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

by RJ Blain

  Each feather was a little over two feet long. A full-grown phoenix had primary feathers up to six and a half feet in length, which made the ones I held likely secondary feathers from the wing. Body feathers often burned out fast, surviving a single use before crumbling into a pile of soot.

  I wished I hadn’t looked at the tags on the blankets at the police station. Knowing the names of the babies didn’t make things easier on me. Someone had decided to give the blankets to me, respecting the wishes of two fathers bereft of their wives and children. When the phoenixes rose and took the blankets with them, the two men would have, in a sad way, the miracle denied to them years ago.

  No one could bring back the dead, not really. When a vampire rose, it never returned to its old life. Everything that made them human died with their mortal body, leaving precious few memories behind. With a phoenix, the lost unborn lived on as a cherished memory rather than in body and soul.

  Why had I looked in the first place? It made the blankets hard to hold and harder still to use as a tool so I wouldn’t be incinerated.

  Damn it, I was so stupid sometimes. Later, I’d blame Quinn—and stress—for making me cry. I wasn’t supposed to be the sentimental type. It hurt too much.

  Yet there I was, crying my eyes out like I’d lost my puppy, not that I’d ever had a pet in the first place, but I imagined the chest-tightening pain had to be similar. If there was ever a next time, I wouldn’t read the tags. That way, I wouldn’t have to acknowledge why the blankets could suppress the magic of a phoenix.

  I gripped the feathers below the vanes and took several long breaths to steady my nerves.

  Blinding light and warmth erupted beneath my hands, and darkness smothered me. Pain stabbed through my eyes, deep into my head.

  Fuck. I had forgotten to close my eyes before handling the blankets. Next time, I’d remember phoenix feathers, much like the birds, had minds of their own. I spat curses at my idiocy. The unlucky became permanently blind without someone with strong magic around to restore their vision. The majority recovered after a few hours to a few days.

  Wiggling bodies beneath my hands confirmed my suspicions; I’d gotten two birds with one stone all right. The pain receded, but thunder rolled in my ears. I bet the little bastards squawked, not that I could hear them.

  Idiot me had forgotten to request earplugs. Yippee.

  “Please don’t eat me, pretty birds. Pretty please?” Oh. I wasn’t totally deaf. “Uh, good morning. I hope you slept well?”

  Great. Not only was I an idiot, I sounded like one, too. I shook my head, and through the ringing, I heard disgruntled avian squawks. Yippee, the baby fire birds were unhappy.

  “If you don’t kill me, peck me to death, or light me on fire, I have ambrosia. You can have some. You like ambrosia, right?”

  The squawks softened to inquisitive chirps. Had ten seconds gone by? I sure hoped so, because if it hadn’t—or my information was wrong—I’d soon become a crispy critter. Bracing for the worst, I released the newborn phoenixes.

  I waited.

  Huh. I lived. Fancy that.

  “Nice baby birdies,” I murmured, fumbling for my pocket so I could pull out the bottle of ambrosia pills. At least I’d been smart enough to put the sedatives in my other pocket, else I’d be playing Russian roulette with a pair of flaming baby birds preparing to molt and evolve into flying cataclysms. “I made these treats just for you, but if you want them all, I need a little bit of help.”

  The birds kept chirping, and I felt two small, warm bodies press against my legs.

  They didn’t feel very big to me, much smaller than the feathers that had birthed them.

  I fumbled with the bottle, muttering curses at my shaking hands and blindness. “Just give me a minute. Turns out if you keep your eyes open doing this, the lights go out.”

  The chirps rose in pitch to the peeps of baby chickens.

  One of the little bastards pecked me in the shin, and the stone castle blinked back into existence around me as though someone had flipped a light switch. The stone around me had melted, stained black from soot. Pressed against my legs, tangled in the baby blankets, were two birds. One was white with red flames marking her feathers, so realistic I expected it—she—would burst into fire while I watched. The other was red, and its—his—feathers were tipped with the blue-white of the hottest, purest flames.

  In their previous life, they had been a mated pair, and in their rebirth, they would remain a family. When they took flight, they would take with them the hopes and dreams of two fathers left with nothing else.

  Both looked like they’d been dunked in water and wrung out before sticking their beaks in electric outlets.

  Too cute.

  Part of me really wanted to grab them both and snuggle with them like I did with Quinn’s blanket and take them home with me. How could anyone get upset with me for wanting to keep them? I bit my lip, fumbled with the bottle’s cap, and eventually managed to pop it off so I could dig out a pair of the ambrosia capsules. Once I secured the lid and returned the bottle to my pocket, I offered one capsule to each bird. “One each for not killing me. I have more for you if you don’t fry me or my friends when you molt.”

  My negotiation skills were top notch. I barely resisted the urge to snort.

  The little bastards pecked the shit out of my hand in their hurry to gobble down the ambrosia. The female broke her capsule, spilling the golden fluid on my skin, and then went to work licking it up with her surprisingly soft and pliable tongue.

  Some of the ambrosia mixed with my blood. I froze, staring while holding my breath. The phoenixes drank up their ambrosia, and they licked at where they’d punctured my skin. A shiver ran through me, and the wounds itched.

  Then they closed.

  I regretted not bringing a meter. Had I gotten ambrosia in my bloodstream, or had the phoenixes licked it all up first? I wasn’t dead—yet. Would I fall over and die in a few minutes? Would I have a spectacular death, a slow one, or a fast one?

  Quinn was going to kill me when he found out, assuming the ambrosia didn’t do the job first.

  What did ambrosia poisoning feel like? No one really knew, since victims tended to kick the bucket before they could tell anyone they’d been contaminated. Great. Just what I needed on top of everything else.

  The phoenixes stared up at me with black, beady eyes, chirping before opening their beaks in a demand for food. Their infancy wouldn’t last long, but until their first molt, the baby birds were my problem.

  Yippee.

  “Is it safe to come in yet?” Quinn’s grandfather asked from the doorway.

  “One pill each not to kill Quinn’s grandfather.”

  Greedy chirps answered me, and I pulled out the bottle and dropped a capsule into the gullet of each of the scrawny demon chickens. “Sure, old man. I think I’m going to name the girl Annie and the boy Peter.”

  “The names on the tags.”

  I bristled. “Got a problem with it?”

  “Not at all. It’s a very sweet gesture. They probably have their own names already, considering they’re immortal phoenixes. They’ve probably been alive longer than most of our family combined. Looks like Kevin guessed correctly. You even survived. Well done. I wouldn’t have liked having to explain to my little grandson I let his wife get herself killed trying to be heroic.”

  The phoenixes gave a final chirp before cooing and burrowing into their blankets.

  Demon chickens weren’t supposed to be so damned adorable. “I want to keep them,” I whispered.

  “Pick up the baby nuclear bombs so we can find the dust and get rid of it. Little Samuel would not be pleased if I allowed you to bring the baby nuclear bombs home with you. There are limits, and I’m pretty sure this goes beyond the permissible.”

  I gathered the birds and their blankets, tucking them into the crook of my arm. They weren’t much bigger than baseballs, and they radiated a soothing warmth. “Won’t the dust petrify them?”

&
nbsp; “Bailey, they’re immortal. You gave them enough ambrosia in one of those little capsules for them to take on a god and possibly win. They’ll be fine. That said, no, you may not take them home with you.

  The black of the phoenixes’ eyes paled to a vibrant sky blue. They chirped, and wiggling in my hold, they rubbed their beaks against my arm, scratching hard enough to break the skin.

  I bled, and my blood gave off a faint golden luminescence.

  “But they’re so cute.”

  “Are we looking at—” Quinn’s grandfather blinked. “Oh. Little Samuel must be nearby.”

  “What? Really? He is? How do you know?” I could worry about the glowing blood problem later. I needed Quinn. Surely I could talk Quinn into taking the phoenixes home. Someone had to feed them and care for them.

  “Bailey, those two birds are uglier than sin. They’ll be gorgeous when they molt, but right now? They’re pretty hideous, and that says a lot coming from a gorgon.”

  I cuddled the birds closer. “They are not!”

  “Bailey, you have approximately six minutes before they grow up, torch the hive, and probably eat us before flying off to nest somewhere.”

  “They—” The little bastards pecked my arm. “Hey!”

  My grandfather-in-law chuckled. “Six minutes, Bailey.”

  They pecked me again, and then they licked my blood. “You’re probably right.”

  “Good girl. Take a deep breath. We need to find the dust, then you need to nicely ask those two phoenixes if they’ll take care of it for us. Then you can take your husband to the nearest hotel and get some rest.”

  Why did I need to take a deep breath? I frowned.

  “The dust, Bailey.”

  Dust? Oh, the gorgon dust. Where was it? I chewed on my lip, staring around the entry. “It’s too dark.”

  The phoenixes chirped, and golden light and warmth radiated from them.

  Four walls, four corners, four doors, but no dust. “Where’s the dust?”

  “Find it.”

  “Find it? But how?”

  “Oh boy. Earth to Bailey.”

  I shook my head. I hated gorgon dust. Why did I have to go find it again? A flash of pink drew my eye, and a streamer of sparkling light slipped through an open doorway. “I hate gorgon dust.”

  “I know. Show us the way, then we can make it disappear.”

  “Burn,” a little girl’s voice whispered in my ear, accompanied by the crackle of flame. “We burn it. We play with fire. Yes! We like playing with fire.”

  Yes, I liked playing with fire, too. I remembered the rush, the feel of it washing over me, and its roar as it consumed everything around me.

  “Burn,” a little boy’s voice agreed.

  The birds chirped, and I cradled them closer to me.

  That was right. I needed to reward the birds. I needed to convince them to help without burning my Quinn’s grandfather—without burning my Quinn. “Ambrosia, if you burn the dust.” Thinking hurt, as though I had run a marathon, sat down after the race, and waited for a few hours before trying to get up and run again.

  I didn’t want to think about anything, but I did it anyway. “Burn only the dust.”

  “No fun,” the children wailed. “Burn, burn, burn!”

  “Only the dust. Twenty pills of ambrosia each, if you burn only the dust.”

  The birds quieted, their chirps softening to pleased coos.

  I followed the light.

  “Twenty-five,” they demanded.

  “Twenty-five,” I agreed.

  “Playing with fire fun! Burn, burn, burn.”

  I remembered playing with fire and dancing within the flames, and I envied them for what I could no longer have.

  The light led me underground. The phoenixes I cradled squawked and shrieked their complaints. The shimmering pink ribbon weaved through twisting corridors of rough-carved stone. Every step I took, the temperature dropped until my breath emerged in white clouds and I shivered.

  Not even the phoenixes’ glow warmed me.

  “A minute and a half, Bailey.” Quinn’s grandfather sounded worried.

  A minute and a half until what? I frowned and decided to ignore the interloping gorgon. Had I paid ambrosia to keep him alive? Whatever for? He wasn’t fire.

  “Not fire,” the children agreed. “Burn?”

  “No. Only the dust. For twenty-five pills of ambrosia each.” I remembered. Yes, that was important. My baby phoenixes needed their ambrosia. I also needed Quinn.

  I couldn’t let my babies burn Quinn.

  They snuggled against me, their beaks scraping my arm again so they could dip their soft little tongues into my blood.

  The tunnel opened to a cavern with a steep staircase carved into the wall which descended to the ground far below. At its center, a vat filled with dark brown fluid bubbled.

  “Look there.” The gorgon touched my arm and pointed at something beside the vat. “He is Ozmose, a middling prince of the Rockwell family. A strong enough line.”

  What did I care for gorgon princes? I couldn’t burn them. The vat could burn, however. “If you burn the vat but nothing living here, thirty pills each. The rest of the bottle, all yours, if you purge this whole place of dust,” I murmured to the precious birds I cradled in my arms.

  Yes, that was what I needed to do. Everything needed to burn so the dust would never bother me again.

  “Yes,” they whispered, and the air shimmered with heat. “You live. He live. You all live. The rest burns!”

  Flame burst to life around me, blinding me with its intensity. Heat enveloped me, but it didn’t sear my skin. Sharp beaks and talons pierced me, and my arm dropped limp to my side. The blankets fell, and the phoenixes went with them.

  Sharp claws I couldn’t see tore at my hip, and as I blinked away the bright spots in my vision, living fire shaped like birds winged down into the cavern below, blankets clutched in their claws. One held the bottle of ambrosia in its beak.

  A pillar of flame spiraled from them and engulfed the cavern. The phoenixes cried, their song shrill and piercing. Then, in a flare of blue-white light, they disappeared.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The phoenixes lurked in the flames, beyond the limitations of my human eyes, but they must have stolen their light from the heavens along with the voices of angels. When they weren’t crooning the notes of some melody only they knew, they shrieked, and their cries tore at my soul. I flinched at the sound, covered my ears, and squeezed my eyes shut.

  I didn’t want to see heaven, and I didn’t want to hear it, either.

  The very air caught on fire and flooded my lungs, but its heat didn’t burn me when I breathed.

  What had I done? I hadn’t resurrected mere birds. I had summoned living gods, and they cawed their laughter. In it, I heard their amusement and mockery. In it, I heard an echo of their promise, the bargain we had made, which they would keep—for now.

  “Well, that’s one way to do it. That batch of gorgon dust isn’t going to last long.” Quinn’s grandfather also sounded amused.

  Why was everyone so happy? My babies were gone, and they had become gods. There was nothing okay about the situation.

  The phoenixes screeched, and red, yellow, and white light pierced through my closed eyelids. I sucked in a breath, turning my head. Underneath the roaring of the flames, someone—no, a chorus—sang.

  I remembered the notes and the angels who had sang them, and the melody tugged at my soul. I swayed to its rhythm, holding my breath so I wouldn’t miss anything.

  Angels greeted the phoenixes with a triumphant song, one filled with welcome, love, and jubilation. When the final distant notes faded, the light dimmed and left me in darkness. A choked sound emerged from my throat.

  “It would help if you opened your eyes, little one.”

  Oh, right. I did.

  What had once been stone gleamed in the light of a pair of burning feathers, which drifted over the floor where the vat had once been. Of P
rince Ozmose, I saw no sign. “Oh no.”

  Quinn’s grandfather touched my shoulder. “It’s all right. He was long dead. He sacrificed himself to make that dust, by his choice, the fool. Everything makes sense to me now. There are two ways dust can be—”

  “No,” Quinn growled behind me. “I’m pretty sure nothing about you two being here makes any sense at all.”

  Uh oh. While I loved the way my husband growled, he sounded pissed. I considered my options. Pixie dust? Sedative? Both? If I ignored him, would he go away? I ran fast, but I doubted I could outrun Quinn for long.

  Warm arms slid around me and my back pressed against Quinn’s chest. Running lost its appeal, and with a pleased murmur, I leaned against him. Soft, hot lips brushed the side of my throat. “Where did you get two phoenixes from, Bailey Quinn?”

  I closed my eyes, tilted my head back, and made myself comfortable against my husband.

  “She’s probably a little tired,” Quinn’s grandfather murmured. “She requested them from the CDC because they wouldn’t give her napalm. She was very concerned about the dust.”

  Quinn nibbled on my neck, and his teeth scraped against my skin, sharper than I expected. Sucking in a breath, I tilted my head to the side to give him easier access. “Quinn, they made the dust go away.”

  “I see. Well, I’m not finished here. You, however, are.” Quinn shoved me forward, grabbed my wrist, and spun me around. The instant I caught my balance, he pushed me back against the tunnel’s stone wall, melted smooth by the phoenixes’ flame. Capturing my other wrist in his hand, he forced my arms over my head.

  Twelve crimson-hooded cobras swayed from Quinn’s dark hair. They stared at me, their forked tongues flicking and tasting the air. While incubi had black wings, instead of the leathery black ones I expected, his were feathered and banded with sky blue. His tail, unlike his incubus brethren’s, was covered with down. With startling strength, it constricted around my knees and forced my legs together.