Griffen saw Tail, dressed in full samurai gear except for the face mask. His face was normal, but over a dozen foxtails hung behind him, constantly moving. He chatted with the woman from the shape-shifting demonstration, and from the way she smiled, the relationship was building quickly. She wore an elaborate butterfly mask, high heels, and butterflies. Dozens of them, providing her little more coverage than most bikinis. They flapped gently, and every once in a while one would take off and fly to a different location on her body.
Griffen suspected the butterflies were her, just as the tails were, well, Tail’s. No one really seemed to be paying attention to any of this. It was just part of the atmosphere, accepted, normal. Griffen imagined for a moment what his life might have been like if he had known about dragons since he was a child. He could see just how much he would value a night like this.
He was finally realizing just why there was a traditional conclave at all.
Mai smiled at his side.
“Happy Halloween, lover,” Mai said.
“First time I’ve ever really appreciated the holiday,” Griffen said.
“Told you, Griffen. This was something not to miss,” she said.
“You were right, though I would never have known what I was missing.”
“Oh, you would have, eventually. You aren’t dumb, lover.
Just a little slow sometimes.”
Griffen would have objected to that more if she hadn’t chosen that moment to pinch him. She moved away before he could retaliate.
“I’m going for punch, and if it isn’t already spiked, it will be shortly. You, go, mingle.” She paused, glancing around. “Knowing you, I suggest you follow the bouncing ball.”
Griffen followed her glance. Sure enough, one of the lights was hovering a few feet away, bouncing up and down like an eager puppy. He looked back at Mai, only to see her retreating back, and watched that for a bit before turning back to the relatively less distracting magic ball.
As he approached, the orb slowed down its movement, hanging listless and still when he was right next to it. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the movement of another starting to dance. Again, as he moved toward it, it slowed. Griffen shook his head, not quite believing it, but as the next ball started to dance, he gave up doubt and simply followed.
It wasn’t long before he saw the source. Four lights hovered around a group consisting of a zombie and three characters from Alice in Wonderland. The zombie, thankfully, looked like a costume, though a movie-quality one. Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the March Hare chatted animatedly with it. The lights hovered around Alice, and as Griffen approached, one floated off to join the others throughout the room, and another one slowly coalesced to take its place.
It was only when he was right next to the group that he realized who Alice was.
“Tink!?” Griffen said.
Tink turned, petticoats ruffling. His face was perfectly straight.
“What, you thought you’d have this many fairies in New Orleans without at least one ending up in drag?” Tink said.
His straight face lasted for another few seconds, before he burst out laughing. The others in the group broke out with him, and Griffen joined them. It felt good to laugh.
On closer inspection, Hobb was playing the March Hare and Robin made a very fetching Mad Hatter. Griffen almost did a double take with the zombie, though. It was Estella, right out of a Romero movie except for a small bag and voodoo doll hanging from her neck.
“You are supposed to dress as something you are not, yes? It was either this, or dress up as a witch,” Estella said.
Griffen hadn’t put her down for that much of a sense of humor.
She smiled, showing yellowed and blackened teeth, and waved her hand at the ballroom.
“I told you you didn’t have to worry. But are you all right? We almost sent someone for you when you were late,” she said.
“No need. Someone beat you to the punch,” Griffen said.
“No kidding. That was quite an entrance,” Tink said.
“She’d beat anyone to the punch. Did you see that dress!” Hobb said.
Robin elbowed him in the ribs, in a playful sort of way.
“What do you think of the party, Griffen?” Robin said.
Griffen took time for one last look around, gathering his thoughts.
“Amazing,” he said finally. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Estella beamed.
“I told you not to underestimate those other than dragons. Still, you have not shown much of a dragon’s attitude during this meeting, even counting various… incidents. You have been a fair moderator,” Estella said.
Griffen didn’t think so but wasn’t going to spoil the mood.
“The lights are your doing, Tink?” Griffen asked.
“Yes, we call them will-o’-the-wisps. Very handy little buggers, and not just for mood lighting,” Tink said.
“Sure beats pagers and cell phones,” Griffen agreed. “But what if someone… not with the conclave sees them? What if some average person blunders in?”
Estella laughed.
“Mr. McCandles, who do you think is serving the food and drinks?”
Startled, Griffen realized he had been seeing people in service industry black-and-whites all along but had been too distracted by the fantastic to notice. Now he looked around and saw a few waitstaff walking around with trays of drinks or food, and one behind the buffet table. They each wore a slim black mask around their eyes.
“Relax,” Estella said. “They, or anyone else who ‘blunders in,’ are unlikely to notice anything too unusual. Not only is this New Orleans, but the wiccan and I have worked up a little something together that will fog up their perceptions a bit. Anyone without something magic in their blood will remember nothing more than an elaborate party in the morning.”
“Most people who are drawn to this town seem to have some magic in their blood,” Tink said.
“Not enough, and so what? Even if they noticed or remembered more, what trouble could it cause?” Estella said.
“On the large scale… or the personal scale?” Griffen said.
His tone was a bit strangled, distracted, and the others looked where he was looking. At one of the waitresses, a tray of champagne in her hand, walking toward them. The black mask didn’t hide the fire in her eyes, or in her hair.
“Hello, Griffen,” Fox Lisa said.
Griffen knew, or at least had been told, that Fox Lisa had a little bit of dragon blood. He didn’t know what that meant but had assumed that little to no actual abilities came with such a small amount. He now suspected he was totally wrong.
At the tone of her voice, his four companions all realized they had other places to be and left the two alone. Robin even took Lisa’s tray for her, earning her a slight smile and freeing up Fox Lisa’s hands.
“So this is what you have been busy with lately,” Fox Lisa said, not asked.
Griffen realized at that moment how little he had seen of his occasional lover recently and how much of that had been his own fault. He hadn’t given much thought to it until he heard the dry ice that was her tone.
“It’s more complicated than it looks,” Griffen said.
“I’ll say.”
She glared, but not at him. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw that one of Tink’s will-o’-the-wisps was hovering nearby. Under her scrutiny, the white light was tinged pink and, with an embarrassed-sounding pop, disappeared. Fox Lisa stared at where it had been, and for a moment Griffen thought it would be too much for her. She shrugged it off with a visible effort and turned her attention back to him.
“Moving on, you have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. That just got added to the list.”
“And what else is on the list?”
Griffen hadn’t seen Mai coming, but she was suddenly behind Fox Lisa, an arm sliding around her waist and long fingernails tapping against her hip. She had slipped back into full Dragon Lady mode.
&nbs
p; Fox Lisa actually had to swallow before she spoke.
“Mai, why am I not surprised to find you here?” she said.
“Because you know I turn up at the most… interesting… places,” Mai purred.
Griffen was going to have to look into voice control. Fox Lisa actually shivered, and Griffen now knew she wasn’t wearing a bra.
She rallied, though, and stepped away from Mai, turning so she could face them both. She stared at Mai’s dress, almost exactly as she had at the will-o’-the-wisp’s disappearance, and again her mind almost—but didn’t—froze up and snapped.
“Explanations, owed by both of you,” Fox Lisa said, then shivered again and moistened her lips. “But… later. I… I’m working.”
“Later, then,” Mai said.
She stepped up to Griffen, arm around his waist now but eyes on Fox Lisa. There was a moment of tension, and Lisa turned and walked off.
Then stopped a few feet away, changed directions, and walked directly toward a large werewolf in torn blue shorts. She grabbed his tail, and before he could react, yanked hard. He yelped, a very realistic and pained sound. Fox Lisa glared at him, and he ducked his head, ears lying flat. She nodded to herself and stomped off.
Most people around them watched her leave and ignored Kane cursing and rubbing his tail.
“That,” Mai said dropping her act and sounding full of admiration, “is one tough broad.”
“And the two of you have arranged a very tough spot for me later,” Griffen said.
“Yes, we did. And a fun spot if you play your cards right. That one is too smart to be kept in the dark anyway,” Mai said.
Mai grinned and slipped her arm from his waist to his elbow.
“Come on, you. For this stay in your execution, you owe me a dance!” she said.
Griffen had been dreading this long before Mai ever showed up at his door. He knew about as much about dancing as he did about public speaking. With less practice.
He couldn’t decide whether or not this particular dance floor made things better or worse. The dancing seemed to be as eclectic as the costuming. There was a couple waltzing. At least a dozen people going through an elaborate dance that would have fit in at a medieval court. Several people club dancing, including two more of the changelings, Nix and Drake. Apparently, the changelings had decided to dress in a theme: Drake was the Cheshire Cat, and Nix, with the help of a mask on the back of her head, was playing both Tweedledum and Tweedledee, depending on which way she was facing. And Griffen would have put her down for the Mock Turtle.
There was even someone dressed as a knight in full armor, doing what Griffen could only interpret as a very clanky version of the Charleston. And it all seemed to blend together. As surreal as it all was, it all blended together, the music acting as a melting pot. Partners would switch back and forth, those bothering with partners, and seamlessly step into a new style. Griffen didn’t have a clue what to try himself.
Mai made the decision for him, by pressing so tightly against him he was sure she didn’t have anything under the dress but herself. She started to sway to the music, leading with her body language more than anything else, and he followed. She rested her head against his shoulder, and he felt the soft touch of her lips against the side of his neck.
He began to let himself relax, flowing into the music, the atmosphere, the peculiar magic. Nothing in his life had really prepared him for an evening like this. Especially not the conclave; he would never have imagined the different groups blending together like this. For one night, just for Halloween, it seemed as if the supernatural attendees had found some happiness.
He hadn’t had many rewards for this fairly thankless job but was beginning to think this evening might make up for it.
Then the doors burst open violently, shattering the music, and his illusions.
Everybody stopped and stared, and Griffen recognized the pull of powerful glamour. Dragon-style glamour, not whatever the changelings used. It pulled every eye in the room toward the figure of a small woman, dragging the bodies of three unconscious garou by their ankles. She held all three in one hand and, without so much as a grunt of effort, heaved them through the air to land with a thud on the dance floor.
Griffen noticed three things simultaneously. One, that every one of the garou was bruised, bloodied, and probably broken. Two, they were the ones Kane had set out to hunt for Slim’s killer.
Three, the small woman had the maddest eyes he had ever seen. Both angry mad and crazy mad. They were like looking into the windows of a building and realizing only after you’ve seen inside that it was an asylum.
A split second after those observations, he heard a stifled gasp. He saw a brief glimpse of Val, and wondered how he had missed her till now. More important, he wanted to know why she was glaring at the small woman with more anger then he had seen from his sister in a long time.
“All right!” Lizzy screamed, voice cracking through different scales. “Who is the poor dead son of a whore who sent these puppy dogs after me!?”
Things clicked into place. He half turned toward Val, without taking his eyes off the newcomer for a moment.
“Who is that?” Griffen asked.
The tightening of Val’s lips and the narrowing of her eyes were answer enough. Griffen knew his sister, knew that beneath the mask of anger was a good deal of fear. He’d ask questions later.
For once, Griffen didn’t hesitate. He had taken this job, and whatever this was, he would deal with it. A surge of anger built, fueled by his sister’s. He went with his instincts, stepped forward, and said the first thing that came to mind.
“I can handle this.”
Fifty-two
Lizzy’s laughter filled the ballroom, and all around people flinched. Griffen himself felt a heavy, cold weight in his stomach as the laugh filled his ears. No syllable matched, as if it were a dozen different laughs all fighting to burst free. It wasn’t even the raw anger underneath that made it so terrible. Worse than that, something in it pulled at those hearing it, something infectious.
Madness that wanted to spread.
Griffen kept his reactions off his face and took another step forward. The laughter snapped off as Lizzy’s eyes narrowed watching him.
“Handle this? You mean handle me! Darling, sweet baby boy, you couldn’t handle me—well, not and survive anyway. Though the actual handling could be fun, come to think of it. Hey, I know! Let’s ditch this place and go find out; I can always butcher your sister and friends later.”
The last traces of fear evaporated under Griffen’s anger. His fists clenched, and he felt his skin start to harden into scales. Lizzy smiled, a beaming grin of a happy child. Griffen realized she liked seeing him react, liked pushing his buttons. And realized just as quickly that he couldn’t afford the luxury. He got his face under control, though under his skin he could feel the itch of the scales ready to manifest.
Lizzy’s smile faded to a small pout as Griffen pulled himself together. She started to stalk in a wide circle around him, broken eyes riveted to him. People moved out of her way, clearing the floor space surrounding them. Though he noticed she circled away from Valerie, putting him between the two. As if reading his thoughts, her eyes flicked over his shoulder to his sister, then back to him. A new smile, sly and cruel, worked across her lips.
“So… Griffen McCandles. I’ve watched you, you know. Not much; you didn’t look like much fun, but it was amusing. Watching you scurry about as I sorted things out in my head. Watching you walk with your ‘friend’ Mai, my my Mai, wasn’t she a surprise. I sorted things out… things out of sort…”
Lizzy’s eyes started to glaze, just for a moment, as her train of thought derailed. Griffen couldn’t help but tense, almost leaped on her in that instant of distraction, but hesitated, trying to think through all the angles. She snapped back into focus and shouted, loud enough to shake the chandeliers, “Don’t think it, baby boy!”
More people flinched, a few of the shifters actuall
y falling to their knees clutching their ears. Griffen could practically feel Val’s glare from behind him and could just make out a rustle of clothes he thought was her moving closer. Lizzy kept shouting, quieter now but just as emphatic, hands sawing through the air as she gestured, spittle flying from her lips unnoticed as she raved.
“Baby! Hatchling! Both of you are just sooo. Young! And stupid! And you still cause me all these headaches, all this confusion! I should have killed you both, blown up your house, blown up your city, never gotten close enough to have to think!”
She paused, going calm and suddenly serious, rubbing two fingers to her temple.
“It’s problems like this that really make me wonder if I am… a little off… after all.”
Griffen stared, without any clue of what to do. Someone that crazy, that confused, and she only wondered if she were a little off? And he had no question that she was very dangerous. Any direct fight, and who knew what damage it would cause. But how could you reason with someone like this? Or even talk them down?
Val made the decision for him.
“I really don’t think ‘a little’ covers it, Lizzy, dear,” Val said.
She stepped toward them both, and a little to Griffen’s side, though he didn’t dare take his eyes off Lizzy to look at her. Looking out of the corner of his eye, he could tell she was angry.
Valerie had come to the party as something out of the Greek pantheon. White dress, not quite a toga, embroidered with gold on the hem and neckline. A wreath of flowers and vines was in her hair. She looked more the part now as she stepped toward the threat of Lizzy. She was a good four inches taller than usual, and so tense she almost trembled.
Yet her voice was calm, quiet. Mocking, yes, but none of the warlike anger he usually expected from his sister in this kind of situation.
“Oh? What would you say, heifer?” Lizzy snapped, angry again.
“I’d say ‘crazy,’ but then I would have to spend the rest of my life going around to asylums and apologizing to the inmates for the comparison. I think we need a new word for the level of insane you are.”
“Ooooh! It’s trying to be funny! Everyone, the wonder cow is trying to be witty! Isn’t that just great?!”
Dragons Luck gm-2 Page 29
