Pyromantic Read online

  “What’s all that?” I asked.

  “Personal protective equipment,” Alistair said, not looking at me. “PPE.” He had his hand on his chin, and he was absently chewing on his thumb. “Since we don’t know how or what this thing is or how it’s spreading, we can’t chance infection. Which means a body suit, gloves, a respirator, et cetera.”

  “Is the doctor one of us?” I asked.

  Bianca shook her head. “Human. You remember Dr. Wesley?”

  It was hard to forget someone who’d helped patch you up post–disinfection shower. “I do remember her, yes.”

  “We brought her to the Coterie when Alistair took over. She’s well paid and loyal, and she’ll fake whatever paperwork we need to get Howie buried. Dr. Wesley has been on my personal payroll for a long time. Her assistant is a witch, though.”

  “Aw, man, that’s Howie?” I took renewed interest in the corpse, though I couldn’t see anything. The doctor appeared to be finished. She’d pulled up the sheet, covering the body. “I was hoping he’d make it.”

  Alistair sighed and dropped his hand. “The cold temperature we were keeping him at slowed it down but didn’t stop it. He got aggressive, and it was too much of a risk to keep him alive.” He turned away from the window and collapsed into a plastic chair.

  “If the doc’s human, why bother with the PPE?” I asked.

  Alistair rubbed the back of his head with one hand. “Until we have definitive proof that this thing can’t be spread to humans, I’m not taking any chances.”

  “Did you tell him about the ogre?” I asked Bianca.

  “I did not tell him about the ogre.” Bianca brought him a glass of water from the cooler and took a seat next to him, filling him in on the fight. “We’re reasonably sure the ogre was infected.”

  Alistair had set his water on the table without drinking it and dropped his head into his hands. “Great, wonderful. Did any of you come into contact with it?”

  “I try to avoid contact with rampaging ogres,” I said drily.

  Alistair huffed—it might have been a soft laugh, but I wasn’t sure.

  “But he sneezed on Sid and Bianca.”

  Alistair eyed the caulbearer, the alertness in his eyes the only sign that he was panicked at all. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I just took a snot bath,” Bianca said with a shrug. “Otherwise I’m dandy.”

  Alistair considered her, not buying her casual assurance. “You don’t leave until the doctor checks you out. You either, Sid.”

  There was a soft whoosh, and the doors down the hall opened, revealing Dr. Wesley. She was as I remembered her—medium build, her skin a rich, warm brown. Despite her serious appearance, I could see the faintest hint of laugh lines around her mouth. She’d pulled her hair up into a no-nonsense bun, and she was holding a clipboard.

  Alistair leapt to his feet, holding out his hand for the doctor to shake. “Dr. Wesley, thank you again for coming in. I know we’ve kept you hopping this week, and we appreciate your dedication.”

  “Well, at least you’ve been interesting. It isn’t every day I get to take someone apart and find something new.” She had the faint glow of triumph about her.

  “So you know what he had?” Alistair looked relieved.

  Dr. Wesley held up a hand in a stopping motion. “Not exactly, but since you were able to bring me an intact specimen, I can give you something. The rest will have to wait until I’m able to run more tests, but it looks like your boy caught himself some type of fungus.”

  “Gross.” When everyone turned to look at me, I added, “Well, it is.”

  “Gross, yes. Fascinating? Absolutely. From what I’ve learned over the years about were physiology, that fungus shouldn’t be possible. Their systems are very efficient at flushing out foreign contaminants: viruses, you name it. But this thing was hale, hearty, and eating away at his brain.”

  “See?” I said, nudging Lock. “Totally gross.”

  “Which explains a lot of the symptoms you mentioned,” the doctor continued. “There was severe damage to the limbic system—that’s the part of the brain that controls things like aggression. With the kind of damage Howie had, I’m not surprised that he’d lost upper-level thought processes. In fact, much longer and I bet he wouldn’t have been able to walk.”

  I suddenly had the mental image of Howie crawling along the floor, biting everyone’s ankles. It should have been funny, but instead I shuddered. Alistair and the doctor kept talking, and I did my best to listen in, but something was tugging away at the recesses of my mind. Something about fungus. Wait. That was it.

  “Bats!” In my excitement, I may have yelled it. To their credit, everyone simply turned in my direction and waited for me to finish my thought. “What I mean is, we watched a documentary on bats the other day. And they had this fungus.”

  “White-nose syndrome,” Bianca supplied.

  “Yes, that. And they were having a hard time containing it—the bats kept going from cave to cave and spreading it. Well, what if the snails had something? What if the snails have some sort of magical fungus?”

  “That seems like a pretty big leap,” Alistair said. “And we have no proof.”

  “No, not yet,” I said. “But like Sylvie said, all this stuff showed up at the same time. The two might be connected. So now that we know we’re looking for snails and fungus, we could go back to different hot spots and look for evidence.”

  Dr. Wesley fished a pen out of her top pocket and made a note in the chart. “It is possible, Alistair. While I’m running the samples I collected, I’ll see if anything similar has been reported to the CDC, but I doubt it has. I do think this fungus is new and built specifically to go after magical species, for lack of a better term. Your theory would support that.” She put her pen away. “In fact, from everything Alistair has been telling me, I’m wondering if it’s similar to certain parasites that feast on a host and then encourage behaviors that would bring the host body into contact with other viable hosts and food sources.” She pursed her lips. “Like how Toxoplasma gondii will infect a rat and then convince the rat that it’s attracted to the smell of cat urine. The cat then eats the rat, and the parasite lives on. For some reason, they can only reproduce in the feline gut. There’s also a kind of hairworm that infects grasshoppers and then forces them to throw themselves into water. The grasshopper drowns, and the worm is free to continue its life cycle.”

  “I will literally pay you ten dollars to stop giving us examples,” I said. The doctor held out her hand, palm up, and I fished out two fives.

  “If that’s true,” Lock said, “then how is it getting passed along? If the snails eat magic, how is the fungus getting anywhere?”

  I frowned. “I’m not sure. Maybe the snail dies before it can eat, forcing the fungus to infect a new host?”

  “Someone get me a snail,” the doctor said, pointing her pen at us, “and I’ll get your answers. I know a biologist we can trust. We need to figure out how the creatures are getting contaminated, or coming into contact with the infected fungus. These things don’t just appear. You have a hot zone somewhere. Find it.” She pocketed the cash. “As many samples as you can get me—one subject does not generate enough data for me to make sweeping pronouncements.” She headed for another set of doors. “Be careful, though. I’m not sure how long this fungus takes to gestate or how it’s spread. Could be airborne, could be a more intimate contact.” She nodded at Bianca and Sid. “You two—my assistant will be out in a second to fetch you. Give me a few minutes, and then we’ll get you both checked out. Good luck.” And with that cheery pronouncement, she disappeared through the doors.

  “Well,” I said, “I certainly feel better. Who’s up for some fungus hunting?” Bianca and Lock raised their hands.

  Alistair crossed his arms. “Sid, Bianca, you get checked out first.”

  “But snail hunting,” Bianca whined. “Come on, I feel fine.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment
before Alistair folded. “You can’t avoid hospitals forever, B.”

  “But I can for now.”

  Alistair dropped his arms. “Fine, yes. But before the snail hunt begins, we need to have a quick chat with that witch of Sylvie’s. I’m very curious to hear what he has to say.” Alistair shooed us along. “All right, class. Let’s go. Everyone grab a traveling buddy.”

  17

  SOMETIMES THE WARTS ARE ON THE INSIDE

  THERE ARE FEW THINGS stranger than seeing a kelpie sort and wind yarn, but that’s what greeted me when we found Sylvie. A now fully clothed Fitz was preparing the yarn for the table full of knitters. Olive, who had hitched a ride with us, joined him. I think she was curious about the kelpie. I recognized a few faces from around the Inferno and from the drove. The room was packed tight, between them, me, Alistair, Bianca, Sid, Ezra, and Lock. Alistair had commandeered the employee lounge at Broken Spines. The faint odor of new paint hit my nose as we walked in, almost entirely covered by the smell of coffee wafting over from the coffeemaker. Large windows let in streams of sunshine, which combined with the overhead lighting to give the knitters plenty of light to work by.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be on Team Knit?” I asked Sid.

  “They were actually able to round up a fair amount of knitters, so I think I’m supposed to float between Team Knit and Team Get Our Ass Kicked.”

  “I don’t think I care for our team name,” Lock said.

  Alistair had managed to get ahold of Sylvie’s aunt and, through her, the witch. I have a problem with stereotyping witches. Even though I know it’s just something you’re born with—an inherent power not unlike my own—I still imagine them like something in an old picture book. Warty noses, crazy hair, and bats in the belfry. Not to mention the awful teeth and the cackling. One must never forget the cackling. I’ve never, not once, met a witch that fit that definition, but the stereotype prevails in my mind. I think I’m secretly hoping to meet a witch like that someday.

  Sylvie’s witch turned out to be a polite middle-aged man named Thomas. Balding, bespectacled, and a little paunchy, he looked more like someone who would teach history in a high school than a witch. He was bent over Fitz’s cardigan, arguing with Sylvie. They were trying to keep their voices hushed, but from the sound of it Sylvie was convinced the witch could figure out something that would adjust the sweater’s sizing when the kelpies shifted, but the witch kept saying it wasn’t feasible.

  I think Sylvie was relieved to see us. She looked frustrated and two seconds from losing it, which was unlike her.

  “That man is infuriating,” she said, trying to not scowl. “He keeps saying it isn’t a reasonable idea—not that it’s impossible or anything. He just doesn’t think it’s worth the time or the energy. Even though the ability to change sizes would make it so the kelpies could share the cardigans more easily.” She crossed her arms. “I’m beginning to think he doesn’t like helping them, that my aunt talked him into it somehow in the first place.”

  Fitz and Olive had joined us while she vented. The kelpie considered the still-glowering Sylvie. “This witch, he upsets you?” In the short time we’d known him, Fitz had become viciously protective of Sylvie. It was kind of a relief, really. I’d been worrying about Sylvie being around all the Coterie folk. It’s a dangerous spot for a human. But a devoted kelpie bodyguard? You can’t buy that kind of protection.

  She sighed and relaxed her stance. “Yes, though I shouldn’t be letting it get to me. I’ve just been trying to talk to him about the sizing issue, and he’s being stubborn.”

  “He is afraid,” Fitz said. “I can smell it on him when I am near. This is only right. He should fear the kelpie. It’s his brain telling him that a better predator is near.” He gave Sylvie a little bow. “I will handle this. He will not listen to you because you are young, nice. He is used to pushing such people around. Since your way isn’t working, we will try mine.” Fitz bared his teeth. I was glad to not be Thomas right then.

  “How do you mean?” Sylvie asked, but Fitz was already moving away from us, sidling toward Thomas. Sylvie let out a frustrated huff before grabbing a ponytail holder and yanking her hair back. “Thomas is so frustrating. When I worked with him before, he wasn’t like this. He was falling all over himself to help my aunt. It was almost a little uncomfortable, like he had a crush on her or something. He even got some of his friends together to work on the problem. He seemed almost giddy about the whole thing. But now—” She cut herself off, her lips pressed tight.

  We all watched quietly as Fitz politely asked Thomas to explain the process and the problem. Thomas sputtered his way through the explanation while Fitz simply stood there. He was relaxed, calm, and attentive. No blustering or veiled threats. Yet when Thomas started listing reasons why he couldn’t do what Sylvie asked, he kept glancing over, as if expecting Fitz to bite his head off, probably literally. Thomas offered excuses, and Fitz stood there peacefully, locking him in place with a silent stare. His eyes were dark pools—they reminded me of a bayou at night, right before a gator surfaced and ate something onshore. Deep and dangerous waters. Thomas kept stumbling over his words. Fitz still said nothing. I saw the sweat bead on the witch’s brow as the kelpie stared him down. Thomas was definitely uncomfortable, but I guess who wouldn’t be with a kelpie standing so close to them?

  Finally, Thomas stopped talking and they both stared at each other silently. It wasn’t even a contest. Thomas broke first, muttering, “I’m sure I can figure something out.” Then he mopped his brow with a handkerchief.

  Fitz grinned and clasped the witch’s shoulder, making Thomas wince. “Aye, that sounds grand. I knew you’d come up with something. And the kelpies will surely be grateful.” He gave Thomas’s shoulder a squeeze before letting go. Thomas shuddered.

  Next to me, Sylvie pouted. “Why did that work? He just stood there.”

  “You’re not scary,” I said. “I take that back. You’re not obviously scary. Personally, I find you quite terrifying at times, but Thomas doesn’t know that. Whereas, with Fitz, he knows without a doubt that the kelpie would eat him raw and not lose a wink of sleep.”

  Sylvie’s face scrunched up in disgust. “That’s stupid. I might not be a witch or anything, but even I know that it’s the things that don’t look scary that you have to watch out for.”

  “True, but he knows for sure that Fitz is dangerous. He assumes you’re not.”

  “Assumptions are sloppy and unscientific,” Sylvie said, not mollified in the slightest.

  I nodded. “You are wise beyond your years, Sylvie. And I agree. I think it’s safest to just keep your eye on everyone.”

  “Well, I’m about ready to punch him. I might see if I can leave the group to it for a bit and go back to the cabin with you guys. I need a break. I have a headache from staring at patterns, and Thomas is driving me nuts.”

  “Might not be much of a break,” I said. “We’re taking your favorite witch with us. Alistair wants to speak with him about a few things.” I looked around for our new favorite person, and I realized I didn’t see him. Maybe Thomas had gone to the bathroom or something? Totally plausible, and yet I felt uneasy. Ezra and Lock seemed to pick up on this as they both came closer to me.

  “What is it?” Lock asked.

  I kept casting around, trying to pinpoint what was making me uneasy. Everything looked normal. The knitters were doing their thing. Sid was keeping an eye on Olive to stop her from “borrowing” things from the knitters. One of the group, an older woman with her gray-shot hair pulled up into a messy bun, was taking a stretch break. The windows were open and a pleasant breeze wafted through, the smell of summer coming in and diluting the tang of fresh paint.

  Nothing seemed wrong, and yet I still felt off center. “I don’t know.”

  The lady came up from her stretch and went to the cupboard, probably to get a glass. I heard a rattle, and I was moving before the woman started screeching. The cupboard she had opened was usually full of mugs,
but instead there was now a portal into the depths of … well, I wasn’t sure. It was deep, dark, and foul smelling, the stench of sulfur hitting the back of my tongue as I breathed in. There was a bellow of rage, bottomless and full of pure venom, a primordial base for the thing we evolved creatures call fear. The room grew hot, and a hand issued forth from the cupboard, scaly and red. I got an impression of too many fingers and too many claws, the scales reflecting the light in the room.

  My gut clenched as Sylvie walked right up to the horror. I screamed her name, but she ignored me, leaning in to get a better look into the maw of absolute darkness.

  She waved her hand right through the whole thing. “Now that is a neat trick.” As we all processed what had just happened, our own screaming finally stopped, the room growing quiet except for the hiss of the coffeemaker and the tick tick of the fan.

  Ezra nudged me. “Though I do admire your enthusiasm, my beautiful petal, you might want to ease off.”

  I looked to find my hands bathed in flame. I shook them to get the fire to die down before I clenched Sylvie’s shoulder and spun her to me. “Don’t ever do that again!”

  “How did you even know it was an illusion?” Lock asked.

  Sylvie reached past the hand and grabbed a mug for the hyperventilating woman who’d opened the cupboard to begin with. “It didn’t seem very likely that a portal to some mysterious place would suddenly open up in your brand-new cupboards. And when I looked closer, I could still see the mugs, which seemed even less likely. Therefore, it wasn’t real.” Sylvie eyed the woman with the mug, who looked ready to faint. “Would you like me to make you some chamomile tea? We could ice it since it’s a bit hot out.” The woman nodded, gulping air as she did. Lock eased her into a seat.