Robert Asprin - Dragons Luck

Flynn figured he didn’t really need to stay in New Orleans any longer. Oh, he could do more damage, or finesse things a bit more. Still, Griffen had his card, if the young idiot remembered where he’d put it. He could always call for more sage advice. It was about time Flynn packed up and let nature take its course.

There was a knock at his hotel door.

Flynn looked suspiciously toward the door. Someone wanted something? Just when he had been on the verge of packing his suitcase? Flynn had been at this game far too long to believe in coincidence.

Of course, he never could refuse a good game. He let his curiosity guide him and opened the door.

“Hello, Earl,” Mai said.

Flynn took a step back, surprised despite himself. He had, of course, heard that McCandles had contacts with a representative of the Eastern dragons, but Mai? She smiled, a bit demurely, and stepped into the room. She brushed against his arm as she passed, and the scent of jasmine clung to her skin.

“I should have known,” Flynn said, frowning.

“Oh, now, you make it sound like a bad thing I am here.”

“It probably is. Still, let’s go through the motions, shall we?”

“Let’s.”

The two eyed each other for a moment, and Flynn shut the door. There was a tension here; there always had been with Mai. He always thought that it must be the same type of sensation two chess masters felt when they played. Well… one chess master, and one very promising amateur.

He had no doubts which one he was.

“You are staring,” Mai said with another small smile.

“Ah, yes—the motion. Well, you do look very good, Mai.”

“Thank you,” she said.

She did, too. She was in a dark red dress cut to make one think of a kimono without actually being one. It hung off one shoulder and revealed a lovely expanse of skin. One side was split nearly to the hip, letting her shapely leg slip into the light now and again.

“It’s been a long time,” Flynn said.

“Yes, it has. Shall I say it first, or should you say it?” asked Mai, smile sliding from demure and starting to resemble a smirk.

“Together, I think,” Flynn said.

“On three.”

“One,” said Flynn.

“Two,” said Mai.

“Three. What is your interest in Griffen McCandles?” they said together, in perfect unison.

Flynn laughed, a rich, honest laugh. Mai pretended to blush, but her eyes glinted. He knew she was enjoying this as much as he. She walked over to the little table in the room and sat down, crossing her legs and letting her skirt slide loose to the thigh.

“I asked you first,” she said, and stuck out her tongue like a child.

“Of course you did.”

Flynn shook his head and took the other chair. He steepled his fingers, and the two watched each other, silence stretching into minutes. They both knew the game very well, and old rules stated that whoever talked first, lost.

“Of course,” Mai said, as if reading his thoughts, “I have made a career out of breaking old rules.”

“Yes, you have. Whereas I have made them work for me. To answer the question that you did not ask first”—Flynn paused to stick his tongue out at her, then winked—“the boy shows potential. I would like to harness that potential.”

“Of course you would. And I would like to see him harness his potential,” Mai said.

“What, with nothing in return?” Flynn asked.

“Well, he is fun in bed.”

“Marry me, Mai,” Flynn said.

For the first time Mai’s expression dipped to a frown. Flynn smiled, knowing he had scored a point; it paid to deviate from the script now and again.

“We have been down that road. Not a chance, Earl.”

“You know I hate to be called that,” he said.

“Of course,” she said.

“We would have been absolutely terrible for each other.”

“Perhaps. You will never find out now will you? That is what you get for courting my father, when you should have been courting me.”

She stood and smoothed her skirt into place. Flynn remained seated, though he knew he could prolong the meeting if he stood. If he would meet her halfway.

“I thought you should know—now that I know you’re in the game, I will undo whatever it is you have set in motion,” Mai said.

“If you can. I always could check your moves in the past.” Flynn nodded to her.

“But, as you said, it has been a long time.”

Mai began to move to the door, then paused. When she turned, her smile was back on her face. She reached down her dйcolletage, and drew out a small envelope.

“Oh yes, this was taped to your door. Sorry if I peeked.” She handed it to him, smiled once more, and left before he could open it. He shook his head, looking at the door. Well, the game was now worth staying around for at least. He opened the envelope.

The contents were even more surprising than Mai’s presence.

A Knight of Swords tarot card.

He half growled to himself and chucked it in the wastepaper basket. He wasn’t irritated by the card so much, but by the puzzle. Had the minx really found it? Or worse, had she brought it herself?

Could Mai know he’d hired George?

Valdidn’t know what to do.

It had taken a day for the cuts on her face to heal to thin pink lines. It had been a day where she had avoided everyone. A day when she looked inside, tried to figure out what she should do. What she could do.

Her first reaction was to protect her brother. The thoughts that followed that were more convoluted. Which protected Griffen more? Telling him about the threat of Lizzy or heeding her warning? And somewhere in the darker parts of Val’s mind, she wondered if she was really protecting him at all or if she was just afraid.

That thought she pushed quickly away. What filled her wasn’t fear, it was anger. Every time she thought about that fight, brief though it might have been, her hands tightened into fists and her jaw clenched. If only she knew where Lizzy was. If only she had reason to believe that this time there was a chance that things would be different.

She had spent a lot of time in the last day staring into her mirror. Watching the cuts on her face. It seemed that they almost healed as she watched, the speed of her flesh knitting just slightly slower than the eye could follow. As if she could watch for just a second more and actually see the change. But she always blinked eventually, and when she looked back… well, who could be sure?

So much for not believing in being a dragon. As if a brawl with a shape-changing psycho bitch hadn’t been enough for her. Something inside Val shifted suddenly. Her worldview, and self-image, changing ever so slightly.

They looked little more than scratches now, those cuts from those odd claws. She was tired of hiding. She needed to move, to walk, to center herself. Valerie hit the streets.

She didn’t think about where she was walking. She just walked, still sorting through her own thoughts and emotions. However, unlike her jog a few days ago, when she had tuned the world out, she only let part of herself sink inside now. She seemed almost hyperaware of the people she passed, instincts judging each for level of threat, and rational mind backing up the judgments with a second glance.

She was just so angry. Furious. On the brink of true rage, and the sad thing was that her anger wasn’t aimed toward Lizzy. She was angry at herself. Valerie always thought of herself as so strong, so confident. She had devoted a good chunk of her life to being as fit and competent as she could be. It wasn’t the fact that she lost that bothered her. It was how badly she lost, how little she had fazed Lizzy. She should have done something more, hurt her more.