Page 27 of Ravenous Prophecy
I raised my chin, about to argue for the sake of it, when a voice cut across the room.
“That’s Griffin Gallows!” Someone laughed.
We both turned and saw three men, their arms slung around each other's backs, jovially drunk as they made their way toward us. “I heard you took out a gargoyle with an electrical wire and some cement!”
“No, no, it was a sea dragon, and it was an old fishing net and shark bait.” The one in the middle jostled his friends.
“So. To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence, Griffin Gallows?” The one on the left swayed, nudging the others forward until they were nearly touching our chairs. “See, this is our bar, and I know you think you’re big time, somebig deal, but out here, we’re the big deal. And if youwant to look for clients in our territory, you need to pay the price of admission.”
“I’m just here for a drink,” Griffin said, and the way his hand tightened on the tumbler made something uncomfortably warm pool in my stomach.
“Yeah?” The one on the right looked at me. “What’s he charging you? I bet we can do you better.”
“We’re just here drinking,” I said, hyperaware of the shape of the vowels in my mouth. Could Isoundany more like a rich client?
“Okay, we’ll make it easy. Ten percent fee, and we won’t beat you up in front of your client.” The one in the middle cracked his knuckles. “Sound good?”
“Let me see.” Griffin stood, and where I’d lost myself to tears and desperation, he wasangry. I could see it in every tense line of his body. Hewantedthis fight. “Three drunks in a bar shake me down in front of my very good friend, here? I think thatdoessound good.”
One of the drunks started forward, but before any of them could even touch Griffin, there was a solid crack, and the man pulled up short. Desperately pinwheeling his arms, he tried to back away from theswordthat had suddenly appeared at his throat.
One drink in, and still I felt impossibly slow as I followed the sword down to a hilt, and a hand and arm and, oh, look, a swordsman wearing a flannel shirt and worn jeans.
“Gallows,” the man said, a Southern drawl permeating his words. “If you ruin my favorite watering hole…”
“It took you long enough, Julian.” Griffin leaned back against his bar stool. “If you’d stepped in earlier, wewouldn’t be having this standoff. And these two wouldn’t be wishing they’d invested in adult diapers.”
He tilted his chin in the direction of the two men who’d stood back while their friend tried to attack him. Sure enough, they looked utterly terrified. One was gaping, the other trying to help his friend up from the floor.
“Go,” Julian said. “Come back when you’re ready to apologize to Cora for the insult of your presence.”
I looked around, glancing at the bartender to see if his name was Cora, but he nodded his head at the sword. When I squinted, I could see the name carefully carved along the blade.
As the three drunks scampered off, Griffin ordered us another round, and I followed him and Julian back to a table in the corner.
“I assume this isn’t a social call,” Julian said. “And if you want to dance, my card is full.”
“What if I have a job?” Griffin asked.
Julian glanced at me, leaning back in his seat so that both of us were in his line of sight. “The last time you had a job for me, I ended up in Timbuktu missing a toe. What makes you think I want another job from you?”
“Kids are getting killed,” Griffin said. “And because I’m asking.”
Julian blew out a breath. He looked over at me. “What’s the job?”
“We need to stop JA Williams,” I said. “And we need to do it fast, before he summons the Hive back into our realm.”
Julian laughed, the sharp bark of a sound so familiarthat I didn’t even flinch. “You have a bridge you want to sell me, Griffin?”
“We’re serious,” I said. “The Hive are back. They’re here. A few hours ago, JA Williams used his link to the Hive to destroy the oracles’ camp. The MEA has the evidence, but they won’t listen to me… to us.”
I exhaled in frustration. I needed to find a better way to explain this. I needed to be able toshowpeople. Perhaps if we’d kept one of the helmets…
“Is this for real?” Julian asked Griffin.
For a second, my stomach clenched with terror. What would Griffin say? Was that why the MEA had let us go? Had he denied what he’d seen? Had he told them what they wanted to hear in exchange for our freedom?
‘Oh, yeah, that kid is a crackpot. Off his rocker. It was just a bunch of oracles on drugs. You know how they run.’
