Dragons Deal (37 page)

That really inflamed her temper. Valerie straightened her shoulders, growing a foot taller in the cramped room. "Nothing special? Gris-gris IS special! He's a gentleman. He treats me like gold. He wooed me, unlike your 'special' son. If Nathaniel was really so wonderful, he wouldn't have had to use his talent on me, would he?"

"It's a dragon's way to take what she wants," Melinda pointed out. "You've done that, haven't you?"

A trifle guiltily, Val thought about the way that she and Gris-gris made love, with Val firmly in control. Melinda nodded.

"Yes, I know. It's none of my business. Then, on to what IS my business. You. You and this precious child you are carrying."

She glanced over her shoulder at the armed men in suits. Val went even more on guard. Melinda turned back. She smiled like a shark. But instead of moving closer, the men edged back. They were still between her and the door.

"What do you want?" Val asked.

"To give you a world of opportunity," Melinda said. "Come with me. Right now. I have a limousine waiting."

"No! You'll take me away. This is
my
life."

Melinda smirked. "Mai told you I'd kidnap you, didn't she? I can just guess what that little oriental bitch has been telling you. Make your
own
judgment! Are you a dragon?"

"Yes! That's what everyone keeps telling me!"

"Don't do that! Decide based on what you know, not what other people tell you. Here are the facts: I have been within reach for almost three months. Have I laid a single finger on you?"

Val paused before answering. "No."

"Am I coercing you to get in a car with me?"

"Well, no, but . . ."

"Just no! Then how am I impinging on your life?"

"You're here! You keep calling me. Nagging me! I want time to make my own decisions. Back off. Leave me alone. I'll get along fine without you."

Melinda shook her head. "You need advice. I spoke to your brother. He is concerned that you are taking this step too soon on your own. I have a proposal for you. Let me take your child and raise it. You can get on with your life. You will have full access, but you can finish growing up."

"I am grown-up!"

Melinda clicked her tongue. "My mistake. I shouldn't put it that way. Let me say it differently: I want you to have the opportunity to fulfill your potential. Being a very young, marginally employed, single mother will make it harder for you to achieve it. Do you want to finish college? Do you want to have a career? I can help."

"Your help? I would rather have a goiter and two broken legs!"

"You can have all three," Melinda said calmly. "They're not mutually exclusive. Let me raise the baby until you feel ready to take care of it. I'm a mother. I love babies. I have been through all the stages: colic, sleepless nights, teething, head colds, diarrhea. I can handle it. I'm not the monster you think I am."

Val reminded herself that not all monsters looked like monsters. Some of them looked very pretty, like those crazy changelings that had been all over the conclave dance. And some of them looked like the president of a powerful corporation. But only one thing was keeping Melinda here, terrorizing her. She steeled herself.

"You had better get out of town while you still can," Val said, dropping her voice to a cold whisper. "I don't have to bring your grandchild into the world. You've got three kids. Let one of the others have a family. This one doesn't have to be your pawn."

Melinda's eyes narrowed. She understood what Val was implying. "You wouldn't dare."

Val knew she would not, but Melinda didn't. She put her chin up defiantly. It was hard to push the words out, but she managed.

"Some of my friends have had terminations. It was horrible for them, but they couldn't handle having a child too soon. Maybe it's the same for me. I . . . I know where to go."

Melinda's face turned purple. "You can't!"

Val looked down her nose at the shorter woman. "I can. Anything rather than having you hounding me and hovering over me for the rest of my
life
!"

"You'd really do it?"

"Yes! Anything to get you to go away!"

Melinda threw open her arms. "Come here, darling! You really
are
a dragon!"

"What?" Val found herself enfolded and pounded on the back.

Melinda held her at arm's length and beamed at her.

"Only a dragon could make a statement like that to tip the balance of power. It's immature and misguided, and I know that you would rather tear your own intestines out and drape them around your neck than harm a single scale on that baby, and you were reluctant even to think about it; but I really admire you, Valerie. I was beginning to wonder if being raised as a human had made you too soft. Boy, was I wrong! You are the real thing, sweetheart."

Val pushed away and retreated out of reach. "I still don't want you bothering me."

Melinda waved a hand. "You'll get over it. You will need my help. I can be a resource for you. You can ask me anything. I don't mind. I do not embarrass easily."

"Yeah, I figured that out," Val said. "Otherwise, you might have civilized your own kids."

Melinda put an arm around her and patted her on the back. "I tried. You have to believe me. But after a while, they go their own way. And Lizzy--never mind. I don't want to rehash the past. She will not bother you. I can keep her busy somewhere else. All I want is to be in my grandchild's life as it grows up. Malcolm doesn't understand the softer feelings. He sees them as weakness. I know that you need the entire range to be effective. I can be brutal, but real loyalty comes when you love someone."

"I know that," Val said.

"I will limit my contact with you, if that's what bothers you so much," Melinda said, "but you have to allow me some. You are a strong woman. I do believe you now when you say you can handle what's coming. What I ask is if you feel something is going to be too much for you, that you swallow your pride and ask for help. It's harder than going it alone, I know. But you have talents of your own that even your prodigy of a brother will never have an inkling of."

Val was confused. "What kind of talents? I can grow big and I'm superstrong. What else?"

Melinda regarded her pityingly. "You don't even know what you have got there under the hood, do you? No, of course not. That Mose didn't want you to know that your potential is greater than your brother's."

"What?" Val was suspicious.

"I am not lying. They haven't told you about female dragons, have they? They fear us, darling. They
fear
us. We can run circles around them. There isn't a male dragon that can equal us, and they didn't want you to know that. I will help you reach the pinnacle. You can learn to control all your talents. Ask Griffen. He knows more than he has ever said. They call us female dragons wild. But we can control that savagery and make it work for us. You shouldn't be wasting your time pouring drinks in a side-street bar and rolling the occasional man who catches your eye. You could be running a major corporation or a small country."

Val pouted. "I like my life the way it is."

"Shut up!" Melinda roared. It was the first time she had turned on her own power. Until then, Val had thought of her as what she looked like, a middle-aged East Coast matron who might have just come from a mah-jongg game. Now she looked like a dragon, a fierce, bloodthirsty beast. "You can't be serious! Living in a dump of an apartment, with thirdhand furniture and thrift-shop clothes? At least you should learn your capabilities before you throw them away. Take responsibility for yourself! Live, don't just exist. If I give you no other gift, as the mother of my grandchild, I will give you that. You don't have to like me, but you should respect me. I am what you could become."

Val had regained her aplomb. "And who says I want to be that pathetic?"

Melinda's eyes narrowed, but she seemed pleased. "You are so young," she said. She patted Val on the cheek. Val flinched backward. "I want you to think it over. I'll be in town. Good-bye, dear. I'll call you."

She seemed to vanish among the ancient wooden shelves. Val rushed out of the storeroom, expecting to see chaos in the bar, but it was clean. The stoic-faced men in suits had cleared up the room while she and Melinda had been in the back. Not a shard of glass or a drop of liquor was on the floor. They had reopened the shutters. Even the broken chairs had been repaired. All that was left was to turn the CLOSED sign back to OPEN.

That woman! That woman was going to haunt her the rest of her life! Val looked longingly at the whisky behind the counter.

No.

As much as she hated to admit it, she found sense in some of what Melinda said. She did need to take a harder look at where she would be a year from then, or five, or ten. Griffen was working for the future; why shouldn't she?

And what was that information about female dragons that she claimed he was concealing from her?

Griffen
fingered his tie. He was getting used to formal attire. In fact, he looked good in it, something that he had resisted knowing. It was just so much trouble! How women went through all of the fussing and froufrouing to get ready for a date, he didn't know. He knew his gender was not innocent of having expectations about women that were difficult to meet naturally. Long, dark eyelashes, for example. Rosy cheeks and lips. A smooth, curved figure. Men, as Val had remarked with some asperity, could show up in anything and, as long as it was clean and in good repair, would be accepted at any event up to white tie. He had seldom had to rise to the occasion. He had failed to appreciate how much the women he had dated did to look nice for him.

He sat in the middle of the rear seat of the taxi, between Fox Lisa and Mai. Both of them looked spectacular. Mai, in the red silk dress and lipstick to match, dripping with expensive jewelry, sat serenely on his right. Tourists staggering down Royal with plastic cups in their hands stared through the window at her. She waved to them with her fingers together as Griffen had seen the Queen of England do. The gesture didn't seem at all out of place. On his left, Fox Lisa, in electric blue, had become a queen herself. She held her head high. Her red hair had been swept up into a chignon with a peacock-feather eye nestled against it. Griffen realized he hadn't noticed how long and slender her neck was. He felt like leaning over to kiss it. Her many tattoos peeked out from the brief, tight black dress like jewelry. He had never noticed that the twining snakes on her wrists resembled 1920s enameled Cleopatra bracelets.

The streets were more crowded than he had ever seen them. He understood why many of his friends who had lived in the French Quarter longer than he had hid out during the two weeks before Mardi Gras, and why "tourist" was a dirty word though the persons were a necessary evil. It was like one long, very intense spring break, in a much smaller area than Miami Beach. They came to drink and carouse. They came to listen to the music. They came to bare their breasts for strings of beads. They came to scream at the parades and join in dancing on the street once the last band had passed by. Yet there was an entire stratum of the carnival that they never touched, and many of them never knew existed. Griffen looked back on what he had learned in the last couple of months, and marveled. The citywide party that seemed so obvious was multilayered, intricate, took months, if not years of planning, and accommodated hundreds of thousands of celebrants of every kind. He watched the staggering men with pity, knowing that he could well have been one of them as recently as the year before.

They pulled up into the taxi queue in front of the hotel. "Now, remember," Doreen said, putting her elbow on the seatback, "use the glass doors to the ballroom only. The police won't let you in again if you use the main hotel doors. There was a big fuss a few years ago. One of the superkrewe kings got locked out of his own ball because he got arrested for starting a fight with the cops. Don't make me come and get you from the lockup."

"Thanks," Griffen said, handing her the fare plus a large tip. He had taken the winnings from his unexpected game with Peter Sing and paid off his employees, and had been eking out his own expenses with the residue. At least he had enough for taxi fare home, as well.

Fox Lisa slid out on her own and waited on the curb. Griffen alighted and went around to help Mai out of the other door. With both ladies on his arms, he sauntered inside to join the crowd already assembling in the anteroom.

Molly Harting, the wife of the ball committee chairman, waited at a table by the door of the ballroom. She examined their invitations and checked off their names on a list. An ornate display featuring a gold dragon wearing a domino mask and dripping with beads loomed over little tent cards that stood in rows on the table. Each had a picture of the same gold dragon curled around the calligraphed name of a guest.

"That's your table number," Molly said, handing Griffen his card. Mai and Fox Lisa found their own. "Of course, all of you are at the head table. Enjoy."

"Thanks," Griffen said, gallantly. "May I reserve a dance with you?"

She giggled with pleasure. "Your dance card is likely to fill up before I can write my name, Your Majesty. Thanks anyhow. See you inside. Oh!" She reached behind the figure of the dragon and brought out three masks. "Put these on, and don't take them off until your name is called."

"Griffen!" Val called.

Griffen turned to look for her in the crowd. The women in evening gowns and coiffed hair were all strangers. One of them broke away from the crowd and came over to Griffen. The most attractive was a statuesque blonde in blue silk and a white lace shawl over her bare shoulders whose hair had been sculpted into Grecian coils. She had amazingly long eyelashes and very pretty blue eyes. Griffen was speculating on who she might be, when she came over and hit him in the arm with her fist.