Dragon Detective

by Mell Eight

  Table of Contents

  Dragon Detective

  Book Details

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  DRAGON DETECTIVE

  Supernatural Consultant Book Four

  MELL EIGHT

  Nickel might be a water elemental dragon, but even he has limits—and the sudden rain storms, hail, and snow in mid-summer are way over the line. Luckily, he works for Dane's Supernatural Consulting firm and can use those resources to figure out who keeps mucking with the weather and get them to stop.

  It doesn't take long for Nickel to realize he isn't the only one searching for the weather worker: the enemy he has been hunting for ten years has finally reappeared, and it's a race to see which of them will reach the weather worker first. Nickel isn't certain he'll win, or even survive, the attempt, but he'll do whatever it takes to save the dragons.

  Dragon Detective

  Supernatural Consultant #4

  By Mell Eight

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Amanda Jean

  Cover designed by Aisha Akeju

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition October 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Mell Eight

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781620048702

  Print ISBN 9781620048801

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nickel walked into the office and shut his umbrella with a snap that spattered water droplets all over his pant legs. He grimaced and tossed the umbrella onto the stand by the door with a sigh of disgust.

  "It's not that bad, dear," Becky said cheerfully from her desk in the middle of the room. He scowled at her in return, which she ignored with the ease of knowing him for over ten years. Becky looked warm and dry sitting in her big desk chair while wearing a nice summer-weight cardigan. The rain hadn't started until an hour ago, so she had already been safely ensconced on her throne behind her oversized secretary's desk. Nickel, on the other hand, had been out and about getting lunch. He had been lucky to be near a shop selling umbrellas when it had suddenly started pouring, but that hadn't saved his shoes.

  Admittedly, Nickel liked rain. He was usually the first one to run outside to play when the skies darkened and thunder rumbled overhead, just not when he was wearing a nice suit. He might be able to save his shoes, but only if the scamp napping on his desk chair moved.

  "Lumie, scram," Nickel snapped.

  Lumie popped one red eye open, saw that Nickel was the one speaking to him, and went right back to sleep. His long red hair flopped over his face as he took ignoring Nickel to another level. Nickel growled and ran a hand through his much shorter blue hair in exasperation. There was no talking to Lumie when he was in one of his moods. Instead of fighting for his chair, Nickel dropped down to the floor.

  His shoes popped off with wet squelching sounds, and his socks left a puddle on the floor. Nickel's magic fizzled between his fingers for a moment before he directed it to pull on the water, calling it out of his shoes and socks. It was a gradual process. Water moved slowly. It was sticky, according to the science teacher Dane had hired to teach all the kits, and was therefore happier to remain attached to something than not. It was why water always hesitated on the edge of a counter before the push from behind and gravity below finally sent it falling. Of course, once the first drop fell, all the water built up behind it fell too because it was all stuck together. It took some doing before the water obeyed his magic, but once one drop and then another began to coalesce in Nickel's hand, it wasn't long before he had a small river flowing from his shoes and socks into his cupped palms.

  The water was cool and welcoming, just the way Nickel liked it. He continued to call out the water slowly. It was easy, routine magic, but it was also good practice for when he worked larger spells. Except the water was starting to heat in his hands. First it was only just warm, which happened sometimes when he was being a touch careless, but when bubbles started to form between his hands, Nickel turned to glare at Lumie.

  "Knock it off!" Nickel snapped. Lumie continued to breathe evenly, as if he really were asleep. Experience told Nickel that Lumie was a dammed good actor, though. The heat continued to rise until the water stopped protecting Nickel's hands and they began to get uncomfortably hot. His shoes also began to smell. 'Ron had stuck a hairdryer into a pair of sneakers once to try and dry them off. The bathroom had reeked of sweaty feet for days when she was done, and the office was quickly taking on the smell of that awful aroma.

  Nickel tossed the water before it could start burning his hands. It arced beautifully in the air, steaming as it continued to boil, and landed directly on Lumie's head.

  Lumie shrieked and jumped out of Nickel's chair. His red hair was plastered to his face and dripping onto his shirt. He looked like a soaked puppy, especially as he scowled. Nickel couldn't help grinning at the sight.

  "What was that for?" Lumie shook his head back and forth, deliberately spraying Nickel with more water. The water steamed off of Lumie's head quickly, leaving his hair dry and slightly fluffy.

  "You know why!" Nickel snapped back, his good mood forgotten with the reminder that Lumie had just tried to boil Nickel's hands off and destroy the office with a pervasive stench.

  "Sleeping in your chair is no reason for you to throw water all over me!" Lumie yelled. His eyes flashed with magic so Nickel prepared himself to block anything Lumie was about to throw at him. "And ugh, what's that smell anyway?" Lumie asked. He turned his head away from Nickel, the water incident already forgotten as he sniffed the air.

  "I was just trying to help!" Alloy whined. He poked his head out from underneath the desk, his mixed red-and-blue hair was disheveled and his eyes—one bright red and the other blue—were wide as he tried to hold back tears. Nickel jumped in surprise and then growled at himself. How had he missed the fact that Alloy was curled underneath the desk? He shouldn't have. Apparently, the distraction of Lumie taking his chair combined with his wet shoes had been enough that Nickel had missed Alloy. That wasn't acceptable; Nickel snarled to himself. He had to be better than that. Alloy wasn't an enemy, but next time Nickel might not be so lucky.

  Still, yelling at Alloy wouldn't have any effect. Either Alloy would pretend to be Lumie and conveniently forget the scolding a few minutes later, or he would run to Copper and Copper would smooth over any hard lessons Nickel had tried to impart.

  "You remember the time 'Ron tried to dry her shoes in the bathroom?" Nickel asked Alloy as calmly as he could. Alloy's nose wrinkled in disgust so Nickel took that as a yes. "She used the hot air from the hairdryer, and the heat made her shoes stink. That's why heating up the water in my shoes started to smell bad."

  "Oh," Alloy said slowly as he began to understand the mistake he had made. "I should have helped your water magic, then?" he asked curiously. For any other dragon, what Alloy had said would have been an impossibility. Elemental dragons like them used one element of magic. That was it. Nickel used water, and Lumie used fire. Alloy was the result of a cruel experiment gone wrong and had somehow been born with power over both water and fire.

  "That would have been better," Nickel agreed. "But you should always ask first before you interrupt someone's spell. You could have burned me if I hadn't gotten
Lumie wet instead." Alloy giggled and Nickel couldn't help cracking a smile at the memory of Lumie jumping up in surprise.

  "Shut up," Lumie grumped. At some point, he had left Nickel's desk and had wandered over to Becky's instead. He was busy plundering her candy jar, but he still shot them a disgruntled glare that only faded when he finally found a Cinnamon Bomb. He bounced off into Dane's empty office with his prize in hand, Nickel and Alloy promptly forgotten.

  Nickel could only shake his head. Lumie had to grow up eventually, Nickel hoped. Alloy was certainly more mature.

  "Oh, don't worry, dears," Becky said in her best old-lady voice. She looked like one at the moment, although in another minute she might look like someone Nickel's age or even someone in their thirties. Her outward appearance wasn't confined by age. "I have enough candy for everyone."

  She reached into her plundered candy jar and pulled out a package of red Laffy Taffy. It was cinnamon flavored, but Alloy liked the high sugar content too. For Nickel, she waved a blue rock candy on a stick. She had apparently been shopping overnight, because Nickel was certain there hadn't been any of his favorite candy left yesterday. He had checked.

  Was it demeaning to allow himself to be bribed by candy? Nickel couldn't help wondering that even as he padded barefoot across the office to take the proffered candy. Alloy looked at his candy then down at Nickel's shoes. He whined to himself and plopped down on the ground. Nickel felt the swirl of water magic in the air a moment later. He took Alloy's candy too and brought it over. Nickel called on his own water magic and sat down next to Alloy to help.

  By the time Nickel couldn't feel any more water in his shoes and socks, Alloy's mouth was pink, and Nickel knew his own was blue. The air smelled a lot better too; Becky must have turned on the air conditioning or something. Her powers of premonition only worked to predict when someone was going to get brutally murdered—and her banshee scream allowed her to deal with threats accordingly. She couldn't have predicted Alloy's mistake, but she knew how to deal with it when it happened.

  The front door opened, letting in a blast of freezing air, and Dane stepped inside. He was preternaturally beautiful even when his glamour was in place. His hair was long and very blond, almost like bottled sunshine, his eyes were bluer than Nickel's own, and his bladed nose only served to compliment the rest of him. Dane was owner of the Supernatural Consulting Firm and was mated to Mercury, Nickel's adoptive father. Nickel and all his siblings had tried calling him 'dad', but it hadn't stuck. Dane was simply Dane to him. At the moment a very disgruntled look marred his face.

  "It's snowing," Dane grumped.

  There was a pause as everyone in the room processed that statement.

  "It's July?" Becky asked. "Right?" It was midsummer. She was correct.

  Nickel moved to the window and saw big snowflakes drifting down from a cloudy sky that only moments before had been pouring rain. As Nickel watched, the snow stopped falling and the sky began to clear. After only a minute of watching, the sun shined, the snow melted, and it was suddenly a regular July day outside again.

  "Okay, that's weird," Dane said from over Nickel's shoulder. Sudden afternoon rainstorms were common enough during the heat of the summer in the area. They had been getting far more of those than anyone expected lately, which Nickel knew from firsthand, damp experience, but no one could have predicted snow in July. "You want to look into it?" he asked.

  Nickel shrugged. He was technically in between cases at the moment, so he might as well try to figure out what was screwing with the weather.

  "How did the Mitchell case work out?" Dane stepped away from the window and moved to Becky's desk to pick up any messages he had missed while he was out at lunch.

  Nickel wandered back to his own desk to pick up the file Lumie and Alloy had thankfully left untouched. He flipped it open even though he didn't need to double-check any of the information he had carefully penned before leaving for his own lunch.

  "Turns out Mrs. Mitchell was right. Her husband was cheating on her with a man," Nickel began delicately. Dane nodded, unsurprised. "Turns out it was the same man Mrs. Mitchell was cheating on her husband with."

  Dane looked up suddenly from reading his messages and pinned Nickel with his stare. "Repeat that?" he asked, a grin slowly growing across his face.

  "Mr. Mitchell and Mrs. Mitchell were both cheating on each other, but it was with the same man."

  Becky tittered and Dane let out a loud laugh. "Please tell me you're going to set them up as a threesome?" Dane asked.

  Nickel grumbled under his breath at Dane. "I was just going to provide Mrs. Mitchell with the picture of the man Mr. Mitchell was sleeping with and let her do the math on her own."

  "Ugh, math," Alloy groaned.

  Dane looked startled again; he was apparently just noticing that Alloy was sitting on the floor by Nickel's desk. "When did you get here? Or how?"

  Alloy shrugged. "Lumie said he wanted to visit, so we walked here." Dane quirked one eyebrow at Alloy, looking utterly perplexed. Home for everyone in the office—except Becky—was quite a ways away; it was much more than the distance a quick morning's walk would cover. Then again, it had been Lumie's idea and Lumie's magic was as odd as Lumie himself.

  "Which means Lumie must be in my office," Dane concluded.

  Alloy nodded eagerly. "That's where he went after Nickel dropped a lot of water on his head."

  "I won't ask," Dane said with a wide grin before walking into his private office. He didn't close the door behind him and Nickel saw him pause at his desk chair, shake his head, and then move to take a chair on the visitor's side of the desk. Lumie must have resumed his interrupted nap in Dane's chair.

  Nickel sat down in his own chair and pulled himself closer to the desk. He banged his knees on the low surface and hissed in pain. The desk had appeared ten years ago when he had first started seriously working with Dane. Unfortunately, it hadn't grown with him now that he was eighteen, and he was almost constantly banging his knees and elbows on it. Still, it was his space—his territory—where all of his work was carefully piled up. He didn't want to share it with Lumie or Alloy.

  He flipped open the folder for the Mitchell case so he could finalize his notes. Mrs. Mitchell seemed like the type to demand a full write-up so Nickel wanted to be prepared. It took a while to hand-write his findings. Once he was done, he flipped open his laptop and composed an email with all of that information to send to her. She lived a few towns away and didn't want to arouse her husband's suspicion by traveling the distance to Dane's office every few days for information. She had given Nickel her email address to use instead. He explained what he had found then insisted that she look at the picture he had also attached, which would clarify any confusion she had. The picture Nickel chose was one of Mr. Mitchell intimately holding hands with the man Mrs. Mitchell had also been seeing.

  Alloy was frowning at his fingernails, sitting on the floor and looking utterly bored, when Nickel finally closed the laptop and stood up from behind his too-small desk with a groan.

  "I was going to walk through town, see if anyone's heard something about whoever is mucking with the weather," Nickel began. "You want to come with?"

  Alloy jumped to his feet eagerly and nodded.

  Nickel dropped the Mitchell folder into Becky's inbox, which she immediately pulled in front of her with a smile, and then headed to the door with Alloy at his heels. The front door opened onto a small street filled with shops. There was a supermarket to the left of Dane's office and a nail salon and pizza parlor where Nickel had stopped for lunch earlier to the right. There was an electronics store too, but the other three shops a little further down the street were empty. Parking was on the street in front, although the grocery store did have a small lot around back. It was a typical small-town block of Main Street, Nickel knew.

  For years, Nickel had tagged along with Dane whenever he came to the office. There was no need to walk outside because Dane magically transported them wherever they nee
ded to go. It had been a bit of a shock the first time Nickel had ventured outside and realized the reason he could only see a few buildings whenever he looked out the window was because there really were only a few buildings. Dane had chosen a quaint, one-stoplight town to set up shop in.

  The sidewalk wasn't crowded as Nickel led the way past the pizza parlor and nail salon towards the one stoplight. Main Street intersected with Mountain Road there, and the only gas station in the town was tucked into one corner. They turned left at the light, away from the gas station, and continued down Mountain Road towards the park.

  Both streets were aptly named. Main Street was the main route through the town. It began at the highway entrance a few miles away and continued through the town and beyond until it turned into Route 23 as it traveled towards the next nearest town twenty miles away. Mountain Road led further up into the mountains. Dane had never confirmed his office's location, but Nickel was pretty certain it was located in one of a dozen small towns scattered throughout the Berkshires.

  They were walking downhill, away from the mountain. Now that they were out of the commercial area of the town, houses began cropping up. They were old structures with peeling paint and dated architecture, but they had charm. Well, sometimes they had charm. For as many houses that looked like Grandma had built them and passed down the property to be tenderly cared for by her children and grandchildren, there were just as many that had rusting broken-down cars and the remains of a partially destroyed toilet decorating the front yard. It was a hick town, although Mercury would swat him if Nickel ever said that out loud, but it was also a very nice place to live. Nickel liked walking around and seeing everything.

  The park was only a few blocks away. It wasn't as if there was a lack of green space surrounding the town. They lived in the middle of a beautiful, almost totally untouched forest. Despite that, someone had donated the money to build the park. The trees were planted neatly in the park and each had a wrought-iron fence surrounding it. There were flowerbeds, carefully trimmed grass, a ball field, and a playground. And, most importantly for what Nickel was interested in, there were picnic benches.