"Yes. You see, we already knew about your raid on NuGene. It couldn't have been anyone else." She glared at him. "If you try to run, we'll simply hunt you down."

"I'll be at the Ivanhoe," Skater said. It was a seedy motel not far from their Swan Island location. "In thirty minutes."

The sasquatch cut the connection without another word.

The rest of the team tried to talk Skater out of making the meet. But they were only half-hearted attempts. In the end, there was really no choice at all.

Lofwyr maintained a small estate on Royal Hill. Small, at least, by the standards set by its neighbors. The black Rolls Royce Phaeton limousine delivered Skater to the tall, arched front doors just slightly more than an hour and a half later. It was almost dawn.

He got out and stretched, taking time to scan his surroundings. There was no way he could escape. With all the electronic and magical security around the castle, he'd have had better luck trying to cross a moat of alligators.

Lofwyr hadn't limited himself to mere electronic security measures and the low walls encircling the estate. Things roamed the grounds, some on great leathery wings and some on taloned feet. Elschen met him at the door, dressed in nothing more than the amulet. Her body hair somehow masked her nakedness and made her all the more alluring.

"You have a weapon." She held out her hand.

Reluctantly, Skater passed the Predator across. She took it casually and held it in her hand as she ushered him in.

The first things Skater noticed about the house were the huge doorways and immense, sweeping corridors. He felt incredibly small. Elschen walking at his side, being head and shoulders taller, didn't help.

She didn't speak to him, and exuded an air that she didn't want him speaking to her.

Skater took in the house as they walked. The floor was rough and dark cement, and the lighting was dim. Though Saeder-Krupp invested heavily in cutting-edge technology, it didn't show in the surroundings. The doors were unmarked, and security cameras were nestled in clear bubbles that hung from the ceiling.

"Go ahead." Elschen said, opening one of a final pair of doors. "He's expecting you."

Skater moved into the antechamber beyond the doors. His heels clicked on the concrete surface, ringing hollowly in the vast space the room contained. He was alone, and not another sound was in the house.

The walls held paintings that were both priceless and emotionally powerful. Sculptures of equal potency sat on stands and in niches in the walls beneath the paintings.

"Skater."

The dry, raspy voice formed in his mind, feeling like sandpaper next to his brain. He turned and stared down the long room.

A man suddenly stood at the other end next to a banquet table that must have stretched at least twenty meters. Candlesticks and flowers decorated the length of the polished wood. The man was almost two and a half meters tall, but the dark pinstriped silk suit fit him perfectly. Though troll-sized, he was perfectly proportioned. His bronze-colored hair was gathered behind him in a ponytail that went down his back. His features looked chiseled, but smooth and robust. He wore black wraparound sunglasses.

"I am Lofwyr," he said in that awesome silent voice of his.

Skater noticed that his lips never moved.

"I do not have much time. There are other matters that require my attention. I've freed this hour for you. Do not waste it.”

The words were pure, naked threat. Skater had to steel his knees as he approached the dragon. He'd heard they could assume human as well as other forms; he'd just never expected to see it for himself. Quickly, aware of the tightness in his voice that he couldn't quite shake, he recounted the events of the last couple days.

"It appears that you've been someone's pawn in this game so far," Lofwyr said when he finished. "Now you wish to be mine."

Skater almost disagreed. He was there to become his own force in the scheme of things, leveraging himself in to get a shot at a profit and revenge. But looking at the dragon's cool, human facade, he knew that while he might have come to Lofwyr with that in mind, becoming a pawn in whatever game the dragon was playing was the best he could hope for. He answered in a small voice. "Yes."

"Elschen," Lofwyr said, "bring up the stock quotes."

Skater knew the dragon had intentionally allowed him to hear the conversation. A section of the inlaid wooden wall to his left separated and revealed a computer screen. In seconds, stock quotes were pulsing across it.

"Interesting. I hadn't thought Silverstaff would become vulnerable so quickly."

"I don't think he's aware of how exposed he's about to become," Skater said. He had to force himself to speak. The dragon's presence and the sheer power that surrounded him were almost overwhelming.

"Nor do I." Lofwyr eyed him speculatively from behind the dark glasses. "What is it you wish to accomplish here, human?"

"I want to get my team and myself out of Portland alive," Skater said, and as he said it, it sounded like more than the dragon would ever agree to. "And I want some payback against the people who set us up and killed Larisa Hartsinger."

The dragon's lips twitched in amusement. "Why," he asked in that impossibly dry voice, "should I care?"

"Maybe you shouldn't," Skater replied. "Bui I may be in a position to give you NuGene."

"How?"

The feeling he was covering ground the dragon had already crossed plagued Skater as he tried to talk. He was tense and frightened confronting Lofwyr. Dragons didn't look at life the same as men. "We can represent your interests in Seattle on this. If it's played right, you stand to make a lot of profit over the next few days."

"Money doesn't interest me," Lofwyr stated. "It's only a marker system designed to keep track of the games I play with others."

"If that's true," Skater said, "then I've wasted your time and mine by coming here."

The dragon eyed him in cold regard. "You border on insolence."

Skater couldn't deny it, partly because it was true, and partly because his mouth had gone dry.

"Stilt, you and your team add a layer of deniability to my efforts, as well as concealment while I launch my own strikes." Lofwyr smiled. "You have promise in these matters, I'll admit that. And in my own game, your presence here could eliminate some steps I would need to take."

Skater waited, his breath tight in his chest. If the dragon hadn't wanted to use him, he'd never have been brought here in the first place.

"Besides passage from Portland," the dragon asked, "what else would you want from me?"

"A letter of credit at one of your Seattle banks. We're going to set up some straw accounts to get as much of the issued stock from ReGEN as we can. With the activity that can generate, the price should go up in hours. At the same time, we're going to release news to the trid channels that ReGEN's research has been stolen. Once that news hits, the prices will plummet again, and people will dump the shares they've bought, trying not to get stuck with them. We'll be able to buy even more of them then."

"To what end? It sounds like you're only wasting money. MY money."

"Because ReGEN stands to make a fortune on this tech," Skater said. "Someone has set them up, made it look like their research was stolen by us. But the stuff we got our hands on was no good. NuGene and Silverstaff don't know that. Right now they're living in terror that they're about to lose everything they've worked for. In order to save as much as they can, they're going into production immediately. That's why they're selling the stocks: to get the money necessary to open the Seattle office now."

"How do you know the tech hasn't been stolen by someone else and another company isn't already working on it?"