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

  I walked back to Aurelis and looked around for my hastily discarded motorcycle helmet.

  I didn’t own a motorcycle. But while none of the fictional dragon rider books I’d read mentioned the characters choking on bugs or being unable to see a thing because of the wind scouring their eyeballs, the reality was a different story. So I’d given up my chance of being a supercool badass leaping off the mighty dragon with my long hair tousled to windblown perfection… and taken to wearing a helmet instead. And unlike the fictional heroines who used those, when I took it off, I always had helmet hair.

  Pfft, and people had once thought magic was a fantasy.

  With a grimace, I shoved the clean helmet over my decidedly unclean hair.

  Aurelis snaked her serpentine neck down to match my own meager eye level.

  “What part of you’re not getting near me smelling like rotten walrus didn’t you understand?”

  I resisted the urge to flee and regarded her majestic head coolly. Interlocking copper scales were reinforced by an array of armored ridges and wicked horns that adorned and protected her crown, neck, and eyes of liquid gold. She was magnificent, alien, and fierce, and as always evoked wonder and fear in equal measure.

  I folded my arms and feigned indifference.

  “The part where you’ve changed your stance on paperwork.”

  Her slitted pupils contracted, and I knew then that I’d already won.

  “But I don’t mind walking back if you wanna fly on ahead and get started on the backlog of incident reports…”

  Aurelis huffed out a hot stream of air that would have affected me much more had I not already put my helmet on. Ha!

  “You owe me a voucher to the scale spa,” she grumbled.

  Six hours later, Aurelis was lounging around reading, and I was slumped behind my desk being bested by an endless stack of digital paperwork. I was taking a brief break to stretch out my aching fingers and think uncharitable thoughts about my partner when the energy in the station shifted.

  I raised my bleary gaze to see another creature of myth. One I’d glimpsed on a few video calls but never in the flesh.

  Thin gray skin stretched taut over sharp, jutting bones. The figure was humanoid but with the familiar proportions stretched to near breaking point. Even with his distinctively hunched posture, he reached an easy eight feet. Overlong arms hung from narrow, rounded shoulders and ended in fingers stretched twice the normal length. He’d done us the courtesy of donning a pair of dark green shorts, but they seemed to be having a hard time clinging to his narrow hips, and beneath them, his long legs were no thicker than his arms. I could never quite tell if the skull that covered his face was a well-fitted mask or a natural exoskeleton, but it looked very much like a deer skull, antlers included, until you saw the teeth. Sharp, pointed, predatory teeth. A carnivorous deer maybe.

  The figure trudged through the laneway of desks toward the captain’s office as if the weight of the world sat on his bare shoulders. But then he always looked like that.

  My limited understanding was that Enkoo was a wendigo. What one of the northern forest-loving creatures was doing down in the Mojave Desert, I had no idea. But everyone knew he was the LVMPD’s clairvoyant consultant.

  The rumor mill said he was paid in human flesh. Deceased, presumably. I’d never asked.

  My fellow officers were trying and failing at pretending not to stare. I was afraid I was guilty of doing the same.

  Enkoo never came here. Not in person. He was a shut-in who seemed to hate the world and everyone in it. Captain Gadson had mentioned to me once that Enkoo believed the depressive mind state was closest to enlightenment. I figured I might be depressed too if I had to keep seeing the future.

  But why was he here?

  I tried to think of a positive explanation. Maybe he’d won the lottery, fallen in love, and was handing in his resignation? Yeah, even I couldn’t swallow that one.

  Enkoo reached the captain’s office and raised one long, long arm to knock, then pushed open the heavy doors and trudged inside. The effect of his beleaguered body language and gloomy nature was sort of like a very creepy Eeyore. An observation I kept firmly to myself.

  But why was he here?

  No matter how gifted you were, future telling remained a tricky business. Visions and impressions of what lay ahead were fluid, fluctuating, and often vague, which rendered them not all that helpful. But ignoring a foretelling was a negligence lawsuit waiting to happen, so we had to make the attempt.

  Best-case scenario, the captain would be in a foul mood for the rest of the day. Not due to Enkoo’s delightful company. But because knowing fecal matter was about to hit the fan—but not how to stop it—tended to do that to a person.

  Worst case?

  Well, worst case had gotten an awful lot harder to guess at since the magic revolution.

  Not that it had been all bad, but giving every member of humankind a random magic gift had led to a great deal of chaos. Which was the most popular theory on why the supernatural community had done it: to deflect attention away from those who wanted to come out of hiding. The supernaturals of course claimed it was a gift—to put humankind on more even footing with themselves. And my vampire dad who’d adopted me amid those early years of upheaval mostly stuck to the supernatural script.

  I stared at the extra-large, all-species-friendly doors behind which Enkoo and Captain Gadson were now conferring while my mind whirred over the possibilities.

  I wasn’t the only one speculating. The buzz of conversation was growing louder and more energetic now that there was no one to pretend for. A growing huddle around Lieutenant Castro’s desk made me suspect a betting pool was in the making. But no one asked me.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t blame it on the lingering fragrance of slimy walrus gunk. I’d showered and changed my uniform—and all right, the dried slime had proven painfully disinclined to be washed out of my hair—but this was business as usual with my colleagues.

  The Rapid Response unit attracted competitive, driven types, and being paired with Aurelis meant I got some of the most critical assignments, even though I’d only been doing it for six months. Neither my peers nor the more experienced officers were happy about it. And I couldn’t even blame them.

  The only person who tended to talk to me was David Pinkerton. And he had the sort of personality that made me wish he wouldn’t.

  Speak of the devil. He oozed up to my desk and made himself comfortable by sitting on a corner of it.

  I made a mental note to purchase some spiky table ornaments.

  “Lyra the lizard lover.” He sneered. “Think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t you? But you’re nothing without your lizard. Everyone knows it.”

  “Are you calling Aurelis a lizard?” I inquired in a much louder voice than the one he’d used.

  Pinkerton flinched.

  I smiled.

  One of the reasons I’d wanted to become a cop was to stop bullies like him. People who judged themselves superior and figured the rules didn’t apply to them. People who believed power could only be acquired by taking it from others.

  It had been disappointing to find some of them among my peers.

  Pinkerton’s face turned red—or pink rather—with fury. “You have to hide behind your partner, don’t you, lizard lover?” he hissed, lizard-like. “Because your piece-of-crap magic makes you a walking liability to this department.” He leaned in, still flushed, but smiling now, almost excited. “And a little birdie told me I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

  I hid my own reaction and stared him down. “Funny. I recall wiping the floor with you in shooting, hand-to-hand, and just about everything else at the academy.”

  In actual fact, I’d fought him hand-to-hand only once. And while I’d managed to win, I’d never be able to pull it off a second time. Once his magic sheathed his entire body in liquid metal armor, I couldn’t reach his skin to siphon any of it. And even Pinkerton wasn’t arrogant enough to
underestimate how fast I could lunge twice.

  As if thinking along the same lines, his magic slid over his arms and hands, forming into spiked metal gauntlets.

  I tensed, uncertain if things were about to get ugly. Pinkerton might be an idiot, but so far as I knew, he was decent at his job. He liked playing hero. Liked a valid reason to throw his weight around maybe. I didn’t know what would happen if the job stopped being something he cared about, but…

  Well, perhaps if he did break my face, I’d be doing Las Vegas a favor by getting him off the streets.

  Before I could decide whether to prod him again and see what happened, the oversized doors I’d been staring at earlier swung open. And Captain Gadson strode out of his office.

  Pinkerton slid off my desk and tucked his arms behind him as they transmuted back to pale flesh.

  Judging by the captain’s face, whatever Enkoo had come here for, it wasn’t good.

  “Attention please.” The bullpen fell silent with a swiftness powered by curiosity. “As of this moment, each and every one of you is either on duty or on call tonight, so cancel any plans you had to enjoy the festival. I want you sober, attached to your comms units, and ready to go. Is that clear?”

  Groans, complaints, and questions erupted across the room, then cut off again when Gadson held up a hand for silence.

  “I’ll be sending out a memo shortly with all the details, including compensation. If you still have questions after that, ask them then.”

  Dread wrapped its tentacles tenderly around my torso and squeezed.

  I’d never heard of every single officer being on call for a single rotation before. What had Enkoo seen?

  That was when Gadson’s gaze zeroed in on me.

  “Officer Ridley, see me in my office.”

  Chapter Three

  What could the captain want with me? Surely I didn’t have anything to do with whatever Enkoo had foreseen?

  Pinkerton smirked, like he knew something I didn’t. He was probably bluffing.

  I squared my shoulders, straightened my uniform, and made my own walk through the laneway of desks.

  Enkoo trudged past me on his way out, his cheerless gaze landing on me for an unsettling second too long. Or maybe I was just unnerved and imagining things.

  Captain Gadson was already seated and waved at me to take the other chair. Everything from his well-ordered desk to his neatly pressed uniform and tidy steel-gray buzz cut reflected a precise and organized mind needed to herd his large, diverse force of interspecies personnel in roughly the same direction.

  I shut the doors behind me and tried to tell what was coming by his expression.

  This confirmed I was definitely not clairvoyant.

  “Officer Ridley, well done on saving the child this afternoon.”

  I released a breath but didn’t relax just yet. No one responds to looming trouble with the sudden desire to praise the rookie.

  “Thank you, sir. But it wouldn’t have happened without Aurelis. We barely got there in time as it was.”

  For some reason, my statement made his jaw tighten. “Yes, I’ve seen the report. And you’re the only one she’ll agree to fly anywhere.”

  “It’s because I do the paperwork, sir,” I explained helpfully.

  Aurelis was the biggest bookworm I’d ever met (in the literal and figurative senses), but she loathed paperwork with the fiery passion of… well, a dragon. So we’d struck a deal. She’d get both of us on-site faster than anyone else could travel, and I’d do the reports. Sometimes I thought Aurelis had gotten the better end of that bargain, but it was a huge concession for a dragon to deign to carry a human, and our intervention before a fatality rate was better than any other duo in the unit.

  Hence, all those important assignments that so frustrated my colleagues.

  “It’s not just because you do the paperwork. Last time you took sick leave, Perez offered her the same deal and Aurelis insisted he take a ground vehicle. She arrived six minutes ahead of him, and the perp fled into a pre-revolution building where she couldn’t follow without causing property damage. The perp had a gun and plenty of time to find a good vantage point, so we had to send in a team of six to get him out again.”

  Unable to help myself, I asked in morbid fascination, “Did Aurelis actually do the paperwork afterward?”

  Surely she’d gotten out of it somehow…

  “Yes, it was the best report I’d read in a year, and she delivered it in a much more timely manner than you.”

  My tired fingers clenched. Unbelievable.

  Captain Gadson rubbed his temples like he was getting a migraine.

  “I have, however, received another complaint.”

  My stomach twisted.

  My magic was an unusual case. Stranded alone on a desert island, I was the only human in the post-magic-revolution world who could draw no magic to my aid. But if I touched someone—anyone—I could use their magic as my own until the contact was broken.

  Unfortunately, because no one else’s magic necessitated siphoning it from others, people didn’t always react well when I helped myself. Even if it didn’t harm them in the slightest.

  “About my borrowing someone’s magic?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “That was not the word the victim used. That’s what he called himself. Claimed you assaulted him and stole his magic.”

  “Assault?” I scoffed.

  “Did you or did you not use his own magic to spill coffee on him?”

  I flushed. “That was a distraction to enable me to do what was needed.”

  And because he’d pissed me off with his self-absorbed honking. What if that loud noise had caused the summoned monster to spook or go berserk?

  Even so, I’d been stupid.

  Gadson rubbed his temples some more. “Did you identify yourself as a police officer and request his aid?”

  “There wasn’t time.”

  The captain met my eyes. “I believe you. Regrettably, that will be difficult to prove in a court of law. Especially when the person you allegedly assaulted happens to be the Clark County commissioner’s son.”

  I swallowed sour bile.

  We’d had variations of this conversation multiple times. I wanted to believe my magic usage came under the posse comitatus law that allowed a police officer to appropriate a citizen’s private property to aid in a case of immediate and impending public danger. The one they loved to exploit in movies—with badass cops yanking people out of their cars while yelling something about commandeering the vehicle.

  That rarely happened in real life, but if you could prove the public danger was immediate, imminent, and extreme, you’d probably get away with it. Nevada law even still permitted officers to summon and deputize private citizens to come to their aid—but that would be more like my directing a citizen to use their magic to aid me.

  Unfortunately, because my magic was so unusual, there were no precedents of police officers seizing someone’s magic for the public good. Never mind that multiple governments around the world had forcefully conscripted the most powerful magic users into their service. The law was still scrambling to catch up to the vast magical implications that stretched across every industry. And the bottom line was, I was on shaky ground at best.

  “I’m afraid I have no choice but to suspend you, Lyra. Starting immediately.”

  “What?” The question came out sharper than I intended.

  “This isn’t your first complaint—”

  “I know, but—”

  “This is not a negotiation!” he growled. I shut my mouth. “The complainant agreed that two weeks’ suspension without pay would be sufficient action on my part that he would not feel the need to press charges.”

  Charges? Seriously? What a jerk.

  But then I’d known that already.

  I just hadn’t known what a powerful jerk he was. Not that it would’ve changed anything.

  “Think about it,” Gadson ordered. “Regardless of who won, t
he damage to the LVMPD’s public perception would be unacceptable.”

  I made myself say the words even as my heart sank down to my boots. “Yes, sir.”

  Two weeks’ suspension. A black mark on my record. And no pay.

  Worse, no way to stop it from happening again. Because the next time I could use my magic to save a life, I’d do it.

  Captain Gadson looked no happier about it than I did.

  “This is very inconvenient timing. Enkoo has foreseen a citywide disaster tonight right in the middle of the Revolution Day festivities. And by suspending you, I’ll be handicapping Aurelis.”

  His words were a reminder that there were far bigger things at stake. A citywide disaster? Enkoo might be gloomy by nature, but he wasn’t prone to exaggeration.

  Sick fear nestled in the space my heart had vacated, nudging up against my breastbone and kneading the cavity with needle-like claws.

  “Sorry, sir.” Wait. Why was I apologizing for getting suspended? “Any details of what the threat is or where it’s coming from?”

  He hesitated. Then his eyes met mine. “That’s no longer your concern.”

  I winced.

  Gadson massaged his temples again. Definitely a migraine.

  “I know you’re just trying to save lives out there, and I’m not about to fire you. But if you can’t make this work without pissing off the public, I’m going to have to transfer you to a desk job and assign Aurelis a new partner.”

  The sour bile forced its way back up my throat with a vengeance.

  Being benched might be worse than the firing. I hadn’t put myself through years of fitness, combat, and weapons training and then endured all the danger and psychological strain of the job to become a paper pusher. Hell, if I could’ve found fulfillment in being a desk jockey, I would’ve chosen a more lucrative career path.

  The captain shook his head, and I thought I saw a flash of pity in his steely gaze. “In any case, you’ve got two weeks to figure it out.”

  Chapter Four

  Suspended. Benched. Disaster. The words circled around my brain like a macabre merry-go-round as I walked woodenly out of Gadson’s office.