Dragons Luck
don’t mind, I think I’ll pass on this one,” he said.
    “All this is more than I bargained for, and I’ve got a bad feeling I’m way out of my league here. All I want now is to walk away from the whole thing.”
    “That’s acceptable.” The target nodded. “Just go back and tell whoever hired you that if he sends anyone else, I won’t be as generous.”
    He turned his back on the shooter.
    “C’mon, Patches,” he said. “At least let me buy you two a drink.”
    The shooter watched the three young men walk away and decided then and there that this had been his last job.

Nine
    As usual, the crowd was light in the late afternoon at the Irish pub. The bartender was idly browsing through the newspaper and didn’t even look up, much less wave, when the man who had been playing the video poker machine finished his beer and wandered out the side door.
    In the seemingly random pecking order of the bar-centered social life in the Quarter, the video poker players, sometimes referred to as video crackheads, were pretty much the bottom of the food chain. They rarely if ever interacted with any of the regulars or even the bartenders, except to get another beer or to break a twenty from the latter. Instead, they would sit glued to their chosen machines for hours, staring at the screen as they sipped their drinks and pumped more money in as needed. In a bar that was heavy on conversation and pool, this put them well under the radar. One rarely noticed their coming or going, or even their presence while they were there.
    This made the role ideal for the man who had just exited the pub. Unlike most, he worked at being unnoticed. In fact, the last time he had been in town, he made a point of hanging at this specific bar and establishing himself as one of those invisible video poker players. It was the perfect guise in which he could watch and listen yet not be seen. Even now, he doubted the bartender knew or remembered his name.
    Of course, being a shape-shifter helped.
    Reflecting on that, the man smiled to himself. For all their self-trumpeted powers of size changing and shape-shifting, the big bad dragons barely scratched the surface of the possibilities of those skills. Young McCandles might be excused because he was still new to the game, but the older, more experienced dragons didn’t have that alibi. Their prolonged ignorance was yet another example of dragon arrogance. If you had enough power, why bother learning finesse?
    Sure, big flashy changes were impressive, like shifting your form into an animal, especially a mythical one. But the same skills could be used to perform smaller, less noticeable changes that were much more useful in one’s workaday life.
    Changing one’s hair color or length or the color or shade of one’s complexion was easy, but effective. So was adding or subtracting twenty years to one’s age. Changing gender was a bit more challenging, especially since it usually meant changing one’s garments as well, but it could be done.
    One of the man’s favorite changes was one he was using with his current disguise. Making one leg slightly longer than the other changed his walk and the whole way he moved and held his body. In this disguise, planted in front of a video poker machine, the man had been in the pub at the same time as young McCandles and not been recognized, even though the youth had every reason to remember him. Even the much-lauded dragon powers of observation were useless unless one chose to apply them.
    The man’s thoughts were interrupted when his cell phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, he winced. He had been expecting this call sooner or later, but still dreaded it.
    Looking quickly up and down the street to be sure there was no one within hearing, he leaned against a wall in the shade and opened the phone.
    “Talk to me,” he said in his traditional greeting.
    “George!” came an agitated female voice. “Where the hell are you?”
    “Hello to you, too, Debbie,” he

Similar Books

She's Out of Control

Kristin Billerbeck

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Eleanor Coerr, Ronald Himler

To Please the Doctor

Marjorie Moore

Not by Sight

Kate Breslin

Forever

Linda Cassidy Lewis