****
"What the living hell is wrong with you?" Jason hissed.
Vincent caught the tennis ball that had bounced on the court in front of him and turned to look at Jason where he had strode out onto to the playing area. He waved at the young girl who was playing opposite him and she sulked slightly before walking over to the booth on the other side of the court, taking a swig from a bottle of water while simultaneously smoothing her almost bizarrely bouncy blonde ponytail.
"Do you need to speak with me, Jason?" Vincent asked, walking toward him.
"I went to see Neil Simmons," Jason said, keeping his voice at a low, conspiratorial level.
"Oh, you did," Vincent said with a short laugh. "I told you he was a bit of an eccentric."
"He is far more than a bit of an eccentric, Vincent," Jason said. He stepped toward the path that led away from the tennis court and Vincent followed. "He seems to have somewhat of an obsession."
"With dragons?"
Jason was taken aback by how casual Vincent was about the situation. They climbed into a large gazebo and sat down on one of the integrated benches. After Neil Simmons told him that he was going to have to impress his son before he would make any sort of decision about his investments, he had brought Jason through another few rooms of the house, pointing out several more paintings and pieces of sculpture that featured dragons. It wasn't until they got outside, however, that the feelings of discomfort had really intensified.
The grounds to the back of Neil's house were as sprawling as the home itself, and in the distance Jason could see the hint of a huge wall that surrounded the space. Neil had brought him out into the grass and opened what looked like an electrical box on a post coming out of the ground. From the box, he had drawn a remote control that he directed at a shed to one side.
The doors to the shed opened and Neil pressed another button. A moment later, several small dragons streamed out of the building, their wings spreading so that they could fly through their air. One opened its mouth so that a stream of fire spewed out, nearly singeing the grass below. For a moment, Jason worried that these were very young dragons that Neil was keeping captive, but then he looked closer and realized that they were in fact just robotic dragons programmed to move, fly, and breathe fire like incredibly large, complex toys.
"You told him about us," Jason accused.
"What are you talking about?" Vincent asked, pulling a wayward piece of fuzz off of the ball and letting it fall to the floor of the gazebo.
"You know very well what I'm talking about. I saw all of the statues and paintings, and even those awful robots."
"And you think those mean that I told him about the dragon world?"
"How else would he know about the labyrinth well enough to have a mural of it in his gallery?"
"Because I painted it for him," Vincent said.
"What?"
"I didn't tell Neil anything about the dragon world. He is just an aging, eccentric man who has a fantasy streak. He loves dragons of all kinds, so he commissioned some pieces from me. When I first met him, he only had that statue in his foyer and the gaudy red smoking jacket I'm sure he was wearing. I did everything else for him over the course of the last couple of years."
"Even the robots?"
"Even the robots. He said that he wished that dragons were real and that he could have a few around the grounds so that he could watch them fly. Well, as much as you think that I would betray several thousand years of lineage, I didn't actually just come to the Club and ask to borrow a few of the young from the lower families so that he could have his exotic pets. I designed the robots and got some help building and programming them."
"Sorry, man. I didn't know you did that kind of work."
Vincent waved him off. "No big deal. How did it go with him anyway? Did he like your presentation?"
"Well, he didn't actually let me give the whole presentation, really. He was too busy bringing me through the house, showing me his art and flying his remote control dragons around. I told him as much as I could about it and he seemed to be pretty onboard."
"That's great! So, you landed the account, everyone's going to be happy, and you’re sure to get that promotion."
"Well, not quite. He said that he was impressed and liked the idea, but that he doesn't make his investment decisions on his own anymore and I am going to have to impress Shayne."
"Shayne?"
"I'm guessing it's his son. Do you know him?"
Vincent shook his head, standing up and starting back toward the tennis court where Jason could see the young girl looking around in confusion as if she thought that Vincent had simply disappeared.
"No. I didn't even know that he had children. He never talks about kids."
"Well, from what he said, this guy is kind of a hard ass and isn't going to be as easy to sway as Mr. Simmons himself. I have a feeling that the nostalgia and fun family times tactic that I was going to try on Neil isn't going to work on Shayne. I'm going to have to come at him with sheer numbers and some solid concepts for what would be done with the investment capital."
"Good luck."
Jason nodded and left Vincent at the tennis courts, heading back toward his car. He wasn't going to have time to relax in the lounge that evening; he needed to get home so that he could revamp his approach and make sure that he was ready for an appointment with Shayne Simmons.