Dragons deal gm-3

by Robert Asprin

  Griffen took his advice and went on a small tour of the facility. Everyone seemed to have his or her assigned tasks and was executing them confidently. With no experience, he was at a loss. He felt small and young and completely out of place walking past the partially finished floats, the knots of people talking, and the tables pushed against the walls. He had probably better leave.

  He weaved his way between the committees and machine tools, smiling at everyone who met his eyes.

  A voice rose above the screeching din. "It's got to be the flagon with the dragon."

  Griffen spun on his heel.

  "What?" he asked, not sure if he had heard correctly. "Who said that?"

  "I did!" One of the younger men, Jacob, grinned at him from a card table behind the green dragon float. "Hey, Griffen, come on over."

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "We're ordering throws for the parade. You ought to be in on this, young dragon, since you're the king. Bobbie, did you say four thousand?" A tiny woman with pale skin and long black eyelashes nodded. Jacob nodded and noted tiny numbers next to an entry on the inevitable clipboard. Griffen sat down on a stool at the edge of the table. The surface was covered with hundreds of strings of beads. Shiny smooth beads, faceted beads, braided beads, twisted beads in metallic or plain white, some strings with large, ornamental beads, some with multiple strands or a pendant, such as a bottle opener or a flashlight. Griffen let the strings of beads flow through his hands like shining waterfalls. He couldn't stop playing with them. Neither could the others.

  "And what about the specials?" asked a fat woman with brilliant green eyes in a tawny face surrounded by ochre hair.

  "I have some numbers," said a slender man with hollow cheekbones. "The float captains want a few hanks each, but not too many. They're just too expensive."

  "But they are amazing," said the second man. He held up a handful of strands for Griffen's inspection. Spaced between the gleaming metallic beads were five or seven large, shaped beads two inches across. "You'll probably want some for your float, too. We have dragon's-head necklaces, purple with green eyes, green with gold eyes, and gold with purple eyes. A few of the really fancy ones have LEDs inside, and the really, really fancy ones blink." He touched an invisible switch near the clasp of the necklace, and the dragons' eyes flashed on and off.

  "I sure do," Griffen said, delighted. "I want some to keep, too."

  "What do you say, then? Twenty hanks, forty?" Jacob asked. Griffen shrugged. Jacob eyed the other numbers on his page and made a notation. "Hey, you'll want to see these. We've also got doubloons, and those will have the king's head on one side, the theme on the other. Here's the proof copy." From his shirt pocket, he produced a plastic coin with a hollow-eyed man in profile. With surprise, Griffen recognized the image.

  "That's me."

  "Yep. We took it from a photo of you Etienne had." From the same pocket, Jacob brought out a photograph. Griffen recognized the room around him as the interior of the Irish bar. It could have been taken anytime within the last few months. "What do you think?" Griffen studied the plastic coin.

  "I think . . . I look surprisingly dignified," Griffen said. Bobbie laughed. "You could really feed a guy's ego like that. But what about what I heard?" Griffen asked.

  Jacob smiled. " 'The flagon with the dragon' . . ."

  ". . . 'Has the brew that is true,' " Griffen finished.

  "Yes, indeed. You look plenty young to be a Danny Kaye fan, but we already knew you were something different. Isn't that just the perfect quote? We are the dragon krewe. We're ordering cups to throw as well as beads and doubloons. The cups'll have an imprint that goes around them, with our dragon on them, and it'll say, 'The brew that is true.' We'll tell people that to drink out of one of these is to give them health and long life." Griffen grinned. "We got you, I can just tell."

  "You do," Griffen said. "Give me a bunch of those. However many you think is right for the duration of the parade."

  By the time he was finished with the committee, he had put his name down for thousands of necklaces, doubloons, and cups. They would all have to be paid for by February, but Jacob agreed that since Griffen had just joined, he would be allowed to pay over time.

  "The treasury can support it," Jacob said in an undertone, though it was unlikely that Callum could hear them over the noise. "Most of the people on the krewe are rich."

  Griffen glanced at Etienne, whose pants hems were frayed at the heels. Jacob followed his glance.

  "Yeah," he said. "Even the captain. He dresses like a lobsterman, but he inherited natural-gas contracts from his granddad. Didn't have much when he grew up, but he and his mom have a big place out on Lake Ponchartrain, as befits a proper lady dragon. Dragons tend to attract wealth. Even ones with less than a teaspoon of dragon blood."

  "He's still a dragon," Griffen said, moved again to defend Etienne. "You guys wouldn't have a krewe to build floats for if not for him."

  "Yeah, yeah," Jacob said hastily. "I'm not disregarding all he's done. But I can feel levels of power. I know where he falls in the pecking order, and that's way below everyone else."

  "Power's not everything."

  "Said the man with the biggest stash in the room," Jacob said. "You don't get it."

  "Don't treat me like a kid," Griffen said.

  "You are a kid. You're the youngest one here except for the children, and you're the most powerful. It's a defense mechanism. You ought to understand that."

  That left a question unanswered in Griffen's mind. Mose and Jerome had always told him that dragons sought to conquer one another or sign on with one they perceived as more powerful. These all acted together, as human beings would do. It was unnatural, as he understood it. As the most powerful dragon in the room, he felt as if he needed to watch his back all the time.

  "Hello, Griffen," Lucinda said, coming around the open mouth of the dragon. "Come on down and help construct or paint. It'll be a good example for these other youngsters that people still know how to work hard. Do you know how to apply papier-mache?"

  "I haven't done any since I was in art class in grade school. We made Easter eggs out of balloons."

  She smiled. "Then you know enough. Come and get your hands dirty."

  Griffen held back. He glanced at the neatly dressed lieutenants talking to one another.

  "I can't see them getting paste on their pin-striped suits," he said. Lucinda followed his eyes and smiled.

  "You can't? Well, then, it'll be a revelation to you when you see them up to their elbows in buckets of flour and water," Lucinda said. "Let's you and I go and recruit some helpers."

  Lucinda was more than persuasive. Very shortly, Griffen found himself squatting on the floor plastering tacky strips of newspaper around a chicken-wire armature representing an enormous snapdragon. As Lucinda had promised, the haughty executives abandoned their dignity and buckled down to help, just like the students, clerks, and homemakers all around them. It would have been normal but for the skyrockets of fire and streamers of light going on behind Griffen's eyes. The others couldn't have missed it. He all but blurted out the question.

  "What is this feeling of power here? It's not just the people. It's like it's in the air."

  Callum wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, leaving a streak of gray glue just under his hairline. "Have you ever made anything, young man? Anything physical?"

  "Nothing except love or an inside straight," Griffen admitted. He pasted down a strip of newspaper and wiped it with his sponge."

  "You ever heard how lions and tomcats go in and kill kittens that aren't theirs?"

  "Yes."

  "How do they know?"

  "Well, I assume the male's scent is on them . . ." The others grinned at him, so Griffen thought about it harder. The males would not have had any contact with the kits since sperm met egg. "I guess not. I don't know."

  Langford cleared his throat. "It's part of a dragon's power. When we make something, we transfer a touch o
f power to it. More. That's how we can tell it was ours. Usually, the residue is very subtle. Most dragons can't really feel it, and humans can almost never detect it. You're different. Your blood is stronger than ours. You seem to be able to sense very minor amounts of our power. If we had any doubts after your little demonstration, this would convince us you were either a sensitive human, a supernatural, or a very powerful dragon."

  Griffen raised an eyebrow. "This was a phenomenon I hadn't come across yet."

  "You will," Langford said.

  "When we really enjoy making something, it is stronger yet," Callum told him. "When we deliberately imbue something with power, anyone can feel it, but it would knock you over. Even puny humans, nonsensitive humans, can feel it a little. It's one of the reasons that dragon-made items of power have been objects of desire by humankind for millennia. They want to possess them, whether or not they can wield them. Many can. Not as effectively as if they were dragons, of course. Whether or not they know what it does, they know there is something special about it. Objects made by dragons have been revered throughout all of human history."

  "A lot of the so-called relics of the saints actually belonged to dragons," Mitchell said dryly. "That residual power that bestows blessings, like miracle cures, comes from the dragon power in the object."

  Terence grinned at Griffen. "That means, when we make something like a float for Mardi Gras, which we love doing, the floats naturally take on a little of the power that is in our blood."

  "Aren't you worried about other sensitives finding their way in here and discovering us? Taking things that have power?"

  Lucinda let out a trill of laughter. "Are you kidding? We're dragons, honey darling. If anything, the power signature ought to tell them to stay away. If they don't, then they don't belong in the gene pool. You don't read a lot of fairy stories about the people who enter the dragon's den and get out again."

  Griffen cleared his throat. "Well, there's the St. George story. And Perseus. And . . ."

  "A few in all of history? It's the ones you don't hear, and there are probably millions of them. So, don't worry. Besides, you think that this is the only den with natural magic in it? In New Orleans?"

  Griffen grinned. "I guess not. I'm being a dragon snob."

  Lucinda twinkled at him. "Aren't we all?"

  Working according to Lucinda's exacting standards, Griffen helped finish up the enormous blossoms. Lucinda ordered him to help her wash out the buckets in a janitor's sink in the corner near the restrooms. He had become used to the power in the room. It was benign, even benevolent when put to the purpose as it had been here. Griffen still had no clue as to the subversive element that Stoner said was there. Not even a hint of ill feeling or intent to control was present that he could detect. He suspected, not for the first time, that Stoner was paranoid, or trying to scare him for his own purposes.

  When the last of the plastic pails was upside down over a drain in the floor, Griffen wiped his hands on a paper towel.

  "I've got to get back," he told Lucinda.

  "Well, thank you for your help," she said.

  "It was an experience," he admitted. His arms felt soggy and pruny up to the elbows. Paste had congealed under his fingernails, and he could feel a blob of it in one of his socks from when it had dripped off a strip someone else had slapped down and fallen into his shoe. "See you at the next meeting."

  "Griffen?" Lucinda asked, as he turned away.

  "Yes?"

  "Didn't it feel good to make something?"

  Griffen stopped and turned back to the partially completed float. It didn't look like much yet, but he could actually sense that piece of the snapdragon he had helped build. He had done that. He would know it forever. Suddenly, the small inconveniences were worth it. Even the squishy sock didn't bother him as much.

  "Yes," he said, with a grin. "Thanks."

  "My pleasure," Lucinda said.

  Seventeen

  Griffen was horrified to find that he was right to be concerned about Tee-Bo's reaction to the news of Jimmy McGill.

  A singer that Griffen and Fox Lisa both enjoyed had advertised a Solstice Celebration concert at a jazz club just off Bourbon Street near the river. She sat on a stool under a single spotlight, holding her microphone in both hands. Her warm, smoky voice wrapped her poetry with a kind of palpable love. Griffen sat with his chair braced against the wall in the corner of the pale coral room, with his arm around the petite auburn-headed girl, his eyes closed. Music permeated the air like the cigarette smoke. He breathed it in and felt New Orleans's own magic swelling up in him. No wonder so many dragons lived in the area. He had always loved music, but he got a natural, warm buzz from the soaring, twisting, turning flourishes of the jazz trumpet, clarinet, and trombone. It was a solid, mind-changing high, and it was street-legal. He took a sip of whisky. The warmth just added to the sensation of well-being. He grinned down at Fox Lisa. She lowered her eyelashes at him. They both had the same idea about where to go after the music ended.

  The singer ended her set to wild applause. Someone handed her a glass of clear, bubbling liquid. She raised it to the audience. The spotlight blinked out, and the buzz of the crowd filled in the silence.

  "Hey, Mr. McCandles," said Patches. Griffen looked up. He was one of Tee-Bo's strong men, a thin, wiry man in a dark green T-shirt stained at the collar. He was missing a canine tooth and an upper bicuspid, both from street fights, but he had won many, many more than he had lost. The other patrons glanced at him nervously. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

  "Sure, Patches," Griffen said.

  "Hey, Griffen," Fox Lisa began, concerned.

  "Don't worry. Just stay here a moment, will you?"

  Fox Lisa glanced toward the bar, where she had left her fanny pack. Griffen knew that inside it was a black-handled revolver. She knew how to use it, and was more than willing to if she thought Griffen was in danger. He shook his head. She sat back in the chair but didn't look happy.

  "If you aren't back in five minutes, I'm coming after you."

  "No problem," Griffen said.

  He followed the enforcer out onto the street. Patches kept walking, around the edge of the building and into a narrow alley. Another of the muscle squad, Tich, was waiting there, his arms crossed. Griffen steeled himself, wondering if he had annoyed the drug dealer without knowing it. But as Griffen reached him, Tich nodded.

  "Evening, Mr. McCandles. Tee-bo says hey. He sent somethin' for you."

  He tilted his head downward to the side. Griffen realized that the dark lump on the ground was a man. Jimmy McGill slumped against the cracked stucco, his head bowed, chin on chest. His eyes were swollen shut. His left ear was bleeding, as if it had been wrenched partway off his head. Blood trickled from his nose and puffed lips. Griffen drew in a shocked breath. They had worked Jimmy over pretty thoroughly.

  "Just wanted you to see the retirement package Tee-Bo gave this guy," Patches said. "He not workin' for Tee-Bo no more, either. He hid out from us for a few days, but we found him. Thought we'd bring him around to you, since he pissed you off, too."

  "Tee-bo didn't have to do that," Griffen began. He felt his breath grow hot in his nostrils. He clenched his hands. The skin felt dry and rough. Jimmy had lied to all of them, but he didn't deserve that.

  Patches shook his head. "Yeah, he did. Jimmy was in for a beating. Tee-Bo considers his relationship with you to be more important than one lyin', low-down snake. This just a little reminder to anyone else who ain't smart enough to comply with the noncompete agreement."

  Griffen worked his jaw. He knew he couldn't let himself overreact. This was street justice. He had achieved a mutual respect with Tee-bo and the other drug dealers in town by being honest with them. Jimmy had defied the rules, and he had paid for it. He wasn't dead. The gangs were trigger-happy. They could have shot Jimmy and left him in a park somewhere for the police to find. Griffen told himself he should be glad of that, but the violence made him angry. Smoke started coming o
ut of his nostrils.

  "Hey, hear you're gonna be in the Fafnir parade, Mr. McCandles," Tich said. "My brother, he have a license to drive a tractor. He's free on the twenty-fourth, if your krewe needs someone. I'll get you his phone number."

  Griffen stared at him. How could he talk about something as inconsequential as a driving job when a human being was bleeding at their feet?

  Patches nudged him. "Got to go. Have a nice night, Mr. McCandles."

  Somehow, Griffen summoned up enough humanity to mutter a "Good night." The enforcers slipped away.

  "Come on, Jimmy, we'll get you to the emergency room," he said. He reached for the young man's arm and tried to help him up. Jimmy roused a little and glanced up. His eyes widened until the irises were surrounded by bloodshot whites. He shook his hand free of Griffen's grip.

  "No! No! Leave me alone!" he cried. He scrambled backward, pulled himself up against the grimy wall, and fled. Griffen watched him go, confused. Then he caught a glimpse of himself in the remains of a dirty window on the blind wall, and realized he had partially transformed. The bottom of his face had pushed forward, and his teeth, partially sharpened, were showing between his lips. Tee-Bo's men hadn't turned a hair. Did they know he was a dragon, or hadn't they seen, or didn't they care? He knew he had become something of a legend in town. Were they that at home with the supernatural in New Orleans?

  Griffen made sure to recombobulate himself and become human again before returning to the club. He caught Fox Lisa's anxious gaze when he entered the crowded room. She relaxed, with a worried smile.

  "It's all right," he said. "Nothing to get upset about."

  But he wasn't telling the truth. The singer returned, and the second set began. Griffen tried to let the music carry him away, but the evening was spoiled for him. All he could see was the fear on Jimmy's face.

  Eighteen

  The tailor drew the end of the measuring tape up into Griffen's crotch and dragged the other end down toward his instep. Griffen jumped and tried to flick his hand away.