CHAPTER 18

A week later, Mayor Ghafoor allowed the smoke eaters to respond out of the few fire stations throughout the city, but that meant we were all spread out. No more of the “one building for all” approach. I wondered when the city would rebuild our headquarters. The impression I got was that some higher-ups felt we were the dumbasses who allowed our building to burn down, and that we would have to make do with what little we were offered.

Afu, the eternal optimist, thought maybe our new work environment would be a good thing, that we could get along with the firefighters who we considered our evolutionary predecessors. But when you shove a bunch of A-type personalities together in a small building, who have just a slight difference in job description… well, we had a lot of shit-talking and four-lettered shouting matches that festered into full-blown fist fights.

Usually what set it off was a firefighter making a crack about how we let our headquarters burn down. Brannigan had tried to be diplomatic and determined that both sides had started different forms of shit in each firehouse, but I was there, heard it with my own ears, and had even thrown the first punch.

On the plus side, both smokies and hose-draggers alike didn’t run off and tell Mama about these brotherly scuffles. We kept it all in house, and despite the initial turmoil and confusion of whether an incoming call was for a dragon or a hover-car wreck, tensions seemed to be thinning.

Nobody likes change at first.

We got several phoenix sightings called in. We didn’t doubt the validity when a citizen said they saw, “a huge goddamn chicken that looks like it ran through an even bigger bonfire.”

But every time we rushed to the scene, the phoenix was gone, leaving only a few scorch marks on the ground. It was a good thing we were there though, because every single time, we found a half-eaten pile of yellow embers, and then more dragons would emerge on the spot.

Some smokies shrugged it off as a coincidence. The pessimists among us speculated that the scalies had found a way to come after us, as if they had a concept of vengeance. The realists, like me, knew the phoenix had something to do with it. It was like catnip for scalies. The way the leviathan had behaved that day outside Sandusky, waking from a Sandman nap…

Either way, the propellerheads were working their asses off, coming up with a solution to extinguishing the phoenix’s unkillable fire.

We gave Patrice a nice funeral, and it reminded me that the old days weren’t all fun and scaly corpses. Some of the corpses had worn power suits. Her body was never recovered, of course, because she’d burned away. So, we put together a quick memorial using her helmet. And, unlike a dragon-caused fatality, there had been no wraith. A rumor started going around, about how Patrice had somehow transformed into the new phoenix. I put a nip in that bud quicker than shit through a wyvern. Not only was it not true, but it would make me hesitate the next time I stood in front of the bird if it somehow was true.

I’d never seen Brannigan cry until that day at the funeral. I’m glad it was him who had to talk to Patrice’s family. I wouldn’t have been able to do it. Leaving earlier had probably made me look like an asshole, but I didn’t care. I just couldn’t handle it. I walked into my house, past my parents arguing in the bathroom as my mother tried to lift him onto the toilet. In my room, I shut the door and began punching at shelves and walls indiscriminately until I passed out on my bed in a blubbering mess.

I didn’t leave my room for two days, and my parents were smart enough to let me be.

Renfro asked to transfer to my crew as driver, which bumped up Naveena’s rookie to sit behind the wheel of her rig. It was the fastest promotion in smoke eater history, even counting Brannigan’s and mine. Naveena had tried calling Sergeant Puck out of retirement, but in her gravelly voice she responded, “I’d rather swallow a pregnant hydra and poop out its babies!”

So Naveena was stuck with two rookies.

Yolanda and I took Jet 1 out every so often to hunt for the firebird. I always asked to ride along, learning each button and gizmo in the cockpit, the basics of flying, and a lot I didn’t want to know about Yolanda. Most of it was about how she felt like Patrice’s death was somehow her fault. I told her it wasn’t, even though I knew it wouldn’t put her mind at ease. How could a mind like Yolanda’s ever be at ease? Propellerheads twirl a bit faster.

“I shouldn’t have been wearing my key card,” Yolanda said after explaining the altimeter. “I should have listened to Afu. He was right about the phoenix.”

“Patrice would have found a way into the lockbox one way or another,” I said. “The phoenix made her attack you. If it’s anybody’s fault, Yolanda, it’s not yours.”

Because it was mine.

After that, I made sure to ask as many questions about flying as I could to keep Yolanda’s mind off Patrice. One day, before we set to fly out, Yolanda held out a piece of paper to me.

“What ancient shit is this?” I asked.

“It’s the guy I was telling you about. Herjold. His address. Brannigan cleared it for your crew to pay him a visit and see if you can learn anything, because what we’re doing now is getting us nowhere.”

And that’s why Renfro, Afu and I were riding quietly down Newitz Avenue, chasing another wild goose.

“I still can’t believe she’s gone.” Afu’s booming voice broke the silence, making me jerk in my seat.

More quietly, almost hoarse, Renfro said, “Yeah. Me, too.”

“Yeah, well that’s life,” I said.

I watched the buildings fly by outside my window, but I could sense my crew’s heads turn sharply toward me. If Afu’s voice had been the thunder, then my statement was the lightning.

Afu huffed.

That just pissed me off. I spun around and slammed my hands on top of the truck’s doghouse. “What?”

“You make out like you’re some badass all the time, but I know the real you, not the front you put on for everybody else.” Afu shook his head and looked away. “You’re like a scared princess, building up your emotional castle walls, so nobody sees how torn up you are inside. Not even yourself.”

“Don’t call me a princess, you damn ogre. I’m just being real. You’re the one who’s always so fucking happy all the time. I take things for what they are and keep moving forward, because I have to. That’s why we were never going to work out. You live in a fantasy land.”

I’d never seen Afu angry. Not even while he was fighting a dragon. But right then, he lost it. “Well I sure as hell ain’t happy now! I’m glad we’re not together, and I’m transferring to another crew as soon as I can.”

Quiet.

I thought the cab had been silent before, now it was a void.

Renfro cleared his throat. “This the house up here?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Number 18. Guy named Harold.”

“I thought it was Gerald,” Renfro said.

“Whatever it is.” I tossed the piece of paper Yolanda had given me. “I can’t read her chicken scratch. She should have just sent it to my holoreader like a normal person.”

Harold or Gerald’s house was a bungalow pinned between “dragon proof,” self-building houses on either side. I knocked three times against the polished cherry door as Renfro and Afu waited behind me.

A short, bespectacled man with a white-haired horseshoe on his head answered. “I’m not interested in buying a holostereo.”

The fuck?

“We’re not selling anything,” I said.

He grunted. “Then I’m not interested in giving the imaginary friend you pray to any money either.”

“Are you Harold?”

He cleared his throat. “Herjold.”

Renfro tapped his fingers against my shoulder. “I told you it was Gerald.”

“Herjold!” the old man said. “And who’s asking?”

I still didn’t understand what to call him. “If you can’t tell by our uniforms, Mr Her… Ger….”

“Oh, for the love of Pete!” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Just call me Stephen. Herjold is my last name.”

“We’re with the smoke eaters,” I said.

“Oh, that’s right. Yolanda told me you might come by. Come on in. You guys like coffee?”

“I’m good,” I said.

Afu shook his head no.

“I never say no to coffee,” said Renfro.

The inside of the house was old, dark and dusty. And if it weren’t for the darkness, the presence of dust would have been more noticeable. Books were everywhere: on shelves along the walls, on the coffee and end tables, even stacked on the floor.

“Go on,” Stephen grumbled, waving a hand toward a couch covered in, you guessed it… porcelain dolls. “Have a seat there. Just move ’em out of the way. Carefully!”

Afu, blinking with confusion, scooped up the dolls in his arms and set them in a corner. While Stephen was getting coffee from the kitchen around the corner, all three of us sat squished together on the couch.

Renfro leaned over and whispered, “What are we hoping to get out of this guy? I don’t think he’s left his house in thirty years.”

“It’s worth a shot,” I said.

Afu watched the dolls in the corner as if they’d stand up and attack him.

“Hope instant coffee is fine,” Stephen said as he returned with a cup in his hand. He handed it to Renfro.

“Free is free,” Renfro said.

Stephen curled his lip. “Nothing in this world is free.”

I gave Renfro a look, but my new engineer was focused on drinking his coffee.

“Damnedest thing.” Stephen threw a pile of newspapers off an old orange chair and sat. “That mud had to be boiling hot. You didn’t even wait for it to cool.”

“Benefits of our condition.” Renfro raised the cup to our host.

“So, what did you need to talk to me about? Yolanda didn’t mention anything,” Stephen asked.

“Yolanda said you were pretty knowledgeable in mythology, specifically monsters and creatures.”

“Knowledgeable? Yeah, I’d say so. I taught Myth at Ohio State for most of my life. Then those damn dragons came and made us all look like idiots.”

“We’ve encountered something new,” I said. “You’ve probably heard about it on the Feed.”

“Bah! I don’t touch all that new junk. It rots brains. Man can’t even get a newspaper anymore.” He pointed to the ones he’d thrown to the ground. “Those are fifty years old.”

“What do you know about the phoenix?”

Stephen’s eyes widened. “Wait. You’re saying we don’t just have dragons anymore? You’ve seen a realdeal phoenix?”

“We killed it once,” Afu said. “Well, it killed itself really. Then it came back out of its ashes.”

I pulled out my holoreader and showed him a bit of the footage Brannigan had recorded.

“Damn it all to hell!” Stephen kicked the stack of newspapers over with his foot.

I thought most people in his field would have been overjoyed to learn the creatures they had devoted their lives to actually existed. Stephen was clearly not one of those people.

“What do you want to know?” he asked. “It’s probably completely crap now there’s a real thing out there.”

“Anything,” I said. “Everything.”

Stephen sighed. “Okay. So you’ve seen it’s made of fire. Different records describe it like that while others say it was just a regular bird. But they all agree that a new incarnation rises from its ashes after it sets itself on fire.”

“So, there’s no way to kill it?” Afu asked.

Stephen shrugged. “Based on all the legends – and they come from all over: China, Japan, Russia, even the Native Americans had their version – it’ll just rise again after it’s killed. So, technically, yes, but you’ll just have to rinse and repeat.”

“We saw the phoenix feed on dragons. Scalies we kill have been burning to yellow embers, even when the bird isn’t around. If it is around, the phoenix eats what’s left of them. Even the wraiths burn away if they get too close.”

“There you go.” Stephen sulked. “Here I thought it was just furniture philosophy.”

“What are you talking about?” I looked around at the dust-covered fixtures. His home needed furniture rehab, not just a new belief system.

“Feng shui,” Stephen said. “Dragon is yang, phoenix is yin. One balances the other. Apparently, the Chinese meant it as more than advice on where to put your couch.”

“So the phoenix balances the dragons?” Afu asked.

“Seems like it.” Stephen spread his hands. “You all should be happy. The bird is doing your job for you.”

“There’s a big problem with that, though,” I said.

“Oh?”

“The bird got into one of our friends’ heads. Made her do things. Made her release its ashes. I’m starting to think these arsons going around the city are related, too.”

“There’s been arsons?”

I forgot: no Feed.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said. “Point I’m making is, would the phoenix be able to–”

“Possess people?” Stephen leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow.

I felt stupid for even bringing it up, but nodded.

“There’s nothing in the regular mythology about that at all.”

I dropped my head. Shit.

“But…” He stood at the books lining the walls and began throwing them down as he searched. “Ah! Here.”

Returning to his chair, he opened a black book titled The Lesser Key of Solomon.

“Is that, like, from the Bible?” Afu asked.

Stephen sputtered his lips. “Nothing of the sort. Although King Solomon was mentioned in that bogus religious text.”

As Stephen flipped through the pages, Afu leaned toward Renfro. “He doesn’t have to be so mad about it.”

I would have loved to introduce Stephen Herjold to my parents. The fireworks would have been spectacular.

“All right” Stephen raised his finger like some great orator. He must have been hell in the classroom. “‘Phenex, the thirty-seventh spirit, is a great Marquis of hell. It can only be evoked by more than one person. Any who conjure this demon must not listen to its song, and must bind it in human form’.”

Renfro spit out his coffee.

“Watch the carpet!” Stephen said.

“Demons?” I said. I thought about how my daddy said it was Satanists behind the arsons. “No, that’s stupid. That makes even less sense than ghosts and dragons.”

Stephen raised his hands defensively. “I’m only providing information. Like I said before, it’s probably all bullshit.”

Patrice had acted like she was possessed, but I didn’t believe in any of that exorcist baloney. She’d been poisoned by the ashes.

No. She’d been called. Sung to.

“Look,” Stephen said. “A lot of myths have the tiniest bits of truth to them. Nanonuggets of fact. You ever play the telephone game? Or chinese whispers? Imagine what that would be like played over thousands of years. Whatever is going on, if this phoenix can affect people a certain way, there’s a scientific explanation. And I’m sure Yolanda can help you figure it out.”

“That’s all you have?” asked Renfro.

“Yep!” Stephen stood, brushing his hands together. “And I have a chess game with my next-door neighbor in five minutes. So, was there anything else you needed?”

Afu stood. “Do you know anything about burrowing owls?”

Stephen thinned his eyes and slowly shook his head. “No.”

Back in the cannon truck, we all sat there stewing in what we’d just heard. It felt like we’d listened to a lot and learned nothing.

“So,” Renfro said. “Now what do we do?”

I held my helmet and stared at the shield hanging on the front. I rubbed a finger along the golden dragon head cresting the top. “If the phoenix is about balance, we’ll give it some. I aim to set the scales right, and for what it did to Patrice and those jolly vollies, we’re going to kill the motherfucker. Permanently.”