Chapter 18

The next interesting discussion the family had was how they were going to get home.

Bette wanted to get the house in order before school started again. The flickers were more than happy to go home if Bette was going. Even the new flicker wives were looking forward to the move. Possum declared that where Garry and Bette went, he went too. The other droid, Wombat, wanted to go with the flickers and the kids didn’t want to leave without him.

Gazza still had to get the car home but neither he nor Bette was sure they could blink it that far. Gazza suggested that he and Nat blink home to get the major structural renovations done and some of the rooms liveable. They would then blink back in a couple of days and start ferrying the others and the furniture that Bette wanted, to the house.

While Bette decorated to her heart’s content, he and Nat would drive the Auto to Green Bay and buy a new Carrier. Hopefully one big enough to fit them all in. Bette wasn’t really happy having the boys spending half of the next week away from her but it was a good solution.

Nat volunteered to stay with Garry on the ship and let Bette go with Gazza for the first time in case she wanted some of the rooms remodelled. Plus she was a High Wizard and better trained than he was, so she could do more than he could. He could still do the drive with Gazza, so he could learn how to drive.

Bette and Gazza both liked Nat’s compromise, so that is what they decided to do. The couple headed back to see Linda and to tell her about the move. Linda grinned at them and told them she already knew and was more than happy for them to be living right next door. She handed them a package and some other mail that had come for them.

When they told her that the tribe had multiplied by two new flickers, a baby and a consort for them and two droids, Linda was speechless. It was going to be a full house next door. She was interested in the fact that they had acquired a baby and a consort and knew this was going to be an interesting story when she heard it all. She had no idea what a droid was.

Gazza and Bette spent some time going over the sadly abused house and discussing what they wanted to do. It was a very large home and had lots of potential. “Damn Bette, this would be easier if I had a set of plans so that I knew where everything had been laid,” Gazza grumbled.

A little frustrated, they went home to the flat for an early lunch. “What’s in that packet from Carson?” she asked when they sat down to eat the sandwiches they had made together. She had noticed the mail on the table and picked it up to quickly sort through it, while Gazza opened the parcel.

“What the hell!” Gazza exploded. Bette looked up and Gazza showed her what had got him excited. “That cheeky old bugger. He sold me all of his properties on University Drive.”

Bette raised her eyes and said, “How many is all?”

“Three properties, the one next door, the vacant block and land that is beside it and that runs down to the river and a property that is ten houses down the street from our place, at number eighty-nine,” Gazza replied and showed her the deeds.

“Gazza, that’s the set of ten units that the rich kids stay in. They must be worth a lot of coin,” she told him. “Surely you didn’t give him enough to cover the cost of all three properties?”

Gazza gave her a sheepish look, “Well I might have persuaded Marty to accept a bag of crystals as payment for the vacant lot when I went to visit them several days ago.”

Bette grabbed the accompanying letter. “Dear Doctor White, Re: The transaction for the three properties on University Drive. Due to the valuation of the payments offered and the said properties in their current state of repair, my client, has agreed that it covers all three properties as a fair and equitable exchange.”

“Enclosed are the deeds of ownership, construction plans and relevant receipts for each property. Taxes for the properties have all been accounted for and paid, see receipts. Mr Carson wishes to thank you for your generosity. Yours sincerely, Solicitor Marty Freedom.”

“You know he did that just to piss his grand-daughter off? I bet he gives every last one of the crystals away to his friends too,” Bette added.

Gazza nodded, “I bet he does and he will enjoy every moment of it too. Marty told me that he had found out that the units were the only property that was bringing in an income and that the grand-daughter and her husband had been pocketing half what they were charging in rent and pretending to spend the other half fixing the place.”

“That’s a lot of coin, what were they doing with it?” Bette asked.

“Living the high life, eating at expensive places and partying with friends, spending it on fixing their own house,” Gazza replied with a shrug.

“So what are they doing for coin now?” Bette asked.

“No idea, Carson cut them off cold. He got Marty to send letters to all of his properties to inform then that rents were to be paid to a new agency that he had hired. An investigator found out what the grand-daughter was charging and Carson dropped all the rents and ordered the new agency to fix the properties. I’ll have to find time to go visit the agency and make sure they know about my ownership.”

“Knowing Carson and Marty, they already know and will probably come and visit you to persuade you to let them manage the units for you. Well, at least we have the plans for our house now. We can identify the load-bearing walls and work out the plumbing and electrical systems,” Bette replied as she looked over the other documents from the package.

Gazza agreed and they soon had a plan as to what they wanted to modify. They decided they could use what was left of a partially demolished house on the vacant land for their extensions and repairs. With Gazza’s Earth skills being boosted by the new gems he soon learnt that he could do a hell of a lot more with both Earth and Nature. Bette also loved her new skills and power.

Firstly, they checked the basement and strengthened the walls to support the house better. They built a room with only dim lighting, the way Stix liked her room. She had her own bathroom with a modified shower and toilet, a separate kitchenette and small resting area.

Gazza even provided her with her own hidden tunnel that was accessed from her bathroom. It came out in a small garden shed that was in the corner of the property. It was strange that visitors never remembered the shed being there. A magical door let her through the wall and out onto the street.

Gazza later tied the spell to open the doors to a small band that he could snap onto one of Stix’s legs for her. He’d added a Quaz crystal to keep the spell powered and as an afterthought, he added a small emerald with a diamond to make it decorative. For some odd reason, he added the Ant symbol that was on his vambrace to it as well.

They left most of the rest of the basement as a large open room for now. The hidden room that even Stix wouldn’t know about because you had to blink to enter and leave it was also completed. The base unit of Gazza’s replicator would go in it later, as well as it being the treasure room for the spare magical items, precious metals, gems and coin they planned to keep on hand.

The ‘L’ shaped house was split into two sections. While the house was two stories high, each story was close to three metes high since it had originally been built by a Granteli. Basil’s home was designed on a smaller scale. His section was located on the top floor since the large three-car carport was under it, forming the foot of the ‘L’ that joined onto the back of the house.

Half of the space, after the room was stripped back to an empty shell, was split into the two levels. The full-height side, on the end of the house, became a combination lounge and dining room. A pleasant, large balcony extended out from it and stairs gave the flickers access to the ground.

The new lower half of the two-story side became a bathroom/laundry, a room that could be multi-purpose like a study or large storage room and it had a big kitchen that was accessible from the main house. All the rooms and benches were designed for flicker sized people of course.

The top half of the room contained four equal sized bedrooms. A small bathroom separated each pair of bedrooms. From one end, a spiral staircase gave access to the bedrooms via the small balcony style hallway. Ropes hanging from the ceiling gave access to the middle and the other end of the balcony. They were used a lot, especially by the kids.

The ground floor of the main part of the house had half walls separating the dining area from the huge lounge room and the foyer. The dining room had the main table that could seat twelve big people. There was also a smaller table for the flicker half of the family.

Petal and Basil had seats at the main table either side of Bette who was relegated to one end with the boys either side of her down the long sides of the table. The kitchen was very big and had a walkway through it to an outside door. A serving window looked into the dining room.

The kitchen had an odd design as far as many people thought. The shallow side of the walkway had a top bench that was much wider and higher than normal for a Genteli or Shifter’s house. This was because under it was a well-lit second bench that was recessed so the flickers could work without the big people stepping on them.

They had their own sink, stove and cupboards under there as well. This was so if they weren’t eating in their section of the house they could cook with the big people. When Nat saw the set-up, he joked that it was his side of the kitchen since it had the higher bench. He always used it as his main preparation area too.

Also on the ground floor was a large study/library with several desks and a small sitting area. A guest room and a laundry took up the rest of the far side of the house fed from the main foyer. The washroom was opposite the laundry and had a sink area and three cubicles, being a shower/change room, a toilet and a urinal, because Gazza wanted one installed downstairs.

Under the double width split level stairs that butted up to the washroom, was a room that contained the bins that were fed by the garbage chutes accessed from the kitchen, if anyone looked. As you can guess, it wasn’t an ordinary room, as it also gave access to Gazza’s hidden lab and to the replicator.

Upstairs were five bedrooms and three bathrooms. The main bedroom was huge and had a bed big enough to sleep four Nat-sized people comfortably. Their ensuite also let all of them shower together and had a urinal as well as a toilet to cover the morning dashes.

One of the full-length mirrors was also a fake. If you knew the magic word, it disappeared and you had access to the replicator unit on this floor too. The walk-in wardrobes also hid a magical door that gave them a second access to the lab and the hidden room in the basement. It was also a safe place for them to blink to inside the house without accidentally encountering anyone else.

Gazza and Bette were delighted with how well their construction went, over the two days they spent on it. The house looked amazing and looked like the home of some seriously wealthy people. It gleamed with the big clean windows, white painted walls and pillars, the cherry coloured wooden balconies with their balustrades and stairs, and the russet roofing tiles.

Bette and Gazza had found that the partly demolished house on the vacant block had a large basement and the person who had lived there must have been a hoarder. While a lot of the stuff was junk, they did keep a couple of nice pictures they found and the chest that contained a silver tea service and a twelve set cutlery set.

The rest of the junk and scraps, and what was left of the building, became their primary building materials. All of the broken bricks and the dirt from the new pools contributed to the new two metre high walls that sprung up around the property. One of the pools was small and shallow and the other was deeper and longer.

The new magical shield covered their house, the extra property and Linda’s property. Gazza had to be a bit inventive to cover just their properties with the shield and still let the flickers have access to the creek. They diverted a channel around a small island that they created when they built the small but very deep dam. The run-off was fed back into the main creek over a small spillway.

Since the property was fenced, it and the crystal-studded posts on the creek side, became the locking points for the shield, to contain it to just their land. Where the shield met the channel and spillway, he provided a special spell for between the posts that let fish and other non-threating creatures in. Any creature intending harm to the inhabitants was barred entry by the shield.

The old basement from the other house they covered by erecting a large shed and a big clucker pen over it when they thinned the small forest on the acreage. Later, Gazza put a tunnel between the two basements and stairs to access the shed above. They were hidden in the feed storage room in the shed.

They were sure they would find uses for the other spaces.

The couple headed back to Asha very late on the second night.

Nat had no problems waking to a naked man and a male faerie climbing into bed with her. Sucking on one cock while being pounded by another was also very much to her liking since there were two hungry mouths also devouring her tits. All three came hard when they did. Nat didn’t remember much else of that night as the two Wizards had used a lot of magical energy and they had both pulled on the magic hard. The overload had her heading to the void with a big smile on her face.

Nat woke some hours later to find Bette sprawled over her body. Grinning, she changed to male and he slid Bette down onto his cock. Bette wiggled and squirmed but it wasn’t to get away. Nat was soon gasping and groaning as her tight, wet heat clamped down on his cock and started giving him a workout. He groaned even louder when he felt Gazza slip into Bette’s other passage and rubbed along his cock.

He watched entranced, as Gazza took over and slid the pliant Bette between them. Bette pressed her hands into his chest and then flexed her nails into his skin. She let Gazza direct her body, however, he wanted to. Nat arched his back as Bette started coming. She shook and shivered and her rapture overwhelmed him again. Then he felt Gazza coming and that threw him into Never-Never land as he came with his lovers.