The Perils of Effrijim

KATIE MACALISTER

For as long as she can remember, Katie MacAlister has loved reading. Growing up in a family where a weekly visit to the library was a given, Katie spent much of her time with her nose buried in a book. Two years after she started writing novels, Katie sold her first romance. More than thirty books later, her novels have been translated into numerous languages, received several awards, and been placed on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. Katie lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and dogs, and can often be found lurking around online.

One

“Now remember, this is a vacation, not carte blanche for you to run amok and be obnoxious.”

I made a little pout, which let me tell you, ain’t easy when your face is shaped like a Newfoundland dog’s muzzle. Which mine was by dint of the fact that my most magnificent form to date was that of an extremely handsome, debonair, and utterly fabulous Newfie. “Have I ever run amok and been obnoxious?” I asked my demon lord, a kinda clueless Guardian by the name of Aisling Grey.

She lifted her hand and prepared to tick items off her fingers.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I interrupted before she could get going on what may or may not have been a few unfortunate incidents in my past. “Kiss kiss. Have a nice time on Drake’s yacht. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.”

“It’s not too late to send it to the Akasha,” Drake said as he walked past me, a baby carrier in each hand. “You would be able to enjoy our vacation without worrying about whether the demon was causing trouble.”

“Hello! ‘The demon,’ as you so rudely referred to me, is standin’ right here!” I gave Drake a look, but he missed it entirely. You’d think that a guy who just happened to be a wyvern, leader of a group of dragons who marched around the earth in human form, would be a little more aware of things, but Drake was like that, always missing my pithy comments and witty repartee. “And Aisling wouldn’t send me to the Akasha. That’s the cruelest thing a demon lord can do to her charming, adorable, and entirely innocent demon, one who, it might be pointed out, was recently praised for actions above and beyond the call of duty with regards to the birthing of the spawn.”

Drake muttered something extremely rude in Hungarian under his breath as he took the spawns out to the car.

“One,” Aisling said, doing that finger-ticking-off thing again. She made mean eyes at me as she did it. “You will cease referring to the twins as ‘the spawn.’ They have names; use them. Two, yes, you were of great assistance when it came to their birth, especially since you had to don human form to do so.”

I made a face. “Man, that was totally sucky. You should have seen the size of my package in human form. It lacked, babe. It just lacked.”

“Two and a half—you will not tell me, in any terms whatsoever, about your genitalia, be it in doggy or human form.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sheesh, Ash, loosen up a bit. I didn’t go into actual measurements or set up a website devoted to it.”

“For which the world is truly grateful.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still peeved at May for making me take that form. Human form is just so boring.”

“May was doing the best she could given a bad situation,” Aisling said, pointing to a suitcase sitting near the door when István, one of Drake’s elite guard, came in from where the car was waiting to take Aisling and Drake to a yacht he’d hired for a couple of weeks’ vacation. “Just that one is left, István. Are you and Suzanne set for your trip to New York?”

“Yes, we will leave as soon as Jim is picked up.”

“You make it sound like I have a babysitter,” I grumbled, a bit annoyed. “You know, I’m over a thousand years old—I think I can take care of myself for ten days. Just leave me a credit card and the number of the local pizza place, and I’ll have a Mrs. Peel-athon while you’re gone. And maybe a Morgan Fairchild-athon. Rawr.”

“Now there’s a recipe for disaster.” Aisling’s lips thinned as she continued. “Three: You will obey Anastasia. I have formally given her the right to give you orders, and you will respect that and do as she commands.”

“She just better not let that creepy apprentice of hers around me,” I said, scratching an itchy spot behind my ear. “During that lunch when you dragged me to meet Anastasia, that Margarine Chip chick looked like she wanted to gut me.”

“Buttercup is Anastasia’s apprentice and unused to demons,” she said, her nostrils flaring in that nostril-flaring way she had. “You will be polite and courteous to both of them, do you understand?”

“Yeah, yeah, keep my nose clean, gotcha,” I said, wandering over to my favorite British newspaper, the one with the girls flaunting their bare boobies. “So long as Anastasia takes me to Paris to be with my darling Cecile, we’re all good.”

“Four: While you are visiting Cecile, you will do anything that Amelie asks you, and you will leave when Anastasia says it’s time to leave. You are not to beg Amelie to stay with Cecile. She is a Welsh Corgi. She can survive the nights without you.”

“I don’t see why I have to spend the nights at a hotel with Anastasia,” I said, tapping my toes on the picture of a particularly busty chick. “It would be easier for everyone if she just dumped me off at Amelie’s and let me have my vacation there, with Cecile, rather than picking me up every night like it was some sort of day care or something.”

“Five,” Aisling said as Drake reappeared at the door, giving her a raised eyebrow. “You will remember that if you step out of line, the Akasha awaits.”

“You wouldn’t really let anyone send me there,” I said, rubbing my head on her leg just to let her know I’d miss her. “There’s no way out of the Akasha unless you’re summoned out or get a special dispensation from the Sovereign. You don’t know ’cause you’ve never been there, but it’s hell, Aisling, it’s really hell. Worse, ’cause Abaddon ain’t that bad once you figure out how to avoid the torture seminars. But the Akasha? Brrr. Bad mojo all around.”

“Just you remember that when Anastasia gets here. Are you all packed?”

I nodded toward the doggy backpack she got me for the visits I made to Paris to hang out with my lovely Cecile, she of the tailless butt and oh-so-suckable ears. Corgis may be low to the ground, but they are the sexiest things on four legs, and my Cecile was particularly snuffleworthy, even if she did get a bit grumpy now and then. “Eh? What?” I realized suddenly Aisling had been droning on about something or other.

“Kincsem, we will be late for the train if we do not leave now,” Drake said, taking her by the arms and steering her toward the door.

“I asked you if you have your cell phone and the phone book with the emergency numbers in your backpack.”

“Yup, all there. And extra drool bibs, that nice bamboo brush, a clean collar, and a two-week supply of Welsh Corgi Fanciers for when Cecile is napping.”

Drake rolled his eyes and pushed Aisling through the door over her protests.

“Be good!” she bellowed as he shoved her into the car.

“Don’t forget to bring me back a present!” I yelled back, and waved good-bye before slamming shut the door and heading straight for Drake’s library and the leather couch they always forbade me to sit on.

That’s where Suzanne found me almost an hour later. “Your substitute Guardian is here,” she said, frowning. “Did Aisling say you could sit on Drake’s nice sofa?”

“What Drake doesn’t know can’t cheese him off,” I said, sauntering out, waiting patiently while Suzanne fetched my backpack.

“Hiya, babe,” I said, greeting the white-haired Guardian Aisling’s mentor Nora had dug up to accompany me on my trip to Paris. Anastasia wasn’t really my idea of a babe, her being approximately a million years old (or at least looking like it), but I’m nothing if not Mr. Smooth Moves, and I know how the ladies like a little flattery. I did a quick gender check on her (nose to crotch, just to be polite), then sucked in my gut while Suzanne strapped on the backpack.