Robert Asprin's Dragons Run (9 page)

Griffen
made it out into the spring sunshine before he realized he still hadn’t consumed anything but a cup and a half of coffee. He shook his head. Penny could make anyone forget their own name. He looked at his watch. It was too early for a burger at Yo Mama’s, but Annette’s served breakfast all day. He had a sudden yen for their grits grillade, a spicy cutlet served over light, creamy cornmeal mush. He strode toward Dauphine. Once he had some food in his stomach, he intended to go home and get some sleep. He glanced at his phone. No messages from Jerome or his dealers.

“No news is good news,” a soft voice said.

Griffen almost jumped out of his shoes. Rose was walking beside him.

“I’m really glad to see you,” he said. “How long have you been there?”

“Since Brennan’s. You were making decisions. I didn’t want to interrupt you until you had made up your mind.”

Griffen had had to change his mind about a lot of things since coming to live in the French Quarter. One of them was his preconception about voodoo queens and ghosts. Rose was both. Instead of being a wild-eyed harridan calling down curses and sticking pins into cloth dolls, Rose was a lovely, slender, well-groomed African-American woman in her thirties. That is, she would have been in her thirties if she were alive. She wore a scoop-necked blouse, a long, colorful skirt tied tight at her small waist, and a scarf on her head, part of her Creole heritage. Still, she must have had a closet in the afterlife because she also appeared to him in a fancy ball gown.

“That last time I saw you, you were dancing with Detective Harrison,” he said.

Rose’s cheeks dimpled. “Thank you for that. It was good for both of us. I wish him to find closure and move on. If we are meant to be together again after his life’s candle is burned out, that is one thing, but I do not want him to be lonely until then.”

“Do you know something I don’t?” Griffen asked.

She looked at him sideways out of her long eyelashes. “I know many things. Not eternal truths or visions of the future. I see the man I knew. I will watch over him, but he deserves happiness. You can help guide him in that way.”

Griffen had a momentary vision of counseling the burly vice cop on his love life and quailed.

“I doubt he’d let me,” Griffen said. “And it’s really none of my business. We’re not that close. I already know more about his life than he probably feels comfortable with.”

“He trusts you in ways he trusts few others,” Rose said. “That is why you must not lie to him. He is strong. He reacts against new knowledge and sensations, then he steps back to assimilate what he has learned. I have always admired his wisdom. That is one of the things I found attractive about him. And his tendency toward mercy.”

“I’ve benefited from that,” Griffen admitted.

“And you have taken advantage of it. Acknowledge the karmic debt. It is not harmful to owe another as long as you remember you must repay. The eternal balance must be maintained. Your portion in life is great. Be generous with those to whom not so much is given.”

Griffen felt as if he had just opened a fortune cookie. “Whatever that means,” he said.

“You will learn in time. But you said you wished to see me.”

Griffen tried to stifle a yawn and failed. “I have to eat something. Can I buy you breakfast at Annette’s?”

“I do not need earthly food,” Rose said, “but I will enjoy absorbing the pleasure of others who dine there. David Harrison and I often had breakfast there. It has good feelings. And wonderful coffee.”

Griffen wanted badly to ask her about her earthly life, but at that moment he needed her insight about other things.

•   •   •

The
motherly waitress in the tight pink uniform set the menu down on the small corner table and left him alone with the coffeepot. For a weekday morning, the little diner was fairly crowded. Griffen sat with his back to the rest of the room, hoping no one would be able to overhear him. The city had numerous inhabitants that before he had come he would have called “supernatural,” but he had since learned were just ordinary people. Basically, they got along as much as anyone else did. You couldn’t call the loup garou, the shape-changers, or the local vampires good citizens, but they tended to live and let live—most of the time. Not only that, but New Orleans tended to have a greater-than-normal number of tuned-in humans like Holly, who could see the others for what they really were.

“Can anyone here see you?” Griffen murmured, glancing over his shoulder. Two elderly African-American men laughed and argued over their breakfasts. An intense young woman with straight dark hair and eyebrows bent over a book as if absorbing the words along with her coffee. Three young mothers gossiped while their children threw crackers and bits of toast at one another. Half a dozen obvious tourists consulted guidebooks and maps.

“A few,” Rose said. “But they do not recognize me. All they see is a couple at a table. We can speak freely.”

Griffen sighed. “Good.”

She smiled. “You sound like you are setting your bag of troubles down at my feet.”

“I could sure use your help,” he said. “Do you know that Val is missing?”

“Yes, I do,” Rose said. “You need to bring her home before she is changed beyond recognition.”

Griffen felt his heart sink. “Is she in danger?”

“Not for her life,” the priestess said. “She, too, has choices to make. They may not be the right ones. She is young and has much wisdom to gain.”

“I want to find her, but a lot of people are demanding pieces of my time. I’ve hardly checked in on my dealers for three days.”

“You must stand up for yourself, Griffen.”

“I know! I don’t want to get involved with Penny Dunbar. She tried to blackmail me into helping her. Fox Lisa believes in her. I don’t know how much is her qualifications, or this . . . glamour that she gives off. It’s like a drug. I had to keep pinching myself so I didn’t promise her the moon.”

Rose smiled. “A strong woman is a role model for a soul as young as Fox Lisa. She wishes to emulate her. I understand that very well.”

“But Fox Lisa’s strong in her own right,” Griffen said.

“She may not feel that way. She is vulnerable while she works out who she is in this lifetime. Working for Penny Dunbar may give her some insights.”

Griffen frowned. “I don’t really like Penny. She sounds like a nice lady, but she’s tough as a boot.”

Rose laughed, a tinkling sound. “You have had limited experience as yet with Southern women, Griffen. We seem delicate and helpless, yet we must run our households and businesses as well as any man. Do I need to remind you how seldom things are as they seem?”

“Thanks for the philosophy lesson. She was in a major car accident that could have killed her, but it seems as if it didn’t even faze her.”

“Oh, it did. It shook the foundations of the spirit world.”

“A car accident? Why?”

“It was an interference,” Rose said, solemnly. “Malign influence that took over the soul of that poor man in the truck. It was one of the reasons I have not been able to come to you. Many of us found our way back to this world blocked.”

“To kill Penny? But she’s just a politician. Like Duvallier said, they’re a dime a dozen.”

Rose shivered. For a moment, he could see the chair rail through her body.

“It is not merely a person’s profession that shapes the shadow he casts in the world. Penny Dunbar is a receptacle of power, as are you. To remove her would set that power free and cause a void that could easily be filled by evil.”

Griffen felt a cold weight grow in his stomach, to the great annoyance of the point of fire that lived there. “So I should be protecting her?”

“To keep the balance of power, it would seem so.”

“Why me?”

“Partly because she asked you. A person in danger has a right to choose a champion.”

“What about my sister?”

“That is a choice you must make.”

“Well, that’s easy,” Griffen said, firmly. “Val’s well-being and her baby are my first priority.”

“Is it?” Rose tilted her head. “The enigma of life is that we cannot make all things happen.”

One of the other things that Griffen had had to come to grips with was that ghosts weren’t always insubstantial. Rose gripped his arm. Her hand was warm.

“Don’t look on the surface. Look beneath. Penny Dunbar is frightened. She is in danger. That is why she makes alliances she would normally avoid.”

“Like me,” he said.

“And others. Together they form a chain that can anchor her to this world when malign influences would wish otherwise.”

“What does that mean?” Griffen asked.

“Your food’s up in a minute,” the waitress said, coming up beside him with a pot in her hand. “Can I warm up that coffee, honey?”

Griffen glanced up at her. “Sure,” he said. He looked across the table. Rose was gone. It figured. She had left him with more questions than he had before.

He let the waitress pour.

•   •   •

Breakfast
was, of course, on the house, the manager of Brennan’s was pleased to inform Penny.

“We’re always happy to have you here, Representative,” he said, standing and bowing over her hand like an ancient courtier. Penny was pleased. She liked having her importance acknowledged. She had made certain that everyone in the restaurant could see and hear her during the meal. She ate daintily but with open appreciation. Horsie gave her a look of approval.

“Thank you, sir,” Penny said. “Everything was superb, as always. All of the Brennan’s restaurants are stars in this unique city. I just adore the bananas Foster. And that young woman made it so well—what was her name, Lucy?”

“Yes, Lucy,” the restauranteur said, looking gratified.

“Well, thank you very much for a lovely breakfast. Just what I needed after my interview on television this morning. And such a grand antidote to my experience last night—I trust you heard about the incident last night?”

The gentleman’s face immediately went solemn. “Yes, we all did. And we’re all so glad that you came out of it safe and sound.”

“Well, thank you,” Penny said, touching him on the arm. “You are all so very kind.”

Noblesse oblige offered and acknowledged, Penny sauntered to the door. She let her hips sway enticingly, giving the men watching her from behind a little thrill. They would remember it with pleasure. It ought to translate to a good memory at the voting booth.

Horsie held up her hand against the brilliant spring sunlight that met them outside the door.

“Honey, you’re going to freckle like mad if we stay out here in this. I’ll call for the car.”

Penny stopped her from reaching for her cell phone.

“No, it’s a fine day, and we’re not too far from the local office. Let’s walk there. I want to thank the volunteers who are giving up their days, like Fox Lisa here.”

The little redhead soaked up the small compliment like the sunshine. Penny smiled. All these willing souls, all working for her. Barring any
unforeseen
accidents, she would make a good showing in the primary. Next stop, the governor’s mansion. In her mind, Penny had already begun redecorating the office.

From Brennan’s front door, she turned westward along Bourbon Street and set an easy pace, leaving the hip swing in operation. A good deal of foot traffic was abroad. Penny caught the eyes of people who recognized her. If they were across the street, she smiled at them. If they were on the same side, she greeted them and shook hands.

A man in a polo shirt walking with a woman carrying a large tote bag all but stopped to gawk at her. Penny gave them a cool but pleasant nod.

“Aren’t you going to shake hands with them?” Fox Lisa asked, tagging at her heels like an eager puppy.

“Why, no,” Penny said, with a quick glance over her shoulder. “They’re from out of town.”

“You can tell that quickly?”

Penny laughed.

“Oh, honey, you can tell tourists from locals. So can I! That man was just so transfixed by the sight of two gorgeous redheads that his wife is going to kill him. I didn’t want to make matters worse.”

Fox Lisa looked disappointed with herself.

“Oh. You’re right.”

That was one bad case of hero worship that Fox Lisa had. It made her doubt her own common sense. Never mind, Penny reminded herself. It just meant that the girl would never question anything Penny asked of her.

She could feel her skin warming in the blessed sunshine. It probably did mean she would gain a few more freckles, but it was so good to get out and walk. She had so much reading to do when she got back home before going back to Baton Rouge in the morning. She needed to check over the position paper she had dictated to her secretary on mandatory sentencing guidelines—the way the legislature was writing them, they were skewed racially, and Penny couldn’t let that pass. Couldn’t the boneheads see that they would screw their own chances for reelection and her chance to be governor? Most humans were just too dumb to live.

Penny weaved through the visitors on the sidewalk, smiling loftily at potential voters. A shop door opened ahead of them. Penny diverted slightly to avoid the man coming out. At first she only caught a glimpse of the dirty, flat, plaid cap on his head and the ragged scarf around his neck. The next moment, she took in the face between them. She gasped. His nose was a pair of vertical holes, and the mouth was lipless. Teeth in purple-gray gums grinned at her. The eyes bulged from torn sockets. The man, or what was left of one, started toward her, reaching for her with clawlike hands. A gray miasma rose from his body and coiled into the air like a foul smoke. Even though she was several feet away, she recoiled, right into Fox Lisa’s arms.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Horsie asked.

Penny turned to the other women. “That man! Do you see him? Coming out of that store!”

Horsie and Fox Lisa looked past her.

“Which store, darling?” the older woman asked.

“That one!” Penny pointed.

Fox Lisa let go of her and strode ahead. She stopped when Penny nodded. She tugged on the handle.

“Here? This one’s not open yet. The door’s locked.”