The others rushed in to help Penny up. She had trouble swallowing. Her long, slender neck had purple bruises on it. Fox Lisa and Horsie put their arms around her, straightening her hair and clothes. Unfortunately, the cameras were right there to record her in her disheveled state.
Horsie moaned. “Guys, please! She’s been assaulted! She needs to go to the hospital.”
Duvallier let go of the creature. It sat on the floor, its head nodding limply. Black handprints marked its shoulders.
“It won’t be no trouble now,” he said.
The demon hunters swarmed in to wrap it up in restraints. Four of them hauled the now-quiescent creature out of the room. George stood on the threshold.
“Sorry, folks. Escaped lunatic. Got to get him back for his therapy.” He followed the others out.
“Well, son?” Duvallier said to Griffen.
Griffen was impressed and respectful. “Is that something you can teach me to do?”
Duvallier laughed. “If you live long enough to grow some wisdom, I’d be proud to teach you some things. Fire’s been my friend a long time. It ought to be yours, seeing as how you have the heredity.”
“Take ’em down,” Harrison said, pointing at Melinda and her escort. The other two police officers moved in with handcuffs. Val waved an arm in protest.
“Don’t arrest Mike!”
“Ms. McCandles?” Harrison asked.
“He didn’t have anything to do with that thing, I’m sure!”
“How do you know?” Gris-gris asked. “He came in with ’em!”
“I came here to defend Val,” Mike insisted.
“She’s my lady!”
“Well, she’s been my girlfriend for the past several months.”
“You got to her while she was hypnotized. It don’t mean nothin’.”
“I’m not going to argue with you. She made a choice, and the choice was me.”
Val turned to confront them. Both of them had had their clothes torn to rags by the bald demon, but they were already fighting over her. Part of her liked it, but the rest of her was fed up with conflict.
“Enough. Enough already!” she barked. “I belong to me, not either of you! If I choose to sleep with one or both of you, or a whole platoon, it’s none of your business!”
“Hear, hear,” Mai said.
“Whatever you say, lady,” Gris-gris said, contritely. “I just missed you like a piece of my soul.”
“I have come to love you, too,” Mike said. “These months with you have been magic.”
“Oooh,” Val said.
At the soft noise, Mike looked hopeful. Val was annoyed. It wasn’t meant for him. She clutched her side. A pain hit her in the ribs. No, it was lower than that. Agony rippled through her belly. She sagged to the floor. Everyone suddenly came to loom over her. Her lower body felt as if it didn’t belong to her. The baby kicked fiercely at her from the inside, as if demanding to be free.
“What’s wrong?” Griffen shouted. He knelt beside her and held her hand. Val tried to answer him through the haze. Mike’s and Gris-gris’s faces swum over her head.
“Wrong?” Melinda said, breaking away from Harrison. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s right. She’s having this baby, that’s what’s going on!”
“Now?” Griffen asked.
“Looks like it!”
“But it’s months early, isn’t it?”
Melinda looked concerned. “It’s the second baby that takes eleven months, you know. The first one can come at any time.” Her answer was flippant, but she did look worried.
“We’d better get her to the hospital,” Griffen said.
Ms. Opal bustled up and took Val’s other hand.
“I called the paramedics and told them two stretchers instead of one. My, my, but this was an event!” She looked sternly at Griffen. “Y’all gonna pay for the damages, gentlemen.”
“Yes, Ms. Opal,” Griffen and Gris-gris chorused.
• • •
The ambulance screamed away along Baronne Street. Gris-gris and Mike had both insisted on riding with Penny, Val, and the paramedics. The police cars had departed with their cargo. Griffen wished he could be a fly on the wall to listen to Melinda trying to reason with Harrison. The irresistible force was about to meet the immovable object. He watched until the red lights were out of sight, then went back inside to deal with the chaos of the interrupted fund-raiser.
A man in a red T-shirt lettered with ST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL fell into step with him. Griffen glanced at it and kept walking.
“You were late. What happened?”
“Mai took my car. I need to find out from her where they left it. Goddamned Prius had no power in the mountains. It just crawled up the slopes. I was lucky to get here the same day as that demon. Lucky Debbie called in all local hunters. The extra manpower and my expenses are going on your bill. Your sister led me on a real wild-goose chase.
“But did you really bring her back?” Griffen asked.
“She would not have gotten away from Melinda without my help. That thing is a watchdog on her estate. No, I did not escort her to your presence. Yes, I was instrumental in getting her out.”
“Okay,” Griffen said. “I’ll pay the bill. Thanks. Are you all right?”
George grimaced.
“I’ve got a score to settle on my own account, but nothing that can’t wait. But I want to talk to your zombie friend. I want to know how he did that.”
“You and me both,” Griffen agreed. “Come in and have a drink. The bar’s open for another half hour.”
“Thanks.” George opened his phone and hit a key. “Debbie? Mission accomplished. I’ll send you the sitrep, but you’re not gonna believe it. It’s a doozy.”
• • •
Malcolm sat on a chair beside the registration tables. His mien was glum. Griffen stood beside him and surveyed the remaining players. One wall had several dents in the plaster where chairs, and bodies, had flown into it. A pool table had been knocked halfway off its trestle. Griffen fervently hoped the slate bed hadn’t been cracked. A quality table like that cost about twelve thousand dollars.
The camera crews had gone. The majority of the spectators had fled, screaming, and were probably giving their side of the story to the press. Griffen dreaded watching the evening news. It wouldn’t be good for their side.
Malcolm cleared his throat.
“I am afraid that the majority of the donations will need to go to pay damages,” he said. “After the prize money is deducted, I fear there will be little left to pay campaign debts. It would seem that Representative Dunbar’s run for governor is over.”
“I know,” Griffen said.
Malcolm looked up at him.
“Though we were unsuccessful in our enterprise, allow me to say that I appreciate all of your efforts in this matter, Griffen. I am glad to see how well you are growing up. I cannot say I fully understand this city or your relationship to it, but you have done well. You are, as your friend Jerome might say, the big dragon here.”
“Thanks, I think,” Griffen said.
Fox Lisa and Mai came over, arm in arm. They gathered Griffen in a three-way hug.
“How are you doing?” Fox Lisa asked.
“I need a drink,” Griffen said. “And about eighteen hours sleep.”
He felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Wait a minute, you can’t go yet,” Elmer said. “We still got a match to finish. Mr. Duvallier wants to see it.”
“Not really,” Griffen said.
“Yeah, really. You promised him.”
Griffen gawked.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Sure did,” Elmer said. “You told him that in exchange for letting Penny alone you’d face his champion. That’s me.”
“You?”
T
he other man grinned. He took off his sunglasses. Griffen could see that his eyes were unnaturally sunken—or perhaps not so unnaturally, if you considered that Elmer was a walking corpse.
“I was national champion three years running in my day. I want to see if you can beat me. Twelve frames so far. Come on, son!”
Griffen followed him back to the table in the middle of the room. Maestro was waiting for them. He racked up the balls and stood back. At the side of the room, Duvallier and Miss Callaway sat placidly watching. Duvallier waved to Griffen.
Griffen took a deep breath and chalked the tip of his pool cue. He didn’t have to help out with Penny’s campaign any longer. He could go back to his business. His uncle said he was proud of him. His sister was going to have a baby. Life had turned from bad to good in the course of an afternoon.
He leaned over the table. The worried hubbub had given way once again to gentle banter and the peaceful clacking sounds of people playing pool.
Griffen drew back his cue and broke. The one ball shot away from the pack and rolled toward the far-left pocket. Without waiting for it to land, he moved a quarter of the way around the table, sighted down his stick over the cue ball at the two. He tapped it and watched it scoot into the nearest pocket.
The tension of the last months drained away. He fell into a rhythm of angle and shot that was like a dance. He let himself move with it. He sank the nine ball. One frame down. Elmer racked the balls. Griffen broke them. Two frames. Three frames. He was going to run the tables until they pried the cue out of his hand. He wasn’t the greatest pool player in the world, but there and then, he could not lose. He felt it. He would defeat Duvallier’s champion and bring the whole mess to an end.
Fox Lisa brought him a glass of Irish whisky. Smiling, Griffen took a sip and leaned over to take his next shot. He could take the eight and nine together. It was a tricky play, but he knew in his mind exactly how the balls would fall.
Outside of the cloud of contentment in which he was wrapped, he heard a chuckle.
“You know the joke about savoir faire?” Elmer asked.
“Yeah,” Griffen said.
The dead man smiled.
“You have savoir faire, man.”
ROBERT (LYNN) ASPRIN, born in 1946, is best known for the Myth Adventures and Phule series. He also edited the groundbreaking Thieves’ World anthologies with Lynn Abbey. He died at his home in New Orleans in May 2008.
JODY LYNN NYE lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” She has published forty-two books, including Advanced Mythology, fourth in her Mythology fantasy series (no relation); six science fiction novels; and four novels in collaboration with Anne McCaffrey, including The Ship Who Won. She has also edited a humorous anthology about mothers, Don’t Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear, and published more than a hundred and ten short stories. Her latest books are Robert Asprin’s Dragons Run, fourth in the series begun by Robert Asprin, and View from the Imperium, first in the Thomas Kinago series. She lives northwest of Chicago with her husband, author and packager Bill Fawcett, and their cat, Jeremy. Visit her on the Web at www.sff.net/people/jodynye.
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