“Yes, you are the most marvelous of cindercorns, although our cindercorn children are also marvelous cindercorns.”
“All our children are best children,” she replied in a solemn tone.
“All right, Detective McMarin. You should be familiar with most of this gear, but if there’s a problem with her tack, you may struggle with it, so listen up.” The chief ran me through the differences between a regular horse’s tack and his wife’s tack, which boiled down to extra straps, a slightly different placement on her back, and allowing only one finger’s worth of space instead of two. “Her bridle has no bit, so all it’s there for is to help you balance and give her cues if you want her to look a certain direction. If you see something dangerous, if you pull really hard, you’ll astonish her into stopping, as I’m always gentle with her reins. If in doubt, pull as hard as you can and dig your heels in. Generally, she’s good at spotting trouble, but sometimes she wears blinders, especially if she’s thinking about lunch.”
“Should have eaten lunch before coming, you right,” the cindercorn complained.
The man laughed and rubbed his wife’s neck. “You’ll survive until you get to the station, and I’ll call in your order so you don’t have to wait long. Try not to create too much mayhem on the way, okay?”
“Will do best, but very hard. Snow and slush and ice make drivers stupid, not all idiots have broken their cars yet this year. Where I go, mayhem follow. Where snow go, more mayhem follow.”
I took that as my cue to get onto the cindercorn’s back, and I mounted as I’d been taught, hurrying to get into the saddle to mitigate how long she dealt with all my weight on one stirrup. Chief Samuel took my purse. “I’ll make sure you get this back. If you get pulled over, just tell them to give me a call, and I’ll explain there’s no such thing as licenses to ride crazy pyromaniac unicorns here. They’ll cope.”
“They better,” the cindercorn replied.
ChapterTwo
Under normal circumstances,it should have taken at least an hour to reach Manhattan’s lead precinct from Brooklyn, but Chief Bailey Quinn did the run in less than ten minutes. The first time she teleported, it reminded me a little of being punched in the gut. The second time triggered a headache. After the third time, I decided to register the cindercorn as cruel and unusual punishment.
Upon arrival, I did not throw up, but I oozed off her back, failed to stay on my feet, and leaned against her steaming legs, debating if I wanted to cry over my lot in life or crawl into a hole to die. Several cops came out of the station, and they stared while the cindercorn nuzzled me. “You do good. You survive! You not only survive once, you survivetwenty-twotimes! You are the best detective to ever detective. You deserve medal. Gold stars. Lunch. You deserve lunch.”
“Bailey Ember Quinn, what have you done?” one of the cops demanded, and he stood with his hands on his hips. “You are not supposed to be here for another twenty minutes at the earliest.”
The chief flattened her ears and snapped her teeth at the cop. “Perky mean!”
“I’m not mean. I’m concerned for your victim.”
“She a little oozy but good. No vomit. Not even turn green. Yelped only twice. She good. Twenty-two times she jump. No throw up, not even once! Even learn to ride actual jump. Car in way, no want to stop, so jump. Smart, adaptable. Mine.”
The cop lifted his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You didn’t actually teleport her twenty-two times, did you?”
“Twenty-two times,” the cindercorn reported before nuzzling my cheek. “You ooze because not ride horse in long time. You fine.”
While fine was a stretch, I would manage. I used her leg to help stagger back to my feet and brush myself off. “Thank you for the ride, Chief Quinn.”
The cops stared at me as though I were the unicorn rather than the actual unicorn, who pranced in placed. “See? See? Sheperfect. Ride me, no problem. Twenty-two times! I picked the best detective, Perky.”
Perky sighed. “Please forgive Bailey, Detective McMarin. She’s excitable today. She was supposed to teleport you once to test if you could handle it. While Sam can deal with her teleportation magic, most of us cannot. By cannot, we tend to spend the rest of the day ill. I am one of the ones who can’t handle it at all. Come with me, and I will show you to your new office. I also have several firearms you can choose from along with the rest of your gear. Someone else can deal with the gas guzzler.”
“No gas today but promised more coffee and lunch.”
“Yes, we’re aware you were promised lunch. Sam called me and asked me to take care of it. At the same time, he told me what the original plan was, which you opted to completely ignore.”
“Lunch and coffee here, not there. Brooklyn give hives.” The cindercorn lifted a hoof and revealed a claw. “Not allowed to slice or bite idiot in Brooklyn, so come here for lunch and coffee. No mean, tell Perkette.”
“I’m not being mean. I’m informing you that as soon as I take Detective McMarin to her office, I’m telling your husband what you’ve been up to, and you’ll have to deal with him. And no worming around on the steps. You might break your saddle again, and we don’t have another spare.”
“No break saddle, but you cruel and mean!”
“Come with me, Detective McMarin, and ignore the gas guzzler’s whining. She’ll resume being a professional sometime after the coffee wears off or she gets used to having coffee again.” Perky gestured to the doors leading into the station, and I followed him. “I’d apologize, but if I apologized for every time the chief got excitable, I’d never get any work done. The first time you see her in public, you won’t believe it’s the same woman. She has two modes of operation, and she’s in her interior mode. In good news, her interior mode keeps morale up, as she’s insane and hilarious to watch.”
“So mean!” the cindercorn complained, trailing along behind us. “Stale chips?”
Perky laughed. “I’m sure I can scrounge up some stale chips for you, and if you stand quietly while someone strips off your gear, I’ll take care of the detective’s orientation so you can get some work done before the responsible chief arrives.”
“Children?” she demanded.
“I checked in on the entire herd of them, and everyone is fine, although you’re going to have to talk with the whelps about reading during playtime again. Apparently, the point of playtime is to be social, not to read books.”
