Conceal Me What I Am Ch. 14

"No, his death yesterday released the last of the geas hold upon me and I am now masterless."

This was not good. Probert should be alive and squealing in some federal holding cell in Chicago, unless someone had gotten to him to silence him. Damn... well, that was a problem for Bel and Janice to deal with.

"Masterless... that's excellent. So why are you still here? You should be free to go home, or fly off and strike terror across half of Illinois instead, but I'd rather you wouldn't. Please feel free to depart on homewards anytime you'd like... right now would be remarkably convenient, in fact."

"I cannot... you have quite undone me. I have nearly consumed myself with digestive ruin and fever. I cannot fly. Nor can I summon such magicks necessary to return home, for I am now quite at the mercy of my vanquisher. Nor could I, even should I wish to do so. My honor is humbled -- my nobility tarnished. Being so defeated, I remain bound to serve the term of my remaining 99 years and 137 days, and abide in my den of shame I shall do, to serve my punishment, should you will it."

The dragon was serious. Cringing at my presence at the far and least soiled corner of the cellar, his sad fevered eyes just limply looked at me with shame. They looked like sad puppy eyes and my ferocious partner Miranda melted nearly at once and wanted to comfort the creature. Yikes!

"Zak, there has to be something you can do to help the poor thing!" She babbled. I wasn't too sure, anything short of an industrial sized bottle of Pepto-Bismol probably wouldn't work, and that's if human antacids would be of any relief to dragons. Still, it was worth a try.

"Let me get this straight." I asked the miserable creature. "You're here and stuck because I defeated you and robbed you of your honor?"

"Entirely so. By honor, and the release of my geas, I am now bound to you, to await your mercy, in the unlikely event you should display any."

Ouch... talk about unexpected complications! I needed to think about this for a bit.

Bidding the creature to wait, we hopped back into our taxi and directed our driver to return back to Rockford and take us to the nearest pharmacy. I didn't have much in US dollars, most of my converted money was still in my hotel room in Chicago, but he happily took a few Texas silver dollars. We gathered up a big handful of everything suitable for a badly upset human stomach and returned to our hapless dragon, after first finding a shovel from the ruins of a barn to clear a non-smoldering path to the incapacitated creature.

"You are now bound to me and must do my bidding, and for another 99 years and 137 days?" I asked the wincing creature.

"Quite. In the unlikely event that I should continue to live, I must do so in shame, in obesceance to your will and terms of service. Oh, the ignominy and infamy of such service under your clemency! I doubt there shall be two bricks left standing on this earth anywhere! Dust and fire... and dishonor. I would weep, if I had any misery left to yield!"

"There will be no dishonor, if I can help it. I would bid you to drink this medicine we have brought and we hope it shall restore you. It would work for human ailments of this nature but I cannot guarantee corrective results for you." I told it, as the dragon weakly lifted up a head to take a better look at me and my collection of pills, powders and bottles.

"It is of no matter." The unhappy creature muttered. "You have defeated me and brought me low. I lie humbled before you and defenseless. I must submit to you in all things great and small and yield to your will, my honor now diminished and made low. I can do naught but your will and I am at your mercies."

We emptied about three bottles of various anti-diarrhea concoctions into her (she was a female dragon) and let her sniff and nibble an assortment of antacid and analgesic tablets for good measure and after about half an hour we began to slowly coax her to crawl her way from out of the fetid stench of the cellar. Which reminded me that I needed to find out what powers, if any, dragon shit had.

Sean, who had been disturbingly quiet, just laughed and suggested that I stick to ranching bacon.

I had to pay another silver dollar as a bribe to the taxi driver, who was none too happy about having a dragon, sick or otherwise in his cab. Fortunately there were no accidents there. The mess that ate though a good part of the wooden railway station platform just before we lifted and pushed the dragon onto our suite-car was another matter. I tried to put out the fire but even water didn't do much to put out the flames and I had to smother it with earth before the entire station went up in flames.

Miranda fed the miserable creature another bottle of medicine and she curled up into a nap right in the middle of the rug of the parlor, looking much now like a scaly oversized dog... and with far worse farts.

I won't discuss how we later had to help hold the dragon's head, body and wings firmly at the back door of our railcar so that she could do her still rather unsolid business of nature without falling onto the tracks below. Nope, I really don't want to discuss it at all.

***************

Reaching Chicago at last, I was delighted to be once again greeted at the station by Bel, also this time by Janice and a few other top level Assistant Directors of the FBI and FBMR visiting from Washington. All of them were less than delighted to meet my pet dragon. Trixie, short of Belladoncyatrix, was a bit more stable on her four clawed feet now and was almost feeling hungry and audibly wondered if this collection of bleating federal employees were edible. Miranda promised her a lamb dinner as soon as possible.

I wanted to call her Bella at first, but then we realized that would be too similar and confusing to 'Bel', so the name Trixie won.

Somehow this railroad platform avoided a repeat of the Rockford station incident, but I'm not sure that the grass will ever grow again in that small city park across from the Chicago federal building. At least the stool looked to be a lot firmer now, but it was still smoking and smoldering over a week later.

*********************

With Trixie and Miranda, now inseparable by my side at all times, I caught up on local events. Every girl I guess wants a pony, assuming they can't lay their hands on a real dragon instead!

I spend untold hours writing or dictating reports, crossing the last 't's and dotting the 'i's on another round of bureaucratic twaddle that would be read by everyone... but no one would do anything. For the moment, Bel was acting Station Chief for the FBMR in Chicago and had a better than decent shot at keeping the promotion permanently. Her Washington boss-clowns seemed to like they way she'd done her best to keep the FBI from getting all of the glory and she looked good in a suit in front of the media spouting the currently company spin on events. Janice had also received a promotion to Assistant Bureau Chief and was more than adequate at handling the increased load of politics that came with the job.

Officially, the two rival federal departments had declared a truce, at least in Chicago, and Bel and Janice were going to be given carte blanche to make their offices cooperate together in the future. This would also bode well for maintaining their rather more private and intimate relationship.

Trixie had been right - someone had poisoned Probert in his highly secure federal cell and while he had spilled a few beans he had held out on informing on some 'really big names' in the hopes of making a better deal for himself other than a certain hangman's noose. Everyone was pissed and a few fingers got pointed to for the blame but nothing was going to stick. Apparently some higher notch conspirator hired a wizard to charm someone in food service for the prison. They not only poisoned Probert, but nearly every other prisoner on that entire high security ward, just to make sure that a poisoned food tray would reach him. Damn!

Nearly every night we met for dinner at the kingpin's Italian place. Sebestyen Dénes had been slightly wounded by a last-gasp ambush attempt by the remaining Harrison brother but was healing up nicely. His organization had taken over about 70% of the Harrison Group's former operations and they were in complete control of the Clinton Street territories as well. Both defeated groups had sued for peace and the cease fire had been holding now for over a week and seemed likely to remain so indefinitely. The majority of the Clinton Street gangsters had signed on with the winning team and this had more or less replaced Dénes' not insignificant combat losses, but it would be a long time before these newcomers would fully gain his trust.

The last Harrison brother was still alive and going to remain independent, but his defeat had cost him most of his political protection. He was now a very wanted man by the feds for this role in the gun smuggling operation and the sneaky bastard had done a pretty good job of crawling into some hole and covering himself. Bel and Janice would find him eventually.

Any way the scales were measured, 'Boss Dénes' was now running things in Chicago and just about all of the remaining other independent gangs were nominally bending their knees to him. We all had hopes that under the watchful but friendly eyes of Bel and Janice, his business operations could start to become a bit more public and 'legal'. Chicago was still a political and bureaucratic nightmare, but the new boss had the clout now to get some things done, and all for the better.

"Just take good care of my girl!" The new kingpin said to me in private at our goodbye party at the restaurant the night before I was to take the train (and my assigned VIP rail-suite once again) off to Washington. His eyes were steady and I couldn't read a thing in them. Was he just handing over his daughter for a long bout of education or was he talking privately now to his anointed son-in-law? I just couldn't tell! His generosity in helping to restock the private stock onboard the train was certainly excessive, and probably expensive. Those bottles had an awful lot of dust upon them and some of the bottles were over a hundred years old. Some of Miranda's favorite champagne also happened to find its way onboard too. Not to mention the three full crates of Limoncello for Sean.

The dragon, bless her scaly heart was soon feeling much her old self now and tried a bit of everything, but her tastes turned out to be simple. Given her druthers, she preferred beer, as dark and bitter as we could find it. For special occasions she took a liking to the really high octane stuff, preferably 151 proof Jamaican or Barbados rum. While drinking it, she was highly amused that she could create flaming smoke rings with the stuff, just as if she were smoking a pipe.

After the second night or two at the restaurant, none of the wait staff thought twice about walking around a napping well-fed dragon. A full stomach of roast lamb put her right to sleep. Cheesecake didn't do a thing for her, but hot baked bread or pizza quite delighted her.

************

For my last night in Chicago we as usual trooped out to dinner and stuffed ourselves excessively. The ladies, Bel and Janice were in an unusually good mood for most of the long evening of wine and fine dining it was just like the 'old days', before we had hurried off to Rockford and an adventure that defied reason or much common sense. I knew something was up when Bel and Janice took Miranda aside for a private and long chat in the ladies room and they didn't return for over half an hour.

When the ladies return, their noses well powdered, Miranda had now reverted back to being a surly teenager and she snarled out something that I didn't quite comprehend and stomped off home for the night. Bel casually mentioned that she'd gone to do her final packing at home to gather up her clothes and cherished items for the trip to DC and then Texas, where she'd be gone from home for a rather long time. She'd meet me at the train in the morning and then 'things will be fine', they assured me.

I hate that statement. That's what Aunt Millie used to say back home just before things got either weird or worse, often both. It didn't help that both women were now looking entirely too smug and pleased with themselves.

"Well, goodnight folks!" Janice stated, as she and Bel arose together from the dinner table and took each other's hands. "We're off ourselves for the night and just might stop at O'Grady's for a nightcap... or a bit longer. Zak, I don't want to lug my purse along just now, can you be a dear and drop it off for me there later, like in about an hour or so? That's a sweetie!"

Just in case their loud hints had been somehow too subtle for me, both women gave me torrid lingering and wet kisses together on both sides of my cheeks before they left, and with a wink, I said I'd make sure to deliver it to her.

That left time for just a little more and a bit of cheesecake, and one more slice of fresh combo pizza for Trixie before I poured my tipsy Ùruisg and sleepy dragon onto our waiting railcar suite for the night. Since we were leaving early at just after 6 a.m. I'd already checked out of my hotel, much to the relief of the management.

"You know that you're free to depart from my service, now... at any time, and with my leave and blessing." I reminded the heavy-eyed and yawning dragon. "You have incurred no dishonor in my eyes and are now fully mended, able to return to your home."

"Bugger that." Trixie mumbled with a slight happy full-tummy belch. "Like your other little hidden friend, I too find you... amusing. Besides, I'm certain you're destined to destroy every civilization that you encounter... gloriously and with excessive magical overkill! Your Ùruisg is up to something... and I want to be there when it happens!"

"I could banish you home! Your fetish for lamb and pizza is going to bankrupt me!"

"You can try... but do you happen to know my entire true name?"

"No, but I can easily find and feed you another corned beef sandwich that's decades old and utterly indigestible by any living creature!"

"No, you wouldn't... that would be dishonorable, and I think I have the measure of my new master now. You're sloppy, inept and have way more talent than is safe or good for any mortal, but your heart is good. You'll do... now go away and rut with your females and let me sleep for a day or two!"

And so I did. I wanted to have a little talk with Sean too while I was at it, but he was avoiding me for now.

****************

The stout and surly matron bartender at O'Grady's remembered me and had apparently been forewarned of my imminent arrival. She had nothing in particular to say to me but just jerked her head up towards the stairs, and the upstairs private bedrooms. Being a weekday night, things in the downstairs parlor were rather quiet and neither of the two necking and half-dressed female couples even looked at me twice. They all appeared to be nicely warmed up for some more intimate fun upstairs themselves... just like Bel and Janice.

When I knocked on their room, their familiar and rather friendly voices called out for me to enter and I did. Like I had figured, the ladies had wanted a bit of warm-up time all on their own before my interruption and they both were already naked under the covers.

"Well," I commented, smiling at my amorous lady friends, "the time and the place do seem to be a lot better now. Am I invited here to be a fly on the wall and just watch, or did you have something a bit friskier in mind?"

"Friskier, if you've the inclination... but just a bit later. You did once express an interest in watching us, and I'm sure that will help you warm up to our company in another half hour or so. Assuming you haven't quite over partaken of the kingpin's wine cellar?"

"Oh, I'll be ready alright, right after a fast bathroom break... assuming my rather over-possessive apprentice doesn't decide to castrate me in my sleep tomorrow night. She is just a tad bit over-excitable."

"That she is." Bel commented. "But we've had words with her, as I think you can tell, and we very carefully explained the situation to her. She'll steam and grump for a bit but she'll soon get over herself. You're not her exclusive property for another five months or so and she needs to understand that... and besides, we both owe you. And a lot more than just an erotic floor show!"

"How much more, exactly?" I laughed as I started to undo my belt buckle.

"Oh, oodles!" Janice giggled, as she and Bel together started to pull down the top of the bedspread that covered them, exposing their already well nibbled breasts. I dropped my pants and trotted off to drain my bladder and returned to find the ladies fully exposed on the sheets and both now rather busy with their tongues in each other's intimate regions. Happy as a clam, I finished undressing and found a comfortable chair to sit and admire the view. I was in no hurry at all and the show more than lived up to my expectations, and my fantasies had been more than a bit exotic.

Wet and happy... and much later, the ladies invited to join their bed where it was carefully demonstrated to me that both women had at least some moderate familiarity with the male body, and how to make it very, very happy.

Much, much later, two very tired but happy women drove me to the train station and we made our final goodbyes and it was clear but unspoken that it might be a very long time before our paths ever crossed again. They softly each kissed me goodbye and then they turned to walk away holding each other closely and they didn't look back behind them. They had shared their love with me once and all too briefly, but their real love would always be for each other.

****************

"You look disgustingly pleased with yourself!" Miranda told me when I returned to our railcar and sunk a peek into our bedroom to check on her. She was sitting up in the large bed bare chested with her arms crossed in apparent annoyance at my late arrival, just before our train was scheduled to depart. Then she hopped out of bed, quite naked and deliberately trotted over slowly with a lot of exaggerated bounce and wiggle to give me a hug and kiss.

"You smell like cunt..." she muttered with a theatrical sniff of mock disdain, and kissed my mouth hard again and with a bit of tongue. "and taste of cunt too, but it's not a bad flavor. Did you have fun?"

"I did. They were very grateful and last evening was important to them." I replied giving my delightfully nude and cuddly apprentice a hug.

"I know. They told me. It's more important to both of them than you'd know and I forgive you. I don't expect my great lord and master to live like a monk, but in few short months I am going to expect you to at very least share your future bedtime dalliances with me! We're partners, my wonderful lord and master, and a team! And that means after the lights go out too! Any questions?" I couldn't think of any.

She gave my lips and face another long lick to make sure that the last traces of the foreign feminine juices had been removed while she gave my cock a gentle stroke with her right hand, tender and loving. Then, to emphasize that she was still her own woman and that he was a shrewd cunning temptress, she wiggled her ass off to our private bathroom and then casually dressed herself as if I wasn't even there.

I had more than an inkling that my tease of a ward was going to be playing the seductive temptress for the full week of our long slow train trip to Washington. But I also was quite certain that I was going to enjoy nearly every minute of it!