18. CHAPTER
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Ashower would have to wait, given the urgent beeping of the smoke alarm, but Mr. Heiss did his best to get them both cleaned up and presentable as quickly as possible. He dressed Indy in a black silk camisole with lace trim and matching shorts, and there was a pair of warm, fuzzy slippers.
Hot pink, of course.
Mr. Heiss chose another suit, and this one was a three-piece in a dark shade of purple with faint gray pinstriping. Obviously, he looked delicious, and Indy wanted nothing more than to rip it right off him.
Later.
First, they had to figure out what was burning.
Then Indy had to get Gammy alone to tell her what was going on with his cancer and hope she could whip up a new potion or something to help him..
Oh, and he also had to continue to keep lying and hiding said cancer from Mr. Heiss and hope he was going to forget all about it and not bring up Indy’s deal ever again because there was no way Indy could tell him the truth, since obviously it was impossible for Mr. Heiss to ever truly care about him.
Good thing Indy didn’t have work anytime soon because his schedule was packed.
Indy’s stomach knotted up as they followed the sound of the alarm into the kitchen, but he ignored it to focus on the potential housefire. He only made it a few steps in before he was coughing and hacking because the smoke was so thick and noxious. “Gammy! What the hell?”
“A small error in my calculations!” Gammy declared. “Don’t worry! I have it under control!”
“Really? Because it doesn’t look like it. Or smell like it!”
The kitchen was hardly a place for preparing food now, as it appeared more suited for Gammy to create a new kind of magical drug all her own.
She had managed to pull out every pot, pan, and bowl, judging by the empty cabinets, and every single one was filled with some sort of weird bubbling concoction, even without any clear presence of heat.
There were plants and crystals on every conceivable surface, and some of the pills Mr. Heiss had given her to test were scattered across the floor.
A few pills were crushed up in a butter dish, and the rest were likely somewhere in the many boiling brews.
The smoke that filled the room and had set off the alarm was thick and sickly sweet, and it was coming from whatever giant pot Gammy was tending to on the stove.
“You know,” Indy said as he approached her, fanning the air and coughing, “I’d always wondered what a magical meth lab would look like. Now I know. Thanks, Gammy!”
“Oh, shush!” Gammy cackled as she stirred the big pot, appearing as translucent as the smoke billowing around her. “I had a tiny little accident, but it’s fine!”
“You do hear the alarm, right? That sort of makes it sound like it’s not so very fine.”
Mr. Heiss sighed as he entered, looking around with a scowl. “I see you helped yourself to my supplies again…”
“Yes, to help you,” Gammy was quick to remind him.
Mr. Heiss simply sighed and snapped his fingers.
The smoke cleared out in a blink, though the rest of the mess remained.
“You should be nice to me!” Gammy wagged a finger at Mr. Heiss.
Mr. Heiss stared. “For almost burning my house down?”
“Yes, because it was for a great cause!” Gammy beamed with pride. “I have the answers you seek!”
“And you had to almost burn down my house…”
“Isn’t this a magical dimension house anyway?” Indy pointed out with a snort, leaning over to investigate the pot Gammy was still stirring. “Can it really burn down?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Literally the point. Anyway!” Indy clicked his tongue and gestured to the pot. “What are the magical answers? And do they involve making your own crack?”
“No, silly!” Gammy giggled, but then she gasped. “Oh! But I bet I could! Like, a nice crack that made you feel like you were holding a fluffy kitten or taking a sip of hot cocoa or—”
“Gammy. Crack later. Answers now.”
“Oh, oh, yes.” Gammy shook her head. “Remember how I thought the sampaguita was being used to potentially purify the negative energy of nasty, dark ingredients?”
“Yeah?”
“I was wrong. No, no, it’s much worse than that.”
“Huh?” Indy frowned. “What’s worse than nasty, dark ingredients and negative energy?”
“Fae.”
“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that’s definitely worse.”
Gammy gestured to the crushed pills in the butter dish. “The sampaguita is not only increasing the power of this drug and making it even more addictive, but it’s also there to stabilize the potential effects. Plus, eh, I think it may be trying to recreate one specific result.”
“But it’s fae magic.” Mr. Heiss scowled. “That’s impossible. The very nature of their powers are nothing but chaos.”
“Which is why they’re using the sampaguita.
” Gammy waved at the bubbling pot. “Think of it like magical sandpaper. With every new batch, they’re refining the effects, or at least, trying to.
While I don’t think it’s possible to be a hundred percent accurate every time, it’s going to do whatever it is they want it to! At least most of the time.”
“And what exactly are they trying to do?”
Gammy crossed the kitchen to a big plastic bowl full of what appeared to be liquid rainbows at a low boil. “They’re trying to recreate a dream.”
“A dream?” Indy followed her to peer inside the bowl curiously. “How the hell did they get a dream in there?”
“If it’s truly a fae’s magic, then almost anything is possible,” Mr. Heiss replied, rolling his eyes as he summoned—what else—a big tray of fresh donuts. “They can take memories, your first breath, all sorts of nonsense.”
“Like what Missing Guy did,” Indy recalled. “Right. Got it. I mean, I don’t entirely, but yes. It’s weird.”
“Can you see what dream was used?” Mr. Heiss picked up a chocolate donut covered in sprinkles. “Or is that beyond your ability?”
“Making you choke on that donut is within my ability, buster,” Gammy warned. “Just because Indy is sweet on you doesn’t mean I won’t teach you what a wrong-side-up cake feels like.”
Mr. Heiss grimaced. “My apologies.” He tipped his head and offered a surprisingly pleasant smile. “Please. Are you able to see it, wise and beautiful witch?”
Gammy pursed her lips, humming thoughtfully. “I know you’re only saying that because you’re kissing my booty right now… but I’ll take it.” She waved her hand over the bowl and the bubbles stopped. “Here. Look.”
The rainbow shifted and created shapes, and the image of a classroom appeared.
Judging by the perspective looking out over the students, the dream was from that of the teacher.
As it was literally happening from their point of view, the only parts visible of their person were their hands and the lower half of their arms. They appeared to be a human man wearing a dark green sweater.
They pointed at rows of mathematical problems on a whiteboard, turned to gesture to the students, and then went back to pointing at the board.
There was sound, perhaps the teacher speaking, but it was weirdly garbled like the adults on Peanuts.
But then…
The students screamed.
Okay, that was crystal clear.
The teacher’s vision jerked all around in alarm and then trembled as they stared down at their hands.
Hands that were no longer human.
Scales sprouted over their skin, bright blue and slick with slime, and claws curled from the ends of their fingers.
The sleeves of their sweater ripped and split open as their body grew bigger, and the students hurled threats of calling the police and having them sent to a laboratory to be cut open and dissected and…
The dream ended.
The rainbows shifted and the dream started again.
Gammy waved her hand, and the bowl went back to bubbling rainbows.
“So.” Indy hummed. “That’s bad.”
“Very.” Mr. Heiss was holding the donut at his mouth but had yet to take a bite.
His gaze remained fixated on the bowl. “Very. It is now extremely likely that the drug is being used to create a substance that will force monsters to drop their human disguises. Azazel was affected after barely having a taste, plus the… customer… you mentioned.”
“Yeah, lizard guy. Would not stop asking me to spit in his mouth.”
“I did not need to know that.”
“I’m not even telling you the really kinky shit he wanted me to do. Like, taking my whole fist and shoving it—”
“Is it your opinion that the current iteration of this drug will force a monster to drop their human disguise and reveal themselves?” Mr. Heiss asked loudly, staring at Gammy and refusing to look at Indy.
Gammy muffled a snicker into her palm. She coughed and tried to be serious. “Yes, most definitely. The big question is how long before it will take effect.”
“What do you mean? Azazel changed almost instantly.”
Gammy pointed to the crushed up pills. “Whoever is mixing these is very sloppy. I’m guessing there have been multiple batches, at least four amongst the pills here, because the consistency of the amount of ingredients between them all varies wildly.
Hopefully there are not too many of these nasty little things—”
“Only about ten million,” Mr. Heiss said grimly.
“Okay, okay, yes, that’s really bad, but!” Indy held up his hands. “They obviously haven’t dropped them yet, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there hasn’t been a huge wave of monsters suddenly appearing everywhere.
” Indy drummed his nails on the counter.
“Maybe they shipped them out to just, like, hold them at some other location or maybe they’re still getting ready to distribute them or need to do some other weird shit to them first. And, like, we still don’t know why they want Dill. ”
“Grow?” Dill’s head popped up in the kitchen doorway.
“Oh! Hey, babe.” Indy grinned. “Have you just been standing there eavesdropping?”
Dill grinned sheepishly.
“Come on in. Don’t mind the delightful scent of smoke. Not that you would. You already kinda smell like a forest fire, but, like, in a you could be a scent at Lush kinda way.”
“Oh, oh! That’s the other thing!” Gammy exclaimed suddenly.
“What? Dill smelling like Lush? Yes, I know.”