The Flame Game

by R. J. Blain

  “I think everything will be okay. Come on, Sunny, before Bailey gets jealous enough she bites chunks out of me. I’ll see if I can get an identification on any of the other victims and look into Kendra’s case, assuming there is one.”

  “Good luck. Enjoy in-ter-ro-gay-shun later. Ex-wife stupid.”

  “That she was. Be careful. If you want to roll around in any other snowbanks, do so near the SUV, please.”

  “I check statues, do more flame to make sure extra safe. You stay out of dust, Queeny!”

  “I’ll be careful,” he promised.

  Twelve

  That sad. Beating gorgon males fun.

  The CDC arrived before I could investigate the decaying bed and breakfast. I sighed, staring at the convoy of vans, water tankers, and trucks destined to make a mess of my day. After ten such vehicles parked behind our rental, I opted to hide in the nearest snowbank, doing my best to burrow into the snow.

  There was not enough snow on the ground for me to hide well, and I sighed at the unfairness of it all.

  “Bailey, what are you doing?” my husband asked.

  “Hiding.”

  “I can see you.”

  “Hiding,” I repeated, and as he could wear flame at his whim, I huffed in his general direction. My flames didn’t even come within a foot of him, which earned me a raised brow. “Hiding!”

  “Bailey, you’re being ridiculous again.”

  “Kick snow. Help hide.”

  “I’m not burying you in snow, Bailey. The last thing I want is you getting sick because you decided to become one with your worst enemy.”

  “Mean!”

  “Chief Quinn?” an older man asked, approaching us. The suit stood out compared to the other sensible CDC folks, who wore protective gear.

  My husband sighed and turned. “That’s us. We’ve already dealt with at least one source of gorgon dust, and we have burned the clothing on all of the statues to remove any remaining residue. We’re both immune to dust, but you will want to use a high sensitivity scanner to make certain we have destroyed all remaining sources. We have not gone into the building yet.”

  “Excellent. I’m Alan, and I’m an FBI-CDC liaison. I see your wife has already made use of transformatives. We have a note to provide a higher grade? I only had a short briefing, but I was asked to request her assistance with any bile or dust removal.”

  “Normally the lower grades are fine, but she’s pregnant, and the higher grade is better for her and the babies.”

  “Babies is plural. Twins?”

  “Twins. Shapeshifting is also good for them, and she’s to be rationed napalm, and her immunities need to be used so our children properly develop them as well.” My husband smiled, crouched beside me, and scratched under my chin. “It seems pregnant cindercorns appreciate snowbanks. Her internal body temperature seems higher than normal, too. She was snorting blue fire after a short run around the gardens so she could dispose of the dust. One of our dogs is trained to detect dust, and she couldn’t smell any when she was finished with the contamination.”

  “Interesting. Would you consent to non-invasive testing? Honestly, we haven’t had any records of a cindercorn foaling in over a decade; the surviving cindercorns, outside of yourself, are very old and are no longer of breeding age as far as we can tell.”

  Huh. I’d known the wilds were in trouble, but I hadn’t thought they’d been in that much trouble. “That sad.”

  “I’m all right with non-invasive testing, but only if you reward her with a cup of napalm afterwards for good behavior.”

  I had the best husband, and with a happy sigh, I rested my head on his foot. “Queeny best.”

  Smiling at me, my husband patted my shoulder. “All right, my beautiful. We have to work for our supper, and the sooner we handle this, the sooner we get to our hotel for the night.”

  “Why did you come here, anyway? This is pretty remote.”

  “It’s somewhere my ex-wife liked, and I wanted to show it to Bailey. She’s often curious about my life before I met her. We weren’t expecting this at all. We have one positive identification on a victim, though. She used to be a friend of my ex-wife’s, although judging from the situation, that friendship has expired. I was unaware Kendra had gone missing. Audrey hadn’t mentioned anything. Here’s the bigger problem—”

  Huh. My husband could lie with the best of them, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have believed him.

  “Wait. Kendra Thames? The senator’s daughter? There was a note that she had a relationship with Audrey McGee, and that was in the files I was reading over on my way here.”

  Well, that rabbit hole was a deep, dark place—and it worried me that the FBI or CDC had already begun investigating Audrey’s connection to others, like the poor woman stuck as a statue. As my big mouth would make a mess of things, I nosed at my melting snowbank, sighing over my general misfortune.

  The one time snow didn’t bother me, my hot coat made it go away.

  Quinn scratched me behind one of my ears, and I focused on enjoying his affection. “One and the same. Her statue is intact, and my wife has taken care of the base cleaning. Between the two of us, assuming the weather hasn’t done irrevocable damage to her statue, we should be able to restore her. I have the facial recognition software trying to identify the rest of the victims. There is a gorgon who was mortally wounded before petrification. There is a slim chance she was petrified before death, but it would take an intervention to save her if she’s still alive. We may want to deal with her first.”

  I nipped Quinn’s ankle. “May-be alive?”

  “Maybe, but it is unlikely, and if she is, it would be very expensive to get the care to keep her that way. That damage is lethal.”

  “We ask angel, we pay bill? Too much tragedy. May know things? Don’t want to kill her. Thought maybe already dead.”

  My husband sighed. “I love your compassion, Bailey. We can ask, but even if we’re willing to pay it, she may be too far gone to save. It may not be our choice.”

  “It’s worth inquiring,” Alan said, digging his phone out of his pocket. “In cases like this, angels sometimes refuse payment, but as you’re willing to pay the bill, I see no reason to not ask. As you say, she may know something—and I won’t kill someone unnecessarily, either.”

  “Sad if we let her die, Queeny.”

  “I have no problem if you want to spend your money that way, Bailey. It’s your money. But if we end up with a gorgon who lives with us for a while because she has no hive, I don’t want to hear any whining.”

  “She become second mom for our whelps until we find her hive,” I countered. “She be like house sitter. Live-in maid gorgon! Oh, oh, she can be a live-in nanny. We have many gorgon whelps needing a gorgon nanny to help care for them. We have many pets, need extra hands. Then we ent-ter-tain gor-gon males who be good hus-band for her. We be guardians for her until she fly from nest to new hive. Like a grown child we feed and care for.”

  My husband laughed. “All right. If you want to try that, and she can be saved, we’ll take responsibility for her. And whelps around are good for gorgon women, so that’ll help ease her transition. We have no idea how long she’s been a statue.”

  “Or why she made statue.” I sighed, lurched to my hooves, and shook the snow out of my coat. “Sad for gor-gon. We give her hugs and pur-pose.”

  “Just be aware there will be a lot of gorgon males coming to interview her if we do this, and you can’t tell them all no because you’re picky. She does get to decide which hive to make her home.”

  “But can we beat the males?”

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “That sad. Beating gorgon males fun. Gorgon males durable.”

  “I see your wife’s reputation of causing trouble with gorgons is not unfounded,” Alan said.

  “Don’t worry about it. She loves gorgons. She’s even forgiven my idiot cousin, although she’ll probably give him a hard time for all eternity because she
finds it amusing.”

  I did, and I bobbed my head to accept responsibility for my general inability to handle life like a normal adult. “We help gorgon first?”

  Alan tapped on the screen of his phone and held it to his ear. “I have spoken to Mr. and Mrs. Chief Quinn about the situation, and it seems there is a gorgon female who may still be alive but is critically injured. They have offered to pay the bills for angelic intervention if it is possible to save her, and they have offered to take responsibility for her until she can be placed with a hive.” Alan spent several long minutes listening. “All right. I’ll handle the rest of the situation here. One of the victims has been identified by Mr. Chief Quinn, and it will close a rather old and complicated case. We will need a full FBI team for this. It’s definitely a crime scene, and there are a lot of people in need of assistance. Bring a lot of clothing, blankets, and perhaps a bus.”

  “Maybe two buses,” I said. “Many statues.”

  “Ah. Mrs. Chief Quinn suggests two buses, as there are a lot of victims. That may allow them to have space if needed. Send three just to be sure. I’d rather have three quarter-filled buses than create additional problems for the victims. Send some nurses and ambulances in case they’re needed. I’m going to begin my walk around while the practitioners seal the building so we can make sure the victims can be removed before we purify the zone.” Alan hung up. “We’ve already gained authorization for the use of napalm as needed, and we have the tanker if we have to make the high-intensity grade. We do ask you attempt to limit how badly you become intoxicated on it, Mrs. Chief Quinn, especially with the number of victims we have to work with.”

  “Should not need much nay-palm. Site old, only one source contained dust so far. Should be okay. One cup bribe for good behavior nice?”

  My husband chuckled. “You’ll do just about anything for napalm, won’t you?”

  “So good! No blame me.”

  “And on that note, I’ll go get the meters.” Alan left, heading for one of the vans parked behind our rental.

  “Think angel save gor-gon?”

  “Well, I think even if the angel can’t, we know if there was a way, we would have. You’ll go to bed knowing you did your best.”

  “What we do with gor-gon if she live?”

  “That’s easy. I’ll call in someone to teleport her to my grandfather and our whelps, and they’ll integrate her with his hive. She looks too young to be a candidate for his hive, so he’ll be a good temporary guardian while we put an end to Audrey’s schemes.”

  “Too bad Audrey dead. Kill her again. And again. Bad Audrey.”

  “Do you need therapy, Bailey?”

  I flicked an ear. “Therapy in bed?”

  My husband sighed. “I meant actual therapy.”

  “But why would you do that to some poor therapist? What therapist do to you? Would need army of therapists to fix me. Don’t need. Could use bed therapy?”

  “And you call me insatiable.”

  “Is your fault. You good and warm and nice and stuff.” I bobbed my head and gave myself another shake. “Much stuff.”

  “Is that all I am to you? Good, warm, nice, and stuff?”

  “Yes.” I whinnied my laughter and trotted after Alan. “Check our babies.”

  My husband obediently headed for the SUV to check on our pets while I followed after the FBI-CDC liaison, who talked to several people in protective gear at his van. “Do meter reset before testing for this dust. It is hard to scan, use clean meter. Set highest set-ting. It high potency, but odd. We think high infection rate but weak actual potency. But it shows high potency on meter.” I pricked my ears forward at my tongue’s cooperation. “Sorry for talk strange. It hard. My Sam better, but he shy.”

  “Yes, we were made aware he can shapeshift to be a cindercorn for your amusement due to his incubus genes, although he is not one whereas you are.”

  “I weird. Good par-rents make me cindercorn, but I cindercorn because an-cess-tor also cindercorn! Comp-lee-cay-ted.”

  “According to your file, you’re complicated.”

  I whinnied. “True! Ask hus-band. He con-firm. I comp-lee-cay-ted. If you worried about dust, I carry meter by strap and check.”

  “Actually, I’ll take you up on that. This model of scanner can create a map of the zone you scan, and you can just walk with it, and it will record the area around you. It will have a ten foot range, and it’s smart enough to be able to handle overlapping zones, so you can just take a walk and get a full scan.”

  “It dee-tect statues?”

  “Yes, it will pick up the magic on the statues.”

  “I walk while you do tech stuff. Will take time, explore whole garden.”

  Within a few minutes, Alan set up the scanner. Rather than make me carry the meter in my mouth, he strapped it around my neck. “Ignore any beeps and alarms and keep walking. It’s designed to keep you from stepping in dust, but as you’re immune, should you be contaminated, we’ll fill up a bucket of napalm for you and have you go on a run and burn it off. If you’re producing blue flames without napalm, you won’t have any trouble decontaminating with a little of your favorite barred substance.”

  “I go find dust! I no roll in dust, but I find it so I get nay-palm.”

  “I’d prefer if you found no dust, honestly.”

  “Already find dust once. Destroyed that. Dust here, find where.”

  “I hate that you’re probably right.”

  “Am often right, but I sad I right. Dust bad. No burn statues more. Crystal coffin if needed, but no burn statues more.”

  “We’ll do our best for the victims,” Alan promised.

  According to the meter, the building was a gorgon dust nightmare, and it would be flooded with napalm, lit on fire, and reduced to ash before the sun set. As the only being capable of going into the building without facing some sort of mishap or another, I was volunteered to handle the search.

  The pesky CDC reps wanted to know what was inside the building before they restored the humans to flesh.

  Muttering curses that made my husband laugh, I trudged into the structure armed with multiple cameras, several of which were tied to me, including a pair around my barrel. I wanted to gnaw through the straps and rid myself of them, especially as they’d been secured tight enough to keep the cameras from shifting. The cameras amused me, as they were attached to stabilizing arms to make certain those outside got a full view of the building before I destroyed it.

  I made it all of ten feet inside before I found the first gorgon corpse, likely a female judging from the earrings beside her grayed, decaying body. According to the meter around my neck, she was a source of at least one dust contamination. “Ew. She all rotted.”

  Rigging a headset to a unicorn took some work, but they’d sent me inside with one, and Quinn sighed. “That’s dust decay—not quite the same as the dust we’re worried about. While it can cause petrification, the probability of it causing an infection is nil. Rather than putrefaction, gorgons erode down to a dust-like state following death.”

  “Female magic less potent, make less potent dust?” I guessed.

  “Essentially. Some females are strong enough to be candidates for dust producers, but most humans have no idea how to identify it—or process a female’s body into dust. That’s something gorgons would rather not have studied.”

  “Duh. No want to be ex-per-ee-ment. Me feel this way, strongly.”

  He grunted. “Right you are. They’re going to start erecting the shield to keep the dust around the building before giving you a good napalm supply. Try not to get too drunk this time, and try to stay outside of the building once it starts to collapse. Do your full walkthrough. If you find evidence we need to recover, we’ll set up a crystal coffin inside the shield and have you place the objects inside for decontamination.”

  “Okay.” I made use of a claw to poke through the gorgon’s clothing, finding a decaying leather purse with a wallet inside. After some work, I uncovered seve
ral credit cards and her identification. “Have cards. See on camera?” I did my best to position myself so the camera dangling around my chest could get a good view of her name, her picture, and her relevant information.

  “We have it,” he confirmed.

  “Not even bother to take purse. Just leave her on floor.” I pulled her clothes away from her body to reveal broken bones in her chest, similar to the statue outside. “Like poor woman outside, but truly dead. Stabbed in chest. Bones broken.”

  “I see the damage,” my husband replied. “Keep going.”

  The stairs creaked under my weight, and I flattened my ears at the thought of plunging through the weakened wood, but I made it to the second floor, discovering five more gorgon females, all dead from traumatic damage to their chests. “Why kill them like this?”

  “I don’t know. It’s definitely weird.”

  Like with the other bodies, they had their purses with them, and I dug for their identification.

  Not all of them had gorgon listed as their species. “Dust change, they murdered after change?”

  “That’s definitely a possibility. I don’t know why they would kill them after going through the trouble of infecting them, though.”

  “No co-op-er-ate. Like me no co-op-er-ate with stupid bitch.”

  “That’s possible. Audrey lacked patience on a good day. And considering she was less than sane by the end and rabid, it is what it is. Get the identifications you can, and the CDC will notify any living relatives.”

  “Sad no burial.”

  “I know. It’s just too dangerous. Look for any paperwork while you’re up there,” Quinn ordered.

  All-in-all, someone had done an excellent job of cleaning the place out, leaving nothing but bodies, empty rooms, and decaying furniture. I checked every room, and in the bathroom of the largest bedroom, I discovered a gorgon male, and the meter squealed a warning. “Oh. Poor male.”