Dragons Luck

“You really don’t want to know, Detective. Trust me.”

Harrison looked back.

“The last thing I am going to do right now is trust you . . . but I might agree with you on that.”

Harrison stood and walked over to Griffen. A few moments later the handcuffs were back in his pocket.

“There is no evidence, no sign of you on the body. No murder weapon. And witnesses who talked to me . . . might not be so willing to talk to whoever gets the case. But, McCandles, this is your mess, and you got a group of people, suspects, who are skipping town in a couple of days.”

Harrison opened the door. The uniforms were gone. Griffen wondered if they had been there just for him.

“You have till the end of your little convention here to get me some answers I can use. Or I am dragging you, and every last one of them, in on whatever charges I can cook up. And then I find out . . . everything.”

The door closed behind him, and Griffen sat in the chair, rubbing his wrists and trying to figure out if he was more or less confused than he’d been earlier thas morning. A soft knock came from the door, which opened a crack. Jay poked his head in tentatively.

“We are ready to start the first meeting, if you are done with the room, Griffen,” he said

“Sure, sure,” Griffen said absently.

“Are you busy, or will you be sitting in?” Jay asked.

“I, uh . . . I’ll sit in.”

Jay nodded approvingly. He opened the door fully and in walked several of the conclave members. Griffen barely paid attention as they all found their seats, clumped into their cliques and groups.

The changelings gathered close to him, and after a few more distracted seconds, Griffen realized they were looking at him. Especially Robin and Hobb, their eyes wide and eager.

“Yes?” Griffen asked.

“Well, uh, we wanted to know, since you are still leading the meetings,” Robin began, hesitantly.

“Are we still going to have our pre-Halloween ghost tour?” Hobb asked.

“Pleeeease,” several of the changelings said at once, eager as puppies.

Griffen found himself smiling.

It was all about priorities.

Forty-eight

No matter what type of tourist you are, the Quarter has something for you.

Beautiful scenery for the shutterbugs, endless stores of all ranges of quality for the shopaholics, bars and clubs for the party animals, exotic and local cuisine for the gourmands, museums and galleries for the hoi polloi. Even clowns making balloon animals for the children. Though if you really want to experience the Quarter, it’s always best to leave the kiddies at home.

For the most part Griffen had sampled all the various facets of the tourist-milking machine that is the French Quarter. He reveled in the low and the high. He even occasionally poked his head in the countless T-shirt shops to see if there was anything clever. Except for the tours. For all his months there, he hadn’t been on a single tour. It just wasn’t something that the locals tended to do, and it wasn’t something that had any particular draw for him.

That was before he found himself made a moderator. With everything that was going on at the conclave, Griffen felt driven to try to keep things together. He was holding the bag, but that didn’t mean he was going to choose the easy route and drop it.

One of the activities that had been planned was a group excursion with the Haunted History Tour. Again, Griffen knew very little about the tours themselves though he had seen them around. Groups of fifteen to thirty tourists would gather around a storyteller as he spoke of the Quarter’s sordid past. Most of it was made-up; if one listened to rumor, it was invented on the spot. A really bored tour guide could be the worst, or best, thing that a tourist might encounter.

One of Estella’s people had offered to give the tour, but Griffen politely declined. Not only did he want the conclave members to have a “normal” Quarter experience, he was hoping that most of them would keep their eccentricities in check with a normal tour guide.

Hoping, not expecting.

This was actually the most mingling he had seen among the various groups in the conclave. It was hard to form little cliques when you were all clustering around a single storyteller. Also, it was mostly followers, not leaders. Drake, Robin, and Hobb were there, but not Tink. Several of the voodoo practitioners had attended, but Estella was busy. Even Lowell was absent, though a few of his vampires lurked at the edges.

The garou were absent entirely, as were the higher shape-shifters. True to his word, Tail had invited the female shifter from the demonstration to dinner. Griffen had suggested the Desire Oyster Bar, and had a discreet word with Amos, one of the waiters there. He had convinced Amos not only to let him pick up the tab, but to be sure not to tell that he had done it. A small miracle in itself. As far as the couple were concerned, it was on the house.