Page 53 of Blaze of Our Lives

“Bring it,” she told me. “I’m feeling lucky today.”

“The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?”

“As I said before, you’re an idiot.” She laughed. “But the answer is footsteps.”

I rolled my eyes. She was annoying, but she was correct about the riddle answer. “Bingo. Next one, I sometimes run, but I can’t walk. What is the answer?”

“I see what you did there,” she pointed out correctly. “You made it so I can’t call you an idiot again.”

“Answer the riddle,” I pressed. “The bad guys are banging on the bubble.”

“A nose is the answer.”

Again, she was right. “Forward, I’m heavy. Backward, I am not. What’s the answer?”

“A ton,” she replied. “And you’re still an idiot.”

“Thank you.”

“Welcome.”

“Last one,” I said, feeling excitement course through me. We were getting closer to the Higher Power. “What gets broken without being held?”

“Easy,” Pandora said, preening. “A promise.’

All of the riddles faded to nothing. Before my eyes, new words appeared on the page. I gasped when I saw what it was.

“Narrate,” my sidekick insisted. “Your silence is freaking me out.”

“It’s directions… to Shaun Cassidy’s house in the capital of Snoz.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she muttered. “Shaun Cassidy is the Higher Power… at least in your warped mind he is. Were you a big fan as a child?”

“Actually, no. I liked his brother, David Cassidy.”

“Strange,” she commented. “Do you happen to spot a torch anywhere around us?”

I glanced around. To the left of the pedestal was a wooden unlit torch embedded in the sand. “I do.”

“Grab it and light it,” she insisted. “In the TV show of Survivor, the fire represents life. We need the extra boost. Do it.’

I pulled the torch out of the ground. Phyllis and Heff Brobst were losing their ever-loving minds outside of the bubble, and their anguish filled me with immense joy. Snapping my fingers, I lit the torch. The minute it caught, the talking ashtray and the host from hell disappeared into thin air.

“Where are the assholes?” she questioned warily. “I can’t hear them anymore.”

“Gone,” I told her. “They disappeared when the last riddle was solved.”

“Nothing is ever really gone, Cecily. Remember that.”

I nodded. She couldn’t see me, but she could feel me. Her warning would not go unheeded.

Even if they weren’t gone for good, they were gone for now, and that had to be good enough. It was time to get this show on the road and confront the Higher Power.

I waved my hand and disintegrated the bubble. “You ready to kick Shaun Cassidy’s ass?” I inquired.

“Does a doo-ron ron?” she replied.

My lips tugged back in a feral grin at her response.

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