Diamonds and Deviants
This picture my own - others from Google Free to use images
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
She took off her underwear and hung it on an overhanging rock. She would need that when she returned, it wouldn’t be fair to anyone strolling the beach to see a wrinkly and obviously eccentric old woman emerge from the sea in her altogether. Celtica just hoped that her clothes still fit her when she got back to them.
She lifted the Dragon Stone from its shelf high up in the cave, so high that even if the cave was discovered, the possibility of the shelf being discovered, hidden way up close to the ceiling and further back than a human could reach was non existent. Even as a dragon with a longer arm and the added length of her claws she had a struggle to bring it out but at last, she was back down on the cold sand with the Dragon Stone in her hand - claws.
The colours mesmerised her. It had an inner light of its own and it illuminated the cave in a beautiful, breathtaking light show as it greeted her. How the stone could be pleased to see her never crossed her mind, it had always been so. She rubbed her face on it and it hummed in pleasure too. Dragons purr like giant lions when they are happiest and being so close to the Dragon Stone after such a long time, gave Celtica a blissful, ecstatic calm.
She sat on the dark beach, purring to the stone and it hummed back to her. Any human watching the scene would have been either terrified or enthralled to find a dragon rocking back and forth, cradling a piece of glowing crystal but this was no ‘Puff the magic dragon’ story and there was no human ‘Jackie Paper’ to see it anyway.
After a short time, Celtica was saddened to feel the stone stop humming. Its light went dim and finally winked out. She climbed up to the roof again and placed the stone on the shelf where she had found it.
Then she shrank herself down to human size again, pulled on her underwear and dived back into the water.
She may have had the appearance of a seventy year old woman, but inside the wrinkled body, Celtica was still as energetic, strong and lively as she had been before she went searching for the Dragon Stone.
And she knew the names of those that were helping the vampires.
When she got back home, she rushed up the stairs with a perfunctory ‘hello’ to the Security Guy. He saw only a flash of Celtica as she rushed past him and to make certain that she was who he assumed he called out to her.
“Miss Diamond?”
“Yeah Davey, I’m in a bit of a hurry, sorry to rush past you like that. Is there anything you need to check on?”
“What’s the pass code for the elevator on your floor please? Just so’s I know it’s you.”
“There isn’t a pass code on my floor. No one can get up to my floor without I let them up so there’s no code to get back down. Is that ok Davey?”
“Sure is Miss Diamond. I’ll have to call it in though, you ok with that?” He felt a little foolish calling up the stairs like that but if he didn’t, he’d lose his job and he certainly didn’t want to do that.
“No problem, Davey, you call it in and get a new security question. I’ll make sure you get a bonus too, for your trouble.”
“There’s no need for that Miss Diamond, I’d not be able to accept it anyways, please don’t bother yourself. Go on and have a good evening.”
Celtica grinned. That was the perfect protocol for the situation. He’d played it wonderfully, right down to not accepting the gratuity. She would make sure he had a bonus, and it would be a permanent one, a raise in salary would help him and his family along just nicely.
When Celtica got up to her floor and into the apartment, alarms were flashing all over the place.
She checked the security video on the computer to see if there had been multiple attempts at entry. There had been quite a number.
All after she had left to sing on the top of the office building and all by the same vampire by the looks of it. It also seemed to be the same one that had tried to gain entry the last time too. He was a stubborn creature, she’d give him that.
He’d light her tracking device up like a Roman Candle when she got close to him.
She smiled at the thought of that. Then she remembered the accumulative effects of the warfarin.
The amount of toxin absorbed should have slowed down a vampire within three or four doses but this one had hit the security screens a dozen or more times. She didn’t think it would kill him but he should be weakened.