18. He’s not the brightest crayon in the box. #4
Whinnying my laughter, I got up and went to the bucket, taking a tentative bite to test it.
It burned in the best ways possible, and I abandoned my manners to get the sparkling gel into my stomach.
I licked the bucket clean. Before I had a chance to whine over my treat being gone, the tech grabbed it, refilled it, and dumped another large-sized bottle of hot sauce into the mixture before stirring.
He made me wait a full minute before giving it to me, and I almost choked in my hurry to eat it before it got taken away from me.
“They’re not going to take your treat away, my beautiful.
It makes no sense for them to stop gassing up the only real cindercorn present when they need you to light fires for them.
Take your time,” my husband chided. “While you do that, I’m going to go give our new wolf a neutralizer bath and see about feeding him some more. ”
Alan pointed at one of the vans parked nearby.
“They can help you with that. I’ll keep an eye on her and make sure she’s running hot enough to light the napalm.
We’re on a timer with this blend, and I’d rather not lose two tankers of capsaicin along with our napalm.
The snow will help, though. We’re going to use it to replicate the napalm, and we’ll use lake water as needed to make sure we have full coverage. ”
“This very big fire.”
“Our active burn zone will be approximately seventy thousand acres. Some zones are wider than others. We’re trying to limit it to the areas with complete loss of wildlife.
” The tech went to the tanker and returned with a map, which he showed me.
It featured Long Lake in the middle with the burn zone colored red while the neutralizer zone was colored blue.
The blue zone went beyond my expectations from Professor Yale’s descriptions of what would burn and what would be salvaged.
“Bigger than thought?”
“We’ve had as many personnel checking around the area as we can, and we’re redrawing the burn and neutralizer zones accordingly.
The burn zone has grown substantially, and I expect we’ll be adding another five thousand acres along the northern shore, which was hit particularly hard,” the tech explained.
“You’re going to have your work cut out for you, and we’re prepared to make a gap in the shield if you need more fuel to keep lighting the napalm.
You’ll need to encourage the burn spread, so you’ll have to do a pattern from barrier to barrier to make sure everything gets lit.
We think once you get a quarter of it lit, firestorms will begin igniting and help your efforts.
We have a few practitioners on hand who will be attempting to encourage the development of fire twisters within the shield. ”
“Oh. That cool. Sad we must burn so much, but very cool. Hot. Very hot. Yes, much hot.”
The tech chuckled. “This won’t be too bad.
After you’re done and we’ve extinguished the burn zone, we have a bunch of trainee firefighters who’ll get in some practice, and once they’re done practicing, the novice practitioners will get to do cleanup.
They’ll start mass replanting in the spring, and within a year, nobody’ll know this place was reduced to ash. ”
“Much cool!”
Yale checked my bucket, which I’d emptied of napalm again. “Drunk yet?”
I thought about it before shaking my head. “Hot. Run much. Make barrier, eat while pumping. Make super drunk, super hot cindercorn!”
“Oh boy,” Yale muttered. “May somebody forgive me this, but give the cindercorn what she wants. Get the tone going. Maybe the sound will scare the little surviving wildlife away. Have fun, Bailey, but try not to have too much fun.”
“I have all the fun. You have the magic orange medicine.” I trotted to the rental to check on my pets, who played in the back seat.
Somehow, the ocelot battled wolf and husky and managed to stay on top, ruling over her furry friends with an iron paw.
“Make sure rental safe. No burn rental or puppers or kitten.”
“Your pets will be safe,” Yale promised.
I consumed so much napalm I wanted to die, but the blessed bender never came.
I wanted to wade into the lake and mourn for my non-existent bender, but the barrier blocked me from reaching the water.
Whining over my foul luck won me exactly nothing, and I plodded along the shoreline in search of anything living, but I found nothing.
I could only hope the bone-deep thrumming tone warning of mass destruction scared the living animals away.
The CDC brought in aerial tankers to help spread napalm faster, and the pink, sparkly, and spicy gel rained down, splattering onto the snow-laden trees and shimmering in the air. Had I not known its purpose, I would have thought it was beautiful.
I considered that as some napalm splattered onto my nose and I licked it off. No, the gel was beautiful, but it would destroy all it touched, which made me sad.
I preferred when such beautiful destruction was limited to the works of man rather than nature.
To test if I could light the napalm, I transitioned from a walk to a canter, weaving through the trees until my coat burst into flame. The napalm raining from the sky ignited when it came into contact with me, and pools of fire spread around me.
Perfect.
With nothing else to do, I waited.
No napalm bender equaled no hangover, but no napalm bender also equaled general exhaustion.
I made three circuits around Long Lake before I managed to get the fire lit sufficiently for the inferno to gain a life of its own.
Playing in the flames amused me, but within an hour, I grew bored, wandered to the barrier closest to my husband and pets, and rolled around in the smoldering ash while complaining over the unfairness of it all.
Quinn approached the shield, chuckling his amusement at my antics. “Problem, my beautiful?”
“Tiny terrors steal my bender,” I whined. “Now it just work, work, work. Work, work, work, work. More work. And more work. Run hard, fire burn. Bored. Not be bored if bendering!”
“I won’t argue with that. You all right?”
“Bored.”
“How terrible for you, to be bored but safe. I grieve for you.”
“Sarcasm in good form today, Queeny. Do more.”
“I’ll think about it. Are you all right?”
“Snow gone, no bender. Hungry.” I flopped and stretched out my neck until my nose touched the barrier. “Why sound pass but not fire or ash?”
“Magic.”
Right. Of course. “Hungry.”
My husband checked his phone. “Even after that much napalm?”
“Run a lot, napalm all gone. No bender. Life not fair.”
According to the sounds coming from Quinn’s phone, he was taking pictures of me.
“You will be pleased to find out a standard rabies treatment eradicated the disease in our new pet wolf. However, he’s very ill, so he’s going to a CDC vet to see how they can aid in his recovery.
I’m going to end up begging my grandfather to help heal your new pet wolf.
After they bring the barrier down, which will be in about thirty minutes judging from the burn rates around the lake, we will both get treated for rabies.
Our pets are not being treated, but we’ll be returning the rental in a suspicious shade of pink they’ll eventually get washed off.
The CDC has contacted the company so we’re not responsible for damage to the paint, as they’ll repaint the vehicle if needed.
They’re saying they claimed our rental for official business.
After that, we get to go on our merry way.
So, my beautiful, where would you like to go for the rest of our actual vacation? ”
“Home. I done with vay-cay-shun! No more vay-cay-shun. Tired.”
“Sure, my beautiful. We can go home.”
I got to my hooves and shook myself off. “Get map. One more task. Chalk, ink, map, paper, and marbles.”
“Ah. Dowry’s uncle.”
“Yes. Find uncle and then go home. Or at least a general location, then go home, sleep for week, and then go to location?”
“You’re so tired.” My husband headed off, returning several minutes later with my box of wayfinding tricks.
He sat in the snow near the barrier and put down a towel.
Once he had that situated to his liking, he spread out a map of the United States, set a sheet of paper beside it, got out the ink vial and opened it, and pulled out a stick of chalk.
“Okay. What do you want me to do with this stuff?”
I pointed a claw at the map. “Crush chalk, dump on map.”
Quinn obeyed, and he crushed it in one hand with little effort before brushing off his hands and leaving a dusty pile all over the map.
“Sexy,” I stated. “Crush with no effort. Much manly. All mine.”
He laughed. “If that’s all it takes to make you think I’m sexy, I’ll crush chalk for you whenever you want.”
I glared at the map and paper. “Where Dowry missing uncle? Be nice, magic, much tired, no games. No games, be nice. Guide me to Dowry missing uncle. Or give add-dress. Add-dress good. Alive or dead also good. No more mean magic. Please.”
My husband laughed so hard he doubled over. “Every time I think I can’t possibly love you any more, you go and do something like that.”
I glared at the pile of chalk, the paper, and ink, which did absolutely nothing.
“Now!” I barked at the uncooperative supplies.
My order only made my husband laugh harder, and he fell over into the snow.
Maybe my husband wasn’t taking me seriously, but my magic decided to behave itself.
A shimmering, pink blotch appeared on the map, and black text appeared on the paper, which I couldn’t read between my unwillingness to lift my head from where I sulked on the ground and the shimmering barrier dividing me from my husband. “Stop laughing, start reading.”
It took him several minutes, but he sat up, picked up the paper, and read it. “Well, according to this, he’s alive, there’s a name, there’s a phone number, and an address in Delaware.” Quinn referenced the map. “And the pink splotch on the map is over Delaware.”
“Can I nap now?”