Dragons Wild

“So, how’s the job so far?”

“Are you kidding? Daytime shift may be the most boring thing I’ve every experienced. I’ve sat through English lit classes more thrilling.”

“How long till they get you on nighttime then?”

“Well, I’m swing shift relief now. So I’ll play bar back till I learn the ropes. Figure a couple of weeks to a month.”

“Don’t you need some type of licensing or paperwork in this town for a bartender’s job?”

“Well, uh…let’s just say you aren’t the only one who can enjoy this dragon game sometimes. The paperwork has been ‘taken care of’ for me.”

Brother and sister shared a laugh and Griffen sipped his drink. The alcohol really did help him shrug off the lingering effects from the night before. As he rolled it around on his tongue, he looked over Valerie again, more speculatively. She quirked an eyebrow at him.

“What?” she said.

“No, I think the question was why.”

“Why what?” Her tone was just a bit hard-edged, just a touch dangerous.

“Why this, why the job? It seems just a bit…odd.”

“Yeah, well, so does most of our lives for the past several weeks.”

Valerie started pacing behind the bar, fidgeting with the bar rag and searching for words. She stopped and looked over Griffen, just as he had her. She shrugged her shoulders and leaned against the bar, seemingly at ease. The tension in her shoulders and back was obvious, though.

“Mainly, I was bored.”

“More bored than this?” Griffen waved at the empty bar.

“Well, a different kind of bored I guess. I mean really, Griffen. I dropped out of school; I hopped down to New Orleans. There is only so much lounging around a girl can do.”

“Well, how about going back to school? Transferring credits into LSU or Tulane?”

“Oh, please. I had given up on my degree a while ago; it didn’t interest me in the least anymore. I just didn’t know what else to do with myself, so was going through the motions. Then you needed help, and I had something to do with myself.

“Ah…I left you in the lurch didn’t I?”

“And Big Brother snags the gold ring.”

Griffen nodded and started to frown. He hadn’t really considered that. That Valerie had come to New Orleans because of him and then he had gotten distracted. Hadn’t even known she was looking for work, how out of touch could he be? Valerie watched his expression, reached over, and clouted him on the ear hard enough he almost fell out of his chair.

“Stop that!”

“The hell, Valerie!” He grabbed the side of his head protectively and rubbed it.

“You needed that. No sulking gloom for you.”

“But—”

“Don’t ‘but’ me, Big Brother. Even if mine did get me this job.”

“Sis!”

“Oh, you are so easy to tease. Look, you left me in the lurch, yes, but I left myself in it more. I was back to not doing anything with myself. That’s what this job is about. It works or it doesn’t, that doesn’t really matter. There are other jobs. In the meantime, I’ve got something going, and no reason to mope anymore.”

“Okay, I can understand that. It’s just…you can do more than bartend.”

“Of course I can, stupid. I am Valerie, hear me roar. But what’s wrong with bartending? Just because I can do more doesn’t mean I should. I’m bored, not a work fanatic.”

“Oh, no, it’s true, the Quarter does corrupt absolutely.”

“Just figuring that out are you? Besides, other than tour guides, bartenders get the best dates. Of course, I could try tour guide next!”

Griffen shared the laugh with his sister.

“I just wish there was something I could do to help,” he said.

“There is, if you don’t mind sharing,” Valerie said, still smiling.

“What’s that?”

“You could let me know what’s going on that you’re not telling me about.” Valerie was no longer smiling.

The request caught Griffen off guard.

“What…I don’t…” he stammered.

“Let me make it easy for you,” Valerie said.

She moved to her purse, fished in it for a few moments, then returned to where he was sitting.

“I’m betting it has something to do with this.”

She laid a tarot card on the bar in front of him. It was a match for the two in Griffen’s wallet except it was a bit faded and distorted…as if it had been wet and then dried out.

“Where did you get that?” Griffen said.

“Remember when we were walking down Bourbon and you got hit by a go-cup?” Valerie said. “Well, I found this in the go-cup when I picked it up.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“Look at who’s talking,” she challenged. “I remember what you said about getting one of these up in Detroit, but you’ve been ducking the question every time I asked about it. Then someone trashes your car and you are jumping more and more at shadows. I kept waiting for you to fill me in, but I’ve given up. So talk to me, Big Brother. What’s going on?”

Pushed into a corner, Griffen filled her in on the situation with the George, trying to keep it as casual and unimportant as possible. For example, he left out that he was in his car when it was ruined.

“I see,” she said when he had finished. “So why couldn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

“Well, Mose and Jerome…it’s just that female dragons have a bad reputation for overreacting,” Griffen said weakly. “We were afraid that if you knew, you’d try to take an active hand and maybe get hurt.”

“Uh-huh.” she said, deadpan. “Do you see me storming around or getting angry? I agree, this sounds way out of my league. I’m more than content to let you and Mose deal with it.”

Griffen felt muscles relax that he hadn’t known were tense.

“You don’t know how much of a relief that is to me, Val,” he said sincerely. “Not telling you has been bothering me. If nothing else, now that you’re on board, I can bounce some things off you.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like Nathaniel, for one,” he said. “It seems to me that…”

Valerie was suddenly looming over him.

“You leave Nathaniel out of this,” she hissed. “I care for him and he cares for me. End of story. Go off and play whatever dragon games you want, but keep away from us!”

With that, she marched back to the end of the bar and picked up her book, pointedly ignoring him.

After a moment, Griffen finished his drink and left without saying anything more.

So much for female dragons not being temperamental.

Forty-four

At first, Griffen took little notice of the spatters on the sidewalk.

Mostly, he was coming to grips with exactly how spooked he was by the events of the last week. He didn’t usually come in this early, but somehow cruising the Quarter late at night had lost its appeal. He realized now that he had been reluctant to come out at all. It wasn’t so much that he was scared. Just totally out of his depth.

Voodoo queens and dope dealers. People using animals to spy on him or perhaps even to attack him. Life on the University of Michigan campus in sleepy small-town A

The now familiar scenery of the Quarter suddenly seemed a bit ominous and threatening. Was the rolling boom box that had cruised past him a few blocks ago just showing off, or was it one of the packs of dope dealers keeping tabs on him? Was it his imagination, or did the tarot readers on the Square stop talking to each other to watch him as he walked past?

He suddenly focused on the splatters on the sidewalk. Originally he had dismissed them as splashes or a leak from some tourist’s go-cup. But the red was too dark for a hurricane, the lethal rum drinks they served at Pat O’s. Besides, they were too regularly spaced.

It was blood! Someone who passed by recently was bleeding!

Griffen stopped in his tracks and studied the splatters. Squinting slightly, he tried to see how far ahead of and behind him they extended.