“I don’t think it’s a big secret.” Griffen shrugged. “Rose asked me. Or maybe I should say her spirit.”
Estella leaned back in her chair.
“That’s what I heard,” she said. “If you don’t mind, could you describe her for me?”
“Well, she’s black, looks to be in her midthirties. Her hair is very thick, and she wears it long… halfway down her back. About six inches shorter than I am, and I noticed her hands have very long fingers.”
He hesitated, trying to put words to the picture in his mind, but Estella waved him to silence.
“That’s her, all right,” she said. “I was just having a little trouble believing it is all.”
“Why?” Griffen said, taken aback. “I thought that communicating with the spirits of the dead was one of the main beliefs of your group.”
“It is,” Estella said. “I just can’t figure out why she’s approaching you… without even a ritual… when I haven’t seen or heard from her since she died. I mean, I am the one who took over the temple and have been running it ever since.”
“I… I really don’t know,” Griffen said, a bit shaken. “If you’d like, I’ll ask her the next time she contacts me. Unfortunately, she seems to pick her own time and places. I’ve never been able to figure out how to initiate contact.”
“It’s no big thing,” Estella said. “It made me curious is all. I guess that answers the questions I had. You can count on the support of me and mine at the conclave. Oh, and, Mr. McCandles?”
Griffen cocked his head at her.
“Don’t be too quick to discount the usefulness of any of these groups. We may not be hotshot dragons, but we’re not exactly powerless, either.”
“Wait a minute,” Griffen said quickly. “I didn’t mean to speak poorly of your group or any of the others who will be at the conclave. When I said I wasn’t interested in trying to influence or control them, I only meant that I couldn’t see any way they would be of help to my gambling operation.”
“I’m just saying you should withhold judgment.” Estella smiled. “We just might surprise you.”
Seventeen
Early morning in the Quarter. The quiet time, the dead time. Garbage trucks had already been by to pick up the refuse of the night before. Most of the bars were closed, most of the music lowered to a dull murmur. Few tourists who came to New Orleans had the stamina to last the night. Locals drifting home from after-work downtime. Homeless, too tired to bother asking the occasional passersby for spare change. And a bare handful of people heading out to more conventional nine-to-five jobs. That was all that stirred at such an hour.
Val often found herself awake at this hour. Sometimes she just woke early and couldn’t get back to sleep. Today though, she hadn’t yet been to bed, and although she was a bit groggy, she felt way too wired to even think about sleeping. She had to be at work in three hours and, after a debate with herself, decided she’d rather push through her shift tired than try to grab an hour nap and then drag herself out of bed again.
Which left the problem of what to do with herself for the interim. If she hoped to make it through the dull stretch of afternoon bartending, she had better keep her energy up now. If she sank into the couch and flipped on the TV, chances were she’d crash and crash hard. She changed into loose sweats and running shoes and headed out the door. A run, a hot shower, and lots of coffee would see her through just fine.
It was a ghost town outside, which actually appealed to Val. There was no such thing as a “city that never sleeps” despite what ends up on tourism brochures. There wasn’t even anyone abroad who knew her well enough to wave to her, a rarity in the Quarter. She started running as soon as she was out of the apartment complex’s security gate.
Exercise had always been a good escape for Val. As her legs and arms began to pump, she found comfort in her own strength. The movements were automatic, muscle memory from years of training and working out. Her endorphins kicked in, and her physical body began to burn and buzz on its own natural high. While her body focused on the simple, her mind could run over the complex, as she slipped inside her own head more and more and let the outside world drift away.
Lately, she had been noticing how her body was changing. She was growing stronger, faster, without much increase in her exercise regime. In fact, she was having to push herself harder and longer just to get the same kind of tired exhilaration she used to get. The harder she worked, the stronger she grew, and the stronger she grew, the harder she had to work. She was beginning to wonder what limits there were to a dragon’s strength.
She crossed Decatur, the only street with any kind of car traffic at this hour, and headed up the large concrete stairs and over to the Moonwalk. The stairs still burned, aches and little tendrils of pain going up her legs. She smiled to herself and tried to remember how the old saying went. Pain lets you know you’re alive?
There were a few other joggers on the Moonwalk. A couple whom Val had seen on other mornings nodded to her in passing. No breath was wasted on greetings. These were people serious about their fitness. No one jogged in New Orleans because it was the fashionable thing to do.
The Moonwalk itself stretched pretty much the entire length of the Quarter. Val knew she would go back and forth across it several times before she was ready to quit. She put herself into a comfortable pace, keeping her heart rate up but nowhere near her top speed. This was no sprint. Still, she passed anyone going the same direction as she.
Would she have noticed any of that if Griffen hadn’t come to her after their uncle Malcolm had told him about dragons? She had always been strong, fast, and very good when it came to anything physical. She should be; she worked hard enough at it. If Griffen hadn’t shown up, if he hadn’t brought her into his problems, she would probably have gone her whole life without getting this introspective.
Val wasn’t quite sure why that thought scared her so.
Most of the time she still didn’t think of herself as a dragon. Griffen seemed so preoccupied with extending his abilities. Animal control, charisma; hell, she was surprised he hadn’t started trying to use dragon fire to make toast in the mornings. Then she reminded herself wryly that he didn’t cook.
Val hadn’t experienced any of that. Other then the rare times when she had swelled in size, her signs of dragonhood were subtler. Like the speed, and her body’s growing strength. Maybe it was just that she was younger and less developed, but she didn’t really feel the need, or the ability, to control a stray dog or blow smoke rings through the air.
Were there varieties of power? Different dragons with different areas of expertise? When Mose spoke, he seemed to be saying that for the most part any dragon with pure enough blood could do what Griffen was doing. Val and Griffen shared the same blood, so why did she feel she would be different?
Feelings, now that was something she didn’t often think about. Feelings were a big part of what had gotten her more and more curious about dragons and their various traits and abilities. For a while now, her gut had been telling her something was wrong, something was about to break. No… not her gut. It was like a weight on her heart. A sharp, heavy pang.
Val shook her head and tossed the thought aside. She was just imagining trouble, convincing herself of problems. After all, something bad was always coming. Especially with this new life as a dragon that her brother had brought her into.
And where did this baby fit in her new life?
She checked her watch and was a bit surprised that she had already been at it for more than an hour. She felt just as energized as before, barely even out of breath. Which was good—she shouldn’t have any problem getting through work—but it did sort of confirm everything she had been pondering while running. Sighing slightly, she turned off the path and started to head back to the steps, back to Decatur, then back to what she had now taken to calling home.
If she hadn’t been tired, hadn’t been deep in thought, she might have noticed the car on the other side of Decatur. It had registered out of the corner of her eye as being parked. She never noticed that the engine was on.
