Captain Ariel Thorne wrapped her arms around her knees and glared from under the dubious shelter of a Howard Kerfe table. Some idiot had bleached it to match the white-on-white interior of Dr Isaac Delgardo’s house, but that wasn’t her problem.
‘Bugs,’ sneered George Casterian. ‘Why did it have to be bugs?’
Yep, that was her problem. Bugs.
‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and it’s supposed to be snakes,’ Thorne said. She’d lived in Pandora’s Edge long enough to recognise a quote, or misquote, when she heard it. The locals put a spin on the words, and slipped into expectation as easily as they wore sunglasses. She knew they were sucking her in, erasing that division between locals and outsider, the them and us distinction, but Thorne couldn’t resist playing their Identify that quote game.
She’d like to resist the bugs, though.
Against the anemic backdrop, the beetles were oil-slick shiny, kind of cadaver-friendly with an extra dollop of evil manifesting in the sickle-shaped mandibles and lurching gait.
Thorne would have arrested their human equivalent on general suspicion.
There was never a lot of crime in Pandora’s Edge so chasing up an overdue parking fine had seemed like a good way to break the monotony. Thorne was currently reevaluating that decision from the safe zone under the antique table with a wall at her back. The bugs avoided the table but every now and then clumsy manoeuvring resulted in a beetle clicky-clacketing too close.
Thorne bumped her knuckles against the underside of the table. Maybe the bleach was anathema to them, or maybe it was the timber itself. Moths avoided camphor wood, didn’t they? Or was it cedar? Of course the bugs might just want to induce lip-gnawing anticipation.
It was working.
George gulped as a beetle ventured too close to the hems of his oatmeal slacks. His foot jerked and knocked the beetle off course. It made a whirring grating noise, like it needed its motor oiled, and spasmed, before it flipped right side up and lurched into motion.
George unfroze and drew his knees up close to his chest. ‘I’m thinking The Mummy.’
‘Scarabs.’ Thorne nodded absently. ‘Don’t touch.’
George’s wide-eyed stare clearly communicated As if. His expensive blonde hair was astray in puffs and he looked twelve instead of twenty-two. ‘Pity we arrested Lenore Rigby,’ he said.
There were a lot of specialists in The Edge. Truly, expertise was the town’s chief export. And up until a few months ago, Lenore Rigby had been their very own homegrown entomologist. Technically she still was, Thorne supposed, a little thing like murder not being enough to revoke Lenore’s local status.
‘Well, she was killing people,’ Thorne pointed out now.
‘Person,’ George corrected. ‘And not exactly citizen of the year. More like a Becky Sharp, who, let’s face it, is the only thing apart from cockroaches that’d survive an explosion that wiped out all life as we know it.’
‘So we should have held Lenore in reserve.’
‘Definitely.’ George huddled into his rain jacket as a beetle halted directly before him. It twitched its antennae maliciously and trundled off. George shuddered.
‘Your new phone,’ Thorne said slowly, ‘it’s a snazzy camera phone.’ She had her own phone in her hand, bouncing it thoughtfully on her palm.
‘Still likely subject to lousy reception way up here in the hills,’ George shut his eyes and rested his head against the wall.
George was probably right. Topography to the east of Pandora’s Edge was rumpled and rippled, full of gullies and skinny valleys, and cursed with poor reception normally. Factor in the manic-depressive weather patterns currently providing flamboyant light and sound spectaculars…
Thorne speed-dialed Donna at the office anyway.
‘Problem?’ Donna’s voice came through clear as sunshine.
‘Just call me Ms Bluebeard, because I opened the wrong door.’
‘I never did like that story. Any body parts?’
‘At the moment, no. We’re sort of sidetracked by the plague of bugs that poured through the door as soon as I opened it. No sign of Dr Delgardo but the good news is that I can’t smell any decay. Just dust and peppermint— And what are you eating?’ Thorne demanded, ears ringing from Donna’s rapturous moan.
‘Ummm mmmh mm. Excuse me. Dark Jungle Gâteau. It’s the über sinful version of Black Forest Cake.’
Thorne believed her. Donna was the pastry connoisseur, and despite her worship at the altar of decadent desserts, was a permanent perfect size twelve.
‘Save me a slice.’ Thorne shook dark curls out of her eyes. ‘Now put down the cake fork and remind me what happened to Lenore Rigby. Didn’t we recommend she be sent to a minimum-security facility?’
‘The Shangri La of jails? Sure.
‘Think she’s grateful? Enough to help us out?’
‘Borderline. Although an exotic insect would tip the scale in your favour.’
An exotic insect – how about a thousand?
The bloody things were swarming, tapping their frondy antennae together in an insect version of Morse code. With intent and extreme prejudice which confirmed “exotic” to Thorne’s way of thinking.
Actually, Thorne was experiencing distinct twinges of “unearthly” insect. The peppermint scent was a hint, and the ozone topnotes went straight to the primal part of her brain that recognised mythic and incited the denial response to flex its muscles. That response had been overworked since she’d moved to Pandora’s Edge.
Thorne pinched the bridge of her nose and spared a glance at George. His skin looked clammy and he was breathing heavily, leaning on her shoulder. Not long before the screaming heebie-jeebies set in, Thorne diagnosed.
‘Donna,’ Thorne said, keeping her voice mellow. ‘Make some calls, get a number where we can send a picture SMS thingy to
‘Yum.’ Donna hung up.
Thorne leant back against the wall. She latched on to the first thought that crossed her mind. ‘Colourwise, most insects tend to extremes, either lurking at the camouflage end of the scale or flaunting bright colours as a warning of toxicity.’
That jolted George. He opened his eyes and they both considered the beetles, moving now in kaleidoscopic patterns – shifting, reforming, separating. No blending into the environment, but then no colours, either.
‘Notice how they’re all adults?’ Thorne continued. ‘No larval stages.’
‘Oh. Good.’ George smoothed out his fists.
‘You have to work on that enthusiasm, George.’
‘I’d rather work on leaving.’
‘Can’t do it,’ Thorne said. ‘The bugs are between us and the front door, and even if you were willing to dash across the room, I’m not willing to risk letting one of those things escape this building. We have them contained for the moment.’ She mentally crossed her fingers, hoping all the windows were shut, and the doors hadn’t warped in the frames leaving gaps. And what about ventilation systems in the kitchen and bathroom?
The beetles had reached some decision and one by one were bombarding a window, ramming their hard carapaces against the glass.
Maybe hyperventilation was the way to go. She and George could huddle here and panic until the cavalry came.
Which it would.
Eventually.
Donna couldn’t be side tracked by cake for ever, and Mrs Casterian would definitely raise a fuss if her baby boy was misplaced. Mrs C would drag out a few of those skeletons she kept stashed in handy cupboards and persuade people to brave storms that waited until you had a reason to go outside before striking.
Mrs Casterian or wild weather… easy decision.
Thorne heard rain splatter the windows and squirmed on the synthetic polar bear carpet. It might look good but it wasn’t comfortable.
Then there wasn’t just horizontal rain, but thunder and hail and the—
Snackle of a lightning bolt jagging in eye-lash sizzling range—
Followed by the sting of raw ozone in the sudden hush.
Thorne’s ears popped and she blinked dazzling afterimages away. Husky puffs echoed oddly through the room, and Thorne’s vision cleared in time to see the last of the beetles fall belly-up and already dried out onto the white carpet.
‘That was unexpected,’ Thorne said and crawled out from under the table.
George grabbed her ankle. ‘Are we sure about this?’
Thorne glanced over her shoulder. ‘Nope.’
‘Just checking,’ George muttered. He gritted his teeth and followed, straightening to his full six-foot height with relief.
Thorne hid a grin. There was enough static electricity in the air to have George’s hair puffing out like a dandelion. Not his style.
Her phone hummed and once she’d clicked to the message Thorne recognised Donna’s disdain for punctuation in SMSs. Deciphered, it revealed a contact number for Lenore Rigby.
‘Bit late,’ George suggested, taking photos with his phone and forwarding the images to Lenore. ‘Now that they’re all dead, I mean.’
‘Knowledge is power.’ Thorne gingerly nudged desiccated beetles out of her way with the toe of her boot. She cleared a path to the door leading to the rest of the house and the laboratory in particular. ‘And then there’s the requisite damage control.’
Thorne hesitated with her hand an inch above the doorknob. She took a deep breath, flexed her fingers, and set hand to handle. Nothing lunged out at her as the door opened. Thorne shoved hard, letting the steel-reinforced panel crash into the wall. ‘Dr Delgardo?’ She didn’t expect an answer, but had to ask.
Thorne stepped through, noticing that the ozone smell was stronger here. Pivoting slowly, hand resting over the holster at her hip, she scanned the workroom. White, white, white was her overall impression. Then her eyes tuned in and she noted the terrarium, with its access panels tilted drunkenly, the counters with their flurry of notes, the faint wisps of smoke rising from the computer…
She nearly leapt out of her skin when George bumped her elbow.
George shrugged in apology. ‘Maybe he’ll be back soon. Dashed out for milk or something.’
Thorne patted her heart out of her throat and tried not to scowl at George. ‘And happened to leave the latch of the bug habitat unlocked?’
‘It happens.’
Thorne’s lips twisted as she scrutinized the floor. ‘George, if he does return, I don’t think he’s going to be very healthy.’
George peered over her shoulder. ‘Oh. You might be right.’
Inside an irregular splodge scorched into the floor tiles was a zipper, teeth still fastened, a metal button above that, with melted plastic stubs that may have been buttons higher yet. Splayed below the zipper were metal rings. Thorne puzzled over them for a few seconds, before identification bloomed. Eyelets, from lace-up shoes.
Thorne mapped the distance between the bug cage and the stuff on the floor. Maybe she was leaping to conclusions here but she guessed the late Dr Delgardo had favoured natural fabrics like cotton, linen, denim, and wool over polyester, Lycra and nylon. The bugs had feasted on everything biodegradable and had a good go at the metals.
What was with pets and their owners in this town? As soon as the owner died, the pets moved in for a snack.
The ghost of a thought niggling away in the back of Thorne’s brain rattled its chains. Ozone smell + weather patterns = lightning strike.
‘George, how long does the smell of a lightning strike linger in a closed up house?’
‘So not spontaneous human combustion or death by bugs, but struck by lightning then eaten by bugs?’ George frowned. ‘Isn’t lightning supposed to strike the invention rather than the inventor?’
‘You’re crediting lightning with intelligence or at least a sense of purpose,’ Thorne cautioned.
‘Not the actual levin bolt itself,’ George explained patiently. ‘But it is the traditional weapon of a god who thinks somebody is getting above himself. Gods do tend to be a touch trigger-happy, the kind who blast first and ask questions later.’
Ka-boo-ooooommm.
‘Sorry,’ George squeaked, shoulders hunched up by his ears.
Thunder grumbled away.
Thorne thought of seven different things to say but abandoned them all when her phone buzzed The Pink Panther theme. She fished it from her pocket and hit the button for speakerphone.
No polite preamble from Lenore Rigby. ‘You’ve heard of lightning bugs, yes?’
Thorne bit her lip. Lightning bugs, lightning bugs… ‘Fire flies?’
‘Affirmative,’ said Lenore, amusement threading her Sahara-dry voice.
‘Clarify,’ Thorne requested.
‘Dark in colour with faint yellow-orange markings, sickle-shaped mandibles, although greatly exaggerated in your case, the shield atop the thorax which hides the head when viewed from above. Add the touch of bioluminescence in the abdominal region, and you have your classic Lampyridae characteristics.’
George glanced through the open door into the bug-decorated white room. ‘I’m still unconvinced, Ms Rigby. That description does not gel with our suspects.’
‘That’s because they’ve been… changed.’
‘This isn’t good, is it?’ George stooped so he could peer under the counters.
‘It’s very bad,’ Lenore replied.
Thorne’s eyebrows lowered as she detected smugness. ‘Lenore,’ she warned.
‘All right. Those beetles? They’re experimental hybrids, which means I have no idea if they’ll conform to the firefly behavioural pattern or that of the dung beetle base form. That’s the dominant set of genes – you can tell by the appearance of your bugs - and form generally regulates function. But that’s assuming there isn’t anything else in the mix that will throw the standards right out.’ Lenore paused. ‘A photo just isn’t enough for an in-depth analysis.’
‘Dangerous?’ asked Thorne.
Lenore huffed. ‘Probably not a good idea to let them run wild.’
‘Someone deliberately crossed a firefly with a dung beetle?’ George couldn’t get past that point.
‘It’s truly beautiful work,’ Lenore said wistfully.
‘We’ll send you a specimen. Thanks, Lenore.’ Thorne severed the connection.
‘Now what?’ George asked.
Thorne rubbed her nose. ‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking.’
Which was when the other door opened, releasing a billow of steam and a damp man who wandered in, polishing the fog from his glasses with the corner of the towel wrapped around his waist. And flashing a lot of pale hairy thigh in the process.
Thorne cleared her throat.
‘Hu-llo,’ he said, settling his glasses on his nose.
‘That’s Dr Delgardo,’ said George.
‘Of course it is.’ Thorne nodded, sounding half-strangled. ‘He was in the bath the entire time. Naturally.’
‘You’re not taking this very well,’ George observed.
‘I like my dead people to stay dead, thank you.’
‘Wrong town for that,’ George muttered.
Dr Delgardo padded across to the terrarium. He clucked his tongue.
Thorne looked at the wet footprints, looked at the scientist, and sighed. She walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me. About your bugs.’
‘Bugs are obviously not the answer,’ Dr Delgardo informed her. ‘Maybe amphibians. Fish.’
Thorne thought the three-second memory would give them something in common. ‘What was the question you were trying to answer?’
Dr Delgardo beamed at her. ‘It’s all up on the computer screen. Fascinating project.’ He wrapped a strong hand around Thorne’s arm and towed her toward the computer station.
‘Now, if I just…’ His fingers pecked at the keys while his glasses slid down his long nose. He pushed them back and caught sight of the monitor. ‘Funny. It’s not done that before. Oh.’
Oh, indeed. Thorne figured that George’s gods had taken out the computer, as they had the scientist and the bugs. Or they’d still had problems with their aim and serendipitously destroyed the machine.
The man needed a lightning conductor on his roof.
Thorne waited in vain for a response. Dr Delgardo simply stood there in his loosely knotted towel, smelling of peppermint bubble bath. One hand scrumpled through his hair while he stared at the machine, utterly baffled.
George turned away and slid his hands in his pockets, elaborately casual. His shoulders shook.
Thorne would have sworn she heard him snicker.
‘The experiment?’ Thorne reminded the scientist.
Dr Delgardo blinked at her, hazel eyes big in his skinny face. ‘Ah, yes. It was the decomposition problem. The solution is to cross the scarab/dung beetle with the firefly luminescence gene luciferase, so we can see them in the dark while they accelerate the biodegradability of certain materials.’
‘Kind of like an in-built “machinery in use” warning light?’ George asked.
‘Exactly.’ Dr Delgardo beamed his approval. ‘Much more practical than simply flashing to attract a mate. We’ve got the natural fibers down pat, thanks to a strict training regime involving socks. The bugs are not keen on paper for some reason, and we leave the natural waste products to existent decomposers. Working our way up to metals and then the biggie – plastic. Just think, we could reduce the amount of landfill by seventy-five percent within a few years, then look at doing something about biohazards. Lot of kinks in the program and I was at an impasse until the lightning arrived,’ he confided happily. ‘It was a pure
‘Which is when you got in the bath,’ Thorne said carefully. ‘First stripping your clothes off right here where you were struck by lightning.’
‘Gave the old brain cells a boost.’ Dr Delgardo bounced on his toes to demonstrate.
Now that was debatable.
‘And in your understandable enthusiasm,’ Thorne continued, adding links to her chain of events, ‘it’s possible you accidentally knocked loose the latch of the terrarium, thereby allowing the bugs to escape while you were bathing. Being trained for the purpose, they devoured your discarded apparel. Then George and I arrive and open the laboratory door, which is when the beetles make a break for the outside world. They may have succeeded except they succumbed to excessive electricity courtesy of a lightning blast.’
‘Sounds about right.’
Not to Thorne. She swallowed her exasperation. ‘Why didn’t you respond when we arrived?’
‘The storm knocked the power out so all the lights were off in the bathroom. Very dark in there without lights,’ Dr Delgardo confessed. ‘I wasn’t going to chance slipping on the soap and knocking myself out, then drowning in the tub. Besides, I was singing.’
‘Singing?’ George queried.
‘Mmmm. Don’t go for second best ba-by, put your love to the test,’ Dr Delgardo warbled. ‘“Express Yourself.” Madonna.’
George glanced at a professionally blank Thorne.
Thorne cleared her throat but words were beyond her.
‘You’ll need to dispose of your dead bugs thoughtfully,’ George said. ‘Can we help? Maybe cremation would be a good move.’
‘Housekeeper will take care of them,’ Dr Delgardo announced airily, waving his hand for emphasis. The towel slipped down his hips and he grabbed for it. ‘She’s accustomed to that.’
Really, there was only one thing Thorne could say.
‘About your parking fine…’