Playing with Fire: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count)

by RJ Blain

  Never again would I be able to think of cops as pudgy-bellied, donut-eating coffee guzzlers. The man must have waged some epic war against fat, because I couldn’t spot anything other than lean muscle and the chiseled lines of someone who spent a great deal of time working out and eating healthy.

  I was thin, but only because I couldn’t afford to eat too much. If he wanted, I bet he could break me in half with his hands and look good doing it.

  I would never understand how anyone could even dream of giving him up. He was so, so out of my league it hurt. It took every scrap of my willpower to turn my stare to Perky. “I’d like to report a crime, Officer Perkins.”

  “I’m amazed. You actually know my real name. Go ahead, Gardener. I’m listening.”

  “Anyone who looks that good should be a model. An underwear model. In underwear, all the time. You’re right. Everyone should get a chance to admire his beauty.”

  Perky burst out into laughter. “You heard her, sir. I’m going to have to write you up. Everyone should be able to admire you. To not share your beauty with the world is a crime.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to agree, Chief Quinn. You have been taking exceptionally good care of yourself. If your legs are anywhere near as defined, I may need to use you as a showcase model of what a healthy athlete should look like. Finding such a good specimen is difficult.”

  Chief Quinn sighed. “Are you done yet?”

  Swallowing so I wouldn’t drool, I memorized each and every last inch of him, doubting I’d ever get a second chance for such a spectacular view. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to see if those muscles were as hard and strong as they looked.

  “If you take your pants off, you might break her, sir.”

  “Perkins!”

  Dr. Valleychime chuckled. “Who knew a police chief could be so shy?”

  Without bothering to put his clothes back on, Chief Quinn stormed towards the door, gracing me with his equally lovely back. At least this time he didn’t slam the door. “Hey, Perky?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Instead of the suit or dress uniform model for Christmas, can I have a photograph of him shirtless instead?”

  Perky offered me a tissue. “You’re drooling, Gardener.”

  Damn, so I was. Oops.

  Chapter Five

  After another round of pneumonia and a two-day stint in ICU on a ventilator, Dr. Valleychime banned all visitation, which meant Chief Quinn and Perky since there was no one else interested in visiting me. It took several doctors and nurses to determine I suffered from a syndrome associated with my lengthy containment within the glass coffin. The neutralizers hadn’t just destroyed the residual gorgon dust in my system; my immune system wasn’t responding to vaccinations or developing antibodies, which put me at high risk of contracting something lethal or crippling.

  When they moved me from the ICU ward, they put me in an isolation ward typically reserved for people recovering from chemotherapy. After several days of Dr. Valleychime injecting me with substances meant to revitalize the immune system, he called in someone from Texas who specialized in imprinting and rewiring how bodies handled illness and infection.

  I wondered where they found a containment suit for a centaur and what sort of diseases a human could catch from a man mixed with a goat. Dr. Tressman seemed like a pleasant enough fellow, and he didn’t even mind when my raspy coughing fits interrupted his work. After three or four hours of poking and prodding me, he shook his head and called in Dr. Valleychime.

  “You’re going to need to call the twins,” the specialist announced.

  Dr. Valleychime frowned, and then he sighed, a weary, defeated sound. The two talked, using terms I couldn’t pronounce let alone spell. Dr. Tressman took pity on me and gave me the news in simple words I could understand: the neutralizer hadn’t just wiped out my immune system, it had blown it to bits, and he’d never seen anything like it before. To be safe, they moved me deeper into the ward, and I was treated like a victim of a highly contagious disease. No one came in or out of my room without a suit, which was sprayed down with neutralizer in the doorway.

  To purge my body of infections, I was subjected to another round in a glass coffin, a necessity I protested between coughs. We managed to come to a compromise; I’d still go into the glass coffin, I’d still have to wear the mask, but the coffin wouldn’t be sealed. They’d even hook me up to an IV if it took more than a few hours for the magic to do its job and kill off the viruses lingering in my body.

  I spent eight hours and twenty-three minutes in the glass coffin, and they sent for Professor Yale to handle stage two recovery. I didn’t complain when he helped, and he didn’t say a word about my inability to sit up. Dr. Valleychime consulted with him, and while my lungs ached and my throat itched from the amount of coughing I’d done, I enjoyed being able to sit up and breathe without the assistance of a machine.

  Dr. Valleychime ultimately called in the big guns, faerie doctor twins who could do more than just imprint and retrain someone’s immune system. In a three hour procedure, they intended to raise mine back from the dead.

  They brought in a set of silver and gold chains etched with runes, which they informed me were required for the operation. Like any sane woman, I fought them, but the pair of eight inch tall men won the battle without any help from Dr. Valleychime or Professor Yale, who watched with interest.

  It didn’t take me long to figure out the chains’ purpose. Since the procedure hurt like hell, they kept most of my body immobile while the faery doctors worked. My respiratory system still functioned, so I cursed them until I lost my voice. To add insult to injury, the instant the twin doctors declared they were finished, they gave Professor Yale the go ahead to begin the vaccination process.

  I cursed him in hoarse, raspy whimpers while he chuckled and jabbed me with needle after needle.

  It took them three weeks to rebuild my immune system. Professor Yale celebrated my recovery by dumping a bucket of gorgon bile over my head and making me clean it up. He also brought some of the CDC’s safer samples to confirm my immunities had survived the procedure.

  They had.

  Not satisfied with the initial results, Professor Yale took me into custody, helped me deal with the massive stack of discharge papers, and escorted me to the CDC’s NY headquarters. With demonic glee, he ordered me into a hospital gown, led me to the auditorium and locked me in the containment chamber, where he proceeded to test my immunities while his students watched through a thick pane of safety glass.

  At least the CDC would pay for my hospital bills—all of them—in exchange for being put on display like some freak of nature. Granted, I was a freak of nature when it came to my immunities, but that wasn’t my fault.

  “There are no words to express my level of hatred for you, Professor Yale.” I glared at the man, who stood with his students in the small auditorium. All in all, there were at least a hundred and fifty people watching me get drenched with various formulas, dried off with the containment chamber’s special ventilation system, doused with liquid neutralizer, and dried off again before we repeated the process.

  If my immune system kicked the bucket again, I would find a way to make him suffer for an eternity.

  “Now that you have seen standard immunities, students, I’m going to show you something rather special. For this demonstration, I will be in the containment chamber with Miss Gardener. While most of our substances can be sprayed into the room with her, the next sample will be given in pill format.”

  Uh oh. I didn’t like the sound of that. Most magical substances only required skin contact to work well, which meant he probably had some hellish mundane poison or irritant he wanted to show off. “Are you going to take it, too?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I will be the control subject for this demonstration.”

  I tensed. There was exactly one compound I could think of that he’d be willing to test with me. “Oh no. Hell no. Hell fucking no. Not happening, Pro
fessor Yale. You keep that shit away from me.”

  The old man laughed long and loud. “It’s only a D grade sample, Miss Gardener. You’ll be fine.”

  The next time I was volunteered for testing and agreed to put up with it, I’d remember transformative substances carried a hazard rating, which they earned due to their unpredictable nature, risk of permanency, and longevity. Magic worked in mysterious ways, and unlike almost every other class of substance on Earth, transformative substances locked victims into only one shape; after exposure, the CDC maintained a database of names and transformations in case other government agencies required the information.

  I became a unicorn, and not the pretty white kind with a sparkling horn and a tendency to fart rainbows.

  Contemplating escape didn’t help me. Professor Yale moved fast for an old man, and an assistant locked the door behind him before I had a chance to make a run for it. “This is happening, Bailey. You may as well surrender now.”

  “Damn it.” I sighed and held out my hand for the tiny gel capsule. “I don’t suppose you’ll go first?”

  Professor Yale gave me the pill. “If that’ll make you happy, sure.”

  Maybe the students would be too busy laughing at the professor’s fluffy bunny ears to notice me. Yeah, right. After I swallowed the pill, within five or ten minutes, I’d be a black and red mottled equine armed with a pointy stick on my head—a very sharp stick with a razor-like edge spiraling from brow to tip.

  “The transformative category of hazardous magical substances is among the most dangerous. Until someone has been exposed to a substance, no one knows what they will become. You might become a cat. You might become a rat.” Professor Yale popped his pill into his mouth and swallowed. Since he only underwent a partial transformation, it took about twenty seconds for him to sprout his bunny ears. “You might, like me, become a rabbit. Grade D substances trigger minimal alterations in most subjects. Bailey, please demonstrate the rule’s exception.”

  Yippee. I heaved the most dramatic sigh I could manage and swallowed the pill.

  Under normal circumstances, I would have exercised my right to curse up a storm at the discomfort of transformation, but since I had an audience of young men and women about to get an up close and personal look at how a human body could expand, sprout fur, mangle bones and grow new ones, I kept my vocabulary to myself and limited myself to a few pained grunts and involuntary whimpers.

  Transformative substances sucked, I hated them, and I seriously considered stabbing Professor Yale with the weapon attached to my forehead. It took me a few minutes after the magic had its way with me to scramble to my hooves, which clattered on the tiled floor. Flattening my ears, I leveled a glare at Professor Yale, who dared to chuckle.

  Fortunately, while my head and body were mostly equine in nature, vaguely resembling the love child of a goat and a horse, my specific species of unicorn possessed vocal chords capable of limited English. Anything with two or more syllables gave me trouble, and speaking made my soft, equine mouth ache. I stomped a hoof, which clicked on the floor. “Not fun-ee. Hate you.”

  Professor Yale grinned. “Class, look very carefully. This will probably be the first—and only—time in your life you will ever see a unicorn of her breed. As a part of your certification, each of you will be exposed to D grade transformative substances to determine your species. Like me, you will probably experience a very minimal alteration, generally harmless in nature. For most situations, there are three grades you need to be aware of: C, B, and A. Exposure to A+ and greater transformative substances will likely result in a permanent transformation or death. D or lower has negligible effects. You can even purchase some limited E grade compounds in novelty stores. Bailey and I each took a pill made from the same batch of compound, which for safety reasons I will not name. No matter which substance Miss Gardener is exposed to, the results are the same, which qualifies her for the safe handling and testing of all A+ graded transformative materials.”

  He paused for a moment to let his words sink in. “Neutralizer, please.”

  The ceiling sprayers released a cloud of vapor, and I lifted my head, flared my nostrils, and breathed it in. Professor Yale did the same. From his pocket, he pulled out a meter, which he activated. It squealed, and only when the wretched device stopped making noise did the chamber operators cut off the vapor flow.

  Returning the meter to his pocket, Professor Yale gestured to the bloodied scraps of my hospital gown on the tile. “The gown she was wearing didn’t survive the transformation process, and her blood was contaminated with the substance. When you’re in the field, you need to be aware that contamination can easily spread. All surfaces the victim touched must be neutralized to prevent accidental spread. Any questions?”

  On the other side of the glass, many hands went up, and the students eagerly leaned forward.

  “Third row, fourth from the left. Ask.”

  “Why is Miss Gardener black and red? Aren’t unicorns supposed to be white?”

  I snorted and stared at Professor Yale, hoping he’d let me demonstrate something rather than just stand around looking pretty for the amusement and education of a bunch of green recruits. With a faint smile, he nodded.

  Twisting around so I faced the glass, I lunged a stride forward, tossed my head back, and stamped my hooves. I gave a swish of my tail and eyed the humans, faery, and other supernatural hiding behind the barrier, safe and sound. Most of the time I hated my dirty little unicorn secret, but the body came with one ability I loved: fire. All the fire, fire for me to breathe, enjoy, and even roll in if I wanted.

  I loved fire, and I shared my love with the students, blowing a gout of flame over the glass. Those in the front rows recoiled. A few even screamed, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

  “For the record, Miss Gardener classifies as a vanilla human. Transformative substances with an A or greater grading temporarily transfer the abilities of the new form to their victim. This is why these substances are often so dangerous. The higher grade substances come at a great price, including the complete and total loss of personality and identity. In short, should you be exposed to A+ or greater transformative substances, you will irrevocably become a new species. Questions?”

  Every hand went up, and Professor Yale picked on a woman. “Yes?”

  “Does transformation hurt?”

  Since unicorns couldn’t shrug, I shook my head before nodding.

  “That depends on the individual. Bailey is often quite vocal when subjected to extreme pain. If she isn’t cursing, it’s typically a tolerable discomfort. However, as I’ve witnessed her transform numerous times, I’m confident she was sparing your gentle young ears from the profanities that usually spew from her mouth. Today’s transformation went better than others.”

  “Stings a little,” I contributed, giving a shake of my mane and relaxing my stance.

  Professor Yale pointed at someone in the first row. “Ask your question.”

  “Can all unicorns talk?”

  “No.” I stomped a hoof. “Wilds do not. They hunt. Eat. Burn.”

  Oh yes, did they burn. The desire to snort flame and bask in its heat writhed under my skin and heated me from within. Until the transformation reversed, my favorite place in the world was somewhere with a fire. I turned my head to Professor Yale. “Fire?”

  The professor chuckled, stepped forward, and gave my shoulder a pat. “Yes, Bailey. I’ll take you somewhere with a nice fire. If you haven’t noticed yet, Miss Gardener is keeping to short, easy words, and will often degrade to the simplest methods of communication possible. Unicorn anatomy, while somewhat compatible with human language, makes speaking difficult. It’s actually uncomfortable for her to talk. In addition to that, unicorns have a different thought process and base personality, which does blend with Bailey’s inherent personality. While at base level she is the same person while human, complete with her memories, she picks up a few elements of a unicorn’s temperament. In regards to language, whe
n we were initially evaluating her while she was a unicorn, it took her several weeks of effort to master basic English.” Professor Yale pointed at someone in the audience, a young woman who stood up.

  “How long will Miss Gardener remain a unicorn?”

  “It varies. No matter which grade you’re subjected to, duration is dependent on the individual. She might reverse back to human within ten minutes, or she could be stuck for a week. While many people have a more consistent response to transformative substances, hers is widely variable. I will lose my new ears within two hours. The longest time she has remained a unicorn has been eight days. In emergency situations, A grade and weaker substances can be reversed through treatment in a glass coffin. The procedure takes two hours, but it’s expensive and risky.”

  I remembered those eight days far too well. Mary thought it had been funny to use me as a coffee roaster and charged customers a premium for the honor of having a cup made by a fire-breathing unicorn. She often enjoyed my various mishaps with the CDC, finding some way to earn a profit at my expense.

  I really hoped the reversal happened sooner than later. Trotting around as a unicorn wouldn’t make it easy to find a new job or a place to stay, but at least I could sleep just about anywhere, especially if I stole one of the CDC’s horse blankets. Then again, I could also swallow my pride and take a nap in their stable. Wait. Did I even need to ask them for approval? They had turned me into a unicorn in the first place. I’d just invite myself over for a free stay and bite anyone stupid enough to disagree with me.

  Professor Yale gestured to someone in the crowd. “Your question?”

  “Is it true only virgins can ride unicorns?”

  The entire audience cracked up laughing. I wondered if the glass barricade could handle seven hundred pounds of unicorn slamming into it. Maybe if I softened it with a little fire first, I could get through and poke a few holes in the boy.

  “I’m sure Miss Gardener would enjoy a midday snack if you’re volunteering. No, virginity will not save you from being eaten by a unicorn. Bailey, please show them your claws. Try not to break the glass, as it is very expensive.”