Never bet against an eight-year-old when food is on the line.

  Actually… never bet against an eight-year-old.

  I returned to the dining room after I had divested myself of the contents of my pockets and returned the gun, magazines and bullets to their designated places. I’d expected them to be eating. I’d not expected them to be snickering like two schoolchildren over a secret. I was, of course, torn, attempting to determine which of them I should admonish first. As I approached the table, Tristan caught a glimpse of me and just started to laugh, which led me to decide that I was the butt of whatever the joke had been.

  I pulled a page from my brother’s book, sat down at the table and drew my vegetables towards me. “Is there enough soy sauce for you?” Now both of them exploded in laughter, and Tristan reached into his pocket and slid a bill towards Vanessa, who took it primly and put it in her own pocket. Dear God, they were placing bets. “Tristan!”

  The bill was quietly removed from Vanessa’s pocket and wordlessly handed back to my son, who took it, winked at her, and tucked it back into his pocket. This time, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, counted to ten and opened my eyes again to find them both watching me. Clearly, they wanted to see what I was going to do next so that they’d know which way the bill was going to go. I raised both eyebrows and motioned to Tristan. “All right, you two. Let’s see the bet.”

  The sound that escaped Vanessa indicated that Tristan had won, and as he handed me the twenty, I looked to her with amusement. “He’s my son, Vanessa. You didn’t stand a chance.” I passed the money across to Vanessa and gave Tristan a small shake of my head. “You should have known better, Tristan.” When he started laughing, I knew that I’d been had. Vanessa nearly beamed in delight, and I smirked at them both. “Eat.” They ate, but they were both laughing, and the glances that passed between them had me fearing for my sanity.

  “Have you any idea when your father will be home?” I asked Vanessa as she served herself some of Tristan’s unwanted water chestnuts. It offset the carrots that he’d been stealing from her dish, so I didn’t make them stop. Who was I to argue when two children wanted to swap vegetables? I supposed I should have counted myself lucky they were eating them at all. And add that I was eternally grateful that Tristan had opted for chicken while I was at it. At least this meal, I’d managed to eat a little before I couldn’t manage to choke down anymore.

  “No,” Vanessa replied quietly, and she looked at my plate critically, turning the conversation as neatly as a politician. “Is yours not good? You’ve hardly eaten. Though now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat.” She looked at me, then looked to Tristan, who looked away. When her gaze returned to mine, I could practically see the gears spinning. “Are you one of those people who don’t eat in public because you’re anorexic?”

  Christ save me from overeducated women stuck in eight year old bodies. I sighed and looked at Vanessa for a moment, ignoring the fact that Tristan was holding his breath for my reply. “No, Vanessa. I’m not anorexic. And before you shift tactics, I’m not bulimic either. My metabolism simply doesn’t function as a normal human’s. As a result, I don’t require as much food.” It was a standard reply I gave to people who commented on my eating, or lack thereof.

  Vanessa pointed at me. “Tristan eats more than you do. And you’re skinny. Too skinny. My P.E. teacher would be writing a recommendation for diet counseling if you were in my school. And I never see you eat meat. Don’t you eat meat? Are you a vegetarian? Or a vegan? Does that mean you don’t eat eggs or cheese? What about milk? You should have some shrimp. They’re seafood; here.” After the torrent of words, she pushed the large container of shrimp and broccoli my way and then pointed at it again, echoing my command of earlier. “Eat.”

  Dumbfounded, I stared at her. Leaf green eyes blinked, and then she very carefully raised both eyebrows at me, a perfect imitation of my earlier expression when I’d taken the money from Tristan. I looked to my son to see his shoulders shaking in an effort to keep himself from laughing, and when he saw me looking, he made a point of loading up his fork. “I’d do as she says, Da. I get the feeling she’s a right terror when she isn’t obeyed.” And then the traitor ate more curry.

  I looked at Vanessa, and my gaze shifted reflexively to the shrimp and broccoli when she pointed at the foil dish. Reluctantly, I moved my plate and dished out a single shrimp onto my plate. Before I could put the serving spoon back, that pointer finger was moving. “More. At least three. And broccoli. It’s good for you.” My internal estimate of her age raised about five years, and I moved to serve myself two more shrimp and two smaller broccoli florets. “Good. Eat that, and we’ll see if you need more.”

  More? Christ, she was going to be the death of me, wasn’t she? I deposited the serving spoon back in the dish, slid it back towards her, and made a show of picking up my fork, stabbing a shrimp and putting the entire thing in my mouth. She wanted to play the game; I could play right back. I was older. It wasn’t helping that Tristan pushed his own plate aside and had his head on the table as he tried not to laugh.

  The first shrimp went down well enough. And the second. The first broccoli caught in my throat and made me finish my bottled water before I could continue. My son took the opportunity to escape the room and returned after I forced myself to swallow the second broccoli. He placed a new bottle of water close to hand and managed an apologetic look while I chased the last shrimp around the plate.

  “Eat it, or I’ll add one.” Was this how Ravenswing made her eat? I stabbed the thing with entirely too much force, spiking the Styrofoam plate underneath. A moment of fuss freed the fork tines, and then I shoved the last shrimp into my mouth, and while I chewed, I exchanged the fork for the bottle of water. Bless Tristan for knowing I was going to have to wash the last shrimp down. I really hoped she wasn’t going to make me eat more.

  There was a long pause as I set my water down and looked to Vanessa, waiting to see if she was going to sentence me to more shrimp, or if she was satisfied with the fact that I had eaten her bare minimum. She nodded, smiling, and I felt myself relax. “All right. That’s good enough. If you don’t eat enough, your stomach shrinks, and then you eat less. We’re going to have to work on this together.” We? No... there was to be no ‘we’ when it came to my eating habits.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Vanessa, I’ve gotten along this far with my current eating habits, I rather suspect that I’ll get along nicely in the future without changing them.” Tristan closed his mouth and stood to start bundling food away, scooping up the shrimp and broccoli and heading into the kitchen.

  It was probably a good thing he did so, too, given that she frowned at us both, and then folded her arms with a childish hmf. “Fine. See if I care. Wither away until you’re a thin little nothing and see what I care.” She rose from the table and didn’t quite stomp off into the living room, but she did throw herself onto the loveseat with a dramatic sigh. Tristan didn’t meet my eyes, for which I was glad. I think we both would have started to laugh.

  I helped Tristan gather the rest of the food and put it away while Vanessa sulked on the loveseat. We regrouped in the living room, and I was standing by the fireplace, wondering what I was going to do with the pair of them when my cellphone rang. “And that would be your father.” I took my phone out of my pocket, accepted the call, and answered. “Shestin, go.”

  “Vanessa is at your townhouse. Is all well?” I wondered if he could hear my eyes rolling in my head. “I won’t make you keep her tonight; I should be by within the hour.” He didn’t sound particularly busy, but then I didn’t try to understand his special line of work when I wasn’t involved. “If you must remind her to behave, feel free.”

  “Oh, she’s a perfect houseguest, as usual, Ravenswing. She does you a credit. And I took care of Rathbourne today, so that’s a done deal. You should have told me that he was your third in disgrace. I wouldn’t have made it such a clean kill.” As far as a violently heated chemical reaction-based explosion could be called clean. Ravenswing didn’t need to know that, though. “There’s little chance of recovery… ever seen pureed demon? I doubt there was enough left of him to feed a rat.”

  Tristan turned to look at me in sudden surprise, and Vanessa’s smile turned just a little colder at the thought of the demon that wanted to use her powers reduced to less than rat food. As to Valen Ravenswing, well, there was a considerable silence on the line before he finally replied with a calm voice. “I see. Then it is Vanessa and I who owe you for the service. Within the hour.” And he rang off without further words.

  I looked to Vanessa as I pocketed the phone. “You won’t be tasked with our presence for much longer. Your father is on his way to pick you up. He said he’d be here within the hour. Now, what you do in that time is entirely up to you. You can feel free to sit on that loveseat and sulk, or you can interact like a responsible guest. I’ve had a long day, and I find I don’t much care which you do.” Tristan looked at me in unabashed surprise, and Vanessa rolled her eyes and sat up.

  “You don’t have to be so mean about it. It isn’t like its easy pretending to be eight. You try it.” It was the first time she’d truly complained in my presence, and I found myself chuckling. She shot me another one of her purely feminine looks and slumped back into the sofa. “’I told my Daddy I wanted a pony. He said I couldn’t keep it in the bedroom.’ ‘I told my Mommy I wanted a little baby sister.’” She rubbed her face with her hands. “Sometimes I just want to strangle them.”

  “Trust me, I understand the sentiment,” I replied wryly, and it wasn’t lost on her. “But we make do with what we have, and hope that things will get better. Now that Rathbourne is out of the picture, perhaps you’ll get the chance to be what is clearly a remarkably witty young woman with a bright future.” As long as her father deemed it safe to allow her to regain her true age. I could well imagine him keeping her trapped as an eight-year-old until whatever time it suited him, and I hid my shudder, sitting in the chair opposite Tristan and looking to the twig in its cup on the coffee table. I had no idea what to do about it, so I left it there.

  “So how old are you, Vanessa?” Tristan asked lightly. “I’d put you somewhere in your twenties, maybe twenty-seven. No older than thirty-two…” And this was where the benefit of age came into play. See, I knew better than to ask a woman of any age how old she was. Let’s just conveniently forget that I had asked Vanessa, and call it a day, shall we?

  Those leaf green eyes flicked a gaze across to Tristan, and then Vanessa looked back at me. With a sigh, she relented. “I’m twenty-five. Or I should be. I can’t really complain… eight isn’t so terrible. Old enough to be able to have my own mind and do things on my own, but young enough to need a guardian for protection. It made the most sense in the long run.” Okay, that line officially weirded me out to hear out of an apparent eight-year-old.

  I shook my head and moved to collect the cup with the twig in it. I still wasn’t certain what I was supposed to do with the twig, and I thought I might see if Tristan wanted to stop by Marion Square later to check in with the dryad that had gifted it to me. “Well, I won’t say that I won’t miss our babysitting sessions, but you certainly didn’t make them easy for me.”

  That sly little smile crept across Vanessa’s face as she glanced to Tristan and then looked back to me. “It wasn’t my job to make it easy for you. Besides, if I made it too easy, you wouldn’t have wanted to babysit me, and I needed your protection.” I doubted that but kept it to myself when there was a single knock at the side door. Unlike the postman, Valen Ravenswing only knocked once.

  “Your father is here, Vanessa,” I said, rising and moving away from the coffee table to cross towards the side door. Once again, the sedate young lady, Vanessa trailed along behind me and waited as I opened the door. Ravenswing held out his hand, and his daughter slipped out of the protection of my residence and into his shadow as easily as a duck takes to water. “Once again, she was no trouble, and indeed, a welcome guest in my house.” I didn’t let on that she’d told me her true age. I owed her that at the very least.

  He nodded to me, a distant expression on his face before he turned to look over Vanessa and then he looked to me. “You will, of course, be compensated for your efforts on our behalf. Again, I offer thanks. Good evening.” I stood there, surprised by the promise of payment for services rendered. In all honesty, I took the demon out on Rebecca Kelly’s behalf, not Vanessa Ravenswing’s, but who was I to look a gift… demon in the mouth? Er. Bank account? Oh, I didn’t need the money, and most of it would likely go off to one charity or another, but it pleased me to take his money, so I did.

  I closed the door behind them and turned to find Tristan looking at me with a bemused expression. “And what was that all about, then? Reward money? Had he put a bill up for the return of the young lady you rescued?” As if I was going to tell him the full truth of the matter. But if he wanted to believe that it was reward money, I’d let him.

  “I’ll send most of it off to charity, let it benefit others. There are a few shelters in the area that could use the support, and I’ll make sure that some of it gets into the hands of those who raise awareness for abuse victims.” It pleased me to help, and annoyed Ravenswing that I did. But it wasn’t Ravenswing’s business what I did with the money he gave me, so I did as I pleased. “And given that it’s still early, I’m thinking of popping up to Marion Square with this bit of twig and seeing what the dryad wanted me to do with it. You game?”

  “Nah, I think I’ll pass, but thanks. I’m a bit tired, you know… still trying to adapt to the hours ‘round this side of the pond, as you call it. Figure I’ll go upstairs and read for a bit, then turn in,” Tristan said amiably. “But you go on and do your thing. Don’t let me keep you. Oh, and tell me where the sheets are, and I’ll re-make your bed for you.”

  I probably wouldn’t sleep tonight, but I knew if I didn’t tell him, he’d probably poke around until he found the sheets anyway. “I keep the sheets in the master bathroom closet, but you don’t have to mess with it. I’ll take care of it later. I’ll try not to wake you when I get in.” I collected the twig in a cup and my keys, considering for a moment. “Actually, let me leave the rental here. I’m going to take the Ninja.”

  As Tristan shook his head and went upstairs, I went into the kitchen and bundled up the little twig for the ride. One wet paper towel and a baggie later, the twig and I were on the way out the door. Once on the Ninja, however, I decided to do one last check of the warehouse before I let that rest. The twig went into my borrowed shirt pocket, and off we headed to the warehouse on Charlotte Street.