Dragons & Dwarves

  “He made a deal with the Devil. Old book.”

  “You know no one by that name?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  My vision was dimming, and I had lost even the numbness that connected me to my body. I kept thinking back to the mage’s comment about draining me dry.

  “These answers have been truthful?”

  I was surprised that I didn’t answer. Apparently the question wasn’t addressed toward me. The mage said, in a voice now very far off and wee, “What you think you paid me for?”

  “Then we are done.”

  Silence.

  Darkness.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I WOKE up the next morning with enough memory of the prior night to realize that it was far from the nightmare I wanted it to be.

  This was uncharted territory for me. The greatest physical threat I’d ever suffered before this was when an elderly George Forbes threw a chair at me during a press conference when I asked a question that—apparently—questioned his judgment in reentering city politics after umpteen years of retirement.

  There is a considerable difference in tone between a chair wielded by a washed-up politician, and a Glock wielded by an emotionless elf cop. My pulse raced in my neck, and my mouth tasted of copper just thinking about it.

  But, on reflection, the motive behind both was the same. Intimidation.

  That pissed me off.

  One major self-destructive part of my personality was that whenever someone threatened me to get me to abandon a course of action, I became more committed to whatever I was doing. Even if I want to cave, I can’t.

  That was pretty much what happened to my marriage. When Margaret started telling me I had to spend less time at the job or our marriage was in serious trouble, I couldn’t bring myself to change. I knew better, but some adamantine kernel of ego kept me from responding. The Portal opening was the biggest story of the millennium, and, by God, I was going to cover it.

  I can’t say I was surprised when I came home to an empty house.

  All in all, the divorce was amicable. Because, once I’d done the stupid macho shit and refused to bend, I was so pathetically guilty that I caved on every other point. As if responding to my wife’s needs now was somehow going to fix it. Fortunately for me, Margaret didn’t have her lawyer feed too much on my bloated corpse.

  And, if I wasn’t going to let the loss of my marriage intimidate me, a cabal of armed elves didn’t have much chance.

  That was what was running through my head as I pushed open the door to Columbia Jennings’ office the morning after. The smoke smell was as thick as ever, and she was half turned away from me, facing the screen on her desktop. I could see an image of this morning’s Press on the flat screen before she looked up at me. “Maxwell?”

  “Morning, Bea,” I said as I pushed the door shut behind me.

  “I was going to congratulate you. Good story. Above the fold.”

  I nodded. She was being way more gregarious than usual. She almost smiled. The subliminal nervousness that I’d sensed yesterday was there full force now that I knew what to look for. “Yes. It turns out to be more my line than I’d thought at first.” I didn’t sit. “Perceptive of you to give me the lead on this, wasn’t it?”

  “Thank you.” She said it in a way that made it clear she wasn’t sure it was a compliment.

  “Why?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Why did you give the story to me?”

  “It’s your line. Like you said—”

  “Bullshit!”

  She stared at me, stunned at my outburst. I was a little surprised myself. I was running on instinct here, but that little reporter barometer in my gut was saying warmer . . .

  “Bea, you needed to get me on that story. When I agreed without a fight, the relief in this room was as thick as the smoke. If you, for one moment, thought of this as a political story, you would have used that to sell me on it. One mention of Phillips, Nesmith, Rayburn, Baldassare, and you would have had me on this thing before you finished the sentence.” I leaned across the desk. “You didn’t know who the dragon was when you pawned this off on me, did you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “If you remember, I asked you who it was.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “You had no idea of the political ties to this story when you assigned it to me.”

  “No.”

  “Why, then?”

  “I have bosses, too. You think I decide everything here by personal fiat?”

  Yes. However, this wasn’t the place to say that. “Hackket?” I asked, naming the editor-in-chief of the Press.

  “He’s the one who gave me the news that you should cover the dragon. He has a boss, too.”

  Nyle Montgomery, owner of the Cleveland Press, a man who was probably richer than Leo Bladassare. Bea was telling me that my assignment to the dragon story had come from the top, before the victim had even been identified.

  Officially identified, I corrected myself.

  “Do you know anyone named Faust?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” I turned and walked to the office door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got a dragon story to cover, remember?”

  I had several directions I needed to go in now. I had a dead dragon who had his talons in a lot of local pies. I had the suspicion that his death was more than an accident, the unvoiced hunch gaining a lot more credibility based on my nocturnal questioning. I had at least four elf cops with an interest in this; all probably members of O’Malley’s Special Paranormal Unit since only two or three elves were cops outside the SPU. I had a human mage that I wouldn’t have any problem picking out of a lineup. I had a name, Faust.

  And I had Adrian Phillips on a Coast Guard cutter.

  Why?

  There was a tenuous connection. For a variety of historical reasons, the Port Authority had direct executive control over the Portal. It was the Port Authority that maintained the stadium, ran the buses in and out. Because of that, they also had regulatory control over the magic in this town, such as it was. Several times the Council had tried to spin off the magic stuff into its own agency, but Phillips and his Port Authority fought that turf battle tooth and nail. They were the agency in direct contact with the world beyond the Portal, so they should keep control of what came out of it.

  Because of Phillips’ tight rein on his own agency and what it controlled, he was probably the third most powerful person in the city government. Under his control was every mage who worked for the city, with the sole exception of the forensic mages who worked in the SPU. Even those had to work under guidelines drafted by Phillips and his agency.

  Aloeus’ nosedive had drawn some high-powered attention. The more I thought of it, the more Phillips’ presence seemed to confirm the thought that there was more going on here than a simple accident. I began wondering if the report Nesmith passed out gave the whole story.

  While I was at my desk, I tried to give the coroner, Egil Nixon, a call. Again, I got voice mail. This time the message said that he was going to be out of the office the remainder of the week. I left a message, feeling a little uneasy. I made a few more calls, found out his home number was unlisted, and used a source in the sheriff’s office to get it and his address.

  No answer at home.

  That goes on the things to do list.

  I wrote myself a note, then I called Baldassare.

  “The dragon will be expecting you,” he told me. “Like I said, don’t do anything that makes me regret setting this up.”

  “Thank you,” I said, writing down the meeting time under my note to check up on Coroner Nixon. Before he hung up, I added, “I wanted to ask you something.”

  There was a pause. “Okay, Kline. What is it?”

  “Has it ever crossed your mind that Aloeus’ death might have been less than an accident?”

  “I don’t put any credence in rumors, Kline. Whenever a public
figure dies, especially a political one, there’ll be conspiracies around every corner. I won’t contribute to that.”

  “You’ve heard rumors?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “You know I had to ask.”

  “That’s the difference between me and you. There are some questions I wouldn’t ask.” A beat. “Anything else?”

  “Two things,” Both were long shots. “I ran into someone on the way back from your place,” Almost ran into, anyway. “Her name’s Ysbail. I wondered if you knew her.”

  “You did?” Hard to read his voice, hard to tell if the surprise was real or feigned. “How in the world did you two meet?”

  “By accident. Friend of yours?”

  “Acquaintance.” He seemed to consider carefully before he said, “Is she the source of your rumors?”

  Interesting. “You know a reporter doesn’t reveal sources—where would you be if I did that?”

  “What was the other thing?”

  “Do you know anyone named Faust?”

  A very cold, “No.”

  I waited a moment, which told me all I needed. Just the denial, no question about why I was asking or who Faust was supposed to be. Either Baldassare wanted me to know Faust meant something, or I had—for the first time—really surprised him with something. My bet would be the former.

  “Thanks again for the help.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “Just remember all this when I ask you for something.”

  I walked into the glassy atrium of the BP Building trying to fit several disjointed pieces together. My discussion with Baldassare gave me some impressions of what was happening. From the sound of things, my escorts last night weren’t the only elves out there who thought Aloeus had suffered something other than an accident. From Baldassare’s point of view, this Ysbail elf was of a similar mind.

  It would make sense. If Aloeus was a political advocate for the paranormal underclass, it made some sense that the people he supported would view his death with suspicion. However, since some of them seemed to be cops, I suspected it was more than a knee-jerk reaction.

  I wondered if Theophane had heard any rumors.

  I walked back to where the elevators were kept. There was one elevator, separate from the others, that went to Theophane’s floor. I had expected an intercom, a phone line, something—but all there was was the single call button mounted in its brass plaque in the marble wall.

  I pressed it, looking around for visible wards or security cameras. I saw one recessed area near the elevator that could have been either, but I didn’t have the time to examine it closely because the mirrored brass doors slid open immediately.

  I stepped inside the wood-paneled elevator and turned around to see the doors close in front of me. I reached for the button for the thirty-ninth floor, and didn’t find one. Where the control panel normally sat was a blank brass plate. The only controls were the key-operated fire department override, and the stop/alarm button. I suddenly had the feeling that those were there only because the fire code required it.

  The elevator didn’t move.

  After a few moments I heard a voice. “Who is asking for admittance?” The voice had the directionless character that told me that it wasn’t being reproduced electronically.

  “Kline Maxwell, Cleveland Press. Leonardo Baldassare sent me.”

  It was a long sixty seconds before the elevator began moving. The upward acceleration was sudden, unexpected, and unpleasant. The little LED display ran floor numbers by too fast to read, until it hit thirty and began slowing down.

  I rubbed my chin and looked into my reflection in the polished brass doors.

  Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine . . .

  The doors slid open.

  Baldassare had said there was a moment where everything clicked, a point where it sank in how much the world had changed. I thought that I had passed that point long ago. I knew what the world had become.

  But when I walked out onto the top floors of the BP building, it clicked. I realized that I knew jack shit.

  The BP Building was late seventies, early eighties. The first major skyscraper built here after the city came out of default. First it was the Sohio corporate headquarters, then BP Oil bought them out and stayed long enough to rename the building. It was a high-profile address, right on Public Square, and the top floors were about as exclusive as you got as far as downtown office space went.

  I had never been here before, but I could tell that the current tenant had ordered extensive remodling.

  The fortieth floor no longer existed except as empty space three stories above me. In front of me was an atrium that enclosed almost as much space as the grand lobby downstairs. To my left and right were three stories of windows that looked down on the city from a dizzying height. Except for the heavy stillness in the air, the feeling was as if I stood on an urban mountain peak. The air smelled of roses and sulfur.

  What affected me most wasn’t the grand space, but the single occupant of that space.

  She—I wouldn’t have known gender if Baldassare hadn’t told me—was easily half again the size of Aloeus, though I was probably too close to her for an accurate measure of size. All I saw was a wall of muscular blue-black flesh that rose above my head and slid, slowly, from left to right. In the direction of motion, the wall narrowed to a serpentine neck that arched above her, ending in a head longer than I was tall. She lowered her head, pulling her body in an undulating motion behind it, so I glimpsed an arm stretching lazily toward the ceiling. Baldassare was right about feline body language, though the clawed hand I saw could easily break an eight-hundred pound Siberian tiger in half.

  I realized the wall of flesh in front of me was her back when she completed the feline stretch by rolling over—in my direction. If the intention was to impress me, Theophane succeeded. I flattened myself against the elevator doors, as her enormous form rolled to face me. She came to rest about ten feet from the column that held the elevator shaft, but my hypothalamus was screaming to the rest of my body that I was about to be crushed.

  Her head came down between me and the rest of her body. She looked at me with a heavy golden eye the size of my skull. She opened her mouth, and her voice filled the humid air around me.

  “Fuzzy gnome stories?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “THEOPHANE?” I asked unnecessarily.

  She blinked at me slowly.

  I realized she had asked a question, and was waiting for an answer. “It’s slang,” I told her, hoping to God I wasn’t being insulting. “News stories that are predominantly about the paranormal.”

  “ So I am a ‘fuzzy gnome?’ ”

  I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to see her reaction. “Strictly speaking, yes.”

  I felt wet sulfur breath on my face and heard an ominous rumble. It shook the floor and I tensed, expecting to feel the dragon’s wrath at any moment. The rumble became louder, and when I wasn’t immediately torn limb from limb, I risked a peek.

  Theophane was laughing.

  She shook her head as she finished rolling to her feet. It took her body even closer, but she had enough control to avoid squashing me. She took a few steps away from me. With her stride that meant that there was suddenly about forty feet between us. I could now see most of her—a whiplike saurian body that seemed to cross a python with a T-rex. Her body shaded from black-blue on top, to a blue-white underneath. Her wings folded against her back like a cape, and her tail slid back past me and the pillar that held the elevator shaft. Her head sat on a serpentine neck that turned it to keep her gaze on me as she moved. Brimstone-scented steam rose from her nostrils as she laughed.

  After a moment, she regarded me with her head cocked inquisitively, “You do not find that amusing?”

  “I see the incongruity of the statement.” Sorry, but I’m a little too shit-scared to laugh right now. “Where did you hear that phrase? I thought it was just some provincial jargon from the local press.” I w
as having difficulty keeping my voice on an even keel. Somehow it’d never occurred to me that seeing a dragon up close would have this kind of effect on me. Blame that on the little knot of ego that got me into situations like this in the first place.

  “I have heard that you’re a journalist who does not do ‘fuzzy gnome’ stories.”

  “The death of Aloeus is more than that.”

  “We are all more than that.” The great deep voice carried something akin to Columbia’s disapproval. Just like a flamethrower carries something akin to a Zippo.

  “I didn’t mean offense.”

  The dragon laughed again in a way that made my fillings ache. “You are only human, Mr. Maxwell. Can I fault you for that?” I got the feeling that I wasn’t completely off the hook.

  I wondered again where she had heard the phrase.

  “Mr. Baldassare called on your behalf last night. I agreed to meet you, knowing your aversion to ‘fuzzy gnomes.’”

  “What do you know about that?” I asked her.

  “I make knowing things my business.” She lowered her head to be at a level with me. That was disconcerting, facing her beaklike toothy mouth. “Mr. Baldassare said you want to know about dragons.”

  “I want to know about Aloeus.”

  “Are they not the same thing?”

  There was silence for a moment before I heard a small alarm from behind her. She cocked her head. “Pardon me a moment.”

  She turned from me, the motion of her body vibrating the floor. Her tail slid by me with a soft hiss across the blood-red carpet. “I must buy some more Microsoft shares before the NASDAQ starts upward again.”

  I stood there and watched for a while, letting the past thirty seconds sink into my world view. Call me a racist, but I didn’t expect a dragon with a sense of humor. Theophane seemed to be getting a lot of enjoyment out of playing all my expectations false. Which was no difficult task, since she knew a lot more about me, and humanity in general, than the sorry bits I knew about her kind—and about her specifically, I knew nothing beyond name and address.