"Why would anyone—particularly anyone ancient and presumably intelligent—send Red Dragon to protect . . . me?" Tom said.
"He says his name is Conan," Kyrie said, looking at Tom, but with an unfocused expression that indicated her attention was on her thoughts and not on their conversation.
"Conan?" Rafiel asked, before Tom could.
Kyrie turned to him. "His parents liked comic books, he says."
"So it stands to reason he should be the hero to protect me? And protect me from what?" Tom said.
"Are you sure you don't remember what the Great Sky Dragon told you?" Kyrie asked. "Perhaps . . ."
Tom shook his head. "It was all very confused." Just thinking back on that precise, booming voice in his head made his muscles clench and made him fear he would shift without warning. "I know he said I had violated old and sacred customs. The laws of our kind . . ." He shook his head, unable to remember.
"Our kind has laws?" Rafiel asked, at the same time that Kyrie said, "That doesn't sound like he wanted to protect you."
"No," Tom said. "It didn't sound that way to me, either, which is why I thought . . ." He clenched his hands on the counter, digging his nails against the hard formica top and making not an impression. If he'd been in dragon form . . . he would have dug his nails right through it. But he would not allow himself to change. Not now. Not today. Not again.
He took deep breaths, trying to forget the voice and the sense of urgency, trying to remember only the words and not the fear they'd induced. "I remember his saying something about Ancient Ones, but I wasn't sure what he meant—the laws or some people who were very old."
Kyrie nodded. "Well, we're stuck with Conan the Wonder Dragon over there, unless you can get rid of him in some way."
Tom looked at her. In some way. It occurred to him it would be very simple to get rid of him the dragon way—flames at twenty feet. When they'd fought as dragons before, Tom had ripped off Red Dragon's arm and beaten him over the head with it. But somehow he didn't think that was what Kyrie meant for him to do. And as for himself . . . well, until proven otherwise, he couldn't really say killing Red Dragon would be in self-defense. The rather pitiful creature, cowering in their smallest booth, warming his hands on a cup of coffee, could be said to be many things, but life-threatening wasn't one of them. Whatever he'd been or done in the past, right now the adjectives that came more readily to mind echoed more of wet or perhaps spineless.
Tom knew better than to discount the creature just because he cringed and hid around the corners. Tom had lived on the streets and seen many a beggar who seemed meek and mild turn suddenly and go on a rampage. But still, the truth remained he was not openly threatening Tom. If Tom killed Conan now, even in what could be considered a fair duel—as fair as it could be when only one of the duelists was in possession of a backbone—then he would forever feel he had murdered a defenseless being. And murdering defenseless beings would mean that Tom was not just a shifter, but an animal. It would make it very hard to look at himself in the mirror. Which would make shaving a challenge.
He shrugged. Aloud, he said, "Well, the Great Sky Dragon sent him to us for a reason."
"As a spy," Kyrie said. "It seems he has orders to report all we do . . . or at least anything we do that might be dangerous to the Great Sky Dragon. He put it as he can call the Great Sky Dragon and the Great Sky Dragon will come—or at least send help—when needed."
Tom looked at her for a moment, then shook his head slowly. Hadn't she understood the significance of the Great Sky Dragon in Tom's head? "Kyrie, he can reach into my mind with his voice at will."
"No," Kyrie said. "Conan says that you shut your mind to the Great Sky Dragon, and that's why he sent Conan to us as a spy. To keep an eye on us."
"Perhaps," Tom said. "But then again, if there's going to be a spy among us, is it not better that it be a spy we know? We can keep an eye on him, keeping an eye on us."
"That sounds strangely unhealthy," Rafiel said. "Like one of those situations where you end up being your own grandpa."
"Perhaps it does," Tom said. "But the truth is, you know . . . better the devil we know. And we do know this devil."
"We'll let him stay then?" Kyrie said, doubtfully.
"Better yet," Tom said. "We'll give him a job. That way we can keep an eye on him to make sure he's doing his job and to make sure he's not trying to kill me. All in one."
Kyrie didn't look convinced. "And what if he attacks?"
"Then," Tom said, and graced her with his best, bare-teeth smile, "I attack back. And I'm bigger and faster."
Kyrie sighed, as if conceding a point. "I don't like it," she said.
"I don't either," Tom said, and reached under the counter for an apron to give to Conan at the same time the front doorbell twinkled to let in the tall, thin blond man who usually spent the night in the diner, writing in a succession of cloth-bound journals. They called him the Poet though it was more likely—from the nervous look of him—that he was writing about conspiracy theories. He took his normal table, with his back against the wall. "But we must make the best of a bad situation, and look at it this way, if I get him to serve at tables, you can probably go with Rafiel and be fine. I'll get him a couple of flip-flops from the storage room."
"You're going to make him a waiter?"
"Why not? While protecting me, he might as well hand out some souvlaki," Tom said. Smiling with a reassurance he was far from feeling, he advanced on the small booth. Red Dragon jumped a little when he saw Tom approach, and looked up at Tom with an expression of such abject terror that Tom thought, Oh yes, if the time comes, I can take him. But he hoped it wouldn't be needed. He gave Conan a pair of red flip-flops, explaining, "Health regulations." Then he watched the man put on the apron, while he gave him the speech on waiting tables that had been given to Tom himself, when he'd taken a job as a waiter almost a year ago. "Don't be rude to the customers, no matter what they say; write down the orders, no one's memory is perfect." He took a notebook and pencil from the pocket of the apron and waved it at Conan. "And when you go out to take an order always take the carafe with you and give refills to the people who are having coffee." He glanced at Conan's shrunken arm. "You can put the carafe on the tables without damaging them, at least the new ones. And the old ones, who cares? They're all stained and burned, anyway."
Conan nodded, looking as self-conscious as a kid in new clothes, in strange company, and Tom pointed at the table the Poet had just occupied. "There you go. Take his order. It's probably just coffee, but you never know."
Then he turned to look at Rafiel and Kyrie who were both staring at him with a bemused expression. "What?" he asked in an undertone. "We don't have enough hands on deck today, and if he's going to stick around, he might as well make himself useful." He shrugged. "Besides," he dropped his voice further, "I might as well keep him too busy to think of something creative to do in the way of getting rid of me."
Rafiel shook his head but didn't say anything, and Tom covered up his apprehension with a smile. "Go on. Now Kyrie can go with you for half an hour or so. We won't be leaving the tables unattended."