I ignored my nosy, chaotic shadow the rest of the way to the firehouse. The vacuum bag had to be changed three more times before we made it. The amount of magic feathers in the air may have lessened by a few degrees, but that might have been wishful thinking. In fact, the amount coming from inside the firehouse appeared to have increased. At the very least, it hadn’t decreased at all. Feathers churned out in puffs and streams.
All the collecting I’d done so far was useless if the magic was still being produced.
“Well, that doesn’t look good.” Vanessa peered over my shoulder into the now-empty vehicle bay. They’d forgotten to close one of the doors behind them.
“Looks like they all went out on a call.” I stepped inside, vacuum buzzing in my hand. The bag needed to be switched out again.
“Have you got a plan?”
“I didn’t think Chaos was much interested in plans.” I crept across the vehicle bay and through a door that led to the rest of the station.
She kept close behind me, probably because if someone showed up, she’d be fully visible in a place she shouldn’t be. “I’m interested in watching what you do.”
“My first goal is to find the source of this mess. If possible, I’d also like to figure out who set it off in the first place.” I stopped for a moment to empty the bag, then changed my mind. As much as it pained me not to clean as we went, it wouldn’t do any good. It would be like trying to mop the floor in a room with an overflowing bathtub. First, the tap needed to be turned off.
“You know,” she said, plucking a feather from the air. “This spell is one of ours. It has to be. Somebody in the Chaos office must have put it together and sold it on eBay or something. It’s way too wild to be one of yours.” She caught three more, held the collection in her palm and blew them into the air.
I sniffed, insulted. “Don’t be ridiculous. The Cupid department doesn’t sell magic.”
We wove our way through the recreation area, past a pool table and a card game that looked to have been in progress when the alarm went off and cleared everyone out. The feathers grew thicker the deeper we went until I found them spilling directly out of a small room at the back. I stood in the doorway and gasped.
“What? What did you find?” Vanessa stood behind me and added her gasp to mine.
Someone had gone into the small bathroom off the rec room, said whatever words had probably come with the recipe, then dropped the love bomb into the toilet.
The water churned with feathers, and magic flowed over the rim, filling the room and floating out into the next. It would have been invisible to all but the person who’d set it off, a Cupid—because it was a love spell—or a Chaos agent—since the spell had originated in their department.
“I can’t believe someone would drop it in the toilet. Aren’t these things water activated?” I pulled out a fresh bag and set it on the edge of the sink so I could take off the full one.
Vanessa nodded. “They’re like bath bombs. Mostly baking soda and Epsom salt. You’re only supposed to use a sprinkle of water to activate it. No wonder it went so wrong.”
She pulled out her notebook and made some notes. “This may be the most chaotic use of a bad spell I’ve ever seen.” Her voice was breathless, like she was describing the Grand Canyon or the Pyramids of Giza.
“How do we stop it?”
She turned her head slowly to look at me. “Well, first off, we’ll have to fish it out of the toilet. Second, it has to dry out.”
I pursed my lips. “Wonderful.” Casting around for something—anything—to help, I found the toilet brush leaning against the pedestal of the sink. I set the vacuum on the counter next to its empty bag, then grabbed the toilet brush handle and dunked the brush in the toilet, fishing around with it until I found the solid, fizzing ball.
There was no way to tell how large the bomb had been when it started, but it was now approximately the size of a golf ball. I scooped it into the loop in the center of the toilet brush and lifted it out of the water.
As it dripped, it continued to kick out magic into the room. While I stood balancing a dripping fizzy thing on the end of a plastic brush, indecisive about what to do with it, Vanessa stepped in and grabbed a wad of toilet paper to blot it. She covered it with paper, then scooped it up, squeezing as much moisture into the wad as she could.
I raised my eyebrows in surprise at her helpfulness. “Thanks.” I set the toilet brush back where I got it. “I didn’t think Chaos agents were allowed to be helpful.”
She smiled. “I already saw what the love bomb would do, and I’ll write that in my notes.” She thrust the handful of toilet paper at me. “What you’ll do next? Now that’s the interesting part.”
I made a face. “This is so unsanitary.” A few feathers squeezed out between my fingers, but after a moment, the hard ball I felt inside the toilet paper grew soft like beach sand and collapsed.
The feathers ceased. We’d stopped the spell. A moment later, even the sand was gone, leaving nothing behind but a wad of toilet paper in my hand. I dropped it in the trashcan.
“Hello?” A deep voice called out from the rec room. “Is somebody here?”
Vanessa and I exchanged panicked expressions. She ducked behind the door, and I peered out to see who it was.
My knees felt unsteady and my stomach did a nervous flip. “Holy dandelions, Vanessa. You should see this guy.” My voice was breathless and dreamy. There wasn’t enough air in the room.
She pressed her face to the crack between the door hinges. “Nice. I prefer blonds, myself, but there’s a lot to be said for that dark, surly look.” She whispered so he wouldn’t hear her, but his head snapped around in our direction anyway.
“Nate? Is that you?” He moved toward the bathroom.
Not knowing what else to do, I slammed the bathroom door closed.
“What did you do that for?” Vanessa’s eyes were large with alarm. “He might not have looked in here before. Now we’re screwed.” She took a breath and tilted her head to listen. “Or this could be interesting.”
I slipped one arm out from my wings and held the loop out toward her. “Get in!”
She hesitated. The doorknob turned, forcing me into action, and I shoved her arm through the elastic, squashing next to her as the door swung open. One pair of wings shared by two people. I hadn’t been positive it would work, but the man’s gaze swept right past us.
“That was close.” I fanned myself with my hand. It was suddenly very hot in that bathroom with him in it.
We backed away toward the wall as he closed the door to check behind it.
“Well, I guess my plan wouldn’t have worked,” Vanessa said. “He looked behind the door.”
The man stood in the bathroom rubbing his cheek in thought and staring at the puddle of water on the floor where I’d dripped with the toilet brush. His gaze did a full sweep of the room, rested a moment on the tiny window that was closed and locked, then went to the sink.
“Son of a fat ogre.” I stared at the sink in horror. My shiny Magic-Vac 5000 lay on the counter, and the super-hot guy was heading right for it. There was no time for me to intercept it.
He wrapped his tanned fingers around it, snatched it up, and left the bathroom.
I followed, dragging Vanessa behind me by her single arm stuck in my wings. The man led us through the rec room and into the kitchen. As he walked, he fiddled with the buttons on the vacuum. I could hear it whirring and buzzing, but he couldn’t. After a thorough inspection and repeated clicks, he dropped my vacuum into a cardboard box that was sitting on the table, then scooped up the box and walked off with it.
“Where in Hades is he taking the damned thing?” Vanessa dragged and pulled, refusing to cooperate with me as we followed.
“I could find out if you’d hurry up.” I paused long enough to toss a glare at her over my shoulder, then resumed tugging her in his direction.
For a moment, I thought I’d lost him, but the citrusy musk of his aftershave re
ached my nose, and I followed the scent. We went out a side door I hadn’t seen before, and we found ourselves outside the building in a parking lot.
The guy tossed the box into the back of his shiny pickup, hopped in, and drove away.
And my Magic-Vac 5000 went with him.
Chapter 3
“I can’t believe you yanked me into your wing-field like that. I did not see that coming.” Vanessa stood with her hands on her hips in the parking lot watching the world go by.
Having freed her, I snapped the elastic of my wing back into place over my shoulder. “I had no choice. You just stood there. Do you know what sort of repercussions there might have been if he’d found you there?” I reached into my messenger bag and plucked a baby wipe from its package. After a thorough cleaning of both my hands, I deposited the wipe in a Ziploc bag I used for trash, then pumped hand sanitizer in my palm. “Want some?” I held the bottle toward Vanessa.
She shook her head. “What do you need that stuff for?”
“I was holding a toilet brush. You smothered the bomb with toilet paper.” I tilted the bottle at her.
“The toilet paper was clean. And you used the handle of the brush.” She wrinkled her forehead. “You are so odd.”
“I’ve never missed a day of work.” I gave my hands an extra squirt of sanitizer for emphasis, then dropped the bottle into the bag.
She smirked, then folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the building. “So, now what? You have a plan, I assume?”
I cringed. I most certainly did not have a plan. “I’m working on it.”
How could I have a plan for something so ridiculous? I had plans and backup plans, lists and backup lists. My suitcase contained a sewing kit, bandages, and a portion of my travel money in a hidden compartment in case someone robbed me. I tried to be ready for any contingency.
I could not have planned for Vanessa, Agent of Chaos.
“All right, sugar pie.” She dropped her arms and straightened. “You kind of look like you’re about to lose your noodle.” She drew her face closer to mine and examined me. “You’re skin is pale, your lips are all pressed together tight like skinny rubber bands, and you sort of have the bug eye.” She felt my forehead. “I think we need to regroup before we proceed.”
I ground my teeth together so tight my jaw hurt. “We do not need to do anything. I need to take a minute to figure out what I’m going to do next, and I don’t need any more interference from you. You’re the one who got me into this mess.”
Vanessa snorted. “Me? You think it’s my fault your silly, inefficient hand-vac disappeared? That was all you, honey. You’re not so good in an emergency, are you?”
My hands turned to fists at my side, and it took everything I had to stand in place and be a lady. “Excuse me? I’m the one who thought fast enough to get you under the protection of my wings. Otherwise, you’d still be standing there trying to explain what you were doing in there. I’m sure your main office would love the notes on that.”
“My office would what?” She chuckled. “Oh, my little butterfly. You really don’t understand, do you? I work for the Chaos department. Whatever happens, happens. As long as I document it, nothing is off the table.” She shook her spiky head. “Chaos has no rules.”
No matter what I did, I couldn’t wrap my head around the point of a Chaos department. “Look. Just…I don’t know. Take notes if you need to, but do it from a distance. I could get into a lot of hot water for losing my equipment, and until I get it back, I can’t even clean this mess up. No matter whose fault it is, it’s still my responsibility. So, leave me alone for awhile, okay? Let me do my job?”
I turned on my heel and marched back into the fire station. If I was going to find answers, that’s where they’d be.
Chapter 4
While I’d been outside trying to recover my wits and my dignity, the crew had returned. When I’d seen them bustling around earlier, it hadn’t been anything like what I saw now.
Several people remained in the garage cleaning equipment and putting things away. A burly, bald guy sang opera in the kitchen while he cooked. Three people in the rec room resumed the card game they’d left behind.
I wandered through the station, hoping to catch sight of the gorgeous guy who’d stolen my Magic-Vac. While there was a wealth of good-looking people in every corner, he wasn’t anywhere I could see.
After I passed the kitchen, I realized I was being stupid. I’d seen the guy leave about five minutes ago. Why would he be back so soon? What on earth was wrong with me?
Past the rec room and the kitchen, I peeked in at the dorm rooms where people slept on their long shifts. To my relief, both rooms were currently empty, and I didn’t have to break up any unsavory activity between inappropriate matches.
An office area lay beyond. One door said it belonged to the chief. His name, Earl Stewart, was written on a nameplate affixed to the wood. An empty hallway led away from all the activity, but a window let me see the banks of computers and serious faces taking care of dispatch.
I turned away. In spite of all the feathers around the place, these folks all seemed to be behaving themselves. Was it their heroic natures that made them immune? Their proximity to the love bomb itself? A food they all ate? Chances were, I’d never know why these people weren’t all over each other.
Back in the rec room, I found a new person I wasn’t expecting. The short kind. He was maybe eight or nine years old, and he sat at the table with his backpack on the floor next to him while he worked on some kind of math worksheet. Homework, probably. Or not. I couldn’t have been the only kid who did math worksheets for fun.
“Hey, Oliver. Good to see you, my man.” A lean man with dark skin and a shaved head sat next to the boy. He peered at the worksheet and made a face. “Math, huh? How’s that working out for you?”
Oliver shrugged. “Keeps me from having to take shop class.” He brushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes. “Numbers can’t smash your fingers or hammer in sideways. They always do what they’re supposed to do.”
His companion nodded. “You know if you need help with anything, we’d line up to do whatever you need, right?”
“I know.” Oliver gave the man a polite smile, then looked past him to the bathroom door. He frowned. “I need to go to the bathroom. Can you watch my stuff?”
“Sure. Sure. You know Reggie’s always got his eye on your backpack. I’ll keep it safe from him.”
“Watch it, Gideon.” The guy in the kitchen shook his fist and made a show of faking offense. “I would never do that to Oliver. His mom would kill me.”
As much as I didn’t want to follow a kid into the bathroom, I had a hunch I needed to. As he rose from the table, I crossed the room and walked behind him. As it turned out, I didn’t need to follow him all the way. He stopped dead in the doorway. I moved around him to the side to watch his expression.
Sure enough. His gaze was fixed on the toilet, and his expression was a mixture of confusion and concern.
Oliver was my love bomber.
“Kid, whatever possessed you to set off a cheap love bomb in the middle of a busy city?” I stepped away, hoping this whole mess wasn’t because of a schoolboy’s crush.
He scratched his head, went into the bathroom, and closed the door.
I sighed. This might mean I’d have to follow the kid to school to find out who his crush was. Maybe I needed to fix him up with his crush to make all this okay.
That was not the job I’d expected to be doing here.
I found an unoccupied corner of the room and took a seat to wait. I wasn’t sure what for, exactly, but it seemed like the best course of action until I could figure out my next move. And maybe get my vacuum back.
Oliver came out of the bathroom and resumed studying at the table. Reggie came over and put a plate of those little wieners wrapped in bacon and puffed pastry in front of him. Oliver ate without looking up.
I had the feeling the kid was troubled, but I
couldn’t tell if it was a girl problem or not. Normally, I could sense romantic love, from puppy love to eternal flames, and all between. I sensed nothing like that from him. But he definitely wasn’t happy.
He perked up a few minutes later when a woman came in and sat next to him. She wore a headset around her neck with the microphone rotated up away from her mouth.
“Hey, baby. How was school?” She kissed his cheek and ran her palm over his back.
“Good.” He smiled up at her. “Mrs. Averly sent home a permission slip for you to sign. We’re going to the World Aquarium next month.”
She pulled up a chair next to him and rummaged through his backpack. “Maybe I can get the day off and chaperone.”
When she turned toward me, I gasped. She was the same woman I’d un-matched earlier in front of the VW bug. Megan, she’d said, before leaving that guy Steve standing in the street scratching the back of his neck.
I supposed that working within a nine-block square, I was likely to see the same people over and over. It wasn’t necessarily a coincidence.
I rose from my chair and stretched.
This was getting me no closer to figuring out where my Magic-Vac was. I’d found out who dropped a love bomb in the toilet, so at least I’d managed to solve one problem.
The smell of whatever delicious thing Reggie was cooking in the kitchen made my stomach grumble. It was nearly dinnertime. I figured I might as well go back to the hotel and see what I could come up with to eat. Maybe my muscled thief would be here in the morning, and I’d be able to tag along behind him until I found my vacuum.
If I was lucky, maybe he’d be wearing the same aftershave.
I shook my head to clear it. Where did that nonsense come from?
“Stick to the program, Cupid,” I mumbled under my breath. “He’s about the least suitable companion you could possibly have. How delicious he smells is irrelevant.”
Of course I was right. I was there to do a job, not hook up with some random guy, no matter how hot he was. We had nothing in common, and frankly, we’d never even met.
Dallas Fire & Rescue: Emergency Cupid (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Mt. Olympus Employment Agency: Cupid Book 1) Page 2