Luciferase

"Why is that?" she insisted.

"Because that's where he manufactures ‘lucibufagin,' the firefly poison. Once we eat those poison glands, we absorb the poison. Then we become poisonous too."

"We're not poisonous by nature?" said Dolores.

"No. Not until we eat Photinus beetles. See, we have no need to create our own poison. We just suck poison out of their flesh, and then it belongs to us."

"Okay, that does it!" Vi

"Watch what you say," said the stranger. He shielded his eyes from Vi

"You want a piece of me? Come on, give me your best shot!"

"Kill him," the stranger urged.

"She doesn't need any more poison," Vi

"Why am I listening to this?"

"What kind of man do you call yourself? You're a complete poseur! You're a drone."

The male Photuris took a cautious step back to the edge of the nettle leaf. "I'm far too valuable to risk my unique genes fighting prey animals."

"You don't like this?" said Vi

"You know what he's up to, don't you?" called the stranger to Dolores. "If I get injured, there could be any number of women in this area who go unfertilized. Including you!"

A black shape hurtled from nowhere with a sudden jarring collision. It was Peck. In an instant, Peck's jaws had crunched fatally through the stranger's back.

"Fly away!" Dolores screamed. In her panic, she failed to unfurl her gummy, delicate wings. Her heavy body collided with a dozen nettle leaves on her way to earth.

"Wow, he tastes fantastic!" Peck muttered through a mouthful of pierced integument. "I always knew that a lightning bug would taste great!"

Peck hauled the stranger's paralyzed carcass toward the smooth base of the leaf. "Ow! Why'd you have to pick a nettle plant, Vi

Vi

"What was that?" Dolores gasped.

"Jumping spider," said Vi

"What a horrible monster!"

"I've been around," said Vi

Dolores loosened her enormous jaws. "That makes it harder for prey to get away."

"Well, we got away, anyway."

"Yes, but now I'm starving!"

One of the Photuris's legs came tumbling down. It stuck to the side of a fallen leaf. It was followed by the entirety of his severed, glowing gut. Vi

"You can't eat that," she said.

"Are you kidding? Sure I can eat it."

"Well, save some for me!"

Vi

Vi

"You shouldn't eat that stuff."

"What, like I can't metabolize my own biochemistry? You go ahead and eat his leg! Go on, chow down, you've got the fangs for it!" Vi

"I couldn't possibly eat my own species," Dolores said primly.

"Oh, come on, I won't tell! I bet I'm the first Photinus to devour a Photuris in about a million years." Vi

"I've lost my best perch. I'm going to starve," said Dolores, bursting into sobs. "I'll never reproduce. I'm an evolutionary failure!"

"Quit fussing," shrugged Vi

"I'm totally disillusioned, Vi

Suddenly Vi

Dolores examined the brightly glowing pile of masticated paste.

"That's interesting … Now that you ate this and barfed it up, it smells just like a Photinus smells."

"Sure. We're all the same chemistry under the skin."

"It even tastes like you taste. It tastes pretty good, actually."

"I told you it was terrific." Vi

Dolores dabbled her cruelly hooked feet in the glowing paste. In a mix of despair and frivolity, she anointed herself with gold. It made her gorgeous, splendid, luminous. She was terrible and beautiful, like a flaming angel.

Clarity flooded his mind. "I love you! Let's fly till dawn!"