Page 63 of The Flame Game

Without any other sources of fuel to work with, I ate an obscene amount of underbrush before running around the garden and bucking to elevate my body temperature enough so I could begin the tedious process of checking the victims for anything of use before burning the contaminated clothing off them and prepare them to be treated with neutralizer and returned to flesh. My husband joined me as a cindercorn after locking our pets in the SUV with the window cracked open and the engine running so they’d stay toasty warm while we flirted with dust contamination.

I suspected the dust had been exposed to weather for long enough Sunny had detected the residual scent, which in such low concentration wouldn’t be able to petrify most people.

“Pretty stallion,” I observed after having lit several statues on fire enough to destroy the contaminated fabric. “Remind me to thank uncle. He make you pretty stallion.”

“Well, I am part incubus, Bailey. The whole point is to be irresistibly attractive.”

“Ir-res-ist-i-bly attr-act-ive, all for me. Like this math. Other math suck.”

Quinn laughed. “I’m sorry he hasn’t helped you with your English, though.”

“So rude you talk good.”

“I know. You can punish me later over it.”

I bucked, careful not to hit one of the statues. “Much punish!”

“You are such a one-track mind.”

“Your fault you gorgon-incubus doohickey.”

“I don’t mind taking the blame for this situation.”

Of course he didn’t. He enjoyed whenever I became frisky. Or friskier. Could anyone blame me for falling for his charms? I couldn’t be blamed for falling for perfection. “Just no show other lady-ees your per-fec-shun. Comp-e-ti-shun bad.”

“You’re so jealous.” Quinn nipped my shoulder. “Show me how to help so I can be shapeshifted back to human before the CDC arrives, especially if you don’t want to share me with others. I’m pretty sure half of the CDC’s evaluators are women.”

“Check clothes, light clothes on fire, but not big fire. Little snort. Little snort ignites clothes. Several little snorts may be needed. Big snort might hurt statue. Stone okay against little snort, might melt in big snort.”

“I’m going to need some help with this, Bailey. Show me a big snort so I know not to do that.”

I eyed a large patch of snow a safe distance from the statues, charged it, and exhaled, snorting a large burst of flame at the patch, which sizzled and evaporated in the intense heat. I then gave a small snort, which was enough to ignite the air in front of my nose without sending a big column of flame billowing at the ground. “This little snort. That big snort.”

“That is a very big snort,” my husband agreed before giving a little huff, which was like my little snort but smaller.

“A little harder, not much harder,” I prompted.

He obeyed, and he gave a little snort with the appropriate amount of flames to light the clothing on fire.

“That good, do that on statue after nosing through the fabric. We look for things not cloth. Like sharp pointy things. Or wallets.”

“For some reason, I don’t think we’re going to be finding any wallets, Bailey.”

“Can dream.”

“Sure, my beautiful. You can dream. The facial recognition system is working on the photographs now. We might have results before the CDC gets here with the neutralizer.”

We made it halfway around the house, taking turns torching the statues, when my husband came to a halt, turned his head, and snorted flame at some snow in a big enough cloud I recoiled, flattening my ears. “What? What?”

Quinn snorted again before turning his attention to one of the statues. “I know her.”

Shit. “Guess no need to look at com-pu-ter then. Who is she?”

“She’s one of Audrey’s friends, the daughter of a New York senator. Her name is Kendra. A nice enough woman, tends to prefer a vanilla way of life, but she was always pretty open about practitioners, general magic usage, and even pixie dust usage, so she’s not precisely like your asshole parents.”

“How long Kendra missing?”

“I wasn’t aware she was missing. She doesn’t live in Manhattan, and while she was a friend of Audrey’s, I didn’t see her often. Please be careful with her. She’s nice enough—and her father is actually a pretty decent man for a politician.”