“Griffen!” Val’s face brightened. “I want to see him.”
Mai grabbed her hand. “Come with me.”
Val pulled back.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Val beamed. Her smile brought out the dimples in her cheeks and made her large blue eyes shine. Mai deplored the brainless expression she wore. “Marcella just came to tell me that Mike is on his way to have dinner with me. Isn’t that great? I want you to meet him.”
Mai waved her hand impatiently. “No one is supposed to know I’m here, remember? You can invite Mike to visit you when you get home.”
“I suppose so.”
Mai glanced at Marcella. “What about her? I hate to leave witnesses.”
Val seemed startled, but Mai knew she understood what she was saying. Instead of vapid complacency, her expression changed slowly to one of resolution. She appealed to the housekeeper. “Marcella, please, we need your help. I don’t know how much you know about Melinda and her family, but . . . we’re like her.”
Marcella took her off the hook at once.
“You’re dragons. I knew that. I’m not.”
“What about this Henry?” Mai asked.
“Oh, he’s not a dragon, either, but he’s different,” Marcella said. “He controls almost everything on the property, even when Melinda is here.”
Mai pushed impatiently between them.
“This place has almost Pentagon-level security. Can you get us past it?”
“I don’t want my baby born here,” Val added, crossing her arms over her belly protectively. Yes, the spell was broken now. “I want her born at home, where she belongs!”
For the first time, the housekeeper looked frightened.
“I’d do anything I can for you, Val, but Melinda will have my head, maybe literally, if I let you leave the house.”
“If you get us out, then you can come with us,” Val urged her. “My brother knows dozens of people in the hotel industry in New Orleans. He could find you the kind of job you’ve always wanted.”
“Val!” Mai protested. Val glowered at her.
“We can’t leave her here to die.”
“We’re not,” Mai said. She eyed the housekeeper up and down. “You’re in good shape. If you slow us up, it’s your own problem. What do we have to do?”
“Nothing,” Marcella said, showing as much resolution as Val. “I don’t need to leave. It will be a harmless diversion. How could I know you were going to run away? I’ll go and distract the security detail for a little while. Just be ready to head for the front gate.” She glanced at her watch. “Give me ten minutes, starting from . . . now.”
Val looked at her own watch, a round Patek Philippe slip of gold that Mai immediately envied.
“All right,” she said. “Thank you.”
Marcella gave her a grim smile. “No thanks needed. It may not work, but it is your best chance. Good luck.”
She opened the door and peered out to make certain no one was in the hall.
The doorbell rang.
All three women looked at one another. Val threw back her head in dismay.
“Mike! I forgot about him!”
Forty-five
Marcella gathered herself and went down to answer the door. Val and Mai watched from the hallway, just out of sight.
“What should we do?” Val whispered.
“This is a gift,” Mai whispered back. “He can get you off the grounds. If he is not an utter creature of Melinda’s, have him take you out and drop you somewhere, then wait an hour to call me. If I am not off the property by then, I am dead. Go home to Griffen.”
Val hugged her. “I don’t want anything to happen to you!”
Mai shook her head. Val was so young! “I should be all right. I am not without defenses, and your housekeeper friend may help me because she wishes to please you. Are you ready?”
Val swiped at her hair. She wore no makeup, but she never needed it. Mai envied her that bright, clear complexion and that sun gold hair. Val looked down at her sapphire blue sweat suit.
“This wasn’t what I was going to wear, but it’ll be better for travel.”
“Shhh!” Mai tapped her lips for silence.
Marcella opened the door. A tall man stepped over the threshold. The sun framed him from behind, giving him a halo of gold. He had a nice shape, though it was somewhat obscured by the faded army jacket he wore. Mai liked lean men with wide shoulders. Marcella shut the door behind him, cutting off the glare. Mai nodded with approval. Black hair, blue eyes, that jaw! She pushed Val’s shoulder.
“Mmm! Very nice, Amazon. Now, go! I’ll see you as soon as I can!”
• • •
Val straightened herself up and shook her hair back over her shoulders. The two people at the door looked up as she came down the stairs to join them. Mike smiled warmly at her.
“There’s the beautiful lady,” he said.
“Hi, Mike.” She smiled at him, feeling shy before Marcella. He swept her into his arms and kissed her. When he let her go, Val sensed a tentativeness about him. Maybe he didn’t like having a date with so many observers. That was good. He ought to go along with her plans—if she could get away with it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Mike seemed surprised. “Nothing. You look lovely.”
“Come in, Mr. Burns,” Marcella said. She stood aside to let him in.
“I have a better idea,” Val said brightly, hooking her arm into Mike’s. She smiled up at him. “Let’s go out tonight instead.”
“Uh, all right,” Mike said. “Where would you like to go?”
“How about the jazz club?” Val asked. She knew that building well by now. The ladies’ room was down a blind hallway. She could sneak into the kitchen and go out the rear door if she had to.
“Why not?” Mike said. “I’m dressed a little casually for it, aren’t I?”
“Well, look at me,” Val said, impatiently. She gestured at herself. Her belly looked like a velour dome under the jacket. “If they don’t mind me, they won’t mind you.”
“You look fine,” he said. “No one will notice your clothes, as beautiful as you are.”
Something in the way he said that struck her as forced. She searched his face and tried to guess what he was thinking.
“What’s wrong?” she asked again.
“Nothing’s wrong, Val. Come on.”
He hooked his arm in hers and drew her toward the door. Val held her breath. The sunshine felt so good on her face! She was going home. A pity about all those gorgeous baby gifts, but she didn’t need much. Her baby kicked at her belly, as if telling her to hurry up.
“And just where. Are. You going?”
Val felt as if a sword of ice had plunged into her back. She turned and favored Melinda with a casual smile.
“Out for dinner,” she said. “I thought it would be a nice change.”
Melinda put her plump hands on her round hips and glared up at Mike, though her voice was as sweet as saccharine.
“What about all the work that my chef has gone to, to make a delicious dinner for you two?” she asked. “What am I going to tell him? He will be so hurt!”
“I’m sure that he will understand,” Mike said. His eyes were innocent. Val could have jumped him right there out of sheer gratitude.
“Now, you remember the conditions that I gave you for seeing the mother of my grandchild,” Melinda said. Her muddy brown eyes flashed into polished agate. “They did not include making plans without consulting me.”
“Wait a minute,” Val said, natural outrage flooding her for the first time in days. “Conditions? I’m the one who decides who sees me and where. I want to go out. Are you really going to stop me?”
Melinda eyed her up and down with a rueful expression. “Darling, yo
u sound completely out of sorts. Your hormones must be so out of balance that it’s a wonder you’re not standing on your head. That’s why I’ve been acting as your guardian for these months. You need me.” She reached for Val’s other arm. “Come on into the lounge and sit down. Where’s Henry? Marcella, get him.”
Val backed away.
“Don’t you dare, Marcella,” she said.
The housekeeper looked torn. Her hand went to the phone on her belt, but she didn’t open it.
“Hurry!” Melinda barked.
“I . . .”
“Humans! They’re useless!” Melinda bore down on Val, moving much faster than Val thought she could. She tried to pull her arm away, but Melinda clamped her hand on it with the strength of a bench vise. She fixed her glare on Mike.
“It was so nice of you to come over tonight, Michael, but as you can see, Valerie is out of sorts. She really needs to lie down. That little one must be giving her a bad time. I remember when I was carrying my Lizzy, sometimes I didn’t know how I was acting. So, if you’ll excuse us, I’m going to put her to bed. Come along, Valerie.”
“No!” Val said. She tried to shake loose. Melinda held on.
“I say yes. You don’t know what’s good for you, darling!”
“For me?” Val asked. “You kidnapped me from my home. God knows how many lies you have told me over the last few months. I should be behind the bar, listening to Shriners tell me that their wives don’t understand them. Come on, Mike. Let’s go out and . . . get some food.”
Val felt her voice die in her throat. She knew it was obvious to everyone that this had stopped being about going out to eat. Melinda understood that if Val made it over the threshold, she wasn’t coming back. She clamped her other hand onto Val’s wrist and barked an order over her shoulder.
“Marcella! Now!”
Val couldn’t blame the housekeeper for being cowed. Marcella opened the small phone and dialed a number. Val thought she could hear ringing in a distant part of the house.
Val refused to wait for Henry to come and fuzz her brain again. A tiny kick under her diaphragm reminded her why it was so urgent to get out right away. Her women’s self-defense teacher had told her that anything that let you run away from a mugger was the right action. She swept her leg under Melinda’s feet. The older dragon dropped on the black-and-white tiles, but she didn’t loosen her death grip on Val’s arm. Val fell heavily on her knees.
“Dammit, let me go!” Val shrieked.
“Never!”
“Ladies, please,” Mike said, trying to help them up. “Aren’t you both overreacting?”
In unison, they chorused, “No!”
“Mike, help me,” Val pleaded. She pried at Melinda’s fingers. Undoubtedly against his better judgment, Mike got on his knees beside them. He pulled one hand loose. Before he could get the other one off, Melinda put her fingers around Val’s windpipe. And squeezed. A red halo sprang up around Val’s field of view.
“It’s all right if you deliver from a coma, darling. Easier for us all.”
Her vision narrowed into a diminishing disk of light, with Melinda’s face in the center. Before she blacked out completely, Val summoned what was left of her wits and swung her left fist into the only thing she could see.
The grip on her hand collapsed. Val sat on the floor for a moment, panting. Her sight cleared. Melinda lay spread-eagled on the floor, eyes closed, mouth agape. She was unconscious.
“That was one hell of a punch,” Mike said admiringly. “Come on, let’s go!”
“Right,” Val said. She still couldn’t believe that she had knocked Melinda out. “Hurry.”
Mike helped her to her feet. Marcella gave her a quick hug.
“I didn’t call Henry, but he knows everything that happens in this house,” she said. “Run. I hope I see you again someday.”
Val returned the embrace warmly. “Me, too.”
Swallowing hard in her sore throat, Val staggered a little unsteadily toward the door. Mike held her arm to steady her. She looked out to the driveway. The only vehicle on it was a dark green sedan with North Carolina plates.
“Where’s your car?” she asked.
“Right there,” Mike said. “Mine needed service. This is a loaner.”
“Not your style at all,” Val said.
“It was what they had. It drives just fine. Come on.” He put his arm around her and urged her forward.
Val hesitated. Something was wrong.
• • •
At the top of the stairs, Mai saw Val balk. She peered over their heads toward the driveway. The green sedan didn’t look like the kind of car dealerships lent out to repair clients. It was nondescript, almost a junker. In fact, she was almost certain she had seen it before.
Mai probed hard at Mike. A guy that good-looking had to have a few secrets.
He had. It was a big one. Mike wasn’t a dragon. In fact . . .
She stood up and screamed.
“Val, it’s George! Run, Val!”
• • •
George could have ripped Mai’s lungs out. He almost had the girl out the door! He reached for Val. The girl backed away for him. He extended his arm into a muscular tentacle and wrapped it around her wrist.
Her shattered nerves had put Val’s reactions on full red alert. When his hand touched her, Val turned, raised a leg, and gave him a hard side kick in the stomach.
“Oof!”
He staggered backward, his rubbery extremities flailing for a handhold. The doorstep caught his heel. He tripped and fell on his back. He rolled over and sprang to his feet. With more presence of mind than most humans had, the housekeeper sprang forward and slammed the door on him.
• • •
Marcella spoke into her cell phone and took Val by the arm. “Come with me!”
“Mai! What about Mai?”
The small Asian woman appeared at her side almost as if by magic.
“I am here, Amazon. What now?” Mai asked Marcella.
“I’ll take you through the back door. Where is your car?”
“In the road out front. It will be a run. Can you make it, Val?”
“Yes.” Val had caught her breath by then. Melinda was starting to stir. She moaned loudly. Marcella took both young women by the arms. She hustled them into the dayroom and through the servants’ door. Behind it, Val inhaled the warm, moist, mixed scent of drying laundry, insecticide, and cedar. Once they were through, Marcella pushed the door closed and snapped a bolt into a bracket just above the knob.
“That won’t hold her,” Val said.
“Yes, it will,” Marcella said. “It’s made to withstand Lizzy. Come on!”
They ran through parts of the house that Val had never seen before, much more humbly furnished than the grand rooms in which she had been living. The floors were polished flagstones with heavy, rectangular, woven rag rugs four feet wide down the center of the corridor. Narrow tracks worn into the fabric in parallel lanes told Val that they had been there a long time. Their intention, for which she was very grateful, was to keep the footsteps of those below stairs from being heard by the gentry above stairs. They passed heavy wooden doors with old-fashioned wood-and-iron latches fastened by very modern padlocks. Some of the rooms stood open, and a few even had large windows facing the corridors, like a sewing room where a plump Hispanic woman sat at a gently humming Bernina machine with folds of teal blue cloth in her lap.
“The kitchen is this way.”
An alarm blared from the ceiling. HONK ah HONK ah HONK ah! Val tensed, clenching her fists, but kept moving.
Marcella’s small phone started buzzing. The housekeeper lifted it to her ear and answered it in a supernally calm voice.
“This is Marcella. No, I am not in the front hall. What do you need done? What?” She sounded shocked. “Should I ca
ll the doctor? No, I will be there immediately.” She glanced at Val. “I have not seen Miss McCandles, but I will go up to her room if you require it. Very well.”
She holstered the phone. “Henry. The security room called him.”
Val felt a jolt of panic, remembering how easily he sapped her will.
“Where is he?”
“He said he’s upstairs. He’s on his way down to the front hall.”
“Good,” Mai said. “Let us hurry.”
“Right in here,” Marcella said, guiding them through a pair of stainless-steel swinging doors. She pushed inside. The kitchen, like everything else in the house, was spotless and expensively furnished. Esteban and a few of the other kitchen staff turned away from a long metal table as they entered. The stocky little man set down the knife and the onion in his hands and scooped up a package wrapped in white paper. He ran to meet Val. She braced herself for a fight.
He smiled at her and pushed the parcel into her hands.
“Here is food for your journey. We guess something was up, Miss Valerie. You have been very nice to us. We appreciate. And we say nothing.”
Val took the package and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thank you. I’m going to miss your cooking, Esteban. I’ve never eaten so well in my life.”
“Makes healthy babies,” the small man insisted. “Make strong boys!”
“And girls,” Val said. “Whatever this one turns out to be.”
“Out here,” Marcella said, darting between the metal fixtures toward a block-glass window. Beside it, a painted steel door waited, latched closed with a steel bolt. The housekeeper flung it open.
On the other side stood Mike Burns. Or, rather, George. Val gasped.
He grabbed Val by the wrist. “Come on, Ms. McCandles. I’m taking you home.”
“No!” Val screamed. She fought to plunge her fingertips into his pressure points. He didn’t seem to have any. She pulled back. His grip was stronger than anything she had ever felt. “I don’t want to die!”
Just like that, Mai was between them, her hands around his throat. “She’s not going anywhere with you, assassin.”
The George batted her away as if she weighed no more than a paper doll. She went for him again, but he held her at arm’s length. A roar behind him almost rattled the windows.
Robert Asprin's Dragons Run Page 34