"Not following you, Dracula," Pat said as it tried to help him down. "Dragons really exist?"

"Unfortunately, yes," I said as I helped pulled Dwayne off the ceiling. "They are very bad people and probably tried to eliminate you because of your power. My guess would be they know nothing of the eight of you or they would have come after you."

"That's just mean," Lee huffed. "We don't harm no one."

"It was an accident when I ate that human a couple years back," Jamie wailed pitifully. "I was havin' a real bad day."

"No one blames you for that," Francis consoled Jamie with a hug. "It could happen to anyone."

It gave us the evil eyeball and we all murmured our dubious assent.

"I can't take this," Dwayne bellowed and smacked himself in the head several times. "This is all my fault. I screwed with the intercourse food chain and destroyed an entire species."

The Cows were baffled at his outburst, but Granny, Hank and I were not. Hank's hand went to his concealed weapon as did mine and Granny's. Dracula was about to drop a bomb and there was no stopping him.

"My name is not Dracula," he continued at a decibel that was going to cause hearing damage. The Cows cowered and huddled. "My name is Vampyre Dwayne. I am your new father. I will be adopting you and raising you as my own since I'm dead and can't actually reproduce. Not to mention I'm gay. While I adore women and love playing them on stage, I am simply grossed out at the thought of playing hide the salami with a vagina. I shall endeavor to be a good yet profane and somewhat violent example for you. You will live with me and I will shred the shit out anything that ever tries to harm you again. I will take you shopping for clothes that minimize your girth and you will learn why bath products are your friends. And just so you know, most of the wedding story is correct except the part about how many people were there."

The Cows were mute and stared at him like he had three heads. I held my breath and kept my hand on my gun. My wolf wanted to come out, but I pushed her back. Dwayne's farked up Star Wars speech had the potential of going very wrong.

"Daddy?" Harley whimpered as it stepped forward and fell to its knees at Dwayne's feet.

The other Cows followed suit until there was a sobbing, keening clusterhump at Dwayne's feet. Never, never in my life had I seen anything so odd. It was emotionally wrenching, heart warming, and appalling at the same time. Gay Vampyre Dwayne boohooed along with his new family and patted their dirty heads lovingly. Again, no one was going to believe this.

"I have an enormous compound in southern Illinois that does not smell like ass. There's a large house with fourteen bathrooms and ten bedrooms. It also has a pool, a pond and a sprinkler system, so I will brook no bull crap about staying clean. The lawns are manicured so there will be no pooping on them. Are we clear?" he asked as he squatted down to their eye level.

"Yes, Daddy," Francis blubbered. "We will not poop on your lawn."

"Are there any woods around there?" Morgan asked.

Dwayne thought for a long moment and then smiled. "I'll buy the adjoining two hundred acres so you'll have an outside defecation area."

The Cows giggled and nodded gratefully.

"You can each pick your own bedroom and I'll have a Were Possum designer I know come in and redecorate it how ever you would like. You'll each get a new car for your birthday. However, it will be taken away for bad behavior, poor table manners or consuming humans. We will go to the toy store and each of you can pick three things to play with. This will potentially help me figure out what you are without having to ask. Everyone will do online college classes until we can determine that you can follow simple hygiene rules and not eat anyone."

It was nice to know someone else was curious about their gender too.

"The poop patty has come true," Jamie yelled and hugged Dwayne so hard I thought he might snap. However, anything they accidentally ripped off Dwayne would grow back immediately. He was in Seventh Heaven.

Hank gave me a dazed look that captured what I was feeling. I bit back my laugh and grabbed his hand. Granny squeezed in between us and we all watched in wonder.

"If someone had told me how this would have gone down I would have thought they were insane," Hank muttered as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear and kissed my forehead.

"That Pop Rock thing still has me scratching my head," Granny admitted. "Dwayne's gonna have his hands full with them."

A truer statement had never been uttered... pun intended.

Chapter 9.

"They're not all going to fit in the Hummer," I said as I stared at the eight Cows now lined up ready to leave with us and their daddy.

Dwayne stood proudly with his new children. The visual was redonkulous as each cow stood well over six feet tall and had to weigh in at a conservative three hundred pounds. Each had stuffed a backpack full of worldly possessions. They'd done their best to clean up for Gay Vampyre Dwayne's approval. The excitement was palpable and my heart felt light. These sexually ambiguous Cows just wanted to fit in somewhere and be loved. Dwayne wanted to be needed and he was a good man. I suspected he would spoil them rotten, but they'd had a hellish life so far.

"Not a problem," Francis assured me. "We ride hogs."

"Oh my god." I sighed in dismay and groaned. "Another Were species I didn't know about?"

"Um, no," Hank said with a lopsided grin and twinkling eyes. "Motorcycles."

I wanted to laugh and I wanted to slap him. He had enjoyed that one too much. However, I was relieved to realize a herd or gaggle of pigs would not be running behind the Hummer.

"Where are we going?" Pat yelled as it pulled up on the largest motorcycle I'd ever seen.

"I think we should drop my children off at the compound and get them settled in before we go after the Dragons," Dwayne suggested like any good parent would.

"That sounds like a plan," Hank agreed as he grabbed a can of gasoline and poured it around the trailers. "We need to burn this place down. No trace of the Cows can be left," he instructed.

"You don't have to do that," Pat told Hank.

He stopped patiently and waited for Pat to explain. God, he was going to be a good dad...

"We can blow the farm up in less than a minute."

Granny started running like Satan was on her heels and put her hands over her hair. Oh my sweet hell, I joined her as I realized what was about to happen. Hank was quick to follow, but Dwayne stood proudly with his children as they bent over and aimed their asses at the dilapidated farm behind them.

"Run," Hank shouted as he yanked Granny and me along. "This is gonna be bad."

"We're all gonna die," Granny shrieked as we tried desperately to put more distance between us and the eight Cow gastric inferno that was about to occur.

Hank picked both of us up as we sprinted and dove behind the Hummer. We were a good half-mile away now. Thank god we hadn't pulled the Hummer up to the trailers. The roads were so pitted we left it down the road when we'd picked it up an hour ago. It would suck having to share a hog with a Cow.

The sound was deafening, but the stench was like one I'd never known. Death didn't seem like such a bad option at the moment. The farm blew up in an explosion that could be seen for miles. The Cows jumped on their bikes and dragged an asphyxiated and paler than normal Dwayne with them.

We piled into the Hummer as they threw Dwayne in the back.

"Go, go, go," Francis shouted to Hank. "That there fire's gonna get worse before it gets better."

I was certain we'd all lost brain cells or at least our olfactory senses in the blast-but more shockingly, we were alive to tell the story no one in their right mind would believe.

As we floored it out of the property with the Cows behind us I started to laugh. Hank and Granny joined me until tears ran from our eyes. Dwayne just sat sprawled in the back and grinned.

"My children are something else," he gagged out proudly.

"That they are," Hank said with a grimace and a cough.

"Something is very wrong here," Dwayne snapped with a wrinkled brow as we stood in front of his massive mansion in southern Illinois.

It was white and had an antebellum feel-elegant and symmetrical with a grand entryway flanked by columns. The porch wrapped the entire front of the home and balconies peppered the upper level. It was breathtaking and I had a hard time imagining it as the Cows' new home.

The grounds were manicured within an inch of their lives. Blossoming trees and beds of blood red flowers blanketed the area.

"This place is beautiful," Granny said and punctuated it with an appreciative whistle.

She was correct, but so was Dwayne. Something was off. I felt it in my gut. Hank did too.

Nothing looked amiss-it was in the air. A malevolent, almost undetectable mist hung on the breeze. The Cows stood quivering behind us.

"What the hell is it?" Hank asked as we scanned the area.

"Is the phone you used to call Junior secure?" I asked, wracking my brain to try and figure out how something had found us.

"It's a burner," he said tightly as the power that rolled off him made me back away. "Can't be traced."

"Sweet Dolly Parton in a jog bra," Dwayne hissed. "I texted the Were Possum designer and told her everything about my children and my house. I forgot I could be traced."

"Who in the hell would know to trace Dwayne?" I snapped as I pulled my Glock with my right hand and directed the Cows to get low with my left. "Me and Hank I get... but Dwayne?"

"Only one person I'm aware of knows Dwayne and I are working with you," Granny said in such a vicious tone of voice that the Cows started to cry.

"She wouldn't," I shot back with more conviction than I felt. Angela wouldn't set us up to die. She was my friend... kind of. I knew I annoyed her, but I certainly didn't think that she'd kill me over it.

"Can you explain this?" Granny demanded.

"No more than I can tell you the gender of Dwayne's children," I snapped angrily. I did not want to believe Angela would ambush us.

"We're girls," Pat whispered in a frightened voice.

"I'm sorry," I apologized sincerely and wanted to crawl into a hole. "That was extremely rude of me."

"No worries," she said kindly. "We know we're unattractive."

Now I felt like an ass, but at least I knew what they were before I died.

"You're all beautiful," Dwayne insisted. "You just need a bath, some blonde highlights, a little lipo and a new wardrobe. I have that all covered and if any of your eventual boyfriends make you feel unworthy, I will kill them dead after a marathon torture session."

"Thank you, Daddy," they all said in unison.

"You're welcome."

"Um, Daddy?" Jamie raised her hand to speak.

"Yes, dear?" Dwayne replied.

"It smells like Fire Starters to me."

Crap balls. She was right. I detected a faint Dragon scent. This was bad. Hank and I had experience with Dragons. Dwayne had destroyed two with a disastrous and messy mind meld, but as far as I knew Granny was a Dragon fighting virgin... and the Cows were probably useless.

"She's correct," Hank said grimly. "I can't tell if they're still here."

"I can feel them. They're still here," Granny whispered in a strangled voice.

"How and where?" I demanded wildly as I sprinted to the back of the Hummer and pulled out the liquid that prohibited the Dragon shift. Junior had created a compound that when ingested by a Dragon would keep them from shifting. A brilliant invention, considering a shifted Dragon was roughly the size of a football field.

I tossed loaded squirt guns full of the solution to the Cows, Hank, and Dwayne. Granny was frozen to her spot and had apparently lost her damn voice.

"You aim for the mouth," I informed the terrified Cows in a clipped tone. "The eyes or ears might help, but the mouth is a sure fire win-pun intended. Do not under any circumstance get it in your own mouth. You won't be able to shift if you do."

"What is this stuff?" Francis asked shakily.

"It's stuff that will keep us all from burning to a crisp if we aim correctly," I explained tersely. "Can any of you shoot?"

"Hell to the yeah," Pat said with pride. "We might be pacifiers, but all of us can shoot a single testicle off a bull from three hundred yards. Squirting some shit in a mouth won't be no problem."

Deciding not to correct her about claiming to be a rubber nipple, I narrowed my eyes and slapped my hands on my hips. "Are you bullshitting me?" I demanded. "One nut? The other one is totally intact?" I wasn't sure even I could shoot so accurately. Nuts were pretty close together.

"Yes siree," Jamie jumped in, defending her sister's boast. "One nard completely obliterated and the other one left in perfect acorn status."

"Jesus," Hank grunted as he leaned forward. "Harsh."

"Yep," I said, impressed. "But effective."

"My girls are amazing," Dwayne added as he too bent forward in phantom pain.

"I hate to break up the party," Granny whispered in a tone that made every hair on my body rise, "but there are approximately twelve Dragons on the roof."

I glanced up slowly and my blood turned to ice. They hadn't shifted yet which was to our advantage. Twelve of them. Twelve of us... kind of. I had a horrifying feeling the Cows might bolt. Dwayne removed his shirt, grabbed Granny's head and shoved it into his neck.

"This is another fantastically shitty idea," he ground out as Granny titty twisted him to break his hold. "Granny, drop fang and drink. There is no way in hell we're coming out of this alive unless we can all actually fight Dragons. I don't think I can mind meld twelve at once."

"Will I be able to fly?" Granny asked as she let go of her death grip on Dwayne's nipple.

"No," he said.

"Well, that doesn't really seem fair," she whined.

"Life is not fair and then you die," he hissed. "OR NOT if you drink my blood. Do it, damn it. Now."

Granny bit down without another complaint. My stomach churned at the thought she might end up having the same effects I did. However, Dwayne was right. We were staring at dismal odds at the moment. We stood a far better chance of coming out alive if we had his dark and scary Vampyre blood in our systems.

"Hurry," Dwayne insisted to Granny as he zeroed in on Hank. "You're next, big boy."