15. I can’t win this one, can I? #2
“You may have been meddled with by an incubis, an archangel, the Devil, and a gorgon-incubus doohickey. Please don’t do anything heinous to my gorgon-incubus doohickey. It’s my own damned fault we’re having twins.”
“But seriously, Bailey? Quadruplets? Do you hate me?”
“I wouldn’t call it hate. I call it correcting some unfortunate past events barring you from having entire flocks of children.
Upon my close and careful evaluation of the situation, I have decided you want entire flocks of children.
I recommend adopting a few to help boost your flock numbers.
Adoption is great. I managed to convince Quinn we really needed to adopt a young gorgon lady yesterday.
Her name is Annie, and she’s coming home with us because she is too old to go back to her father’s hive, so we’re going to keep her until she’s placed with an appropriately nice gorgon gentleman. ”
“Seriously, Bailey? Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Goodness gracious. I took you on a single road trip, and you evolved into a terrifying demoness capable of taking over the world. I am so proud of you. You hoodwinked me!”
“I think my gorgon-incubus doohickey did the majority of the hoodwinking. I’m innocent. I didn’t find out anything until after. I’m just claiming credit because that is totally something I would do, given a single opportunity.”
“You really would. Arthur was all smug with me yesterday. The bastard knew, yet he made me freak out and go to the hospital because I threw up at the smell of wine.”
“Wine isn’t good for mommas.”
Perkette wailed. “My drinking days are done. Over. Gone, forever!”
“Only until after you breastfeed. Apparently, pregnant cindercorn care is ridiculously complicated. Sam asked me to call you because he needs your napalm recipe. Pregnant cindercorns require it. I run really hot and need the fuel to keep going. And when divines tell my husband I should be rationed napalm and poisons, apparently, he listens.”
“Poisons?”
“That part is easy. I just play with gorgon snakes until they bite me. We’re adopting a gorgon woman until we can match her with a suitable husband, so she can help with that.
She was in a bad spot, and she’s too old to go back to her father’s hive permanently.
The kids can also help once we get them back from his grandfather.
My gorgon-incubus doohickey is only whining a little over how his snakes don’t get exclusive biting rights.
” I regarded my left hand with a scowl. “Annie’s snakes had to do a lot of biting yesterday, so I’m a pincushion.
I had a left hand. It’s now full of holes. ”
“It sounds like you’ve had an adventurous few days.”
“Yeah. My asshole parents tried to light our house on fire, and the fuckers hurt my roses. They were arrested. My roses should survive, but it is taking an archangel and the Devil working together to make that happen. Don’t panic that we went into your house and took our car.”
“I had noticed the alarm was disabled, and we did see footage of the Quinns having their way with our house. Do we need to come back from Vegas?”
“It’s okay. We’re playing around in New England. I made Sam eat sea bugs! He liked them.”
“You actually got him to eat seafood?”
“Not only did he eat it, he liked it.”
My husband sighed. “You were right. Sea bugs are delicious.”
“I love when he tells me I’m right. Sea bugs are delicious, and I proved it to him.
We had a really nice dinner last night. It included many varieties of sea bugs.
” It had also cost a small fortune, but while I’d floundered, my husband had paid the bill without missing a beat.
Had pixie dust worked on me, I would have taken a dose to get over the excess.
I’d even been aware of ordering ridiculously expensive food, but I’d been so excited to feed something new to him I hadn’t computed how much our gluttony would cost.
“Good. He needs some spice in his food life. So. Sam is the guilty party?”
“I fully support my husband’s decision to create mayhem in the form of unexpected children. I was too busy conspiring for twins,” I admitted.
“You were conspiring for twins when you haven’t gotten used to having two children yet, so you thought you’d have me deal with quadruplets?”
“I support his decision!”
My husband laughed. “Just route the phone through the speakers, Bailey. I’m man enough for this conversation.”
“If I hang up on you, it’s my fault. Quinn wants to join the conversation.”
“Okay.”
After some fiddling and a few curses, I managed to make the vehicle do what I wanted. “Okay. There. Can you hear me?”
“Sure can. You’re in so much trouble, Samuel Leviticus Quinn!”
“I volunteer my family to help babysit,” he replied.
“You are no longer in any trouble,” Perkette announced.
I laughed. “Are you feeling okay otherwise?”
“So far. I’ve been a moody mess, which is why I ultimately went to the hospital this morning.
Apparently, being a moody mess is what happens when you have ovaries and a functional uterus you didn’t have in November.
Then my husband started snickering. That’s when he assigned some blame to one of the Quinns. ”
My husband chuckled. “I’ll accept a lot of the responsibility.
Had I known you wanted children, I would have had the problem fixed long ago.
Any incubus or succubus can do the work.
I’m not as good at it, so I had Arthur ask my grandfather.
My uncle helped. They actually started messing with you before Christmas.
There’s no guesswork on the conception date, if you’d like to give that to your doctors.
That said, your real doctors have been preselected for you, and I’d like to see a human beat an archangel at the baby game, especially my grandfather, who will do just about anything for an invitation to babysit children. ”
“Can I thank you in a few days after I deal with a ridiculous number of tests? You know how tests make me when I’m not the one conducting them, Sam.”
“You’re welcome, Tiffany. My wife is innocent this once, though. She was too busy hoodwinking me for twins with my other relatives to be able to hoodwink you into having quadruplets.”
“I’ll come up with a suitable present. There aren’t really any standard treatments for my problem.”
“Outside of an incubus or succubus, and those are expensive.”
“It would have been five million,” Perkette replied. “I’d looked into it before marrying Arthur, and Arthur was okay with what we couldn’t have, and well, who has that sort of money?”
I choked on my own spit. “It’s how much for what?”
“It’s five million for that level of miracle unless you get lucky and an incubus or succubus decides to take pity on you. I’ve never gotten lucky. That’s pretty rare, but it does happen.”
I grumbled curses. “That’s insane.”
“It is what it is. I mean, no ovaries is a pretty big stumbling block. I’m going to have to explain this to my mother.
She’s going to accuse me of having slept with the Devil.
And then Arthur is going to laugh. I’ll have to tell her no, I slept with Arthur, but the Devil may have involved himself, and that’s just going to be an interesting discussion. ”
I dug out my personal laptop, booted it up, and opened the word processor.
“So, Perkette. How exactly does a strong, manly gorgon-incubus doohickey make my favorite treat? I need napalm, and he wants to be able to make it himself. You know, in case we can’t swing by the CDC and get them to give it to me. ”
“Despite her grumpy attitude about that, the CDC is allowing her to have napalm. I’d just feel better if I can make it myself.”
“Well, which grade do you want and how expensive do you want her treats? I have varying recipes.”
“Start me with a lower grade and work me up to better grades.”
“Okay. This one isn’t a terrible grade, it’s cheap, and it’s easy enough for manly gorgon-incubus doohickeys to make. Go to a camping store and get a big jug of the camping gel.”
“Methanol?” Quinn asked.
“Yeah. Methanol gel. You can get the pink stuff, too. Either works for this. Mix that with equal parts diesel, a quarter part neutralizer, and hot sauce. The hot sauce is only because Bailey likes hot things and I thought it was amusing, so I added it. Once you have that all mixed together, seal it up in a container so the fumes don’t kill you.
I recommend you use a practitioner trick to contain the fumes.
They’re a problem with this mixture. Get some charcoal, grind it up or smash it, and add it to the mixture.
Quarter part. Then add a quarter part of lighter fluid.
Use a cup as a part, and that’ll give her enough to cause some trouble and have a good time without the extreme hangover—hopefully. ”
“Napalm hangovers are the worst,” I complained.
“Well, you be careful making that for her, Sam. It’s toxic, and the only reason I get away with making it is because of practitioner tricks. If you can’t do the tricks, I’ll make several batches and put them in sealed containers for her enjoyment.”
“I can handle the required practitioner tricks, so don’t worry about that. How about the higher grade napalm?”
Perkette listed more ingredients, how much needed to be added of each, and the extra precautions needed to mix the stuff without asphyxiating in the process. “I recommend against mixing it until you need it, unless you’re really good at sealing in fumes.”
“I’ll be careful,” my husband promised. “And I will ration out her treats in acceptable quantities.”
“Good idea. Ah, bugger. I have to go back into the hospital gauntlet, where I’ll get yelled at for my age in addition to the appearance of ovaries I shouldn’t have. Wish them luck. If they keep pissing me off, they’re going to need it!”
She hung up before we could say a word, and I saved the formulas for the napalm. “Maybe we should have given her a little more warning.”