Robert Asprin's Dragons Run (4 page)

Griffen
held his temper as he drove, but inwardly, he was fuming. His uncle sat beside him, surveying the city with a haughty air.

“I cannot believe that you revealed our heritage to outsiders,” Malcolm said, for approximately the tenth time. “You endanger us all! Do you know how many humans I have told that we are dragons?”

“None,” Griffen said. “And minus-two dragons, Val and me. Holly would have figured it out anyhow. She already knew when we met the first time. I ran a convention for, uh, alternative life-forms. Lycanthropes, fairies, vampires, ghosts, all kinds of people. And witches. I was the only dragon. Well, except for Val, but she wasn’t really a participant. I was master of ceremonies. The, er, person who asked me to run things said that only a dragon would have the credibility and power to make the event go smoothly.” He hoped Malcolm wouldn’t ask if it had. “Then Holly and I were both parade royalty during Mardi Gras. Her title wasn’t king, but it meant the same thing.” Griffen realized he was babbling. He shook his head. It seemed an eon ago that he had ridden on the Fafnir float, throwing doubloons and beads to the screaming crowds. The last forty-eight hours felt like forty-eight years. He wondered if Val was all right. He glanced at his uncle.

Malcolm hadn’t heard a word. His lips were pressed together as he stared out the windshield.

“You may have caused a total breach, Griffen. This is serious. I refuse to compound your error.”

“Then don’t come with me,” Griffen said. He wrenched the wheel, and Brenda’s car veered right off Rampart Street onto Canal toward his uncle’s hotel. A man in a T-shirt hopped backward out of his way. “I’ve already put my life in her hands more than once. I trust her. You don’t have to. I’ll meet you back at your hotel and tell you what she says.”

Malcolm grumbled. He hung on to the Jesus strap with both hands. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you to give me a full briefing,” he said.

“But you
don’t
trust me.”

“No. I think you don’t know what questions to ask. Besides, she may be a charlatan.”

“No,” Griffen said positively. “She’s not a charlatan. You may not be able to trust the people you work with, but I can.”

“Only because no one else has met their price yet, Griffen. Always remember that.”

Bah,
Griffen thought. But he steered the car back toward the French Quarter.

•   •   •

For
a city as laid-back as New Orleans seemed to be, Griffen was surprised how swiftly all traces of Mardi Gras had been swept away in two days flat. He was afraid that some of the evidence of Val’s last movements might have been swept away with them, but he was relieved to see the end of the festival. The purple, gold, and green bunting had been removed from all the storefronts. Images of jesters in motley had receded to the windows of knickknack shops and a few advertising posters. Hanks of beads still hung in nearly every open store in Jackson Square, but those were always there for the tourists. He was frankly relieved it was all over. That seemed to be a common feeling among his fellow denizens. The few tourists left seemed at loose ends, but New Orleans was a town for wandering. They’d find plenty to do, at a much easier pace.

He parked the car in the underground garage of the Royal Sonesta and led his uncle out into the grand public space of Jackson Square. The clock on the tower of Saint Louis Cathedral struck two. Griffen remembered he had had nothing to eat since too early in the morning. He had forced down a sweet roll and a small cup of coffee. One of his favorite restaurants, Chart House, beckoned at the other corner of the square. The turtle soup there was the best in town, but his throat choked up when he thought of rich food. He could always manage to eat beignets. Café du Monde was just across St. Peter. But business first.

The park inside the wrought-iron fence was unoccupied except for a few tourists taking photos of the General Jackson statue and a couple of gardeners in coolie hats. All the action was in the space between the three streets that bound the square and the fence. Artists, seated under standing umbrellas come rain or shine, had their work on display attached to the iron bars.

“Poot nea’ly layaff mysel’ to death!” a middle-aged black man, his hands stained with oil pastels as he filled in the blue sky on a canvas, shouted to his neighbor, an older white woman in a smock and with a long braid of graying hair down her back, who was sketching the caricature of a stout man in a white polo shirt and a baseball cap.

“Well, honey, what ay-else could you DO?” the woman bellowed back, adding a camera around the neck of her subject with a few deft strokes.

The lilting local patois was just one more kind of music of the city. Griffen let the soothing sound of their banter and laughter calm his jangling nerves. New Orleanians often carried on conversations across streets, down blocks, or from an upper-story window to a friend standing on the street below. Northerners seemed so reserved and quiet by comparison, though you would be no more likely to break into those conversations, however public it appeared, unless the speakers were friends of yours. Privacy here had a more complex definition.

The cathedral watched over the square like a benevolent uncle, neither forbidding nor disapproving what went on at its feet. The chill wind that swirled around it could not touch its magnificence. Griffen hoped that his uncle might be impressed, but if he didn’t play poker, he ought to. His face was as stiff as the statue of Andrew Jackson.

The world seemed to pass through the square daily. Two musicians, on accordion and saxophone, belted jazz music between a tent belonging to a local crystal reader and a face painter. The long lines of people waiting for their services tossed coins and bills into the open instrument cases of the musicians. Griffen turned the corner, looking for Holly.

“Repent NOW, or pay for your sins at the hands of Satan and his army of demons!” An amplified voice close behind them made Griffen jump. He looked back at the skinny frame of Reverend Wildfire, a local preacher who stalked tourists with a megaphone. “Repent! The end of the world is upon us! Jesus is coming, and he accepts into heaven only those who acknowledge their failings in this wicked world!”

Griffen wiggled a finger in his ear. Reverend Wildfire passed by, stinking of sweat and stale liquor. Malcolm gave him a chilly frown. The reverend didn’t notice. As far as Griffen knew, he was sincere about his ministry though no one really listened to him. Griffen thought of saying as much to Malcolm, but his uncle’s expression of disapproval never wavered.

Malcolm looked disdainfully at the human statues standing on upturned buckets at the corner of St. Peter and St. Ann. Griffen felt a pang for the loss of one of his good friends, who had died during the convention the previous Halloween. Malcolm all but snorted at the kids break-dancing for tips on a sheet of cardboard along St. Peter.

Griffen could tell what he was thinking, that all of this looked unbelievably tacky, worn-out, and low-class. Griffen felt a wave of temper hit him. This was his home. He loved the impromptu showmanship, the people who made a living, however marginal, out of their own skills and wits. Did he prefer that they break into houses or sell drugs? He knew plenty of those who lived on the more sinister side of the city, too. Tee-Bo ran a drug business. They had crossed paths. Griffen wasn’t inclined to be judgmental or stop him unless their businesses conflicted. They had come to a mutual respect. He spotted one of the drug lord’s runners near the entrance to a hotel on Jackson Square.

“Hey, Mr. Griffen!” the runner shouted.

“Hey, Emmet!” Griffen called back.

This brought an actual snort out of Malcolm.

Griffen felt fire swell in his belly, but he tamped it down. He stopped short, making his uncle halt beside him. The elder McCandles looked at him in surprise. “Uncle Malcolm, do you know the official motto of New Orleans?”

Malcolm raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, it’s, er,
Laissez les bon temps roulez
. Bad French for
Let the good times roll
.”

“That’s for tourists. The locals prefer,
Be nice or go home
. I’ve already figured out you’re not going to like a lot of my friends or acquaintances, but you don’t have to. They’re my connections, not yours. Just treat them with the respect you’d give the rich hotshots you do business with. You came to me. If I have to, I’ll figure out where Val went on my own, and you can do what you need to. Then leave.”

Malcolm’s face went very still. “Point taken.”

Griffen found that he was trembling with reaction. “Good.”

His uncle cocked his head and regarded him, as if seeing him for the first time. “I’m impressed, Griffen. You have changed. You never had any real concern for anyone but yourself before. Now you not only are pursuing the well-being of your sister, but you are thinking of the dignity of your adopted city. Well done.”

“Thanks,” Griffen said, not trusting himself to say any more. He had told off his uncle. He had never done that before.

He
had
changed. Before coming to New Orleans, Griffen had always gotten by on pure charm and his wits. He was becoming responsible. Things went below the surface. People were getting under his skin. He was vulnerable. That made him nervous. What if he failed them? What if they figured out he was still just a grifter with no skills? The thought made him more nervous.

Halfway down the square from St. Ann, he spotted Holly sitting under a beach umbrella propped up in a stand. A plump black man with graying dreadlocks was standing up from a green-draped chair and feeling in his pocket for his wallet. Leaving a bill with her, he walked away smiling. A woman took his place. A circle was drawn on the cobblestones in bright pink chalk around the chairs. Griffen halted them beyond it, out of earshot to give Holly privacy.

Next to her chair, Holly had a homemade sign made of deal board painted a warm brown. On it “Ask Mother Nature” was hand-lettered in a kind of pretty calligraphy done in comfortable colors like greens and golds. Mystical sigils done with glitter paints in bright blue and silver decorated the rest of the sign. Malcolm eyed it skeptically.

“I thought you said she was a witch,” he said.

“Witchcraft is a nature religion,” Griffen replied.

Holly didn’t look like the Halloween caricature of witches, but neither did any of the others Griffen knew. She looked more like an old-time hippie. Her long, dishwater blond hair was tied back in a black-and-gold scarf, and she wore a gold-and-blue shawl over a moss green T-shirt, a long denim skirt, and sandals. Holly held the hand of a silver-haired woman, whose wrinkled face was rapt as she listened to her. Holly stroked the creased palm with her strong fingers and pointed out various lines and mounds. Griffen shifted from foot to foot, but he didn’t interrupt. Malcolm looked at his watch impatiently, though he followed Griffen’s lead and remained silent. Holly nodded once in his direction to show that she had seen them. Her voice was swallowed up in the ambient noise of the busy square, enough to keep humans from listening in on what might be a very personal reading. Griffen had keen hearing, a facet of his dragon heritage, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. Holly might have put an extra charm on the circle to keep anyone from eavesdropping. He grinned to himself.

When she was finished, the old woman thanked her warmly and fumbled in the expensive clasp bag on her lap. She extracted a ten-dollar bill and offered it to Holly, who pointed to the basket on a little tray table that had a little hand-lettered sign propped in it that said, “Gifts.” The old woman gave a shy glance at Griffen and Malcolm, then hurried away. Holly stood up, stretched her legs, and wrapped the shawl closer around her shoulders.

“Cold today,” she said. “But the sun’s nice. How you doing, Griffen?”

“Pretty good,” he said. “How about you?”

“I’m good,” she said. She picked up the basket. “Good day. A bunch of tourists hanging on, taking advantage of the city’s emptying out. They still had a little money left. I told them some good things. They deserved to hear them.”

“I thought you couldn’t use your gifts for pay,” Malcolm said in a sour tone.

“This is for charity,” Holly said, imperturbably. “I make my money writing computer-security programs at night. I support the ASPCA and Animal Rescue New Orleans, and it gets me out of the house.” She shook the basket at him. It rustled, but he heard a few coins in the bottom. Griffen reached into his wallet and came out with a five. Malcolm did not produce any money. She studied him, then put out a hand.

“I’m Holly Goldberg.” Malcolm shook hands with her. “I don’t have to ask if you’re a relative,” she said. “You look just like Griffen.”

Griffen didn’t feel any more comfortable than his uncle looked at that remark.

“Malcolm McCandles. Griffen is my nephew.”

“Welcome to New Orleans, Mr. McCandles. I know you’d wish for other circumstances, but it is what it is. Come on home with me.”

Holly refused their offers of help in closing shop for the day. She folded up her table and tent, put it all on a two-wheeled cart that had been propped against the fence, and towed it behind her.

“Let me take that,” Griffen said.

“Gallantry isn’t dead,” Holly said. “Thank you.”

Griffen pulled the cart beside Holly and his uncle. Holly walked toward the river, talking as she went about the city. Malcolm still looked uninterested, but his eyes went to the sites she described. Griffen knew he did not miss a thing.

A
little to the west of the French market, Holly turned up the walk to a small wood-framed house painted blue, a single in between all the double shotguns on the street. In Griffen’s opinion, it was exactly what a pagan would live in: wood furniture, natural fabrics, handmade rag rugs on the floor, dream catcher hanging from the window frame, slightly untidy but warm and cosy. The melamine-topped table in the sunny kitchen was as Griffen remembered it from his previous visit. The rest of the rooms were lined with bookshelves, all of which were stuffed beyond capacity with volumes of every size. Many, many more books stood in heaps on the floor around the feet of the overstuffed armchairs. At one side of the small living room hummed a computer terminal with a blocky monitor sitting on top of—what else?—more books.

Malcolm frowned at it.

“A witch with a computer?”

“Nothing in the rede that forbids it,” Holly said breezily, setting out cups and saucers on the table. Fresh, fragrant brew dribbled into the glass carafe on the base of an ancient Mr. Coffee. “It still hurts no one, and I don’t keep anything oathbound on my hard drive. My boyfriend Ethan’s out at the moment, so what can I do for you?”

“Val,” Griffen said.

“I know.” Holly poured out coffee for all of them and offered cream and sugar and a willow basket of enormous peanut-butter cookies.

“Have you, uh, seen anything?” Griffen asked, after a welcome sip.

Holly shook her head. “I haven’t tried since you called the first time. You can mess up the channels, so you don’t know if you’re looking at your hopes or the reality.”

“Are you going to read my palm?” Malcolm asked. It was a challenge.

“You know, you don’t have to believe in what I do,” Holly said mildly, putting a palm on Griffen’s chest to forestall an outburst from him. “I’m just trying to help. Why don’t you sit right here?” She opened a hand toward a broad-backed chair upholstered in denim. “I’ve got
Wall Street Weekly
and
Smithsonian Magazine
.”

“Don’t patronize me!” Malcolm snarled. Holly shook her head.

“You know, you’d be better off saving your fire for the real attacks that are coming. I’ve been dreaming hard these last few weeks. The whole world’s on the verge of change.”

“Isn’t it always?”

“Not like this,” Holly said, gravely. “Not for a long time. Come on, then. You can critique my technique.” She arranged four pots, each holding a burning charcoal tablet and a tiny pinch of incense at the four cardinal quarters of the room, and resumed her seat at the kitchen table. At her direction, Griffen took the chair to her left and Malcolm to her right. The sweet smell of sandalwood and myrrh flavored the air just a little.

Holly took their hands and held on to them tightly. She had a good grip. With her eyes closed, she began to croon softly. Malcolm pursed his lips. Griffen closed his eyes to shut out the sight and let himself feel. Holly’s house always felt very safe. He sensed a cosy energy that was at the same time powerfully protective.

“We seek Valerie McCandles, for the good of all, according to the free will of all,” Holly said, in a low, musical chant. “If it be her will, let her come to us from the other side.”

They waited. Griffen peeked out of one eye. Holly’s forehead wrinkled, pushing her fair brows down. There was no interruption in the energy filling the room.

“Well?” Malcolm asked.

“She’s alive,” Holly said, opening her eyes. “I’m sure of that. Her spirit has not been set free. I’d have seen or felt something.”

Griffen let out his breath with a whoosh. “Then where is she?”

For answer, Holly closed her eyes again and tightened her grip on their hands. “Val, we are your friends and family. We seek you with love. Send us a sign. Ooh!”

Her eyes flew open.

“What?” Griffen asked.

“Well, she’s out there somewhere. I felt her just for a moment, then I got bounced back. There’s a block around her.”

“By evil or good?” Griffen asked.

Holly shrugged. “Magic’s magic. The intent delineates good or evil according to your morals and ethics. The caster probably thinks it’s good. But I’m not able to break through it.”

“That leaves us no wiser.” Malcolm was displeased. “What hard evidence can you give us?”

“We don’t need evidence. She said Val’s all right, but someone with powerful abilities is keeping her from us,” Griffen said. “That’s confirmation.”

“It’s not proof.”

“I’m sorry, it’s the best I can do,” Holly said, a worried frown on her face. “She’s all right. I can tell you that.”

Griffen held out a hand. She gripped it.

“Thanks, Holly.”

“Thank you for your time, Miss Goldberg,” Malcolm said. He rose from the table. “I have an appointment later, and Griffen is coming with me.”

Unapologetically, Holly reached for the basket and extended it to him. This time Malcolm unfolded his wallet. He put a twenty in the can. She smiled.

“The cats and dogs thank you, Mr. McCandles. Griffen, I’ll leave an intention in the ether. If anything comes through, I’ll let you know.”

As they were leaving, Malcolm’s cell phone rang. He took it out of his breast pocket. The BlackBerry, slim and fangled to the nth degree, was much fancier than Griffen’s simple flip phone. Griffen felt a pang of envy though he knew he could get any kind of phone he really wanted. He just had never indulged himself to that extent. Malcolm clicked the green button.

“Malcolm McCandles.”

Griffen could hear a musical female voice on the other end.

“We’ll be there,” Malcolm said. A click sounded from the receiver. Malcolm looked up at him solemnly. “It’s time. Do you know the Court of Two Sisters?”

•   •   •

Griffen
left the car with the valet at the entrance on Bourbon Street. He knew the restaurant well. It was a favorite of visitors to the city but was considered a special-occasion venue by the locals because of the price of the jazz buffet. Griffen felt his mouth water in appeal for some of their famed curried chicken and salmon mousse. At least Holly’s cookies had stilled the growling in his stomach.

“Let’s get a table in the courtyard,” Griffen suggested. “It’s a nice place to discuss business.”

“Our . . . associate is in a private dining room.”

Griffen frowned. He glanced at the Fairy Gates attached to the walls of the entranceway, wrought-iron portals that had come from Spain and were decorated with tiny Christmas lights. They were supposed to bestow good luck and the gift of gab on those who touched both of them. He’d never noticed any difference. In case it helped, he angled out of his way to run a finger over the ribs of each one. He was nervous about meeting Malcolm’s “connection.” If his uncle was afraid of this man, how should he feel? What power could the man wield against a couple of dragons? Was he anything like Rose, Griffen’s friend who had been a voodoo priestess in life yet still maintained a ghostly presence in the French Quarter? Griffen pictured a man dead for eight decades. He had seen plenty of horror movies. Was he a skeleton? Were the parts of his body rotting and falling off? Did he have maggots crawling out of his eyes? The images in his mind grew more and more disgusting until he was ready to back out and go home.

The receptionist was finishing up on the phone as Malcolm approached her.

“Yes, ma’am, two for ten o’clock Sunday morning. We’ll see you then. Thank you.” She hung up the phone and smiled. “May I help you?”

“My name is Malcolm McCandles. I’m expected.”

She eyed him curiously, then glanced at Griffen. “Yes. Just one moment.” She made a gesture. An old man in a waistcoat and bow tie over a pressed white shirt came over. She touched the list. He nodded.

“Right this way, gentlemen,” he said.

Griffen hesitated. Malcolm put a hand on his arm.

“Come along, Griffen,” he snapped. He peered into the young man’s face. “Is this too much for you?”

“No! I see dead people . . . all the time,” Griffen said, inadvertently quoting from
The Sixth Sense
, a movie he had enjoyed years before, never assuming that he’d ever emulate the Haley Joel Osment role.

“He’s a little different than any other undead,” Malcolm said. “Just take your lead from me . . . if you would.”

Griffen was so unused to Malcolm’s deferring to him even a little that he lost his poker face for a moment. “Whatever you say.”

As they entered the high-ceilinged private dining room, a man in a blue business suit was leaving. Griffen caught a glimpse of pale blue eyes in the big, florid face. He looked as if he wanted to say something to Griffen or those remaining in the room but thought better of it.

He followed Malcolm inside.

It was dim in the chamber, but no more so than any of the interior rooms of the Court of Two Sisters. Most people chose to sit in the courtyard, with its pergola of green vines draping lines of shadow, and spiral iron staircase in the corner that led to nothing. He had heard it was haunted but had never personally seen any of the ghosts that occupied it.

His imagination had wound him up to expect almost any kind of horror, so he was almost disappointed when the man at the head of the table extended a hand to him.

“Reginaud St. Cyr Duvallier, Mr. McCandles. Pleased to meet you. Have a seat. This is my secretary, Miss Nita Callaway. Best damn secretary in the whole United States.”

“Uh, nice to meet you, sir, ma’am,” Griffen said. “Call me Griffen.” He gave a brief glance to the modest-looking woman with the laptop open before her on the table, then gave his whole attention to Duvallier. This was the man who worried Malcolm? He looked like half the visitors coming to New Orleans from Miami Beach, Texas, or Arizona. He had thick white hair brushed back from his forehead. He was thin for his big-boned frame. The cuffs of his snow-white shirt flared too widely around his wrists. His cheekbones and temples were filled with hollow shadows, and his skin looked weathered, not decayed. The nails on his knobbly, dry hands had been neatly cut and buffed. Only his eyes said he was anything but an ordinary man. They glowed. Literally. Internal fire lit them red and yellow. Griffen felt his mouth go dry. “Are you a . . . zombie?”

“Manner of speakin’,” said Duvallier, grinning. His teeth were square and white in his brownish, leathery skin.

“Griffen!” Malcolm snapped.

“Don’t take it out on the young’n,” Duvallier said, patting the air with a hand. “I’d rather have honest curiosity than veiled assumptions and whispered rumors. Next time you visit me, I’ll tell you all about it. I hope we can be friends, Griffen.”

“I . . . hope so,” Griffen said. The horror stories had nothing to compare with Duvallier. Unlike the brain-seeking monsters staggering around dropping body parts in movies, this was an intelligent and powerful man who just happened to be dead. Griffen saw why Duvallier might terrify others.

“’Course we will. You drink Irish, don’t ya? There’s a bottle of the good stuff on the sideboard there. Pour y’self one. Johnny Walker Blue for you, Malcolm? You got good taste. I’m a brandy man myself.”

Malcolm folded his hands on the table and leaned over them. “Mr. Duvallier, you and I need to talk about Penny Dunbar.”

“You know, that man who just left?” Duvallier asked, sitting back in his chair. “He just asked me if I’d kill her. Now, you want to tell me why I shouldn’t do what he wants?”