Dragon Justice Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
    Yeah, and cave dragons were suddenly going to start giving
interest-free loans.
    So. Scouting the fatae. Where, and how to begin? It’s not like
this gig came with a bunch of guidelines or clues…
    Try acting like a trained professional, an acerbic voice in my
head suggested. My own voice, this time.
    Right. First things first. I dipped a mental hand into my core,
the pool of current all Talent carry within us as a matter of course, and tested
my levels. Blue-and-green threads brushed against me like slender little snakes,
sparking and snapping as they moved, crackling when they touched each other.
Low, definitely low. Discretion would probably be the better part of valor,
then. There was a power generator on the West Side I could dip into without
inconveniencing anyone, while I made my plans.
    Current—magic—liked to run alongside electricity. In the wild
state, that meant ley lines, electrical storms, that sort of thing. For the
modern Talent, though, the best, most reliable source of power was, well, a
power plant. The trick was learning how to take enough to satisfy your needs,
without draining so much you blew the source.
    I grabbed the 1 train downtown, got off at 66th, and checked
into the nearest ’bux for my latte. The place was doing the usual midafternoon
traffic, so I grabbed the first empty chair I saw and sat back like I was just
another poser killing time before a date.
    Once I was sure nobody was going to approach me, I let myself
relax a little, the outer awareness alert and upright while my core opened up
and went in search of all the tasty current it could sense shimmering
outside.
    Compared to the faint hum of the wiring and overhead lights,
the generator a few blocks away was like a sauna, warm and inviting. The
temptation was there to slide into it and soak up all that was on offer, but
that would have been bad manners, not only to any other Talent looking to use
it, but for the folk whose rents paid for the power. “Take only what you need,
and not all from one source, Bonita,” I could hear J saying, like I was a
wide-eyed eight-year-old again.
    The current swirling inside the generator was a dark, clean
blue, its lines sharp and delineated. Ask any five Talent what the colors meant,
and you’d get six different answers, but a sharp-edge meant it was fresh, that
there was no one else’s signature already on it, softening the feel. I’d never
been able to sense that, before becoming a PUP.
    Lots of things I couldn’t do, before. We all were the type to
really look at things, not just accept