by Martha Carr
Amanda folded her arms and nodded. “We missed the signal.”
“What the actual fuck?” the mustached trooper shouted and gestured wildly toward the flames. “You were supposed to stop it, not blow the building up for it!”
With a sniff, the dwarf turned to look at the blazing structure. “Ain’t anyone in there, right?”
“No, asshole. But the owner’s not gonna be happy.”
“Tell him to take it up with the feds.” He shrugged and smacked a fist against the open vehicle door in front of him. It slammed shut before he stalked between the baffled officers toward Sheila. Rex and Luther trotted behind him.
“Don’t worry about the details,” Lisa muttered as she and Amanda hurried after the bounty hunter. “The Bureau will get this cleaned up and we’ll give a statement with a cover story, all right?”
“No, it’s not fucking all right.”
“Hey. You’re off the hook here. Trust me, if anyone’s gonna bag that beast in the swamp, it’s him. You’re…” She looked over her shoulder at the devastation. “You’re lucky he got here.”
“The fuck?” The men stared after her and Amanda as the goo-covered Johnny climbed into the red Jeep. The man with the mustache whipped his wide-brimmed hat off his head and threw it on the ground. “Goddamn feds. All right. Call it in. Shit.”
Sheila’s engine roared to life before Amanda and Lisa had closed their doors behind them.
“Oh-ho, man!” Luther shook himself vigorously and sprayed water and mud all over the back of the Jeep. “That was intense.”
“That was a big motherfucker, Johnny.”
The dwarf glanced in the rearview mirror. “Watch it.”
“Oh, ʼcause of the pup? Sorry, pup.”
The girl chuckled.
Lisa turned to look at her, then frowned at Johnny. “She didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah, it’s what everyone ain’t sayin’.”
“And what’s—” She yelped as he jerked the Jeep in a tight circle and the tires squealed before he raced down the road toward his cabin. “Okay, now you’re doing that on purpose.”
“Naw. Now, I’m fixin’ to get home.” The dwarf looked in the rearview mirror. The half-dozen vehicles and their troops remained exactly where he’d left them, while Dan’s Market blazed in the background. And those idiots are simply standing there with their dicks in their hands. Come on.
Amanda grasped the windowless frame of her door and poked her head out to look behind them. A huge flock of herons rose from the trees deeper into the swamp. “Did you try to talk to it?”
He grunted. “If that thing could talk, kid, it was far more interested in disarmin’ me than sayin’ so much as a ‘how d’ya do.’”
“So you blew it up instead.”
“I like to keep things simple.” He shrugged. “And clean. Mostly clean.”
Lisa snorted. “Yeah, that doesn’t mesh with your ‘going after monsters’ MO.”
“Is it dead?” the young shifter asked and whipped her head back to frown in concern at the rearview mirror.
Luther’s mouth popped open and his tongue lolled out as a thin string of drool dripped from his muzzle onto the back seat beside the girl. “No way did a little fire hurt it, Johnny.”
“Made a lotta noise,” Rex added, “but it knew what to do with that second explosive.”
“Yeah. Ka-boom!”
“Just not ka-boom monster.”
Johnny shook his head. “It ain’t dead.”
Lisa gaped at him. “Johnny, you blew it up.”
“If a creature that sprays incendiary goo like it does could be hurt by fire, darlin’, it wouldn’t have lived long enough to reach that size.” He gave her a sidelong glance, which she didn’t catch due to his ridiculously dark sunglasses. “Like if you were allergic to strawberries and ate nothin’ but strawberries your whole—”
“Yeah, I understand the analogy.” With a smirk, she leaned back in her seat and rested her head against the headrest. The ends of her auburn hair whipped around her face as Sheila sped along down the twisting, turning road through the Everglades. “I’m wondering why you decided to kick rocks if it’s not dead in the water. Literally.”
“Eh?”
“Johnny, it’s not like a few explosions generally drive you to leave the scene.”
He thumped a palm lightly on the steering wheel, glanced at Amanda in the rearview mirror, then looked sharply at the agent. “How many times do I have to say it? Recon.”
“We could have gone after it.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll drive Sheila into the swamp, no problem. ʼCause she floats.”
Amanda perked up in the back seat and leaned forward. “Really?”
“No.”
The girl rolled her eyes and laughed when Rex’s wet snout nudged the side of her face, followed by a swift lick.
“Nope. Not you, pup.”
“What?”
Luther sniffed dutifully and thrust his head over the back seat. “Whew! That’s Johnny.”
“Damn, Johnny. You stink!”
“Yeah, not the good kinda stink, either.” Luther shook his head vigorously and splattered more water droplets and dog drool across the already stained seat. Amanda shielded her face with a playful groan. “There’s good stink and bad stink, Johnny.”
“Like human food, hound food, trash, carcasses, game, shit—”
“Doesn’t matter whose.”
Rex licked his muzzle. “That’s the good stink.”
“And then there’s… Well, you, Johnny.”
The young shifter laughed in the back seat and even slapped her hands on her thighs in mirth.
“That’s about it. Right, Rex?”
“Yeah. Johnny made the bad-stink list.”
Lisa turned to see two panting coonhounds leaning over the back seat and the young shifter girl almost incoherent beside them. “I don’t get it. What’s so funny?”
Johnny glanced in the rearview mirror and shook his head. “No clue.”
“Hey, when you gonna tell her about us, Johnny?”
“Might as well. Not like she’s goin’ anywhere. You’re confusin’ the heck outta her.”
With a sniff, the dwarf scraped away some of the purple goo sliding thickly down his cheek and flicked it out the Jeep window. And if she doesn’t stick around, havin’ a fed out there who knows I can talk to my hounds is a liability I reckon I’ll regret.
Chapter Nine
The dwarf left a trail of gooey purple footprints from Sheila’s driver’s side door to the front door of his cabin and beyond. He strode into his workshop, squelched the whole way, and grumbled belligerently. “Dammit. I got muddy pawprints and purple shit all over my floors.”
“Yep. This is the stinky stuff.” Rex sniffed in a wide circle around one of the purple puddles. “Kinda fishy. Kinda…bloody?”
“No, not bloody. That’s…” Luther licked a purple boot print, then yelped and raced through the house. He skidded on purple slime and tracked it through the kitchen to the back door. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Johnny, I’m gonna die!”
“Johnny.” Rex sat and whined at his master. “Hey. Help him, will ya?”
The sounds of lapping and water sloshing over the side of the dog bowl on the back patio filtered through the cabin. Scowling at the purple mess Luther had made, Johnny hurried to the racks and slid a large plastic tote with a locking lid out from under the bottom shelf. He tried to shake the goo off his hands first, but the mess was unavoidable.
It looks like I’m gonna be playin’ maid around here for a few hours after this. I shoulda rigged those hounds with opposable thumbs. Or built a cleanin’ bot.
Lisa and Amanda joined him in the workshop and their noses wrinkled as they waved their hands in front of their faces.
“Oh, man.” The girl tried to snort the smell away and shook her head. “It’s so much worse in here.”
Chuckling, Lisa stepped away from the table as he retrieved a mason jar fro
m the tote and thunked it on the table. “Wow, Johnny. Even when you’ve had a few drinks, you’ve never smelled this boozy.”
“You’ve never been this funny, either.” He looked sharply at her and shrugged. “Sorry. I’m focused.”
“Sure. No problem.” She gestured toward the table with a smirk. “Focus away.”
With a grunt, he stretched toward a shelf and purple goo dripped from his outstretched arm and splattered on a metal box stored below, which made him growl in irritation. He grasped a wide, thin pewter plate and plunked it on the worktable before he scraped a handful of purple goo off his chest and onto the plate.
“What are you doing?” Amanda asked, her voice thin and nasally with her fingers pinching her nostrils shut.
“Testing.” He scrabbled for a lighter in the shape of a pistol from his front pocket, careful not to touch the flint with his gooey fingers, and flicked a flame to life.
The agent’s eyes widened. “Johnny, wait a minute—”
The flame touched the purple goo on the plate, which instantly ignited with a whoosh and four-foot flames erupted. Rex whined and took two steps away into the hallway. Lisa and Amanda both shielded their eyes but lowered their hands and arms again slowly when the flames died down rapidly to a slow burn on the glowing, gelatinous purple puddle.
“Yep.” He sniffed. “Thought so.”
With a sharp bark, Luther raced through the kitchen and slipped on a streak of goo again. “What happened? What did I miss?”
“Johnny’s trying to burn the house down, Luther.”
“What? Come on, Johnny. At least wait until I’m inside with the rest of you.” Luther skidded to a stop in the entry to the kitchen, his eyes wide, and belched. “Oh. Ew. Good thing you didn’t try to burn that one off, hey, Johnny?”
Amanda sniggered through her plugged nose.
Lisa huffed a laugh of disbelief. “We already knew it was flammable. What was the point of that? Unless I’m partnered with a pyromaniac who managed to keep it a secret from me over the last three weeks.”
“Have you looked at my fireplace, darlin’?”
“Why would I—”
“I haven’t used the damn thing since I bought this house.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. Because an abnormal obsession with fire would be contained to a fireplace.”
“I wanted to make sure that shit would burn without any other variables.”
“You mean like a building to blow up?”
Johnny looked sharply up at her and narrowed his eyes.
She chuckled and gestured impatiently. “You’re the only one who knows what’s in your head. I’m merely trying to get on the same page.”
“I mean like other incendiary agents.” He covered the pewter plate with a second from the shelf to extinguish the small flames, then gathered another glob of goo from his shoulder and scraped it off his hand into the mason jar. “Other secretions. Maybe even that purple mist it was blowin’ all over the damn place.”
“We couldn’t see a thing,” Luther added. “Tell her, Johnny.”
“Yeah. Make sure she knows that fog didn’t smell nearly as bad as you.”
The dwarf glanced at the hounds and raised his index finger. Both sat immediately and their tails brushed the floor from side to side. The tip of Luther’s tail whacked a thick purple puddle and it splattered down the hall in both directions.
“Damnmit. Now you’re makin’ goo angels. Outside, boys. Now.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll wash it off in the swamp.” Luther skidded around the corner and collided with the cabinet under the kitchen sink before he bounded through the dog door. “Hey, Rex? Is there fire in the swamp?”
“Only if someone decides to light you up.” Rex trotted after his brother and the dog door clacked shut.
With a heavy sigh, the dwarf sealed the lid on the mason jar, screwed it tightly closed, and thumped it on the table. “Now we know the only thing that bastard needs to start a fire is this shit.”
“And that’s the only thing we know.” Lisa leaned across the table and stretched a hand toward the stacked pewter plates.
He moved quickly and slid the plates out of her reach. “Other than the fact that it likes to blow up mom-and-pop stores, gas stations, and resorts. They ain’t got nothin’ in common.”
“You think it’s merely on a rampage?” Amanda asked.
“It could be.” Johnny raised his hand toward his mouth to rub it, then glanced at the purple slime and wiped his hand on his black jeans. That didn’t do shit. “If that creature was simply pissed, it wouldn’t have let me and the hounds get as close as we did. I thought maybe for a second it might have said somethin’, but it decided to take my crossbow.” He sniffed. “No one takes my crossbow.”
The girl unplugged her nose to fold her arms. “Did you try to shoot it first?”
“Jesus.” He shook his head at her. “I only shoot first when I know what the hell I’m dealin’ with, kid. And I have no idea what this is or why an incendiary Oriceran monster is swimmin’ through the Everglades and blowin’ shit up. And if it was only a random attack ʼcause it’s as pissed as hell and wants to get even, it would have killed both of y’all and had some fun with those troopers.”
“It waited almost three weeks between that gas station and the market,” the agent said thoughtfully. “Maybe if it was a fishing shop, that’d make more sense.”
“Well it weren’t a fishin’ gas station or a fishin’ four-star resort, neither,” he grumbled and spread his arms so he could examine his goo-splattered clothes and beard. “This goddamn shit’s everywhere.”
Lisa ignored his attitude and tapped a finger against her lips. “So what do all three places have in common?”
“Dunno.” Johnny sighed. “But I need to wash the gunk off and clean. Hey, kid.”
The young shifter leaned away from him with wide eyes. “Yeah…”
“Do you know how to use a mop?”
“I’m not the one who tracked this inside.”
“So that’s a no?”
Amanda and Lisa both stared at him in disbelief.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Johnny moved into the hall, then turned and pointed at the table. “Don’t touch anything in here. Especially that.”
“What are you gonna do with it?” the agent asked.
“Take it to a guy I know. I reckon he has a better idea about this goo-tentacled monster stuff than I do.”
The girl sniggered. “You have a guy for goo-tentacled-monster stuff?”
The dwarf shrugged and a thick glob of purple slime dropped to the floor with a splat. “Well, he’s not really a guy. Or he hasn’t always been, at least, and probably won’t be again in a few hundred years. But hey. If you wanna think like a monster, you go talk to a fuckin’ monster.”
“I’m sorry.” Lisa stared at the other side of the hall with a frown. “I’m not sure whether to focus on the ‘not a guy’ part or the ‘monster’ part.”
“You can leave the focus to me, darlin’.” Johnny nodded and spun smartly on his heel to squelch across the floor again toward the bathroom.
She hurried after him. “Johnny, who exactly are we taking this flammable sludge to?”
“Relax. I’m not givin’ it away.” The dwarf kicked his boots off and grimaced when two puddles of swamp water squished out of his socks. “We’ll go have a little chat with a draksa, and maybe he’ll be in a good enough mood to take a look at a sample.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Amanda hurried into the hall. “What if he’s not in a good enough mood?”
Lisa joined them. “And don’t say, ‘Then he’ll try to eat us.’”
He snorted. “Come on. The smart ones don’t eat folks. Mostly.”
“Johnny…”
“I’m kiddin’.” He looked at each of his wide-eyed women companions and shrugged. I ain’t kiddin’ but whatever. “Don’t worry about it, all right? Tomorrow, we’ll start the day with another hunt and go truss up a littl
e somethin’ for my draksa guy. You know, butter him up a little. Then I can guarantee he won’t eat us. Happy?” He jerked the bathroom door open and stepped inside.
“Not really, but I guess we—”
The door shut swiftly, and the shower turned on almost immediately.
“Don’t have many options.” With a sigh, Lisa turned and studied the purple slime tracked across the entire house. Then, she looked at Amanda.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that.” The girl raised both hands in surrender. “The only way I’ll help to clean this up is if he says please.”
The woman smirked. “Do you even know where he keeps the mop?”
Amanda pursed her lips, glanced slowly around the cabin, and shrugged. “Nope.”
“Okay. We’ll wait.”
Chapter Ten
Johnny threw the last of the rags into the black plastic trash bag and jerked his head away from the fishy fumes that seeped out around his hand. “Damn. It’s no wonder no one knows what this monster is. No one’s gettin’ close enough to find out.”
“Except you, Johnny.” Rex looked at his master from where he lay on the area rug in the living room and thumped his tail. “And us.”
“Ooh, hey.” Luther padded out of the kitchen and raised his head from his floor-sniffing. “Nice trash bag, Johnny. Got any goodies in there?”
The dwarf stared at the smaller hound. “I reckon we need to get your memory checked, Luther.”
“Great!” the dog sat, licked his muzzle, and focused on the trash bag filled with monster-goo rags. “Why?”
“Okay.” Lisa stepped through the front door and dusted her hands off. “All the gunk’s in the trunk.”
He snorted. “That’s what you’re goin’ with?”
“What? Fine. In the bed of your truck. Better?”
“It’s not what I meant, but sure.” He tied the trash bag closed, heaved it over his shoulder, and took it outside, barely managing to squeeze it through the front door and the screen door on the porch.
“Hey, where’s he goin’ with that?” Luther darted after him. “Johnny, wait up! Come on. Trash is good. Don’t throw it all away.”