by RJ Blain
If anyone was actually watching the fish-eye camera feed, they were probably thinking I had lost my mind. Couldn’t a unicorn enjoy a special treat in a bad situation?
Once I disposed of all the explosives, I returned to my campaign of destruction, breaking every last one of the drums in the ceiling to ensure they were incinerated when the napalm ignited. With the napalm order, I wouldn’t have to worry about the dust surviving long enough to get into the air. The shields they used to protect the neighboring buildings would keep almost every known substance under containment long enough for it to burn to nothing.
Deeper within the office, another room waited.
Someone hadn’t been telling the truth when they reported the extent of the contamination. While there were nineteen people in the first room, there were another forty-three statues, most of them seated at their desks, caught completely by surprise when the dust-contaminated fluid had rained down on them.
The dust hadn’t taken long to petrify its victims, seconds rather than bile’s customary five minutes.
Had it been gorgon bile, instead of condemning the sixty-two victims and possibly myself to death, I would have been gingerly torching their statues to neutralize the bile and turn its magic inert so no one else would be petrified. In human form, I would have been doing the work with a sponge, a steel bucket, and a lot of water.
Once cleaned, I would have hosed them down with neutralizer to return them to living flesh.
I avoided the victims as best as I could while confirming there were no more unbroken drums in the ceiling. The bomber had managed to detonate them all, leaving no part of the room untouched. If I ever got a hold of the culprit, Chief Quinn would be arresting me for one of the most brutal murders New York had ever seen, and I’d smile through the trial and subsequent jail time.
Retrieving the camera, I set it up so I could drop identification cards in front of it. Bracing for the worst part of my job, I shoved my nose into pockets to gather wallets, chewed through the straps of purses, and took everything to the camera. Bringing the meter closer while it sang a shrill chorus promising death and doom, I planted my front hooves on the table, shredded through leather with my claws and teeth to locate the cards, and did my best to memorize the names of every victim in case the camera wasn’t working anymore.
If I lived, and I’d do my best to survive, at least the victims wouldn’t be forgotten. There was nothing I could do for them beyond that. Once the napalm hit, the sudden change in temperature would likely shatter their statues. Maybe granite could survive it without melting, but I doubted they were granite; as far as I could tell, they were some dark and glossy stone, possibly obsidian.
The deep warning tone fell silent. A shudder ran through the floor beneath my hooves. It wouldn’t take long for them to flood the place if they pulled out all the stops, and considering I had asked Janet to contact Professor Yale, they’d move fast. Professor Yale had one simple rule: if anyone asked him for help, it better be a doomsday scenario. He’d kill anyone who involved him without just cause.
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.
The deep tone blared for a few seconds. The napalm gushing from the broken pipes died away to a trickle. In thirty seconds, the siren would blare again, marking the start of the final thirty seconds of 120 Wall Street’s life.
Then my world would burn.
The moment the charge went off thirteen stories above, 120 Wall Street trembled, but it didn’t burn. I waited for the whoosh of igniting napalm, but the seconds ticked by in silence. Fury over having to wait so long to see what would happen surged through me.
No more.
I surged out of my napalm bath onto my hooves, breathed in deep, and charged out of the bathroom. I slipped and slid trying to cut the corner and slammed into the wall. I unsheathed my claws for purchase and lurched into a canter, the fastest I dared to go in the confined space. I blew by the elevators on the way to the stairwell, bounced through the doorway, and scrambled up the steps, tripping several times in my effort to reach the roof as fast as possible.
120 Wall Street needed to burn, and if the bomb techs couldn’t pull it off, I would. “Burn, burn, burn!”
I exhaled flame. Droplets of sparkling napalm dripped onto me from above. The gold and silver sparks within flashed, but it didn’t ignite.
No. No, no, no. The building would burn. It had to burn. The police and CDC magicians couldn’t hold the shield forever. If the napalm drained to the ground floor, it’d eventually evaporate and help the dust spread into the air. It would leak out and rain down onto the city. It would spread.
Perky waited outside. He’d only be among the first to petrify. If the napalm leaked out of the building, he wouldn’t live long enough to turn to stone. He would burn, too. If it took too long, if the shield was at risk of failing, others from the station would come to supervise—or try to help.
Quinn would come.
No matter what, I couldn’t allow Quinn to get anywhere near the dust. They’d stuff him in a glass coffin. I couldn’t bear the thought of Quinn being lowered into unforgiving ground, too much of a risk to be awakened if he breathed in the dust. They’d kill him.
He had magic, strong magic—magic the government would never allow into the hands of a newly whelped gorgon. They’d kill him.
It’d be my fault.
Quinn.
I climbed the stairs, plowing through the goop covering the steps. Placing each hoof with care, I worked my way upward, and the higher I went, the less dense the napalm was. The draining had already begun.
It wouldn’t be long until too much napalm filled the ground levels of the building, making the temperature of the twenty-first floor too cool to eradicate the gorgon dust.
A doorway blocked my way. I backed to the end of the landing and slammed my shoulder into the door. It held. I snorted flame, but the napalm didn’t light. I retreated and charged again. The door shuddered on its hinges.
My third blow knocked it open, and I staggered into blinding daylight. A rainbow barrier marked the presence of the shield where it curved overhead, encasing the entire structure. Through it, I spotted several helicopters circling, observing, waiting for the moment the napalm lit.
Without me, it wouldn’t.
Tossing my head, I trumpeted a challenge and charged across the roof to raise my body temperature. If my regular fire wasn’t hot enough to ignite the napalm, I would run until I burst into living flame. I would run until I couldn’t take another step as long as it meant the fuel combusted.
I would give my last breath to repay Quinn for his kindness, for welcoming me into his home when he had every reason to cast me aside. I wouldn’t fail.
I couldn’t fail.
Gouts of red and orange blew from my nostrils with every breath and the napalm coating my fur heated. It lit with a hiss, bathing me in a blanket of flame. The bridle fell away in pieces, the leather incinerating before it could reach the ground. My hooves glowed blue-white, and the fuel they touched caught, leaving flaming hoof prints in my wake. The fire pursued me across the roof.
I could light the napalm. I would win. I slowed to turn so I could cover the entire roof in flame. I trumpeted another call, a promise to the hovering helicopters that victory would be mine. Curtaining heat and flame, a blue, white, and yellow inferno sparking with silver and gold, licked my heels. If the napalm refused to burn the old-fashioned way, I’d help it along floor by floor, top to bottom.
120 Wall Street would burn, no matter what.
If I slowed to a canter for too long, my body lost the ability to ignite the stubborn napalm, so I ran as hard and fast as I could through the building. While the sections I galloped through burned, I didn’t trust the fires to reach every floor unaided. Even if 120 Wall Street collapsed around me, I wouldn’t stop until I reached the ground.
Columns of flame swirled up the stairwells, and I dove down through the billowing fires. I tumbled down several flights of stairs, squealing my disgust over my difficulty navigating the steps. The structure groaned as more and more of the fuel ignited and the flames spread. The unlit napalm glowed gold and silver, illuminating my path.
When I reached the twenty-first floor, the upper stories shuddered. Chunks of molten steel and broken concrete plummeted through the ceiling around me. I dodged the burning debris, charged the contaminated office, and plowed through the glass without slowing.
My gusting breath ignited the gasoline in the ceiling and the napalm on the floor. A cloud of billowing blue flame engulfed the reception and sucked air in from the adjacent room. The crack-bang of windows shattering cut over the roar of flames. Cool air rushed over me and fanned the fires.
“Burn, burn! Burn, damn you!” I leaped into the next room and pranced, coaxing the inferno to spread, breathing life into it. I needed it hotter and brighter. I surged through to the third contaminated room, turned tail, and returned to the reception.
My breath burned silver-white tinged with the faintest hint of blue. The gorgon dust wouldn’t take anymore lives. It wouldn’t reach anyone outside. Perky was safe. When 120 Wall Street finished collapsing in on itself, there would be nothing left for the CDC’s meters to find. When Quinn came, the public he worked so hard to protect each and every day would be safe.
He’d be safe.
I danced my joy and gave myself over to the flames.
Chapter Nine
As long as I lived, I never wanted to experience a napalm bender hangover ever again. I’d gotten drunk more than my fair share of times over the years, but none of my other next-morning regrets compared. Even my horn hurt, although I suspected ramming my head through various walls and doors factored into my discomfort. My eyes ached and added to the din in my skull, which was further agitated by the pulsing iridescent shield trapping the smoke and ash until phase two of the napalming process began.
When the CDC determined the fires were out, they’d spray liquified neutralizer over the piles of ash and debris to ensure any trace contaminants were destroyed. Considering how little of 120 Wall Street had survived the napalming, I thought pumping excessive amounts of water into the space I was occupying more than a little unfair.
The shield thrummed, and within several seconds, a cold rain began to fall.
With my ears flopped in misery, I struggled to dig my way deeper into the ash to hide from the neutralizer-infused water. I still wasn’t sure how I ended
up on top of the debris pile instead of beneath it, but I already regretted not having been buried. At the bottom of the ash, concrete, and steel, I’d stay warm for a little while longer.
I blamed magic. If physics had had anything to do with my situation, I’d already be dead rather than slowly freezing to death. It was the napalm’s fault, too. My decision to gobble it down had nothing to do with it. The volume of the spray intensified, and I unsheathed my claws to aid digging into the pile so I could hide from the wet.
My efforts to burrow didn’t help, not one bit. I curled into a shivering ball, tucking my hooves as close to my body as I could. Why did they need to spray so much? The dust was dead. The neutralizer was blatant overkill. I had reduced an entire skyscraper to ash. Why did they have to drench the ash and me along with it?
Then again, leveling one of Wall Street’s predominant skyscrapers wasn’t exactly a good thing. I expected a lengthy lecture on proper napalming techniques. The CDC would probably start with the fact I’d gobbled down napalm like it was candy. Maybe if I pitched my excessive rampage of destruction as reducing the cost of debris removal, they’d look the other way.
Who was I kidding? As soon as the CDC got hold of me, I was a dead unicorn. I missed the magical fire’s searing intensity. A final attempt to burrow ended with me tangled in the mess of twisted metal and chunks of concrete somehow left intact.
More neutralizing spray rained down, chilling me until I couldn’t even snort smoke. I rested my chin on a steel girder and whimpered. Maybe my napalm binge had something to do with my survival, but did it have to hurt so much? How had I avoided being crushed?
Stupid magic, breaking the laws of physics without being nice enough to prevent the worst hangover of my life from pummeling me. The idea I had survived an inferno only to freeze to death in the final stages of decontamination capped my already miserable day.