7. I can not eat that con-crete cake.
SEVEN
I can not eat that con-crete cake.
I also couldn’t eat the huge crowd of people who surrounded the building and flooded Wall Street, ensuring we would be unable to reach the entrance without help or magic. I sighed, staring at the glass-fronted revolving doors, something I couldn’t maneuver through as a unicorn even if I wanted.
I hoped the two windows flanking the main entrance also doubled as doors, or I’d have to find a different way in—or use even more magic. Sighing again, I twisted my head around to wearily regard my rider.
“They really evacuated the entire building over some gorgon bile?” Perky echoed my sigh. “Lovely.”
Unless I wanted to wade my way through hundreds upon hundreds of people, I’d need to hitch a lift on a sunbeam and take Perky with me. My success with Quinn during the run offered the hope I’d manage the trick without incident. “Call cops there? Make room by door. I can get us there.”
“Really? Nice. You have some neat tricks up your sleeve as a unicorn, Gardener. Maybe we should keep some of those transformative pills handy so you’ll actually be useful around the station.”
“I will eat you, Purr-key.”
“No, you won’t. I’m stringy and wouldn’t taste good.” Shifting his weight in the saddle, Perky retrieved his phone and made a call. Within a few minutes, the cops blockading the door moved out of the way. “That good, Gardener?”
“Very. Hold tight, Purr-key. No fall. Would hurt.”
“Why am I already regretting my decision to come with you?”
“Purr-key is smart, that is why. You’ll be safe with me.
” I stomped a hoof and picked my mark, bracing for the inevitable surge of motion and vertigo associated with zipping along at the speed of light from a stationary position.
Teleporting with a rider was harder than I expected.
In the future, I’d try to catch a ride on sunlight from a run. It was less disconcerting.
Perky yelped, groaned, and slumped over, his hands clutching at my neck and mane. His body shuddered, and he gagged.
Apparently, Perky didn’t handle teleportation magic nearly as well as Quinn. “No puke on me, Purr-key! That’s rude. Bad. I get to deal with enough bile here. Off, off! No puke on me!”
“I hate you, Gardener. I hate you so much.”
I believed it, but I opted to play along as though he meant it sarcastically, just in case he did. “You know you love me, Purr-key. I let you ride me, a u-nee-corn. I am most con-sid-er-ate. Now, off!”
To my relief, Perky managed to slide off my back without throwing up on me, although there was definitely a greenish cast to his skin. “I’m walking back to the station. No wonder the chief was so irritated. You did that to him, didn’t you? That should classify as torture.”
The man groaned and leaned against me, panting and swallowing in his effort to keep his stomach under control.
“Poor Purr-key. You stay here, feel better. But you ride back to station. You whine as much as the chief. Gor-gon bile po-tent. Stinky. You stay here and not be sick.”
“Chief Quinn will kill me if I let you go in there alone. There will be a murder—mine—and there will be no need for an investigation. Chief Quinn will hang my body in his office as an example for others. No, Gardener. You’re not going in alone.”
Why did humans insist on being so insufferably stubborn?
I swung my head around in search of the nearest cop.
“Chief cry if I go alone. You take Purr-key, I take some-one else? Make every-one happy. I clean bile, your cop watch? Use ex-ting-guish-ur after I make fire?” I paused and sighed. “Yay. Bile.”
“Wow, Gardener. I had no idea it was possible to cram so much disgust and sarcasm into two tiny words.” Perky straightened and gave my shoulder a solid thumping. “Want us to take those contraptions off you before you go in?”
“No. I wear sad-dle and bri-dle. You need to ride back to station. So. Who goes with me?”
After a brief but intense huddle, two cops were assigned to go into the building with me.
Both were armed with a pair of extinguishers, one meant for fires while the other contained pressurized neutralizer.
One was a woman, pretty enough I suspected they used her as a spokesperson whenever possible, with her long brown hair tied into a tail.
She stood tall and proud, her chin lifted high, her gaze sweeping the crowds for any sign of trouble before she gave me her full attention. “Ma’am.”
I bobbed my head in a greeting. “Off-ee-sur.”
The second cop, stuck somewhere in his thirties and probably a candidate for a midlife crisis, stepped back, put his hands on his hips, and looked me over. “You’re a horse with a horn. What is with that… fur? I thought women were supposed to groom themselves before leaving for work.”
Perky straightened and drew in a breath. Before he could say anything, I swiveled my head around and bumped his chest with my nose.
If anyone was going to put the cop in his place, it’d be me. I concentrated so I could speak clearly. “I am a unicorn.” Professor Yale would have applauded my handling of a word with more than two syllables.
The cop didn’t seem at all impressed, and the woman shot her partner a glare. “I’m Lieutenant Downing. Please, call me Janet. My partner is John Winfield—a cadet.”
Wonderful. A green recruit thought he was better than the one person in the city who stood between him and getting turned into a stone statue.
He’d never know how fortunate he was I would never intentionally put someone at risk of exposure to any dangerous substance, no matter how much of an asshole he was.
I abandoned my effort to mask my difficulty with speaking English and said, “Here how this work. I go to con-tam-in-ate-ed area. I clean. You stay safe. Do as I say. You no close-er than twen-tee feet. More if able. You watch, bored. Un-der-stand? When fire start, you ex-ting-guish when told. Neu-tra-lize when told.”
“Copy,” Janet replied, straightening. “If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am? What’s your certification level?”
Explaining all of my qualifications would make my mouth hurt, so I bumped my nose on Perky’s chest again, careful to keep my horn clear of him. “Purr-key?”
Few dared to scratch my chin, but I enjoyed the feel of his fingers digging into my fur.
“Miss Gardener is a top-tier specialist, Officer Downing. Chief Quinn calls her in on critical cases as a consultant. Right now, she’s the only one in the city capable of handling all classes of gorgon material.
She’s also certified in the handling of other substances.
I’ve worked with her before. She’s very good at her job.
She has a perfect record preventing additional exposure. ”
“What containment gear will you need, Miss Gardener?” Janet frowned, her gaze sweeping over me.
“We don’t have equipment for centaurs or equines, but I think given ten minutes, we can put something together.
We’d have to wait for someone to bring suits over, though—the hazmat crew isn’t even here yet. ”
There were no hazmat crews at the building yet? Where were they? New York had multiple response teams. In the time it took me to get Perky to Wall Street, one of them should have already arrived.
Perky chuckled. “That’s not necessary. Miss Gardener doesn’t need equipment to handle gorgon bile.
As she’s going in without a suit, there are a few ground rules you will both need to follow.
Should Bailey tell you to stand on one foot and cluck like a chicken, you will do it.
She will be contaminated during the clean up.
If you make the wrong move, you will end up being a statue.
If you let her do her job, you’ll be safe.
Cadet, you stick close to your supervisor. ”
“Yes, sir!” both replied.
After giving me a final scratch and untangling his fingers from my fur, he turned his full attention to Janet.
“If anything happens to her, Chief Quinn will be exceptionally unhappy. There are three people qualified to handle large scale incidents like this, and two of them are out of town for an unknown period of time. Her safety is your responsibility.”
To her credit, Janet didn’t laugh outright at Perky’s comment, but her lips curved in amusement. “I think she is the one protecting me, sir.”
“Don’t tell her that. It’ll go to her head, and we’ll never hear the end of it.”
While tempted to nip Perky for teasing me, I turned my attention to my job so I could hunt down something to eat and a quiet place for a much-needed nap. “Where bile?”
Janet turned to the building and pointed up. “Twenty-first floor, ma’am. I’ll give you the full details inside.”
As I had hoped, there were side doors, sparing me from having to bust through the glass revolving doors. Janet held the door for me, but before I could do more than take a single step, the cadet blew by me. The temptation to snort fire at him stirred. Smoke trailed out of my nose.
Perky yanked on a handful of my mane. “Don’t. Chief Quinn really will kill me if I let you attack an officer, even a useless cadet with an attitude issue.”
“One nip?”
“No, Bailey. Behave. Please.”
I sighed. “You stay here, no puke on other cops.”
“If you promise not to tell anyone this happened, I’ll pay for your dinner tonight.”
“Sold. Be back soon. May-be. De-pends on bile.”
“Good luck.”
I eased my way through the door, lowering my head so my horn wouldn’t slice through the door frame.
It was a tight squeeze, but I made it into the building’s lobby.
A short flight of stairs led up to a spacious room, its marble floors broken by columns rising to an arched ceiling.
I tossed my head high and leapt up the four steps, landing with my hooves clattering on the tiles.
The sound echoed, and the eerie silence unnerved me. “Too quiet.”
“It rather is.” Janet waited for the door to close before joining me. The cadet glared at me, taking the steps two at a time.
“Where ell-ee-vay-tur?”