Gentleman Takes a Chance

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  He was quiet a while, unable to find words to continue.

  "I'm sorry," Tom said, in a low voice.

  Rafiel managed a chuckle. "Well, it was a long time ago. Ten years. But you see, if I could smell shifters that well, I'd have known. I did not."

  "And you became a policeman," Tom said, softly.

  Rafiel shrugged. "Someone official needs to be looking out for our kind, which is what this is all about. I didn't count on the diner becoming the center of shifters for miles around." He gave Tom a smile he was sure looked sickly.

  "And why are you so interested in how many of our regulars might be shifters?" Tom asked.

  "Well, I figure the aquarium isn't that far away, and if there was a shifter . . . well . . . it might have been one of your regulars who was there, and we might be able to tag him on his specific scent. And then I could question him, you know, without seeming to, and if it turned out to just be someone who went to the aquarium for fun or something . . ." He drew to a halt slowly. The truth was he didn't want this murder to involve any shifters. He didn't want to have to lie and skulk and go behind his superiors' backs.

  Oh, Goldport was a small enough town, and the police department was somewhat informal and friendly. Rafiel was a third generation cop in the same department. He could get away with a lot. But he didn't like to. He was a policeman because he prized the idea of a justice system based on laws. He didn't approve of anyone defiling it. Not even himself.

  "Rafiel," Tom said, laughter at the back of his throat, trying to cut through the words. "Are you truly suggesting we go up to all our regulars and smell them? Half of them are college students or warehouse workers who come here after work. You know what they smell like."

  "No. I mean . . . no, I don't think that would work. Perfume and all. But . . . just keep your nose open, okay?"

  Tom nodded and opened his mouth as though he were about to add something, but at that moment Kyrie came up to them. "He says he was sent to protect you, Tom. That the Great Sky Dragon said he tried to warn you and you didn't seem to get it."

  * * *

  "Why would anyone—particularly anyone ancient and presumably intelligent—send Red Dragon to protect . . . me?" Tom said.

  "He says his name is Conan," Kyrie said, looking at Tom, but with an unfocused expression that indicated her attention was on her thoughts and not on their conversation.

  "Conan?" Rafiel asked, before Tom could.

  Kyrie turned to him. "His parents liked comic books, he says."

  "So it stands to reason he should be the hero to protect me? And protect me from what?" Tom said.

  "Are you sure you don't remember what the Great Sky Dragon told you?" Kyrie asked. "Perhaps . . ."

  Tom shook his head. "It was all very confused." Just thinking back on that precise, booming voice in his head made his muscles clench and made him fear he would shift without warning. "I know he said I had violated old and sacred customs. The laws of our kind . . ." He shook his head, unable to remember.

  "Our kind has laws?" Rafiel asked, at the same time that Kyrie said, "That doesn't sound like he wanted to protect you."

  "No," Tom said. "It didn't sound that way to me, either, which is why I thought . . ." He clenched his hands on the counter, digging his nails against the hard formica top and making not an impression. If he'd been in dragon form . . . he would have dug his nails right through it. But he would not allow himself to change. Not now. Not today. Not again.

  He took deep breaths, trying to forget the voice and the sense of urgency, trying to remember only the words and not the fear they'd induced. "I remember his saying something about Ancient Ones, but I wasn't sure what he meant—the laws or some people who were very old."

  Kyrie nodded. "Well, we're stuck with Conan the Wonder Dragon over there, unless you can get rid of him in some way."

  Tom looked at her. In some way. It occurred to him it would be very simple to get rid of him the dragon way—flames at twenty feet. When they'd fought as dragons before, Tom had ripped off Red Dragon's arm and beaten him over the head with it. But somehow he didn't think that was what Kyrie meant for him to do. And as for himself . . . well, until proven otherwise, he couldn't really say killing Red Dragon would be in self-defense. The rather pitiful creature, cowering in their smallest booth, warming his hands on a cup of coffee, could be said to be many things, but life-threatening wasn't one of them. Whatever he'd been or done in the past, right now the adjectives that came more readily to mind echoed more of wet or perhaps spineless.

  Tom knew better than to discount the creature just because he cringed and hid around the corners. Tom had lived on the streets and seen many a beggar who seemed meek and mild turn suddenly and go on a rampage. But still, the truth remained he was not openly threatening Tom. If Tom killed Conan now, even in what could be considered a fair duel—as fair as it could be when only one of the duelists was in possession of a backbone—then he would forever feel he had murdered a defenseless being. And murdering defenseless beings would mean that Tom was not just a shifter, but an animal. It would make it very hard to look at himself in the mirror. Which would make shaving a challenge.

  He shrugged. Aloud, he said, "Well, the Great Sky Dragon sent him to us for a reason."

  "As a spy," Kyrie said. "It seems he has orders to report all we do . . . or at least anything we do that might be dangerous to the Great Sky Dragon. He put it as he can call the Great Sky Dragon and the Great Sky Dragon will come—or at least send help—when needed."

  Tom looked at her for a moment, then shook his head slowly. Hadn't she understood the significance of the Great Sky Dragon in Tom's head? "Kyrie, he can reach into my mind with his voice at will."

  "No," Kyrie said. "Conan says that you shut your mind to the Great Sky Dragon, and that's why he sent Conan to us as a spy. To keep an eye on us."

  "Perhaps," Tom said. "But then again, if there's going to be a spy among us, is it not better that it be a spy we know? We can keep an eye on him, keeping an eye on us."

  "That sounds strangely unhealthy," Rafiel said. "Like one of those situations where you end up being your own grandpa."

  "Perhaps it does," Tom said. "But the truth is, you know . . . better the devil we know. And we do know this devil."

  "We'll let him stay then?" Kyrie said, doubtfully.

  "Better yet," Tom said. "We'll give him a job. That way we can keep an eye on him to make sure he's doing his job and to make sure he's not trying to kill me. All in one."

  Kyrie didn't look convinced. "And what if he attacks?"

  "Then," Tom said, and graced her with his best, bare-teeth smile, "I attack back. And I'm bigger and faster."

  Kyrie sighed, as if conceding a point. "I don't like it," she said.

  "I don't either," Tom said, and reached under the counter for an apron to give to Conan at the same time the front doorbell tinkled to let in the tall, thin blond man who usually spent the night in the diner, writing in a succession of cloth-bound journals. They called him the Poet though it was more likely—from the nervous look of him—that he was writing about conspiracy theories. He took his normal table, with his back against the wall. "But we must make the best of a bad situation, and look at it this way, if I get him to serve at tables, you can probably go with Rafiel and be fine. I'll get him a couple of flip-flops from the storage room."

  "You're going to make him a waiter?"

  "Why not? While protecting me, he might as well hand out some souvlaki," Tom said. Smiling with a reassurance he was far from feeling, he advanced on the small booth. Red Dragon jumped a little when he saw Tom approach, and looked up at Tom with an expression of such abject terror that Tom thought, Oh yes, if the time comes, I can take him. But he hoped it wouldn't be needed. He gave Conan a pair of red flip-flops, explaining, "Health regulations." Then he watched the man put on the apron, while he gave him the speech on waiting tables that had been given to Tom himself, when he'd taken a job as a waiter almost a year ago. "Don't be rude to th
e customers, no matter what they say; write down the orders, no one's memory is perfect." He took a notebook and pencil from the pocket of the apron and waved it at Conan. "And when you go out to take an order always take the carafe with you and give refills to the people who are having coffee." He glanced at Conan's shrunken arm. "You can put the carafe on the tables without damaging them, at least the new ones. And the old ones, who cares? They're all stained and burned, anyway."

  Conan nodded, looking as self-conscious as a kid in new clothes, in strange company, and Tom pointed at the table the Poet had just occupied. "There you go. Take his order. It's probably just coffee, but you never know."

  Then he turned to look at Rafiel and Kyrie who were both staring at him with a bemused expression. "What?" he asked in an undertone. "We don't have enough hands on deck today, and if he's going to stick around, he might as well make himself useful." He shrugged. "Besides," he dropped his voice further, "I might as well keep him too busy to think of something creative to do in the way of getting rid of me."

  Rafiel shook his head but didn't say anything, and Tom covered up his apprehension with a smile. "Go on. Now Kyrie can go with you for half an hour or so. We won't be leaving the tables unattended."

  * * *

  Kyrie sat down in Rafiel's car, narrowing her eyes at him. "You won't shift while driving?"

  Rafiel gave her a blank, puzzled look. "Why would I do such a stupid thing?" He frowned. "It would end up in an accident."

  Kyrie shrugged. She'd rather cut her own tongue out with a blunt knife, than tell him how close she'd come to shifting, herself. "I just thought, you know . . . since one shifts when stressed . . ."

  He looked away from the windshield past which Kyrie could see no more than a dazzling whiteness of snow, seeming to radiate from the center of the two light cones cast by the headlights. "Why would I be stressed?" he asked. He held the wheel lightly enough to make her want to growl at him—and she was fairly sure that this had nothing to do with an urge to shift.

  He put the car in gear and started out of the parking lot, seemingly perfectly sure of where he was going. How he could be sure, Kyrie didn't know. Perhaps he was flying by instruments. She glared at him.

  He looked out the windshield again and drove at what seemed to her a disgustingly high speed towards Fairfax. As the silence lengthened between them, he turned. "What?" he said.

  Kyrie was so surprised he seemed to be aware of her disapproval that she felt her cheeks flush and started to open her mouth to justify herself. Before she could, he reached over and patted her arm awkwardly. "I grew up here," he said, in a tone that made it almost an apology. "I learned to drive in winter." He shrugged, as he stopped for a light that was no more than a diffuse red glow ahead. "I'm sure you'll get more comfortable with it in time."

  The tone was sympathetic and attempting to be friendly but it felt patronizing and she had to bite back a wish to swat his ears and put him in his place. The image that came to her mind was of a paw swatting at his feline ears. She felt her lips twist upwards, and looked out the passenger window—though she could not see anything more than blinding white snow. "So, how do you think shifters are involved in this?" she asked, in as serious a voice as she could muster.

  Without looking, she could sense he'd shrugged. Probably some slight rustle of cloth as his shoulders rose and fell. "I don't know. Not as victims."

  "So you think they are . . . ?"

  She looked back in time to see him shake his head. "I don't know," he said. "We've already found that some shifters feel the urge to kill in their . . . well . . . their other form. Perhaps that was it."

  "Or perhaps just . . . you know, shifters that kill, like other people kill."

  He gave a startled bark of laughter. "Oh, yes, very sensible. I should have thought of that, of course. I mean, we're shifters, we're not saints. The animal urge is not necessary to explain killing, is it? As I know only too well from police work."

  "Well . . ." Kyrie said.

  "No, trust me, it makes sense. Sometimes, with all this, we run the risk of thinking we're completely apart from humanity and different from them, and of course, we're not. We're humans, like all others. Or almost."

  "Given a certain tendency to change shapes, yes, exactly," Kyrie said. "Just like all others."

  Rafiel slowed down and leaned all the way forward. "I hope this is Ocean Street," he said. "Because I surely can't read that sign."

  "So glad to know the superpowers of Colorado natives don't cover everything."

  "You should be, otherwise imagine the envy you'd be forced to feel. Everyone would want to be born in Colorado. It would get crowded in the hospitals," Rafiel said. "But what I was saying . . . perhaps I'm foolish to feel guilty for all shifters, or at least to feel I must protect them from . . . you know, the majority of people—like I must . . ." He turned neatly into the parking lot beside a tall cylindrical building with broad rounded windows. "Like I must be the law for our people—those of us who hide amid other people." He looked at her, and for the first time in a long, long time, she detected a look of insecurity about him, as if he were young and not completely confident about what he thought or should be doing. "I guess you think I'm an idiot. I mean, we don't even know how many of us there are, and here I am, trying to keep them safe, as if I knew them personally."

  "Not an idiot," she said, immediately, in reaction to his expression more than anything. "You feel a duty to . . . people like us, I guess." A little gurgle of laughter tore through her throat, surprising her. "Frankly, at first, that was why I helped Tom last year, when he found the body in the parking lot. I wasn't sure if he'd killed anyone or not, but I'd never met anyone else like me—you know, never having had a family. So I figured, he was my responsibility to look after. I'd guess you feel something like that."

  "Yeah, but I'd feel better, if I didn't have reason to suspect a lot of our people . . . I mean, a lot of people like us have . . . issues controlling themselves."

  "Other people do too," she said. And shrugged. "Now, let's go see if I can confirm your supposed shifter-smell. It's unlikely I can help you, since you have a better sense of smell than any of us."

  "I just want . . . second opinion," he said. And got out of the car. On the road, behind them, tires squealed.

  * * *

  "Hey, can I help you with the waiting on tables?" a voice asked behind Tom, as Tom prepared a stack of burgers on the grill.

  It was a well known voice—that of his friend Keith Vorpal, the only one of the non-shifters who knew shifters existed. Keith was a film student with an unshakeable joi de vivre and an absolute certainty that being a shifter was the coolest thing since being a superhero. He'd gotten embroiled in their affairs and taken part in some life-and-death struggles. Though he'd acquitted himself well enough, he was sure shifters got to have more fun than he did. Sometimes he claimed to be a human shifter. He shifted between a human form and a stunningly similar human form.

  However that was, Tom felt strangely grateful that Keith, not a shifter, didn't feel either horrified by them, or forced to turn them in as abominations. And the fact that Keith knew the routines of The George, where he worked part-time, seemed like a godsend right now, when Tom had been doing his job and continuously prodding the hapless Conan to do his.

  "Keith," he said, turning around. "Keith."

  Keith smiled at him. His tumbled blond hair was in disarray, and his glasses fogged, from having come from cold to warmth. He unwound a bright red scarf from around his neck, as he spoke. "So, you need my help?"

  "Yeah, all we have is Conan, and it's his first day." Tom said, and hoped against hope that Keith would have no memory of Red Dragon.

  "Conan?" Keith said, as he ducked behind the counter, removed scarf and jacket. Tom heard the sound of Keith sliding the time sheet from under the counter and smiled.

  "The new employee. Over there."

  "Over . . ." Keith took in breath sharply. "But Tom, he's . . . that is . . ."
/>   Tom was afraid Keith would blurt out loud that Red Dragon was just that, and the enemy besides. And since Kyrie had left, a sudden inrush of customers had come in, ten or twenty in all, all sitting at nearby tables, ordering hot chocolate and burgers and whatnot. He reached over and put a hand on the young man's shoulder, to arrest the flow of words. "It's all right, Keith, truly. I'm keeping an eye on him."

  "If you're sure . . ." Keith said, looking confused.

  "Yeah, sure about everything but his ability to wait tables. Why don't you go and—" But before he could suggest that Keith should relieve Conan of some tables and give him breathing room, Tom looked up at the booth where he'd left Old Joe. The clothes he'd loaned the old vagrant were still there, but Old Joe was gone. "Shit," Tom said, which made Keith look at him sharply, because Tom rarely swore out loud. "Man the grill, Keith. Just a couple of minutes."

  With a suspicion that he knew very well where Old Joe had gone, Tom ducked out from behind the counter and ran down the hallway, just in time to hear the back door creak open, and to see, as he turned the corner, an alligator tail disappearing through the door.

  He knew he should have locked it.

  * * *

  The aquarium looked like a cylindrical grain silo—at least if a silo could be massive, made of glass and concrete and rise ten stories into the air. Once you got inside, there were very few staircases where the public was supposed to walk—from the entrance room, outfitted to look like something from Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, with rusty-looking ship wheels and riveted panels on the walls, to the restaurant on the other end. Instead, it was all gently sloping floors.