Smoke Eaters

by Sean Grigsby

  “Oh.” He looked down, not attempting to defend his actions. “Well, I guess faking your death is worth a pile of dung now.”

  “I’m not worried about the mayor.”

  “Yeah, well maybe you should be,” Naveena said.

  We listened to a saxophone solo drifting from the elevator speakers.

  “So, what now?” I asked.

  “He wasn’t giving me anything,” Donahue said. “Even when I told him the Canadians had shown us some new toys. I don’t want to say any more around these metal bastards.”

  I looked into one of the droids’ blue eyes, remembering that they could be recording us at that moment. “What are we supposed to do?”

  “For now, your jobs. Your regular jobs. Captain Jendal, meet the newest member of your crew.” Donahue motioned his head toward me.

  My new career had officially begun. What terrible timing.

  Chapter 27

  “Hurry!” the old woman shouted through a surgical mask she wore across the bottom half of her face. “It’s in here.”

  You could have heard an axe drop through the surrounding neighborhood. In fact, the old woman’s house was the only one with a light on. Standing on her lawn, wearing only a bra and pajama pants, she pointed to her open front door. The woman had six-thirty breasts – both sagging straight down like hands on a clock. I mean, that bra was basically pointless besides saving us the displeasure of seeing them bared to the night air.

  Her house showed no fire, no smoke, no sign of a dragon at all.

  Renfro, Naveena, and I waved from our seats in the cannon truck to let the woman know we saw her and that we’d be taking care of her problem shortly.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Renfro said. “False alarm?”

  “Propellerheads didn’t see anything on the seismic monitor,” I said.

  Over the radio, Naveena told the second smoke eater crew, still on the way, that nothing was showing and we were going to investigate. Naveena took the lead, and I followed her toward the house.

  “It’s in the laundry room,” the old woman said, before bending over and hacking into her mask.

  “What did it look like?” Naveena asked, as she scanned the house with her therma goggles.

  “What does that matter?” the woman said. “It was big and ugly!”

  I brought my goggles out too, but nothing showed up in my scan besides a small red blob in the living room. A cup of coffee?

  “I want to know what we’re dealing with.” Naveena threw Renfro an air-slashing hand signal that meant we weren’t going to need the cannon powered up.

  Making an “OK” with his gloved hands, Renfro threw down a couple wheel chocks and jogged over.

  “Hurry!” the old woman said. “Why are you just waiting around?”

  Naveena rolled her eyes and moved toward the door.

  The house’s smell hit me halfway up the front steps. I’d encountered the same stench in the fire service, when we’d go on runs to old folks who couldn’t take care of themselves or drugheads who only took care of their next fix. The smell was a combo of shit, cat piss, and old books.

  Don’t be a hoarder, I thought. Don’t be a hoarder, don’t be a hoarder.

  She was a hoarder.

  Inside, we had to traverse stacks of papers, unopened shipping boxes, dolls, cups, and just a whole lot of junk I didn’t feel like mentally categorizing. I know the old stories said dragons liked to hoard gold. Why couldn’t my fellow humans hoard something good like that? I would have much rather walked into a house full of bling or jelly beans, not a collection of litter boxes that hadn’t been emptied since 2082.

  “I don’t think a dragon would be the worst thing we could find in here.” I held my power suit’s glove over my nose and mouth.

  Renfro dry heaved into his own glove.

  The woman stuck her head into the doorway behind us. “It’s around the corner on the left.”

  Something fell in a distant room – a thud, then the scamper of tiny scratches against the hardwood floor. I wouldn’t have put it past this death trap to house rats, or maybe a raccoon, but I desperately hoped against it.

  Naveena moved toward the room, trying, but failing, not to touch anything. Around the corner she stopped outside a closed door, scanning it with her therma goggles. “I’m not seeing anything.” She retracted her goggles and opened the door. “Shit!”

  “What is it?” I extended my laser sword.

  “Come see for yourself.”

  I leaned against the wall and poked my head into the room. Old laptops and bed sheets rose in towers to the ceiling. In the middle of all the junk, a turtle sat on the ground, slowly retracting its neck into the shell.

  “Is that a turtle?” Renfro said over my shoulder.

  I bent down and picked the turtle up by the sides of its shell. It snapped its sharp beak at my face before going back into defensive mode.

  “That’s why we weren’t seeing anything on the goggles,” Naveena said. “Cold-blooded.”

  I stared into the turtle’s hidey hole. “Maybe the lady’s titties were dragging the floor and this little guy started snapping.”

  Naveena radioed the second smoke eater crew, telling them to cancel their response.

  “My brother and I used to catch snapping turtles out of a creek when we were growing up,” I said.

  “I didn’t know you had a brother,” Renfro said.

  I shrugged. “He passed away a few years ago. Heart attack.”

  What a comment on the world we lived in, that when someone died you felt obligated to tell others it wasn’t a dragon, that people did die the good old-fashioned way every once in a while.

  We turned to leave, and the old woman met us in the hall with a broom in her hand.

  “That’s the dragon!” She almost looked like a wraith the way she screamed and slobbered all over her bra. “Kill it!”

  “It’s just a turtle, ma’am.” Renfro held up hands as if she was going to attack him with the broom.

  It was a good thing Renfro spoke first and was closer to the woman. I would have thrown the snapping turtle at her and called it a night.

  “I saw it breathe fire,” she said, eyes darting left to right – basic psycho eye movement.

  “Well, we’ll just remove it from the premises.” I carried the turtle away as it decided to come out of its shell. I grabbed one of its front legs and waved “bye-bye” to the homeowner.

  The old woman screamed and almost clawed up the wall. “No wonder everybody in this state hates you. You’re all just a burden on our taxes. Can’t even do your job.”

  Renfro stayed behind to console her, while Naveena and I walked out before I said anything more. It also didn’t hurt to get some fresh air.

  “You guys get these kind of bullshit calls often?” I asked Naveena, as I set the turtle down in the neighbor’s bushes.

  “Not a lot, but it happens.”

  “Figures,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I thought I’d left the crazies and false alarms with the fire service.”

  Renfro backed out of the front door. “Yes ma’am, I understand. You have a good night.” He shut the door and turned to us with wide eyes. “Why’d you have to leave me in there alone?”

  “Old people love you,” Naveena said.

  I grabbed the wheel chocks and hopped into the truck, ready to get back to headquarters and finish my shift without another peep.

  Tomorrow, Sherry and I were going to look for a new house. Hopefully, the bank would cut us some slack since we’d have to start over from square one. Our dragon insurance claim was stalled. They said further investigation was required. After all the money we’d paid, they couldn’t fork over what was due? Highway robbery.

  I would’ve much rather spent the day hunting the Behemoth or thinking of some way to take down Rogola. But the only thing I could do at that point was the one thing I hated to do above all else – wait.

  “So, let me ask y
ou something, Brannigan,” Naveena said as we drove away.

  “I’m an open book.”

  “With your new body–”

  “It’s the same body,” I said. “It’s just been rejuvenated.”

  “OK, whatever.” She turned to look at me, and the lights from the truck’s dash put a yellow halo around her head. “You able to get it up now?”

  “Damn,” Renfro shook his head. “That’s asking too much information.”

  “I never had that problem to begin with.” I smiled at Naveena, knowing she was just fucking with me.

  “I wonder what’s on fire,” Renfro said, looking to the night sky through the windshield.

  I leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

  “I can see smoke drifting up over there, a few blocks away.”

  “I don’t see anything,” I said.

  Naveena said, “That’s because you don’t have eyes like Renfro.”

  “You can see in the dark?”

  Renfro shrugged. “I thought you knew. It’s not great, but I can see things most people can’t.”

  “Well, let’s go check out that smoke,” I said.

  We might as well make the trip mean more than turtle-wrangling.

  “Don’t you want to get back to headquarters?” Naveena asked. “Maybe we’ll sleep the rest of the night.”

  I made a pfft with my lips. “It won’t take long. Maybe somebody’s in trouble, and I can show you youngsters how it’s done.”

  “We fight dragons, not fire.” Naveena put a hand to her chin, considering it. I just had to push her a little more and she’d agree.

  “We can at least drive by,” I said. “It’s on our way.”

  “I don’t mind if you don’t, Captain” Renfro said.

  “Fine,” Naveena said. “Probably just a backyard campfire.”

  “I’ll buy you a beer if it’s bullshit,” I said.

  “It’s a bet.”

  “You better buy me one, too,” Renfro said. He took the tight residential corners with ease.

  The area south of the city had been going to hell long before E-Day, and things hadn’t improved. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we ran into a wraith around the next bend.

  Renfro eased the cannon truck to a stop and pointed through the windshield. “It’s coming from over there.”

  It was still too dark for me to see what the hell he was talking about. All I saw was an old building that had a second story jutting from the center of the structure, almost like a church, almost like a…

  “That’s the old crematorium,” I said.

  Naveena made a disgusted shudder. “Kind of weird to be burning corpses this late, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Especially since that place has been shut down for years.”

  Naveena pointed. “Then whose car is that?”

  A black hover car, the kind with vertical doors, sat tucked away at the side of the building, behind a few low-hanging branches.

  “Shut the truck down, Renfro.” I patted his shoulder. “And kill the lights.”

  He did, although his movements suggested he didn’t understand why. Right after the engine died, a man ran out from the back of the building. He was in a hurry, like a dragon was after him.

  Renfro dug out the mute bag, the same one they’d put over my head. “Should we take him in?”

  “No,” Naveena said.

  I shook my head. “You guys must love that chokey bag.”

  With a jerk of the car door, the fleeing man was behind the wheel and zooming away with pieces of the tree branches clamped in the door. When he screeched around the corner, we stared after him with more curiosity than concern.

  “What did that guy look like?” I asked Renfro.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Skinny. Glasses and a bow tie.”

  “Bet it was Jenkins.” I nodded at Naveena.

  “The mayor’s assistant? What the hell is he doing out…” Naveena stopped as something dawned on her.

  I was thinking the same.

  Jenkins was destroying evidence.

  “Renfro, stay here in case there’s trouble. Brannigan, come on.” Naveena jumped out of the truck and ran toward the crematorium.

  Right on her heels, I made for the side of the building where we’d seen Jenkins exit.

  “The way he sped out of here,” I said, “I’m sure he didn’t lock the door behind him.”

  I was right. The side door gaped wide open and the thinnest wisps of smoke climbed toward the night. Maybe it was the firefighter in me, but I stopped in my tracks to survey exactly what we were running into. Naveena disappeared inside, unconcerned.

  I chased after Naveena into the darkened crematorium, calling her name a few times before I extended my therma goggles and saw her standing around the corner in the next room.

  “You guys OK in there?” Renfro asked through our helmet speakers.

  “Yeah,” Naveena answered. “Brannigan, I’m just past–”

  “I see you.” I rounded the corner, holding onto the wall.

  There was nothing I could trip over, but I kept feeling like I was going to fall into a pit or something. Naveena stood at two vertical doors that looked like they could have been the jaws of a macabre robot.

  Pulling at a chain on the side, Naveena opened the doors to the cremation chamber, and even though the place hadn’t been used in decades I could smell the scent of burning flesh and gasoline.

  The light from the fire allowed me to retract my goggles and get a better look at what lay burning inside – lots of electrical equipment.

  “The wraith-trapping shit!” I shouted, running toward the blazing hole.

  “Are you sure?”

  “What else would they want to destroy?”

  “Well, pull it out.”

  “I can’t,” I said, desperately looking for a way to remove any of the equipment that hadn’t yet been damaged. “There’s no slide or anything. Smells like he used gas.”

  “I’ll go get a tool. Maybe we can save one.” Naveena stomped away, just as frustrated as I was.

  There wouldn’t be time.

  I stared into the flames, at the only proof we’d ever have to nail Rogola. My house had burned for nothing. Theresa’s death and DeShawn’s lapse into pious insanity would be a pointless tragedy, and the Behemoth would destroy a peaceful community somewhere, all because Rogola had summoned it from the earth. It wasn’t fair.

  But there was no better time to put my abilities as a smoke eater to the test, was there? I jumped into the cremation chamber.

  “Brannigan!” I heard Naveena scream behind me.

  Fuck, it was hot. I don’t mean the kind of hot like sitting too close to the fireplace or when you’ve been mowing the lawn in the middle of an August day. This was like cutting yourself open and pouring rubbing alcohol all over it. My natural heat resistance and power suit protected me a bit from the flames, but at the same time it was like being inside an oven, inside another oven. Jenkins had really wanted this stuff to burn quick.

  When I began smelling my hair burning I was sure I’d done something stupid, but one of the pieces of equipment lay only a few inches from my outstretched fingers, and if I just… reached… a little farther…

  Naveena grabbed my ankles and yanked me from the chamber. I fell on my chin and bit into my tongue. For some reason, that was more painful than the heat from the cremation flames.

  Naveena was nearly in tears. It was nice to see she cared. “What were you thinking, you dumb-ass, mother–”

  She stopped when I spit blood, smiled, and raised my throbbing, heat-thrashed arm.

  “Holy shit.”

  The piece of equipment in my hand looked like an awkwardly-shaped TV remote control, back when they still used to make them, except it also had a metal, coiled pole jutting from the end like a toy ray gun. I didn’t know if the thing could trap a wraith or if I’d mistakenly grabbed a really ugly voice recorder.

  There was only one way t
o find out.

  Naveena shook her head. “You’re nucking futs, you know that?”

  She helped me to my feet.

  I opened my power suit and crawled onto the ground while Naveena told Renfro we’d be back in a minute. After a few seconds of waiting for the sunburn feeling to disappear from my face, I reentered my suit and hobbled for the door. “Let’s go test this wraith-catcher out.”

  Chapter 28

  “This is a stupid idea,” Renfro said.

  “Yep,” Naveena agreed.

  We were just outside the city, headed for one of the newest quarantined zones. The burns I’d received from the crematorium weren’t as bad as they felt, just first-degree – I’d have to slab some of that blue curate on my skin when we got back. Even so, it hurt like a sonofabitch, and I was fidgeting in my power suit like a cat stuck in a clothes dryer on permanent press.

  “If this doesn’t work,” I said, waving the wraith-catcher in my hand, “we won’t have the embarrassment of going after Rogola with something they’ll call a piece of science fiction memorabilia.”

  “If this doesn’t work,” Naveena said, “a wraith will claw your eyes out.”

  “And if it does work?” Renfro asked.

  I smiled. “Then we’ll have taken a wraith off the street and can go shove it up the mayor’s ass.”

  “Fair enough,” Renfro said.

  “It’s just a few more miles,” I said. “And then–”

  “I remember,” Renfro said. “I was there that day, too.”

  I hadn’t thought of Theresa in a while, what she looked like, how she used to pour a cup of coffee and dump it into the sink, just to say she’d gotten use out of paying her part of our firehouse grocery dues. It was hard coming back here. But it was the only place I could think a wraith might still be – that collapsed house, where I discovered I could breathe smoke.

  I leaned forward in my seat as we arrived at the subdivision’s entrance. Hologram ribbons, declaring the area to be closed to the public, glimmered across two brick pillars and soundlessly shattered into fragments of light when our cannon truck drove through them.

  Parthenon City and its surrounding neighborhoods weren’t the brightest of places at night, but compared to this now dead area, they were dazzling beacons in a sea of darkness. Renfro flicked on a spotlight that hung on the side of the truck.