Wanted: Undead or Alive

Chasing Fire

I laid rubber pulling out of the Morning Fresh parking lot and headed west, moving as fast as I could in and out of the traffic. Two cars honked, and a heavily tattooed arm popped out of a window to perform some rudimentary sign language in my general direction.

"Ok, Google, call Landry!"

"Sure. Calling Landry," the AI replied in her agonizingly slow and calm manner. After a hundred and fifteen years, or maybe four seconds, the phone rang.

Mx. Landry picked up just as I slowed, peeked in both directions, and ran a red light, cursing the whole time.

"Always a pleasure, Nowicki."

"Sor—" I choked down the word. "In a bit of a situation here. I'm chasing firetrucks and my gut tells me they're headed toward my skip, but they got ahead of me and I lost them. You got an address on the scanner?"

"Hold on." They literally put me on hold. Soft jazz drifted over the car's speakers.

A school bus rolled out into the intersection in front of me.

I hit the brakes so hard the SUV fishtailed, but I came to a stop with my front tires just behind the white line at the edge of the intersection. My heart banged against my breastbone. The person behind me laid on their horn.

The music stopped. "You still there?"

"Yeah."

"Department three is headed to the No-Tell Motel on Wesley Avenue."

I'm sure the hotel had a different name, but I'd never heard it referred to as anything else and the only sign out front was the one that read: VA ANCY HOU LY RATES.

"Got it, thanks."

"I live to serve." They disconnected.

The light turned green, and I banked hard left. Four minutes and half a dozen additional traffic violations later, I saw flashing lights in the distance. First responders had the road completely closed in front of the motel, so I thumped over a cracked driveway into a liquor store parking lot and hoofed it the rest of the way.

A cop I'd met once or twice before held out his hand in a gesture for me to stop.

Without slowing, I tugged my badge from my back pocket and flashed it in his general direction. "Fugitive recovery agent. I have reason to believe my bounty is in that motel."

"I know who you are, but that place is—"

With a roar, flames exploded out of the roof, and the center of the building imploded.

I staggered to a stop.

"About to blow," he said.

I planted my hands on my hips and panted for air. "Thanks. Got it."

"Who you looking for?"

"Adan Charring, twenty-something female, red hair, green eyes, tall, slim."

"She's a felon?"

"Arsonist." Not exactly, but close enough.

His mouth dropped open. "You're shitting me."

"I shit you not. You know where she is?"

"Yeah. She was sitting right over there with her baby in one of them little umbrella strollers." He pointed toward the bus stop on the corner where the bus was just rolling away and the bench was empty.

I sprinted toward the bus, jumping over a hose and just about getting clipped in the face when a firetruck door flew open in front of me. Behind me, I heard the cop calling for all units to coverage on the city bus that was westbound on Wesley Avenue.