“It may be crazy,” I said, “but I’m starting to get the feeling that Gleep is a lot more intelligent that we ever suspected. I mean, he’s always been kind of protective of me. If he were intelligent and got it into his head that someone on the team was a threat to me, there’s a chance he might try to kill them ... just like he went after Markie.”
My bodyguard stared at me, and then gave a short bark of laughter.
“You’re right, Boss,” he said. “That does sound crazy. I mean, Gleep’s a dragon! If he was to try to whack someone on the team, we’d know it pretty fast, know what I mean?”
“Like when he tried to burn Tananda?” I pressed. “Think about it, Nunzio. If he were intelligent, wouldn’t part of his conclusions be that I would be upset if anything happened to anyone on the team? In that case, wouldn’t he do his best to make any mishap look like an accident rather than a direct attack? I’ll admit it’s a wild theory, but it fits the facts.”
“Except for one thing,” my bodyguard countered. “For him to be doin’ what you say, puttin’ pieces together and comin’ up with his own conclusions, much less organizing a plan and executing it, would make him more than intelligent. It would make him smarter than us! Remember, for a dragon he’s still real young. It would be like say in’ a baby that could hardly walk was planning a bank heist.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I sighed. “There must be another explanation.”
“You know, Boss,” Nunzio smiled, “folks say that, after a while, pets start takin’ on the traits of their masters and vice verses. Takin’ that into consideration, I think it’s only logical that Gleep here acts a bit strange from time to time.”
For some reason, that brought to mind my earlier conversation with Bunny.
“Tell me, Nunzio, do you think I’ve been drinking too much lately?”
“That’s not for me to say, Boss,” he said easily. “I’m just a bodyguard, not a babysitter.”
“I was asking what you thought.”
“And I’m sayin’ I’m not supposed to think ... at least, not about whoever it is I’m supposed to be guardin’,” he insisted.
“Bodyguards what comment on their client’s personal habits don’t last long. What I’m supposed to be doin’ is guardin you while you do whatever it is you do ... not tellin’ you what to do.”
I started to snap at him, but instead took a long breath and brought my irritation under control.
“Look, Nunzio,” I said carefully, “I know that’s the normal bodyguard/ client relationship. I like to think, though, that we’ve progressed a little past that point. I like to think of you as a friend as well as a bodyguard. What’s more, you’re a stockholder in M.Y.T.H. Inc., so you have a vested interest in my performance as president. Now, this morning Bunny told me that she thought I was developing a drinking problem. I don’t think that I am, but I’m aware that I may be too close to the situation to judge properly. That’s why I’m asking your opinion ... as a friend and fellow worker whose opinions and judgment I’ve grown to value and respect.
Nunzio rubbed his chin thoughtfully, obviously wrestling with a mental dilemma.
“I dunno, Boss,” he said. “It’s kinda against the rules ... but then again you’re right. You do treat Guido and me different from any other boss we’ve had. Nobody else ever asked our opinion on nothin’.”
“Well I’m asking, Nunzio. Please?”
“Part of the problem is that it’s not that easy a question to answer,” he shrugged. “Sure, you drink. But do you drink too much? That’s not as clear cut. You’ve been drinking more since you brought Aahz back from Perv, but ‘more’ doesn’t necessarily mean the same as ‘too much.’ Know what I mean?”
“As a matter of fact, no I don’t.”
He sighed heavily. When he spoke again, I couldn’t help but notice that his tone had the patient, careful note that one takes, or should, when one is explaining something to a child.
“Look, Boss,” he said. “Drinkin’ affects the judgment. Everybody knows that. The more you drink, the more it affects your judgment. Sayin’ how much is too much isn’t easy, though, seein’ as how it varies from individual to individual depending on such factors as weight, temperament, etc.”
“But if it affects your judgment,” I said, “how can you tell whether or not your judgment is right when you say it’s not too much?”
“That’s the rub,” Nunzio shrugged. “Some say if you have the sense to question it, you aren’t drinkin’ too much. Others say that if you have to ask, then you ARE drinkin’ too much. One thing I do know is that a lot of people who drink too much are sure they don’t have a problem.”
“So how do you tell?”
“Well,” he said, rubbing his chin, “probably the best way is to ask a friend whose judgment you trust.”
I closed my eyes and fought for patience.
“That’s what I THOUGHT I was doing, Nunzio. I’m asking YOU. Do YOU think I’m drinking too much?”
“That isn’t important,” he said, blandly. “It isn’t a question of if I think you’re drinkin’ too much, it’s if YOU think you’re drinkin’ too much.”
“NUNZIO,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m asking what YOUR opinion is.”
He averted his eyes and shifted uncomfortably.
“Sorry, Boss. Like I say, this isn’t easy for me.”
He rubbed his chin again.
“One thing I WILL say is that I think you’re drinkin’ at the wrong time ... and I don’t mean too early or late in the day. I mean at the wrong time in your life.”
“I don’t understand,” I frowned.
“Ya see, Boss, drinkin’ usually acts like a magnifyin’ glass. It exaggerates everything. Some people drink trying to change their mood, but they’re kiddin’ themselves. It don’t work that way. It don’t change what is, it emphasizes it. If you drink when you’re happy, then you get REAL happy. Know what I mean? But if you drink when you’re down, then you get REAL down, REAL fast.”
He gave another heavy sigh.
“Now, you’ve been goin’ through some rough times lately, and have some tough decisions to make. To me, that’s not a real good time to be drinkin’. What you need right now is a clear head. What you DON’T need is somethin’ to exaggerate any doubts you’ve got about yourself or your judgment.”
It was my turn to rub my chin thoughtfully.
“That makes sense,” I said. “Thanks, Nunzio.”
“Hey. I just had an idea,” he said brightly, apparently buoyed by his success. “There’s a real easy way to tell if you’re drinkin’ too much. Just lay off the sauce for a while. Then see if there’s any big change in your thinkin’ or judgment. If there is, then you know it’s time to back off. Of course, if you find out that quittin’ is harder than you thought, then you’ll have another signal that you’ve got trouble.”
A part of me bristled at the thought of having to ease up on my drinking, but I fought it down ... along with my flash fear at what that bristling might imply.
“Okay, Nunzio,” I said. “I’ll do it. Thanks again. I appreciate how hard that was for you.”
“Don’t mention it, Boss. Glad I could help you.”
He reached out and laid a hand on my shoulder in a rare display of comradeship.
“Personally, I don’t think you have that much to worry about. If you’ve got a drinkin’ problem, it’s marginal at best. I mean, it’s not like you’ve been blackin’ out or anything.”
HEY, PARTNER! HOW’S it going?”
I had been heading back toward my room with the vague thought of getting a little more sleep. The hail from Aahz, however, reduced my odds of success noticeably.
“Hi, Aahz,” I said, turning toward him. That put the sun in my eyes, so I stepped back slightly to find some shade.
He drew up close to me and peere
d at me carefully. I, in turn, tried my best to look relaxed and puzzled.
Finally he nodded to himself.
“You look okay,” he declared.
“Shouldn’t I?” I said, innocently.
“I heard you had quite a time last night,” he explained, shooting me another sidelong glance. “Thought I’d better look you up and survey the damage. I’ll admit you seem to have weathered the storm well enough. Resilience of youth, I guess.”
“Maybe the reports were exaggerated,” I suggested hopefully.
“Not bloody likely,” he snorted. “Chumley said he saw you and your date when you rolled back into the castle, and as you know, if anything he’s prone to understatement.”
I nodded mutely. When he wasn’t in his working persona of Big Crunch, the troll was remarkably accurate in his reports and observations.
“Whatever,” Aahz waved. “Like I say, you seem to have survived pretty well.”
I managed a weak smile.
“How about a hair of the dog? A quick drink to perk you up,” he suggested. “Com’on partner. My treat. We’ll duck into town for a change of pace.”
A moment’s reflection was all it took to realize that a stroll through the town around the castle sounded good. Real good if Bunny was on the warpath.
“Okay, Aahz. You’re on,” I said. “But as to the Hair of the Dog ... I’ll stick to regular stuff if you don’t mind. I had enough of strange drinks last night.”
He gave off one of those choking noises he used to make during my days as an apprentice when I said something really dumb, but when I glanced at him, there wasn’t a trace of a smile.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, partner?” he said without looking at me.
“What?”
“If we’re heading out among the common folk, a disguise spell would be nice.”
He was right of course. Even though I was used to seeing him as he actually was, a Pervect with green scales and yellow eyes, the average citizen of Possiltum still tended to react to his appearance with horror and fear ... which is to say much the same way I reacted when I first met him.
“Sorry, Aahz.”
Closing my eyes, I quickly made the necessary adjustments. Manipulating his image with my mind, I made him look like an ordinary castle guard. If anything, I made him a bit scrawnier and more undernourished than average. I mean, the idea was not to intimidate people, wasn’t it?
Aahz didn’t even bother checking his reflection in any of the windows we passed. He seemed much “more interested in prying details of my date out of me.
“Where did you find to go on this backwater dimension, anyway?” he said.
“Oh, we didn’t stick around here,” I said loftily. “We ducked over to Limbo. Cassandra knew a couple clubs there and we ...”
I suddenly noticed Aahz was no longer walking beside me. Looking back, I realized he had stopped in his tracks. His mouth was working, but no sound came out.
“Limbo?” he managed at last. “You went bar crawling on Limbo? Excuse me, partner, but I was under the impression we were persona non grata in that neck of the woods.”
“I was a little worried at first,” I admitted casually, which was only a little lie. As you’ll recall, I had been a LOT worried. “Cassandra said she could blip us back out fast if there was any trouble, though, so I figured what the heck. As it turned out, nobody seems to be holding a grudge there. In fact, it seems I’m ... I mean, we’re ... minor celebrities over there. That’s partly why the evening ran as long as it did. Half the people we ran into wanted to buy me a drink for putting one over on the local council.”
“Is that a fact?” Aahz said darkly, starting to move again. “Just who is this Cassandra person, anyway? She doesn’t exactly sound like a local.”
“She’s not,” I confirmed. “Vic set me up with her. She’s a friend of his.”
“Nice to know he didn’t set you up with an enemy,” my partner quipped. “Still in all, it seems to me ...”
He broke off and did another double take.
“Wait a minute. Vic? The same vampire Vic that you hang around with over at the Bazaar? You mean this Cassandra babe is ...”
“A vampire,” I said with a careless shrug. The truth was, I was starting to get a bit of a kick out of shocking Aahz. “Oh, she’s okay. No one you’d want to take home to mother, but ... what’s wrong?”
He was craning his neck around to peer at my neck from different angles.
“Just checking for bite marks,” he said.
“Com’on, Aahz. There wasn’t any danger of that. She was drinking her blood out of a glass last night.”
“Those weren’t the kind of bite marks I was checking for,” he grinned. “Vamps have a rep of being pretty wild women.”
“Um ... speaking of destinations,” I said eager to change the subject, “where are we going?
“No place special,” my partner said. “These local bars and inns are pretty much all the same. This one should do us fine.”
With that, he veered through the door of the place we were passing, leaving me to follow along behind.
The inn was refreshingly ordinary compared to what I could remember of the surreal clubs I had been to on Limbo. Ordinary and more than a little dull.
Dark wooden tables and chairs were the main feature of the decor, with occasional candles scattered here and there to supplement the light which streamed in through windows and the open door.
“What’ll you have, Skeeve?” Aahz called, heading for the bar.
I started to say ‘Wine’, but changed my mind. Whether or not Bunny was right about my drinking getting out of hand, it wouldn’t hurt to ease up a bit. Besides, Nunzio’s comment about blacking out had me more than a little uneasy.
“Just some fruit juice for me,” I waved.
Aahz paused, cocking his head at me.
“Are you sure you’re all right, partner?” he said.
“Sure. Why do you ask?”
“A while back you were talking about looking forward to having your usual, and now you’re switching drinks.”
“All right. Have it your way,” I grimaced. “A goblet of wine, then. No need to make a big thing of it.”
I leaned back and looked around the room, though it was mostly to break eye contact with Aahz before he realized I was upset. It was funny, but I found myself somehow reluctant to tell my partner my worries about my drinking. Still, it was difficult to change my drinking patterns around him without raising questions that would require an explanation. I figured that, for the moment, the easiest thing to do would be to go on as before ... at least, while I was around Aahz. Later, more privately, I’d start tapering off.
One thing I noticed about the inn was that there seemed to be a lot of young people hanging around. Well, to be honest, they were about my age, but I spend so much time with the team, I tend to think of myself as older.
One table of girls in particular caught my attention, mostly because they seemed to be talking about me. At least, that was my guess, as they kept glancing my way, then putting their heads together and giggling, then glancing over again.
Not long ago, this would have made me nervous. My recent excursion to Limbo, however, had gotten me a bit more used to notoriety.
The next time they glanced over, I looked directly back at them, and then gave a brief, polite nod of acknowledgment with my head. This, of course, caused another hurried huddle and burst of giggles.
Ah, fame.
“What are you smiling at?” Aahz said as he set my wine in front of me and slid onto the bench across the table, cradling his own outsized drink.
“Oh, nothing,” I smiled. “I was just watching that table of girls over there.”
I indicated the direction with a tilt of my head, and he leaned sideways to scope them out himself.
/> “Kind of young for you, aren’t they, partner?”
“They’re not that much younger than I am,” I protested, taking a long swallow of wine.
“Don’t you have enough problems already?” Aahz said, settling back. “Last time I checked, you were suffering from an overabundance of women ... not a shortage.”
“Oh, relax,” I laughed. “I wasn’t figuring to do anything with them. Just having a little fun, is all. They were looking at me, so I let them see me looking back.”
“Well don’t look now,” he grinned back, “but at least one of them is doing more than looking.”
Needless to say, I looked.
One of the girls had stood up and was approaching our table.
When she saw me looking in her direction, she seemed to gather her courage and closed the distance in a rush.
“Hi,” she said, brightly. “You’re him, aren’t you? The wizard from the castle?”
“That’s right,” I nodded. “How did you know that?”
“I thought I heard him call you Skeeve when he went to fetch your drink.” she gushed.
“Probably because that’s my name,” I smiled.
Okay, so it wasn’t the wittiest thing I’ve said. In fact, it was pretty lame compared to the usual banter that goes on within the team. You’d never tell it, though, from her reaction.
She covered her mouth with one hand and shrieked with laughter loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the room ...in the town, for that matter.
“Oh! That’s priceless,” she declared.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I corrected. “Actually, my rates are rather high.”
This, of course, set of another gale of laughter. I caught Aahz’s gaze and winked. He rolled his eyes in disgust and turned his attention to his drink. That seemed like a good idea, but when I went to sip my wine, the goblet was empty. I started to ask Aahz to get me another, but changed my mind. That first one had disappeared with disturbing speed.
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