wiggled her skinny, wrinkled ass off the picnic table bench and pushed up the sleeves on her peasant blouse. I took two steps closer to the table and pushed Mom back onto the bench in front of our laptop. Flipping the lid open, I hit the on button. "I think we should try to contact Dorius and tell him how many critters we put in the incinerator last night."
Mom growled as the computer booted up.
A few seconds later, Dorius's face popped on the screen. "You better make this fast. We're about to hop a boat to Corsica."
"Ain't that the French island next to Italy?" Betty got up and rounded the table so fast a human would have thought she disappeared and reappeared a heartbeat later. Peering over Mom's shoulder, Betty's barely harnessed boobage begged for attention. "What you doin' on some Frenchie resort island?"
I held my breath, eyes on my mother. When she didn't move, and, instead, waited for Dorius to answer, I moved my eyes in his direction. Dorius's chest slowly rose, taking in the air he didn't require, and he expelled it in forced patience.
"Did you need something, Chick?" Dorius asked.
We all looked at Betty.
"Yeah, she needs something," Betty said. "She needs to know why your vamp-ass-superiority is on its way to some French island where shopping and topless fun in the sun is goin' on."
Mom turned to Betty, her nose a hair's width from a vast valley of cleavage. "How do you know that?"
Betty peeked over her chest at Mom. "I was plannin' on goin' shoppin'; maybe buyin' me a small slice of the prime real estate there."
Dorius cleared his throat.
"Guess who got back early?" We all turned toward the sliding glass door by the breakfast bar where Christopher bounced in with Gibbie on his shoulder.
Full of tinkling laughter, and wings pumping a draft that lifted Christopher's blond curls, Gibbie wore itty-bitty jeans hugging his cute little butt, and a tucked-in billowy white shirt. A sword rested against his hip, secured by a red bandanna tied around his belly. White cowboy boots, stenciled with tiny orange stars that matched his hair color, adorned his feet. The fairy's hair was cut in a stark pageboy that framed a heart-shaped freckled face and split over pointy ears. He was about two inches tall, and when he wasn't grinning big, a boastful scowl marked his face.
"Hey, guys!" Gibbie squeaked. "Miss me?"
Dorius said, "You have exactly one minute to state your business before I close this laptop." I swear his eyes were all pupil.
Gibbie's wings buzzed at the sound of Dorius's voice. He flew by the laptop and straight up to his favorite spot in the dining room; the ceiling fan above the picnic table. He perched on the tip of a revolving blade, both hands gripping the ends, cowboy boots kicked out, and he said, "Turn this down a notch, will ya, Chick?"
Mom glared at the fairy. Resi turned a knob on the wall by the recliner, her index finger in front of her lips. The fairy nodded, crossed a leg over his knee, gripped his sword, and rode the fan over our heads.
Mom quickly answered Dorius's question. "We just wanted to give a critter report. We bagged seventy-three right after the sun went down. They're burning in the woodstove as we speak. We'll be going out again before morning if Sonny calls in another gathering."
"Very impressive," Dorius said. "Did you capture any of the Alphas?"
"No," Mom said.
"Who's with Sonny?" Dorius shot back.
"No one," Christopher answered, climbing on top of the table.
He looked so cute in his white and orange flowered Jams and Panama Jack tee, little toes nudging off flip-flops before he dragged his feet up. You'd never know his fangs were bigger and more lethal than mine, or that he was over one-hundred years old.
"Take the fairy and go check on Sonny," Dorius told Christopher, as he fidgeted with a black leather bolo around his neck.
As I watched Dorius work to loosen the leather and unbutton the top button of his red silk shirt, I studied his spindly fingers and long
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