Turning her attention back to the burned fields, she used her enhanced vision and the binoculars built into the lenses of her sunglasses. They were the coolest things ever. Something she and Willem had worked to perfect, the glassnoculars were only to be used by FUC Agents and were the godsend she’d intended for just such a mission.
Making another, tighter circle, she dropped closer to the treetops on the perimeter of the fields. Just about to give up and land anyway, a flash in her peripheral vision had Freddie jerking the yoke to the right and pulling back as hard and fast as she could.
Climbing higher and higher, listening for gunfire, a rocket launcher, hell, even a peashooter with good range, Freddie leveled off and banked left. Decelerating ever so slightly, she zeroed in on the exact spot of the flash.
Tapping the arm of her glasses, increasing the magnification on her glassnoculars, it took less than a heartbeat to locate the source of the flare. "Debris," she hissed. "Glass and metal. Probably wood, too. Gotta check this shit out. Seems stupid, but so does everything else about this case."
Heading straight for the most massive outcropping atop the smallest mountain in range, Freddie expertly landed her plane. Jumping out of the cockpit while the propeller was still spinning, she shoved her arms into the straps of her multi-colored camouflage backpack, giving it a wiggle to be sure it was in just the right spot.
Walking to the edge of the outcropping, Freddie called to the being with whom she shared her soul, the winged tree frog and princess with major ‘tude, who she'd nicknamed Rainbow Bright because Raeanna Bree sounded way too formal and stuffy. It also helped that her wings were nothing short of a gorgeous kaleidoscope of the best colors when unfurled. "Hey, Bright, how about we take a spin? Check out what smells so good?"
“Oh, now you need me, do you?” came the winged tree frog’s sassy reply. “That stupid machine was good enough for you an hour ago. You said you didn’t want to tire me out. Said you didn’t—”
“Okay, smartass,” Freddie huffed. "I wanted to get here as quickly as possible, and you tend to, well, that is to say, oh fuck it, you dawdle, Bright. You want to stop and smell every damned flower, taste every dewdrop, look at—"
“So, because I appreciate the beauty in the world, of life, of every living thing created by the Great Goddess Herself, I get left up here in the dark all the time? Is that what you’re saying, Winifred?”
"Don't. Call. Me. Winifred," Freddie replied through gritted teeth, trying really hard not to snarl and failing miserably. “And I did not leave you trapped up there in the dark. You can see everything I see, every day, all the time, without fail. Stop with the drama queen act.”
"I am not being a drama queen, I am a drama princess, because we are, in fact, the Princess of the Royal Blue Butterfly Frolic. We have been blessed by the Goddess. We are—”
“Special little snowflakes,” Freddie scoffed with a very adamant roll of her eyes, which she was sure to turn inward so that her alter ego couldn't miss it. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know all about us. Now, can you—”
“And about this thing with the honey badger. When exactly are you going to introduce yourself? Don’t you think you should at least get to know him before he expects you to start popping out little rainbow-striped furbabies with wings?"
“Well, fuck, I hadn’t thought about that,” Freddie groused, instantly changing her tone and sighing wistfully. “I was just fantasizing about those big, strong arms wrapped around me, holding me close while we stare into each other’s eyes. And what the muscles in that super-fine ass will feel like when I get my hands on them. And if he knows how to kiss me till my thighs go up in flames… Do you think he knows how to kiss like the big, strong, burly, sex god he looks to be, Bright?” Fanning herself, suddenly way more turned on than a woman without a man by her side should ever be, Freddie blew out a long breath, letting the words ride her exhale. "Please, dear Goddess, tell me he knows how to kiss. Can you even remember the last time we were kissed by a man?"
“No, I cannot,” Bright snapped way too matter-of-factly. “And I don’t think that’s what’s most important. First of all, you need him to understand who you are, that you are not cold-blooded, and that he is your mate, ordained by the Goddess and the Universe and the only man you are meant to ever be with… forever.”
“Damn, girl, you are a serious buzz kill.”
“No, I most assuredly am not,” her alter ego snapped. "I am a realist and here to keep you from leaping before you look and getting our collective asses in a sling we cannot get out of. And you know as well as I do that he is the first son of Janice Blackthorne, the Leader of the renowned Blackthorne Honey Badger Clan. We both read the file. And, as such, she, Janice Blackthorne, will forbid your mating to her son if she thinks you are cold-blooded, as your heritage initially suggests. She wants a gaggle of little Blackthornes running all over the countryside. It’s the way of the furry shifters. There is no denying that. The call to procreate cannot be denied.”
“Well, shit, I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I am aware.” Bright heavily sighed. “I am sure you remember, but it bears repeating that, for a large part of the time, pretty much always and forever, we share a brain.”
“Yeah, the highlight of my life.”
"And your sarcasm fills me with all the happy tingles, too."
“No, you’re right. I’ll deal with my love life when we get back,” Freddie snapped in return, pulling herself together and shoving all thoughts of one very sexy, panty-melting honey badger to the back of her mind. "Now, hop to it, Princess Raeanna Bree. I bow to your excellence in flight and promise to keep my mouth shut until we are safely at the bottom of this mountain. Also, take a whiff once you're out here. The scent of sweet, sweet java is magnificent. Just don't think about why it's here or the black smoke polluting the air."
"Guess that'll have to do."
“You betcha. ’Cause that’s all you’re gettin’, hot stuff.”
Giving the reins of her body and soul to her alter ego—the human-size frog with wings—and making sure her backpack was still secure, Freddie went back to working on the puzzle of the wolfsbane. The herbicide diquat made perfect sense. It killed everything it touched above ground—leaves, buds, the precious little coffee beans themselves. Glyphosate was a systemic herbicide. It would’ve killed the roots of those little beauties in less than twenty-four hours. Then there was pentachlorophenol that the lead scientist of the ICS—Investigation of the Crime Scene—Enzo, a really book-smart aardvark shifter who needed more practical experience, in her humble opinion, had told the boss didn't make sense.
Yes, it does, dear Enzo, Freddie thought. Because the two herbicides together give the stupid dipshit trying to take away one of my top three reasons for living, my coffee, a ninety-nine-point-nine percent chance of killing every one of those precious little white-flowered, red-beaned, life-giving plants in one fell swoop. Can you say asshole? I know I can.
Growling the last part, she finished her thought. Then to be sure he'd murdered them all, the shit-for-brains bad guy of my very own horror story made the easiest, cheapest, and from the amounts on that report - biggest homemade bomb in the history of handmade explosives. Using fertilizer, gunpowder, and hydrogen peroxide, he finished off any of the leafed lovelies who fought hard to survive and, in its wake, left the ground unfertile for… for…