Page 43 of The Flame Game

My mother seemed to believe she would be able to get her car on the move after having an angry unicorn bash the hood in. On closer investigation, not only had I bashed the entire front end of the car into the ground, I’d broken the axle, as both front tires pointed in separate directions.

Wow. I regarded the destruction with interest.

“I broke it,” I informed the cops.

Rather than pay any attention to me, the cops began barking orders, directing my asshole parents to get out of the vehicle with their hands up.

Amused neither seemed to care I’d trashed my parents’ car, I amused myself circling them, snorting smoke and fire to keep my body temperature up. Sometime after the cops had read my parents their rights, a black SUV with a rental car sticker came down the street.

I bolted for the house, dug at one of the holes left from moving my roses, and tried to hide in the frozen ground. “Not here!”

Down the street, the cops laughed at me.

I didn’t blame them.

My husband parked the rental in our driveway, and I hunkered down, attempting to escape his wrath.

“I can see you, Bailey. You don’t fit.”

Damn it. “Not my fault!”

“The unicorn-shaped dent in the hood of that car is definitely your fault, unless there is another unicorn hiding around?”

“May-be?” I turned my ears back and showed him my teeth. “They start it!”

“Now that I can believe, especially as it seems the side of the house has been lit on fire. Did they use a Molotov cocktail?”

“May-be. Okay. Yes. Do you think Mol-o-tov cock-tail tast-ee?”

“Go lick it and find out.”

I scrambled out of the hole, scrambled to the side of the house, and gave the fire on the brick a lick. Whatever they’d used tasted peppery with a solid punch of diesel and some other accelerant. “Die-sel! Tast-ee!” I enjoyed the flames tickling over my fur, and I went to work licking everything off our house.

“Just try to leave the broken glass alone. Don’t step on it or cut your tongue. I’ll give Barfield a call.”

Within twenty minutes, the cops were all back along with a single fire engine. The fire fighters stood around and did nothing while I handled the cleanup, and when I finished my treat, I burped. With a claw extended, I tapped on the broken glass. “This part no tast-ee, Queeny.”

My husband joined me on the front steps of our house, shaking his head at the damaged bricks. “A few inches to the left, and we would have had a charred interior, and even then, it wouldn’t have done much damage.”

“Not much damage because Queeny the best husband and fireproof house.”

He rewarded me with a stroke of my nose. “A wise man adapts to his wife’s special needs, and my wife’s favorite treat is napalm. Did you enjoy your snack?”

“Very tast-ee. Not as good as nay-palm, but good. Peppery. Die-sel plus some-thing else.” I considered the taste. “Blue gel stuff for hot plate things.”

“Methanol blue,” my husband replied. “Easy to get, a good enough gel, and would help keep the fire concentrated enough to light the house up—if I hadn’t fireproofed it.”

“Par-rents very stupid.”

“Yes, they are. Did you really have to total their car, though?”

“Cops would have put bullets in car and may have shot idiot par-rents. May-be earn, but my way bet-ter. No par-rents shot, only car damaged. No tell nice father or mother about this? They be upset. Very upset. Might smite.”

“Smote, my beautiful.”

“Might smite,” I replied in my most solemn tone.

“You’re incredible.”