Dragon Justice

I knocked once, and the door opened.

“Sir?”

Usually I’d have started with “you rang, oh great and mighty?” but what worked with humans could backfire spectacularly with fatae. The fact that I knew that—the result of years more experience interacting with the nonhuman members of the Cosa than anyone else in the office except possibly Venec—was why I’d been called here. Nick had it in one.

“Torres. Come in.”

I came in, closing the door behind me, uncertain of where to go after that. The office was large enough to hold five people comfortably, seven if we all squeezed. Right then, there were only four—me, Stosser, and two figures, cloaked, with their backs to me—but it felt crowded as hell.

Then they turned around, and all the air left my lungs in a surprised, if hopefully discreet, whoosh.

* * *

Benjamin Venec took good care of his investigators. If they were stressed, he gave them something to snarl at. If they were worried, he could provide a sounding board. If they were pissed off, he was willing to fight with them. But he couldn’t force them to relax; even if that had been his style, his pups were stubborn. They’d decide when they went down, not someone else, opponent or boss.

So he could have told Torres to go home and get some sleep. She might even have gone—or at least started to. But he knew her: something shiny would catch her attention, either a case or a person, and she’d be off again. That was just…Torres.

The fact that he had given up any right to be jealous of either things or people she deemed shiny didn’t seem to help the slight burning sensation to the left of his gut when he felt her sudden rush of surprise, followed by a shimmer of glee and anticipation that was uniquely Bonita Torres.

Her signature was like coconut liquor, spicy and warm, and he let himself enjoy the taste—offsetting the burning sensation, or enhancing it, he wasn’t sure.

The pleasure was balanced by a sense of moral discomfort, though. They’d agreed to stay out of each other’s headspace unless invited. Bonnie had been scrupulous about maintaining that agreement. He hadn’t. And claiming that it was part of his job, as her boss and teacher, nothing more than he did for the others, only went so far in justifying what his mentor would have called a blatant misuse of Talent.

Ben didn’t even try to justify it, not to himself. He might be a bastard, but he was an honest one. He simply couldn’t avoid the overlap: even with his walls up, he was hyperaware of every strong emotion that passed through Torres, and the girl never felt anything halfway. It should have been annoying to his more cynical, jaded self, the way she threw herself wholeheartedly into every step of her life and dragged him along, via the Merge, without even realizing it. Instead, the experience amused, exasperated, frustrated, and invigorated him, sometimes all at once.

He let it ride. The first rule of dealing with the Merge, they had discovered, was not dealing with the Merge, and so far, he had been able to ignore the other, totally unprofessional urges. Mostly.

The fact that Bonnie took other lovers had been established—by her—early on. Also established: it was none of his damn business. She kept her private life private, but the Merge… If she knew how much leaked, even when she thought her walls were up, she’d be horrified. And mortified. Thankfully, she was as particular as she was omnivorous, and they had been few and far between lately. He always knew, though.

He waited a minute, just letting the Merge-connection wash over him, and the sense of surprise and excitement faded, her thoughts settling into the focused hum that meant that whatever was making her quiver was work-related.

Work was within his purview. Ben tapped his pencil against the desk, resisting temptation for all of ten heartbeats.

*new job?* he queried his partner.

*interesting problem* Ian sent back, not so much words as a perception of something sharp and dark, versus Bonnie’s sense of shiny.

Ben tapped the pencil harder.

*too much* he suggested, with just the sense of scales tilting too far to one side. The past few months they’d been getting a steady stream of work, from piddling jobs like the one they’d tested Farshad on to the more complicated blackmail-and-possible-murder case he’d given Sharon, Pietr, and Jenna.

There was silence from Ian, which could mean anything from disagreement to his being attacked at knifepoint by the supposed client.

No, if that were the case, even if Ian were his usual cool self, Torres would have reacted. So: he was being ignored.

In its own way, that was reassuring. Torres and Stosser both had the kind of focus that didn’t miss much. Whatever was going on there, he could safely ignore it for now in favor of…

Ben paused his pencil-tapping. Actually, there was nothing pending on his desk. Lou, their office manager, had the day-to-day things running smoothly, and with the exception of Ian’s new project, whatever it was, nothing new had come in needing his attention.

Ben exhaled, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing did. Everyone was either out on a job or finishing up their paperwork. Nothing new needed to be evaluated and assigned. That meant he was free to pick up the job that had come across his desk this morning. Not a PUPI investigation; something from his previous line of work. He’d given up his sidelines while they got PUPI running, but not gotten out of the game entirely.

This project would only take a day or three, and it would be good to get out of Big Dog mode, use his other skills before they got rusty…and, he admitted, get himself out of Bonnie’s immediate vicinity, give the connection between them time to cool off a bit. She’d been single for a couple-three months now, but every time she did hook up with someone, he could feel himself hovering between an all-out confrontation or sliding the knife in deep, in places only he knew about. He was capable of both, he knew. Both would end badly.

Yeah, time away would be a good thing.

*taking a few days off* he told his partner and got a distracted mmm-hmm back. Not that he needed permission, but with Ian it was better to clear the decks anyway, in case he had something tucked up his sleeve that Ben would be needed for.

Looking at the packet of papers on his desk again, he picked up the landline—an old-fashioned rotary, thrice-warded against random current-spikes—and dialed the number in the letterhead. He let it rotate through the phone-tree options until an actual operator came to see what the problem was.

“Extension 319, please.”

He waited while he was clicked through, and a familiar voice picked up at the other end.

“Allen? It’s Ben. Usual plus expenses, and I can be there this afternoon.”

Chapter 2

Holy mother of meatloaf, the atmosphere in Stosser’s office didn’t just hum—it fricking crackled.

The boss did the introductions. “This is Bonita Torres.”

“The Torres is known to us.”

It took me a second, then my manners flooded back and I made as graceful a salutation as I could. A properly elegant curtsy requires yards of skirts and a fitted corset, but I didn’t think the Lord would be offended, so long as the proper respect was shown. How the hell was my name known to him? That wasn’t good. Or it was very good. I wasn’t sure.

The other unknown figure in the room laughed at my response, a low noise that sent a different kind of shiver down my neck. Oh, fuck. Stosser, damn him, looked utterly unaffected.

“She will be acceptable,” the other, still-hooded figure said. Her voice was low, a smoky contralto, but not even remotely masculine. It was the voice that could lure otherwise sane men to their doom with a smile on their lips and a sparkle in their eye.

A thought passed through my head that it wasn’t really a surprise Stosser was unaffected: he had already trooped merrily along to his doom, that being us, here, this.

I wanted very badly to know what the hell was going on, but also knew damn well to keep my mouth shut unless spoken to.

“Our guests have come to us about a child who has gone missing.”

I turned my head slightly, to indicate that I was listening to the Big Dog, but I kept my gaze on the Lord. Not that I distrusted him, exactly, but I wanted to keep him in my sight at all times. The Lady didn’t worry me—I might like guys and girls, but the Fey Folk kept it pure vanilla when they deigned to mess with mortals. At worst, she’d try to make me a lapdog, and my kinks didn’t bend that way.

“A Fey child?” Even as I asked I knew that wasn’t it. Not just because Fey children were rare and protected, but because the Fey would not involve mortals in their own business. While not nearly as arrogant as the angeli, the Fey were still about as insular as a breed could get, in the modern world. Which, in my opinion, was good for all concerned.

Every fairy tale you ever heard? The truth was worse.

“A mortal child.” Stosser clarified the case. The Lord did not move away from my gaze, allowing me to watch him, and I knew damn well he was allowing me to do so. His cowl lay against his shoulders, and his face was clearly visible, a Rackham sketch come to life, but twice as vibrant and three times as dangerous, if he desired. “A seven-year-old girl, abducted from her bed during the dark of the moon.”

Which had been last week. “Not quite seven, I bet.” It wasn’t a guess; a child past that birthday would be safe from the Fey; I didn’t know if Catholicism set seven as the age of reason because the Fey stopped being interested in human children around then, implying that God had claimed them, or if the Fey stopped being interested because the child actually had developed a moral backbone. It didn’t matter which came first so long as you could keep your offspring safe until then.

Someone hadn’t.

“And you came to us because…you didn’t take her? And her parents think you did?” That made no sense; they wouldn’t care what mortals thought. Especially if nothing could be pinned to them.

“Our Troop abides under the Palisades Treaty,” the Lord said. I was starting to get—not used to his gaze, but able to ignore it. Sort of.

“But you think someone slipped up, maybe couldn’t resist?” Stosser asked.

No. Not that. It didn’t feel right.

“Or another Troop is poaching?” he continued.

Poaching in their territory and letting them take the blame. Yes.

“That,” the Lady said, and her voice was the growl of a sweet-tuned sports car, clearly annoyed that Stosser seemed oblivious, “is what you must discover.”

“We must?” The words slipped out, even though I’d have sworn my mouth was shut. Oh, not smart, Bonita, not smart questioning one of the Fey. I didn’t think they would do anything here—hell, I knew they wouldn’t do anything here, not within our walls. That would be rude. But once I was out on the street, once I left the protection of human habitations… Being well over the age of reason didn’t protect you from anything save abduction. There were far worse things the Fey could—and did—do to humans who crossed them. And they could make you like it.

The Lord seemed to be in command of these negotiations, from the way he stepped in. Or maybe he just wanted to keep the Lady from saying anything more. “If the human child was taken within our Troop, we will deal with it. If she was taken by another, infringing on our lands and agreements…then we will deal with it.” I did not like the sound of that, and from the way Stosser went even more still, neither did he. But neither of us said anything. “If she was taken by another, one not-Fey, and a trail was left to indicate that a Troop had done it, breaking the Treaty…”

The Lord looked me direct in the eye then, his gaze unshadowed, and the tawny-gold of his irises was exactly like an owl’s, just like legend claimed. “It was not so many turns of the moon past that this city was at shattering point, mortal and breed, Cosa and Null.”

Understatement, that. The battle of Burning Bridge last winter had been a high point in human-fatae cooperation, but the before and after… I knew I didn’t know how close to the brink the city had come and was pretty sure that I didn’t want to know.

“We have no wish for that point to return.”

No. Nobody did, not even the most rabid antihuman fatae. We’d scared ourselves sober, for once.

If someone was trying to set up the Fey, we needed to be on it, to prevent any more damage from being done. A PUP’s word that the Fey were not guilty would be trusted; we’d earned that, at least.

“You have the best contacts within the fatae community,” Stosser said to me. “If anyone knows anything, they’ll tell you.”

The boss knew better than to use his usual glamour of competence with not one but two Fey in the room, but he practically glowed with such utter confidence in my abilities, I almost believed it, too. Sure, not a problem, boss.

“It is done, then,” the Lady said, her voice still disturbing but not so obviously fishing for bait. We weren’t interesting enough for her to keep playing with, I guess. The Lord lifted his hood back over his head, making them a matched set, and they swept out of the room like the arrogant bastards they were. I was pretty sure I never saw either one of them touch the door; it opened for them like it was eager to do their bidding.

Or maybe just to be rid of them. I know I breathed a little easier once I sensed they had left the office entirely.

Only then did I turn to Stosser. “Who’s on—”

“Just you.”

“What?” We did not go out alone. That was the first rule, hammered into us from day one, by Venec. Pups worked in pairs, to make sure someone always had your back.

“I don’t want this looking like an investigation. Not yet. Ideally not ever.”

I tended toward the blunt—tactless, Venec said, often—but my mentor had been a politician to match Stosser, once upon a time, and I knew when a game was on. “You want me to solve it quietly, have them owe us without anyone knowing they owe us, and have them know that we kept them out of it, but without ever being tacky enough to say so.” Shit. “We’re doing this pro bono?”

Stosser’s expression didn’t change, which meant absolutely nothing. “For a fee to be determined later.”

“Uh-huh. They’re really worried, if they’re agreeing to that.” The Fey were the ones who gave the fatae some of the worst reps—even more than redcaps or angeli. Not because they were violent, but because they were sneaky to a level that would make a corporate lawyer jealous. Agreeing to a deal without having all the terms nailed down hard-and-fast and in their favor? That was the kind of mistake they anticipated mortals doing, not one they made themselves. I was immediately, worryingly suspicious.

“Um, boss?”

“Let me worry about that, Torres. You just do your job.” There was a sudden sparkle in his eyes that I distrusted. “Manage this without getting anyone killed, and we’ll make a Council schmoozer out of you yet.”

On that threat, I turned and ran. Slowly, decorously even, but I ran.

The doors off the hallway at this end were all closed, but I could still feel the steady hum of activity throughout the office as I made my way back, pausing in the half-open doorway of the main conference room at the other end. There was a single pup in residence, working at the long, polished wood table.

“Kill me now, please.”

Pietr made a gunlike shape with his right hand and mimed shooting me, even as he kept writing with his left.

My fellow investigator and sometimes lover had just finished a three-week-long investigation into a missing sculpture, an alleged magical Artifact that turned out to have been a spell-cast but otherwise ordinary figurine pawned by the owner’s stepdaughter. I wasn’t sure why the boring jobs generated the most paperwork, but it always seemed to be the case.

I stood in the doorway and watched him awhile longer. Pietr was the quiet one, among all of us. He thought first, and then thought again, and then when he did something he did it well and thoroughly. And yes, that included sex. He also had the interesting and occasionally useful, more often annoying, tendency to fade from sight, literally, when under stress. That little quirk made it problematic, at times, to work in the field with him. He was sharp and clear today, though.

He looked up at me, just then, as though suddenly realizing I was watching him. “New assignment? Need help? I’m just about done here.”

Pietr would have been useful as backup, but Stosser’s orders were, well, orders. I shook my head. “No. I’m good. Just some Q&A among the fatae the Big Dog wants done. One-person gig.”

“Lucky you.” He knew that was against standing procedure but didn’t push.

“Yeah. Lucky me. We still on for dinner next week?”

“Assuming no last-minute disasters, yeah. Wear your dancing shoes.”

I nodded and went the rest of the way to the break room, where there was no sign of Nicky. I eyed the coffeemaker on the kitchenette counter to my right, then decided that more caffeine wasn’t what I needed. Sleep, now, that would have been nice. And I needed to re-source my current; I’d been too busy to dig deep recently, and I could feel a hollowness inside that had nothing to do with hunger.

Calories weren’t the only thing we had to replenish after working. A Talent’s core stored their current, and the longer it stayed there the more it conformed to that individual’s signature, making it easier to use.

It also made it easier for us to track down the Talent who had used it, like matching fingerprints to fingers. So far, we’d kept that bit of info to ourselves. Trade secrets—no reason to give up what slight advantage we had over our criminally minded peers.

I thought about making a second try at lunch, but my appetite had fled. The Fey suspected someone was interfering with the Treaty and had given us the chance to stop it. If we couldn’t…

Yeah. Suddenly, a sandwich wasn’t so appetizing.

If I wasn’t going to eat, and I wasn’t going to tell Stosser where he could stick this job, it was time to get my ass out of the office. I’d always hated the “soonest begun, soonest ended” crap, but it had the nasty flavor of truth.

I went over to the small board that hung on the wall next to the main door and marked myself “out, on job.” Lou had set the system up after one too many confusions about who was where, when, and god help the pup who forgot to check in or out. I left my work-kit in the closet; I wouldn’t need the external tools of my trade for this—just my brain.

I hoped.

The external hallway was empty, as usual. There were two other offices on our floor, but it was rare that we saw anyone go in or out save the UPS guy. I paused a moment at the elevator and then told myself taking the stairs was exercise, nothing whatsoever to do with the lingering memory of the boy who had died there when the power failed, now almost two years ago. Nothing at all, nope.

The six flights down were easy, but the moment I hit the outside air, I felt sweat break out on my skin. It wasn’t that hot outside yet, but the air still had the feel of an oven. I plucked at the fabric of my T-shirt and scowled. It was barely June. This was going to be a bitch of a summer, you could tell already. Great. Still, maybe a lot of people would take the summer off, go cool down somewhere else, which would mean fewer people rubbing raw nerves against each other, making life easier for the rest of us in the city.

Yeah, and cave dragons were suddenly going to start giving interest-free loans.

So. Scouting the fatae. Where, and how to begin? It’s not like this gig came with a bunch of guidelines or clues…

Try acting like a trained professional, an acerbic voice in my head suggested. My own voice, this time.

Right. First things first. I dipped a mental hand into my core, the pool of current all Talent carry within us as a matter of course, and tested my levels. Blue-and-green threads brushed against me like slender little snakes, sparking and snapping as they moved, crackling when they touched each other. Low, definitely low. Discretion would probably be the better part of valor, then. There was a power generator on the West Side I could dip into without inconveniencing anyone, while I made my plans.

Current—magic—liked to run alongside electricity. In the wild state, that meant ley lines, electrical storms, that sort of thing. For the modern Talent, though, the best, most reliable source of power was, well, a power plant. The trick was learning how to take enough to satisfy your needs, without draining so much you blew the source.

I grabbed the 1 train downtown, got off at 66th, and checked into the nearest ’bux for my latte. The place was doing the usual midafternoon traffic, so I grabbed the first empty chair I saw and sat back like I was just another poser killing time before a date.

Once I was sure nobody was going to approach me, I let myself relax a little, the outer awareness alert and upright while my core opened up and went in search of all the tasty current it could sense shimmering outside.

Compared to the faint hum of the wiring and overhead lights, the generator a few blocks away was like a sauna, warm and inviting. The temptation was there to slide into it and soak up all that was on offer, but that would have been bad manners, not only to any other Talent looking to use it, but for the folk whose rents paid for the power. “Take only what you need, and not all from one source, Bonita,” I could hear J saying, like I was a wide-eyed eight-year-old again.

The current swirling inside the generator was a dark, clean blue, its lines sharp and delineated. Ask any five Talent what the colors meant, and you’d get six different answers, but a sharp-edge meant it was fresh, that there was no one else’s signature already on it, softening the feel. I’d never been able to sense that, before becoming a PUP.

Lots of things I couldn’t do, before. We all were the type to really look at things, not just accept what was on the surface; that was why Stosser hired us in the first place, because we didn’t accept the first impression as truth. But two years of doing this day in and out had put us on another skill level entirely. The more you used, the more you could do. The thought of what we might be able to do five years from now…

“Bonita?”

Oh, hell. I brought myself back to the Starbucks, keeping the connection to the generator open, if narrowed, and looked to see who had approached me, who knew me well enough to use my name, but not so well to use the shorter version.

“Andrea. I didn’t know you slummed in public coffeehouses.”

The words were joking, the tone probably softer than I’d intended, because Andrea took it for an invite, sitting on the windowsill next to my table in lieu of an available chair.

Five foot ten, short blond hair, eyes the color of the Aegean Sea, and teeth as white and straight as money could make them. Andrea was Eastern Council, running at the same levels as my mentor used to.

Because of that, I was cautious about why she’d approached me. I doubted she was just happy to see a familiar face; we’d flirted a bit back when I was still living with J up in Boston, but she was in her thirties, and I’d been twenty, and nothing more than a few innuendos had been exchanged.

And now…now I was a PUP and had to think about things like why someone wanted to get to know me, rather than just enjoying their company. Even the Council people who supported Stosser’s Great Experiment still saw us as tools for them to use rather than the impartial clearinghouse we were trying to become. So there was that.

“I heard that you were living in the city now, but I didn’t think I’d run into you. I should have, of course. That’s how it works—you think this is a huge place, but it’s really such a small town.” She leaned forward, her blue silk blouse open just enough at the collar that I could see the swell of her breasts and the gold chain that dropped between them, and part of my brain kicked into a different gear. Apparently, being out of college meant I was fair game now.