Tired as he was, Griffen was far too wound up now to sleep. The surge of adrenaline from his mysterious encounter had left him feeling shaken and wired up. After checking one more time to make sure the coast was clear, he made his way into the motel’s lobby bar and settled in for a short drink and a long think.
Valerie was right, of course. It didn’t matter if Uncle Malcolm was crazy or sane about the whole dragon thing. If there were people out there who believed it and were ready to act on it, then he and Valerie had little choice but to take it seriously as well. The only trouble was, he didn’t have the vaguest clue as to what he should do next.
With school behind him, he had gambled heavily on getting a job with his uncle Malcolm only to have that crumble completely. Now he was homeless, adrift with all his worldly possessions in two suitcases, in what was left of his car. What was more, now he had Valerie in tow.
Hooking up with his sister completed the only agenda he had when he blew out of Michigan. Short of throwing a dart at a map, he had no idea of where they should go from here.
“Yo! Bartender! A Jack and Coke for me and another Irish for my man here!”
The familiar voice pulled Griffen out of his reverie and he craned his neck around to view the figure striding toward his table.
“Jerome?” he said. “Man! What are you doing here?”
The lean, dark man held up one finger signaling for Griffen to wait a moment as he detoured by the bar to gather up their drinks. As always, Jerome was stylishly dressed, with a tan sports coat worn over a cream-colored shirt with dark brown slacks that set off his coffee-colored skin to perfection. No matter what situation they were in when they ran across each other, Jerome always made Griffen feel underdressed.
Fast on the heels of his recognition, however, Griffen felt a sudden stab of suspicion. What was Jerome doing here?
They were passing friends on campus. Mostly, their relationship had grown from Jerome serving as his on-campus bookie on the rare occasions that he bet on football or other spectator sports. They gained a mutual respect for each other over the poker tables, as Jerome was one of the few that could hold his own against Griffen even when he was trying his hardest. None of this would help to explain what Jerome was doing here, hundreds of miles from their mutual stomping grounds.
“Here you go, Grifter,” Jerome said, setting a fresh Irish down next to the half-finished one already on the table and pulling up a chair. “Nice to know someone else who always drinks the same thing. Simplifies things.”
“Thanks, Jer,” Griffen said, forcing a casualness he didn’t feel. “I sure didn’t expect to see you here. What brings you to these parts?”
“Lookin’ for you, of course.” His friend smiled, leaning back. “Fortunately or not, you aren’t hard to find. We need to talk, my friend.”
Griffen’s head was spinning, and he held up a restraining hand.
“Slow up a minute, bro,” he said. “I’ve been driving all night and so I’m a little slow. Why are you looking for me, and what do you mean I’m not hard to find?”
“To tell the truth, Grifter,” Jerome said, dropping his voice, “after the word got out that you had turned Mal down, Mose, that’s the head of my crew, gave me a call and told me to look you up. Now, I remember you talking about your sister and her bein’ in college here, so I…”
“Hold it. H-o-l-d IT!” Griffen said, waving his hand. “Jerome, are you going to tell me that this is about the whole dragon thing? And that you’re one, too?”
“’Course it’s about dragons,” Jerome shot back. “And yes, I’m one, too. I’m way down on the totem pole from where you are, though. Near as I can figure, I’m maybe an eighth blood at best, which is pretty powerful for my crowd but nowhere near what you’ve got behind you.”
“Uh-huh,” Griffen said. “And how long have you known about this?”
“About you or about me?”
“Both.”
“I’ve known about it most of my life,” Jerome said with a shrug. “I was raised knowin’ it and expected to live up to it. Fact is, I’m slated to take over Mose’s business when he retires, or at least be the right-hand man to whoever does.”
He cocked an eyebrow at his friend.
“I understand that they kept you in the dark until yesterday, so I guess it’s kinda hard for you to get your head around it. Even so, you had the instincts and the moves as long as I’ve known you. Anyone who knew what they were lookin’ for could spot it.”
“So you’ve known all along,” Griffen said, not even making it a question. Somehow, his first drink was empty, and he reached for the next. “And you never said anything.”
“Not my place to,” his friend said. “I didn’t know what they had planned for you or how they were gonna go about it. Like I said, I’m just a little fish and I don’t mess with the big boys. I just did what I was told and kept an eye on you.”
“You make it sound like the only reason you were on campus was to keep tabs on me,” Griffen said.
“That’s about the size of it.” Jerome nodded. “To tell you the truth, Grifter, I’m older than I look. I got my degree a long time ago. I got sent there specifically to size you up and report back to my crew…and I’ll tell you, I wasn’t the only one watching.”
Griffen’s mind flashed back to Mai.
Aloud, he said, “But why, Jerome? I mean, even if everything you say is true, what makes me so important?”
“Like any longtime group, dragons have their legends and prophecies,” Jerome said. “Oh, they’re not written down or painted on some cave wall or anything, but everybody knows them. One of the long-standing ones is that someday a near pureblood will come along and change things for dragons forever.
“Now ‘change’ is a pretty nebulous word. It could mean for the better or for the worse. Of course, for those who are comfortable with things the way they are, change is something they look at with distrust if not outright fear. The odds of change improving things for them aren’t nearly as high as that it will really mess things up.”
In his head, Griffen was hearing his uncle’s words: They’ll try to recruit you or kill you.
“You may or may not be the one who’s gonna do all this,” Jerome continued, “but the legend’s strong enough that anyone with a stake in things is gonna want to check you out, then try to figure out how to deal with you.”
Griffen shook his head. “Let’s put all that on hold for the moment,” he said. “Now, what did you mean I was easy to find?”
“Like I said, I remembered you had a sister here, so that’s where I looked for you.” Jerome smiled. “Figured you’d want to talk things over with her once you were enlightened. After that, it was just a matter of cruising until I spotted the Goblin. Man, if you want to move around without bein’ noticed, you’vegot to get a different set of wheels. That ride of yours is way too easy to spot.”
While he knew Jerome was right, Griffen bristled at the thought of giving up his beloved Goblin.
“So it’s distinctive,” he said. “What are the odds of someone being in my vicinity to spot it if they don’t know where to look? If you hadn’t known about Valerie, would you be here looking?”
Jerome threw back his head and laughed.
“Man, you have no idea what you’re up against,” he said. “I said our crew was small and weak compared to the big boys. Let me give you an idea of what can be done. One of the top dragons on this continent is Stoner. You know what he does for his nine to five? He’s one of the high lords of the new Homeland Security. That means that if he wants, he can put your name, description, and the description of your car out on the computers as ‘suspected terrorist associate—do not detain but report location and movement’ and every cop and federal agent will be keeping their eyes peeled for you.”