7. What makes no sense? The entirety of your life?
SEVEN
What makes no sense? The entirety of your life?
Bailey
My new puppy howled whenever he needed a pit stop, which earned him Perkette’s grudging tolerance. I searched around the SUV for evidence of divine busybodies influencing my puppy without luck.
“This makes no sense,” I announced while we waited for my puppy to finish his business and investigate the falling snow.
“What makes no sense? The entirety of your life?”
Ouch. “Not quite, but yes.” As the snow threatened to become a blizzard before we could escape the north, naming my new puppy after the weather seemed like a good idea to me. “Blizzard howls when he needs to go to the bathroom, and he’s angelic the rest of the time. Who dumps such a good puppy?”
“A complete and total asshole.” Perkette leaned against the SUV. “I’ll give you credit, Bailey. When you decide to do something, you do it. I’m not sure it’s possible for you to shower that puppy with more affection.”
“His name is Blizzard.”
“That’s a foreboding name. I don’t want to drive through a blizzard.”
“Neither do I,” I replied, waving my hand at the darkening sky and the thickening snow. “It seems probable.”
“True. Has your husband told you any big news lately?”
I scowled at the reminder. “He mentioned something about a job transfer. He told me when I called him about Blizzard. I’m trying not to think about it,” I admitted.
“Why not?”
“It sounded too good to be true. That means it probably is. He mentioned a salary.” I sighed and watched Blizzard sniff at the snow skirting the road, and he didn’t even pull at his leash. “What sort of job can I do that has a salary?”
“Police Chief of the NYPD, partnered with your husband.”
I dropped Blizzard’s leash, which Perkette stepped on before my puppy could make his escape. “What? Why would you even suggest that?”
For the past two months, the CDC had dumped me with the bomb squad, making me clean up explosives on top of my regular toxic substances. I still hadn’t gotten the courage to admit my job description had expanded disturbingly into law enforcement.
“The CDC transferred your contract to the NYPD. They opted to partner you with your husband. They’re renovating the eighth floor to give you an office. I have a spy feeding me intel. Sam’s been worrying himself sick over how you’ll react. He can be such a coward sometimes.”
“Repeat that to me in smaller words I can easily understand.”
“You’re so badass you’re now a cop.”
I could list a hundred reasons why making me a cop was a terrible idea, including my lack of training, abrasive personality, lackluster appearance, and tendency to destroy buildings. “Someone’s out of their fucking mind.”
“While our menfolk have been incoherently flailing, I did some research.”
Crap. When Perkette researched something, she emerged able to write a comprehensive and accurate book on the subject. Picking up Blizzard’s leash, I herded him to the rental, toweled the snow out of his fur, and clipped him to his seatbelt leash. “Whoever proposed this is a nitwit.”
“Your ex-boss.”
“Which one? My regional contract supervisor?” My regional contract supervisor changed once a month, sometimes once every other week. The position drove people to the brink of madness, and they tried to rotate it through qualified people so no one had to deal with me too much at one time.
Or so I liked to believe.
“The one in Washington.”
Marshal Clemmends. “I regret not shoving my marriage certificate down his throat and lighting him on fire.”
Perkette snickered and got behind the wheel, waiting for me to get settled in my seat and buckle up before starting the engine. “We all do. But being serious, it’s a smart move.”
“Before I call you out of your mind or batshit crazy, explain yourself.”
“No one will be able to touch your husband while you’re on guard. You’re practically indestructible unless you catch pneumonia or rabies.”
Damned rabies. “I’m a walking catastrophe, Perkette.”
“You’re also a one-woman bomb squad. Got a bomb?
You can eat the explosives. I’ve watched the tests.
You can disarm most bombs through eating the payload.
You only run into trouble when they have sensitive detonators.
Even then, shrapnel-based bombs tear you up a bit, but you heal like a champ, and you ignore the concussive burst. Even the shrapnel doesn’t hurt you that much.
The assholes who shoot at you for screwing with their bombs have done more damage.
The CDC has you playing on their bomb squads on live runs whenever the NYPD isn’t around to snitch on them to Sam. ”
“Yeah. They don’t want Quinn to know about that,” I muttered. “He would not handle it well. At all.”
“I only know that because you needed my help learning how to read a bomb schematic. Look, Bailey. If it’s hazardous, you can handle it when a unicorn. You’ve been shot how many times now?”
I held up three fingers. The CDC had pulled out all the stops making the evidence disappear so Quinn wouldn’t catch on to what they were doing—and paying me to do. “They weren’t that bad. People get so offended when I eat their bombs for some reason.”
“Your Sam is a lot of things, but he isn’t indestructible.
You know the rules and regs as well as most cops.
You’ve been on crime scenes plenty, so you’re familiar with basic procedure.
Your record is so clean it squeaks when you rub it.
Add in your budgeting brilliance, and they’d be stupid not to want you.
With you, they get a motivated bodyguard, a bomb squad, and emergency transportation.
The puppy he got you is probably a police dog in training or a reject. ”
“Neither Sunny nor Blizzard are rejects.”
“You got Blizzard out of a dumpster.”
“This is me not caring.”
“In good news, you’re handling this a lot better than I thought you would.”
“Salary,” I blurted.
“What?”
“For the first time in my adult life, I’ll have a salary.”
“Seriously? That’s what you’re worried about? Having a salary?”
“I figured hoping for stable hours would be asking for too much.”
Perkette laughed. “You never fail to amaze me, Bailey.”
“I don’t know how to be a cop,” I whispered.
“Sam barely did, either. Now look at him. You’re a quick study. You’ll figure it out. Just think about it this way. You get more free education. I swear, if you thought you could get away with it, you’d be a lot like me, learning everything you could just because you can.”
“I think I’ve had my fill of free education after all that bomb squad training. Quinn doesn’t know I’ve been a bomb squad gopher for the CDC. Please don’t tell him. He’ll freak out.”
“He’s going to find out, probably around the same time the CDC clues in they sent their living cleanup crew to the NYPD permanently. In good news? Your ex-boss is going to get into a lot of shit for losing an important asset to the NYPD.”
“He’s basically at the top of the chain, Perkette.”
“The politicians will eat him alive.”
“Why would they even care?”
“Could you have some limits to your self-esteem issues, please?”
“I’m being realistic here. Clemmends won’t even get a slap on the wrist for getting rid of me.”
“He most certainly will the next time there’s a major incident.”
I scowled. “I’ve had my fill of major incidents for a lifetime.”
“Me, too. Fine. You’ll figure it out on your own eventually. I’m sick of driving through the snow. Develop magic that can fix this travesty.”
“I will transform and poke you with my horn so you drive faster and complain less.”
“It’s rare I say this, but your threats don’t actually need any work.”
“I’m so glad I’ve earned your approval.”
“Your sarcasm is in good form, too.”
“Perkette, you’re being evil again.”
“I’ll feed you some good napalm later. I have a recipe, and it only takes twenty minutes to make.”
It occurred to me that adding a puppy to the mix ruined our plans to gallop across half the country. “I made a mess of our plan. I can’t carry a rider and a puppy, and Blizzard can’t run that far. He’s just a puppy.”
“Bailey, our plan had the general coherency of two drunks on a pixie dust high. Don’t worry about it. Just tell your man we’re going to the zoo to see if they have any lions or tigers up for adoption.”
“We’re not adopting a lion or tiger.”
“You adopted a rabid puppy from a dumpster. A lion or tiger could happen.”
“If I find a stray lion or tiger in a dumpster, I may change my mind,” I admitted. “Or a panther, cheetah, leopard, or cougar. How about a lynx or bobcat? They’re kinda cute.”
Perkette giggled. “Let’s make this trip fun.”
“No.” Fun, in Perkette’s twisted world, landed me into trouble.
“Don’t be a spoilsport. You need some fun in your life.”
“We ran away because I was having too much fun.”
“Wrong type of fun.”
“Perkette, will you please be serious?”
“I am! You’re a wayfinder. Use your magic to find the next little one destined to be adopted into your family.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“What do you mean by that? Of course it works that way.”
“Specific people, places, or things only.”
“That’s a pretty shitty limitation. What happens if you try for something unspecific?”
“Nothing happens.”
“So there’s no harm in trying, right?”
I sighed. Giving in to the inevitable would make my life easier. It wouldn’t work, so what was the harm in indulging her? “Fine. I’m going to need a map, ink, some chalk, and a piece of paper. But don’t complain later when nothing happens. I warned you.”
Quinn
When asked what they wanted to eat, Beauty and Sylvester stared at me with wide, hopeful eyes. I braced for the horror my life would become with their next words.
Gorgons could eat just about anything, and whelps often took their dietary adventurism to extremes.
“Nuggets?” they whispered in unison.
Somehow, I’d won the lottery of life.
“McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, or from somewhere else?”