City of Dragons: Of Flesh and Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

nothing.
    She leaned in a little. “And you smell like sex, Donald. I’m curious, which part did you like best? The palm licking, or maybe when they started swapping a little spit?”
    A deep flush bloomed across Donald’s weathered cheeks, and he stepped back. Haley put her money on the tasting. With a little shoving she pushed past the officer and headed up the hallway to Bauer’s office.
    Some days Haley really got tired of Humans and their narrow views. If they’d all just quit being such prudes and rub a little skin together, maybe they wouldn’t need all their antidepressants and antianxiety drugs.
    Her female instincts pointed out how she was a fine one to talk. Little Miss No sex in public. Haley told herself that was different and ignored anything else her instincts had to say on the subject.
    Detective Bauer hung up the phone as she got to his door. His eyes came up. “Did they talk to you?”
    “Some, but they couldn’t tell me much. I don’t think they came off a chuck-wagon. It sounds to me like a few do-gooder MKFK members did a dump and run. They say they’re from Athens.”
    Bauer made an unhappy sound. “Do you think you could put together a line up of the usual DNR offenders?”
    Haley threw a thumb over her shoulder. “They’re hungry so I figured I could get them something to eat and feed them while I showed them photos.”
    Bauer nodded. “When you’re done, I’ll get Farley to take them into the Dens.”
    A trip to the Dens was going to be a surefire one-way ticket. “You might want to keep them around for a while.” Bauer’s mouth thinned out. “Sir, if you take them back into the Dens, they’ll wind up as Food. Kin like them don’t survive.”
    “And what are we supposed to do with them? This isn’t a shelter for wayward dragons.”
    Detective Bauer opened a desk drawer and pulled out three different prescription bottles. He popped the cap on his bottled water and threw back one pill from each.
    Haley watched him trying not to feel guilty, because it was one of her people who had hurt him. After he chased down the last one, she asked, “How bad is it?”
    Bauer looked at her over his Dasani as he took another swig. “Bad enough. There’s enough damage to my heart they’re assessing me for the transplant list.” His tone was bland. Bauer put the bottles back into the drawer.
    A transplant? And here she’d thought he was getting better. “You know they’re doing some new treatments with muscle grafting using Kin--” Haley bit her words off when Bauer tossed her a look. “Just a suggestion.”
    And obviously an unwelcomed one.
    Bauer flipped through some papers on his desk. “I’ll have Chief Booker give the Athens PD a call. We need to find out if there’s something, anything we can use to stop those idiots from dumping their Kin on our doorstep.” He took another sip of water. “Oh, I almost forgot, I got a call from Terry. She’s got Farley over in the clinic.” Something must have shown in her face because he added, “He’s fine, Haley, just a run-in with the MARTA police. They tasered him a few times, broke his nose.”
    Great.
Haley excused herself and headed down the hallway into the heart of the Atlanta PD. She didn’t come to this side very often, but when she did, it was almost always about Farley. As usual the front office was abuzz with cops, suspects, and secretaries. They moved around the place in perfectly choreographed chaos to a symphony of ringing phones, shuffling papers, and computer sounds.
    Haley took the back hall leading to the private offices and the interrogation rooms for Humans and Folk. Unlike the Tank, there were real honest-to-God windows with a view. Then again, Humans and Faeries didn’t sprout wings and fly away.
    As Haley took a right, she heard Farley’s agitated voice plus Terry and two men she didn’t recognize.
    Around the corner and into the room she almost had another collision of the Human-Kin variety. Haley pushed