Chasing the Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page B

knowing the world is
no safer nor better for your existence. But you'll be in charge of some
miserable twisted little bit of it, for a while. I can throw in a few
henchmen, offices, labs, access to top-secret information that I probably shouldn't have myself, and an off-peak pass to one of the secondrate hotelino health clubs. What do you say?"
    Lila was smiling. "I appreciate your humour. But to my main
point again. Teazle Sikarza didn't murder Madame Des Loupes. I don't
believe she's dead. You're putting it about that he did. Your forensics
helped the demons convict him."
    Greer held up his hands in a placatory surrender pose. "Slow it
down some. First of all, we did send out a team to the investigation,
at the request of their chief coroner. Part of one of those itchy-scratchy
back exchanges. We needed help with some things; they wanted independent verification...."
    "So they could have an absentee conviction and an immediate sentence," Lila said, folding her arms.

    "Yeah. That. Got to love that legal system they have. Sure is efficient." His gaze became dreamy, as if he were contemplating paradise.
    "But you weren't interested in him for any other reason? You
didn't want to involve me in something that would be likely to bring
me leaping out of the woodwork into full view."
    Greer reached into the top pocket of his jacket and brought out a
small carving on a leather thong. He held it out to her, but she could
see it fine and didn't take it. "You know what this is?"
    "It's a Happy Fetish. The demons make them; they sell them at
Annie's jewels and other stores like that. Twenty bucks each." She
quoted the label, "`Likely to encourage good feelings and general zest
for life. Product not guaranteed."'
    "Yeah. Ever since they came out they sell like hotcakes. My
daughter got me this one for Father's Day. Kinda ugly, big eyes, too
many tusks, so I don't wear it. And then there's the small problem of
the demon inside it."
    This time their gazes met and held for a few seconds.
    "You see," Greer said, rewrapping the dead demon in its thong and
slipping it back into his pocket, "we know about this, but we aren't
allowed to say. We know about the moth-touched, the loony luna-people
and their sleep and their dreams. We know about the Woken, thanks to
Zal for those-only took ten years for his efforts to show fruit. And we
know about the Hunter's Chosen, though we can't talk about them. And
we know about the Hunter's Children." He smiled broadly at last as he
saw her real surprise, her puzzlement, her confusion.
    She looked at Malachi and saw his serious nod as he answered what
was uppermost in her mind first. "Zal's music made a lot of people
free," he said.
    She missed Zal suddenly and so precisely that she could feel the
shape of the emptiness that had taken his place.
    "It was the quiet revolution," Greer agreed, his face mild for a
moment, inward-looking on a personal memory with affection. Lila clung to looking at him, waiting for the tears in her eyes to disappear.
"Clear vision. Nothing more." Then his gaze met hers with the acuity
of a laser. "I'm grateful for that. All of us who listened are grateful. But
the Chosen and the Children, well, they're another matter. And the
demons. I wish I knew their game. I wish I knew Teazle's game. I wish
I knew what happened to him in Faeryland."

    The last line was an appeal. Lila didn't respond to it directly. She
didn't feel able to, and not just because she couldn't have given him an
answer. "We all changed there," she said, and then it was she and
Malachi who were sharing the look, alone in the room together, worlds
away, lost in time.
    Then it was her turn to get sharp. "Which doesn't explain your
interest in his death, Mister Greer. And doesn't excuse your part in
placing me in the position of executioner over my own husband."
    Greer frowned congenially. "Do you love him?"
    Lila looked at him with a cool and considering stare.
    Greer shrugged.