The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Eight Read Free Page A

demon I might be, but a friendly demon had potential.
    “Yes, yes,” he said.  “Cousins.”  He immediately understood what I wanted, and why.  “You want addresses, phone numbers?  You make sure Ying not get in trouble in Houston with this Mr. Petroski she engaged to, yes?”
    I nodded.
    We talked.  I let him vent his frustrations with Greg and the failure of Greg’s gym.  He envisioned some rather large positives to getting Greg and Ying out of his hair, mostly on the Greg side of things.
    A little over ninety minutes into my meeting with Mr. Tien, Greg and Ying walked in, entering through the gaudy restaurant doors with their carved dragons and peeling paint.  Ying, as elegant as I had taught her to be, ran up and gave me a hug, all worried about me, and asking if I was okay and why I had lost so much weight.  I smiled and remembered how much I cared for her.  She had figured out I was a woman in disguise long before my capture, it turned out.  This wasn’t the first time she had surprised me with her nerve and smarts.
    Then, oh lord, Greg tried to pull a pistol on me.  Here I was reunionizing with Ying, and he decided I would blame him for the gym bankruptcy.  Panic, pure and stupid.  I removed the pistol from his grasp before he clicked the safety off.  “Calm down,” I said.  “The past is the past, not worth worrying about.  However, if you want another chance at running a gym…well, I’m going to need one in my new home.”
    Greg damned near peed his pants.  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, reflex, without thinking, his mind still confused by panic.  He would get a tag as soon as this meeting ended.
    “It’s all right,” Ying said to Greg, with a snap of command and of tone a frustrated exasperation.  “Just do what she says and don’t do anything else stupid.”
    Greg blinked, said, “Right,” and calmed down.
    Well, what do you know.  Ying had gotten to Greg.  When I thought about those two together, I hadn’t expected she would be the one on top.  Greg liked his ladies meek.  Or had.
    Ying, I decided, was one hell of a lady.
     
    I tagged Greg as soon as I got him out into the parking lot.  The tagging went fine, though it felt empty, as if something this significant, with one of my inner circle, should have a little more ceremony.  The oddest thing happened afterwards, though.
    “Ma’am, what about me?” Ying said.
    I blinked.  I hadn’t planned to tag Ying.  I figured she would follow along with Greg and keep him in line.  I certainly didn’t plan to expose her to the serious side of my business.
    “What about you?”
    “Well, ma’am.”  She stopped.  Started again.  “Don’t you want me to work for you?”  She kept her face straight, but she radiated hurt underneath as loud as a siren.
    Wonderful.  Just wonderful.  “Ying,” I said, “Greg may be involved in some things that are a little bit dangerous.”
    She tilted her chin up.  “So you’ll need help, then.  I can help.”
    I just looked at her, and gradually her eyes fell.  “I’m sorry, ma’am.  I don’t want to impose.  I’ll certainly do whatever you want me to.  I don’t mean to ask for some special role.”
    Oh, hell.  She worshipped the ground I walked on and here I was rejecting her.  Didn’t she understand people shouldn’t want tags?  That tags were something I forced on them against their will?
    I sighed and touched her head.  I had never been able to resist her. “I supp–”
    The juice moved before I even got the words out.  I blinked again and she smiled, and then gave me a huge hug.  “Oh, thank you!  Thank you!  You won’t regret this, I promise.”
    Dammit!  I hated when the juice did things on its own.  It made me feel like a puppet instead of a human being with free will.  I smiled down at her, though.  How could I do otherwise?
    Her personal devotion reminded me of Ann Chiron, Focus Rizzari’s Transform anthropologist, and the way Ann