“Let me make it easy for you,” Valerie said.
She moved to her purse, fished in it for a few moments, then returned to where he was sitting.
“I’m betting it has something to do with this.”
She laid a tarot card on the bar in front of him. It was a match for the two in Griffen’s wallet except it was a bit faded and distorted…as if it had been wet and then dried out.
“Where did you get that?” Griffen said.
“Remember when we were walking down Bourbon and you got hit by a go-cup?” Valerie said. “Well, I found this in the go-cup when I picked it up.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“Look at who’s talking,” she challenged. “I remember what you said about getting one of these up in Detroit, but you’ve been ducking the question every time I asked about it. Then someone trashes your car and you are jumping more and more at shadows. I kept waiting for you to fill me in, but I’ve given up. So talk to me, Big Brother. What’s going on?”
Pushed into a corner, Griffen filled her in on the situation with the George, trying to keep it as casual and unimportant as possible. For example, he left out that he was in his car when it was ruined.
“I see,” she said when he had finished. “So why couldn’t you tell me about this sooner?”
“Well, Mose and Jerome…it’s just that female dragons have a bad reputation for overreacting,” Griffen said weakly. “We were afraid that if you knew, you’d try to take an active hand and maybe get hurt.”
“Uh-huh.” she said, deadpan. “Do you see me storming around or getting angry? I agree, this sounds way out of my league. I’m more than content to let you and Mose deal with it.”
Griffen felt muscles relax that he hadn’t known were tense.
“You don’t know how much of a relief that is to me, Val,” he said sincerely. “Not telling you has been bothering me. If nothing else, now that you’re on board, I can bounce some things off you.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like Nathaniel, for one,” he said. “It seems to me that…”
Valerie was suddenly looming over him.
“You leave Nathaniel out of this,” she hissed. “I care for him and he cares for me. End of story. Go off and play whatever dragon games you want, but keep away from us!”
With that, she marched back to the end of the bar and picked up her book, pointedly ignoring him.
After a moment, Griffen finished his drink and left without saying anything more.
So much for female dragons not being temperamental.
Forty-four
At first, Griffen took little notice of the spatters on the sidewalk.
Mostly, he was coming to grips with exactly how spooked he was by the events of the last week. He didn’t usually come in this early, but somehow cruising the Quarter late at night had lost its appeal. He realized now that he had been reluctant to come out at all. It wasn’t so much that he was scared. Just totally out of his depth.
Voodoo queens and dope dealers. People using animals to spy on him or perhaps even to attack him. Life on the University of Michigan campus in sleepy small-town Ann Arbor had failed to prepare him for this.
The now familiar scenery of the Quarter suddenly seemed a bit ominous and threatening. Was the rolling boom box that had cruised past him a few blocks ago just showing off, or was it one of the packs of dope dealers keeping tabs on him? Was it his imagination, or did the tarot readers on the Square stop talking to each other to watch him as he walked past?
He suddenly focused on the splatters on the sidewalk. Originally he had dismissed them as splashes or a leak from some tourist’s go-cup. But the red was too dark for a hurricane, the lethal rum drinks they served at Pat O’s. Besides, they were too regularly spaced.
It was blood! Someone who passed by recently was bleeding!
Griffen stopped in his tracks and studied the splatters. Squinting slightly, he tried to see how far ahead of and behind him they extended.
The immediate problem was, they seemed to be the same size in both directions. Was he walking away from whoever was bleeding, or walking up on them from behind. Given a choice, which would he want it to be?
Lacking any data or plan to base his moves on, he decided to continue on home. It was a block and a half farther, and if he made it without incident, it would be someone else’s problem.
Watching the street around him, he proceeded. There was someone sitting on the curb at the corner ahead. Griffen was about to cross the street, when he recognized the figure as Gris-gris.
“Hey, Gris-gris,” he said, approaching the man.
“That you, Mr. Griffen?” Gris-gris said, looking up.
“Yeah. Say, did you notice…”
Griffen suddenly realized the man was hunched forward slightly, pressing his hand against his side.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Some dude stabbed me,” Gris-gris said. “Just walked up and nailed me as I was walking along.”
“Hold tight. I’ll call an ambulance,” Griffen said, reaching for his cell phone.
“Don’t bother,” Gris-gris said. “I’ve been stabbed before, and worse than this. Couple stitches and some tape and I’ll be fine. It’s more embarrassing than anything.”
Griffen had run into this before in the Quarter, but still wasn’t used to it. Where he came from, if you were hurt you went to a doctor or an emergency room. Here, people tended to doctor themselves, up to and including setting broken bones.
“Who did it? Did you recognize him?”
Griffen was thinking of the dope dealers he had tangled with recently.
“Never saw him before,” Gris-gris said. “That’s why he caught me flat-footed. Just some white dude. ’Bout your height, military haircut, built like a football player. Thing was, he knew me. That’s why I come looking for you.”
“What do you mean?” Griffen frowned.
“It’s what he said after he stabbed me,” Gris-gris said, wincing slightly. “He said, ‘Stay away from Valerie. This is to let you know I mean it.’ Then he just walked away. Didn’t even run.”
“Valerie?” Griffen said, trying to absorb the information.
“That’s how I know he knew me, or leastwise that I’ve been seeing your sister. I thought you should know, so I came looking for you.”
With a stab wound in his side, Griffen thought.
“You sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance?” he said aloud.
“Naw. Jumbo’s working door tonight on Bourbon,” Gris-gris said. “He’ll patch me up. Bouncers keep a pretty good first-aid kit on hand all the time.”
“At least let me walk you there,” Griffen said.
Gris-gris flashed a smile.
“That’d just be embarrassing,” he said. “Like I say, the dude shouldn’t have been able to walk up on me that way. The fewer that know about it, the better I like it. Just help me up and I’ll be on my way.”
Griffen thought as he watched Gris-gris walk away, no more unsteady on his feet than half the drunks in the Quarter.
What exactly was going on?
From what he had heard of the George, it wasn’t like him to threaten, much less injure a bystander. What was more, the comment about Valerie would make no sense.
He had met Nathaniel, the guy Valerie was currently dating, but Gris-gris had seen him as well and would have recognized him. Was she seeing someone else? Was it just another jealous clash, or was there something deeper involved. Because she kept a low profile, Griffen tended to forget that she was a coming-of-age dragon, too. Maybe there were others not as inclined to forget.
He realized something else as well. He wasn’t spooked by what was happening anymore. Instead, he was getting mad.
Forty-five
Wednesday was pool-league night and the Irish pub was crowded when they rolled in. Jerome was trying unsuccessfully to explain to Griffen about the Saints.