Draw One In The Dark(98)

"Barefoot and in a robe?" Rafiel said. "In New York City. Amazing you survived."



Tom shrugged. "There are organizations for runaways. I wasn't, but I was the right age, the right profile, and all I had to do was say no when they offered to mediate my return home with my father." He shrugged again. "In a year I was lying about my age and getting jobs. But I hated the shift. I hated that it came when I didn't expect it. And because I fought it till the last possible minute, I often couldn't remember what I'd done when I'd shifted. I . . ." He looked at Rafiel. "I tried street drugs."



"Anything in the last six months?" Rafiel asked. "Since you've been in Goldport?"



"Only whatever the triad boys injected into me," Tom said.



"Ah. We don't regulate marinade. The rest is really none of my business. It's all hearsay, anyway. I have no proof. You might just be nuts and think you used and sold drugs."



"I never sold it," Tom said.



"Good. That's harder to give up, sometimes," Rafiel said. "What with connections . . . So, you tried some funny stuff, to control it. Did it?" His interest sounded clinical.



"Not so you could notice. I was using mostly heroin because of its being a depressant. I thought it would stop the shift. Since the shift came with big emotions and such."



Rafiel nodded.



"So I wanted to give it up, but I was scared," Tom said. "The one thing the drugs did was make me forget. And make me calmer when I wasn't a dragon. They . . . simplified my life. I couldn't obsess about being a dragon shape-shifter or about the fact that my own father had kicked me out of the house, or any of that, because I was too worried about getting enough money for the next fix."



Rafiel nodded. "Weirdly, I've heard other addicts say that this was more important for them than the physical effects. The simplification of life and of choices."



"It was for me," Tom said. "And then one day, I was in a small city—I don't even remember where—and I felt . . . I felt the Pearl. And I got the bright idea that if I had the Pearl I wouldn't need the drugs. So I followed the feeling. And I came to this incredible meeting of dragon shape-shifters. It was dark and the little town was asleep. The parking lot was filled with men . . . And many dragons. And there was . . . The Great Sky Dragon. I don't know how to explain this.



"He's like a dragon god. Not like God, the God above, the one God, but like a god. Like . . . like the Roman gods would be to humans. That's how the Great Sky Dragon was to the rest of us. I could imagine people offering sacrifices and . . . virgins to him. Like in the legends. And he had the Pearl."



Tom heard himself sigh. "I wanted the Pearl. I'm not stupid. Not when I don't want to be. They were all basking in the glow of the Pearl and stuff. And they were all scared of the Great Sky Dragon. I'm not very good at being scared," he said, and watched Rafiel nod.



"I was impressed by the Great Sky Dragon," Tom said. "But not scared as such. So I paid attention to who took the Pearl, and it was another dragon in attendance. He put it in a wicker basket. And I loitered till the dragon shifted shape. He was the owner of a small Chinese restaurant in town. I followed him there. And then . . . I . . . well . . . I waited. And I watched. And I planned. And then I ran in, got the Pearl and got out of there fast."



Tom frowned. "I must have taken them completely by surprise, because they didn't even think to follow me for a while. And meanwhile I found out they couldn't sense or follow the Pearl by sense if it was submerged in water. I couldn't follow it if it was submerged in water. I brought it out West inside an aquarium packed in foam peanuts in a cardboard box, in the luggage hold of various busses."



"Did it help with the addiction?" Rafiel asked.



"It helped with controlling myself, not necessarily the addiction—though perhaps the two are related. When I got it out and looked at it, I felt . . . calm, peaceful, accepted. And then even if I shifted, I didn't feel like it was a terrible thing or that I should be shunned or killed for it. Does it make sense?"



Rafiel nodded. He was frowning. Keith was looking back, and his eyes were wide—and was that pity in them? Tom didn't want Keith's pity.



"Anyway," he said, looking out the window at the mostly deserted landscape they were crossing, "anyway, I kicked the habit. It wasn't as difficult as I thought. Rough moments, but I think that the fact we heal so easily . . ." He shrugged.



Rafiel nodded. "It would help, wouldn't it? The tendency to reassert balance. And Keith, when you asked if we were, I guess, immortal? I don't know, not more than anyone else. It's hard to say. Until you die you don't know, and then it's academic. I try to stay away from people trying to shoot me with silver bullets."