6. No matter what we do, it’s just not the same. #2
“Yes. You already have a puppy. We do not need a kitten on this road trip.”
“I disagree. I need a kitten my new puppy likes. He needs a friend.”
Perkette sighed. “We’re supposed to be road tripping. Road tripping is not another word for pet shopping.”
“We’re not pet shopping. We’re rescuing.”
“Bailey. Cats aren’t exactly renowned for their love of long car rides. How would we transport the cat?”
“Carefully. In a kitty and puppy play pen.” I lifted my chin. “You can’t stop me.”
“Yes, I can.”
I pointed at her. “Lying, misdemeanor collecting witch!”
Perkette laughed at me. “Be reasonable, Bailey.”
“No. Quinn said I could.”
“Chief Quinn has obviously been replaced by an alien.”
Picking up my puppy, I hugged him. “He got me a puppy, so I’m getting him a kitten. I bet this beautiful baby will love Quinn. He doesn’t mind me. He’s probably a good police dog and doesn’t like your misdemeanor collecting ways.”
“I don’t think they’ll train him to be a police dog. He’s a husky.”
“You’re mean.”
“All right. Take your neutralizer, get your puppy’s things packed up, and get ready to go. We’ll go find Sam a damned kitten. But know that this is a terrible idea, and I am doing this under protest.”
“This whole trip was a terrible idea. But it’s not all bad. I got groomed when I took the puppy to the vet. I even got my teeth cleaned.”
“Normal people would not be proud of that.”
“If I were normal, would you even be friends with me?” I countered.
Perkette sighed. “It’s all Arthur’s fault. He said you needed a friend of female orientation before you became worse than a man.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I refused to be offended by her statement, as when I thought about it, she was probably right.
“Do you even own a dress?”
Crap. I had, for brief periods of time, owned dresses.
Quinn had a problem with dresses. They were fine until I put one on.
At that point, their lifespan shortened considerably.
“Well, no. I thought about getting a wedding dress once, but Quinn keeps breaking my dresses. I didn’t want to waste more money on clothes.
The dresses survive until I wear them, then all bets are off. ”
“Chief Quinn has almost as many issues as you do. All right. Here is the rule about any additional pets on this trip. One: no more dogs. Two: we do not shop. We adopt. Three: you must find and catch the kitten.”
I scowled and set my puppy on the floor. “Those conditions won’t make finding a kitten for Quinn easy.”
“Exactly.”
“Has anyone told you recently that you’re evil?”
“Frequently. I enjoy it. You’re so tolerant of my evil ways.”
“Perky was basically right. You’re the only woman I’m friends with who isn’t a cop.”
“There’s a reason for that,” my friend countered.
I thought about it. “Yeah. I’m an asshole.”
“Not quite what I was going for, but you can be at times. No, you’re happily married to Chief Quinn, and those who know you by reputation alone are so jealous they can’t see straight. Personally, I think I need to send you a sympathy card. He’s a handful.”
“But he’s a sexy handful.”
“I feel this is a good time to remind you that you ran away from home so you could get some sleep.”
Perkette existed to vex me, but damn it, she was right. “You suck, Perkette.”
“Just get your shit packed up and ready to go before your man puts an end to our fun.”
While I had no doubt Perky would chase his crazy wife to the ends of the Earth, I kept my mouth shut for once in my life. I really could be an adult when I put in some effort. I waited a few moments to see if the world would end. It didn’t.
Fancy that.
Quinn
According to the CDC, the Dover hive lived in a former warehouse which had been converted into a mansion in Newark, New Jersey, which put his territory on the edge of my cousin’s.
I found that amusing, as my cousin typically handled territory disputes with the violence I expected from gorgons.
I’d count his tipoff as all the bride gift he needed to offer to Bailey, as he could’ve taken care of the entire issue without coming to me at all.
As the Dover hive’s turf didn’t border mine, I lost several hours seeking official approval from the CDC to handle my business with the hive. No matter the outcome, I was covered legally.
Commissioner Dowry wouldn’t be happy with me about it, especially since I’d ventured into a different state to handle the situation, but he’d cope.
No one threatened Bailey on my watch.
Once I was certain Bailey was safe, I needed to thank my family for the right to handle idiot gorgons threatening my bride with lethal force as necessary. If the Dover hive didn’t roll over and make amends, I’d make an example out of them.
No sane gorgon in the country would look at my bride twice when I was finished.
The former cadet gunning for my wife would prove the most problematic element of the situation.
Unlike with gorgon law, I couldn’t just rip his head off, petrify his remains, and crush him to powder.
I’d have to use the human legal system, which wouldn’t have a satisfying enough punishment.
It never did. Men still received preferential treatment over women, especially in violence cases, and I’d be lucky if he served more than a hundred hours of community service for attempting to sell my wife into slavery.
Then again, the same laws worked in my favor. If he made a move against Bailey and I witnessed it, few juries went against someone who came in defense of another.
The line was thin, but if necessary, I could walk it.
I would do anything to protect Bailey.
The former cadet’s desire for revenge worried me, however. Revenge too often drove people to madness. I’d seen that with my ex-wife.
I’d hid the truth about Audrey through violence, leading my beautiful Bailey to believe I’d killed only to protect her. I had. I would as needed. But there was more to the story than she knew—than I or my grandfathers had been willing to tell her.
Audrey and her hive sisters had succumbed to madness and disease, and I wasn’t convinced the madness hadn’t been due to disease.
Bailey still didn’t know the one four-day nightmare shift had actually been me spending a round in a glass coffin to ensure I hadn’t contracted the disease.
My gorgon and incubus grandfathers had as well.
My angelic grandfather had returned to the High Heavens and promised he would not be a carrier of any sort of disease.
Thanks to a puppy in a dumpster and a rabies treatment, I’d been able to spare my bride from a trip into the glass coffin, too. I’d seen her eyes after I’d finished burying Audrey.
Even the mention of a glass coffin terrified her.
It terrified me, too. I never wanted to see her clinging to life in a hospital again, her immune system reduced to ash thanks to overexposure to neutralizer.
Bailey also didn’t know I’d taken representatives of the CDC to Audrey’s body and exhumed her to confirm my initial belief they’d been infected with some disease.
The tests had confirmed they’d been ravaged from rabies, although the illness hadn’t progressed to its final stages. It’d been too late to save them without extreme measures, but I’d left feeling a little better about what I’d done.
I’d given them a merciful end despite everything.
I regarded the warehouse with a sigh, wondering if I’d be facing yet another rabies situation.
If so, treatment would be simple enough.
I’d pull her trick, find a puppy in a dumpster, and call her to let her know I needed her to administer treatments.
She wouldn’t think twice about it, she’d come home, and everything would work out well.
Then again, I gave it two months before the NYPD implemented mandatory treatment of all officers once a month to prevent infection and spread of the rising disease.
If rabies entered the civilian population as an epidemic, I doubted neutralizer could be produced in sufficient quantity to handle the demand.
With so many medical treatments reliant on neutralizer, society would undergo an upheaval unlike anything seen since the emergence of magic.
“Quinn?” Perkins asked.
Woolgathering while outside of a rival hive’s warehouse-turned-mansion made me look like an idiot of the worst sort. I sighed. “I had a thought.”
“That’s even more dangerous than this trip here. What’s up?”
“What would happen if the neutralizer supply ran out?”
“Nothing good. A major disease outbreak for certain. A lot of deaths. Why?”
“Rabies,” I answered.
“Ah. Tiffany wrote a paper about that.”
Of course she had. “About rabies?”
“Epidemics and neutralizer supplies, actually. You’re not the only one concerned. She got curious after the second time Bailey was exposed to rabies. She wrote the paper after running an experiment on the current rabies strain.”
“Dare I ask?”
“It’s so virulent Tiffany is worried it might become airborne with terrifying longevity outside of the body.”
The idea of rabies mutating into a virulent, airborne catastrophe stunned me into silence.
“It probably won’t. She pegged it at a ten percent chance.”
“That’s disturbingly high, Perkins.”
“It really is. What got you worrying about rabies?”
“Bailey.”
“Right. Dumb question. It might be worth keeping some extra stock of neutralizer around. Tiffany keeps a fifty pound bag locked in our basement.”
A fifty pound bag could treat thousands of people of most ailments, rabies included. “That’s excessive.”
“Tiffany enjoys excess. What’s really excessive is her basement lab.”
Shit. She’d finally talked Perkins into a home lab? While I’d married the Calamity Queen, Perkins had married a mad scientist who might one day fight for my wife’s title. “What were you thinking?”
My long-time friend sighed. “I wasn’t. She’s trying to create a new version of neutralizer with home-grown ingredients and common magic.”
“Practitioner magic?”
“Yes. Her thought is if an outbreak does happen, she wants to be ready.”
“I’m not sure I want to know how her experiments are going.”