Gentleman Takes a Chance (22 page)

Almost by instinct—he certainly had not had time to get used to this—before Tom opened the door fully, he opened it a crack and put his hand in the opening, as if to catch a baseball. Seconds later a furry warm ball hit it, and clung to his wrist with sharp little needle claws. Tom laughed, as he brought the creature up and held him against his chest. "Hello, Not Dinner. Foiled again." Then he opened the door fully, allowing Conan into the room, and closing it and locking it afterwards. "You can shower first," he said. And realized that Conan was barefoot. "Did you leave your shoes . . . ?"

"Somewhere in the parking lot," Conan said, sullenly.

"I left mine in the diner, near the entrance," Tom said, looking down at his toes. "Well . . . I didn't even realize I was barefoot till now. We get used to this stuff."

"Yeah," Conan said, and went into the shower, to emerge, just seconds after, wearing the same clothes but looking far cleaner, his odd crest of hair standing up. Tom realized in losing his left arm, Conan had lost the red dragon tattoo he'd once had upon his left hand. He wondered if the new one would grow in with the same tattoo. No, it couldn't. That would require something uncomfortably like magic. Then would Conan have to go and tattoo the same image on the back of his hand?

Putting Not Dinner down on the bed, where he proceeded to attack some dust mites floating on a ray of light, Tom got up, wondering what part of Conan's belonging to the dragon triad was volitional, and what part was enforced. He remembered his saying that his parents had more or less turned him over to the Great Sky Dragon because he was a dragon and therefore belonged to him. Belonged. What a very strange word to use.

And Tom knew he should be furious with Conan for allowing the Great Sky Dragon to aim for Tom's mind once more. But he'd aimed for the dire wolf's mind. And Tom had no delusions. He knew that if the Great Sky Dragon hadn't spoken in his mind, the chance was good that he'd now be dead. Dire wanted to kill him. And he couldn't defend himself against Dire. That much was clear.

Tom turned the water on high and hot, and opened a new soap from the little basket of toiletries. Stupid as it was, he, who had for so long washed himself with soap from dispensers and with a combination of wet and dry paper towels at an endless succession of public restrooms throughout the land, felt an almost physical repulsion at the thought of using the same soap Conan had used. The soap Kyrie used, sure. No problem there. She was his, he was hers, in all but the legal marriage sense. He couldn't imagine life without Kyrie and he very much hoped she could not imagine life without him.

But the idea that Conan had used that soap and that there were sloughed-off, Conan skin cells in it made his flesh crawl. Which was stupid, he thought, as he washed himself almost vengefully, under water so hot that it made his skin sting. Conan looked clean enough, and he seemed to be a nice guy.

And then Tom realized it was the thought of the intimacy of belonging. Families used the same bathroom, the same soap. He wasn't ready to admit Conan into his family—if he would ever be. Conan belonged to the Great Sky Dragon—that creature that had now made free of Tom's mind, twice, without a welcome mat.

While the thought that the Great Sky Dragon could make free of his mind didn't fill him with the same horror that having her mind manipulated by the dire wolf seemed to fill Kyrie—understandably, because all the Great Sky Dragon had done was talk in his mind, not manipulate him into believing things that weren't true. Also, arguably, because the Great Sky Dragon, at least at this very moment, didn't seem to feel like killing Tom—it made him feel uncomfortable and used.

He'd brought his underwear, jeans, a T-shirt and socks into the bathroom with him. He'd packed—as he always did—a half-dozen rubber flip-flops, bought at the end of summer. He'd wear those till he could get back to his boots. He could lend a pair to Conan, as well. They wouldn't be much worse than his stupid elastic shoes. He dressed in the bathroom and emerged into the bedroom, with words on his lips which summed up the whole issue he had with this situation: "I don't belong to the Great Sky Dragon," he said, defiantly, saying the words aloud—even though he knew it would bother Conan.

Conan had been playing with Not Dinner—or at least submitting mutely to having his sleeve climbed, and his hair and ear played with. He looked up, startled, and frowned at Tom, "You have to," he said. "You're a dragon."

"I'm not a dragon like you," Tom said forcefully, almost viciously. "In case you haven't realized, we don't look at all alike. As dragons. My body type is completely different.
I
am like one of those dragons that Vikings used to carve in the front of their ships. Perhaps there was once some organization I belonged to, like you belong to the Great Sky Dragon. But I don't belong to him. Or to you."

He felt vaguely guilty saying this, as if he were proclaiming the superiority of Nordic dragons over Asian dragons. In truth, he didn't feel like that at all. He was sure the Asian dragons were far more adept at surviving, for one. Look at how they had an organization that looked after them. And look at how their legends had managed to convince people that they were good and righteous—while all the European dragons had managed to do was simultaneously convince people that they were dangerous and that they slept on massive hoards of gold. Thereby creating perfect conditions for people to hate them and to steal from them—to take their valuables and proclaim themselves heros in doing this.

He wondered if the hoard and treasures were true, and then thought that if shifters really lived as long as Old Joe claimed—as long as the Great Sky Dragon appeared to have been alive—then it could very well be true. If you looked at the panorama of your life as covering hundreds or thousands of years, then everyone got to live in interesting times. Every long-lived shifter's life could cover wars and revolutions and endless upheavals. And gold often saw you through all of those. So why not hoard?

"It doesn't matter," Conan said. "It doesn't matter if you are an Asian dragon or not. You are a dragon. You're a child of the . . . of the G . . . of Himself."

Tom frowned at him. That was what he had wanted to fend off, he realized. Not the fact that the triad dragons were Asian—he really couldn't care less about that. What he wanted to fend off, more than anything, was Conan's—and seemingly the Great Sky Dragon's—belief that Tom belonged to him from birth. That Tom had no choice in this matter.

Tom had never been good at obeying. His inability to obey his parents, his teachers, his counselors or his advisors had made his—and probably his parents'—lives living hell long before he had turned into a dragon and been kicked out of the house. He always felt like, should someone tell him to go one way, he must immediately go the other. It was something deep within himself, something he was aware of but didn't feel he could change without becoming someone else—without dying, in a way.

And now this organization he didn't like or trust, this organization that was involved in criminal activities, and whose code of honor was as quirky as that of any mafia throughout history, wanted to claim him. He shrugged, as if to throw back their imagined weight from his shoulders, and picked up a hair tie from the packet he'd left on top of the dresser. Confining his still-damp hair into a ponytail, he said, jerkily, "I am not his child. And even if I were, that wouldn't mean I was
his
. That I
belonged
to him."

Yet Conan had allowed himself to be mutely handed over to this organization by his dutiful parents. Tom thought it was better—and more humane—to force your kid out on the street at gunpoint, as his father had done, than to hand him over to the designs and whims of a supernatural creature who probably would care nothing for him.

He saw Conan's small despondent shrug, which seemed to signify he couldn't do anything about either Tom's belonging to the Great Sky Dragon or Tom's stubbornness, and Tom said, "I am my own."

And in the next moment wondered how that could be true, when the Great Sky Dragon had the ability to enter his mind and make him hear his thoughts.

Rafiel kept his eye on Keith's friend as he moved around the tables taking orders. He'd never really had a job as a waiter, but he had helped Alice sometimes when she worked at this same diner, back when it was The Athens. It was amazing how it came back to him and, except for the fact that Tom's menu was far more elaborate than that of the old Athens, and that he wasn't really desperate to get tips to supplement his income, it was just like being back in time.

His gestures came back, too—the broad wipe at the table before taking orders—the scribbling of orders on his pad, the carrying of the trays, one-handed and perfectly balanced.

As he approached the table where a new customer had just sat, he did a double take. The customer had pulled her—fake-fur fringed—hood back from her face, and was unbuttoning her black, knee-length knit outer coat. Underneath it, it was Lei, from the aquarium, with her long, sleek black hair, her exotic features, and her very shapely body, highlighted by a miniskirt and tight sweater. At least, Rafiel thought, as he ran his gaze over her legs—purely out of concern, of course—she was wearing thigh-high leather boots. He still didn't understand how anyone could, voluntarily, wear a miniskirt in this weather, but then again he couldn't really understand how anyone could voluntarily wear any skirt in cold weather. He'd consider it a peculiarity of the female brain—like inability to feel your legs from the thigh down—were it not for all those proud Scots and their kilts.

"Hello," he told Lei, smiling at her, and giving the table a quick wipe. "How may I help you?"

She was staring at him, openmouthed, just like he had grown a second head, or possibly stood on his head, and it took him a moment to realize in what capacity she had met him, and what she must think of him. A brief, lunatic impulse commanded him to tell her that he was his own underachieving twin, but this he conquered, forcefully. Instead he told her, "I'm just giving some friends a hand for an hour or so. I haven't changed jobs."

Lei turned very red, as though she'd been thinking exactly that, then grinned. "Oh well," she said. "I had been thinking that the police in Goldport must pay very poorly if their officers moonlight in diners."

"Nah. I'm friends with the owners and they had to go out for a little bit."
Please let it be only a little bit.
He gave her his best dimpled smile, which had made weaker women melt. "So, what will you have?"

"Just . . . a hot chocolate," she said, looking at the menu then folding it and returning it to its holder on the edge of the table. "I was just walking by and I felt like coming in." She shrugged. "I guess the aquarium being closed, and my not having to go to work left me with this great need for human company or something."

Rafiel's curiosity peaked at the mention of her having had an impulse to enter the diner. But a deep breath brought him no whiff of shifter-scent. Only the smell of washed female flesh and some perfume that was deep and spicy and hot, and probably cost upward of his salary per ounce and likely sold under some name like Dagger or Treason or something of the sort. And then, after all, people did sometimes feel an impulse to just go in somewhere without being shifters or smelling the specialized pheromones that infused the diner. He shrugged. "Right. I'll bring it to you, right away."

He went back, and drew the hot chocolate, and got a baleful look from Keith. "Do you have any idea how long Tom is going to be? People are ordering souvlaki, and I'm sure he keeps some pre-made, somewhere, but I can't seem to find it."

"No clue," Rafiel said, as he added a dollop of whipped cream atop the cup of rich, dark hot chocolate. "Sorry. But they should be back soon. They said it was only for a few minutes."

"Right," Keith said, but in a tone that implied he didn't believe it. He lowered a basket of fries into the oil, causing a whoosh that seemed deliberate and, somehow, irritated. "You know, I wasn't intending on having to work. I just came in to introduce Summer to you guys, and now here I am, working."

"I know," Rafiel said, trying to be patient. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Keith was younger than all of them. And sometimes it was much too easy. "I know. I'm sure they didn't mean to go out either. Quite sure."

Keith made a sound under his breath. It could probably be translated as "harumph." Rafiel couldn't answer that in any way, so he turned his back, and took Lei her hot chocolate, which she received with a wide smile, as if he had just fetched her fire from the mountain.

"I don't suppose you can sit and talk?" she said.

He looked around, and at the moment there wasn't any customer clamoring for his attention, so he shrugged. "Not sit," he said. "But I suppose I could talk a little. It isn't as though I'm going to get fired. It's just if I stand, at least anyone who needs something knows whose attention to get."

"Oh," she said. And "Yes."

He smiled. "So, what do you need to talk about?" He wondered about her brittle frailty and once more it seemed to him as though she were trying to make a play for his attention—whether his romantic attention or his friendship, he couldn't tell.

All other things being equal, he would have discouraged her. It was often easier to get rid of prospective romantic interest before the first date than after. It saved the girl some hurt feelings and him some of that fury to which hell could not compare.

However, Lei was involved—by working in the aquarium, if nothing else—in the case with the sharks. And Rafiel was never sure when a romantic come-on was just that, or an attempt by an otherwise awkward bystander to tell him something about a case in progress.

"It's not so much that I need to talk," she said, and looked down at her hands, one on either side of the hot chocolate cup. They were nice hands, the nails clean of any polish or shine, but carefully clipped and filed into neat ovals. "I just . . . I was wondering how long till the aquarium is allowed to open again, because, you know, the thing is that . . . Well, I know I'm only an intern of sorts, and I'm there to study as much as to work, but you know, they pay me, and I count on that payment to help make my tuition at CUG."