Dragons Are a Girl’s Best Friend: A Fast Feel-Good Urban Fantasy (Fangs and Feathers Book 1) Read online

  Dragons Are a Girl’s Best Friend

  Isla Frost

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Isla Frost

  All rights reserved.

  Published by JFP Trust

  2021 First Digital Edition

  ISBN: 978 1 922712 00 4

  www.islafrost.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Isla Frost

  Chapter One

  Most traffic jams are caused by human error. This one was no exception.

  The giant, slime-covered walrus-caterpillar nightmare glared at me through the pinkish slits I’d pegged as its eyes. Three yellowing tusks as long as my forearm glistened with venom that had already eaten through several inches of tarmac. And trapped beneath the nightmare’s bulging layers of fat in the cage of its many chitinous legs was a six-year-old girl.

  Traffic was ground to a halt behind it, and all the pedestrians but one had fled. Some jerk in a sporty red look-at-me Mustang laid on the horn like he was the one with something to complain about here. And the last remaining pedestrian—a woman I guessed was the girl’s mother—screamed hysterically on the sidewalk.

  I blocked it all out and focused on the next ten seconds.

  My gun had the best chance of taking the monster down. But I was in the middle of Cerberus Avenue, Las Vegas, and my target was an unknown entity.

  I didn’t know how fast this thing could move or how dense those rolling layers of flesh were. If I missed—unlikely—or the bullet plowed through the blubber and kept going, there was too much risk of a casualty. Even if the bullets did land where I intended, the little girl beneath the giant monstrosity could wind up crushed or injured.

  And if I merely pissed the creature off instead of incapacitating it? The slippery nightmare might contort its gelatinous body past the dislodged grate of the storm drain and take the girl with it.

  If it got into the network of sewer tunnels beneath the city, this rescue story wouldn’t end well.

  The little girl was quiet now, her wide-eyed attention fixed on me—mirroring the monster that towered above her. Tears had left wet tracks on her cheeks, but the sight of a glorious copper dragon swooping down to deposit me onto the road had momentarily distracted the summoned creature from its meal, and distracted the meal too.

  Her mother, not so much.

  The best course of action was to have my dragon partner yank the monster skyward while I dove to protect the girl. But Aurelis was busy going after the idiot who’d summoned the nightmare walrus so he wouldn’t summon any more.

  Technically, we were supposed to stick together to protect each other’s backs, and if either of us got hurt—usually me—we’d be taken to task for it. But jobs rarely slotted so neatly into the LVMPD’s play-nice regulations.

  The girl was about the same age as my youngest sister, and I was trying very hard not to imagine Sage in her place. Trying very hard not to imagine Sage’s dark brown eyes shining with that heart-wrenching combination of terror and trust.

  A trust I might fail to live up to.

  How could anyone live up to the trust of the innocent?

  My hands trembled with adrenaline when I needed them to be steady, and sweat pooled beneath my body armor. High above, the late-morning sun bore relentlessly down on us, unmoved by the disaster waiting to happen.

  If only I could be similarly unmoved.

  I needed to focus. Think rationally.

  My eyes flicked back to the asshat who’d laid on the horn. He was conceited enough to have a vanity plate advertising his personal brand of power. TELEKIN.

  Telekinetic magic would come in awful handy right now.

  But the magic revolution had demonstrated how fantastical superhero stories were. Turns out if you give a bunch of people superpowers, most of them just use it to help themselves.

  I dashed to the Mustang, yanked open the door, and grabbed Jerkface’s wrist.

  “Hey—”

  Power flooded up my arm. I flung it in the monster’s direction.

  Bigger isn’t better when it comes to telekinetic magic. I chose the smallest and lightest targets that would get the job done.

  One of the chitinous legs flew upward, and the girl shot out from under the nightmare’s abdomen.

  “What the hell?” Jerkface tried to yank his arm out of my grip.

  I hung on and used a fraction of the magic I was drawing to slosh some of his cold-brew coffee on his shirt. That’d give him something else to worry about.

  The monster roared its outrage as its meal was snatched out of reach. I concentrated on sending the girl skimming over the tarmac until she crashed into her mother’s arms.

  No time for relief.

  I let Jerkface go. “Thanks for your cooperation, sir.”

  He sputtered something, but I didn’t hear it, already sprinting toward the raging monster.

  I shouted as I ran, needing it to focus on me instead of its stolen prey.

  The walrus thing turned. I freed my magitech Taser, shoved it up to maximum voltage, and shot.

  My target writhed, the slime coating its body probably making the electricity coursing through it more painful. Painful, but not paralyzing. And not painful enough to persuade the summoned nightmare to flee back to its own plane. The violent thrashing dislodged the prongs, and the creature squeezed down the sewer opening.

  “Crap.”

  If I lost track of it in the tunnels, it could emerge anywhere in the city to wreak a fresh round of havoc. And the homeless sometimes used those tunnels for shelter.

  I dove down after it.

  I knew I’d erred when I was slammed against the wall of the tunnel. Without my body armor, the force of it would’ve splintered my ribs. As it was, I felt like I’d been bitch-slapped by a dragon.

  A particularly foul-smelling dragon. The rank, musky odor of the slime coating its body and now mine as well tickled my gag reflex. But I didn’t have time nor space to vomit.

  It was dark, but not pitch-black, thanks to the light filtering down through the open drain hole. But with my cheek squashed against the rough concrete, my field of vision was seriously limited. Worse, my dominant arm—the one with access to the Taser and gun—was pinned behind my back.

  I pushed through my body’s shock and into the creature’s disgusting clammy flesh at the same time. I couldn’t pull a shred of magic from our undesirable contact. But with the tiny wriggle room I created, I used my sort-of-free arm to yank out my tactical kn
ife and shove it into the smothering wall of fat and muscle.

  The monster flinched away, and I whipped my gun up and fired. One. Two. Three rounds right into its center mass. Not that that was a difficult shot right now.

  My ears protested the blasts, the din amplified by the close confines of the tunnel. But at least the bullets didn’t ricochet.

  The creature bellowed and reared back on its powerful tail, getting as high as the space would allow. Multiple legs grappled to secure me in place while it readied those tusks to drive deep into my skull.

  The spindly legs were stronger than they looked. I slashed at the nearest of them with my knife, kicked away several more, and launched myself toward the creature’s abdomen, hoping it wouldn’t anticipate my trying to get closer. I slashed again, carving a big jagged wound in its bulbous gut that squirted slippery ink-colored fluid all over me.

  This time its roar was one of definite pain, and it slammed its body to the ground, trying to flatten me. I dove out of the way, scraping my hands and knees against the gritty floor. Hard.

  Before we could repeat that delightful experience, I rolled to shoot more bullets. This time at its head.

  Another earsplitting shriek. The half-risen creature jerked and crashed into one side of the tunnel. The whole tunnel vibrated at the force. Then the monster winked out of existence, leaving only slime, venom, inky fluid, and a foul odor behind.

  Chapter Two

  I swore—for cathartic purposes—and pushed to my feet.

  My hands were bleeding, my body ached, and I was covered in goop. But perhaps that slimy layer had protected me from the venom because nothing burned or stung except where my skin had been scraped off.

  The body cam on my shoulder was cracked, which my boss was sure to be unhappy about. But there were zero casualties, so I was chalking it up as a win.

  Cars thudded over the open drain above, apparently deciding their commute was more important than preserving the integrity of a crime scene. The noise made me realize what was missing.

  My earpiece. A beam of sunlight obligingly bounced off the tunnel wall to reveal its location. On the ground… covered in goop.

  With a sigh, I recovered it, wiped it on the inside of my filthy uniform, and shoved it in my ear.

  “I’m fine,” I reported to my partner Aurelis. Just on the off chance she cared. “The walrus thing has returned to its own plane to lick its wounds.” And wouldn’t be able to return unless some other idiot took it into his head to summon it into this one. “Have you got the summoner?”

  “Yes. And I’m growing tired of looking at him, so kindly join us on the street at your earliest convenience.”

  Dragons didn’t have the vocal cords for human speech, but a handy piece of magitech spoke for her. The recorded voice made her sound even snarkier than she might otherwise. But out of a hundred voices to select from, she’d chosen this one.

  “Any trouble?” I asked.

  “None.”

  I bit back a second sigh. That was usually how our partnership worked.

  Being a cop these days was a lot like being a cop before the magic revolution. You still got shoved around and spat on a lot—only now it was by a greater number of species.

  You’d think having a dragon for a partner would be advantageous, but even the criminally stupid tended to be smart enough to be intimidated by a dragon. Which just meant all their vitriol and bodily fluids ended up directed at me.

  Yet for all Aurelis’s majesty, strength, speed, and intimidation, I was still better than her at some things. Like cuffing the criminals for example.

  Praise be for opposable thumbs.

  I hauled myself out of the sewer and dodged the passing traffic. Aurelis was easy to spot on the extra-wide sidewalk Las Vegas had been rebuilt with. Her polished copper scales soaked up the hot sun and reflected it back in a way that made me wish for sunglasses. The guy responsible for this mess was pressed under one clawed foot.

  He could have still used his magic until I put the special cuffs on him, but the talon by his ear seemed to be succeeding in making him think better of it. An ambulance sat on the curb a dozen yards away, and two uniformed EMTs were talking to the girl and her mother.

  I limped up the sidewalk, detached my slime-covered cuffs, and slapped them on the summoner.

  Aurelis did not immediately remove her talons.

  I couldn’t blame the perp for the wet patch at his crotch. My dragon partner may only be five feet five at the shoulder—no larger than a horse or polar bear—but add in her long sinuous neck, her even longer tail, and her twenty-foot wingspan, then package it all in the lethal predatory shape of ancient myths, and she felt far, far larger. I’d worked with her nearly every day for six months and still had to fight back my primordial terror every time she swung the full force of her attention my way.

  Her casual comments about eating people who irritated her didn’t help.

  In contrast, my average human height and build—paired with blue eyes, brown hair, and a face that tended toward friendly even when I was hopping mad—was decidedly less intimidating.

  Good for interacting with kids and victims. Not so great for facing down monsters or criminals.

  “Why’d he do it?” I asked.

  “His girlfriend dumped the loser. He says he summoned the monster to help get her back, but I’d bet he wanted to hurt her.”

  That might explain why the walrus thing had fixated on the girl. Summoned creatures were not real great at grasping more than the gist of a command. Get my girlfriend. This is what she looks like and where she lives might translate to Get. Girl.

  Either that or the monster was just ignoring the feeble human that had unleashed it into a world full of delicious snacks.

  I glared down at the guy. “No matter what your intention was, you endangered the lives of dozens of civilians, including that little girl over there, and racked up significant damages. This is why summonings must be conducted with a permit under the regulations set out in the Summoner’s Handbook.”

  In truth, I was less concerned about the financial damages than the risk to others’ lives. Not just the lives of the possible victims but the lives of those they’d leave behind as well.

  I’d been thinking about the irrevocable finality of death too often these past few months. Wondering how those whose worlds were shattered by it managed to go on. How they survived, endured, and eventually outmaneuvered that impassable chasm of pain and loss that separated the grieving from the truly living.

  Or was such depthless pain part of living?

  The summoner evidently had other concerns. He racked his brain and came up with three suggestions for what I might do with the Handbook and various parts of my anatomy. I’d learned to enjoy the more creative insults hurled my way, but none of his were the least bit original. I yawned, suddenly exhausted. Worn out or worn down?

  Thankfully the street patrol showed up then and escorted him into the back of their cruiser.

  Which left just my partner around to disparage me. Her nostrils flared.

  “You smell like a rotting walrus stewed in sewer water and set upon by a rabble of noxiously flatulent rats. You are not getting on my back smelling like that.”

  I smiled briefly in appreciation. Now that was how to insult someone.

  “Your tender support is like a breath of fresh air,” I told her. “Excuse me a minute.”

  Ignoring Aurelis’s muttered retort about decidedly unfresh air, I jogged over to the ambulance and squatted down beside the girl. The girl who by some miracle had not become a monster’s snack. It was times like these that made the grueling shifts, the frequent danger, and the isolation from my colleagues all but minor hurdles to be overcome. Times like these that made me love my job. I was learning to clutch them tight wherever I could. To shore me up for the times that were… not like this.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  The fact she was still on the sidewalk instead of the stretcher told me a lot a
lready. But I wanted to hear it for myself.

  She nodded at me with eyes almost as wide as when I’d first spotted her beneath the monster. Then said in an adorably high-pitched voice, “You smell bad.”

  That’s gratitude for you.

  My smile cracked a little. “Yes, about that.” I looked hopefully at the EMTs. “I don’t suppose either of you have hydro or cleaning magic, do you?”

  I might be in luck. Those with water-related magics sometimes gravitated toward medical fields because with human bodies being about sixty percent water, their magic could be useful for diagnostics if not healing. And a first responder who was able to magically clean and sterilize a wound could save a lot of medical complications.

  But they both shook their heads.

  One of them winced sympathetically at my malodorous slime-covered state and offered, “I can spare you an extra-large gauze pad?”

  I tried not to let my shoulders slump as I took the proffered item. It was hotter than bad-tempered dragon’s breath today, and the slimy, tacky goop would likely set before I’d get the chance to shower. Dabbing at it with a gauze pad would be as effectual as dabbing at an ocean of snot with a napkin.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  The mother looked like she was having a harder time recovering from shock than the girl, her glassy stare traveling from her daughter to her hands and back again, so I didn’t get a thank-you from her either. But if I’d wanted gratitude, I would’ve chosen a different profession. Like prostitution for example.