Robert Asprin - Dragons Luck

“Yes… no… damn it, I don’t really know. That was what I was trying to figure out,” he said.

“Jerome has some questions about my stepping back from the management of our affairs,” Mose said.

“I thought you had already talked to Griffen about that,” Valerie said.

Jerome focused more on her. His eyes filled with questions. Valerie latched on to the most obvious one and shrugged.

“There isn’t much we don’t share when we talk, Jerome. It’s part of being brother and sister,” she said.

She tried very hard not to think of what a hypocrite that made her. Hiding not only her scuffle with Lizzy, but, more important, her pregnancy.

“My sisters and me don’t talk like that. Still, no big deal. Yeah, we did talk, and he’s gotten better at switching his interests between the games and this conclave of his. I got no gripe with him,” Jerome said.

Valerie hadn’t even known that Jerome had siblings. She hadn’t asked much about his family. Or Mose’s for that matter. She did ponder for a minute on just how little she knew about people she had to trust.

“So what’s the problem?” she asked.

“I got no gripe with him, except he’s put off talking to Mose for too long.” Jerome turned his attention back to Mose. “I need to know, Mose, why you are backing off now of all times. I thought when we brought Griffen down here, you’d still be doing the job till he’s really learned the ropes. Five, ten years at least.”

“Are you saying my brother can’t handle the job?” Val said.

The other two jumped a little at her tone. Well, Jerome jumped, and he was already a little twitchy today. As far as Mose, the wrinkles around his eyes tightened a bit, and that was enough of a cue for Val. She had learned a while ago how male dragons seemed to react to a good dose of ire from a female.

“No, he isn’t saying that,” Mose said. “In fact, we have both been surprised by just how quick Griffen has picked things up. But Jerome, he thinks like a dragon, and dragons think in long spans. Griffen hasn’t been at the job long enough to have experienced all of the surprises that can pop up.”

“Like a meeting of supernatural crazies hitting town just when the balance of power is being shifted from an older dragon to a younger,” Jerome said.

“Jerome!” Mose said sharply. “I make my decisions for my own reasons, and I don’t have to explain them. I’ve earned that much. The only person I might owe an explanation to is Griffen, when he asks for it. It will be up to him, as your new boss, to decide if he should share.”

“But—” Jerome said.

“You’re tired, you shouldn’t have come here after a long, hard night. Come on back later when we can talk about it calmly,” Mose said.

Jerome slumped in his chair, holding his head in his hands. For a long moment, Valerie was afraid he would break down, but she wasn’t sure in what fashion. He seemed to shudder, and when he looked up, he seemed much calmer. Much more like the Jerome she was used to.

He got up and left without another word. Mose tracked his every movement, and Valerie thought she saw a glisten in his eye. He blinked, and it was gone, but he let his posture slip as he eased back in his chair.

“Damn, I hates bein’ so hard on the boy.”

“Then why were you?” Valerie asked.

“Because he is stubborn as a mule sometimes, Ms. Valerie. And as the joke goes, you got to be kind, you got to be gentle, but first… you have got to get their attention,” Mose said.

Mose reached out for a decanter and glass set on a side table, but his hands were shaking. It was the first time those hands had looked old to Valerie. Old, callused, hard worked. Without a thought, she rose and went over to the table to pour him a drink. Mose took it.

“Thank you kindly. Now, our little melodrama aside, what can I do for you today?” Mose said.

Valerie sighed and poured herself a drink as well. She went back and folded herself into the chair, pulling her legs up under her. Well, it was now or never.

“Mose, do dragons get… feelings?” Val started.

“Like what sort?” he said, and she caught the bit of wariness to his tone.

“Doom, danger, impending peril. The sort of gut reactions that most people pass off.”

“Ah… sometimes. Like you said, most people just pass off such hunches; part of being a dragon is not ignoring one’s instincts. Sometimes, of course, it’s just collywobbles…”

Again, she noticed his hesitation.

“And other times?” Val said.

“You said it was gut reactions. Tell me, was it really your gut?” Mose said.

Val blinked at him.

“No, my heart.”

Mose nodded to himself, as if she had confirmed what he had been thinking.

“Time to talk the stuff of legends again. It is said that, very rarely, a dragon learns to see beyond what is. Well, not see, feel. The old phrase was ‘a heart free from time’ though the translation may have suffered as years have passed,” Mose said.

“Are you saying I’m sensing the future?”

“Not really, it’s more picking up on pain that is to come. Pain of the heart, of grief, not of the body. Don’t think you are going to get some ‘spidey-sense’ or any such nonsense,” Mose said.

“My grief, or others’?”

“Good question. I haven’t the foggiest. And I don’t really know if any of this is true, or applies to you. Still might just be collywobbles.”

Val thought, not so much of what he was saying but of what she wanted to say next. Somehow, it just didn’t feel safe, or smart, to bring up the subject of Lizzy.

Not directly anyway.

“I want to learn how to fight,” Val said.

Now it was Mose’s turn to blink at her.

“What do you mean? I had assumed with all your working out you would have had a decent fill of martial arts.”

“That’s not quite what I mean. I want to know how to fight… as a dragon.”

“No, you don’t,” Mose said.

Val reined in her temper and merely gave him a questioning look.

“Look… I mean it. Dragons fighting dragons, if that’s what you mean, just isn’t done. It takes so much effort, or special skills, to seriously hurt each other. Too much collateral damage. Those old legends said two dragons at war would crumble mountains, and I am not sure that was a metaphor.”

“And what if I don’t have a choice, and find myself without the skill I need?” Val said, and her voice caught ever so slightly.

Mose slumped back in his chair again and narrowed his eyes.

“Are you talking theoretically?” he said.

“I…”

He held up a finger.

“No games.”

“No… probably not,” Val said.

Mose turned his gaze from her and stared out his window. His eyes were much too far away for him to simply be looking at the courtyard outside.

“I have to think on that one, Valerie. I’m… not a fighter, haven’t been since I was a kid. Let me think on if I can in good conscience help you find what you are looking for. Much less whether I can give it to you, or find someone who can,” Mose said.

Valerie started to speak, then thought better of it. She followed Jerome’s course and left without another word.

She could still see Mose staring out his window as she approached the gate to the street. He didn’t seem to be seeing her.

TheMystic Den was one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Quarter. Many of the people who lived and worked in the Quarter did not even know of its existence.

It was the lobby bar for the Royal Sonesta Hotel, one of the largest and most expensive hotels in the Quarter. Even though the hotel itself fronted on Bourbon Street, there was no street entrance to the Mystic Den, so it was overlooked by those who prowled and barhopped their way along that famous tourist attraction. You could only get into it by going through the hotel lobby or via a corridor at the back of the Desire Oyster Bar.