Playing with Fire: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count)(6)

Ink splattered over most of the sheet, leaving behind enough white space to form a single word: yes.

How lovely. Why wasn’t I surprised? Yes was an easy enough answer to interpret. Revenge motivated McGee, and he had used the phone to get it—or tried to. Too bad for him I was immune to his stupid batch of dust.

Still, the single confirmation wasn’t enough. I needed to take it a step further. Discarding the soaked page, I grabbed another and plunked it down beside McGee’s phone. The more specific I got with my desires, the harder it was to get an answer I could use.

On a good day, my magic would seek out the truth and, using a single word, tell me what I needed to know. It tired me, and without fail, there were consequence associated with using my talent. Usually, the magic put me in the worst position possible, like witnessing Magnus McGee’s sister doing things I only fantasized about.

With her ex-husband.

I groaned and gave up all hope of concentrating on the problem without my mind diving into the gutter. My magic sucked. Samuel Quinn, quite probably the man of my dreams, was back on the market, and thanks to cheating and using some hocus pocus to do him a favor, he hated me. At least I didn’t care if the McGees hated me.

Well, maybe I did. A face full of gorgon dust and glass shards wasn’t my idea of a good time. Why the hell would anyone risk contamination to get revenge on me? Only an idiotic moron would do such a thing.

There were easier ways to kill or hurt someone.

I opened my eyes. The marbles rolled across the floor and lined up, heading straight towards my door. One by one, they halted in a new position, stretching from my side all the way across my living room.

Someone knocked at my door.

A chill ran through me, and I picked up the bag containing the contaminated phone. Ink splotches on the page drew my attention, and I sucked in a breath. Written in the clearest words I’d ever seen my magic produce were two words: not you.

Another knock at my door startled me to my feet; my heart drummed a frantic beat in my chest, echoing in my ears and throat. I was immune to gorgon dust. Some people knew. Most didn’t. Because most didn’t, whenever the police department needed my help, Chief Quinn came personally. He always did.

Oh no.

“Bailey?”

Panic jolted through me. Yep. Chief Quinn was at my door, and unless my guess was way off, Magnus McGee wanted revenge—on him, not on me. I was just a bonus. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

I hurried to the door and engaged the deadbolt. Until I could confirm I’d neutralized every last particle of gorgon dust, I couldn’t let anyone in. Even with my cleaning and spraying of the neutralizing solution, I had no way of knowing if I’d gotten it all.

If I opened the door, some might get out, and it only took a trace to petrify someone.

“Bailey? It’s me. Open up,” he ordered.

“I can’t. Seal the door, Chief Quinn.” If I had to lock myself in until they could napalm the place to prevent a gorgon outbreak, I would. Being napalmed fell really low on my bucket list of things to do before I died, but if I allowed anyone to be infected, I would never forgive myself.

“What? What’s going on?”

“Get someone to seal the door. Someone bombed my place with gorgon dust. Just go away, please. I have neutralizing solution here, I just need time to get it all.” There. If that didn’t send him a clear message, nothing would. “Please.”

A string of curses spewed out of the man’s mouth, so potent my toes curled. “You’re certain?”

“Of course I’m certain. I know gorgon dust when I see it. Don’t be insulting.”

“Who did it?”

I imagined him standing on the other side of the door, his arms crossed over his broad chest, and the muscles of his biceps flexed beneath his uniform. Damn. I wished my door had a peep hole so I could get a good look at him before I either starved to death, decontaminated my apartment, or was napalmed by law enforcement to prevent an outbreak.

“Bailey? Who did it?”

There was no point in hiding it, but I sighed anyway. “Ma—“

The pressure of invisible hands around my throat cut off my breath. Thunder roared in my ears, and when the sound crested, someone turned out all the lights.





I woke to Chief Quinn barking orders. My door shuddered in its frame, lost its will to live, and thumped against my back, shoulders, and head. Ouch.

The universe obviously hated me and wanted me to die.

Before I could gather my wits to do something about getting smacked with my own door—and figure out which end was up—Chief Quinn gave another command. I really wished the man would shut up for once in his life. My door smacked into me so hard it cleaned my clock and shunted me aside. Double ouch.

Why couldn’t he follow simple instructions? ‘Seal the door’ did not mean ‘batter the damned thing down.’

A white shoe and leg stepped over me, and it took me a moment to comprehend someone wearing a hazmat suit had invaded my apartment. Oh. Hazmat suit. That’d work, too. I blinked and tried to piece together how I had ended up on the floor, but I couldn’t remember.

The person in the hazmat suit was either a part of the police containment team or a member of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Either way, I was screwed. Plastic crinkled, and I heard the gentle hiss of the oxygen tank ensuring complete protection from any potential gorgon dust lingering in my apartment.