Page 110 of The Flame Game

Quinn stared down at the wolf, who had polished off our entire supply of food for Sunny and was working on Blizzard’s. “I know I asked for something to feed him, but I hope they’re anticipating how much a starved wolf can eat. He’s really well behaved, though.”

“Trained or transformative?”

“I think trained.” Quinn sat, clucked his tongue, and held out his hand. “Shake.”

The wolf immediately lifted his paw and placed it on my husband’s hand.

“Oh, knows trick!”

“He failed the sentience test.”

“You tested?”

“Yes. I gave verbal instructions to do something, and he just stared at me in confusion. But he knows shake and some other commands. So, he’s probably trained.”

“Why nice for us, not nice for Morrison?”

“No idea. Good taste in people, better sense for assholes.”

I eyed the wolf with interest. “Make police dog! With Sunny. I have two police dogs. He already do good work. Kill bad guy. I hire. Pay in bones, love, meat, and more love.”

My husband opened his mouth, his brows furrowed, and he closed his mouth, his teeth clacking together.

“Idea good, yes?”

“I’ll pitch the commissioner if he can be cured of rabies, but I’m not promising anything more than that.”

The first of the CDC’s vans rolled up, and the wolf whined, grabbing the rest of his meal in his paws and pulling it closer. I took the leash in my teeth so Quinn could handle the reps.

A cranky Professor Yale emerged from the front passenger seat, and Alan came out of the back.

My husband chuckled. “No hand shaking. I’m surely rabid now. Honestly, if you’re here, you’re infected. There are dead animals everywhere, and the wolf’s pretty sick.”

Alan crouched near the animal, careful to stay out of biting range, and turned his meter on. Within a minute, it squealed an alarm. “Yep. It’s the bad strain. Concentration is moderate. Is the animal already frothing?”

“There was froth, yes. He’s had some trouble chewing, but he’s been able to obey basic commands. He knows a few tricks. He’s generally wobbly, but he can move like he means it.” Quinn pointed at Morrison’s body. In the time it’d taken the CDC to arrive, snow had dusted his corpse. “I punched him in the nose because he pissed me off, but the wolf got the kill. I’ll verify with an angel, but he wanted to purge as many non-vanilla humans as possible, and he wanted Bailey for something. Unfortunately, after hearing about his desire to use rabies for population control purposes, I lost my temper and socked him. The wolf went after him then. Bailey wants him for a police dog. I believe she may think the wolf was protecting me.”

“Did good job, very good wolf. Just a little rabid.”

Yale lifted a hand and rubbed his forehead. “I’m too old for this, Bailey.”

“Me rabid with time. Much excited, yes?”

“No. The last thing anyone needs is to deal with a rabid cindercorn. I would rather force feed you napalm and set you loose in my living room.”

“Much napalm needed to burn entire lake.”

“We wouldn’t be burning the lake. We’d put a barrier between the shoreline and the water and protect as much of the water from the ash as possible. We don’t want to completely destroy the environment. But yes, we’re going to napalm the entire area.”

“How much area?”

“Three miles around the shore. The CDC has already begun making certain there is no human life to evacuate. While you’re burning that, we will be doing a neutralizer test using the next three miles of terrain; there are still some living animals after the three mile mark. If the test works, we’ll do mass treatments of wildlife. But this section is to be razed.”

“Sad,” I said, turning my head to stare at some of the lumps beneath the snow. “Why they all die in big mass?”

“We’re not sure. We’re going to grab a few of the bodies for autopsy, and we’ll do a full test on your wolf before we begin full treatments. I played ball when your husband mentioned you were wanting to adopt yet another rabid animal, so we’ll test treatments for late-stage rabies patients on him. That does not guarantee his survival, but that’s the goal. If the test treatment goes well, he’ll be our first proof of concept.”

I could live with that. “Okay. Accept. But CDC pay bill because not option, and CDC make care good. Like wolf. Wolf pet if no release to wild?”