The monster screeched and dove for me.
I abandoned the bottles and ran like hell around the hoard mountain and across the sizzling green acid on the ground, cursing when some of the potion got onto my shoes.
I ripped them off before the acid got onto my skin, and then noticed the lone handle of my briefcase in the center of the bubbling puddle. Oh no. The paperwork had been in there.
And then I spotted it. Against the wall and only a few feet away.
A sewer grate.
4
THE PRESENT
Now, back against the gate barring me from my escape, facing a likely ancient wyvern with no weapon or hope to survive the ocean of fire coming my way, I screamed, “I do not taste good!”
Smoke seeped from the creature’s ugly nostrils.
Just when I decided I’d charge at the creature, I heard a voice. A blissfully beautiful voice.
“Aster King, you are under arrest for violation of Section 39.74 of the Shifter Agreement in the Global Chapter Treaty. Put your hands on your head, or I will be forced to shoot,” a woman said from behind me.
Brilliant. Fucking brilliant, this woman was. She was putting the dragon monster Mr. Creed at ease, so she could help me escape and get out of here.
I whirled to face the officer.
Oh, excellent. She even looked serious, too. Her hair flew and whipped around in her tight ponytail, caught in the strong ocean breeze. The blue waves slapped onto the shore behind her.
I gave her a wink to let her know I was totally on the same page, which she responded to with a confused look.
Oh, I could kiss her. She was playing this part perfectly. The wyvern would literally never see this twist coming.
The officer jerked and cocked her gun at me as I thrusted my wrists through the rusted iron bars.
I wailed, “I come willingly! Punish me as you see fit!”
The officer’s red vampire eyes widened. “Right,” she deadpanned. “Tony, get this fuckin’ gate open.”
Tony, a huge man with biceps bigger than all of my thighs came into view. He shook his head at me. “Drug problems getting worse in the city, I take it.”
“Absolutely,” the vamp agreed.
“Excuse me?” I whispered. “Yeah, hi. I need you to like, hurry up. Mr. Creed is having a really bad day, and he’s trying to kill me. Could you…?” I wiggled my fingers at them.
Mr. Creed snorted behind me.
Tony huffed, grabbed the bars, and yanked.
The iron gate broke off of its hinges. I was still clinging to the bars, so I went with it.
Tony, who was apparently also an MMA fighter, lifted the grate just over his head like he was preparing to chuck it fifty yards.
Obviously, I panicked. I reached my arms completely through the gate, wrapped them around Tony’s head and screamed. If he threw me, I was taking his head with me.
Why was everyone trying to kill me today?
“Jesus fucking christ, put her down, Tony!” the vamp lady admonished him.
“I’m trying, Mel!” he hollered back. And then, “Get off me, crazy woman!”
Tony was trying to jerk me away from his face, but I clearly couldn’t trust him any longer. I might be magical, but that didn’t mean I’d survive being catapulted.
“Don’t! Throw! Me!” I screeched in his ear. I just had a really bad day. I cannot take being projectile-missiled.
Tony stopped thrashing. His boulder head was super sweaty beneath my arms. And I think he slobbered on me.
“I’m not going to throw you anywhere, you rotten thief! I’m arresting you!” he boomed back.
I was shaking all over from adrenaline and shock and fear. I needed like, twenty donuts. And a long nap. “Do you promise?” I squeaked.
Sewer sludge dripped from my soaked shirt and onto his uniform.
He growled. It was a low, animalistic sound that made me want to scream again. So, he was a shifter, I took it.
“Okay, okay cool,” I wheezed. I loosened my octopus grip on his meaty skull and clung to the grate as he pivoted, turned it over and stuck the bottom end into the sand.
My bones rattled with the impact, but I was alive. I gave him a weak smile, and stepped off. What I didn’t expect was to be slapped into handcuffs by MMA Tony. “Hey! Excuse me, but this is a misunderstanding!” I shouted at him as he hauled me across the sand toward a squad car.
“The Union really is going downhill if they’re sending trash like you,” Tony said with another growl. “Think you could just disrespect a member of the shifter community and get away with it? Decided you could steal from a wyvern’s sacred hoard? Stupid Cut.”
I jerked in his arms. Unfortunately, I was used to assholes like Tony. Every one of us had to be. “So what if I’m a Cut? I didn’t exactly ask to miss the magical jackpot. Also, I was there on assignment.”
“Shut up,” he snapped.
I turned around to see the vampire officer was still on the beach, talking to… a naked man. A normal-looking naked man. Not a dragon. Not a monster.
Why couldn’t Mr. Creed have talked to me like that? We could have cleared the air, and I could be home already with my donuts.
But that wasn’t what happened. And since Mel and Tony refused to even listen to my very logical explanation on the ride to the station, I had no choice but to believe they were being paid to torment me.
I leaned forward in the back seat. “I was requested by name! I swear it! If he submitted that form, why was he in his lair and not waiting for me to arrive? I was just doing my job!” I insisted.
“Save it, Cut,” Mel warned. “That gentleman explained plenty, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Well, considering the punishment you’ll likely get, I think that’ll be a guarantee. What did you break in for? Wanted a look at that hoard? Wanted a piece of it yourself?”
“No! That’s not –”
Tony’s deep voice interrupted. “Course that’s what she wanted. Degenerates like her are only out for themselves.”
I clenched my fists. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Tony’s laugh was cruel. “Think I don’t know who you are? What you are?”
As a rule, I tried to get even before I got mad. But I’d had an exorbitantly rough day, and every thread of my patience had been snapped. “I was working. I followed instructions, and I don’t steal shit!”
Since Tony was driving, Mel twisted in her seat. She lifted her taser warningly. “One more word...”
I sat back in my seat, seething. We drove into the Long Beach police station parking lot. They herded me out of the car and into the precinct.
I was led through the empty waiting area. Only one officer sat behind a thick glass window. Wordlessly, Mel and Tony pushed me through three sets of doors locked by coded keypads.
“You know, not even Brad Pitt could make being a corrupt cop look good,” I commented as they bustled me into a small room with metal chairs and a table. It was cold in the bare, white space, making the sweat on my neck icy.
It was a lie, however. Brad Pitt could make anything look good.
Mel dropped down in the seat opposite me and glared while Tony stood behind her. “Why don’t you tell me what you took today?”