by R. J. Blain
“All I will do is hope that they weren’t being fed to gorgons.”
I snorted my alarm. “No!”
“Well, they were getting rabid feeder mice from somewhere.”
“Oh. Maybe because airborne rabies? Hope because airborne rabies? And slow onset in gorgon-mice-rat doohickeys. So it spread to gorgons through normal mice and not these mice. These mice the starter mice.”
“Maybe. And even then, they’ve probably been here for years.”
“Is okay. We let CDC figure it out, we just prepare big nice home for many gorgon-mice-rat doohickeys.”
“Why do I have a feeling I’m going to regret this?”
“Because you have rabid wolf soon, rabid puppy, rabid cindercorn…” I bobbed my head. “We all rabid here.”
“Heaven help me.”
At three in the morning, I torched the bed and breakfast. The fires burned blue and white, and I refrained from having more than a bite or two of napalm, only enough to make certain I lit the entire batch and kept the flames going until the CDC was confident in its destruction.
It took me twenty minutes to reduce everything to ash.
While satisfied the gorgon dust would never bother anyone again, I mourned for the males used in its creation.
Ten minutes after the CDC hosed down the rubble, they lowered the shield and my husband braved the destruction armed with one of the CDC’s meters.
It remained silent.
“All right, my beautiful. While you were playing with your favorite treat and making fire, I had a rabies treatment, our pets were treated, the exterior of the rental was treated, and we’re ready to roll. You get to be treated after you shift back to human, and Yale wants to give you enough neutralizer he’ll be really annoyed if you don’t switch your marker to off. He wants divine-level purging on you because you’ve had so much exposure to gorgons lately. Then he glared at me and told me I needed to chill out and stop giving you venom, as you’re now considered to be venom addicted.”
“Well, duh?” I snorted laughter. “He miss out. Poor Yale. Okay. Be sick and miserable, make grandfather flip switch. Or father? Think father flip switch?”
“I have no idea.”
“We find out soon.”
“That sounds remarkably like a threat, Bailey.”
“Because is? Father scary. Not as scary as swarm of gorgon-mice-rat doohickeys.”
“Yeah. And you invited the entire lot of them to move in with us.”
“Can’t help it, stupid and love animals.”
“You’re not stupid, but if there is someone in need of rescue, you will rescue them. That is part of what makes you beautiful. Now, prepare yourself. Yale is cranky because he’s too damned old for these jobs.”
Eighteen
He’s not the brightest crayon in the box.
I gorged on noodles and sea bugs, courtesy of a man who cooked for a living. Before I could declare my eternal love of his cooking, I passed out so hard I couldn’t remember anything about the trip to Long Lake.
It took my husband convincing Sunny to lick my face half off to wake me up.
Sunny’s breath reeked of seafood and bones and rancid dog slobber.
“You’re mean, Quinn.”
“We have twenty minutes before showtime, so I need you to go put on your fur coat and enjoy the entire bucket of napalm I made for your enjoyment. While you’re doing that, I’m checking my guns over, as I’ve decided we’ll compete to see who gets to kill him first. I made the better blend Tiffany gave me the recipe for, so try not to get too drunk on your favorite treat.”
Outside of the window, a lake surrounded with snow-shrouded trees glimmered in the sunlight. “Oh, that’s pretty.”
“It’s also so plagued with rabies the neighboring towns have cleared out, the residents have declared the place as condemned, and there’s a disturbing number of animal bodies littering the ground. I now understand what Yale meant about the neutralizer and prayer comment. So, you’re about to become a very unhappy cindercorn. I’m very unhappy, and I’m not nearly as driven by my love of animals as you are. Yes, there’s a wolf. Yes, he’s still alive. No, he’s not in good shape. Yes, I forced a neutralizer treatment down his throat before leashing him and tying him to a nearby tree. No, I didn’t get bitten. Yes, I used neutralizer where he slobbered on me.”
Oh. “Poor wolf.”
“Yeah. He came over to the rental shortly after I parked, and he didn’t try to bite my head off, so I did what I could for him. It’s my equivalent of dumpster diving for new pets.”
“You want to keep the wolf?”
“I didn’t know any wolves other than Sunny mastered sad wolf eyes, but he used them on me. We’re going to end up with a wild animal sanctuary in our yard, and now I’m just as bad as you are. Damn it.”
“It’s hard being a compassionate man. I’m sure you’ll survive.” I fended Sunny off, kissed her nose, and herded her to the back where she belonged. I stripped out of my clothes, grabbed the blanket Quinn brought to contain any blood and preserve my dignity, wrapped in it, and popped one of the transformative pills before getting out of the vehicle.
Long Lake took the top prize for being chilly, and I huffed while waiting for the drug to kick in and punt my ass to cindercorn form.
One day, I would master transforming without the assistance of a highly restricted substance.
Ten minutes later, I stomped my hooves, bucked, and ran around until I snorted blue flame. Quinn gave me the promised bucket of napalm, which I devoured in record time.
It burned nicely on the way down, but the buzz I associated with napalm didn’t come. Breathing blue flame amused me and dulled the blow of my denied bender.
Dealing with Morrison would have been so much better on a napalm bender.
My husband’s wolf flopped in the snow near the tree he’d tied it to, and I regarded the scrawny animal with my ears turned back. “Give bones? We have extra bones? May need more napalm. That only burn nicely, not make good bender? Where my bender go?”
“Your bender probably is being burned off because your body temperature is so high.”
“Nooooo. Not my bender! Bring it back. I get napalm and I just get big flame?” I moaned my dismay and bowed my head.
“I’m sure you’ll be okay. Think about it this way. No bender equals no hangover.” Quinn went into the SUV, got out a small cooler, and retrieved some of Sunny’s bones, which he brought over and put in front of the wolf’s nose. To my relief, the animal gave a few sniffs before struggling to chew. While he had some difficulties, he managed.
“It’s fairly advanced rabies, but it’s a good sign he can still eat,” my husband said. “This is going to cost me a fortune, isn’t it?”
“Late rabies treatment expensive,” I agreed. “Oh, well. Bye, money. We have new wolf. Maybe friend with Sunny?”
“Or our other wolf. At least he’ll have a pack if he can’t be rehabilitated.”
“Okay. What we do now?”
Sam pointed at a small building near the lake. “Long Lake, the town, is basically nothing but a few homes scattered along the shore. They go to other neighboring towns, all of which are abandoned due to the outbreak. I drove around the entire lake checking. I couldn’t figure out where Long Lake was, discovering that the narrow areas between the actual towns is what most mean by Long Lake. That used to be a tackle shop, and it was the last building in the area open before the whole thing shut down.”
“Wow. You learned a lot.”
“I got here an hour ago, but you were exhausted, so I wanted to let you rest. So, I figure with nothing near here, if Morrison shows up, he’ll come to the only drivable vehicle in the entire area. We should be easy enough for him to find. Morrison has a high magic rating, but he’s best if he’s given a lot of time to prepare, and he forgets guns exist. It’s his weakness.”
“He forgets I blow big fire.”
“Bailey, I don’t even know if he actually realizes you’re a cinde
rcorn. He’s not the brightest crayon in the box.”
“But it in CDC file.”
“That means nothing when it comes to egotistical police chiefs. I mean, I didn’t think you were an actual cindercorn until I got scolded by my family for having found an actual unicorn without telling them about it. I mean, I knew you became a fire-breathing lawbreaker, but that’s different from actually being one.”
“Right. Me think vanilla human for long time. We inn-o-cent. Where you want me to be?”
Quinn pointed at a shadowy stretch of forest between the tackle shop and the water. “Hide in the shadows there. Be a stealthy cindercorn, and should Morrison show up, we will race. I’m not sure what he’s going to do, so I’m going to loosen the wolf’s leash in case we can’t take care of him right away. I’ve protected the rental as much as I can, so our pets should be okay. But if you get a chance at him, snort your biggest flame.”
“Okay. Will do that. Set wolf loose. Poor thing can’t do much. Leave more bones for him. Keep busy. He hungry? Maybe food?”
“Sunny won’t mind sharing some of her lunch.” Quinn returned to the rental, grabbed a handful of meat, and left it for the wolf before loosening where the leash connected to the tree, leaving it in place. “Hopefully, he won’t notice it’s not tied and stay put while he eats. I’d rather not have to chase a rabid wolf around a lake loaded with dead animals.”
“Poor puppy hungry. I go hide, be good. Make big fire when needed. If needed.”
I headed for the shadows and my husband went back to the SUV, leaning against it while facing the road circling the lake. As hoped, the wolf stayed put, pausing in his bone chewing long enough to eat the meat.
Hiding in the shadows didn’t work while a steaming unicorn, but snowbanks from the wind off the lake gave me a few places I could burrow into my former nemesis, which did a good job of keeping me comfortable while also offering a place to stay out of sight. My husband, to all appearances, relaxed while he waited. Considering the size of the lake, I could only hope it didn’t take too long for our unwanted guest to arrive.
Then again, with my luck, our unwanted guest would leave us waiting for hours. Would Quinn notice if I took a nap in the snowbank?
I could use a few extra hours of sleep and an entire tanker of napalm.
I deserved a good napalm bender, and if I needed to torch the entirety of a rabies-infested lake, I would work hard to have a record-breaking bender.
How much napalm could a determined cindercorn consume? Would the CDC bring an entire tanker just for me?
For some reason, I doubted anyone in the CDC would be kind or crazy enough to give me an entire tanker of my favorite treat.
Morrison didn’t leave us waiting for long. He drove a rustbucket of a pickup truck, parked not far from my husband, and got out of his vehicle.
I recognized him, but beyond that, I remembered nothing of the man beyond a general awareness I had good reason to dislike him. No, not dislike. Hate.
It was easy to hate a man who’d brought so much suffering to others.
I wondered if my flames would reach him if I snorted my biggest flame, but I waited as my husband did, wondering what he would do now that he faced the man who’d caused our family so much heartache.
“Samuel,” Morrison greeted.
“What do you want?” According to my husband’s body language, he didn’t have a care in the world, and his tone came across as more curious than anything else.
“I’d like to cut you a deal.”
My mouth dropped open. It was well enough I’d burrowed into a snowbank, as I would’ve fallen over had I been standing. After everything he’d done, Morrison wanted to cut a deal? How could any man be so stupid and egotistical at the same time?
Apparently, my husband had expected something like that, as he asked, “What deal?”
I didn’t know which shocked me more: that Quinn was even capable of playing the bad cop or that Morrison seemed to think my husband would play ball. Movement caught my attention, and the rabid wolf got to his paws, staggered a few steps, and picked up one of the larger bones before wobbling towards the men.
Morrison approached my husband, stopping in the middle of the road. After a moment of thought, my husband joined the asshole.
“I need that girl for something, and she cooperates with you sometimes. It’ll take a few minutes, and she won’t come to any harm, but I must finish what I set out to do.”
That girl? Me? Had Morrison missed the memo ‘that girl’ was a unicorn who ate meat, breathed fire, and was married to the police chief he spoke to? The breathe fire part would play a very important role in the end of that bastard’s life if I had anything to say about it.
But first, I needed to figure out what my husband was up to, because him talking to the bastard hadn’t been part of the plan. We hadn’t had much of a plan to begin with, but we definitely hadn’t discussed being civil.
How rude.
“And what, precisely, did you set out to do?”
“Reestablish who is human and who is not. We have a responsibility to our people. To humans.”
My husband stared at the man who’d caused us so many problems. “What do you mean by that?”
I wondered if Morrison underestimated my husband like most. Did the asshole really believe my husband would play ball rather than gather information to finish the flame game?
Knowing Quinn, he recorded every word of the discussion to make certain Morrison’s plans died with him.
“Humanity has become severely polluted. Centaurs and humans make humans. Pixies and satyrs? They make humans. Angels and demons? Make humans. Even gorgons can create humans. Vanilla humans and humans with truly dominant human genes are dying. We need to identify those of us who are still human and make sure they are truly protected. These false humans are making it so the real ones can’t be properly safeguarded.”
How awfully twisted. If I scratched at the surface of Morrison’s insanity, I could understand his motivations—and why he would do something like use gorgon dust to flush out anyone who wasn’t human enough.
I bet, in his twisted little mind, he truly believed if someone was human enough, the gorgon dust wouldn’t infect them. Worse, he would have tested the dust himself to make certain he counted as human enough.
How disgusting.
“I see.” My husband gestured, and I realized he pointed to one of the dead animals littering the side of the road. “I stopped because of that,” he lied. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Ah. Rabies. Yes. Nature’s most efficient form of population control.”
Morrison viewed rabies as population control? The math made sense; airborne rabies plus time equaled a heavily reduced population, although everything I’d heard about it implied it would take years before any people actually died from the outbreak.
Hitting the gorgons first made sense if he wanted to get rid of non-humans, and his project with the gorgon-mice-rat doohickeys would have made certain there were enough infected mice not showing symptoms to infect the gorgons without signs of rabies taking hold until it was far too late to save them.
The wolf, which neither man noticed, continued his slow march to the road. Once on the snow-covered asphalt, his stride smoothed out, his ears pricked forward, and he walked better, as though somehow the infection killing him eased its relentless hold on his worn body.
He dropped the bone near my husband’s foot.
So focused on each other, the men still failed to notice the rabid animal.
Idiots, both of them. My idiot gorgon-incubus doohickey would pay for his idiocy through chores and intensive corrective therapy. I hoped the other idiot learned the hard way why it was a terrible idea to ignore his surroundings.
If Morrison even looked at my new wolf wrong, nothing more than a smear would remain when I finished with him.
I wiggled out of my snowbank and wormed to the shadows behind the abandoned tackle shop. I poked my head around
the corner to keep an eye on my husband, the wolf, and Morrison.
“How are you hoping for rabies to control the population? I mean, it’s definitely an efficient killer.” Quinn once again gestured to the dead animals along the side of the road.
Now that I looked for them, there were a disturbing number of lumps under the snow that could easily be dead animals.
What an asshole.
“Oh, yes. You wouldn’t know. That’s simple. The filthy non-humans, with their disgusting habits, interact with even rodents. Those who act like wild animals and feed off wild animals deserve to die like wild animals.”
Marriage to my gorgon-incubus doohickey had taught me when he wanted to, he could beat any mere human to the draw, and in the blink of an eye, Quinn socked the asshole in the nose and dropped him to the road with a single hit. Bright red blood splashed onto the snow.
The wolf recognized prey when he saw it, and before my husband could even kick the downed asshole, the rabid animal lunged for the fallen man, froth flying from his mouth while he bared and snapped his teeth. The first bite missed with an audible clack. The second landed in the tender flesh of Morrison’s throat.
In the prime of health, wolves weighed over eighty pounds, although the rabid animal was more skin and bones than anything else. His scrawny build and poor health did little to hamper his ability to kill his prey.
Several shakes and hard bites later, and Morrison’s body twitched on the ground.
Quinn reached down, picked up the wolf’s bone, secured his hold on the leash, and lured the animal away from the corpse. I galloped over, skidding to a halt and snorting flames.
The wolf accepted Quinn’s praise and offering of the bone, lying down and gnawing on his treat rather than on Morrison’s body.
“Wolf steal kill?” I blurted. “Wolf!”
The wolf continued to chew on his bone, and my husband bent over and scratched the animal behind his ears. “Good boy. Relax, Bailey. Wolves are smart, and he knew we were helping him. That, plus we just fed him. We’re acting like a pack for him, and he’s by himself and hungry.”
