Draw One In The Dark(142)

But they weren't living together. Not exactly. They were roommates, not lovers. They hadn't slept together, didn't know if it would ever happen.



For now there were kisses, now and then, and the occasional holding of hands. Tom had explained what he wanted with disarming frankness. "I'd like to date," he'd told her the night he'd got out of the morgue—was it only two weeks ago?—over dinner. "I've never dated, you know? Not even high school dating. I groped a few girls in school." He'd grinned. "They all complained. And I think I suck at relationships. Of any sort. I need practice. I'd like to date. Well . . . go together, as if we were kids. And then work up to the rest, if it works out."



The decision to share a house seemed odd in light of that, but it wasn't. Between two shifters, one of them should be able to watch out for the other. And also, they'd both realized that they'd been awfully lonely. And whether they were ever anything else again, they were friends.



They were also partners. Not in a romantic sense, but in a business sense.



Kyrie remembered a whole afternoon of shouting between Tom and his father. Both men assured her they'd never raised their voices, but she remembered sitting on the sofa in her living room while they glowered at each other and shouted, both of their expressions very much alike, and both far more intense than the argument warranted.



The gist of it was that Edward wanted to give Tom the moon, the stars, and happiness on a plate—or at least the only form of it Edward could give him. He wanted Tom to go back to school. He wanted to pay Tom's expenses while he did. He still wanted to pay Kyrie's too. Both studies and expenses.



Tom . . . wanted something completely different. He wanted the Athens. He would accept enough money to go to cooking school. Not chef's school. Far too fancy. Tom wanted to learn enough to be the cook of the Athens. And he wanted Kyrie to have part ownership of it.



Which brought them to this evening, two weeks later, standing outside what used to be the Athens. There was a new sign, up front, and Keith, perched up on a ladder, was finishing painting it. It said, in fancy old-English script "The George" and, in case someone missed the reference, there was a cartoonish drawing of Saint George, spearing a flaming dragon.



It was all very baffling to Kyrie, but Tom had insisted. And when Keith came down from his ladder, to much applause from the four of them—Kyrie, Tom, Rafiel, and Edward—and took a bow at his artistry, and Tom led them inside, the bafflement continued.



Tom had found somewhere, in the bowels of the Salvation Army—while he was trying to find replacements for some of his personal effects behind his father's back—an old, possibly antique, and definitely disgusting painting. It showed Saint George on a horse putting a lance through the chest of a dragon, who fountained quantities of blood. He now proceeded to hang it over the big booth at the back, the only one that could sit ten people.



"I hope you realize it's in extremely poor taste," Kyrie said.



"Yeah," Rafiel said. "That would kill you. That was the difference between you and the other corpses. The Great Sky Dragon didn't get your heart."



"I wonder if it was on purpose," Keith said.



"I'm sure it was," Tom said, finishing nailing his picture and jumping down from the vinyl seat, and backing up to admire the effect. "I suspect he considered it the equivalent of turning me over his knee."



"Has the coroner recovered yet?" Kyrie asked. "From having one of his corpses walk out?"



"Well—" Rafiel said. "He's now talking about how Tom was in comatose shock from the injury. In another five days he'll have convinced himself that he never pronounced Tom dead. I mean, if he told the truth, people would wonder if he'd been drinking his own formaldehyde. He's probably wondering if he's been drinking his own formaldehyde. People hate doubting their own sanity. He'll make . . . adjustments."



"But could the Great Sky Dragon know that?" Keith asked. "Wouldn't he have feared Tom's coming back would hit the papers and blow the whole shifter thing sky-high?"



"I doubt it," Tom said. He turned around, a frown making a vertical wrinkle between his eyebrows. "I very much doubt it. He's been around a lot. He knows people."



"What I want to know," Rafiel said softly, "is if the great triad presence in town was because of the Pearl of Heaven and if they'll now thin out, or if we're stuck with them for good. We don't have the police force to deal with an international criminal organization . . ."



"I wonder if they'll leave us alone," Kyrie said. "They strike me as people with notoriously little sense of humor—whatever the Great Sky Dragon has. And they're bound to be a little . . . miffed at us." She looked out the corner of her eye at Edward, who had already declared his intention to leave the firm that worked so much for the triads. He'd start again on his own. He'd made some noises about maybe moving to Denver. She wondered if any of these intentions would survive once he got back to New York.