Warming to the task, Kal levered himself up onto one of the benches, stretching to the smoke and heat detectors. His fingernail split as he wedged the cover off, and after a moment of study, he delicately pulled out the power node. He did the same in the adjacent lab and office, the glugs of the alcohol and the cool sensation on his fingers seeming to foretell the clean fire that would soon sweep the basement.
It was obvious that his plan to kill Trisk’s tomato with Daniel’s virus had succeeded. But that he’d accidentally given the virus a way to spread . . . Damn, he hadn’t wanted a full-scale plague. This had to be covered up.
The scent of alcohol was heavy as he backed his way through the offices and labs until he got to the door. Resolute, he tapped a ley line, harnessing the free energy and giving it shape. “Flagro,” he whispered, throwing a ball of aura-tainted energy at the wet floor.
His eyes widened at the whoosh. There was no visible flame, but the cloying scent of half-burned alcohol rose, and he shut the door, satisfied the room would be an inferno in seconds.
Pulse fast, he jogged back to Trisk’s office. It was empty.
Panic washed through him, but then he saw Rick in the field, his back to the window while he manually connected the flammable poison to the irrigation system, one hand over his face as he tried not to breathe.
Turning, Kal rummaged in one of the equipment lockers. It was dusty from disuse, but he found two masks. He put one on, then went out, grimacing at the stench. The mask hardly cut it, and he took it off, throwing it aside. “Can I help?” he asked, extending the remaining mask to Rick.
The man didn’t look up as he fastened the canister of tissue destroyer. “You did this, didn’t you,” he said, his hands red and swollen, burned by the chemicals he was handling.
“Did what?” Kal said, but his arm holding out the mask dropped when he realized the rash on Rick’s wrists and neck had ulcerated. The raw blisters oozed a clear liquid, giving his skin an alien-looking sheen. It looked terrifying and painful, and fear struck through Kal that this was his doing. Unless I can make Trisk take the blame.
“I’m not a scientist,” Rick said, his watering eyes almost swollen shut, “but I know viruses don’t jump from plant to human like that. You did this. Made this happen.”
Kal pushed past Rick to get to the dispersal regulator. “Don’t be inane. Why would I want to infect the world with this?” he said as he set the water to zero and the canisters to full.
Rick listlessly watched, his weight on one foot as he slumped. “I don’t know. Maybe because you hate Trisk and want the shitload of funding headed her way.”
Kal blanched, turning as he wiped his hands on his pants. His fingers burned from the residual tissue destroyer.
“Yes, I know about that.” Rick seemed to regain some of his strength, pulling himself straight. “Ulbrine gave you a carrot, and you want the entire produce cart.”
“I wouldn’t threaten the stability of our numbers for funding my research,” Kal said, but the anger in his voice was giving him away.
“Why not?” Rick rocked back, blood spotting his collar and cuffs. “Being a scientist doesn’t grant you a golden moral compass, and you are broken, both your compass and your research. But it went wrong, didn’t it,” he accused, and Kal set the dispersal regulator aside, his steps wary as he headed back to the control room. “You didn’t expect it to spread this fast,” Rick said, stumbling slightly as he followed. “Did you. You son of a bitch.”
Kal’s lips pressed as he realized he was going to have to kill him. Rick would tell his superiors. They’d realize Kal was responsible. But if Rick died amid Trisk’s failed crop with his name on the request for the burning protocol, everyone would assume Rick had committed suicide rather than face the accusations of creating a toxic tomato and infecting the world with it.
“Stop right there,” Rick threatened, and Kal spun, pissed that it was falling apart around him. “I know what you did, and you will answer for it.”
Kal stood with his feet firmly on the stained cement walk. “Not today,” he said, pulling on a ley line. The splintered feel of it poured into Kal, giving him courage.
Rick’s eyes were almost swollen shut, but the vampire snarled, his bleeding hands crooked to gouge. “You aren’t leaving here alive,” Rick promised, teeth bared.
“Funny.” Breathless, Kal forced the incoming energy into his palms until they burned with the free force and flammable liquid. “That’s exactly what I was going to say to you.”
With a fierce roar of anger, Rick lunged. Kal fell back, eyes widening at how fast the vampire was. Kal slipped on the black slime, going down in an ungraceful pinwheeling of arms and legs. It probably saved his life as Rick’s lash whispered over Kal’s head.
“Burn, you bastard,” Kal swore, still on the ground as he threw a ball of unfocused energy not at Rick, who was regrouping for another attack, but at the bags of fertilizer behind him.
Rick spun, sprinting to the distant door, but it was too late.
The green-tinted ball of energy hit the bags and exploded.
Kal cowered, his grip on the ley line strengthening. “Cum gladio et sale!” he shouted, gasping in relief as his circle sprang up. It was chancy and weak since the outline of it existed only in his mind, not scribed on the floor. It would do nothing to stop a bullet or demon, but it would hold for the instant needed for the fireball to wash over him.
Ears stunned, Kal looked up to see Rick thrown twenty feet, sliding to a halt in the black muck. Triggered by the blast, the sprinklers hissed on. Kal hunched where he was, jerking when the tissue destroyer, not water, pattered down against his circle, a foot above his head.
“My God,” Kal whispered as he realized what was going to happen. He watched in horror as Rick stumbled to his feet, oblivious to the flammable rain pouring down upon him as he staggered toward Kal.
Kal’s eyes flicked to the bags of burning fertilizer, then the door. He’d never make it if he tried to run. Swallowing hard, Kal scribed a circle in the muck with a shaky finger, a pure white showing against the black of decay. “Cum gladio et sale,” he whispered again, strengthening his circle. But it wasn’t against Rick this time.
With a little flick of flame, the spray caught. Kal watched, horrified, as it sped up and out with a whoosh. Rick screamed when it touched him, and then he became covered in flame, rolling to beat it out. But the ground itself was on fire, and his high-pitched agony rang against the bare walls, over and over as he tried to get to the safety of the office, failing.
Kal looked away, cold and shaking under his bubble, waiting for it to be over. Rick’s voice finally ceased. One by one, the sprinklers ran out of propellant and stopped, little drips of fire falling from them. And still Kal sat, unable to move.
Slowly Kal realized a klaxon was ringing. He stood, his circle falling about him as he touched it. He gazed down, fixated on the disk of black goo he stood in, surrounded by pure, clean ash. Nearby, a lump of burned flesh lay smoking, but he didn’t look at it. Rick wouldn’t be needing that after-death plan anymore.
The air was fresher, and Kal’s head rose as he lurched to the cement path. He left footprints of black decay as he walked away, but they grew fainter and fainter the farther he went, and soon, there was no trace of him at all.
17
“Get out of the way. Out of the way!” Trisk clenched her jaw, frustrated with the tractor-trailer full of tomatoes lumbering before her. That it had SALADAN FARMS emblazoned on the back didn’t help as it spewed half-burned fuel and took up more than its fair share of the road as they went around a wide turn. Darkness made the road chancy, and unable to see around the truck to know if it was safe to pass, she hit the accelerator and sent her Chevy Apache 10 pickup truck bouncing onto the shoulder to get around him that way. The necklace Quen had given her thumped and bumped, and she held it against her as she jerked the truck back on the road.
The trucker blew his horn, and beside her, Quen clutched at the
door handle.
“Problem?” she asked as she cleared the truck and sped toward Sacramento’s hospital. Her car would have been faster, but it was packed to the ceiling.
“No.” Quen’s eyes were fixed on the car she was barreling down on, his right foot pressing into the floorboards. “But is it going to matter if we get there five minutes later?”
Trisk said nothing, peeved when she was forced to slow as they hit the outskirts of the city. It was Friday night, and it seemed everyone was out—getting in her way. She took the turn into the hospital so fast that the boxes in the bed slid, making Quen check to see they weren’t on the side of the road.
Immediately she slowed, looking for signs to tell her where to go. The emergency department wasn’t busy, and finding a spot in the visitor lot, she pulled in and threw her truck into park. Hair and necklace swinging, Trisk grabbed her purse and shoved the paper bag with the decomposing tomato plant under the seat. Brushing her hair back, she impatiently waited for Quen.
“You don’t want me to wait in the car?” he asked, looking a little green under the bright security lights, and she shook her head, imagining what her field must look like. Breaking off a stem would hasten the process of decay, but it was likely she’d lose all her crop. Saladan is going to be madder than a wet hornet.
“No. I want your opinion,” she said, not liking that the long sweater coat she’d thrown on as she’d walked out the door did nothing to elevate her jeans, black T-shirt, and sneakers.
“Why?” he said as he got out. “I wouldn’t know if she’s got Daniel’s virus or not.”
They walked quickly to the main door, Trisk’s feet silent in her soft-soled shoes instead of her usual heels. Quen was taller than she was, and she felt his presence keenly as he awkwardly tried to open the door for her without touching it.
“You’re not worried, are you?” she asked when he wiped his hands off on his slacks.
“I don’t want to get sick,” he said as they slowed, taking in the few people waiting and looking for the reception desk. There weren’t many in the chairs surrounding the black-and-white TV. The kids seemed okay, but the parents, not so much. It was an odd combination, but in the corner, a small family of five sat in huddled misery, all of them appearing feverish and ill.
“There.” Trisk pointed at the nurse behind the desk. Again wishing she was wearing something more professional, Trisk strode forward with an air of confidence. “Hi,” she said, and the woman looked up, a tissue at her nose. “Could you tell me what room Angie Harms is in?”
“Angie Harms,” the woman repeated, head down as she shuffled papers for the register sheet.
“With an H,” Trisk added as Quen rocked to a halt behind her, his hands in his pockets. “H-A-R-M-S.”
The woman flipped the page for the earlier entries. “I’m not seeing her. Are you sure she came in through emergency?”
Oh, God, what if she hadn’t come in? “It would’ve just been within the last half hour.” Trisk leaned into the counter, wanting to take the paper away from the receptionist and look herself. “Blond, about this tall.” She put her hand up to indicate a few inches taller than herself. “Her boyfriend would have brought her in.”
“Oh!” The woman behind the desk brightened as she reached for a different stack of papers. “I know the one. Fever and respiratory distress. She’s probably still in exam room six. They haven’t assigned a room to her yet as far as I know.”
Trisk’s relieved smile froze when she realized the woman had tiny blisters on her neck. “Thank you,” she said, uneasy as she took her hands off the high counter. “Let’s go,” she said softly to Quen, not liking this. It could be that the woman simply had a rash, but Trisk didn’t believe in coincidences.
“Ma’am. Ma’am!” the receptionist said, standing up as they headed down the hall. “You shouldn’t go back there. It’s family and doctors only.”
“It’s okay,” Trisk said over her shoulder, never stopping. “I’m a doctor.”
“And I’m family,” Quen said, not a hint of his lie showing.
With a tired wave, the woman sat back down. She was flushed, and Trisk looked at the people in the waiting room more closely. With a few notable exceptions, they were all showing the symptoms of Daniel’s virus. Or the common cold, she thought, trying to clamp down on her panic.
“I’ll wait in the hall,” Quen said, and Trisk frowned, annoyed at his paranoia.
“My God,” she whispered, wondering if the guy getting a soda from the machine was ill or if drugged-out hippie was simply his look. “I didn’t know you were that paranoid. Even if it is Daniel’s virus, it can’t hurt you. It doesn’t affect most Inderlanders. Elves, not at all.” Unless . . . she mused suddenly, he isn’t 100 percent elf. Until recently, there hadn’t been a lot of options when a lethal fragment showed in their decaying code other than outsourcing to their nearest genetic relative. It muddied their ability to do magic somewhat, but that vanished by the second generation. Almost everyone had some human in them, and almost everyone pretended they didn’t.
Quen flushed. “Great-great-grandfather,” he said, lips tight when he saw her knowing expression. “My great-great-grandmother couldn’t bring a child to full term. It was worth the genetic taint to try to save what we could of our line.”
Trisk touched his arm to tell him she thought nothing less of him. “I’m glad they did.”
He flashed a quick, grateful smile at her. “I don’t mind being six percent human, but it makes me nervous.”
“Well, you’d never know it now,” she said, brow furrowing at the man slumped on a chair in the hall, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
“Thanks,” Quen said sheepishly, and she pulled him to a stop.
“Daniel?” she whispered, and the man she was watching pulled his head up. It was Daniel, and she froze, not wanting him to see Quen but needing to know why he was sitting outside Angie’s door.
“Trisk.” Daniel stood, looking haggard in the same weary slacks and white shirt he’d had on earlier. “How did you find out?”
Shit. Cold slipped into her, born from a hundred almost-thoughts. “What happened?” she asked as she hastened forward. “Is Angie okay?”
“She’s dead,” Daniel said bluntly, head down. “I . . .”
“No!” Trisk took his hands, shock making her breathless. “I just talked to her boyfriend half an hour ago. I told him to get her to the emergency room. He didn’t say it was this bad!”
“I gotta sit down,” Daniel said as he sank back into the chair. Trisk crouched beside him, not letting go of his hands. She watched his eyes, felt his aura, but he seemed okay, if a little in shock. Quen drifted away to make sure they wouldn’t be disturbed, but she was sure he’d stay close enough to hear everything. “I don’t know how, but it got out,” Daniel said, his eyes haunted as he looked across the hall to the empty room. “Somehow it got out. This is my fault. I did this.”
He was talking about his virus, and she squeezed his hands to get him to look at her. “No, you didn’t,” she said, voice hushed. “We made it perfect. It might put someone in the hospital who’s immune-depressed, but Angie was healthy. It was something else. Something new.”
Daniel pulled out of her grip, his anger obvious. “I saw her, Trisk,” he said bitterly, eyes on the empty room. “Blisters on her face and back. Out-of-control fever. Respiratory distress. Her body just shut down. They couldn’t stop it.” He swallowed hard. “They wouldn’t let me in, but I heard it all.”
“It can’t happen!” Trisk protested, and his eyes came back to her.
“I think it found a carrier,” he whispered. “It’s gotten to your tomatoes, too.”
Trisk’s lip curled as she remembered the slimy mess under her seat. But they had made Daniel’s virus perfect. None of this made sense. Unless . . . Shit, what if it was her tomato that was the carrier?
Fear stabbed through Trisk, and she rose. Daniel looked up at her, and she almost pa
nicked. She wanted to run, but she didn’t know what to run to, or away from. “Stay here,” she said, hands motioning for him not to move as if he were a horse or a dog. “I’m going to get you a coffee, okay? This is not your fault,” she reassured him, knowing it to her core even if everything around her said otherwise. “We’re going to wait and talk to the doctor, and see what really happened. She might have a heart condition or something we didn’t know about.”
Daniel nodded, his head dropping as his own thoughts took over.
“Ah . . .” she added when Quen arched his eyebrows questioningly at her. “This is my brother, Quen. I’ll be right back.”
Daniel smiled thinly. “Dr. Daniel Plank. Nice to meet you. Trisk never mentioned she had a brother.”
“She doesn’t talk about me much.” Quen hesitated, a wry expression on his face. “I don’t know why.”
“You seem familiar.” Daniel cocked his head, and Trisk hesitated. “It must be because you look alike.”
Trisk and Quen eyed each other, but Daniel slumped back into his thoughts, and Trisk pulled Quen aside. We look alike? Trisk thought, never having given it much consideration, but it was better than Daniel remembering Quen helping her summon a demon.
“I need to find a phone,” she said, voice hushed. “I have to talk to Rick.”
Quen’s eyes flicked back to her. “Rick? Why?”
Trisk glanced over her shoulder and to the waiting room. “Because he’s the boss. Will you watch Daniel?”
“What if he remembers me?”
Trisk looked past Quen to Daniel, the man’s expression stoic as he stared at the floor and watched his life crumble. “He’s not going to remember you.”
“Fine,” Quen grumbled. “But I don’t want to be your brother.”
She pressed her lips together, frowning. “Just . . . I’ll be right back.”
Quen’s heavy sigh seemed to echo as she went back to the lobby to find a public phone. There was one on a small table with laminated instructions on how to call outside the hospital, but she stopped dead in her tracks, staring at it, ashamed at her sudden reluctance to touch it. You made that virus perfect, she told herself, watching her hand as she reached out and picked up the receiver.