The smell hit her immediately. One part rotten food, one part decaying meat, but mostly an acrid, unidentifiable stink. Formic acid, yes, but also something…else. Something that she could not put a finger on. It was pungent and layered, and seemed to singe hair. She coughed, gagging, and reached for the light.

  Her fingers found a dead light switch. Flicked on. Flicked off. Nothing. Only the square of daylight admitted through the door, that fell across a body. A Glassed body. The ashes had already fallen in a little heap around it, flaking off of what used to be a nose, eyes, hair, skin. The body had fallen across the foyer, one arm reaching out as if they were trying to get to the door.

  My house is Glassed, too. She hadn’t wanted to come back because it would be full of memories and keepsakes, of things to wash and clean and grow. She nudged the door. It hadn’t fully Glassed yet, wasn’t ready to be reduced to ashes. Still, her touch evoked a crunching sound, and when she took her fingers away there were furrows in the door, like fingerprints.

  And then she saw movement.

  “Hello?” she shouted. She saw her own couch, polyester upholstery, polyester fiber-fill, but definitely a wooden under-structure, because the arm had partially collapsed. Beneath it, movement. “It’s Hawk West. This is my house. What—”

  She broke off, realizing the movement was too small to be human. It was, she thought, about the size of a very small dog. Or else…

  It stuttered forward, light flashing off gold-red carapace, and she knew. Knew before she had a chance see mandible or petiole or gaster. Just that brilliant ginger flare. The trademark shade of Solenopsis species.

  Oh, fuck, she thought, as it skittered into the light, and yes, that absolutely was a Solenopsis ant. Brilliant coloring, six spindly legs with surprising strength, mandibles and mouth-parts gleaming in the stolen sunlight. And there, behind it, two more. Three. All running towards her with antennae twitching, and she realized that she was now dinner-sized to these creatures, and slammed the door before they could get any nearer.

  She backed away as mandibles began to chip away at the base of the door.

  “What?” Em said, holding the phone in her hand.

  “There are giant fire ants in my house.” She said.

  “Right. You put them there—”

  “They’re the size of a small dog.” She said.

  “Oh,” They said, and put the phone down. They looked at the base of the door, which was gaining a jagged edge as red carapace flashed in the darkness beyond. “Well. So much for that.”

  Which made Hawk realize what she was going to have to do. “We need to burn it.” She said. Hemorrhagic words. They came with the pain of a thousand memories she now had to deny.

  “Burn what?” Em said.

  “My house,” She said. And oh, that hurt. Sure, she hadn’t wanted to go in when she thought it was empty and safe, but that was because of the memories she would now have to torch. Alex in the kitchen, joking and making breakfast on his days in the kitchen. Sitting together on the couch watching something horrible, MST3K style. His shoes in the closet, next to hers. The long white ghost of his scent in the sheets. “Fire ants the size of dogs? We can’t risk letting that out.” Deep breaths. Deep and slow. Don’t panic. Don’t break.

  “Hawk.” Em stared in disbelief. “It’s your house.”

  “RIFAs. Those were RIFAs. The size of housecats. They’re the most ravenous, cruel, aggressive things on this planet and you want me to do what? Wait for Animal Control? The Fire Department?”

  “You’ll catch an arson charge,” Em said, carefully.

  “There’s gasoline in my shed for Alex’s lawn mower. I’ll have to go inside—”

  “—oh fuck that, Hawk.”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  “—and lay down a trail. Hopefully this is just Kaiser playing a game and it’ll be easy to irradicate. But if there’s a Queen—”

  Em got it. “Fuck me. It’s their reproductive season too, isn’t it?”

  “Same with the honeypots. Right now, they’re contained as long as the wood holds out. But something in there is also Glassing up the place. That door, and the baseboards and the support struts for the whole building, are all wood. How long do you think that wood is going to hold out against ants this size?”

  The answer was “not very long”, given how destroyed the wood was already.

  And did she have an idea about how these giant ants got here? One that had her kicking herself for her stupidity? Oh, yes, she did. But she wasn’t going to express it just now. Her fence was chain link; vaulting it was easy. It wasn’t crumbling down beneath her, the way it had been at Elizabeth Cumming’s house, all those weeks ago (One week, she reminded herself. One week and change.) No, she needed to keep that hope alive. She half jogged across her back yard while Emile followed her over the fence. It was a simple shed, Rubbermaid plastic, and it smelled of oils and gasoline and grass. The door was latched shut and padlocked. Shit. She was going to have to break her own lock.

  Em reached the shed and made the same assessment. What they didn’t do was hesitate. They reached down and grabbed the nearest rock from Hawk’s landscaping. It was fairly large. Em had a little trouble getting a good grip on it. But once that was achieved, she slammed it down on the lock, hard. And again, and again. The third time the lock gave away with an unhappy crunching sound. “Open fucking sesame.” Em said, and pitched away the rock.

  Hawk took the gas can, half full, and a barbeque lighter.

  “They’re going to be on you immediately,” Emile said.

  “I know.” She said. Hesitated, then picked up a one-by-one Alex had kept around for what he called “percussive maintenance.” She paused, looking for Alex’s store of shop rags and coming up with zero. Finally, she said, “your shirt or mine?”

  “What?”

  “I want to make a torch. I’m betting these things have an aversion to heat.” Her hands were shaking. She was going on instinct and the knowledge that heat could kill small ants. She had no clue how heat-tolerant these big ones were…especially if what she suspected had actually happened.

  Please, no. She thought, and held up the stick. “You hold. I’ll rip—”

  “Fuck it,” Em said, and stripped off their shirt. The flat expanse of their chest was broken only by a leather harness. It could have been a gun harness but Hawk knew better. She’d wondered how her enby friend had gotten their defiance fix while trapped in khaki. Now she knew. Em began ripping their shirt to shreds. “I always hated this damn thing. It’s too business.” And buttons went flying. “It’s also female.”

  “And that makes a difference?” Hawk asked.

  “Buttons go on different sides. Dumbest fucking thing on Earth but there you go, it’s why I hate wearing fucking button ups. The gender echoes a bit loudly no matter what.”

  Hawk took the offered strips of fabric, some of which indeed had little polyester buttons on them, and wrapped them around the stick, which she then dunked in gasoline. She held it out and let it drip for a moment and took a few deep breaths. “You’re not going in with me.”

  Em, gleaming pale in a strip of moonlight, said, “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because you’re calling Mulligan and the cops and whoever else you can think of—and yes, I know you hate everything about the concepts. But somebody is going to be smart enough to figure out this disaster-in-the-making, just in case I don’t make it out.”

  That possibility had clearly not occurred to Em. “You’re going in, you’re throwing gasoline, you’re lighting it on fire, and you’re going back out again. You aren’t going in there for the goddamn Orb.”

  Hawk shook her head. “It’s for Henry—”

  “It’s for your own goddamn guilty conscience, and you fucking know it. If you and Alex hadn’t gotten involved in this, you wouldn’t have gotten me involved in this, and Henry—”

  “Would still be alive,” Hawk said, without mercy.

  “No. I would never have met him. Really seen the real him, through all the bullshit grudges and rival history. I love him. I had to lose him to realize it all the way but I love him. And I’m not going to let you take ownership of that. What happened to Henry happened because of Kaiser. Same with Alex. Same with every Rift that’s ever opened. You had nothing to do with making it, and you’re pretty half-assed at stopping it.”

  “I want to see you happy. Do you know what got me through all this? Watching you and Henry be happy in the middle of all of this.”

  “Hawk. It’s not fucking yours.” Em said.

  “But I have to try, don’t you understand? I get what you’re saying, but if there’s a chance…if there’s ever even a chance of saving Henry…I have to try. Because he’s my friend too.” And she took a deep breath. “Besides. The ant room window is right there.” She pointed at the dark square of glass, where the blinds had a continual rippling motion. “I’ll go in, grab the Orb, set shit on fire, and get back out.”

  Em nodded, chewing on their lower lip while they stood, half naked and gleaming in Hawk’s backyard, wirey and muscled. If there were surgery scars to be found, they were faded to the point of non-existence. They were who they were, comprehensively, and right now they were comprehensively worried for Hawk.

  “I’ll be fine,” She said, again.

  And then she was drawn into a tight, impulsive hug. Their scent was a bit musty, like mossy ground, and they smelled of sweat and male cologne. “You come back. You’re my friend and I don’t have that many to lose.”

  “I will,” she breathed. “I promise.”

  And then, as she turned upon the terrifying unknown that used to be her home, Emile suddenly stiffened. “Wait, Hawk. I’ve got an idea.”