The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

“You what?” I said, suddenly not choked up anymore. “Dude! That’s my best friend.”

Ryan looked scandalized when I twisted around to glare at him. “I was not checking out Gary!”

“Bullshit,” Gary snorted. “What about that night by the campfire when Tiggy and Sam were asleep and you offered to massage my thighs?”

“Uh, really?” Ryan retorted. “I think your memory might be a little bit fuzzy. Let me help you with that. If you’ll recall, you woke me up by breathing on my face and told me that your flank was hurting from all that walking and, I quote, ‘I need a man with rough hands to come in and soothe the burning in my groin.’”

Gary gasped. “I would never. That makes me sound like some kind of floozy.”

“You a floozy,” Tiggy said. “Little bit.”

“Tiggy Desdemona Bartholomew Jackson! How dare you!”

Tiggy frowned. “That’s not my name. I just Tiggy.”

“Well, now I just don’t know what to believe,” Gary said. “Because of all the lies.”

Kevin turned his head again, fangs a little bared, smoke pouring from his nostrils. “You tried to get up on Gary?” he growled. “And you didn’t even invite me to watch?”

“This was before we knew you,” Gary said, butting his snout against Kevin’s scaly hand.

“Still.”

“Eep,” Ryan said. Then he coughed. “I mean, no. I never tried to do anything with Gary. That’s disgusting.”

“Uh-oh,” Tiggy said.

“You really shouldn’t have said that,” I told him solemnly.

“Disgusting?” Gary asked dangerously. “Just how would it be disgusting, might I ask?”

“Don’t answer that,” I said.

“It a trap!” Tiggy said, sucking in his cheeks till he looked like a fish.

But of course, Ryan was a knight, which meant he had no sense of self-preservation and wasn’t burdened with an abundance of brains. So he said, “That would be like bestiality.”

I groaned.

“Kevin?”

“Yes, Gary.”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Is it a sexual favor?”

“No, Kevin.”

“Oh. Well. I guess so.”

“Thank you. Can you throw me up on your back so that I might pummel a knight, then use your spikes to impale him until he’s nothing but a bloody, twitching pile of meat and muscle?”

“But of course, Gary.”

“No,” I said. “You can’t do that.”

“But he said it was bestiality,” Gary snarled. “And now I want to show him the true meaning of the word. By being a beast.”