A couple was approaching them. Apparently one of the scavenger-hunt teams from the conclave. The woman was one of the changelings, the leggy coltish one they called Tammy. The man was the tall skinny black man who was one of the hosting locals.
“Oh. Hi… Slim, is it?” Lowell said. “I was just showing Gustov here some of the basics of influencing animals.”
“Uh-huh,” Slim said. “Looks like a bit beyond the basics. You’ve got that animal doin’ stuff it don’t do normally. Mind letting it go?”
“Oh. Certainly.”
Lowell gestured again, and the rat dropped back to all fours and shook itself.
“Sorry,” the vampire said. “I didn’t mean any harm. Friend of yours?”
There was an ill-muffled snort of laughter from the shape-shifter.
“We’ve worked together before,” Slim said, stiffly. “More like an associate. I try to treat the animals I deal with on a level of respect. I guess that’s one of the differences between you and me.”
“Hey. Lighten up, Slim,” Lowell said. “It’s not like I set him up to swim the Mississippi.”
“No. You just had him dancin’ around like some street-trash hustler. That ain’t somethin’ he’d do normally,” Slim growled, turning away.
“What? It’s beneath his dignity?” The vampire laughed. “C’mon. It’s just a rat.”
“Yeah?” Slim said, returning to the fray. “And you’re a vampire. How’d you like it if someone got into your head and had you dancin’ around just for show.”
“Slim,” Tammy said, warningly, putting a hand on his arm.
“Like there’s anyone at this conclave who could get that much control over me… or any other vampire,” Lowell shot back.
“Hey, guys,” Gustov said, stepping between them. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little?”
“And you stay out of this,” Slim said, turning on the shape-shifter. “If I want advice, it sure won’t be from the likes of you. What? Has he got a mind hold on you, too? I thought you were further up the food chain than that.”
“What are you doing?” Lowell said, looking at the changeling.
Tammy looked up from her cell phone.
“I’m calling Mr. McCandles,” she said. “This whole thing is getting out of hand.”
“Whistling up the dragon to bail you out of trouble?” the vampire sneered. “Well, he isn’t strong enough to stop me if I really wanted to get into it with Animal Man here. Oh, put that thing away. We aren’t…”
He started to reach for Tammy’s phone, but Slim knocked his hand away.
“I don’t care how bad you think you are,” he snarled. “You don’t touch her while she’s with me. Leastwise, not unless she wants you to.”
“And you don’t lay hands on me!” Lowell hissed. “Better men than you have learned to regret taking such liberties.”
Again, Gustov stepped between them.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “There’s no call for…”
“And I told you before to back off, Fido,” Slim said.
“Around here, a man fights his own battles once he starts ’em.”
The shape-shifter struck a stance.
“That’s twice you’ve insulted me, Slim,” he snarled. “Both times I was trying to help. But if you…”
Griffen McCandles appeared out of the darkness, striding toward them.
There was a frozen moment, as everyone held his pose in tableau like a bunch of guilty children when the front door opens. Then everyone started talking at once.
“We were just…”
“The man threatened to…”
“Started to go off on me over…”
Griffen held up his hand, and they lapsed into silence.
“Let’s try this one at a time,” he said. “Lowell?”
“Gustov asked me a question regarding basic animal-control skill,” the vampire said. “We came up here, away from the tourist traffic, so I could give him a minor demonstration. Slim here came along and took exception to what I was doing. Something about offending the dignity of a rat. It went downhill from there.”
“I see,” Griffen said. “Slim? Anything to add?”
“He was makin’ it stand up on its hind legs and dance,” Slim said with a scowl. “To me, that’s abusin’ the power.”
Griffen remembered how offended Slim had gotten when it was suggested that he use his animal-control skills in his street act.
“Did you say that to him?” he said.
“No. I just asked him to stop,” the street entertainer said. “Don’t figure it’s my place to try to tell someone else how to use their abilities.”
“That was it, then?” Griffen said. “A disagreement over how one’s powers are to be used? I thought that was the kind of thing that was supposed to be talked out at this conclave.”
“It got a bit heated, Mr. McCandles,” Tammy put in.
“There was some name-calling and muscle flexing. All in all, I’d say it was just a misunderstanding that got a little out of hand.”
“Very well,” Griffen said. “We’ll leave it at that. I think a round of apologies is in order, and after that we can all forget it.”
“I ain’t apologizin’ to him after what he said,” Slim said stubbornly.
“All right,” Griffen said, turning to the other two. “Lowell, Gustov, on behalf of the conclave, let me apologize for any offense offered you tonight. We know that there are a lot of old grudges and biases here, and we’re all trying to work past them.”
“Thank you, Mr. McCandles,” the vampire said. “I, too, must apologize for my comments. They were said in the heat of the moment when I felt I was being challenged.”
“And thank you, Lowell,” Griffen said with a slight bow. “Now, if we’re all… Slim?”
Slim was ten yards away, striding off down the Moonwalk with his shoulders in an angry set.
Apparently not everyone was ready to forgive and forget.
Forty-two
Griffen was sitting at one of the back tables in the Irish pub. While he normally sat at the bar so he could chat with the other regulars or the bartender, tonight he opted for solitude, and the others respected it. Sipping his usual Irish whiskey in larger-than-usual gulps, he brooded about the altercation with Slim.
Of all people to cause an altercation at the conclave, he would never have figured Slim. If anything, the street entertainer was the one who had served as Griffen’s advisor about what to expect and how to handle it. For him to be the one to pick a fight with attendees from not one, but two other groups went beyond surprising.
Once again Griffen ran through what had been said and done once he arrived on the scene, but still he was at a loss to find a better way he could have played it. The situation had simply degenerated too far by then, and all he could do was attempt damage control.
“Hey, lover!”
Startled, he glanced up as Mai plopped down on an empty chair at the table, drink in hand. It said something about how focused he was that he had not even noticed that she had come in.
“Oh. Hi, Mai,” he said, forcing a smile.
“Are you okay?” she asked, leaning forward to peer at him. “You look a little down.”
“Just a bit tired is all,” Griffen said. “This conclave thing has been running me ragged.”
