A Bagful of Dragon - Sample

4. Enter Caleb

I woke with my alarm, but lay in the darkness with my eyes open. Who knew what David had tried to do to me two nights ago? Hopefully he wouldn't remember anything about last night. A crack on the head like that was enough to finish anyone's short-term memory.

I wanted to phone Molly today, needed to understand what had happened to us, but would leave it until I got home from work. I toyed with the fear of admitting to her that I lied, but figured it was better to tell her anyway. The priority was to get his belongings out of my possession. I didn't want anything of his in my home. Apart from anything else, I didn't know what other magical stuff he was capable of when he recovered from the life-threatening injuries. I had the impression that the Navajo sweat lodge wasn't his only magic-related endeavour, though who knew where I'd got that from.

There was so much more to him than he had shown me. None of it good, from what I could tell.

Leah popped into my head again. Man, I missed her regular company. Some sensible go-getting advice was what I needed right now, but we hadn't been out together for a while. I figured she'd call when she was ready. Sometimes I didn't know if it was okay to chase for her company or not. Friends could be confusing sometimes and I didn't like to push myself on people. We usually went through phases anyway. A brief pang of loneliness stung me but I pushed it away. We hadn't fallen out, so there was that.

I dropped back to sleep.

It wasn't until I sat on the bus—chest heaving at the effort to get to it in time—that I realised I'd left the bloody keys and wallet at home. As the bus chugged and heaved away from the roadside, I thought about how David had taken the items out of his pocket and hidden them behind the drain.

His 'apology' was a way of getting close enough to grab me.

A tiny, paranoid part of me wondered—like Molly—if the wallet and keys were some kind of ruse— a trick to leave a connection between us—but logical me wouldn't let the idea pervade. A gift, like the promised sage, perhaps. His ID and house keys? Not so likely.

I would check through his wallet a little more carefully when I got home. Missing something obvious when it was in my unsupervised possession would be unforgivable. No coincidences. If I was 'supposed' to hold on to it a bit longer, the reason would pop up eventually.

air-fire10

Indira made spaghetti bolognese for dinner and true to her usual style, heaved a mountain of food on my plate.

"Aw, you don't have to put so much on my plate, you always make loads!"

She shoved the meal across to me, pushing David's belongings to the side of the counter out of the way.

"You've got to eat properly babe." She smiled as she looked into the massive cooking pot. "You could be right though. I'll stick the rest in the freezer, or we'll be eating bolognese for the next fortnight."

She was a feeder for sure, a bistro chef at work, making intricate delicious morsels for death-defying prices, but a comfort food addict at home and I was a greedy sod. I couldn't leave anything on my plate.

I could see another pot simmering gently on the stove. "What's in there? Another meal?" I carried my meal over to the dining table.

She smiled in a self-satisfied way. "It's chicken stock, babe. Can't waste anything, you know that." We'd had roast chicken a couple of days before.

I shook my head inwardly at her food obsession. She was worse than me by a long way. Had made a career of it.

Mind you, she was the sensible 'normal' one. She didn't care about relationships, all she wanted was to run her own kitchen.