"More of Gris-gris," said the alto. "You should hear what he thinks!"
Val blushed. "It's probably better if I don't. But you stop reading my thoughts, or you're next for some of this!" She hefted the cosh.
"Yes, ma'am," the alto said, grinning. "We know you mean it. Y'all have yourself a nice day, now, Ms. Val."
They slipped out the door. Val wondered where they went, then decided as long as they gave her a heads-up on trouble, she didn't need them hanging around.
She walked around the bar and got her cell phone out of her purse. Griffen needed to know about Melinda's latest attempt to trick her.
While the phone rang, she put the blackjack away in its hiding place. When she straightened up, she saw gouges on the inside lip of the bar. Five round holes had been drilled through the wood. She must have transformed, at least a little, when she jumped over it. Her claws had punched them, and she had not even noticed.
"Now, how am I going to explain those to Todd?" she asked.
Twenty-eight
"All in favor, den?" Etienne said, looking around at the membership jammed into the increasingly crowded workshop. Dragon's heads, in every stage of completion, loomed over their heads. The captain counted the raised hands. "Ain't no point in countin' dose against."
"Do it anyhow," Callum Fenway said, with an exasperated shake of his head.
Etienne smiled at him placidly. "Whatevah. Dose against? Easy. King Griffen's proposal passes. All jobs open equally to all adult members from here on out. 'Cept mine." He smiled, showing his sharp canines.
Griffen heaved a sigh of pleasure. Several of the members came up to slap him on the back.
"Glad you did that," Louis, one of the department heads said, coming up with a clipboard. Nearly as tall as Griffen, he had an aquiline profile and sharp cheekbones. "My wife's been doing all the work all along anyhow. I'm not as organized as she is. This is my last day on the job. After today, I am just one of her Indians, and she is my chief." The petite woman at his side took the clipboard from his hand.
"Thank you, Griffen," Carmen said.
Griffen smiled. "My pleasure."
The switch to a gender-neutral committee was just the first change he hoped to make. Since the Ritual of the Four Elements, the krewe deferred to him even more than they had after the first meeting at the Fenways'. He figured there was no better time to try to push through his suggestions. Val had been pleased when he had told her what he wanted to do. They discussed joining the krewe on a permanent basis after the season was over, but only if there were no barriers in Val's way.
"Well, we've got loads of work to do," Carmen said. "You forgot to order that small-gauge chicken wire. Excuse us, Griffen." They headed for one of the tables against the wall. Griffen himself went to join Lucinda's papier-mache squad. They were plastering a figure of an embattled St. George that day, an irony that Griffen enjoyed, having faced off against the ancient hero's modern equivalent twice already.
Once Twelfth Night had passed, New Orleans shifted into Mardi Gras mode and hit the gas. The stores selling throws in Jackson Square and in the stalls at the French Market filled to overflowing with glittering, glowing, flashing stock. Stores put out racks of ready-made costumes and formal wear. Announcements for parties and tableaux that the public could attend were listed in the newspapers and on posters stuck on walls and displayed in windows everywhere in the French Quarter. Everyone pored over the annual guide to decide which parades they were going to watch and discuss the best places from which to watch them. Griffen added a new envelope almost every day to his stack of invitations to masquerade balls and parties. He would have to ask Etienne or one of the other lieutenants which ones he could honorably decline with thanks. The ones he had to accept cut severely into the remaining balance in his bank account. He was finding it hard to keep up on his salary and his poker winnings.
And the crowds started to pour into town. Some visitors would come in waves to enjoy a few days of the run-up or the festival itself; others intended to stay through until Ash Wednesday.
But the party was not and had never been aimed at visitors. It was for New Orleans itself. The tradition of celebrating the period before Lent dated back to 1768. The colors of Mardi Gras were always there in the background, but stores and houses began to dress themselves up with the theme. Harlequins in purple, gold, and green popped up as mannequins clinging to lampposts, toys for children, or wall decorations of all kinds. Griffen noticed the white-faced carnival masks peering blank-eyed at him from window displays and advertisements. People were already wearing masks. He bought groceries from a girl in a fan-shaped yellow-feathered mask, and had coffee served to him by a man in a red-sequined domino and matching derby hat.
The costumers had a steady stream of locals coming and going with at least one and sometimes up to a dozen outfits for the season. Getting into conversations with friends in the Irish pub and elsewhere, Griffen discovered quite a few who had been descended from original krewe members. Nautilus and Aeolus invited him home to see home movies, including new DVD copies of ancient, hand-cranked films that reminded him of early Hollywood newsreels. Though the first parades were primitive compared with what he saw in modern videos, they had mystique and grandeur. If he had not already become part of the upcoming festival, he would have longed for a place in it.
The Krewe of Fafnir wasn't a perfect organization. They had supported Griffen's efforts to change, but mostly because he was at the top of a pecking order that became more evident each time he was with them. Etienne was behind Griffen a hundred percent, not that that seemed to cut much ice with the existing lieutenants. Though they treated him with the respect due the founder, or refounder, and captain of the krewe, on a personal level they were dismissive of someone with so little dragon blood.
He refilled one of the buckets at the utility sink next to the lavatory and came up in the middle of an argument between Mitchell Grade and Etienne.
"Who are you tellin' me what to do? Couldn't light a birthday candle," Mitchell snarled.
"Still tellin' ya what to do," Etienne said.
"The hound dog telling the alligator? That's rich. You got no authority over me, son. Coming from the back of beyond with no more in common with me than a tree. Back off! You don't get it. You couldn't."
"Hey!" Griffen protested. "You act like he works for you. It's the other way around, isn't it?"
"Sorry, Griffen," Mitchell said. "He is just out of his grade here, that's all. I'm making decisions that are fitting to a real dragon, something he can't understand."
Griffen frowned. "This is probably none of my business, but . . ."
"Well, you are right! This discussion is none of your business, okay?"
Griffen drew himself up. He felt scales breaking out on his hands and neck. He pushed up to the big man and looked him square in the eye. "Really? And what if I told you I thought none of you were worth my time?" The time Griffen had been expecting had come, where they would challenge him. If it turned into a fight, he was spoiling for it. What would Mitchell do first? Go dragon, or try to overpower him with influence?
Instead, Mitchell backed off a pace. "Well, we'd have to take your word for it, Griffen. But you don't, do you? Otherwise, why are you here?"
Griffen aimed a thumb at Etienne. "Because he asked me! The one you're insulting! A dragon's a dragon!" A roar rose up near them.
"Fire!" a voice near them bellowed in alarm. Griffen turned around. Wild flames were licking up from the float that he and the others had just been working on. They leaped for the ceiling. The fire alarm began to wail.