Laura Gilman - Dragon Justice

WE KNEW THE JOB WAS IMPOSSIBLE WHEN WE TOOK IT...

In my time with PUPI, formally known as Private, Unaffiliated Paranormal Investigations, I’ve seen a lot. Learned a lot. And not all of it’s been good. But what we do—make people accountable for crimes committed with magic—is important work.

Still. Even I need to take a break every now and again. Or so I’ve just been told (ordered).

So hey, vacation. Maybe I’ll finally figure out what’s going on with the “special bond” between me and the boss man, Benjamin Venec. Venec seems to like that idea—he’s invited me down to join him on a jaunt to Philly. But no sooner do I arrive in the City of Brotherly Love than we’re called in to look at a dead body.

And that’s when life gets really complicated....

Praise for

PARANORMAL SCENE INVESTIGATIONS

Hard Magic

“Readers will love the Mythbusters-style fun of smart, sassy people solving mysteries through experimentation, failure and blowing stuff up.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“The mystery is solid, the characterization strong, the plot fast-paced and the final product solid. This is a great start to a new series.”

—Green Man Review

Pack of Lies

“Bonnie’s intelligence and perceptiveness really make this book go, and readers will root for her and the team to solve their investigation.”

—RT Book Reviews, Top Pick

“Pack of Lies is not to be missed by urban fantasy fans looking for a great mystery.”

—Reading with Tequila

Tricks of the Trade

“Innovative world building coupled with rich characterization continues to improve as we enter the third book of this series.”

—Smexy Books Romance Reviews

“I want the next book now! I was not ready to leave this world when I finished Tricks of the Trade.”

—Reading Reality

Dragon Justice

Laura Anne Gilman

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To all the readers who have, over the years, joined the Cosa Nostradamus. None of this would have happened without you.

Contents

Prologue Prologue Yesterday was, unofficially, the second anniversary of PUPI. Two years ago, we were hired, me and Nick, Nifty, Pietr, and Sharon. Nobody brought cupcakes. Nobody said a word. But we all knew. You can spend your entire life wondering if you’ve made a difference. We know. Two years. A lot accomplished. A long way to go. There’s no sign on our building; it’s just another mixed-use brickwork like hundreds of others in Manhattan. Too far uptown to be fashionable, too well kept to be fashionably seedy, seven stories and a clean but boring lobby with a row of nameplates and buzzers. Ours simply read P.U.P.I. The plaque outside our door, on the seventh—top—floor repeated the terseness etched in bronze. If you came this far, you knew who we were and what we did. My name is Bonnie Torres. A long time ago not so long ago, I was a newly minted college grad with a degree and enthusiasm—and not a clue where to go with it. Now I’m lead investigator with PUPI, the Private, Unaffiliated Paranormal Investigators of the Cosa Nostradamus. I spend my days looking underneath the rocks of the magical community, finding the things my fellow Talent want to keep hidden. We use magic to fight magic, to find the evidence the cops can’t, to prove the crimes the rest of the world can’t see. Sounds pretty glam, right? So far, in those two years, I’ve been shot at, verbally abused, nailed with a psi-bomb, physically threatened, seen people—human and otherwise—die and been unable to prevent it, and had most of my illusions about the inherent fairness of life yanked out from under me. Some days, it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. And then I think about what we’ve done, and I haul myself out and get my ass to the office. Because this, PUPI, what we do? It matters. The boss likes to give a lecture about how we’re not crusaders or superheroes. The world’s too big a place for us to save all of it. He lectures us, and he knows that we’re listening, but we don’t believe him. Hell, he doesn’t even believe himself, not really, otherwise he wouldn’t be here with the rest of us, training us, teaching us enough to stay alive and get our job done. If he—and Ian Stosser, our founder—didn’t believe that we could save someone, maybe not the world, but someone who might otherwise fall, there wouldn’t be a PUPI at all.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Prologue

Yesterday was, unofficially, the second anniversary of PUPI. Two years ago, we were hired, me and Nick, Nifty, Pietr, and Sharon.

Nobody brought cupcakes. Nobody said a word. But we all knew.

You can spend your entire life wondering if you’ve made a difference. We know. Two years. A lot accomplished. A long way to go.

There’s no sign on our building; it’s just another mixed-use brickwork like hundreds of others in Manhattan. Too far uptown to be fashionable, too well kept to be fashionably seedy, seven stories and a clean but boring lobby with a row of nameplates and buzzers. Ours simply read P.U.P.I.

The plaque outside our door, on the seventh—top—floor repeated the terseness etched in bronze. If you came this far, you knew who we were and what we did.

My name is Bonnie Torres. A long time ago not so long ago, I was a newly minted college grad with a degree and enthusiasm—and not a clue where to go with it. Now I’m lead investigator with PUPI, the Private, Unaffiliated Paranormal Investigators of the Cosa Nostradamus. I spend my days looking underneath the rocks of the magical community, finding the things my fellow Talent want to keep hidden. We use magic to fight magic, to find the evidence the cops can’t, to prove the crimes the rest of the world can’t see.

Sounds pretty glam, right?

So far, in those two years, I’ve been shot at, verbally abused, nailed with a psi-bomb, physically threatened, seen people—human and otherwise—die and been unable to prevent it, and had most of my illusions about the inherent fairness of life yanked out from under me. Some days, it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning.

And then I think about what we’ve done, and I haul myself out and get my ass to the office. Because this, PUPI, what we do? It matters.

The boss likes to give a lecture about how we’re not crusaders or superheroes. The world’s too big a place for us to save all of it. He lectures us, and he knows that we’re listening, but we don’t believe him. Hell, he doesn’t even believe himself, not really, otherwise he wouldn’t be here with the rest of us, training us, teaching us enough to stay alive and get our job done.

If he—and Ian Stosser, our founder—didn’t believe that we could save someone, maybe not the world, but someone who might otherwise fall, there wouldn’t be a PUPI at all.

Chapter 1

We hit the scene, and I started delegating. “All right, I want you to get a perimeter reading—”

“Oh, god. Again?”

I stopped and looked at my companion, puzzled. “What do you mean, again?”

“Again. This.” Farshad made a helpless little gesture, indicating the room we’d just walked into.

I put my kit down on the floor and tried to see whatever it was he was reacting to. It was a nice room. It was a nice house, from what I’d seen on the walk through it. The room in front of us had just the right amount of furniture, less than fifty years old but well crafted, not Ikea specials or en suite acquisitions from a “fine furnishings” catalog. Paintings on the wall were original, if not spectacular, the rugs underfoot quality but not hand-woven. It seemed pretty straightforward and ordinary. For a crime scene, anyway.