Page 85 of Playing with Fire

“All right. The cindercorn is apparently cold and has its head stuck in your car. I’ve got nothing, Mel. Did you really put a blanket on it?”

“It was cold. What else were we supposed to do? Is this cindercorn a risk?”

“You hear about 120 Wall Street?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“That was the work of a cindercorn.”

Silence. I would have preened but posturing took too much effort.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. Just don’t piss it off. Maybe it’ll get bored and wander off?”

“How did the NYPD deal with their cindercorn problem?”

“Theirs wasn’t a problem, for starters—they didn’t have a wild animal. I’m not sure about the details, but I think it was one of their agents maybe? Anyway, I think they used blowtorches and a spotlight or heat lamp.”

Officer Melissa sighed. “Hell, why not? We’ve had an incubus on a high tonight already. A cindercorn needing a heat lamp is nothing compared to that.”

No kidding.

Chapter Twenty

>You can eat this nice steak instead of my hand.

A heat lamp lured me out of the cruiser. With a contented sigh, I curled around it and went to sleep. A stronger source of heat roused me, and I lifted my head seeking it. A bright point of fire caught my eye. I staggered to my feet to get closer to it. A cop dangled a raw, bloody piece of steak in front of a blowtorch, and the scent of searing meat woke my hunger. I pursued the man to a horse trailer, snapping my teeth at the treat.

“That’s right, come on in. I got some nice warm blankets for you in here, and you can eat this nice steak instead of my hand,” he murmured, his tone soothing.

My desire for the steak got me into the trailer, and while I flattened my ears, I resisted the temptation to nip him. I took the steak gently with my teeth and held it in my mouth while hunting for a spot to set it down so I could rip chunks off it. I spotted a generator near the back of the trailer and plopped the steak on it, lifted my hoof, and pinned the meat so I could devour it.

Two braver cops strapped a horse blanket on me and added heated blankets on top of it. I licked the generator clean, my head nodding as the warmth seeped into me.

Instead of jail, the cops took me to a stable with an indoor arena. Large, overhead lamps heated the air, and a ring of heat lamps warmed a circle of sand. I waited long enough for an amused cop to strip the blankets off me before I charged the circle, hopped over a lamp, and went to work digging a hole so I could bury myself in the sand.

Perfect.

The cops needed a gold star or whatever they got when they did a good job. Tucking my hooves close to my body and resting my nose near my belly, I basked in the heat and returned to the serious business of dozing off. I cracked open an eye whenever anyone approached. Most of them were curious cops, and they stayed outside of my ring of heat lamps.

The two men in suits worried me. I lifted my head, turned my ears back, and bared my teeth in warning. Neither showed sign of leaving, and they stared at me. I stared back.

One of the cops joined the duo.

“You’re definitely correct, Officer Andrews. That is definitely a blazer—a cindercorn, as you call it.”

A second cop trudged across the sand and joined the group. “Did I miss anything?”

“No, sir. We’ve determined she’s a female, but this is the first time she’s been responsive or interested in us.”

I assumed the new cop was a higher rank than the first to warrant the sir, so I focused my attention on him. “That’s probably a good thing. Rumor has it the males are meaner.”

Officer Andrews shrugged.

I snorted, and smoke trailed from my nostrils. “No proof. No close stud-ee. All stud-ee know is u-nee-corn eat meat, burn, like fire. Warm-er now. Thank you.”

The humans stared at me in slack-jaw shock.

Was my talking that startling?