He ducked out into the back hallway, hoping that Old Joe would still be there. The man seemed to be old and confused enough that he shifted shapes at all sorts of times for any reason or no reason at all. And Tom dreaded the thought of his being naked and lost in the snow, scared away by the cantaloupe that Anthony had thrown at his head.
* * *
Rafiel heard Kyrie behind him. No. He smelled her before he heard her—that sharp tang that indicated a shifter, followed by the symphony of scent that was Kyrie herself. She didn't wear perfume—that would probably have covered up all other scents to him—but her smell reminded him of cinnamon and fresh cut apples and the smell of fresh mown grass. All of those were very subtle undertones overlaid on a smell of soap, but they twisted together in a scent that meant Kyrie.
"Tom went outside. Something about an alligator," Rafiel said without turning back.
Kyrie gave what was not even a suppressed sigh, just a slightly longer breath. He could almost hear her shrug. He couldn't tell if it was impatience or exasperation. "Yeah," she said. "He's one of Tom's strays."
There would have been a time when Rafiel would have pursued that hint of impatience with his rival. No matter how much Rafiel might deny it or what he might say, Kyrie remained his dream girl, whom he thought the perfect woman for him. The one he loved and could never have.
For a moment, a nonphysical ache seemed to make his heart clench, and then he shook his head. "Look, it's just . . ." He shook his head again when he realized he was about to tell her that he couldn't discuss Tom without appearing partial because he still wanted her and wanted her badly. Then he realized he couldn't tell her that.
The problem with it, he thought, repressing an impulse to kick something, was that he liked Tom. They'd saved each other's lives, more or less, a couple of times. They'd fought side by side. There was something in that for men—something older than time, older than human thought. It made them blood brothers; comrades at arms. But beyond all that, he liked Tom. Tom was odd and he did things Rafiel couldn't fully understand but then, in a way everyone appeared like that to everyone else.
Tom came in the back door then. Because of the slight curve of the hallway, Rafiel couldn't see him, but he could hear him, talking to someone who answered back in a raspy voice. This presumably meant, Rafiel thought, that Tom was bringing back the former alligator now in human form. Not that he put it past Tom to drag an alligator into the diner. And the fact that he could easily convince everyone in there that this was perfectly normal and nothing unexpected was part of what was unique about the man. Part of the reason Rafiel knew it was no use to try to seduce Kyrie. Not anymore. He had seen his competition and he knew he didn't measure up.
Instead, he turned around, to look at Kyrie, who was staring down the hallway, towards the sound of an opening door. "He keeps old clothes in one of the storage rooms," she said. "For Old Joe. Because he shifts for no reason, and it means he ends up naked a lot."
Rafiel shrugged. "The reason I came," he said, "is that we found an arm. At the aquarium."
"An arm?" She looked at him blankly, with a horrified expression. "An arm?"
"There was a cell phone ring that came from inside one of the sharks," Rafiel said. "The cleaning divers heard it. They thought, you know . . . the shark had swallowed a cell phone. People lean over—there's an observation area—and they drop things in the water. But then they found the bones at the bottom of the tank. Human bones. That's when we were called in, to determine if they were, in fact, human. They were. A couple of vertebrae. Some toe bones." He waved his hand. For some reason the finding of those fragments of humanity at the bottom of a shark tank affected him more than finding a whole decomposing body, as he often had. They were more pathetic and more anonymous, demanding more of his pity, his outrage—and his justice.
He shook his head, to dismiss the image of the bones—a handful of them, no more. Kyrie looked at Tom, leading Old Joe—a man so old he was almost bent over, and whose skin and hair were not so much white as the curious colorlessness of the very aged—to one of the corner tables, and now Tom was ducking behind the counter and getting a bowl of clam chowder and taking it back to Old Joe.
"So they opened the shark," Rafiel said, hearing his own voice sound toneless. "And they found a human arm, still clutching a cell phone."
"Someone fell in the aquarium?" Kyrie asked, and now Rafiel had her full attention, and Tom had come up and was nearby, his eyebrows raised.
"Was it a shifter?" he asked. "Who fell?"
Rafiel shook his head. "No. It wasn't . . . it's just . . . we went over today, with a team, and did the full work-up, and while we were there, I kept smelling this shifter smell, around the shark tank and up to the little observation area. And then around the offices, too. So I made sure to forget one of my notebooks behind, and I went back to pick it up. There was only one employee there, closing up for the day, really, and she didn't mind having me look around the crime scene." He cringed inwardly, knowing exactly how many violations of procedure he had incurred, but knowing that procedure, somehow, failed to account for shifter criminals and the shifter policemen whose life might be destroyed by them. "If it's even a crime scene, of course."
"And?" Kyrie said.
"And there was a definite trail of shifter-smell winding around the observation area from which the vic could have fallen into the tank."
"But surely," Tom said, "it could also mean that of the many visitors to the aquarium, one was . . . you know, like us."
Rafiel nodded. "Oh, it could mean that. Definitely. And that's the problem. I couldn't smell all around and . . ." He shrugged. "I wanted your noses on the case, as it were. I . . . stole a set of keys while the employee was busy." That she had been busy on a wild goose chase for the wallet he claimed to have dropped somewhere only made him feel slightly guilty. He noted that neither Kyrie nor Tom looked shocked by his behavior, either. Tom chewed his lip and looked like he was thinking. "I truly can't go," he said. "Kyrie is not that good on managing the grill area. It's new. The whole stove is. She's not used to it yet."
Kyrie looked as if she would protest, but was sweeping automatically back and forth across the tables with her gaze, even as she frowned. "Perhaps," she said, "I can come with you if we do it briefly?"
Rafiel looked towards Tom. He knew very well that Kyrie didn't need anyone's permission and, in fact, he was perfectly well aware that Kyrie would resent his openly asking if Tom minded her going with him. Because it would imply Kyrie needed a minder and that she was less than a fully conscious participant in the relationship. Both of which were lies.
So Rafiel didn't say anything, but he looked at Tom.
There had been times, only a few months ago, when Tom would have been very upset at thinking of Rafiel and Kyrie going anywhere together without him. But now he just looked towards the booth where Red Dragon sat and asked, "Can you take him with you?"
Rafiel raised his eyebrow, in mute question, wondering if Tom meant to use Red Dragon as a chaperone. But the look back was guileless and open. "It's just I'd rather not have him around when I already shifted once today. And not in the diner. I don't want to shift again, and I don't want to do it here. And there are two of you . . ."
Kyrie nodded. She had that jutting-lower-lip look she got when she'd determined on a course of action. "Let me talk to him, first," she said, and walked towards the booth, carrying the coffee carafe and a cup, in what might be a gesture of hospitality or, simply, the most discreet weapons she could carry in this space.
* * *
Red Dragon was still huddled in the booth where Kyrie had left him, and looked around with huge eyes, as if he expected everyone in the diner to shift shapes and devour him.
And he says he wants to protect Tom, Kyrie thought, and shook her head slightly at the absurdity of it. It has to be a joke. Perhaps not his joke, but the Great Sky Dragon's.
She pushed a cup in front of him, and poured coffee into it from the carafe and just a
s she was thinking that no matter how many packets of sugar Red Dragon put in it, he needed protein and she ought to have thought of it, Tom set a plate in front of Red Dragon, containing two whole wheat buns and what appeared to be a triple hamburger and a whole lot of cheese.
Considering that she knew very well how Tom felt about Red Dragon, Kyrie felt her heart melt. Tom was like that. He would give up his own shirt to clothe someone else, even if it was his mortal enemy. This both scared her and made her think her boyfriend was the best person in the world.
Red Dragon looked sheepishly at Tom who said, "Protein. After shifting."
The young man nodded at Tom and picked up the burger with shaking hands, while Kyrie looked up at Tom and gave him her warmest smile. He looked worried enough, but he winked at her, before returning behind the counter to fool with the grill or start preparations for the next dish, or whatever it was he did back there half the time. Kyrie was quite contented to leave the cooking to Tom, and most of their clientele seemed to approve of the decision.
She turned back to Red Dragon, who was wolfing down the burger.
"I can't call you Red Dragon," she told the creature who faced her, clutching the burger tightly as if he were afraid she'd take it away. "Do you have a name?"
Red Dragon blushed and paused, caught just after taking a bite, his mouth full, the burger awkwardly in his hand. "I'm . . . My name . . ." He blushed darker and looked down at the burger, setting it slowly down on the plate, as he hastily chewed what was in his mouth. "My name is Conan Lung."
"Conan?" Kyrie asked. She didn't know whether she believed it, and she almost laughed at the idea of this man, who was shorter even than Tom, much slimmer, and—definitely—no barbarian hero, being called Conan.
"I . . ." He sighed. "My parents used comic books to improve their English, and they liked Conan."
That he was descended from the sort of people who thought that their son was likely to grow up to be a barbarian hero, might explain his delusional thoughts of protecting Tom. Might. She doubted anything could fully explain that.
"Right, then, Mr. Lung," she said. "What I want to know—"
"Call me Conan," Conan Lung said, quickly, and in the sort of undertone that implied he expected a rebuff.
"Right then," Kyrie said, thinking to herself she hoped the creature wouldn't think they were the best of friends, now. In his last foray into their lives, he'd chased them all over town and he'd helped catch and torture Tom. She knew that like all cowards, he could be exceptionally cruel in a fight. And she didn't want to have him at her back in a dangerous situation. In fact, she didn't want to have him anywhere that she couldn't keep a sharp eye on him. "You said you came to protect Tom?"
Red Dragon cast a fearful look at Tom, then another back at Kyrie. "The Great One said that I must come and protect the young dragon," he said, and bobbed a small bow, as though just speaking of the Great Sky Dragon must entail a need to kowtow. "He said I should answer for his life with mine."
Kyrie frowned. Conan sounded terribly earnest and she didn't think just now, scared as he looked, that the man was capable of lying so convincingly. However, having met the vast golden dragon that was master of all other Asian dragons in the West, she couldn't imagine his sending Conan to Tom as a protector.
"You're . . . He told you you're to protect Tom? You're a bodyguard of sorts, then?"
Conan bobbed his head again, then shook it desultorily. "Not . . . a bodyguard. My . . . my fighting is not all that could be desired. But I am one of the Great One's . . . you know? One of his vassals. I'm supposed to . . . to report to him what's happening around . . . the young dragon. To . . . to call him if needed."
"Do you mean," Kyrie started, narrowing her eyes, "that you are spying for the Great Sky Dragon? That if there is any trouble . . ."
"He can be here in no time at all," Conan said. "He tried telling the young dragon to beware, but the young one didn't seem to understand him, so I am here to protect him." A bite of the burger and a fleeting look under his—annoyingly thick and long—lashes at her. "And . . . and you. By making sure the Great One can chase away any enemies before they can harm any of you."
"But protect us from what?" Kyrie asked. She didn't at all like the idea that the Great Sky Dragon had effectively planted a spy among them. She wasn't sure she trusted his intentions or his ideas of what was proper. And she was very sure she didn't trust the Great Sky Dragon, himself. A creature more than a thousand years old—and from what Kyrie understood, the Great Sky Dragon was several thousands of years old—would have seen generations come and go. What would others' lives be worth to him?
Oh, he could have killed Tom, three months ago—killed him in such a way that even the amazing healing power of dragons would not have reversed. And he'd chosen not to. But how did Kyrie know that it was ever a choice? How could she know that under what must surely be an alien honor code, the Great Sky Dragon hadn't been forbidden from killing Tom then? And how did she know that he didn't mean to make up for it now, by setting a trap in which Tom would be caught and killed?
She looked towards her boyfriend, who was leaning on the counter, chatting animatedly with Rafiel, and again felt a sick lurch in her stomach. In place of the family she'd never known, she had a man who loved her and who was—she believed—one of the best people in the world—dragon shifter or no. And she had friends: Rafiel and Anthony, and a young man named Keith who was, now and again, a part-time waiter at The George.
Kyrie was not willing to give up any member of her chosen family, nor any corner of her domain to shadowy creatures whose life span might be many times as long as hers, but whose moral compass left much to be desired.
"Stay here," she told Conan, as she got up, collecting the carafe. She must talk to Tom and Rafiel and try to figure out what they should do with Conan and what the Great Sky Dragon could be trying to do.
Whatever it was, they would be in as much danger as she would be—perhaps Tom would be in more danger, in fact—and she couldn't make a decision for either of them.
* * *
"Seriously," Rafiel said, speaking in an undertone to Tom's back, as Tom industriously scraped at the grill. "How many of your clients are shifters?"
Tom gave Rafiel a look over his shoulder, half startled. "I told you. You and Old Joe."
"You know better. You know because of the pheromones the . . . former owners . . . sprayed this place with it, attract shifters. They attracted you and Kyrie, didn't they? Right off the bus. Unless you have a better explanation as to why you and Kyrie found little Goldport, Colorado so irresistible. They attracted me, which is perhaps more easily explainable, since I'm a policeman and I work the night shift. So, failing a really good twenty-four-hour doughnut shop in town . . ." He smiled a self-conscious smile, glad Tom was turning around—spatula still in hand—and answered his joke with a chuckle. "You could say an all-night greasy spoon is the closest thing to my natural habitat. But how can you truly believe we're the only ones?"
Tom shrugged. "I don't know, Rafiel. I don't think there are that many of our kind of people, period. There was an orangutan shifter, back in New York. And of course, the Great Sky Dragon and his brood. And there is, of course, Old Joe and you and Kyrie. But that's out of thousands of people, Rafiel. I don't think there are that many of us to gather here. Or anywhere."
"What you mean is that you don't think there are that many of them in the vicinity. But how far does the call of the pheromones extend? How far will it bring shifters, do you know? How many casual travelers, how many students, will stop here and stay? How many of those do you have as regulars, Tom?"
Tom shrugged. He set the spatula down and leaned over the counter, so that they could talk to each other in a whisper and with a modicum of privacy. "I don't know," he said. "You figured out how to smell shifters before either Kyrie or I did. Can't you smell out shifters in the diner, and tell me how many shifters there are here?"
Rafiel shrugged. "Not always. When people wear
perfume, or even cologne, sometimes it's hard to tell. When I was in high school—" He stopped abruptly.
"Yes?" Tom asked.
Rafiel shrugged. He'd never told Tom this. He had never told anyone, not even his parents. The incident, secret though it was, had crystalized for him exactly what risk shifters were in, and how their very natures placed them outside the purview of normal legality. Of what other people would see as reality.
Tom was watching him intently and Rafiel sighed and gave in. "When I was in high school, I had a girlfriend. This was around the time I started shifting, but I shifted mostly late at night, and provided I took care not to have dates on full-moon nights, we were okay. She was . . . she seemed very easygoing and was willing to postpone dates and take my less than convincing excuses. Still, when I graduated I went away to Denver to study law enforcement, and it was either break up or get married and, you know, I couldn't get married. Not and risk her figuring out what I really was. So we broke up. Alice stayed behind and worked . . . actually at The George. The Athens as it then was. And then when I came back for Christmas . . ." He shrugged. "Well, you know, being a shifter and all, and the first year at college I had to be in dorms . . ."
"I always wondered how that worked," Tom said.
"Not well. So I was convinced I wanted to quit school, and I came back home for Christmas, and I was going to tell Dad I couldn't be an officer, after all, which would break his heart. Anyway, when I got here I found out Alice was missing. Had been missing for some days. I shifted. I trailed her . . . well . . . her scent. I found her dead. She had been killed because she was a shifter. She was . . ." He looked up at Tom and saw, reflected in the other man's face, the strange, hollow grief he himself felt. "She was a lion shifter. And her new boyfriend caught her shifting and . . . you know . . . killed her. He was scared. I . . ." He shook his head, trying to free himself of memories of the past and Alice's soft brown eyes. "I never knew it. Even though I was with her, every day, I never smelled the shifter in her. She wore a perfume that had the same sort of undertone, and it got lost in the perfume."
Gentleman Takes a Chance Page 6