The Dragon's Christmas Wish Read online

  “Shouldn’t you be studying?” Liza raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Yes, I should.” Geneva smirked. “But school is boring. Spying on you is more fun. And what he just said? It means he’s your boyfriend.” And she flickered out and disappeared.

  “No, no,” Jaspar hastened to say. “It means nothing of the kind. It means heart-mate. My heart sings when I see you. You are my intended. You and I are meant to be together.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” Liza said flatly.

  Jaspar glanced at his clan brothers in confusion.

  “The human laughs, but there is no appearance of mirth in her face,” he said. “Can you explain this, Loren? Is she ill?”

  A man who looked like a much more mild-mannered version of Jaspar strode forward, tapped a bronze bracelet on his wrist, and murmured into it. The bracelet spoke to him in a series of chirps, and he looked up at Jaspar and shrugged.

  “The ways of the humans are strange. As are you, for wanting to be the heart-mate of a human female,” Loren said.

  “The human is standing right here,” Liza said, waving at them in annoyance.

  Jaspar nodded. “Yes, I observe that. We Drakken have excellent vision. We are genetically superior in many ways. Our young will possess your beauty,” he gestured graciously at her, “and my superior physical strength and ability to fly.”

  Liza shook her head. “Step off the crazy train, please. It’s an expression!” she added as Loren gave her a puzzled glance and began talking to his bracelet again.

  A female member of the crew strode forward. She was tall and stunning, clad in a leather dress and leather boots. Her ebony hair was piled high on her head and entwined with a silver rope, and diamonds were studded in her tresses, glittering like stars in a night sky.

  Jaspar’s mother, Karmelite. The matriarch of the Balthazar clan, and a fearsome warrior.

  “I agree with the human,” she informed her son.

  “You do?” Liza said with surprise.

  “Yes. The idea of you marrying into our clan is, as you put it, crazy. I strictly forbid it.”

  “And yet I am the Regis of the clan. Therefore I decree who can marry and who cannot, not you,” Jaspar said with annoyance.

  She met his gaze with an imperious glower. “But I am your mother, she who sat on your egg for ten long months. I only want what is best for you, and therefore I forbid this union.”

  Jaspar snorted. “Everyone knows that you had clutchling-warmers sit on us ninety-nine percent of the time.”

  “Well, I was there when you hatched, anyway. I left right in the middle of my monthly claw-sharpening as soon as I heard about the first crack appearing in your egg.” His mother looked miffed.

  “Hey,” Liza said with annoyance. “Not that I plan on marrying your son, or having his hatchlings, and I’m not even sure how that would work, but for the sake of curiosity, why don’t you want me to marry him?”

  “I should think it would be obvious,” his mother said, staring at her.

  “Not to me,” Liza said.

  “You’ll figure it out,” she said, and she abruptly turned and walked away, heading back towards their enormous hovercraft.

  Stuck up bitch, Liza thought indignantly.

  Anyway, it didn’t matter. Customers would be there soon, and Liza had more important things to worry about than a deluded Drakken.

  “We will not rent to you. You and your clan infected all of our trees with the black fur fungus and destroyed the world that our great-great-great grandparents settled,” Liza said to Jaspar. “You did it so that we would be forced to declare bankruptcy and you could buy everyone’s property up cheaply. So you can kiss my ass.”

  “I accept your offer with enthusiasm. However, we also need to book rooms here. And I repeat, we did not sabotage your forests. Why would we do such a thing?”

  “Well, the fact that you and the Harbinger clan both wanted our world must mean that you think there’s something of value here,” Liza said. “And you knew that we would never have sold it on our own.”

  “You do know that the males of the Drakken race are genetically incapable of lying, right?” Jaspar said.

  “So you say,” Liza scoffed. “But if you’re capable of lying, then you could easily lie and say that you’re incapable of lying.”

  “It is easy to verify,” Jaspar said. “And the Harbinger Clan were the ones who first wanted to buy your planet after you declared bankruptcy, not us. We just happened to hear about it and put in a higher offer.”

  “Our mayor asked the Harbinger ambassador if they had poisoned our trees, and he said no,” Liza said. “So if Drakken can’t lie, then they didn’t do it either. I’m tired of this conversation, Jaspar – I need to help move our dead Santabot into the storage shed.”

  “We are willing to pay five times your regular fee for booking the bed and breakfast,” Jaspar said.

  “Nope, sorry, we’re fully booked,” Liza said. “Also, burn in Hell.”

  Marjan tapped her arm. “You said that he was not Satan,” she said.

  “I happen to know that humans are capable of speaking untruths,” Jaspar said, looking around. “I see only one other hovercraft besides my family’s parked here, and I see no guests strolling about the grounds. How can you claim that you are fully booked? I believe that you are not telling me the truth.”

  “Doesn’t matter either way, and we’re done here.” She turned to walk away.

  “We will sign a lease agreement stating that you and your family may stay here for free for the next five years,” Jaspar said. “That is in addition to the fee that we will pay you for booking the entire bed and breakfast for the next two weeks.”

  “No means no,” Liza said firmly.

  “Yes, you state the obvious. Of course a word means what it means.” Jaspar looked at her in confusion. “So have we reached an agreement? I will have our law-maker print out the agreement and we will sign it in blood.”

  Liza grimaced. “Eww, no. I wouldn’t sign the agreement in blood no matter what.”

  He moved closer to her, and she found herself breathing deeply, drawing his scent into her nostrils.

  “Liza, I’m here,” her grandfather called out. “You need help with the Santa?”

  “Oh, thank heavens,” Liza murmured, and hurried off. She’d been perilously close to reaching out and unlacing Jaspar’s leggings to see what was underneath them.

  Chapter Three

  After Liza finished helping her grandfather with the Santabot, she got in the hovercraft and headed to North Pole, which was the name of the only town on Far North.

  She sank back in her seat and glided over the snow, feeling unsettled as the hovercraft zipped down the Arctic Highway. Tall, black-coated, dying pine trees lined the road and hurt her heart, so she deliberately stared straight ahead. They all looked as if they’d been dipped in tar.

  The hovercraft passed the sign for Marla’s Maple Experience, which now had a “closed for business” sign nailed over it. In years past, Marla’s had been a thriving business. She’d sold maple syrup year round, shipping it off-world via the transport ship that came to their little world once a month, and March through April she’d led tours and let tourists make their own maple syrup on her wood-fired evaporator.

  That had all ended when her trees had died.

  Like all the other colonists’ businesses, including Liza’s, Marla’s Maple Experience had been started by Marla’s ancestors, a hundred and fifty years ago when the colony had first been founded by people fleeing a dying Terra 1. Back then it had been called “Earth”.

  The colony had been founded by taking out an enormous loan from the Galactic Federal Bank. The loan had covered the cost of terraforming the small planetoid and making it not only habitable but capable of sustaining plant and animal life. There was a machine called the Weather Control Station, the size of a Terran city block, which maintained the atmosphere and controlled the weather. The descendants of the original settlers were st
ill paying that loan off – or at least they had been until they’d declared bankruptcy earlier that year.

  The fungus had appeared three years ago, and spread like wildfire. Everyone in the colony had chipped in to have it tested, sending samples to different off-world laboratories and testing them again and again. They’d tried quarantining their diseased trees, burning them instantly when they found the first trace of the fungus.

  But the laboratories were baffled and had never come up with an answer about the origin of the fungus or, even more importantly, a cure.

  Perhaps if they’d been able to afford to send the samples out of the solar system…but the cost would have been so high, that alone would have bankrupted them.

  “Sriii!” A shrill cry from the back seat made Liza jump.

  She twisted around and scowled. One of the Srilaa had snuck into the hovercraft and was now clambering into the front seat to sit next to her. It was wearing a green felt hat and green felt tunic and green felt boots, all trimmed in white fur. That was all for show – the Srilaa were hardy little creatures that came from a snow-covered planet.

  It looked up at her with its tiny, furry, scrunched-up face and held out its hand. She peered at it more closely. It had thick dark eyelashes on its huge round eyes, which meant it was female.

  “You’re supposed to be back at the bed and breakfast, greeting the customers,” she said, shaking her head reprovingly.

  “La La sriii.”

  That roughly translated to “La La is hungry.” The Galactic Translator that hung over Liza’s ear did not translate Srilaa, because their language was too simplistic.

  Everyone on Far North pretty much knew what they were saying anyway. The Srilaa were always either hungry, happy, angry, or needed to poop.

  “Well, why didn’t you just bug Pawpaw or Mawmaw, then? They’re a couple of suckers,” Liza grumbled, but she fished in her purse and pulled out a couple of plastic-wrapped peppermints.

  La La grabbed them from her hand and stuffed them in her mouth without bothering to unwrap them.

  “Rude,” Liza informed her as the hovercraft came to a stop and landed in a vast, three-quarters empty parking lot on Main Street.

  Downtown North Pole was always Christmassy, with its carved wooden storefronts that looked like gingerbread houses, and the twinkling fairy lights strung between old-fashioned, cast-iron lamp posts, but at this time of year the colonists went happily, festively overboard. Despite the failing fortunes of Far North, this year was no exception.

  The storekeepers dressed in red velvet trimmed with white fur, like Liza and her family, or wore fluttering mechanical angel wings and tinsel halos. Store windows displayed delicate blown glass ornaments, hand-sewn dolls and teddy bears, brightly painted wooden trains and Starliners, and enough peppermint bark, red-and-white striped candy canes, and chocolate Santas to make La La burble excitedly in her shrill little voice. The sound of a brass band floated through the crisp air, seeming to carry with it the smell of roasting chestnuts.

  In years past, Main Street would have been packed with tens of thousands of tourists. Now there were only a few hundred people circulating through the downtown area.

  The sight still managed to raise a smile on Liza’s face, however. There were aliens of every species mingling with the humans on the street. Most non-human species were fascinated by Christmas. Liza loved to watch them. Right now, inside Benny’s Christmas Emporium, eight-foot-tall, blue-skinned Tarmideans, antennae waving excitedly, were shopping for Christmas ornaments and Santa hats. They were bumping elbows with a swarm of delicately winged pink Lavaa, an insectoid race from the Andromeda galaxy.

  As she headed to the grocery store, with La La following at her heels, she saw that at least the post office was still was doing a bustling business. In fact, many of the people in town, now unemployed, were working their final Christmas season at the North Pole post office.

  They were answering letters from children all over the galaxy, and mailing packages and Christmas cards from people who wanted that all-important, authentic “North Pole” postmark on their packages.

  The postal drones visited six times a day during this time of the year, and traveled to postal sorting planetoids throughout the galaxy to distribute the presents and Christmas cards.

  She stuck her head in the door and waved at the postmistress. “Merry Christmas, Barbara!” she called. Barbara, a stocky woman with black hair shot through with white, waved back, with a smile that spoke of forced cheer. Look happy for the tourists. Keep the business coming, and don’t ruin everyone’s final Christmas on Far North.

  Barbara’s husband, Paul, the mayor, was behind the counter helping out, as were their three children, Max, Louis and Susie.

  With a sigh, Liza headed towards the grocery store.

  “Sriii, sriii.” La La’s shrill voice rose through the air, and Liza turned to see that the Srilaa was tugging on the fur of an alien whose species Liza didn’t even recognize. It was a big, lumbering thing with horns and hooves and a vaguely ox-like face. It was traveling with three female mates – Liza could tell because they were smaller and more delicate-looking and had thick, fringed lashes – and a gaggle of young.

  The young aliens all thought La La was adorable, of course, and tossed her thick chunks of chocolate peppermint bark from paper bags they had clutched in their little hoof-hands. La La crowed with delight and bowed to them, clutching the candy in her arms.

  “La La says thank you, and merry Christmas!” Liza cried, then bent down and picked La La up in her arms.

  “And Liza says knock it off, you little beggar,” she murmured into La La’s pointy ear. “You all had a huge breakfast. You’re not hungry.”

  La La was stuffing chocolate into her mouth, but she paused for long enough to stick her little pink tongue out at Liza. The Srilaa were not known for their maturity.

  Scowling at the Srilaa, Liza headed towards the grocery store, praying that the owner, Roger, was not there. Roger was a relative newcomer to the Christmas Colony. He had only arrived four years ago, and he was not well-liked. Unfortunately, Roger always had the best selection of fruits and vegetables.

  Please don’t be there, please don’t be there, she muttered to herself as she walked to the store.

  Because that was the way her day was going, of course he was there. As usual, he was dressed in the latest Terra 2 threads, which apparently called for a blindingly bright-green-and-yellow plaid jumpsuit and green plastic ankle-boots. His hair was jelled into an enormous retro side-swoop, and his cologne was strong enough to choke a horse, if there had been any on the planet.

  “Liza.” He leered at her. “Still the prettiest girl on the colony. So, who is your date to the Jingle Ball?”

  Liza wasn’t the prettiest girl on the colony, but she was one of the few single girls, and also she kept saying no to Roger, which seemed to pique his interest.

  “I’m going to be working on the evening of the jingle Ball,” she said.

  “Aw, don’t be like that – you know I could show you a real good time. Why do you always have to be so bitchy?” His wheedling tone raised the hairs on the backs of her arms.

  “Because I’m not the least bit attracted to you, and the pushier you are, the less attracted I am.”

  “You think you’re too good for me?” Roger snapped, his little eyes narrowing even more.

  “I think Aldearean snaffle-worms are too good for you,” Liza said.

  “La La rrrrr,” La La snarled, face scrunched in an adorable frown. Her lips peeled back and revealed a row of surprisingly sharp, needle-like teeth, which she kept retracted unless she felt threatened.

  Roger backed away from her in alarm. “Get that thing out of here before I punt it into the next block.”

  “Try it.” Liza yanked a candy cane out of her purse, and he burst into laughter.

  “You’re going to…what? Give me diabetes?”

  She squeezed the candy cane, and it squirted him with a noxious c
loud that sent him staggering back, coughing and swearing.

  Liza sighed. “Come on, La La.” They hurried out of the store.

  Screw it. She’d have her grandparents see if their neighbors had any fruit that she could trade for. She’d already checked at the other grocery stores in town, but they were all sold out, and new shipments weren’t coming in anymore.

  She called her grandmother to let her know that she hadn’t found any fruit.

  She hurried down Main Street to the parking lot, seething with frustration, with La La at her heels. She’d wasted time coming to town when she should have been home helping her grandparents.

  She had no idea how Roger made the fruit trees in his greenhouse grow so well, even after the black fur fungus had destroyed most everyone else’s trees. She would have suspected him of distributing the fungus himself, except for the fact that, first of all, he wasn’t smart enough and, secondly, he had also been forced to declare bankruptcy like everybody else. It didn’t help him to be able to sell the most luscious fruits and vegetables if he had no customers to sell them to.

  “Listen up, you stuck-up bitch, things are going to change around here soon,” Roger snapped at her. He had followed her out and stood between her and the hovercraft. She glanced around nervously, but all she saw was row after row of hovers. Nobody was walking around nearby.

  She looked back at him, and La La bared her teeth.

  “Yeah, you loser, we’re all going to be scattered to a hundred different planets and colonies. And I will never have to see you again.” She backed away from him.

  “Oh yeah?” he snarled as she reached into her purse. She grabbed her self-defense candy cane, but his hand clamped on her arm, hard. Alarm jolted through her. Had he gone crazy? How did he think he’d get away with assaulting her like this?

  “Sri rrrrr!” La La lunged at him and sank her needle teeth into his boot as Liza frantically tried to pull away from him.

  “Get your hands off my heart-mate!”

  Jaspar stepped from behind a hovercraft, and Roger let out a startled, high-pitched shriek. Jaspar grabbed Roger by the torso and lifted him overhead as La La released his boot.