Wood Sprites(102)

The baby dragon stuck out its tongue and blew a raspberry.

“I don’t think she likes that name.”

So while the baby dragon polished off the beef jerky, they tried out names. They had named lots of characters in the past but nothing alive with a personality that they couldn’t change at whim.

Louise felt like a name was floating on the edge of her awareness but she couldn’t quite grasp it. “It should be something bright, and happy, and female.”

“Bossy.” Jillian got another raspberry for the suggestion. “She reminds me of some senile old grandmother.”

The name finally came within reach. “Joy. I think her name is Joy.” No raspberry. “See, she likes it.”

Jillian came to eye the baby dragon. “No, she’s just falling asleep now that all the food is gone. I still think her name is Bottomless Pit.”

“Her name is Joy,” Louise repeated more firmly. “And you can’t blame her for being hungry; she hasn’t had anything to eat for hundreds of years.”

Jillian gasped. “Oh my god! Lou! What’s in the other eleven nactka still in the box?”

“Oh no!” Louise leapt to the Codex and quickly looked up the longest passage regarding the device. “Twelve loaded nactka! They all have something in them!”

“Eleven more like her?” Jillian eyed the baby dragon. “What would we do with twelve of them?”

Louise was amazed that Jillian even asked the question. “She’s obviously very intelligent. She might even be smarter than a human. It’s been—what—five minutes and she already knows three words of English.”

“Nom, nom, nom is not a word,” Jillian said.

“We need to get them out of the box!”

“What if the elves took the box? They were going to take three items.”

* * *

They hacked into the museum and checked the security monitors but the box had always been screened from the cameras. There was no way of telling if the box was still there.

“They would have to tell France that the elves took the box.” Louise dove into the email system to sift through the curator’s mailbox. Dated late Friday night was an email to the curator at the Louvre explaining that the elves had asked for return of the box. Not surprisingly, there was no answer until early Monday morning Eastern Standard Time—or normal business hours for Greenwich time—objecting and asking the AMNH not to allow the elves to take the box. The answer was short and simple: the elves had already returned to Elfhome with it.

The Louvre sent back a caustic answer that ended with “Thankfully the EIA spared us the loss of the tiara.”

Jillian swore softly. “That’s right. The EIA told the French just to send the box.”

Louise checked on the other two items. They were both small pieces of jewelry, obviously worth a good deal in terms of gold and gems, but otherwise insignificant. “These are decoys. If they just took the box, everyone would talk only about it, but with the obviously worthwhile items, the box isn’t interesting.”

“If they wanted it, does that mean they know what’s in it?”

“Dufae said he stole the box on Elfhome. Maybe he stole it from Sparrow.”

Joy had crawled into Louise’s lap and fallen asleep. She looked so cute asleep. She was sprawled on her back, front paws on her full tummy and one back leg twitching in time with her soft little snores. Louise stroked one finger over Joy’s buttery soft hide. The baby dragon nuzzled into her palm with a small purr and then lapsed back into snores.

What was Sparrow going to do with the other eleven?





25: GOING TO SEE A MAN ABOUT A DOG


“Hello,” the receptionist said as the twins walked through the door to their father’s clinic. According to the human resources records, her name was Laura Runkle. She had only recently graduated from business school and started working at the clinic a month ago. She was young, pretty, and very uncertain about her power. Her face and tone said, “Are you lost?”

Louise had Tesla take up an “off-duty” position beside one of the waiting room chairs, and then made a visible production of settling into said chair. She put on her reading glasses, flipped through the projected pages of her holographic book, and squirmed into the chair to read.

Jillian aimed the receptionist’s attention on Louise by staring at her intently and then sighing loudly. “Bookworm.” And then, having established that Louise was the quiet one of the twins, Jillian turned brightly to the receptionist. “Hi, I’m Jillian Mayer. I’m here to see my dad. He works here.”

The receptionist started to smile and then she came to a full, horrified stop. “Oh! You’re George’s twins.”