Smoke Eaters

by Sean Grigsby

  I was like a wizard.

  An engine roared above as a water bomber aircraft doused the surrounding fire with gallons of water. There’d be at least one other bomber hitting the flames from the opposite end. They couldn’t have showed up a little sooner?

  “All right, it’s done,” Puck said after a while, being the first to step away. She probably wanted Thomlin’s claws off of her. “Brannigan, Thomlin. Go see if you can find any info on that RV guy the scalies nabbed. We have to inform his next of kin. I’ll call in the quarantine crew.”

  I nodded, even though the thought of working with Thomlin made my stomach churn.

  Puck pointed to Afu and Williams. “We’ll meet up with command. They’ll want us to look for dragon eggs.”

  Scalies liked to take a break from their rampaging to knock boots. I guess the ashes are romantic.

  Thomlin groaned and led the way back to where we’d parked Slayer 3. Hopefully the fire hadn’t shifted too bad and scorched our only way back to headquarters.

  “You know your way around here?” I asked Thomlin.

  “It’s called a basic sense of direction.” He stopped and turned back to me. “But yeah. My dad used to take me out here sometimes as a kid. Taught me the laws of nature.”

  “Worms on hooks, how to undo a bra with one hand, that sort of thing?”

  Thomlin grinned and I quickly missed his creepy frown. “More like he’d tie me to a tree in nothing but my underwear and leave me overnight. He said that’s how Native Americans toughened up their children. I still never lived up to his expectations, though.”

  “Holy fuck,” I said. “I’m sorry, man. And I’d say that I don’t think Native Americans actually did that, but something tells me you already know your dad is a lying piece of shit.”

  “Was,” Thomlin said.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, and you remind me of him.”

  With that, he turned and trudged forward. I followed, but at a safe distance. We were literally walking through Thomlin’s childhood abuse, and I was not going to stand in for Daddy when Thomlin decided to go berserk. When we came to the empty popper holes, I brought out my therma goggles.

  All clear.

  Except when I retracted my goggles, white flames sparked from one of the holes, the one the shirtless RV man had been dragged into by one of the poppers.

  “Hey,” I called ahead to Thomlin, who was focused on getting to the dead man’s RV and ignoring me at all costs. “What’s with this white fire?”

  He turned back, looking to where I pointed. When he saw the pale flames, his face sagged. “Oh, great.”

  A white claw crept from the hole, followed by a wailing, ashen face. Its electric blue eyes were set deep within darkened sockets, and tattered flesh hung where legs should have been as it floated out of the pit.

  It was a damn wraith.

  “Sweet Jesus!” I ran ahead of Thomlin. My knee ached, had the whole time, but the adrenaline flowing through my system had numbed it for a while.

  “What’s the matter?” Thomlin called, as I neared the burned shell of an RV. “You never seen a wraith being born before?”

  Chapter 8

  Chief Donahue entered the bay as I was crawling out of my power suit.

  “Brannigan, follow me.” His normal, almost goofy, disposition had flown the coop, and the Donahue that turned away and marched toward the hall was a pissed off tower of ass-whooping. He yelled, “You too, Sergeant Puck.”

  Puck glared at me, pulling her hair back into the scrunchie. She shook her head as she brushed past my shoulder.

  Well, jumpin’ dildoes. My first day as a smoke eater wasn’t even over and I was already on the shit list. Seeing no way out, I followed Puck and Donahue, jogging on achy knees to catch up, even climbing several flights of stairs, for God’s sake. Donahue’s metal leg gave him the speed of a cheetah.

  Chief D didn’t say anything as I fell in behind him and Puck. Around the corner, several smoke eaters, wearing the green duty shirts and pants I still lacked, walked toward us. The smokies were in relatively good moods, laughing and in the middle of a game of Grab Ass – until they saw Donahue storming by. The smokies stopped in their tracks, widened their eyes, and straightened their backs as if someone had planted TNT in their underwear. After we passed, a stampede of retreating boots against tile filled the hallway behind us.

  The chief stopped in a brightly lit hall, where a window on the right looked down into a big, white room where sparks from a laser splashed shadows up across Donahue’s face.

  He paced back and forth a few times before launching toward me with a pointed finger. “Mayor Rogola called me today, right before you did. Told me it would be a bad idea taking you on. Said you weren’t only old and far gone, but that you were a loose cannon, someone who does whatever he wants, a freelancer. I stuck up for you, Brannigan, mainly because I think Rogola is a pompous windbag. I told him we can’t afford to turn away any smoke eater, and that I’d make sure you were squared away.”

  “I didn’t think you answered to the mayor,” I said.

  “I don’t. I was just being diplomatic. He has a knack for stirring up the public and most people already see us as a necessary nuisance. And when one of my smokies destroys city property, expensive property, then I have to answer to that smug sonofabitch, and I’d rather castrate myself with a scaly tooth.”

  I cringed at the thought. “Are you talking about the fire droids?”

  “What else? Those things record video, you know. He’s got you slicing and dicing those droids without cause out at Buzzard’s Roost. It’s all over the Feed. ‘You can either move, or I’ll make a path.’ That’s what you said, right? Makes us all look like mercenaries. Rogola’s going to have a field day with this. If we don’t get shut down, he’ll have the support to–”

  “Those droids wouldn’t let us pass,” I said. “And why were they there at all?”

  Donahue’s eyes looked like they’d pop out. “That’s not the point, Brannigan!”

  “Chief,” Puck spoke up. “Can I say something?”

  Donahue nodded.

  Oh, great. More pushups for me.

  “I agree that Brannigan is older than Lincoln’s balls, and he has a lot to learn. But it’s his first day, and he performed better than a lot of the smokies we have out in the field.”

  I turned to her, trying hard not to smile. Or stare in confusion.

  Puck continued. “His dumb ass also forgot to shut off his radio, so I heard everything that happened between him and those droids. After he killed two poppers by himself–”

  Donahue raised his eyebrows.

  “– yeah, two – him and Afu got stopped by those robots while they were trying to find me and the rest of the crew. The droids wouldn’t let them by, so they did what they had to do. If it weren’t for Brannigan and what he did out there, we’d all be crispy critters and you’d be out at least three smoke eaters.”

  “Kekoa cut up a droid, too?” the chief asked.

  Both Puck and I nodded.

  “Guess they didn’t show that on the Feed. Rogola’s got a grudge against me. It’s cute.”

  Donahue looked at the floor and rubbed his face with thick, dark-skinned hands. “Let me talk to Brannigan alone. Thanks, Sergeant.”

  Puck gave me a small nod, but I was still too in awe of her to reciprocate it. When she’d left, Donahue went to the window overlooking a laboratory and leaned on the sill.

  I remembered that I’d left my holoreader in my pocket during the fire and dug it out quickly, as if I could have prevented the inevitable. The thing was fried, destroyed beyond all recognition by the heat in the forest. Sherry was going to kill me.

  “Motherfucker!”

  Donahue stared at me as if in pain, like I’d done something else to ruin his day.

  I held up the blackened brick that used to be my phone. “My holoreader got burned up in the fire. I haven’t talked to my wife since last night. I think I might be in the dogh
ouse before long.”

  “I’m partly to blame for that I guess.” Donahue sighed. “I figured, the sooner I got you out here in the work, you’d be more enthusiastic. I didn’t even think about your family. Maybe I can help you get out of the doghouse somehow.”

  “Do you guys have a spousal memory remover I can borrow?”

  Donahue laughed. “What did you think of your first day?”

  “You mean I’m not in trouble and my first day also isn’t my last?”

  “You really ought to read your contract tonight, Brannigan.”

  I paused, thinking of all the terrible legal traps contained in that holo document. And I’d been dumb enough to sign it.

  I shrugged. “Then my first day was pretty awesome.”

  Donahue smiled.

  “I mean, I think it’s stupid that you threw me into it without any knowledge or even a damn uniform–”

  “Remember our motto?”

  I blew air across my lips, shaking my head. “Yeah, that’s not how we did things in the fire department.”

  “I knew you could handle it. And besides, does somebody become better through reading books or through experience?”

  “I think it’s a combination, but I guess if I had to pick one, it’d be–”

  “Experience,” Donahue said with me. “Sink or swim, Brannigan. Plus, Sergeant Puck is one of our best. As hard as she is on you rookies, she’d give her life if she had to.”

  “You know, I really thought I was through with this kind of work. But, it’s weird. It feels like I was always meant to do it. I couldn’t walk away if I wanted to.”

  “The smoke eater’s curse.” Donahue pressed his head to the glass.

  I walked over to join him at the window. “You could say that about firefighters, too. I mean… Holy shit! Is that…?”

  In the room on the other side of the window, and about ten feet below, a huge, red dragon lay on a giant metal slab. A yellow-shirted woman operated robotic arms with lasers that cut into the scaly’s body and peeled back the skin. The woman at the controls wore clear goggles, but was otherwise unprotected from the dragon. The scaly’s teeth were as long as the woman’s legs, and reptilian eyes lay open so the dead bastard looked right at me.

  “The dragon from your house fire,” Donahue said. “The monster that set you on the path of a smoke eater.”

  “You make it sound too poetic.” I squinted my eyes to see better through the glass. “What is she doing to it?”

  The lasers cut into the scaly’s neck, sending a tiny plume of dark smoke into the air.

  “The yellow shirts are our scientists.” Donahue nodded to the woman below. “Propellerheads.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Puck kept using that word in class. Thought she was just insulting somebody.”

  “It’s not an official title,” Donahue said. “Just a nickname that stuck. They’ve come up with all kinds of neat tools. Most the public doesn’t know about. And their research tells us all kinds of things, like the best way to kill the scalies.”

  “A laser sword to the jugular seems to work all right.”

  Donahue clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Some are tougher than you think. Not everything we have works against every dragon. That electromagnetic pulse from yesterday is just one surprise a scaly can throw at us. Sometimes we have to improvise. Adapt and overcome, is what you firefighters say, yeah? That dragon down there, we’re calling a Fafnir.”

  “Gesundheit,” I said. “Who makes all this stuff up?”

  “The propellerheads, mostly. Naveena and Renfro told them what the Fafnir did with that EMP blast. It’s not the first dragon to do so, but definitely the first to do it with so much power. Yolanda down there is inspecting the dragon’s throat to get us some answers.”

  Yolanda was a light-skinned black woman with a fantastic afro. She wore her yellow uniform shirt as if she was born for it, and the protective goggles she wore brought it all together.

  “So you guys don’t know everything about dragons.” I hummed with interest.

  Crossing his arms, Donahue turned to me. “Seven years of dragons isn’t long enough to learn much beyond the basics. I think we’ve done all right with the short time we’ve had, but we’re still getting through our growing pains. We have a national network of smokies in other states we share information with. I’m working on making it international.”

  “Yeah, maybe you can find out what the hell Canada has been doing.”

  Donahue smiled like he knew something, but ignored me. “We’ve never seen a dragon like the Fafnir before. Who’s to say there aren’t a ton more we don’t know about?”

  That made my guts twist.

  “We should find a way to wipe them all out,” I said.

  “Like what? Burrow to the center of the Earth and set off a nuke?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t say I knew how.”

  “That’s like if I told you a few days ago that we should find a way to prevent all fires.”

  “Fair enough. Speaking of fire, there’s something I want to get your take on.”

  “Shoot.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “White fire.”

  “You mean wraiths?”

  “That’s the thing,” I said. “My firefighter said he saw white flames coming out of the TV inside that house yesterday. Before the dragon showed up. It didn’t make any damn sense to me. I don’t know much about wraiths, but I don’t think they hide in household electronics for the hell of it. Do you have any light to shed?”

  Donahue rubbed his chin for a minute. “He has to be confused. You know as well as me that you can hardly see anything in a fire. And even with good ventilation, your nerves and your mind can mess with you.”

  “I thought you might have been a fireman before,” I said. “You’ve got that vibe.”

  “I was a hoseman for almost twenty years, before the dragons. Anyway, maybe your guy saw one of his crew becoming a wraith and mixed up the order of events. Traumatic shock.”

  “Yeah, maybe. He was really freaked out when I saw him today.”

  I still wasn’t so sure. DeShawn was great about keeping his head during a fire, despite what happened with the scaly. And I also knew wraiths drew dragons like blood in the water. Something was up.

  “So we’re still learning about dragons,” I said. “What about wraiths?”

  Donahue shivered. “You’ll learn more in class, but there’s not much we can do about them. A while back, some of our propellerheads tried to capture one. The few who came back had slashes on their bodies and shit in their pants.” He widened his eyes. “Damn. And now we have to quarantine Buzzard’s Roost because of one dumb civilian. I had a great fishing spot out there.”

  “Don’t you think the ‘leave ’em alone’ tactic is a little lazy? The wraiths are just as dangerous as the scalies.”

  Donahue chuckled. “Maybe. But we’re already dealing with dragons. I can’t even imagine adding ghosts to our workload.” He looked at his watch. “Listen, I have to get home. It’s taco night. Puck will get you fresh uniforms – you look like a bum, and could use a shower. No offense.”

  I looked down at my dirty clothes, thought about giving Donahue the finger, but I held back.

  “I’m also giving you leave for the firefighter funeral,” he said.

  Shit. With everything going on, I’d forgotten about the funeral for Theresa and the guys from Truck 1.

  Donahue was quick to change the subject. “Any other questions?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Where can I use a holoreader to call my wife before she hunts me down with a shotgun?”

  “Yolanda should have one,” Donahue said. “Tell her I said it was OK.”

  He pointed down to the lab, where the propellerhead had begun to remove organs from the big, red dragon.

  Chapter 9

  The doors to the lab slid open. A smell of sulfur and burned wood hit me like a truck, and, for some reason, it reminded me of my Grandpa Fred.


  Yolanda turned with a start. “Oh! You scared the beep out of me.”

  Beep? Better watch my language.

  “Sorry,” I said, showing my palms – a gesture to show I was no threat. “Donahue said I might borrow your holoreader.” I held up my old one that was now no better than a piece of charcoal. “Mine got torched and I need to call my wife.”

  She blinked a few times at my request before digging her holoreader from her pants pocket. “Sure.”

  “Thanks,” I said, eyeing the dead dragon on the slab a few feet away.

  I circled around, toward where the scaly’s forked tongue hung out of its mouth. I wondered how all those teeth were able to fit. The Fafnir’s fire-hydrant-red scales shone under Yolanda’s lab lights, and even where the propellerhead had splayed its throat open, the dragon’s innards were as crimson as the outside.

  I wanted to touch it. But then Yolanda emptied the dragon’s stomach into a metal bowl and something that resembled a human arm flopped out. I turned away before losing my… well, I guess I hadn’t eaten in a while. Just as well.

  I punched my wife’s number into the holoreader and waited with my back to Yolanda as the line rang a couple times.

  Sherry answered. “Hello?”

  “It’s Cole.”

  “You asshole!”

  “Don’t hang up!” I turned to see if Yolanda was watching, but she’d put on some wireless headphones and bobbed her head to music as she picked through the dragon’s stomach.

  “You think you’re slick, don’t you?” Sherry said.

  “I’ve been meaning to call you all day. Things just snowballed, and I kind of got roped into this academy–”

  “Academy?” I could almost hear her internal boiler about to blow.

  “The smoke eaters. They’re needing me to stay here for a bit, while I’m in class. It shouldn’t be too long. And I’m sure I can take off–”