Dreamspinner Press Year Six Greatest Hits

by JD Ruskin

  There was no sign of treasure, but Arthur hadn’t really been expecting to find any in the living room. The books were far more interesting in any case. He had a suspicion that Dr. Jones, in addition to being a very poor housekeeper, had no system of organization. There were what looked like pamphlets and hardcovers next to encyclopedias and paperbacks of various sizes. There were comic books on one shelf by the fireplace, which was no place to keep any sort of paper good, much less any kind of book. Arthur itched to rescue them.

  If the rest of the house was like this, there was no way he could work here, not without taking care of this… this problem, this… disaster. Yes, Arthur decided, it was a disaster. He might not have his master’s yet, might not ever have it, but this was unacceptable.

  He heard footsteps and turned just as the dragon came back into view, or rather, as Dr. Jones came back into view. Dr. Jones had changed into the form dragons usually took when dealing with humans: a human-looking body, albeit one that would never be mistaken for a true man.

  His skin shimmered. That was the only word for it. It shimmered as though the sleek black of his scales was just beneath the surface. His nails—both finger and toe, as he was barefoot—were shorter now and blunt, but still darkly tinged as if he had nail polish on. In place of his feathery mane was black hair, which he was smoothing away from his face as he walked.

  His face. Arthur’s thoughts stopped for a moment, frozen. He should never have agreed to this interview. Whatever he’d been expecting, this handsome figure with bedroom eyes wasn’t it. He wasn’t overly tall or muscular, but there was strength there, a presence that took up space in the room, and in Arthur’s mind. Power, Arthur thought so fiercely that he almost said it out loud. Even while disguised as a man, the dragon gave the impression of power. His muscles rippled as he stretched and seemed to adjust to his new body. There was stubble along his jaw; he looked like the kind of dangerous, sexy man who always had a five o’clock shadow, the kind that would rasp and burn against skin and leave it red and used, or so Arthur had seen in movies anyway.

  Arthur could stop shaving for days and have nothing to show for it. He had the faintest possible trail of blond hair on his lower stomach, it was true, but that was as dangerous and sexy as he got.

  He dropped his gaze, he had to, because the man must have been naked as a dragon and had obviously just stepped into some sweatpants on the way downstairs. The idea of him naked knocked the breath out of Arthur. He blinked in surprise at the lack of chest hair until he remembered what he was dealing with, only to immediately wonder how all that skin would feel against his and if the man’s hair would be as feathery and soft-looking as his dragon mane.

  He shivered, then banished the thoughts with a shake of his head.

  Despite how rude he’d been and stupid to stare so much, when he looked up he found the dragon giving him the same up and down. The dragon’s tongue came out, darting into sight just for a moment, wet and pink and not forked, and then he inhaled. Arthur could only guess at what he smelled like. Sweat, he would guess, from the bike ride over here and from nerves. Hopefully not so aroused it was noticeable. He resisted the urge to check his armpits, but only because he doubted it would matter.

  Dr. Jones’s eyes were all pupil again, just for a moment. He offered Arthur a slow smile. “You didn’t run. I do like that.”

  “You… you do?” Arthur’s mouth was inexplicably dry. A few minutes ago he’d been petrified, and now all he could think was that he refused, absolutely refused, to embarrass himself any more. The man was a historian. Once Arthur got over his appearance, he was going to remember that most historians were full of themselves and often boring, and he was going to feel very foolish.

  Anyway, there were more important things here than a sexy scruff and a cultured, if rumbling, voice that hit Arthur like hot coffee on a cold morning. Like a job with a tremendous opportunity that he couldn’t ignore or risk losing.

  But that smile, no, that grin, that Cheshire cat grin, made him frown.

  “Then you shouldn’t scare people.”

  It was a mistake. Arthur tensed, waiting for some furious reaction to his scolding even as he was forced to admit that he had, in fact, just scolded a dragon as though it was his baby sister, but after a second of silence, Dr. Jones’s gaze seemed to turn to liquid.

  “Did I truly frighten you, pet?” Dr. Jones continued into the room, stopping by the table to reach into a small, tarnished silver chest. He seemed very sorry, but only briefly. “I thought you were about to pull out a sword and brandish it at me for a moment there.” He pulled out one cigarette, then two, but he put the second one back after a sideways look at Arthur.

  Arthur glanced down, not sure where anyone could get the impression that he was any kind of threat. But it was close enough to what he had been thinking at that moment to make him wipe at his warm cheeks.

  “Sorry. I was startled.” Or terrified, but Arthur really needed this job. The dragon hardly seemed to notice the lie.

  “Mind if I smoke?” he asked, apparently to make Arthur shiver, but the cigarette at his mouth was already lit when Arthur raised his head. The smoke curled around him like a halo, lit by overheard lights and the crackling fire. It didn’t smell like tobacco. It was sharper, herbal. The smell grew stronger when the dragon came closer to him.

  His hand rolled with the cigarette in it. It was an elegant gesture Arthur couldn’t have emulated if he tried. It made him think of aristocracy again. So did the slight fold at the corner of each of Dr. Jones’s eyes and the arch in his eyebrows. Arthur felt like he was talking to the descendant of an ancient line, and he wasn’t measuring up.

  “I’m supposed to find a very qualified assistant.” Arthur got the impression Dr. Jones was quoting someone. “Yet Gibson recommended you.” There was enough of a beat to make Arthur’s pulse speed up. He hadn’t known that the professor had recommended him. Professor Gibson had only said it was a shame to see Arthur’s potential go to waste and then told him about the job opening.

  He couldn’t ask what the professor had said. But he opened his mouth, having at least expected to have his credentials and experience called into question.

  “I am working towards my degree.” Or he would be, if he ever found the money again. It wasn’t likely, but he couldn’t quite make himself admit that yet. There was always a chance. If he could do what he had to, maybe everything would be all right. As it was, his time away from school, his “sabbatical,” kept getting longer and longer. He closed his eyes just for a moment. A sword wouldn’t have been all that bad. It might have made him feel stronger and not scared and dead tired.

  He opened his eyes. “And as for the others, who? Reilly? Birch? Not one of them has half my drive.” Archival studies was a field with limited opportunities, especially at a smaller university, but Arthur was damn good. He would have been working on his doctorate by now if things had gone his way. But they hadn’t. The others weren’t as good, and they didn’t need this job nearly as much as he did. It was his.

  His voice trembled with everything he wasn’t saying, but if anything, Dr. Jones seemed to like it. When Arthur tried to speak again and explain the arrogance in that statement, he got waved down.

  “There’s no shame in having pride in one’s work, if that pride is justified.” Dr. Jones put the cigarette to his mouth, then licked his lip and Arthur wasn’t sure if he was still smelling the air or tasting a fleck left behind from that cigarette, which looked hand rolled. “As for whether or not it is, that’s a wait-and-see matter, isn’t it?”

  He exhaled. Arthur watched the streams of smoke rise upward with a fascination he hoped wasn’t too obvious.

  “What is that? It’s not tobacco.” He remembered himself. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  He had a feeling that the timidity in the question surprised Dr. Jones, but after a moment, he nodded. “Herbs. I suppose they’re terrible for me, but I feel like they clear my head.” He took another long pull from
his cigarette. Arthur did his best not to watch the man’s mouth as he did, but there was a small part of him that wondered if that was the dragon’s intention in smoking like that so close to him. If he’d been the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland before, he was more of the Caterpillar now. A possibly stoned caterpillar, Arthur decided to himself, only to give a small jerk when Dr. Jones started waving his hand, and his cigarette, around him as he stepped back. The smoke followed him. So did Arthur, though at a distance. He wasn’t sure what else to do; this was the strangest interview he’d ever been on.

  “Your GPA is, or was, quite high. Your employers at your various internships had nothing but fantastic things to say about your work, and your areas of study are varied enough to keep you interesting. Then there’s Gibson’s opinion of you, which you seemed surprised to learn about.”

  “I….” Arthur couldn’t think of what to say to that. Dr. Jones didn’t give him the chance to try.

  “He says you’re smart, focused, and determined.” He turned back. Arthur froze, but he knew the surprise was all over his face again. The professor had never given any sign that he valued Arthur’s work so much. Arthur thought of him saying that, committing that to paper, and bit his lip. Dr. Jones made a low noise, a tut. “You look exhausted to me.”

  Arthur reached up but didn’t touch the circles under his eyes. He wanted to squirm when the dragon’s voice softened. “Now that I’ve got a good look at you, I find myself wanting to ask who’s been taking care of you, because they’ve been doing a very poor job.”

  It wasn’t that Arthur wanted his potential employer to find him attractive. He was nothing special—young face, blond hair, “cute in a wholesome way,” someone had once said—but it was something else to be dismissed completely. He scowled and stepped up. He didn’t think he was going to get eaten, at least, not today.

  “I take care of myself.” He had, for years now. But he wanted to bite back the words the second they were out. The dragon’s voice only rumbled lower, grew even softer.

  “Is your name really Arthur MacArthur?” His tone was courteous and careful, but only for a moment. “Did your parents hate you?”

  Arthur shook his head and answered anyway, with only the tiniest frown. Maybe it was the heat, or the smoke, or being so close to someone so hot, or that pride that Dr. Jones had talked about, but he was having a hard time remembering to stay quiet.

  “No. Arthur was my mother’s father’s name.”

  “Don’t worry.” Dr. Jones let out a sigh. “No insult intended. My parents hated me, you see. I don’t know if you’re aware, but most dragon families give their offspring names to reflect the family’s sense of pride and power. Sadly, my parents chose to honor an old family branch and thus: Philbert.”

  Arthur was inhaling, the stinging, oddly refreshing herb smoke on his tongue as the name sank in. He coughed, then tried to cover it. His eyes were wide and watery. This creature’s name was Philbert?

  “That’s ridiculous.” It just slipped out. Worse, when Arthur tried to think of something to mitigate that horrible faux pas, more came out. “Do people call you Phil?” He couldn’t help it. This man, this dragon, was named Phil. Phil the Dragon. Not even around those teeth was “Phil the Dragon” a terrifying possibility.

  Dr. Jones sniffed.

  “Do people call you Mac?”

  People barely called Arthur at all. “No.”

  Dr. Jones pursed his lips and angled his head for a moment. “Really?” Intrigue, or the cigarettes, made his voice seem smoky. “May I?”

  Arthur suppressed a shiver. That was all he needed, to imagine this man breathing out a special nickname, something just for him. He’d always thought that might be nice, but with that voice, it also might kill him.

  But it wasn’t going to happen, so he shook his head. Dr. Jones gave another sigh but then looked thoughtful.

  “You’re right. Arthur is so much better. Arthur MacArthur…. It sounds like something from an epic saga.” When his eyes came back to Arthur, they were heavy. Arthur glimpsed his tongue again, wet against his lip, against the paper of the cigarette. This time Arthur couldn’t hide his shiver at all, but he could look away, focus on what he had to gain from this job and not on whether he smelled tasty or not.

  “Is this part of the interview?” Arthur regularly confronted collection agencies. He could do this, even if it meant facing a thousand hot stares and feline smiles.

  With a dramatic gesture, Dr. Jones shifted away to find an ashtray, or whatever he was using for an ashtray. His back was as breathtaking as his chest, if not more so. There was something obviously different about the skin there, shining with almost-scales and playing over muscle, looking sleek to the touch, smooth, all the way up to the back of his neck. There was no sign he had recently, or ever, lost a scale. But then, Arthur didn’t even know if that part of the story was true; he only knew people thought it was.

  It turned Arthur’s stomach and made him shake, but it let him take his eyes off the man in front of him and focus on the questions he was asking.

  “You have transportation? Do you mind smoke? Can you type quickly, use a computer?” Dr. Jones turned back in time for Arthur’s answer.

  Arthur nodded to all of them, though he thought of his bicycle apprehensively and decided not to mention that he didn’t own a car until he was asked directly. He was getting good at indirect lies… too good, really.

  He stayed where he was and let the doctor circle slowly and turn back around to fully face him.

  “What’s your favorite period in history?”

  That was a new one. Arthur let himself frown as he repeated the question to buy time. But he honestly couldn’t say. His interests truly were varied, and the courtly romances and adventures of the Middle Ages written to describe earlier periods were too embarrassing to admit to. He hesitated and Dr. Jones added to his question.

  “Well, when you minored in history, what was your thesis on?”

  Arthur jumped. “The Wars of the Roses.” He glanced up and then stared down at his feet, trying to figure out the point of the question. Dr. Jones pressed him for more.

  “Really? Bloody Old England? Do go on, Arthur.”

  “With… uh… with what?” It wasn’t that he couldn’t keep up; he just couldn’t see how this was relevant.

  “Lancaster or York?”

  The question was so distant it echoed, and Arthur turned, not certain when Dr. Jones had left the room. Arthur had thought he was coming closer, but he must have gone into another room, maybe the kitchen that Arthur could see part of through one open door.

  “Lancaster.” He shouldn’t have hesitated at the answer. He turned again at the flash of motion to one side and noticed the second door coming out of the kitchen as Dr. Jones emerged from it. His cigarette was gone.

  “Why? Because they win?”

  Dr. Jones was not an old dragon. Some of them lived to be a hundred. He appeared to be in his thirties, but his use of the present tense to describe a historical event was disconcerting, as if he was older than he looked and had lived it. That wasn’t possible; even for a fairy, that would be ancient.

  “No, I….” Arthur squeezed his eyes shut at the embarrassing truth and then opened them wide when he realized he had to keep an eye on the dragon. It was too late. Dr. Jones was close to him again and watching him with an intent expression. It only got more so when Arthur tried to wet his lips. “When I was kid… I liked stories about King Arthur.”

  Dr. Jones beamed at him, hopping on the balls of his feet in clear delight.

  “Of course you did. And?”

  Arthur knew he ought to shut up before he revealed all of his nerdiness and what a lonely kid he’d obviously been. He really should. But Dr. Jones settled into his space, hot and bare chested and interested, and his heart started pounding.

  “The House of Lancaster had a red rose but also a red dragon as their emblem.” There was nothing more arrogant than explaining something to someone who
probably already knew all about it, but Dr. Jones’s gaze didn’t waver, not even when Arthur realized he was talking about dragons to a Being and dragon historian. “Because they were Welsh, who are the People of the Red Dragon. And in some stories, the red dragon myth was a foretelling of the existence of Arthur. King Arthur I mean, not me. Obviously.” He could not have sounded like a bigger dork.

  Dr. Jones closed his eyes and sighed so deeply that his shoulders moved with it. When he reopened his eyes, Arthur blinked. A reptile, or something like a reptile, shouldn’t have a gaze so hot. There was warmth coming from Dr. Jones too, radiating across the small space between them as if he wasn’t cold-blooded at all.

  “You truly are a pearl,” Dr. Jones declared at last, quiet and purposeful.

  “What?” Arthur took a step back only to stare with stinging eyes.

  “You,” the voice rumbled slowly for his benefit, “are a pearl, Arthur.”

  Arthur’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. No one said things like that, and if they did, they didn’t say things like that to him, not since his parents had been alive. His social life was nonexistent. With two jobs and school and his sister, it had had to be, but back when he had a social life, he’d never heard anything like that either. There was nothing pearl-like about him.

  He suddenly remembered why he was there and dropped his head.

  “Does that mean I’m hired?” he asked at last.

  “Oh yes.” Dr. Jones nodded. After a pause, Arthur dared a look up. Dr. Jones seemed pleased with himself, but his watchful stare was not as reassuring as it should have been. Arthur started to speak, then couldn’t think of what to say. He had the job, which meant regular hours in a safe, warm place—if a dragon’s lair could be said to be safe; it was definitely warm—with more than decent pay. And he would be close to the university again, and even closer to a chance to finally get ahead of the financial mess he was in.