Robert Asprin - Dragons Wild

“There,” she said, resuming her seat. “That should take care of it. Someone will have a headache for sure.”

“I’d say more than a headache,” Griffen said, stifling a grin. “I doubt it has a mind left at all after that.”

“Not the bug, Mr. Griffen,” Rose said, shaking her head. “I’m talking about whoever was using their mind to control it.”

“Control it,” Griffen said, staring at the insect’s remains.

“Remember I told you that some of the folks down here are afraid of you?” the woman said. “Well, there’s one group that has a rapport with animals. Even more than the witches and their familiars. It would not be unlike them to use various animals to spy on you…or even to attack you if they were fearful enough.”

“Well, you said that you would tell them that I’m harmless. Right?” Griffen said. “That should take care of everything.”

“I said that I would try,” the voodoo queen said. “Not everyone listens to Rose. I have something here that might help you with those that don’t.”

She dug into her handbag, and produced something that she handed to Griffen, who examined it. It was a double strand of small black and red beads.

“You put those on now, and wear them all the time,” she said. “They will give you some protection, and mark you as a friend.”

Griffen followed the instructions, then hesitated, suddenly awkward.

“Um, look,” he said. “I don’t want to be disrespectful or insulting, but may I make some sort of a contribution to your temple or whatever to show my thanks for your help and advice?”

“No need for that,” Rose said with a laugh. “You just remember who your friends are while you’re sorting things out. You may need some allies, and there are times we might need to call on you for assistance as well.”

“I see. Sort of ‘Someday I owe you a little favor.’ Right?” Griffen said.

“Something like that. But without the hokey sound track.” The woman smiled. “Now, you go along home. You won’t have any trouble sleeping now that we’ve talked.”

Griffen was leaving the Square before it occurred to him that he hadn’t said anything to Rose about not being able to sleep. He turned and looked back, but couldn’t see her anywhere.

“Hey, Grifter.”

He spun around to find Jerome approaching.

“Jeez! You startled me, Jerome,” he said. “Don’t sneak up on me that way.”

“Since when was walking down the street ‘sneaking up on you’?” Jerome said. “I swung by your place to see if you were still up, but when you didn’t answer I thought you were already asleep. I was just going to have one last one and call it a night.”

“Sorry,” Griffen said. “I guess I’m just a little jumpy. I was just talking with one of your voodoo people and I’ll admit, it spooked me a bit.”

“Really? Who was it?”

“She said she was a voodoo queen, name of Rose. She gave me these beads to…what is it?”

Jerome was staring at him.

“Excuse me. Did you say ‘Rose’?” he said softly.

“That’s how she introduced herself,” Griffen said. “Why? Is she someone important?”

“Grifter,” Jerome said carefully. “Rose has been dead over eight years now.”

The beads suddenly felt very cold around Griffen’s neck.

“I don’t like that. No, suh. I don’t like that one bit.”

Mose was pacing back and forth in his living room as Griffen and Jerome watched. Griffen noticed that the more upset the old man got, the more he slipped into a black southern accent.

“I don’t know,” he said. “She seemed nice enough to me.”

“I’m not talkin’ ’bout Rose,” Mose said sharply. “She was always a fine lady. I’m talkin’ ’bout what she told you. ’Bout the animal folks gettin’ stirred up against you.”

Griffen frowned.

“But she also said that she was going to talk to them and try to calm them down. Won’t that take care of it?”

“She said she’d try to calm them down,” the old man said pointedly. “That’s not the same thing. What’s more important is who stirred them up in the first place. That sounds like dragon work to me.”

“You think it’s Stoner?” Jerome said from where he was leaning against the wall.

Mose thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“Naw. It’s not his style,” he said. “Stoner is more one to use his own people. He doesn’t have the patience to work with locals.”

“Any ideas, then?” Jerome pressed.

“My first thought is that it might be Malinda,” Mose said. “But she normally sticks to the northeast.”

“Who’s Malinda?” Griffen said.

“Old-school dragon,” Mose said. “She works with her family. The dragon equivalent of Ma Barker. Greedy as hell. Her main thing is building up wealth…and I don’t mean with investments. She gets her money the old-fashioned way. She steals it.”

“She’s a thief?” Griffen said.

“More like a pirate,” Jerome said. “She’s a corporate raider. Buys up weak companies, then breaks them up and sells them piecemeal. It’s the white-collar version of a stolen car chop shop.”

“The thing is, I don’t see where she’d profit by going after Griffen,” Mose said. “He’s not a threat to her. And there’s not enough money in our operation to interest a high roller like her.”

“Don’t forget she’s got those kids,” Jerome said. “She may be looking for something for them to sharpen their claws on. If she thinks our operation is weak and ripe for a takeover, targeting Griffen as a backdoor in would be taking care of two birds with one stone.”

“Could be,” Mose said slowly. “That kind of two-pronged attack, creating a diversion so you don’t notice her marching up on you, would be just her style.”

“So, what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Griffen said.

“I’ll put out a few quiet feelers in that direction and try to get a fix on what’s going on,” Mose said. “We don’t want to put any moves on her until we’re sure she’s the one stalking you. If we’re wrong, then she’ll see it as an attack, and we’ll have to deal with both her and whoever it really is coming at us.”

“I guess I meant, what am I supposed to do?” Griffen said. “Do I just sit around and play decoy? Or should I be trying to talk to these animal people myself?”

“Leave that job to Rose,” Mose said. “I think it’s time to work on your animal control skills a bit. Just in case they won’t listen to Rose.”

“I don’t know,” Griffen said. “I mean, I’d love to get some training. But I’ve fooled around with the animal control thing a bit since I got down here, just for curiosity and because it sounded neat. Frankly, I haven’t had much luck with it.”

“It’s like any other muscle or skill,” Mose said. “You’ve got to work with it, practice it, and develop it before you can rely on it. Besides, you might have been playing into a stacked deck. If you’ve been trying to control the animals that you see hanging around you, they could be the very ones that are already under someone else’s control, watching you.”

“Just what animals have you been trying to control, Grifter?” Jerome said.

“Oh, there’s a bunch of feral cats living in our courtyard,” Griffen said. “I’ve been trying to work with them, get them to come to me or something. Mostly, they just stare at me or ignore me completely.”

Jerome threw back his head and laughed.

“Cats?” he said. “Man, Grifter, you can grow old and die before you can get a cat to do what you want it to. Even with a dragon’s life span. Those are some of the most independent beasts God dumped on the earth.”