Paint Your Dragon by Tom Holt Page B

as a fuck-up.
    Explain, I said.
    They explained. If they put their shirts on George to win and then I lost the fight ...
    Come, come, I said. All false modesty aside, do you really think there’s a lawyer’s chance in Heaven of that happening ?
    They shuffled their feet. They cleared their throats. They fiddled with their hats. Was I familiar, they asked, with the concept of taking a dive?
    George, they went on, was already in on the deal and would do his bit to the letter. All I had to do was wait until he tried to prod me with his lance - he’d miss, naturally - and then roll over on the ground, make funny noises and pretend to die. Once everybody had gone home, I’d make myself scarce and never come back. They’d just acquired some vacant real estate, they said, a big island called Antarctica, completely empty, not a human being anywhere. I was welcome to it. Chance to make a fresh start, live my life without any further aggravation from homo sapiens. Plus, they added, once again saving themselves in the very nick of time from being oxidised, it was the only possible way to resolve the Good-versus-Evil showdown with the one result that actually made any sense, which was, of course, a draw.
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    Bianca realised that she’d lost all feeling in her hands. She looked down and saw that her hands were clamped solid on the arms of her chair.
    â€˜And?’ she demanded.
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    The next bit (continued the dragon) makes me feel a bit upset when I think about it. As a rule I’m not one to carry a grudge, but I reckon it was a pretty poor show.
    I did my bit. George didn’t do his. Maybe, just conceivably, there was some sort of communications breakdown, I don’t know. Perhaps the gamblers were lying when they said George had agreed to co-operate. Somehow, though, I doubt it. Like I said, I’d known Cody a fair while, and not only would he sell his own grandmother, he’d throw in forged Green Shield stamps.
    So there I was, or rather wasn’t. A right idiot I felt, with my body stuck with George’s lance like an enormous green cocktail sausage, and my head on a pole being pelted with distinctly second-hand groceries. By that point, however, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.
    Maybe it served me right; after all, I’d agreed to cheat too, and Cheating is Wrong. And you could say George didn’t cheat, because his job in the grand scheme of things was to kill the evil dragon, and that’s precisely what he did do. I really don’t know, and what’s more I don’t really care any more. I’ve had enough of Good and Evil to last me, and as far as I’m concerned it sucks.
    Any old how. There’s me, dead. Which is presumably where the story’s meant to have ended.
    Only it didn’t.
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    â€˜You’ve gone ever such a funny colour,’ said the dragon. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have drunk all that apple juice.’
    â€˜Calvados. And no, I don’t think it’s that.’ Bianca swallowed a couple of times, as if she’d got the Arc de Triomphe stuck in her throat. ‘Excuse me asking this, but are you dead?’
    â€˜I was,’ replied the dragon, scratching his ear. ‘Very much so. If there was an award for Stiffo of the Millenium, I’d have been a contender, no question about that, right up until a few weeks ago. Round about the time you started—’
    â€˜Don’t.’ Bianca swallowed again. ‘Would you excuse me?’ she said. ‘I feel a bit unwell.’
    â€˜Over there by the fruit machine and turn right,’ said the dragon. ‘That’s assuming I’ve interpreted the little drawings on the doors correctly.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    While Bianca was in the ladies’, the dragon passed the time by drinking off another three bottles of calvados and, having exhausted the wine bar’s supply, a bottle and a half of Bacardi. Not a patch on Diesel,