Dragons Wild

“Well, let’s go through it again. For my benefit,” Griffen said. “I’ve got to admit, Jer, I still don’t get it. It’s like I’ve been given the starring role in a play, but no one has bothered to give me a copy of the script. What am I supposed to be doing, anyway?”

“All you got to do is just be you,” Jerome said earnestly. “That’s the beauty of it. You’re a high-blood dragon, and it’s in your nature to gravitate toward building power. I can’t tell you how you’re going to do it. I don’t know. The other night at the big game, I wasn’t lying. Since you’ve signed on, more and more of the independent games are wanting to join our organization. Our network hasn’t changed. The only difference is you. Do you know how you did it?”

“Not really,” Griffen admitted.

“Neither do I,” Jerome said. “But it’s happening. And you haven’t even been around for two months. I don’t know where it’s all going or how it’ll get there, but I’m in for the ride.”

“Okay, Jer,” Griffen said. “I guess I’m in, too. I don’t pretend to understand, but I’m in. You’re the one who knows dragons. Hell, two months ago I thought dragons were as make believe as vampires and werewolves. Now, I not only am dealing with them, I’m…what?”

He was suddenly aware that Jerome was staring at him with a bemused expression on his face.

“Sorry, Grifter,” Jerome said, shaking his head. “I keep forgetting how new you are to all this.”

“Okay. What am I missing now?”

“It was what you just said, about dragons being as make believe as vampires and werewolves.” Jerome smiled.

“Yeah. So?”

Jerome kept smiling.

“Wait a minute,” Griffen said. “Are you trying to tell me that there really are vampires and werewolves?”

“If you mean the movie-type vampires that bite people’s necks and drink blood, the answer is no,” Jerome said. “What we do have, though, is people who feed off other people’s energies.”

“Feed off them like how?” Griffen said.

“There are actually at least two different kinds,” Jerome explained. “One kind is your classic depressive that can suck the energy right out of another person or even an entire party and leave them feeling down, nihilistic. Those people lack a certain kind of energy, the kind that lets you enjoy life, but they need it so they drain it out of the people around them. The problem is they’re kind of a living black hole that just keep absorbing energy without ever being filled themselves.”

“And the other kind?”

“Those are the entertainers, glad-handers, and politicians,” Jerome said. “They can infuse the people around them with energy, effectively multiplying the energy they give off, then feed off that accelerated energy. You can particularly see it with actors or singers when they’re working an audience. When they’ve got a good crowd, they work it into a controlled frenzy. That energy buoys them and inspires them to even greater heights to a point where they lose track of time or even how tired they really are. If you’re ever backstage to see them when they finally come off, it’s like someone cut the strings on a puppet. Once they’re away from that massive outpouring of energy from the audience, they’re left with their own store of energy which is depleted because they’ve been feeding it to the crowd to get it going.”

He paused and gri

“That kind of an energy rush is as addictive as any drug. The only way they can get that high again is to go back onstage and perform again. You hear about people who have been bitten by ‘the stage bug,’ well, that’s what’s happened. They’ve been ‘infected’ and ‘live’ for that heady feeling they get from a curtain call or a crowd of autograph hunters.”

Griffen shook his head.

“I never thought of it that way,” he said. “I mean, I know the high-energy feeling you get at a rock concert or a football game, but I never co

“‘You say po-ta-to and I say po-tah-to.’” Jerome shrugged. “The werewolf thing is the same way. We all know people who go through wide swings of mood and temperament…almost Jekyll and Hyde transformations. That’s not even going into the ‘chameleons’ that change their wardrobe and speech patterns to fit various social situations. Most of us had to do that to one degree or other just to survive our teen years.”

“But there aren’t really people who can literally change their shape,” Griffen pressed.

Jerome cocked his head at him.

“Not to belabor the obvious, Grifter,” he said, “butyou’re a shape-shifter. Remember?”

“But…”

“Both you and your sister…Or don’t you remember what happened the first time you met Gris-gris?”

Griffen frowned.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Jerome,” he said. “I mean, we both saw scales on my arm for a minute there at the end. From what my uncle Malcolm told me, I thought the big lizard thing was just a disguise the old dragons used unsuccessfully to spook the humans.”

“That’s what I heard, too,” Jerome verified. “The thing is, because of the movies and television, you’ve got the big lizard image locked in your mind when you think of dragons. The way I see it, when you’re stressed or get excited, that’s what your subconscious defaults to when it goes to shape-shift. With Valerie, what with her being so athletic and all, she seems content to just get larger.”

“But you’re saying there are others who have this power?” Griffen said.

“If you look around the world, almost every culture has some sort of shape-shifter mythos or legend,” Jerome said. “There are stories about werewolves, weretigers, and were-bears. There’s even an old story about a chimera, which is supposed to be able to take on one of several different animal forms. I’ve never run into one, though.”

Griffen pursed his lips.

“You know, it occurs to me, Jer, that a shape-shifter, especially one of those chimeras, would make a pretty effective George.”

Jerome frowned and cocked his head.

“You know, I never thought of that,” he said. “Of course, it’s only since you hit town that I’ve had to think of the George at all.”

“Go ahead. Rub it in,” Griffen said with a grimace. “It just seems to me…”

The bedroom door opened and Fox Lisa emerged, bleary-eyed and yawning. She was wearing one of Griffen’s shirts with a couple buttons buttoned, giving an alluring view of her cleavage and legs.

“Hey, Jer. How’s it going?” she said in a slurred voice.

“Hey, yourself, foxy lady.” Jerome smiled back. “Sorry. Did we wake you?”

“Not to worry,” Lisa said with a vague wave of her hand. “I can sleep through an air raid. Nothing like a full bladder to get you moving, though. I’ll just wander into the sandbox and go back to bed.”

She headed into the bathroom with short, unsteady steps, shutting the door behind her.

“Sandbox?” Griffen said.

“Yeah,” Jerome said with a grin. “I don’t know who started it or where it came from, but it’s doing the rounds. I think it’s kinda classy.”

The toilet flushed, and Lisa reappeared.

“I’ll go back to bed now and get out of your hair,” she a

The two men looked at each other.

“Wait a minute,” Jerome said. “What did you call him?”

“Hmm? Oh. Young Dragon. Some of the crew have taken to calling him that, and I guess I sort of picked it up.”

“Who’s calling him that?” Jerome pressed. “How did that name get picked?”

Fox Lisa paused in the door of the bedroom and squinched her features into a grimace.

“Oh, com’on, Jerome,” she said. “I know I’m not in the i

With that she disappeared into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her as promised.