"I've never done anything like that," he said. "Greg and I kicked around the idea of going skydiving. This will be better, I think."
"Good. We'll go. And as an added treat, we'll go through the ceiling and out through the roof." Greg looked as if he was a little worried over that, but I grabbed his arm and then Frank's and we were mist in a blink. Ignoring Merrill's call to be careful, we did go through the ceiling and then through two more floors plus the attic, coming out over the roof of the house and then zooming off toward the coast.
"I'm sorry I never asked you to do this before," Franklin said as he and Greg watched the ocean wash up on a beach covered in pebbles not far from the port city of Dover. We could see the white cliffs down the way, shining under a waning crescent moon. Greg and Franklin had their arms around each other, so I just sat down off to the side and allowed them their moment together. They let me know when they were ready to go home.
* * *
"Little girl, I have to ask you to trust me," Griffin said the following evening.
"Frank said I could," I told the tall, brown-haired man. He did have a nice smile, I'll give him that.
"I'm retired, now," he informed me. "But I used to take on some pretty nasty things. That was my job. Others are still doing that job and I need you to help one of them. This is going to involve some major travel. Don't worry, we'll have suitable clothing and such waiting when you get there; you don't need to pack a bag," Griffin held up a hand. "The thing is, I can only get you so far and then someone else will meet us at that point to take you to your destination." I watched Griffin closely; he was excited about this, I could tell. I just didn't know why.
"What about blood and things like that?" I needed a food source, after all.
"That will be provided," Griffin assured me. "I've talked this over with the Liaison, and he's quite excited about it, too."
"To whom are you taking her?" Merrill asked, uncharacteristically curious.
"Dragon," Griffin grinned. I stared at Griffin, my mouth surely open in surprise. Dragon? There was somebody named Dragon? That didn't sound promising. Who named their kid Dragon?
"What sort of help does he need?" Merrill's left eyebrow lifted a little. Right then I was wondering what Mr. Spock might have looked like with piercing blue eyes. Griffin snickered.
"Hey, get out of my head," I grumped. "Will I be able to phone Gavin? You know he'll want to know where I am."
"Your communication devices will not work where you're going," Griffin informed me. He sounded almost happy about that fact. "Wlodek will let him know that you will be unavailable for a time."
"You want me to do this?" I turned a puzzled gaze to Merrill.
"I think it will be good for you," Merrill said. Well, I'd heard that before.
"Come with me, little girl. It's time you saw the wider universes." Griffin took my hand before I could protest and just like that, we were gone.
* * *
Griffin and I were standing in a spacious kitchen, with twenty-foot plate glass windows overlooking a rocky beach far below the house. It was evening wherever we were; a full moon hung low over the water. Either we'd gone back or forward in time or we weren't on planet Earth any longer. I was staring at the moon in shock, trying to determine just where the hell I was and how Griffin had managed to get me there when a two-year-old child ran past me, screeching. "Justin, slow down!" A woman's voice shouted and I whirled in a blur to see whom it was, receiving another huge shock.
Griffin placed a hand on my shoulder just to calm me a little, I think. Here was the woman in Merrill's photograph, alive and in the flesh, with long, pale blonde hair and blue eyes. And she was drop-dead beautiful on top of that. I'd thought she looked gorgeous in the photograph on Merrill's bedside table, but the reality was so much better. No wonder he was head over heels for her. No way could anyone else compete with that. No way. The sad thing, though? Her husband was standing right behind her. She had a ring on and so did he. Poor Merrill. Griffin squeezed my shoulder again. The child was now standing before me, staring at me curiously with gray eyes. His father's eyes. I saw that right away.
"Hello, young man," I knelt down to his level. He reached out and patted my face.
"Carry me," he demanded.
"You get your way a lot, do you?" I asked, smiling and tapping his nose. He laughed so I lifted him up. He seemed happy to sit on my hip and was now toying with my hair. Griffin was about to make introductions when a giant appeared next to us, scaring the bejeezus out of me. Reflexively, I misted at least twenty feet away in the blink of an eye, the child still in my arms.
"Holy shit," the blonde's husband swore.
"Lissa, it's all right, this is Pheligar, the Liaison," Griffin was trying to reassure me. Nobody else seemed to be having a cow and the kid, Justin was his name, I guess, loved the fact that we'd just gone across the room in no time flat.
I put Justin down carefully and sized up the Liaison. Not only was he around eight and a half feet tall but he had blue skin, blue eyes and close-cropped, wheat colored hair. He wore loosely woven clothing—a tunic over shapeless pants—plus sandals. He looked like a huge, blue hippie. The skin and eyes were what amazed me, however.
"Is he safe?" I glanced at Griffin.
"He is," Griffin assured me. I walked over to the Liaison and stood before him, looking up at his face. He looked down at me. We stood like that for several seconds.
"Honey," I finally said, "I don't want to offend you or anything, since I don't know what your customs and culture are like. But I have to tell you, your skin is like a summer sky. Your eyes put all that to shame, though. They're like the bluest northern sky, the blue that you almost can't believe on the days you actually get to see it." I hadn't seen daylight in a long time and I missed it. And this guy? He was like a walking sky to me.
Who knows whether I offended him or not? He reached down and lifted me up so I'd be on a level with his face, frightening me so much I nearly misted out of his arms. Something held me back, though, and it wasn't any of my doing.
"I am doing this," he said in perfect, unaccented English. "I have not received a compliment of this magnitude before. I appreciate your words."
"Uh, you're welcome." My words were almost a squeak. How many people can say that they, as grown adults, were picked up by someone that was nearly twice their height?
"Lissa, this is Pheligar, the Liaison between the Powers That Be and the Saa Thalarr." Griffin now stood beside the blue giant. I was officially in a science fiction movie. Powers That Be? Who were they? And the other words—Saa Thalarr? What language was that? I definitely needed to take language lessons.