Dragons Luck

“Because he said so?” Margie said.

“Because I don’t see where he’d have any reason to,” Lowell corrected. “If anything, quite the opposite. He’s been knocking himself out trying to run this conclave. Why would he do anything to disrupt it or to draw unwanted attention to it?”

“I’ll have to go along with that,” Tail agreed. “He rubs me the wrong way, but he’s also doing right by us. We all expect certain things from dragons; Griffen has turned at least some of my ideas around.”

“That’s certainly true for us changelings,” Tink said. “He always has time to talk with us and make us feel welcome. This whole thing with Slim, it’s almost as if whoever did it wanted Griffen to look bad.”

A silence fell over the group as they looked at each other.

“Why? Seems a powerful strong way to wrong someone,” Kane said softly.

“Someone already said it.” Tail frowned. “To mess up the conclave.”

“Maybe by setting up one of the groups, like, say, us vampires, to appear to be disruptive influences, if not killers,” said Lowell. “By the way, Tail, we really didn’t send you that cake from the Three Dog Bakery.”

“I think the real question,” Margie said, “is not ‘why?’ but ‘who?’ Who would want to see the conclave fail at Griffen’s expense?”

“What about a dragon?” Tail said, darkly.

“What is it wit you ’n’ dragons? You got a serious mad on for a reason?” Kane grimaced.

“No. Wait a minute,” Lowell said. “Tail might have a point there.”

“How do you figure that?” Tink asked.

“Think about it,” the vampire said. “Remember all the things we’ve heard about dragons, and how ruthless and power-hungry they are. This is the first time we’ve had a dragon at one of our conclaves, and we all like, or at least respect, McCandles. That’s got to have some kind of impact on other dragons. They may see it as degrading.”

“Or as an opportunity to do Griffen some dirt,” Tink said. “Anything that happened could get blamed on his being involved with the conclave.”

“Slow down here. Let’s not get carried away,” Margie said. “All of this is just speculation. We don’t know that Slim’s death was anything except random violence. We sure can’t point the finger at any one person or group without some kind of proof.”

“Well, there’s nothing stopping us from doing a little investigating on our own,” Lowell said.

“Reality check?” Margie said, raising her hand. “Exactly what do yo think we can do that the regular police can’t?”

“Lots of things.” The vampire smiled. “How about it, Tail? Is there anything you or yours could do to help track down the killer?”

“Not de way it work, Batman,” the shape-shifter growled. “We’re not bloodhounds. Even if’n we were, got any idea how many damn tourists passed by de scene of de crime by now? Worse’n a needle in a haystack, dat job.”

“We might be able to help with that,” Tink said. “One of the things we changelings are good at is finding things.”

“And that helps us how?” Margie said, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, one of us . . . Tammy, you remember her . . . is particularly good at detecting supernaturals. If she could locate some that aren’t involved with the conclave, and one of them turned out to have a grudge against Griffen, we just might have found our killer.”

“That’s pretty thin,” Lowell said. “And we’ve only got, what, maybe thirty-six hours to do it in? Besides, from what I recall of that little scene at the poker game, I’m not sure Tammy will be all that eager to do a favor for McCandles.”

“You don’t know Tammy,” Tink said. “She’s probably cooled down by now. Besides, it will give her a chance to gain his thanks, if not admiration.”

“And if it doesn’t work, we’re no worse off than before,” Tail pointed out. “Let’s do it.”

Forty-seven

Griffen wasn’t sure what to expect from the conclave the morning after Slim’s death. He had made calls to the various speakers and leaders the night before, after talking with his own inner circle, Jerome, Val, and Mai. He had almost called Mose, but the old dragon’s distant attitude lately made Griffen hesitate. The advice from the others would have to be enough.

The conclave was already winding down. Today the scheduling was light, and tomorrow there wasn’t anything serious at all before the big masquerade ball. It seemed they were used to everyone wanting to have time to rest up before the real party. Griffen had been assured that the speakers could handle most of the workload that day if he needed to deal with more important matters.

Which was exactly the problem. Griffen wasn’t sure where his priorities should be. The loss of Slim had him mixed up emotionally, but he had been engaged as moderator. A moderator who didn’t know which meetings during the “light” day were actually important. The weight of the tragedy and the weight of his inexperience were combining into something truly crushing.