15. There’s hope for you after all. #3
Nothing amused me quite as much as trotting up to a gas station to get a hit of diesel.
Perkette headed inside armed with the FBI clearance sheet allowing any gas station in the continental United States to feed me diesel, and once she got through the paperwork, she filled a bucket so I could have a drink.
It lacked the punch of napalm, but it did a good job of keeping me toasty warm in preparation for the rest of the run west.
At our current pace, I expected we’d arrive in Las Vegas before sunset, with a total transit time of three and a half hours.
“You doing okay?” Perkette asked, waiting until I slurped up the contents of the bucket and refilling it before putting the nozzle away.
“Not much tired,” I replied before returning to my sacred duty of consuming as much diesel as possible. “You have enough for more nay-palm after we find Janet?”
Whoever had taken Janet would experience me at my finest, hopped up on my favorite fuel and ready for a party.
I’d make the party so memorable nobody with a single grain of sense would touch one of my cops ever again.
I hadn’t even had my first shift as an officer, and I was already as bad as Quinn.
He’d be proud.
“I can make one small batch, yes. Thank your grandfather for that; the extra five pounds I bought will give you a nice batch of napalm. If we really need more, I can get the FBI to dish out for the supplies. Unlike the CDC, they’re willing to work with your napalm habit.
Banning it outright is typical CDC stupidity.
If the situation requires it, why keep it out of your arsenal?
Those bastards were willing to expose you to a damned nuke. Fuckers.”
“I said no on that one, re-mem-bur?”
“I was very proud of your restraint. I was too stunned to say a word when they said what they wanted to test.”
“For two whole min-utes. Then you mad, very mad, ask if they were trying to make Quinn rampage and rip their hearts from their chests.”
“You’ve really improved with your English, Bailey. Well done. Drink up so I can give the bucket back and we can get this show on the road. I don’t suppose you have any idea how far away Janet is?”
I shook my head. “May-be if have map can tell?”
Perkette skipped into the gas station and returned several minutes later with a road atlas, which she opened. “Try Nevada first?”
I bobbed my head before drinking more diesel.
Once she had the page open to Nevada, I concentrated on the map and tapped the paper with my claw.
Ever since the incident with Quinn’s ex-wife, I’d found my magic more cooperative.
I couldn’t tell if ambrosia exposure had done the trick, but I didn’t need any supplies to make a map show some of its secrets.
A pink, swirling light appeared a short distance east of Las Vegas, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. “What here? There road?” I asked.
Perkette checked her phone, referencing the map. “A gypsum mine.”
“Why Janet at gyp-sum mine?”
“That’s a very good question.” Perkette tapped at her screen, and her brows rose. “Apparently, it’s closed. Abandoned.”
I read between the lines: it was the perfect place to stash a cop and perform all sorts of illegal activities—or start a new gorgon hive without humans getting in the way. I’d learned all about that from Quinn’s ex-wife.
Starting gorgon hives just loved taking over abandoned buildings so they could expand their numbers before legitimizing themselves. I flattened my ears, guzzled the rest of my gas, and restrained my urge to snort fire at the thought of having to deal with more gorgons. “Gor-gons?”
“It’s entirely possible. That’s totally the type of place a hive would move into.”
I turned my head and regarded Perkette’s collection of firearms, which also included mine. “May need more guns.”
“And more napalm. We could rescue Janet and burn the whole place down.”
“Can get you more in-gree-dee-ants. For nay-palm.”
“You just want to burn an entire mine down.”
“I like fire.”
“I know you do, but don’t you think that’s excessive? It’s a pretty big place.”
“They take Janet, they deserve fire.”
“While I’m not disputing that, shouldn’t our first line of offense be something other than burn the whole thing down?”
“Res-cue Janet, then burn whole thing down. Get order right. Res-cue first. Then burn. Burn, baby, burn!”
“This isn’t going to end well,” Perkette predicted.
“This end great. We res-cue Janet, burn mine down, diss-ee-pline gor-gons. Take kids. If they have kids, they now my kids.”
“You can’t just kill a gorgon hive and take the children, Bailey.”
“Can, too!”
“You really can’t.”
“They take Janet. They no good par-rents. I bet-ter par-rent.”
Perkette sighed. “But Sam already adopted two children, Bailey! And you have two dogs and a cat now. You can’t add more.”
“If they have kids, I take kids. And Janet. Kids need bet-ter par-rents. Quinn good par-rent! May-be ask for more kids for Christmas? Yes? He like that? Me like that!”
“I’m just going to hope they don’t have any kids, because I don’t know what I’m going to tell Sam if you add to the mayhem. More than you already are. And yes, he’d love having kids of his own because he’s Sam and loves children.”
“You tell Quinn I want kids. Quinn okay because he like kids. Stop com-plain-ing. We run. Take buc-ket back.”
Perkette sighed, returned the bucket to the gas station attendant, and mounted. “This is going to blow up in our faces, isn’t it?”
“No, no. It blow up in my face while I have fun with nay-palm. You stay safe distance with Janet. Will be good.”
“If you ask me to hold your beer, I’m sedating you,” Perkette warned.
“Me no drink beer. You can hold my empty bucket of nay-palm instead.”
“Heaven help us all.”
I whinnied my laughter, waited until Perkette settled in the saddle, and headed west, catching a ray of sunshine the instant I reached top speed.