Mad Lizard Mambo Read Online Free Page A

Clan Sebac, Third in the House of Devon, High Lord of the Southern Rise Court, thought it should be the dragon.
    Since, at the time, I was driving and apparently more interested in living than he was, I chose us.
    There are times I regret that decision. Not so much for me but for him, because Ryder is a pain in my ass. He kept after me to join his Court, even though I’m a chimera, an unholy, arcane soup of sidhe and unsidhe. Since I was already bound to him by SoCalGov’s threat to suspend my Stalker license if I didn’t ask how high when Ryder orders me to jump, I not so politely told him to fuck off and get out of my life.
    I just hadn’t expected him to actually do exactly that—get out of my life.
    “I should leave you there, Ryder,” I said to the sky, as if it would somehow carry my words to His Lordship’s ears, “in that forest of yours with the pandas and the towers. Damn you for not staying where I’d put you.”
    The coffee went bitter in my mouth. I was turning maudlin, probably a result of bathing in a rancid dragon egg. Off in the distance, San Diego was waking up, its lower levels kicking in for the morning rush hour. The upper level still slumbered, its streets lean of traffic, but there seemed to be movement on the sidewalks, herds of dog walkers and joggers spending their morning hours chasing their own tails. Below, tik-tiks were diving and swooping, tiny blue metal birds clipped to overhead rails while picking up fares, then sweeping off into the shadowy streets built under San Diego’s towering skyscrapers. Medical’s white towers bristled at the levels’ meeting, a dash of mercury running silver on the city’s lips where it kissed the broad shoreline.
    Leaning over the short wall running around the top of the warehouse, I sipped my coffee and stared at the city. The museum wouldn’t be open for a few hours yet, and I still needed to clean the dirt and pumice off of the egg’s exterior. There would be enough time for another cup of hot brew. Then I’d be elbow deep in soapsuds and filth.
    “I’ll be needing yet another bath after that job,” I muttered at San Diego’s belly. My coffee was gone, and I was debating smoking a kretek before I started the laborious egg cleaning ahead of me when I spotted movement in my driveway.
    More importantly, there was a very familiar old Chevy truck in said driveway and a way-too-familiar old human sitting behind its steering wheel.
    “Dempsey,” I whispered under my breath.
    He looked up as if he’d heard me say his name, an impossibility since I was several floors above him and his window was up, but his rheumy eyes met mine, and a sardonic grimace curled his sun-leathered face.
    The last time he’d been at the warehouse was right after I bought the place. I’d been there for years, and never once had he darkened my doorway. To find him sitting in my driveway on a crisp, crystalline morning was shocking.
    But not nearly as shocking as the drawn grayness of his skin as he studied me from his truck’s cab. I held up my coffee cup and lifted my eyebrows, silently questioning him if he wanted one. A curt nod brought me up from my lean on the wall, but the truck’s door creaking open drove me downstairs.
    There was only one reason Dempsey would be at my doorstep. Something bad had happened… and whatever it was, I sure as hell wasn’t going to like it.
     
     
    DEMPSEY WAS silent while I got us some breakfast, and he slowly picked at the scrambled eggs and bacon burritos I’d tossed together. He’d always been one to eat, no matter if he’d just had a meal. Food was something to be consumed whenever it showed up in front of you, he used to say. Eat, because you never knew when food was going to be around again. I’d taken that lesson to heart, especially after the uncountable years where my only sustenance had been my own raw flesh being fed to me piece by piece.
    Him not eating got me worried.
    My worry turned to a cold gnaw of ice in my