City of Dragons: Of Flesh and Blood Read online

  Laughter broke out, and Danny turned a nice shade of magenta as he proceeded to melt into his desk in an attempt to disappear.

  Haley flashed him one last smile, then scanned the room and said, “Rule number one: Never, ever run…”

  *** *** ***

  Farley ran.

  His shitkickers pounded the pavement as he pushed his Human form to the limits. The muscles in his tawny legs ached and burned, and he could feel the ligaments threatening to tear. As a Kin, he had incredible strength and speed. The only problem was Human forms weren’t made to handle it. Not only did pushing himself cause damage, it took a lot of resources. The burn across Farley’s skin shot up a few more notches as his metaphysically carved shell reached its limit.

  Up ahead that damn Faerie Inoata dove into a cab.

  Not catching Inoata wasn’t an option. There was no way Farley was going to spend another night in an alley out in the Gray Zone. Between the rats, cockroaches, stray cats, and skin-heads, even his shit-hole apartment was starting to look good.

  Farley leaped and slid across the hood of a cab parked between two meters. His boots hit the pavement, and he was off again, the chains on his skaters thrashing with every foot fall. As the cab pulled out, he could see the little prick in the back, his eyes wide and hands flailing.

  Too bad for Inoata, the traffic didn’t seem to want to cooperate for his getaway.

  Farley’s legs ate up the distance; and when the Faerie saw the cab wasn’t going to be able to outrun him because of traffic, he bailed.

  “That’s right, motherfucker…” Farley shot right up the center line, dodged a pickup truck, and bolted between two more cars. Horns blared, but he didn’t care. His eyes were on Inoata who was now on the other side of a line of parked cars. The MARTA station was only a hundred yards away, and there was a good chance the bastard would duck down into the subway and lose Farley in the crowds. “Give it up, asshole…you…are…mine…”

  In one last surge which ripped his ACL, Farley cleared another car and slammed into the Faerie, taking him down.

  “You son-of-a-bitch!” Farley slammed his chelae into Inoata’s scrawny shoulders and bright red blood welled up around his fingers.

  The Faerie let loose with a girly scream. “I didn’t do it. I’m innocent!”

  “You lied to me!” One hard shake was enough to rattle the guy into silence. “The manifest you gave me was bullshit, and I don’t appreciate bullshit!”

  Inoata’s green eyes peeled wide, and the ripe luscious scent of fear rolled off him in waves. Normally, fear was a flavor which stirred Farley’s need. But everything about Faeries was foul, including their flesh.

  Inoata did some more useless pawing and clawing with his dainty four-fingered hands. “Rupa said you work for the cops, and that if I gave you anything, he’d have my ass on a platter.”

  Farley leaned in, letting the little piece of shit have an up-close-and-personal with his tiger-sized choppers. “You fuck-wad. Every flesh trader in the Dens knows who I work for. How the hell do you think I know when and where the shakedowns are going to be?” A deep growl rolled out of Farley’s chest, and Inoata’s whimpers turned into a full-fledged wail. “Now, I want that manifest. The right one this time, or I might just have to hold my nose and chew out your throat!”

  Up ahead, the early morning commuters emerged from below.

  Inoata craned his head back and threw out his hands, flapping them like a pansy. “Help me! Somebody help me! Man-eater! Man-eater!”

  Farley’s head snapped up to see a lot of nervous Human eyes staring at him. This was so not what he needed right now. And if that didn’t beat all, here comes the cavalry in the form of subway rent-a-cops.

  “Shit!”

  Inoata squeezed out a high pitched giggle between his gasps of pain. “You are so fucked, wyrm, you are so--”

  “Shut up!”

  With their guns drawn and barking out cliché lines like “down on the ground,” the transit cops looked more like stunt doubles on some low budget cop show. “Get your hands up, wyrm.”

  Inoata making himself look like a helpless victim wasn’t difficult considering he was barely five feet tall and had the build of a teenage Human.

  Farley retracted his chelae and held up his hands, but he kept his body firmly planted on top of the POS.

  “Look, I’m a CFKR informant. This Faerie is wanted for questioning.” He started to smile but thought better of it. After all, nothing says you-can-trust-me like fangs.

  Rent-a-Cop Number One looked like he was about to have a heart attack or an aneurysm. Farley couldn’t decide which. His face was blotched red over purple as he gasped for breath. Funny thing, his chubby buddy bringing up the rear wasn’t half as taxed. Looked a lot saner, too.

  Over Excited did some waving with his gun. “Down on the ground, now!”

  Farley said, “Check my wallet.” The two cops looked at each other, then Farley. Chubby Buddy must have drawn the short straw because he took the lead and inched in. “Left coat pocket.”

  The man gave him a quick pat before dipping in his hand for a feel. “It’s empty.” Chubby buddy backed up.

  Farley glanced around as if he might see it lying on the side walk. His wallet not only had his Center ID but his last fifty bucks. “Shit, it must have fallen out.”

  Over Excited moved closer. Which meant his gun moved closer. “On the ground, wyrm!”

  Farley checked the rent-a-cop’s name tag and said, “Officer Kennedy, I need you to call the Center. I’ve spent four days in an alley. I’m tired and hungry. I just lost my wallet chasing this asshole; and if I get off him, he’s going to run. Ask for Garrett, he’ll vouch for me.”

  And by the look on their faces, the cops were totally impressed.

  Not.

  Rent a Cop said, “I’m not going to ask you again. Get off the boy, or I’m going to shoot your scaly ass.”

  Boy? Farley narrowed his eyes at Inoata.

  Before Farley could lay out any threats for the Faerie to take home, a snap-crackle-pop sounded off near his left ear, and he was thrown to the side, helpless against the spasms seizing up his limbs. Inoata leapt to his feet and stamped the waffle pattern of his combat boot into Farley’s jaw before he took off.

  Farley tried to go after the guy despite his body putting up a protest, but the cold end of Kennedy’s Derringer swung in his face. “Stay down, lizard boy.”

  Chubby Buddy rolled Farley over, gave him another quick pat down. He pulled Farley’s wallet from his right pocket and tossed it on the sidewalk. Farley glared at the piece of traitor leather and wondered when the damn thing had migrated to the other pocket. Didn’t matter now, because Inoata was long gone and the rent-a-cop twins were snapping on the cuffs.

  Farley glared at the two men. “Wow, you must be really proud of yourself. Think they’ll give you a promotion? Upgrade your plastic badges for a real metal one?” A shoe came down and smashed him in the side. “Aw, fuck…” Farley turned his head so he could throw a dirty look at Chubby Buddy. “Damn, and I thought maybe you were the nice one.”

  “Shut the hell up.”

  “Why? You gonna hit me with your bug zapper again?”

  The answer to Farley’s question landed right on the back of his neck, and his face kissed the pavement.

  About five times.

  When Farley opened his eyes again, he was looking at a pair of shiny black shoes and spitting out pieces of his teeth. Blood gushed out of his nose and froze to the ground.

  “You gonna keep flapping that yap of yours, wyrm, or have you had enough?”

  Farley rolled his eyes up at Kennedy. “Is there a choice C, ‘cause to be honest, I’m not real comfortable with…”

  The next volt struck him behind the ear and sent him thrashing into the gutter. Wet street garbage clogged Farley’s nose and mouth, and he spit. Chubby Buddy grabbed him by the foot and yanked him back onto the curb, sandpapering his chin and face against the pavement as he dragged
Farley to a patrol car. No one asked Farley to watch his head as they tossed him into the back.

  Three tazer hits in less than two minutes. That had to be a record. Farley tried to roll over on the hard plastic seat but wound up sliding onto the floor board. He laid there because getting up required the cooperation of his legs, and they were on strike.

  If the Rent-A-Cops hurried, maybe they could get him to the Atlanta PD and Haley could take him out for lunch. Maybe if he was really lucky, Garrett would feel sorry for him and let him have the rest of the day off.

  Yeah, right.

  Chapter 2

  Haley picked up the assignments left on her desk. Bauer stuck his head in the door. “Do you have a minute?” A month in the hospital had been a give-and-take for Bauer. As in giving ten years and taking twenty pounds.

  Haley waved him in.

  Back in September Bauer wound up in the ICU after complications from a dose of anti-venom. Brenda, his wife, had come to Haley in secret and asked for her blood to save him. In spite of the fact that Haley knew it was against his religious beliefs, she’d given it to Brenda. Bauer still didn’t know what his wife did. And that was the way Haley intended to keep it.

  Bauer sat down on the edge of a desk. “I’ve got a pair of Kin down in the Tank I need you to talk to.”

  Haley raised an eyebrow. “A pair?”

  Bauer scrubbed a large brown hand over his short crew cut. “Yeah, they’re not real talkative. We think they might have come off a chuck-wagon somewhere.” Chuck-wagon was cop-talk for a shipment of live bodies meant to be food. While it wasn’t a crime for Kin to eat their own, it was a crime to engage in Human flesh trading. And generally when there was a Kin destined for feeding, there were Humans close behind.

  “Are they giving you a problem?”

  “You could say that.” Bauer’s eyes bounced around the room, unable to meet her gaze, which meant those two Males downstairs were probably doing something really embarrassing.

  Haley let out a sigh and shook her head. Sometimes it sure would be nice if her people could make a little effort to behave themselves around the Humans. It most certainly would make things easier. But then, if things were easier, she wouldn’t have a job.

  She stuffed the day’s assignments into a folder and dropped it on the desk. “Let’s go before they give someone a complex.”

  Bauer made a sound that suggested it was too late for that.

  The drab green walls of the PD holding Tank replaced the lighter gray paint job of the causeway. It was an ugly color, really. But olive green didn’t show ichor stains, and some days that came in handy.

  There were a total of eight rooms in the Tank, four on each side, even on the left, odd on the right. At the end of the hall stood a guard. The guard was a new addition. Someone upstairs decided they needed to keep a set of eyes on the place just in case a detainee decided to walk out. Why anyone thought a solitary Human was going to do more than a six-inch carbon steel door, Haley had no idea.

  Room Two was at the end, right next to the man on duty. Haley tossed him a sideways glance. His face was unfamiliar. While she wasn’t friendly with every cop here, most had taken her class.

  Haley not recognizing him meant he was new. Really new.

  Bauer stopped in front of the door, popped open the viewing window, and took a peek inside. By the look on his face, Haley had a pretty good idea what was going on. And Bauer did not approve.

  But then Humans rarely did.

  With his eyes still on the Kin inside, Bauer said, “I’d like to know as much as you can get from them. If they didn’t come off a chuck-wagon, I want to know why they were outside of the Dens. We ran their Nevus, and neither one is in the database for a city pass, and they don’t have any papers.”

  Kin, as a rule, didn’t have fingerprints. Fingerprints, like belly buttons and body hair, were often left out when they designed their forms. But all Kin had a Nevus, and like a fingerprint, each one was unique. If the two Males in question weren’t in the database, it meant they were most likely dumped.

  Groups like Mankind for Kin took it upon themselves to relocate Submissives from less hospitable cities to the Georgia capital. Some of them were going as far as luring them from target Dens, tranquilizing them, and bringing them to designated safe havens. Lucky for Atlanta, it was second on the list. Only California was higher.

  Just another new and ever-growing problem for the City.

  Haley put her hand on the door handle. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Wait…” The officer on guard stepped up to Bauer and jabbed a thumb at Haley. “You’re not letting her go in there, are you? Seriously, sir, she could get hurt.”

  Bauer eyed the guy’s name tag. “Officer Donald, I think you need to step back to your post.”

  When Bauer tried to turn away Donald stepped in front of him. “Sir, I really don’t think sending her in would be wise.” And sir came out sounding like a stand in for the words, “Hey, stupid.” The cop said, “Those things in there…”

  Bauer’s face tightened, but not just because he was getting pissed. Haley could scent the change in him. He’d pushed himself coming down the steps and walking the long hallway, and a conflict was the last thing his heart needed.

  Haley cleared her throat. “Detective Bauer, why don’t you go ahead and take care of the paperwork on these two, and let me explain things to Officer Donald?” Bauer’s eyes said he didn’t like being weak, but he appreciated the excuse to walk away.

  When Donald turned to go after Bauer, Haley put a hand on his arm. “Let’s you and I have a talk.”

  He stopped, glanced at Bauer who headed up the hall, then back at her. “Look, I just don’t want to see you get hurt.” Donald smiled, but his eyes did a little more.

  These save-the-damsel-in–distress-type Humans really got on Haley’s last nerve. “Officer Donald, how long have you been in Atlanta?”

  The man frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I’m guessing not very long. They’ve got you stuck down here in the Tank babysitting the Kin, which means you either drew the short straw or you’re the new guy.”

  “Two weeks.” And he wasn’t happy when he said it. His eyes flicked up at the hall door sliding shut behind Bauer. “Does he always let a woman do his talking for him?” Those dark eyes came back to her.

  Haley gave a shrug. “Bauer was hurt pretty bad a few months back. He’s lucky to be alive. His heart doesn’t need the exertion. So do me a favor, and keep your issues to yourself.”

  Donald pulled himself up to his full height. Haley wasn’t impressed. She could rip off his arms without breaking a sweat. All she had to do was tap a little of her metaphysical-self, and she became stronger and faster than any Human could ever dream.

  Kinda put the fire right out on all that he-man crap.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Haley moved to open the door, but Donald grabbed her arm.

  “Look, I know how all you ladies think you have to go all femi-Nazi to prove your place with the Bureau, but I’m telling you those things in there are dangerous. You go in there, you could wind up hurt, killed, or worse.”

  Haley wondered what his idea of worse was. “Could you remove your hand from my arm please?” It took him a minute, but Donald pried his fingers open. “Thank you.” Haley smoothed out the wrinkles he’d made. “Look, I appreciate your concern. I really do. But I’m the best person in this building to deal with those Kin.”

  The flare of Donald’s anger tasted like pepper on the back of her tongue. He said, “Why? Because you’re a woman? You don’t actually believe all that Kin-rights BS about how Males worship women? I’m here to tell you it’s bullshit.” He pointed to the window. “Those things in there kill people, they eat Human flesh, they’re dangerous, and someone should put them down like the goddamn stray dogs they are.”

  Whoa, if this dude wasn’t a card-carrying Earth for Humans member, he should be.

  �
�Donald.” Haley tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m not a woman, I’m Female. Do you understand the difference?” After a moment Donald’s eyes widened, and he stepped back. “Now,” she grabbed the door handle and pulled, “if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do.”

  Haley shut the door behind her. With any luck maybe Donald wouldn’t get cocky and lock her in.

  Overhead the sickly fluorescent lights hummed and flickered, but the glow they put off did very little to illuminate the ugly paint. It was like the drab green sucked the light right out of the air.

  Interrogation Room Two was styled like the other seven rooms down here. Off to the side was a small wooden table and two folding chairs. One of the chairs had a leg braced with a ruler and ten pounds of duct-tape.

  The two Males were huddled in the corner wrapped around each other so tight they looked like someone had balled them up and tossed them out. They had their faced buried in each other’s neck and their hands tucked inside one another’s ratty blue jeans.

  Both of them were small and thin with well-defined muscles and conservative frames. Their flawless skin had a synthetic look usually associated with very new Kin who had yet to finish out. One was blond with a dark tan, the other black-haired and pale. Practically a complementary set.

  Blondie sat in the lap of Dark Hair with his legs thrown around his waist. Both of them were breathing so fast that they made puffing sounds.

  Fear. They smelled like food. These Males were terrified.

  Haley stood there and gave her scent time to drift through the room. She didn’t want to touch them. They were most likely feral and fresh out of the Dens way before their time.

  Scratch that, out at all. Males like this didn’t get out of the hatching grounds. They wound up feeding those who did. Haley couldn’t help but wonder if this is what Farley had looked like when he emerged.

  Dark Hair was the first to pick his head up. His mouth opened, his nostrils flared, and his baby blue eyes bled gold. Blondie’s head swung around in a way that was impossible for a Human spine to bend. His shoulders followed, then his torso.