Playing with Fire: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count)(27)

“Fire!” I squealed. “Purr-key come with me?”

“Feel up for a decontamination job, Perkins?”

“For the record, I hate you both,” my new partner replied.





Chapter Seven





Whoever had designed 120 Wall Street must have been really hungry. “Big cake. What a waste. I can not eat that con-crete cake, Purr-key.”

I also couldn’t eat the huge crowd of people who surrounded the building and flooded Wall Street, ensuring we would be unable to reach the entrance without help or magic. I sighed, staring at the glass-fronted revolving doors, something I couldn’t maneuver through as a unicorn even if I wanted.

I hoped the two windows flanking the main entrance also doubled as doors, or I’d have to find a different way in—or use even more magic. Sighing again, I twisted my head around to wearily regard my rider.

“They really evacuated the entire building over some gorgon bile?” Perky echoed my sigh. “Lovely.”

Unless I wanted to wade my way through hundreds upon hundreds of people, I’d need to hitch a lift on a sunbeam and take Perky with me. My success with Quinn during the run offered the hope I’d manage the trick without incident. “Call cops there? Make room by door. I can get us there.”

“Really? Nice. You have some neat tricks up your sleeve as a unicorn, Gardener. Maybe we should keep some of those transformative pills handy so you’ll actually be useful around the station.”

“I will eat you, Purr-key.”

“No, you won’t. I’m stringy and wouldn’t taste good.” Shifting his weight in the saddle, Perky retrieved his phone and made a call. Within a few minutes, the cops blockading the door moved out of the way. “That good, Gardener?”

“Very. Hold tight, Purr-key. No fall. Would hurt.”

“Why am I already regretting my decision to come with you?”

“Purr-key is smart, that is why. You’ll be safe with me.” I stomped a hoof and picked my mark, bracing for the inevitable surge of motion and vertigo associated with zipping along at the speed of light from a stationary position. Teleporting with a rider was harder than I expected. In the future, I’d try to catch a ride on sunlight from a run. It was less disconcerting.

Perky yelped, groaned, and slumped over, his hands clutching at my neck and mane. His body shuddered, and he gagged.

Apparently, Perky didn’t handle teleportation magic nearly as well as Quinn. “No puke on me, Purr-key! That’s rude. Bad. I get to deal with enough bile here. Off, off! No puke on me!”

“I hate you, Gardener. I hate you so much.”

I believed it, but I opted to play along as though he meant it sarcastically, just in case he did. “You know you love me, Purr-key. I let you ride me, a u-nee-corn. I am most con-sid-er-ate. Now, off!”

To my relief, Perky managed to slide off my back without throwing up on me, although there was definitely a greenish cast to his skin. “I’m walking back to the station. No wonder the chief was so irritated. You did that to him, didn’t you? That should classify as torture.”

The man groaned and leaned against me, panting and swallowing in his effort to keep his stomach under control.

“Poor Purr-key. You stay here, feel better. But you ride back to station. You whine as much as the chief. Gor-gon bile po-tent. Stinky. You stay here and not be sick.”

“Chief Quinn will kill me if I let you go in there alone. There will be a murder—mine—and there will be no need for an investigation. Chief Quinn will hang my body in his office as an example for others. No, Gardener. You’re not going in alone.”

Why did humans insist on being so insufferably stubborn? I swung my head around in search of the nearest cop. “Chief cry if I go alone. You take Purr-key, I take someone else? Make every-one happy. I clean bile, your cop watch? Use ex-ting-guish-ur after I make fire?” I paused and sighed. “Yay. Bile.”

“Wow, Gardener. I had no idea it was possible to cram so much disgust and sarcasm into two tiny words.” Perky straightened and gave my shoulder a solid thumping. “Want us to take those contraptions off you before you go in?”

“No. I wear sad-dle and bri-dle. You need to ride back to station. So. Who goes with me?”

After a brief but intense huddle, two cops were assigned to go into the building with me. Both were armed with a pair of extinguishers, one meant for fires while the other contained pressurized neutralizer. One was a woman, pretty enough I suspected they used her as a spokesperson whenever possible, with her long brown hair tied into a tail.

She stood tall and proud, her chin lifted high, her gaze sweeping the crowds for any sign of trouble before she gave me her full attention. “Ma’am.”

I bobbed my head in a greeting. “Off-ee-sur.”

The second cop, stuck somewhere in his thirties and probably a candidate for a midlife crisis, stepped back, put his hands on his hips, and looked me over. “You’re a horse with a horn. What is with that… fur? I thought women were supposed to groom themselves before leaving for work.”

Perky straightened and drew in a breath. Before he could say anything, I swiveled my head around and bumped his chest with my nose.

If anyone was going to put the cop in his place, it’d be me. I concentrated so I could speak clearly. “I am a unicorn.” Professor Yale would have applauded my handling of a word with more than two syllables.