small, cutting gesture with my hand. "You're damned good, Luce; best I've ever seen. But you're not God."
That little Buddha-like smile reappeared, then grew wider. "No; I'm certainly not that." He paused again, then gestured down the way our people had gone. "How do we handle her, Max?"
"Cautiously," I replied. "If that storm was any indication, then Pasqual's at least as powerful as I am. So, we take no chances." I let my gaze sharpen. "Can't kill her, though; that's the one thing we can't do."
Lucifer considered this, then nodded. "Understood," he said at last.
I surprised myself when I released the little gust of breath I'd been holding without my realizing it, then gave Luce a small smile. "Well then, we'd better catch up with everyone before Pasqual starts getting ideas again."
The rest of the day was more than a little busy. Upon returning to the ranch Stefan hustled a bleak-faced and unresisting Kaa'saht into the house. Pasqual decided that she didn't want to go back inside, however, especially if it meant shifting to human form. A few minutes of fruitless squabbling ensued, followed by my summoning the sphere of the Lung and using it to return to Lady Dithra, quickly brief her, then bring her back with me. Pasqual visibly cringed when she saw Lady Dithra materialize next to me, the huge Lung crossbreed looking away rather than meeting the Lady's icy gaze. Dithra glared at Pasqual for a long moment, then pointed imperiously at the building.
There were no further arguments; Pasqual quickly reduced her size and slunk off to the house, her head low, but not shifting to human form, either. Without a word, Dithra followed her in, herded the younger dragon past my bemused troops and into a vacant back room, then slammed the door shut behind them.
That door stayed shut for quite awhile, time the rest of us used to pick up the pieces. Deebs and Wolfman worked to replace the door, while Fields and I used the sphere to get Grease somewhere where he could get patched up without too many questions. Meanwhile, Luce resumed his patrol and Stefan settled the kids back in.
Several hours later I snapped back to the house, to find the door replaced with a workable stand-in made from planking stolen from one of the outlying buildings. I banished the sphere, shifted back to human form and stepped inside, to find the dragonets once again napping in their nest and the smell of coffee working its way over from the kitchen. I blinked; except for the door, and both Deebs and Wolfman at the other end of the room trying to salvage something from the wreckage of our commo equipment, one might have been tempted to think the events of the morning had been nothing but a bad dream.
Deebs had looked up when the door opened. "Hey, Max!" he called, a bit of his normal good-nature returning "How's Grease?"
I lifted my hand to make a draconic gesture, realized what I was doing, dropped it and settled for a relieved smile. "He's going to be okay, Deebs," I replied. "He looks like someone played tic-tac-toe on his ass with a machete, but none of it was too deep. I think the doc actually bought our story about a bear-attack."
"Well, thank God for small favors." Deebs rolled his eyes theatrically, but I could feel the relief emanating from him. Wolfman looked up at me long enough to give me his own smile, then went back to rummaging through the wreckage.
"What's the status on the commo gear?"
Wolfman lifted his head again, gave it a regretful shake. "Not good, Max. We're only just starting to go through it, but I don't think we will find anything that still functions." He gave Deebs a quizzical glance, but the Texan shook his head as well. "Yeah; that lady-friend of yours did a real number on our gear, Max. Looks like we'll have to go shop for some replacements."
And in the meantime, we have no easy way to communicate with the outside world, or even our own sentries. . . . I nodded. "Okay, Deebs; get on that." I paused, then jabbed a thumb in the general direction of the back room. "Anything happening in there?"
"Beats me," he replied, shaking his head. Heard this god-awful roar from in there awhile back, but, uh, nobody seemed inclined to stick their head in to find out what was up."
I chuckled, then sobered. "Kaa'saht?"
"Stefan has him out back in the woodshed." Deebs paused on that, then chuckled grimly. "That sounds about right, doesn't it? Haven't heard much from them, either."
I nodded. "Okay." There wasn't much I could do until one or the other of the interviews were over; I glanced at my watch, checked the kids, then headed to the kitchen for some of that coffee I was smelling.