Robert Asprin - Dragons Wild

Griffen thought for a moment, then took a slow, deep breath and blew it all out.

“You’re right.” He nodded. “So, what do we know about this George? What rumors are there?”

“Well, realize that we may not be dealing with him at all,” Mose said. “It may just be someone imitating his style to make you run. Like I say, George is a legend. Almost a boogeyman for dragons. This may be just someone trying to cash in on that legend.”

“Okay,” Griffen said. “But the question still stands. What do we know about him?”

“Well, first off, he’s a bit of an artist,” Mose said.

“I always thought he sounded like a bit of a nutcase,” Jerome muttered.

Mose shot him a look.

“I thought you wanted me to tell this,” he said tersely.

Jerome spread his hands in surrender and leaned back.

“As I was saying,” Mose continued, “the man’s a sort of an artist. He has his own way of doin’ things, and won’t change for anyone. Right off the bat, he always lets his victim know he’s hunting them. That’s what that tarot card is all about. He’s not going to just walk up on you or hit you from behind.”

“Sounds more like a sportsman than an artist,” Griffen said. “He’s handicapping himself like a fisherman using a light test line.”

Mose hesitated, then nodded.

“You may be right,” he said. “Never thought of it that way. Anyways, the other thing he always does is that he’ll take a couple of dry-run passes at you before he makes his real move…just to show you how vulnerable you are.”

“Maybe this guy is a Native American,” Griffen said. “That last bit sounds sort of like counting coup.”

“Except in counting coup, your enemy has a chance to kill you while you’re doing it,” Jerome said drily.

“More like a cat playing with a mouse,” Mose said. “He wants you on edge and jumping at shadows before he does anything. The way I hear it, though, when he makes his move, you’ll know it. It’ll be out in the open, face-to-face. What’s more, he’ll only make one real try. If you survive that, he’ll walk away.”

“I don’t quite get that.” Griffen frowned.

“The story is he gets paid to give it one big try. He’s paid for the effort, not results,” Mose explained. “He’s not going to keep coming at you. That is, of course, unless they want to pay him to try again.”

“He must be pretty good to get hired on those terms,” Griffen said.

“They say he’s the best.” Mose nodded.

“So what exactly can he do to me?” Griffen said. “From what you were saying earlier, I should be pretty hard to harm, much less kill.”

“That would be true for any human that didn’t know what they were going up against,” Mose said. “That’s not the case with George.”

Griffen sighed.

“Okay, give me the bad news,” he said. “What am I vulnerable to?”

“Well, I’ve already told you your skin is pretty tough,” Mose said. “We haven’t really tested you out to see how far your blood has pushed it, but any fire or penetration shouldn’t be able to get through.”

“I can’t help but notice the word ‘shouldn’t,’” Griffen said drily.

“There are always exceptions,” Mose said. “While most edges won’t be able to cut you, I’ve heard of some people getting through with weapons with serrated edges.”

“Serrated edges,” Griffen echoed. “Anything else?”

“Just remember what I told you earlier,” Mose said. “Tough skin, like chain mail, only gives you one kind of protection. Even if your skin isn’t penetrated, you can still be hurt. You can suffer broken bones and bruises if you get hit hard enough…like, say, by a car.”

“Then, too,” Jerome put in, “there are things like poisons that could kill you without going through the skin.”

Griffen stood up and walked to the window where he stood for a moment, looking out.

“What you’re saying overall,” he said at last, “is that I’m really not all that invulnerable.”

“Let’s just say it would be best if you didn’t count on it too much,” Jerome said. “’Course, it’s always best to stay alert and watch out for whatever might be coming at you.”

“Let’s back up a bit here,” Mose said, holding up a hand. “While it may be best to consider and plan for the worst, there are some other possibilities here. The most obvious one I pointed out earlier, that it was just someone running a bluff on you up in Detroit to get you running.”

“There’s one problem with that, Mose,” Griffen said, returning to his seat. “That only works if I recognized the threat, which I didn’t.”

“But you ran,” Jerome pointed out.

“Only because my uncle Malcolm told me to,” Griffen said.

“In a phone call that came in conveniently just after the card got slid under your door,” Jerome said.

“As to your not recognizing the threat,” Mose said, “it could also be a way to make any dragon you tried to hook up with think twice before taking you in. I already told you that dragons can be a sneaky bunch.”

Griffen started to speak again, but Mose held up his hand.

“Le’me try a different slant on this,” he said. “Let’s assume for a moment that this is for real, and that the George is really after you. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s out to kill you.”

“But you said he was a hit man,” Griffen protested.

“I also said he was an enforcer,” Mose said. “See how this sounds. Malcolm told you that you were a bit of a wild card as far as the established dragons were concerned. What if one or more of them decided to hire the George to test you. To put some pressure on you to see what kind of power you have and whether or not you’re a threat to them.”

“So if I understand you right,” Griffen said, “if he tries to kill me and I’m weak, he’ll kill me. If he’s testing me and I’m strong enough to stave him off, it will alert the other dragons that I’m strong enough to be a threat to them.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but yes,” Mose said.

“Somehow I don’t find that reassuring,” Griffen said with a grimace.

“Cheer up, Grifter,” Jerome said. “Mose has already pointed out there’s a good chance this is just some elaborate kind of bluff. Even if the George is after you, remember where you are. Right now, he has no way of knowing you’re in New Orleans. Even if he finds you here, what with everybody in the Quarter knowin’ each other, he’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

Everybody in the Quarter knows each other, Griffen thought to himself. Except for the couple of million tourists who roam the Quarter every year. Any of whom could be a killer in disguise. Great. Just great.

Griffen and Jerome were sitting at one of the small tables in the Irish pub waiting to meet with Gris-gris. It was early afternoon, so the place was nearly empty except for them, the bartender, a few people at the bar, and two guys shooting pool on the back table.

Meeting at a public place had been Gris-gris’s idea, though he had approved their choice of the Irish pub. Despite Mose’s statement that these matters were not handled by rough stuff, apparently Gris-gris was sufficiently worried that he wanted other people around.

The meeting itself was Griffen’s idea, just as he had proposed to handle the matter himself. Mose had agreed on the condition that Jerome went along. Everything had progressed smoothly, and now there was nothing to do but wait.

The waiting made Griffen edgy.

With nothing else to do, his mind was free to mull over anything he might have overlooked and everything that could go wrong. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t think of anything more to do now to improve the situation.