12. That sad. Beating gorgon males fun.
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.”