by Graeme Smith
Clothes, she had always thought, were such clumsy things. However, there was an art form to removing them. One, she thought as she watched him, their females were much better at than males. But the end result was—her eyes ran over his chest—quite satisfying. When he reached to remove her necklace, she stopped him. “Oh, kedves. Let it lie. Surely you don’t begrudge a girl her….” She ran her hands over places she thought he might find interesting, “…her decorations?” From there, things went exactly where she’d intended them to. Until she woke up, and he was gone. Which was, after all, so much more convenient.
On the other claw, her necklace was gone also. Which most certainly wasn’t.
* * * * *
“So that’s what this is about? A necklace?”
“Jack. I told you. It helps me keep in shape. You like the shape I’m in, Jack?” Blondie ran her hands over, well, over Blondie.
I shrugged. “You seem to be keeping it just fine.”
Blondie grinned. “Oh, this is easy, Jack. I’m not—” she winked at me, “—I’m not distracted. That’s when things can get, shall we say, out of control. When I’m….” she tried to look coy. It didn’t work. “When I’m ‘distracted’.” I made a point of looking blank. It felt safer. Blondie spat. For a moment, the room flared with fire. “Oh, bloody hell Jack. He took my bloody necklace! And I haven’t had any in….” Blondie’s brow furrowed. Her lips moved, counting. “…in nearly six hundred bloody years!”
I had a Dragon that wanted me dead, and a dragon who’d set me up to be dead because she wanted—well, a lot more than her necklace. And from the fire washing round me, it looked like I’d been elected to solve her problem. One way or another. With emphasis on the ‘other’. Whoever had the necklace was powerful enough to stop a dragon getting it back. Getting the damn thing back was probably going to put me at risk of certain death. On the other hand—I looked at the naked blonde floating in mid-air, staring at me with a look that hung ‘hungry’ out to dry—on the other hand, it was probably safer than the alternative.
See, that’s the way it is sometimes. When all the choices are bad, sometimes whatever you choose puts your feet on the same road to hell. It’s just that one doesn’t get you burned to a crisp right away. Like now. But like I said. We’ll get to that.
Chapter Eleven
Back 2 Jack
“You mean all this is because….” Prowess blushed, “because a dragon isn’t getting any….” She blushed deeper, “Any you-know? With humans?”
I shrugged. “Looks like it.”
“But what’s wrong with, I mean, other dragons? Don’t they, um, ‘you know’?”
“Yeah. I asked her about that.” I brushed my fingers over the singed part of my jacket collar. Again. “She called me a racist. She was—” I tugged at the singe, “—she was quite intense about it. Seems humans are rather more inventive. Creative. Energetic.” Blondie hadn’t stopped at ‘creative’. Or even energetic. Mostly, Blondie just didn’t stop. Hell, even I’d thought about blushing. But Prowess didn’t need to hear all that. If she did, she’d need to make more blood. For extra blushing.
“And now she can’t. Can’t you-know. Because…?”
“Because of the necklace. The one she doesn’t have. Because turning into a dragon halfway through, um….”
Prowess flushed. Again. “Ah. Right.”
I tried to stop my mind drawing pictures. It didn’t work. “And dragons, turns out in some ways they’re just like people. They get, well, excited. And when a dragon gets excited, things can get hot.” Prowess flushed. “No, not that.” My mind drew some more pictures. “OK. Probably that as well. No. The whole ‘breathes fire’ thing.”
Prowess stopped going red. I could see her mind drawing pictures as well. Probably ones similar ones to the ones my own mind was working on. “Wow. Hot sex.” Prowess went back to flushing. “I mean, hot you-know.” Her eyes twinkled. Shifters are good at that. “It gives fire insurance a whole new meaning, Jack.” Her eyes got distant. “Maybe I should try it.” Her eyes focused. “What do you think, Jack?” They focused more. On me.
Prowess making jokes was bad. Prowess drawing pictures could get a whole lot worse. “I think I need to find that necklace.”
Prowess poked her tongue out. “You’re no fun at all, Shadow.”
Fun. I’d heard of that.
“So why didn’t she just go get the damn thing, Jack?
“I asked her that too.”
“And?”
“She asked me how Jack was doing. Asked me if he’d recruited any new girls yet.”
* * * * *
An hour later
Isaac knew what he was talking about.
Isaac? Oh. Sorry. Newton. Isaac Newton. He worked out how once things start moving, they tend to carry on. Moving, that is. Whether you like it or not. Apparently nobody had stood in front of an avalanche until he came along. Or maybe it was just that nobody who did survived. And I was starting to feel like I was in front of an avalanche.
Thing is, Jack was gone. The Dragon wouldn’t get any loud ringing bells saying he was all over dead, because he wasn’t. Not where he was, anyway. But he wasn’t going to be turning up for work either. For a while, nobody would care. But if he didn’t turn up for long enough, people would start. To care. And to dig. So I had to fix it. Without knowing what ‘it’ really was, at least not yet.
“I’m not doing it, Jack.” There’s always a solution. But it was fairly clear Prowess didn’t like this one. “I’m not doing it.”
When somebody who doesn’t seem able to tell you something tells you something else, it’s often a good idea to listen. And do something about it. And if you’ve got a Shape-shifter who can look like anybody they choose, and who has all the memories of someone else, then asking them to impersonate the someone else might seem like a good idea. Especially if it keeps people thinking he’s still around.
“I’m not bloody doing it, Jack!” Apparently, to anybody apart from the Shape-shifter, anyway.
“Look. Blondie set the Dragon on me, P. And Jack asked me about her. And she asked me about Jack. If he’d recruited any new girls yet. So I figure maybe Jack knew something, or someone who could give him orders did. So I need someone who can find out who the someone….” I stopped, mostly to check my ‘someone-s, “who the someone is.”
“Shut up, Jack.” Prowess’ brow was furrowed.
“P, I’m out of options here. I need to….”
“SHUT UP!” Prowess never shouts. She told me once. She said the notes don’t work right if you shout. And she was shouting now. I shut up. “Jack. I don’t have to do it. He didn’t.”
Now it was my turn to furrow. “Didn’t what?”
“Recruit any girls. He only did boys, Jack.”
It made sense. Sending girls to Jack to be recruited would be like asking a fox to raise chickens. So why had Blondie asked me if he had? Then I got it. Because it wasn’t the question she wanted to ask. And asking me the wrong question was just a Blondie being dumb, not a Blondie being a threat to anyone. But maybe she figured it would make me ask the right question. So I asked it. “Then who did, P?”
“Did what, Jack?”
I sighed. “Recruit the girls. Did he know?”
“Oh.” Prowess’ brow furrowed again. “Oh.” It wasn’t a happy ‘oh’. I guessed Jack had known. I was right. And Prowess told me who.
I should have known too.
Answers are like that. It’s not that you have to find the right answer. If you ask the right question, the answer’s there. Right in front of you. So that’s my job. Asking the right Question.
The Answer’s your problem.
Chapter Twelve
Cherry Pop
“But … but I thought all that was just stories!” Strange? Strange is just a day at the office when you’re Dragon. But having your skin speak to you, even whispering, makes for a whole new page in the dictionary. “Eeew! She really does. Yuck! But isn’t it, well, sticky?
”
Jack had known where girls were recruited. Even been there once or twice. But only by invitation. Otherwise, there were only two ways in. One was to be a new recruit, and female. The other? The other I didn’t qualify for. I’d taken care of it the last time I was here. Because I’d been there before too. I just hadn’t connected the dots. But after a great deal of blushing and not-talking-about-it-because-it’s-well-you-know, it turned out Prowess did. Qualify. So Prowess did her thing, and I got all wrapped up in a new skin. The guards were well trained. They’d been given a little Sight, just enough to sort out the qualified from the non-qualified. But first impressions count, and their first impression of me was all Prowess. And it kept them distracted long enough for me to make them guards the woman we were watching bathe used to have, rather than guards she did have.
Everyone has to be good at something. Me? I’m the best there is.
So we watched a woman people tell me is beautiful take a bath. And every now and again she’d use a knife—and top it up. The screams hadn’t changed. They were just like last time. And what interested me was that she really was beautiful. And what she wasn’t wearing.
* * * * *
Five years ago. Somewhere in New York
What they do, when you’re new Dragon, is they give you a partner. Someone with more experience at Dragon work. Someone to tell them how good you really are. Or take care of you, if you aren’t. ‘Take care of’ as in ‘don’t worry about it. I took care of it’. Without any need for a pension plan.
I didn’t figure on being taken care of.
So when they told me I was getting a partner for the next few jobs, I asked around. Of course, nobody wanted to say anything. People who say things don’t last long in the Dragon. So I just kept asking. Until they answered. But I’m a nice guy. I made sure they didn’t have to worry about the Dragon finding out.
Ever.
As introductions go, a woman naked apart from an emerald necklace might be high on most guys’ dream lists. And if they knew they were going to end up in her bath with her, maybe even higher. Because that’s what happens when people meet Liz—they end up in her bath. One way or another. I knew I didn’t like one way, even if I didn’t know if I qualified. So I chose the other. I made Liz’s guards into guards she used to have, flipped over her into the bath, smacked her head against the wall—and made sure I didn’t. Qualify, that is. As bath water. I’d even brought my own custard. Then I took her knife and grabbed one of the spares she kept chained by the bath. The carotid is always good. They scream a while. I figured the screams might wake her up. So I waited. While the blood flowed.
* * * * *
“You—you raped her?” I couldn’t tell what made Prowess most disgusted. What I’d done, how I’d done it—or who I’d done it to. So I gave P the signal we’d agreed on. As my skin slithered off and went back to being a shape-shifting concert pianist, I ceased to be a sweet and, apparently, virginal woman and went back to being me. I nodded to the woman in the bath. “Hey, Liz.” Then I flipped over her into the bath, and slammed her head into the bath wall. Again. And for a while, Erzsébet Báthory lost interest in proceedings.
She always hated me calling her Liz. Countesses can be like that.
“You raped her?”
Of course, the stories are—well, just that. Stories. I knew, mostly from having been in it, Liz’s bath was about five feet square by four feet deep. Which is one hundred cubic feet. Or about six hundred and twenty three gallons, if you think George Washington was ungrateful rebel scum rather than the Father of the Republic. And the average human body has about one and a third gallons of blood. So if Liz really was in the habit of ‘bathing in the blood of virgins’ she’d have needed maybe four hundred and eighty spares every time she wanted to wash her hair. So she didn’t. But the virgin thing—that was straight. Because blood is power, and virgin blood—well, Liz never settled for second best. So Liz was the biggest reason there were so many unicorns on street corners. On the other hand, she was always good for Tears if you needed to take a trip. And the first time I met her—I didn’t know if my blood would qualify. So I made sure it didn’t.
“You raped…?”
“P, it was just tactics. Liz—they told me she was big on virgins. And me? I didn’t know if I was. Virgin, I mean. So I took care of it. Made sure I wasn’t.” I sighed. “I was short on time, P. Had to make things up as I went. And we’re short on time now. Nobody’ll worry if they find the guards—Liz does that every now and again. But—”
“She kills her own guards? Is she mad?”
“Oh, no. It’s a prophecy thing. She told me once. She….” Suddenly the story she really had told me once looked like it might make sense. Which it never had before. I had an idea Prowess wouldn’t like the sense. “But that’s not important right now.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Shadow?”
“P, we’ll get to that.” Pretty much whether she liked it or not. “But first we need Liz to tell us things, right?”
Prowess sighed. “This might take a while.” Her eyes focused on Liz. It must have been a tough read, because she made some more. And some more. Then fifty six eyebrows raised. “Oh.” It wasn’t a happy ‘oh.’ “Oh dear.” Prowess’ brows furrowed. All of them. Apparently she reconsidered. “Jack? What’s a good swear word?”
“There sort of aren’t any ‘good’ ones, P.”
“Then what’s a really bad one?”
I shrugged. “How about—”
“Never mind, Jack. Whatever it is, it isn’t bad enough.” A new strand of Prowess whipped through the air and wrapped round my head. “I think you’d better see this.”
That’s the thing with asking someone a Question. Sometimes they give you an Answer. And every Answer is bad for someone.
Maybe everyone.
Chapter Thirteen
Deal-Nightful
It wasn’t the first time Prowess had shown me what she could see. But it was the first time I’d got quite so wrapped up in her work. So I figured it was bad.
Being right’s a bitch.
* * * * *
1610. Csejte Castle, Hungary
“Of course, the peasants do not matter. But when one’s equals turn against you? Then they prove only that they are peasants.”
As the walls had been built across the doors of her rooms, the once beautiful Countess had tried sweet words. She had tried threats. And as the cement round the stones walling her in had set solid, she had tried screaming.
The screaming had lasted longest.
But even screaming comes to an end—and then she had slept. And even though in her time she had woken in the company of many beautiful young men—to do so while walled inside the rooms of her own castle was a little unusual. “You impress me, Erzsébet. And I am not easily impressed.” And when the beautiful young man addresses one as an equal, as one familiar, and when one has done what one has done not only for pleasure, but to try to attract just such a one as this may be? Why, naturally one responds in kind. The once beautiful, once powerful, now imprisoned Countess smiled. “Üdvözlet, my lord.” She paused. “Or perhaps I should say—Voivode?”
The young man smiled. “Not, as I think you know Grófné Erzsébet, for many years. But then, what are such titles, or indeed what need such years be, for those like us?”
Us—she savored the word. The old woman had, it seemed, spoken truth that day. And while the things Erzsébet had done had been delightful, they were also a means to an end. She smiled. “As you say, my lord. I regret we must meet in such….” she waved her hand disdainfully at the stones round them.
“Do not let it concern you, Erzsébet. Though indeed I think we might best talk in more conducive surroundings. Gyere ide!” At the young man’s words, a second person appeared beside him. Dull eyed and blank faced, the arrival looked identical to the once beautiful Countess. “This … servant … will serve your purpose here, my lady. And perhaps this,” the young man tossed a necklace of sp
arkling emeralds to the Countess, “…may serve as token of my intentions?”
The once beautiful Countess raised an eyebrow, but slipped the necklace around her neck. Then a beautiful young Countess smiled, and took the hand of the beautiful young man. “Oh indeed it may, my lord.”
Dull eyed and blank faced, a single figure stood in the walled rooms ignoring the food around it. Soon it would serve its one remaining purpose—and die.
* * * * *
So far, so meh. If Blondie’s necklace thief got around, so, I guessed, would Blondie. Given half a chance, anyway. But that didn’t explain why P didn’t think I knew any words bad enough.
“Shut up, Shadow.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Shut up not saying it then.” The bit of Prowess she thought was going to give me a headache wrapped tighter round my head.
* * * * *
Sunday September 2nd, 1666. London, England
“And so this Dragon of yours, Wladi my dear.” The beautiful woman lounged, ensuring suitable parts of her beauty came into contact with the young man holding her.
The young man chuckled. “Of mine, kedves? Perhaps I should buy you a history book, no? Surely it was the creation of that ostoba, Sigismund? I was five when I learned of it. Was made a member.” The young man smiled. It was not a warm smile. “Or so the books say.”
“Yes, my dear. Of course. As if dear Sigismund could even spell such a thing without moving his lips. Or without someone whispering in his ear? Some trusted courtier, perhaps? A courtier who knew of unicorns?”