Dragons Luck

damage it would cause. But how could you reason with someone like this? Or even talk them down?

Val made the decision for him.

“I really don’t think ‘a little’ covers it, Lizzy, dear,” Val said.

She stepped toward them both, and a little to Griffen’s side, though he didn’t dare take his eyes off Lizzy to look at her. Looking out of the corner of his eye, he could tell she was angry.

Valerie had come to the party as something out of the Greek pantheon. White dress, not quite a toga, embroidered with gold on the hem and neckline. A wreath of flowers and vines was in her hair. She looked more the part now as she stepped toward the threat of Lizzy. She was a good four inches taller than usual, and so tense she almost trembled.

Yet her voice was calm, quiet. Mocking, yes, but none of the warlike anger he usually expected from his sister in this kind of situation.

“Oh? What would you say, heifer?” Lizzy snapped, angry again.

“I’d say ‘crazy,’ but then I would have to spend the rest of my life going around to asylums and apologizing to the inmates for the comparison. I think we need a new word for the level of insane you are.”

“Ooooh! It’s trying to be funny! Everyone, the wonder cow is trying to be witty! Isn’t that just great?!”

No one around responded, but Lizzy didn’t seem to expect them to. Griffen recognized that look in her eye; they were just… backdrop. Unimportant, not worth noticing, and probably disposable.

“That’s right, keep with the size jokes. Not all of us need magic to look skinny. Or is it just bulimia?” Val said, her mocking tone now mixed with pity.

Lizzy’s face contorted in rage, and for just a split second Griffen saw more than the package she presented. The bones that pressed against her skin seemed wrong, and for just a moment all her teeth seemed pointed. Then that second was gone, and she merely looked pissed.

“You know, now that I see you up close, not much of a resemblance between you two. Brother and sister? Naw… no chance. Mama must have been doin’ the mailman.”

A man emerged from the crowd, dressed as Zorro, complete with sword. Val looked at him sharply, and that drew Lizzy’s attention to him. When he spoke, Griffen just barely recognized his voice.

“You really shouldn’t confuse the McCandleses with your own family, young lady,” George said.

“Wha… who are you? Who is this?! Why is he talking to Lizzy?” Lizzy shouted, head jerking back and forth between him, Griffen, and Valerie.

More important than “who,” why is he speaking? Griffen thought. His mind was still in crisis mode, trying to make sense of what was in front of him, trying to find a plan. And at that instant he doubted that George would involve himself in this fight without reason, or a plan of his own. Looking at Lizzy, a lightning-bolt idea flared in Griffen’s mind.

Distraction.

“Did you want something… Lizzy is it? Come here for some reason?” Griffen said in his calmest, most reasonable voice.

He hoped she didn’t notice the approving glimmer in George’s eye.

“Or did you just come for the party? Is one of these gentleman on the floor your date?” George said.

And moved a little more, so that Lizzy was now almost directly between him and Griffen, with Val somewhere off to the side. Lizzy tried to divide her attention between the three, actually shifting her feet a little uncertainly.

Val also glanced at George and Griffen, and an expression of understanding crossed her face, quickly followed by an expression Griffen hoped never to see again. Valerie suddenly looked like a cat with a new mouse.

But it wasn’t Val who threw in the next volley; to Griffen’s surprise, Tink appeared almost directly behind Lizzy.

“They stocked some really good wine, can I get you a glass?” he said, beaming with friendly innocence.

She whirled at him, fingers suddenly tipped with long claws. It was a surprised, automatic action, and he easily dodged, but it left her back to both Val and Griffen, who took another step toward her. She turned back almost at once but didn’t seem to notice they were closer.

“No wine! No party! I want… Shit, what I want is… I mean,” she stammered.

And all across the room others caught on.

Kane moved toward the fallen loup garou, now several feet away from Lizzy, but she tracked him anyway. He waved her off, kneeling by a garou and pressing an ear to his chest.

“I jus’ gonna check on my boys, you no mind me none, miss. We settle up just whenever you ready,” he said.

“I was just trying to offer wine,” Tink said, his voice making it clear that he was enjoying this, “or maybe you’d rather a canape?”

All around the room, conversations started up again, loudly. Not many, but enough to turn the ballroom into a swirl of echoes and voices. All eyes stayed on Lizzy, but those quick enough to see what was going on and what was being tried spoke up.

Of all the things Griffen had expected from those attending the conclave, he would never have imagined to see bravery.

And teamwork.

Estella was the next to push her way forward, looking over Lizzy as disapprovingly as one could while dressed as a zombie.

“You really should have dressed better, my dear. This is a formal occasion,” she said.

“That’s right, do you have an invite?” George asked.

“Do you?!” several near George said to him at once, then almost as one turned to each other and repeated the question. “Do you?!”

The conversation grew; somewhere, someone turned up the music. Every time Lizzy opened her mouth to respond to someone, another would speak up and cut her off. She jerked her attention around the room, mouth half-open and eyes bulging.

“I really must insist as moderator I know your business here, before we get back to festivities,” Griffen said.

“I’m sure we could find a nice clown mask for you,” Val said. “Or maybe something in red and white; you can go as a very short barber’s pole.”

“Oh, I have a spare mask,” a random voice called from the crowd.

“Oh, I know what you want! Steak tartare,” Tink said triumphantly.

“All my boys, dey is just fine, but you gonna owe them an apology. Maybe a dance?” Kane spoke up.

The fog swirled over the ground, Tink’s will-o’-the-wisps danced brightly, voices surged in volume like a wave as people made demands on Lizzy. As surreal as the setting and the moment seemed to Griffen, he could only imagine the weight of it on a madwoman.

Lizzy snapped.

“Make the voices stop!”

The volume of the scream, and the force of glamour that rolled off her in her anger subdued the room. Something shattered high above, and Griffen realized it was some of the crystals from the chandeliers. Shards rained down, but few paid any attention. Lizzy was rocking back and forth, arms wrapped about herself tightly. And Griffen was shocked to see that a shard score across her cheek, leaving a line of blood. Those that hit him bounced.

Val spoke in the silence, and her tone was cold and filled with what Griffen could only think of as hate.

“I just figured it out, Lizzy, why me and Nathaniel bother you so. You must just be jealous,” Val said.

“Jealous?” Lizzy said.

Her voice was so small and lost that Griffen regretted the whole thing. He looked to Val, and through her anger he saw something similar. She had words she had been about to say, and no longer could stomach saying them.

George must have seen it, too, for he spoke up. Griffen later convinced himself that whatever Val had been thinking, it had been nothing so cruel.

“No worries,” George said. “I’m sure the twisted sicko prefers his sister in bed to anyone else.”