Gentleman Takes a Chance (25 page)

Dire's gaze changed, as though he'd read Rafiel's mind, and so perhaps he had. "I don't know how many shifters there were in the world at that time, but it's been my experience a lot more of us are born than ever survive to reach even human maturity. As I said before, most succumb to the animal desires, when they first change. And then others are the victims of other people's fear, then as now. Now perhaps less, because we are told that shifters don't exist. Back then, they believed we were evil spirits, or the revenge of prey upon their hunters, or other curses, but no one doubted that we existed.

"I was lucky enough to be born in a small village, where my shifting was viewed not as evil, but as a sign of favor from the gods. I was made their priest, and asked to intercede for my people with the wolf gods." He shrugged and again there was that feeling of a dark shadow crossing his eyes, implying to Rafiel that something more had happened.

It would be much like Rafiel saying, "I knew this girl named Alice, and then she died." In the spaces between the words lay all the heartbreak. He found himself feeling an odd tug of empathy towards this man, this creature, who had just declared himself older than time, and he wondered how much of it was true, and how much projected by the mind powers of their foe.

He steeled himself, crossing his arms on his chest, trying to present less of a sympathetic facade, and therefore invite less interference in his thought processes. Kyrie looked impassive, as if she were listening to a story that had nothing to do with any of them.

"It was fine while it lasted, but my people didn't last that long. We were conquered. I think, in retrospect, our first conquerors were Egyptian." He shrugged. "Hard to tell, and I certainly couldn't place it by dynasties. Then there were . . . others." Again the shadow. "And what is a power greatly appreciated in a shaman of the people, is not a quality appreciated in a slave. I shifted. I killed. I ran. I shifted again.

"Through most of history, shifters were neither appreciated nor protected." He showed his teeth in something between menace and grin. "But the truth of it, in the end, is that we scare ephemerals. Our greater powers terrify them. But until we group together there is not much we can do, and we certainly can't exert revenge. Over time . . . we formed such a group. Many of us, most over a thousand years old by the time we met, got together. We formed . . . something like a council of peoples. The council of the Ancient Ones. And we made rules and laws, to defend ourselves. There are many more of them than there are of us, and no matter how long we live, we lack the sheer numbers. So . . . we made rules. One of them is that it is illegal for anyone—even shifters—to kill great numbers of other shifters. Particularly young ones, who cannot have learned to defend or control themselves yet.

"And it is, of course, illegal for ephemerals to go after shifters in any way. These laws are ours." He tapped on his chest. "Our people's. We do not recognize anyone else's right to supersede them or to impose their rules on us."

Rafiel asked. He had to. The memory of those fragments at the bottom of the tank was with him—the idea that his people were causing deaths, causing people to be killed. Shifters like him were killing normal humans. None of Dire's carefully codified laws had anything to do with that. "Can shifters kill . . . other humans?"

Dire laughed, a short, barking sound. "What should we care, then? If our kind kills the ephemerals? Their lives are so short anyway, what should we care if they are shortened a little further. No one will notice and there are too many of them to feel the loss of a few, anyway."

Rafiel saw Kyrie wrap her arms around herself as she heard this, as if a sudden breeze had made her cold, and he said, "And what if the crimes lead the ephemerals, as you call them, to find us, and to go after us? What if the crimes lead to the discovery of the rest of us in their midst? And they turn on us? In these circumstances, you must agree, the security of one of us is the security of all."

"Is it?" Dire asked. "I thought that was why you were a policeman, Lion Boy. Yes, I have investigated all of you—and I thought you were a policeman so that you could keep yourself and your friends safe."

"It's not exactly like that," Rafiel said, and then hesitated, feeling it might not be safe for him to tell the dire wolf that he felt obligated to defend the lives of normal humans as well—that he'd become a policeman because he believed in protecting every innocent from senseless killing.

But before he could say any more, Kyrie spoke up, "You said there was a feud with the dragons? Or a war?"

Kyrie knew Rafiel too well. She knew this dire wolf, this creature talking to them with every appearance of urbane civility, would lose his civility, his compassion, his clearness of mind and word, the minute he thought that one of them wasn't in full agreement with him. She also knew Rafiel's deep-down pride in being a policeman and in his duties and responsibilities to those he served.

He was the third in a family of cops. His grandfather had been a beat cop. His father had been a detective in the Serious Crimes Unit. So was Rafiel. That was the type of tradition that left its mark on the soul and mind. Rafiel hadn't chosen to be a policeman. Rather, he was a policeman, who had simply felt he had to join the force.

And his loyalty to his family—whom Kyrie realized Dante Dire would call
mere
ephemerals—wouldn't allow Rafiel to stay quiet while their lives were deemed expendable by this ancient being who had never met them—and who clearly had no understanding for nor appreciation of normal humans.

She'd heard Rafiel hesitate, and she expected the barrage that would follow. And after that, she knew, it would take axes and skewers again, or worse. She interrupted, blindly, with a question about dragons, which pulled Dante's observant gaze from Rafiel's face, to look at her.

All of a sudden he looked older than he was, and tired. "It was a long time ago," he said. "At first . . . when we formed, dragons were part of our numbers. There were a good number of dragon shifters—in the Norse lands, and in Wales, in Ireland, and all over. And some of them formed part of our council, became Ancient Ones with us.

"I thought your boy dragon was descended from one of these lines—from these great tribes of dragons that lived all over the globe. I thought . . ." He shrugged. "That he was a young one like any other. That he didn't matter."

"And he matters?" Rafiel blurted behind her, still half-bellicose, but at least not openly antagonizing Dante Dire.

Dante shrugged. "Their daddy dragon seems to think he does, even though he doesn't look a thing like his spawn. If he has decided to claim dragon boy, who am I to dispute it? We had a war with them, once, before human history was recorded. Our emissaries ran into his, into his kingdom as he called it. Yes, I see by your eyes that you doubt it, but yes, it was the same being, the same creature. And under him, organized, were the same people—well, some, of course. Some have died, and been replaced. I gather, like the Ancient Ones, he doesn't put much value on anyone until they've proven themselves, only in his case they can't prove themselves until they are over a hundred years old or so. Till then, he counts them as meaning little and being worthless, and he plays his games with them like a child with toys."

"So, is this a game?" Kyrie asked. "That he's playing? With Tom?"

"I don't know," Dire said. He hesitated. "That could be all it is. Your friend could interest him, purely, as a toy, something amusing to play with and to see what he does. Or he could interest him for . . . other reasons. It is not mine to judge. Except that it is clear he's keeping an eye on him through that younger dragon." He pointed towards Conan.

Tom had been on slow boil, anyway, looking at Kyrie sitting there, as if it were normal to talk like a civilized human being with that ancient horror who had been in her mind, who had manipulated her, who had, in fact, violated her thoughts in a far worse way than a violation of her body would have been. He wanted to do something. Like hurl cooking implements at the dire wolf shifter's head. Or perhaps beat him repeatedly with something solid—like, say, the counter top. Or perhaps simply request that he leave the diner.

He crossed and uncrossed his arms, looking towards him—without appearing to—listening to the things he was saying and studiously ignoring Keith's attempts at making Tom take over the stove so that Keith could beg off.

And then he heard the dire wolf say that Conan—hapless, helpless Conan—was not only, as he'd told Tom, an inadequate bodyguard, sent to protect Tom from the Ancient Ones, but he was, also, somehow, a spy. Or perhaps a listening device. He couldn't stay quiet. He took two steps forward. He put his hand on Kyrie's shoulder, to warn her that he was going to speak, and then he said, "What do you mean he's keeping watch over me? Conan? Yeah, we know Conan is a spy. What of it?"

"Oh, he's more than a spy," Dire said, amused. "He can do things."

Tom frowned. "What can Conan do?"

He saw that Conan, having approached the counter to drop off an order, was standing there, with the order slip in his hand, staring dumbly at Tom and then at the dire wolf, and then back at Tom again.

The dire wolf shifted his attention to Tom and inclined his head slightly, in what might be an attempt at a courteous greeting. Then he looked at Conan and something very much like a contemptuous smile played upon his lips. "Him? I imagine he can't do much. In and of himself. I gather he was recently wounded and those limbs take their sweet time to grow in, when you're that young." His eyes twinkled with malicious amusement. "Who wounded him? You?"

Tom nodded.

"Yes, that would suit the daddy dragon's sense of humor, to send him to guard you, after that. And no, I don't expect he would be any good at it. Certainly no good at all, against someone like me. But unless I'm very wrong, the daddy dragon already has more able forces stationed nearby. He would have sent this creature because he looks helpless and inoffensive, and you, if the thing with the alligator shifter is any indication, have a tendency to take in birds with wounded wings, do you not? So he figured you'd take him in."

"And?" Tom asked, his voice tense as a bowstring, as he shot a look at Conan, who looked ready to drop the order slip on the counter and run screaming into the night. He felt nausea again, the old sense of revulsion at the idea that the Great Sky Dragon knew him; understood him; was playing him.

The dire wolf shrugged and seemed altogether too pleased with what he was about to say. "You see, as you age, you acquire other powers. What a lot of people would call psychic powers, I guess. The ability to enter minds, and to make them think things, or to activate their thoughts . . ."

"Yes, yes, we've gathered that," Kyrie said, mouth suddenly dry.

"I suppose you have," the dire wolf said, and smirked. "But the thing is, you see, that we can also use other, younger shifters, particularly those with whom we have a connection of some sort, as long-distance hearing devices. My guess is that this young one has sworn fealty to the Father of All Dragons, and the Father of All Dragons has, therefore, reached into his mind and made him into his very own listening device. He is listening to us now," the dire wolf bowed courteously in Conan's direction. "I don't know what his game is with you, but I am telling him now that I am staying out of it, and that no harm will come to you through me. None at all. You are his."

Good
, the word in the voice Tom had heard before echoed through his head, and suddenly he wondered if that had been what that first touch of the voice, while he was in the shower, had been. An attempt at getting him to admit fealty or subservience to the Great Sky Dragon. Doubtless, that would allow the old dragon to put a spy device directly in Tom's head itself, and not have to bother with Conan. Tom had a strange, sudden feeling that if he had accepted that, Conan wouldn't be alive. He had only crawled back, just in time, to have his boss find himself in need of a pitiful, inoffensive-looking creature. That was the only reason that Conan had been spared.

"Not good," Tom said, making his voice just loud enough to sound forceful, without speaking to the whole diner. "I don't know why the Great Sky Dragon thinks he speaks for me, but he does not. I am not his to either condemn or protect or play games with. You came here to judge me and my friends, and my friends are the only group I owe any loyalty to. If you are going to condemn any of them, Kyrie, Rafiel or Keith, then I demand you condemn me as well," he said. "We are all one. What we did, we did as a group."

He expected . . . oh, he didn't know. Outrage from the Great Sky Dragon. And possibly something more from the dire wolf—rage maybe. Tom could deal with rage right about now, even if he didn't want to have a shifter fight in the diner.

This was not a game. He was not a pawn. And neither was anyone else, here. The sheer denuding of the humanity of everyone, shifter and not, that these old shifters seemed to do, so casually, made Tom want to hit someone. "We are not toys," he said.

There was nothing from the Great Sky Dragon. Not a single word echoed through Tom's mind, and Tom had a moment of strange relief, when he thought he'd set himself free and that the Great Sky Dragon had, somehow, set him adrift. But then the dire wolf threw his head back and laughed so loudly, that a few people turned to look at him.

He brought himself under control with what looked like an effort, reached for a napkin and wiped tears of laughter down his face. "Very funny. Very brave and gallant. No wonder the lady appreciates you, Dragon Boy. You say those things as if you really believed in them. But you know better and I know better. Your elder has claimed you, and in light of your elder's claim, I know you're his, and therefore I am keeping my hands off you. It is not part of my mandate to get people into a war, or to cause trouble for any other ancient shifters. So, I regret to inform you, but you're his, and his you'll remain."

"And what do you intend to do about the rest of us?" Rafiel said. "While there were deaths, as you and the others have felt, they were in self-defense. And as for the young ones who died, it was an accident."