Dragon Justice

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.