Playing with Fire: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count)(34)

Sixty-two potential carriers and enough gorgon dust to infect Lower Manhattan in its entirety classified as a doomsday scenario to me. Even if I died along with them, the price was small to protect so many people. I could go out in a blaze of glory without a single regret.

If I died and my name was released to the public, my parents might even be proud of me—or at least satisfied by my demise. Not only would I be dead, I’d get five minutes of fame as a hero, and they’d take full credit for my actions. I turned my head and sank my teeth into the nearest chair, chewing at the upholstery so I wouldn’t snort flame and ignite the gasoline.

I forced my attention to my work, determined to survive so I couldn’t be used by the two people who hated me the most.

After I finished going through the identification cards, I took the camera and did a second inspection of the affected area. I eyed a sturdy-looking desk far enough away from the statues I wouldn’t risk knocking them over. Bracing for a potential collision with the floor, I jumped onto the desk, digging my claws into the metal surface. It held under my weight. From my higher vantage, I stuck my head into the ceiling to examine the glass drums.

How had the culprit gotten them into the office? A janitorial crew could do it over the course of a night or two. But why? Was an epidemic the goal? If so, the culprits had made a lot of assumptions about how decontamination worked. Assuming the cleaners were completely clueless, the neutralizer sprays would revert the newly whelped gorgons to flesh, triggering a petrification spree the likes of which New York had never seen.

From what I could recall, one in a thousand petrified by a gorgon carrier would become a newly whelped gorgon, although they wouldn’t be capable of infecting someone. Within days, there would be hundreds—maybe thousands—of new gorgons with no control over their abilities.

Manhattan would become a city of stone within a week.

Any trained and certified crew would use the meters, figure out gorgon dust was responsible, and initiate emergency protocols. Like me, the decontamination crew would end up living sacrifices to prevent the dust from spreading. The police would name them heroes along with the victims lost.

It hit home just how lucky I had been in my apartment. I could have easily been fried to mitigate the risk of the dust spreading. Had my precautions to prevent the dust from escaping made the difference between a stay in a glass coffin and a cremation?

I jumped off the desk and returned to the reception. Had the culprit assumed that the poor bastard stuck with doing the decontamination would be unwilling to issue a napalm order? Did they not know certified handlers could issue the order? I certainly hadn’t told anyone the most dangerous element of my side job, which involved signing my own death warrant.

Could my unicorn’s inherent affinity with fire spare me from immolation? I’d find out soon enough.

120 Wall Street shuddered again and something gurgled overhead. I turned to face the elevators in time to watch bursts of light surround the metal doors. Thick gray fluid pushed through the gaps. Sparks of gold and silver danced through the substance. Thin pseudopods of the fluid stretched out to coat the walls in a wet sheen.

Showtime.

Still carrying the camera in my mouth, I cantered down the hall in search of the stairwell. More sparkling ooze spilled through a doorway marked with a dark exit sign. The pungent stench of gasoline and other accelerants filled my nose. Had I been human, the first signs of asphyxiation would have begun. Instead, I drooled in the presence of so much fuel. Not only were they pumping napalm into the building, it was magic napalm. Surely magic napalm tasted better than its mundane counterpart. One lick wouldn’t change anything, would it?

I dropped the camera and lowered my head, sniffing at one of the outstretched pseudopods. It poked me in the nose. Snapping my teeth, I chomped off the end and went to work chewing on the gel. Heaven tasted a bit peppery with a sharp zing. My tongue warmed, and when I swallowed, heat ignited deep within and chased away all evidence of the cold that had plagued me since my transformation in the CDC headquarters. Its taste reminded me of everything I liked about lying in a nice cheery fireplace.

How could anyone dislike napalm? I took another bite, eager to stoke the warmth inside even hotter. A tingling rush spread through me, and I choked in my hurry to gulp down another swallow.

The napalm rippled around my hooves and tugged at my fur before sweeping towards the camera. I rescued it, but globs of the sparkling gel plopped off my chin onto the device.

Oops.

Maybe it still worked, so I kept it and went back to investigating the twenty-first floor while they finished their preparations to ignite the napalm. I found three stairwells, and all of them were filling with flammable gel. I adjusted my initial estimate of thousands of gallons to hundreds of thousands of gallons. Where were they getting so much napalm?

Probably water.

I hunted down the nearest bathroom, reared, and broke a sink to get to the water pipes. Sure enough, something gurgled in the wall. Bringing my hooves and horn into play, I ruptured the pipe, sending sparkling gel raining into the room. Abandoning the camera, I went on a destructive rampage, trashing sinks and toilets alike.

It didn’t take long before I was wading through several inches of the gel. Whinnying my delight, I dropped to the floor and rolled in the napalm. My saddle broke under my weight, and I chewed through the leather cinch to get rid of it. I left the bridle; it’d burn away soon enough.

The gel worked into my fur and warmed my skin, clung to my fur, and burned in my blood. I basked, bathing in it until it covered every inch of my body.