Sloth and other Delights by TJ Nichols

CHAPTER1

“Is this human?” Carlin Howard held up a photo of a werewolf. “This is what your government wants to give human rights. They think this monster should be able to serve in the military, become a cop, and collect welfare. They want this to be able to marry humans.”

“That’s not what is being debated. Mythological people will have the same rights, but they will not be human. Even on Tariko, humans were humans, and elves were elves,” Sandra, the female host of the popular news-style TV show, said.

“Classifying mythos as people is the first step to letting humans and monsters marry. Already we have an SFPD inspector mated, as they say, to a lesser dragon, a part-time animal. He’s sleeping with a part-time animal. Shouldn’t that be illegal?”

Edra leaned forward. Even though he’d read all of Carlin Howard’s articles, hearing the man talk was making him sick. If I was an animal, I wouldn’t be able to understand you. I wouldn’t have learnt a new language and new technology when I was brought here.

Sandra pressed her lips together before forcing a narrow smile. “There is nothing in the bill being debated about mytho-human marriages. It’s about equal protection under the law.”

“So, are these relationships illegal or not?” Carlin held up a fistful of photos. “These are only the ones that are public. Vampires, elves, ogres… Would you want your child dating one of these?”

Sandra blinked a couple of times. “I think we are discussing two different things. You seem more worried about mytho-human relationships than their treatment and recognition.” She smiled and faced the camera. “In Europe, mythological people have been granted resident status and full protection for the past four years. They are treated as humans, though it is recognized that they are not.”

“And have there been mixed marriages?”

“I believe so,” Sandra said carefully.

Carlin slapped down the photos as if he’d won. “It’s bestiality. That’s what it is. That’s what the governments are encouraging.”

“They are people.”

“They are monsters, and they are taking over, forcing us to accept them and their ways.”

“We destroyed their world.”

“And now they are destroying ours. A few days ago, dragons burned an entire block in LA, killing a dozen people. And we’re supposed to sit back and be okay with that because it’s their culture?”

Edra winced. While neither he nor Jordan had asked the dragons to do that, they were both kind of responsible. Next to him, Jordan was silent and motionless, as if made of stone.

“My understanding is that it was a vampire enclave, and there are underlying issues.”

“Are you a mytho supporter?” Carlin sneered.

“I think we have an opportunity to create and learn and grow.”

Carlin ripped off his mic and tossed it on the table between them.

Sandra didn’t flinch, and her thin, fake smile remained in place. “That was Carlin Howard, a very vocal opponent of the Mythological Persons Bill of Rights. Next, we have Layla Miller, a lawyer and supporter of the bill. We’ll be back after these words from our sponsor.”

Jordan turned off the TV and tossed the remote across the room. It bounced off the armchair, startling Sinner, who hissed at both of them. Edra almost hissed back out of habit.

“This is his fault. I am going to find where he lives and—”

“Do nothing,” Edra said. Carlin was loud, and Edra would have loved to feed him to the dragons, but they wouldn’t touch him—he’d be bitter and chewy from all that rancid hate. And if something happened to him, the mythos would get the blame. “Besides, I already know where he lives. And that his ex got a promotion because of her involvement with the LA vampires.” He should have bitten his tongue on the last two words because Jordan flinched as though Edra had ripped out his heart and offered it to him for dinner.

“I can’t do nothing.” Jordan paced and raked his fingers through his hair. “Katie—"

“We have been ordered to do nothing.” The king, Ardel, and the Strega had been very clear about that. And Edra wasn’t about to step out of line, given that none of the leaders were happy about the razing of the enclave. Even though that wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t done anything to prevent it either.

That and there wasn’t anything they could do. Neither of them could turn up in LA and fight their way to Katie. They’d be arrested or killed the moment they crossed into the city, making them worse than useless.

“We should be finding the damn unicorn, delivering it, and getting Katie back.” Jordan snarled.

Ever since he’d seen the video demand from LA, he’d flicked between anger and torment, often managing both at the same time. He was going to burn out if he didn’t stop to breathe. Sometimes there was nothing that could be done except wait for the lines of fate, as the Strega was fond of saying. As annoying as that was, Edra was old enough to understand what she meant and to pause. He couldn’t catch Jordan up on a century of lived experience.

Edra grabbed Jordan and put his arms around him, hoping to soothe him. He didn’t like that Jordan was hurting and that he was unable to help him. “And what did your boss say?”

Jordan was rigid, as though he didn’t want any comfort. “To leave it to the FBI and LAPD—though they are probably working with the vampires.” Jordan pulled free and stalked away. “If Carlin and his buddies hadn’t been trawling my life, our lives, for information, then none of this would have happened. She’d have been safe.” There was more snarl to his words than a dragon who’d had a baby stolen.

“You need to take a breath and—”

“If you say calm down—”

“You’ll what?” Edra stood in front of him, crossed his arms, and used the couple of extra inches in height that he had to as much effect as he could as he glared at Jordan.

“She’s not your sister—”

“No, but I can feel that it is wounding you. I spent time with her. I like her. She is so much like you. She buries her wounds and pretends that she’s fine. She colors her hair and calls it armor. She snaps and snarls to fool others into believing she is strong. Neither of you are.”

Jordan stepped back. “You need to get out of my face.”

Edra didn’t move. He held Jordan’s gaze without offering the concession of blinking and pretending to be human. “You’re hurting and lashing out. I’ve been there—”

“You don’t even know your siblings.”

Edra growled. “I lost a mate. I lost my entire world. Don’t lecture me on loss.”

Jordan swallowed and looked away.

“I have lost friends in battle. I have watched them age and die because my lifespan is longer. I know what it is like to be told to stand down and step aside to let someone do what you can’t. I am only a Knight. You are only an Inspector.” He deliberately used Jordan’s human title. “We can’t do anything without fucking things up worse. How many kidnappings have you passed on to someone else?”

Jordan’s jaw remained clamped closed. The muscle worked as his eyes brimmed with tears. Watching, feeling, his mate suffer was tearing him apart. The gouges hurt more than when the werewolf had ripped his back open to the bone. These were wounds that a shift and a feed wouldn’t heal.

He wished they were.

“I would love nothing more than to ask Vlash to gather the army and to lead them to LA to tear apart every enclave and locate your sister and everyone else they are holding captive. They have eaten the entire mytho population.” He didn’t say it, but one kidnapped human was nothing. One scale on a dragon’s tail. “I don’t want to lose you to a wild magic chase.”

“Wild goose chase,” Jordan snapped.

Edra frowned. The words sounded similar in Tarikian, but he knew a goose was an animal. “What does a goose have to do with it?”

“That’s the phrase. A wild goose chase.”

“No, it’s not. I can assure you that is a human misinterpretation of the Tarikian word for magic.” Edra repeated the phrase in Tarikian. “And a wild magic chase is infinitely worse than a wild goose chase—that sounds kind of fun if I was a dragon at the time, that is.” And not dangerous at all. “Unicorns…” He shook his head. The Strega had tried to describe them to Jordan and why catching one wasn’t possible and that even if it was, handing over magic to the LA vampires wasn’t going to end well. “They aren’t real.”

“Except they are real, and there is one running around.”

Edra's hands become cold out of frustration. “It’s not running anywhere. It’s intangible and… It’s like a fart. You can’t see it, or touch it, or catch it, only smell it.”

Jordan’s gaze narrowed.

From the look on Jordan’s face, that description hadn’t helped, so he tried again because while Jordan was grappling with unicorns, he wasn’t worrying about Katie. “Think of wild magic as a storm. You know it’s there and that it’s going to do some damage, but there’s nothing you can do but let it roll through.”

“It makes no sense that you have wild magic, and what? Tame magic?”

“Well, it’s all kind of the same, but wild magic has its own form and can’t be used until it settles. That wild magic even exists here is amazing. It means that magic survived the collapse, but it took time to recover and coalesce.”

“Unicorns exist in human lore, so they must be real, like dragons and werewolves.”

Edra scrubbed his hands over his face. “Yeah, wild magic probably flowed between the worlds, and some humans might have seen it and written about it. That doesn’t mean it was a physical thing. We can’t set a trap and put a rope on it.”

“Then why did they ask for it?”

“If I knew the answer to that, I would have said something, wouldn’t I?” The Strega had offered to knock Jordan out for the rest of the day, and right now, that wasn’t looking like a bad option. “They want magic. That’s all we know.”

“It’s got to be about more than looking pretty.”

“Power. If they look pretty, then they don’t get shunned, and it’s easier to bribe people.” But the only magic vampires had was blood magic. And Edra didn’t know how to turn wild magic into anything usable until it was ready to settle down and make a magical wellspring. No one, not even the gods, could force wild magic to sit still and become part of the fabric of the world until it was ready.

Wherever it settled would become a place of great power. Nymphs would gather there, and the Strega would be able to draw from it. The magic would radiate out and touch every mytho. All vampires within the radius would benefit. The werewolves might be able to shift again. The city that was chosen…

“You just thought of something,” Jordan said. His heartbeat was calmer, even though there was still an edge in his voice.

“Yeah, maybe they think they can harness it and make it settle. No other city that I know of has even had a unicorn sighting.” But then why report it? It would be better to keep quiet and let the magic take root. Those places where mythos were thriving might have already had wild magic settle. “They would become more powerful if their city had more magic.”

“How?”

Edra held out his hands, the ring on his index finger catching in the light. “How important is air to a city? To life?”

“Essential. But mythos breathe air too.”

“Yeah, but we also breathed magic. It was fundamental to life. We used it without thinking. It was our air and water and the blood in our veins. Not having it left us gasping and…” he struggled for the right words. “With a hollowness that can’t be filled.”

“If other mythos know we have a unicorn, they’ll come here. They’ll go to LA if they have it. Then the vampires will eat them.”

Edra shook his head. “They wouldn’t need to eat mythos for the magic in their blood if the wild magic settled there. They want a mytho city-state with no humans. They want to annex areas for mythos only.” For how long had they known that there was a unicorn near San Francisco?

Jordan frowned. “So who smelled the magical fart and reported it to LA?”

“That is a good question and something we should definitely find out.”