Robert Asprin's Dragons Run (33 page)

Just like that, Mai was between them, her hands around his throat. “She’s not going anywhere with you, assassin.”

The George batted her away as if she weighed no more than a paper doll. She went for him again, but he held her at arm’s length. A roar behind him almost rattled the windows.

“Do you really want to have this argument now? We both want the same thing! Security’s been alerted. Any minute now, that monster’s out. It’s killed me once already.”

“It did what?” Mai asked.

She looked genuinely shocked. The tall man—Val couldn’t bring herself to think of him as Mike any longer, even though he looked just like him—grimaced.

“It tore my guts out.”

“Why are you still alive?” Val asked.

“Shape-changer,” Mai said with an offhand shrug. Explanations would have to wait. “What is it?”

The man shook his head.

“No idea. This thing hates dragons, but it will attack anything that moves. Come on, Ms. McCandles, we haven’t got much time.”

“Why? Why should she trust you?” Mai demanded.

“Mike” fixed his sapphire blue gaze on the small Asian woman.

“Because her brother did. And he didn’t trust you. You sneaked in without telling anyone you were coming here. Griffen McCandles doesn’t know you’ve made contact with his sister. He would lose his lunch if he knew you were fronting for the Eastern dragons. A double bonus. Nice prize for them, a baby like that, and one in the eye for Melinda?”

Baffled, Val looked from one to the other. Her heart pounded in her chest, almost choking her with fear and anger.

“What does he mean, Mai?”

The small female tossed her head.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Don’t I?” He let go of Val, who retreated several feet from him. “Ms. McCandles, we have to go. That thing kills dragons. It likes killing.”

Val heard Henry’s voice in the distance. A flash of gray-white appeared between the trees, angling this way and that.

“I . . . I don’t know what to do.”

George made the decision for her.

“Go with her, then,” George said. He plunged a hand into his pocket and came up with a set of keys. “Go out the front and take my car. It’s closer. Don’t stop even if they close the gates. The car should be able to knock through.” He held out a hand to Mai. “Give me the keys to yours!”

Mai gawked.

“Are you crazy?”

“Go! My car has a full tank of gas. You should make Charlotte, no problem. Hurry!”

Mai looked grudging, but she handed George a key with a paper tag.

Val hugged Marcella. “Thanks for everything. If Melinda throws you out, come and stay with me. You’ll love New Orleans.”

“Now, Amazon!”

Mai grabbed Val’s hand, and they set off running.

George
watched them disappear into the long corridor, then turned to the slim, dark-haired woman in the neat shirtdress.

“Do I need to get you out of here, too?” he asked. “My usual job is rescuing humans from dragons, not the other way around.”

She shook her head and gave him a rueful smile.

“Mrs. Wurmley is too lazy to replace a good servant herself. She’d probably tell me to engage my own replacement. I’ll have plenty of notice to leave the house before I experience an unfortunate ‘accident.’”

George felt in his inside breast pocket for his card case. “Take my card. If you ever need help, you’ve got a freebie coming.”

Marcella tucked the pasteboard into her sleeve.

“Thanks. I hope I’ll never need it.”

“I hope so, too. Better give the hounds something to chase,” he said. Drawing a deep breath, he plunged out into the garden.

The demon-beast was bellowing like thirty couple of hounds questing, to coin a phrase. Even at that distance, George could smell its dry, mildewy, dried-blood odor over the thick, fresh scents of plant and soil. He made as much noise as he could, kicking through rose trellises and knocking over garden statuary.

The distant noises all ceased, then came on again in full, growing louder. George ran in place for a moment. The dogs came into view, about twenty yards away, followed by Henry and his pet monster. George flattened his back against an enormous tree, and made a show of fear and dismay. The secretary, wearing a panama hat and a flawless linen blazer, gloated at the sight.

“Well, what have we here?” he asked.

“Run, Val!” George shouted toward the kitchen door. He knew they were a long way off in the opposite direction, but Henry didn’t.

The hairless skull of the demon rose, revealing those insane eyes. It bared its pointed teeth and laughed.

George let the entire party get a good look at him, then took to his heels. Exit point two was ready for an emergency egress. He intended to make use of it but not before the women had a chance to get to the car.

He dashed into the woods, feeling the Gollum-creature getting closer and closer. The creature knew the terrain better than he did, but he had the advantage of being able to lengthen his legs to stay ahead.

Ducking behind a broad elm trunk, George sprayed his last five feet of tracks with the can from his side pocket. A pale blue cloud spurted out of the nozzle. George recoiled, coughing. P.U! Whatever Debbie had sent him smelled disgusting! But it had better work. Knowing he was covered for a moment, he changed direction. His internal time sense said he needed to lay one more false trail to give Ms. McCandles enough time to get on the road.

“Yeeee-ipe!”

The bellow behind him told George that the demon had just run into the first cloud of spray. He angled left, grabbed a low branch, and swung himself upward. His chest broadened and grew more muscle so he could brachiate into the next tree.

The barking dogs spread out through the heavy undergrowth, searching for his scent. He leaped from branch to branch until he was within sight of the open expanse of gravel near the rear gate. Deliberately, he kicked at the bushes as he dropped to the ground, making as much noise as possible. Escape point two was within five yards of the exit. He bounded toward the gate, running over a car to make certain he was heard.

The Gollum-creature came hurtling toward him. Suddenly, it stopped, sniffed, and let out a bellow that chilled George’s blood. The hounds tumbled to a halt around it, baying in confusion. The demon leaped over their backs, leaving claw marks in its wake, and headed toward the kitchen door.

“No!”

The demon hadn’t been fooled. It sought Val’s scent, and it knew that she had not come outside. Henry opened the door for it and followed it inside.

George dashed down the slope past the swimming pool. If the girls had not gone out the front by now, they were doomed. His legs, now almost eight feet long and with three knee joints apiece, covered the ground in a few seconds.

A roar split the air. George was just in time to see a rooster tail of gravel as the big sedan did a quarter donut through the open wrought-iron gates and sped off to the left. He couldn’t tell through the dust which of the two females was at the wheel, but she sure could drive.

Almost at the same moment, the front door slammed open. The demon galloped out on all fours. Henry hauled back on its leash, but it towed him like a Newfoundland taking its owner for a morning drag. The hounds boiled out behind it, howling. In their wake came the grounds staff and Melinda.

“She’s gone!” Melinda wailed.

“We’ll get her back,” Henry said, his pleasant face set in a grimace. He let go of the leash. The demon never looked back. It galloped out the gate and turned to follow the green sedan. “Get the car,” he ordered.

Two of the groundskeepers dashed away. The rest rounded up the dogs and hauled them around the opposite side of the house.

George was horrified. The humans had been fooled, but the demon hadn’t. It was going after the dragons. He had to catch up with them and warn them. He loped back toward escape point two and plunged out onto the road.

As promised, he spotted the white compact a few hundred yards away. George retracted the extra length of limb until the hems of his trousers touched his shoes. He couldn’t afford to be stopped now.

He floored the accelerator. No answering rumble came from the Prius’s engine. To his dismay, the small car pottered forward at a gentle pace. No amount of stomping on the gas made it accelerate any faster. In a hundred yards, it had sped up past sixty. Forcing himself to be calm, he drove after the demon.

The thick forests surrounding the twisting, hilly roads made it almost impossible to see anything but the few hundred feet ahead or behind the car. On a tight turn after a high climb, he found himself looking down at hairpins in the road. He spotted the green Dodge far below, sandwiched between a blue compact and a white pickup. At least it was making speed. Most of the road was concealed by overhanging branches. He peered around, trying to spot the pale-skinned demon.

Birds flew up from a spot two turns below him. By the snarling, he guessed that the demon had left the road and was cutting overland. George floored the Prius, growling in frustration at the lack of pickup. The hybrid might be the way forward for the American automobile industry, but it was an albatross around the neck for hunters of pale-skinned all-terrain demons.

George fished out his cell phone. No signal. Dammit! The mountains might have been beautiful to drive through, but in an emergency, travelers were on their own.

He left the phone keyboard side up on the tiny dash. As soon as he had a signal, he had to phone Debbie. Mai had a cell phone. The number had to be on file in the office. They had to know what was chasing them. He hoped he could catch up with them before it did.

Ms.
Opal, as she insisted Griffen call her, a stout, elderly African-American woman with a taste for fancy eyeglass frames and chintz dresses, had very short legs and a wide behind. Nevertheless, she stumped along before Griffen and Gris-gris, making them run to keep up. They took the stairs from the ground floor up one flight to the mezzanine level.

“The Fairmont Hotel is very proud that y’all chose us for your nine-ball event. Y’all gonna love what we have set up for y’all,” she said. Her voice, a deep contralto, boomed off the paneled walls. She had a clipboard with well-thumbed pages in one arm. “Everything is ready for day after tomorra. You can review the menu before I send it to typesetting. How many copies will you need?”

Griffen pulled the notebook from his hip pocket and flipped through it to the notes he had made.

“Five hundred should do it. That will handle the entrants plus the press.”

“Y’all better make it a thousand, at a minimum,” Ms. Opal said. “Got to have some to stack on the check-in desk. Get a few curious folks coming in, might collect some extra donations.” She came to a halt at a set of paneled double doors with bronze handles set in Beaux Artes plaques. “Come and take a look.”

She unlocked the doors and swung them open. Griffen peered into the room over Ms. Opal’s head.

The golden-hued lights of the ballroom shone down on three rows of pool tables. Scoreboards on easels stood beside each one. At either side of the play area, six portable bars had been set up amid rows of chairs. The far end of the room was set up for the media. Sound and light boards stood ready for their technicians. Four-foot-tall speakers were placed at the corners of the room plus the midpoints of each wall. Near the doors where they had just entered were the judging tables plus game registration. All of these had printed and laminated tent cards lying on their bare surfaces.

“We don’t put out tablecloths, barware, or paper goods until the last minute,” Ms. Opal said. “Those things have a tendency to walk away, I just don’t know how.” She favored Gris-gris with a knowing look.

“No, ma’am,” Gris-gris said, with more respect than Griffen had heard him use with anyone else. His thin face was earnest and open. “Couldn’t say myself.”

“So, was Gris-gris one of your more challenging students?” Griffen asked, keeping his face straight.

“You might say that,” Ms. Opal said with a quelling stare at him. Griffen shrank back. The “teacher look” worked on him, no matter how many years out of school he was. “He was one of the smartest boys I ever had in my class. Mathematics comes as natural to him as breathing. Gettin’ him to turn in his homework was the difficulty. I don’t know why—it was always one hundred percent correct when I did get to see it. Now, have you finalized the number of players?”

“Eighty-two have pre-registered,” Griffen said. “I’m leaving fourteen slots open for walk-ins. I have a single-elimination chart set up.” He would have liked to run a double-elimination tournament, but he doubted that the public would have the patience, especially if they had a hundred players.

“Good. I have arranged for an easel here beside the judges for that purpose,” Ms. Opal said with a nod toward the empty stand. “If you’d like to go down your checklist with me, I’ll make sure we haven’t missed anything we discussed.”

Griffen nodded and turned to the middle of his notebook.

Gris-gris made a circuit of the room. “Can’t see nothin’ that I would add,” he said.

“Are you two playing?” Ms. Opal inquired.

“Yes, ma’am!” Gris-gris said. “Been sharpening my cue for the purpose.”

“Yes,” Griffen said. “That was one of Ms. Dunbar’s requests.”

“I like that girl,” Ms. Opal said. She gave a decisive nod. “Her programs for young people are turning shoplifters into customers. I think she’d make a fine governor. Not that I am political by nature.”

“Neither am I,” Griffen said. “Thanks, Ms. Opal. This all looks great.”

“My pleasure, young man,” the former teacher said, her eyes glinting behind her diamante glasses. “You had many good suggestions for this event. Are you certain you wouldn’t like to take your talents into a full-time profession? Intelligent party planners are scant on the ground.”

“No way!” Griffen said, hastily. “Ma’am.”

Ms. Opal smiled. “If you change your mind, Mr. Griffen, come on back. I’d like to claim first call on your services.”

“If that ever happens, ma’am, you have my word.”

Once they had escorted Ms. Opal back to her office, Griffen and Gris-gris stopped in the hotel’s coffee shop for afternoon refreshments. The waitress brought them Diet Cokes and slices of chocolate pecan pie.

“She’s formidable,” Griffen said, going over his notes. “I would never have forgotten to turn in my homework.”

Gris-gris’s dark eyes flashed. “You know I ain’t afraid of no one, Grifter. Ms. Opal’s the exception that proves the rule. Truth be told, I was afraid she’d find something wrong on my work.”

“But she never did. Sounds like she knew you better than you knew yourself.”

“I was only a kid then! Hope to God someone knew me better than I did!”

Griffen’s pocket buzzed, followed by ringing. With an apologetic look at the patrons in the coffee shop who glanced up in annoyance, he fished out his phone.

Before he could get out a hello, Holly Goldberg’s voice interrupted him. She sounded frightened.

“Griffen! Have you heard anything from Val?”

“No, I haven’t,” Griffen said. The spark of fire in his belly ricocheted off his internal organs. “What’s happened? Is she . . . ?” He couldn’t say the word.

“She is alive,” Holly assured him, “but she is in mortal danger. The word broke through while I was reading someone else’s palm in Jackson Square. The gods know what he thought when I started babbling about monsters and aliens.”

“Is that about Val?” Gris-gris asked. Griffen nodded. “Where is she?”

“Monsters? Aliens?” Griffen asked. “What does that mean?”

“I have no idea,” Holly said, apologetically. “I just know what I saw.”

“Monsters? Chasin’ my lady?”

Griffen waved a hand to quiet him, but Gris-gris didn’t pay any attention. He snatched the phone out of Griffen’s hand.

“Who’s this?” he asked. “Uh-huh. This is Gris-gris. You doing okay, Ms. Holly? Me, too. What about Ms. Val? Say that again? Bald and white-skinned? Anything else? I KNOW it ain’t like a telephone! I got to know what you saw! I been worryin’ about Ms. Val for months! Well, of course she is. Yeah. Thank you, Ms. Holly. God bless you. Uh-huh, yeah, and your goddess, too.”

He clicked off the phone and handed it to Griffen.

“She’s comin’ home, Ms. Holly don’t know from where, but there’s somethin’ chasin’ her. Ain’t no . . . what you are. Skinny, pale, and dangerous, like one of the Little Gray People. That’s all we got to go on.”

“Not all.” Griffen frowned. He clicked on the small cell phone’s directory listing and poked the number. He gripped the table’s edge with his hand while counting the rings. After the fourth buzz, a pleasant female voice answered.

“May I help you?”

“This is Griffen McCandles. I have to talk to George, right away!”

“This is Debbie, Mr. McCandles. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is . . .” Gris-gris waved a hand in his face. Griffen realized his voice was rising to a shout. By their peeved expressions, the other patrons were growing restless at his repeated interruptions. He brought it down to a stage whisper. “The problem is that my sister is in danger!”

“Has she contacted you?”

“No! I . . .” Griffen felt foolish saying it, but he got the words out anyhow. “A witch told me that there’s some kind of monster after her.”

“I see,” Debbie said. He could hear keys clattering. “A reliable witch?”

“I would say so, yes.”

“All right. Thanks for the heads-up. Let me try him right now, and I’ll get back to you.”

Griffen listened to the click in his ear and put the phone down. He and Gris-gris stared at one another.

“That your private detective?” Gris-gris asked. He could hardly sit still.

“Yes,” Griffen said. “I wonder what went wrong?”

“What can we do? I got to save Val!”

“I don’t know!” Griffen said.

“Well, I ain’t no good at just waitin’ around!”

“We have to,” Griffen said. “We don’t know where to go.”

The phone between them rang. Both of them snatched for it, but Gris-gris was faster.

“Hello? This is Gris-gris. What? No, tell me! Oh, all right.” He handed the device to Griffen.

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. McCandles. Our confidentiality rules are strict. We only give information to the client.”

“That’s all right. What did George say?”

Debbie sounded frustrated.

“I can’t reach him. The message says that he is out of cell-phone range at the moment. I have left a message to have him notify you as soon as he can.”

What more could he say? Griffen thanked her and hung up.

“What do we do?” Gris-gris asked. “No way I can raise enough people to watch all the roads until she get here. We’ll just have to drop out of the tournament.”

“I can’t!” Griffen said, torn. “I promised my uncle. He’s got a lot riding on Penny.”

“You have any other way to find Val?”

“No,” Griffen said. “We’ll just have to defend her when she reaches us.”

Gris-gris nodded and patted the inside pocket of his light jacket.

“Yeah. That monster better be ready to run. I’ll be loaded for grizzly bear.”

Griffen didn’t reply. He worried that guns and a protective brother dragon might not be enough.

•   •   •

George
hugged a tight curve coming down the steep country road. Once he got it up to speed, the Prius did pretty well. Mai must have gassed it up right before she went to get Val. The needle had hardly left the F side of the gas gauge.

Ahead, he spotted a green route marker. He let out a huge sigh of relief. He had studied the area map and a topographical chart, so he knew that a left would take him to the city and the airport. Mai might want to fly back to New Orleans, but Val had no identification with her. After 9/11, she couldn’t get past security, especially not with tickets bought on the spot. They would have to drive.

He waited for a semi to pass, then swung into the lane behind it. The screen of his mobile phone lit up. He noticed the name of a local carrier and four blessed bars of signal. He grabbed it and hit the autodial.

When Debbie answered, he blurted out a report of what had just happened.

“I lost sight of the demon about fifteen miles back, but there just aren’t too many through routes out of here. Mai had a cell phone. Call her, Debbie. Keep calling her until she answers. Warn her about the thing. Give them all the data we have. Warn them!”

“Where are you going?”

“Toward the city. They’re going to want to get on the interstate ASAP. We know they’ll be heading toward New Orleans. Get me some backup!”

“I’ll send every available demon hunter to the area,” Debbie said. “Griffen McCandles wants to talk to you. He got a warning from a local witch. She saw the demon in a vision.”

“Oh, great. Now we’re getting news flashes from the great beyond. Did she say how to defeat it?”

“No.”

“Dammit. That’s why I hate séances. They’re always unspecific about details. I’ll do what I can to catch up.”

George hung up. The words “I told you so” hung in the air, even if Debbie had left them unsaid.