into a bartender or a waiter or a busboy who knows you. Even just walking down the street you’ll be spotted by a cab driver or a rose vendor or a Lucky Dog seller. You might as well just assume that the Fox there will know about it the next time you see her.”
“No big deal,” Griffen said, opening his coffee and taking a cautious sip. “There’s nothing permanent or exclusive going on with Fox Lisa and me. We’re just hanging out buddies and occasional lovers.”
“Uh-huh.” Jerome smiled. “The question is, does she know that? I don’t recall seeing her with anyone else since she’s taken up with you.”
“Whatever,” Griffen said, suddenly uncomfortable. “So what brings you here so early? I have a feeling it wasn’t just to share breakfast or to talk about my love life.”
“Got some good news for you.” Jerome dug in his pocket and produced a set of keys which he tossed to Griffen. “You’ve got your car back. Fixed up good as new. Even had it tuned and its tires rotated.”
“The Goblin?” Griffen said, his mind still fuzzy from sleep. “Where is she?”
“Got her stashed away in a garage,” Jerome said. “I’ll take you around and show you where when you can spare the time.”
Griffen was startled to realize that he hadn’t even thought about his car for nearly a month. He had been so busy learning the ins and outs of the gambling operation and the Quarter, not to mention hanging with Fox Lisa, that he had had little leisure time to think about much of anything else. The Goblin seemed like something from another time in his life…pre-Quarter.
“I dunno, Jer,” he said. “I mean, I appreciate your taking care of getting her fixed up and all, but maybe I should just sell her.”
“Sell the Goblin?” Jerome said. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Well, she doesn’t really fit into my current lifestyle,” Griffen said. “I hear it’s expensive to keep a car here in the Quarter, and you were right, I haven’t really needed one. I can walk or cab it anywhere I need to go. Besides, weren’t you the one who told me that a distinctive car like the Goblin would make it too easy to find or track me?”
“As I recall,” Jerome said, “Stoner has already found you. And as for the expense, you can afford it now. Besides, she might come in handy if you want to duck out to the burbs for a movie or a bit of shopping. Why don’t you keep her for a while before you make up your mind. Once you sell her, there’s no way you can get her back. Don’t worry about it right now. You’ve got enough on your plate. I’ll see she’s taken care of.”
Griffen took a long sip of his coffee as he studied his friend.
“I know I’ve asked this before, Jerome, but why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“All this,” Griffen said. “Getting my car fixed, taking me clothes shopping, defending me when the high rollers question whether or not I’m up to taking over things, all that. In general, playing second banana to me, even though you’d be the natural choice to take over for Mose. Why?”
Jerome rolled his eyes and sighed.
“I thought we had gone over this already.”
“Well, let’s go through it again. For my benefit,” Griffen said. “I’ve got to admit, Jer, I still don’t get it. It’s like I’ve been given the starring role in a play, but no one has bothered to give me a copy of the script. What am I supposed to be doing, anyway?”
“All you got to do is just be you,” Jerome said earnestly. “That’s the beauty of it. You’re a high-blood dragon, and it’s in your nature to gravitate toward building power. I can’t tell you how you’re going to do it. I don’t know. The other night at the big game, I wasn’t lying. Since you’ve signed on, more and more of the independent games are wanting to join our organization. Our network hasn’t changed. The only difference is you. Do you know how you did it?”
“Not really,” Griffen admitted.
“Neither do I,” Jerome said. “But it’s happening. And you haven’t even been around for two months. I don’t know where it’s all going or how it’ll get there, but I’m in for the ride.”
“Okay, Jer,” Griffen said. “I guess I’m in, too. I don’t pretend to understand, but I’m in. You’re the one who knows dragons. Hell, two months ago I thought dragons were as make believe as vampires and werewolves. Now, I not only am dealing with them, I’m…what?”
He was suddenly aware that Jerome was staring at him with a bemused expression on his face.
“Sorry, Grifter,” Jerome said, shaking his head. “I keep forgetting how new you are to all this.”
“Okay. What am I missing now?”
“It was what you just said, about dragons being as make believe as vampires and werewolves.” Jerome smiled.
“Yeah. So?”
Jerome kept smiling.
“Wait a minute,” Griffen said. “Are you trying to tell me that there really
“If you mean the movie-type vampires that bite people’s necks and drink blood, the answer is no,” Jerome said. “What we do have, though, is people who feed off other people’s energies.”
“Feed off them like how?” Griffen said.
“There are actually at least two different kinds,” Jerome explained. “One kind is your classic depressive that can suck the energy right out of another person or even an entire party and leave them feeling down, nihilistic. Those people lack a certain kind of energy, the kind that lets you enjoy life, but they need it so they drain it out of the people around them. The problem is they’re kind of a living black hole that just keep absorbing energy without ever being filled themselves.”
“And the other kind?”
“Those are the entertainers, glad-handers, and politicians,” Jerome said. “They can infuse the people around them with energy, effectively multiplying the energy they give off, then feed off that accelerated energy. You can particularly see it with actors or singers when they’re working an audience. When they’ve got a good crowd, they work it into a controlled frenzy. That energy buoys them and inspires them to even greater heights to a point where they lose track of time or even how tired they really are. If you’re ever backstage to see them when they finally come off, it’s like someone cut the strings on a puppet. Once they’re away from that massive outpouring of energy from the audience, they’re left with their own store of energy which is depleted because they’ve been feeding it to the crowd to get it going.”
He paused and grinned.
“That kind of an energy rush is as addictive as any drug. The only way they can get that high again is to go back onstage and perform again. You hear about people who have been bitten by ‘the stage bug,’ well, that’s what’s happened. They’ve been ‘infected’ and ‘live’ for that heady feeling they get from a curtain call or a crowd of autograph hunters.”
Griffen shook his head.
“I never thought of it that way,” he said. “I mean, I know the high-energy feeling you get at a rock concert or a football game, but I never connected it with vampirism.”
“‘You say po-ta-to and I say po-tah-to.’” Jerome shrugged. “The werewolf thing is the same way. We all know people who go through wide swings of mood and temperament…almost Jekyll and Hyde transformations. That’s not even going into the ‘chameleons’ that change their wardrobe and speech patterns to fit various social situations. Most of us had to do that to one degree or other just to survive our teen years.”
“But there aren’t really people who can literally change their shape,” Griffen pressed.
Jerome cocked his head at him.
“Not to belabor the obvious, Grifter,” he said, “but
“But…”
“Both you and your sister…Or don’t you remember what happened the first time you met Gris-gris?”
Griffen frowned.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Jerome,” he said. “I mean, we both saw scales on my arm for a minute there at the end. From what my uncle Malcolm told me, I thought the big lizard thing was just a disguise the old dragons used unsuccessfully to spook the humans.”
