Breathless, she tapped a line and sent the cool energy to fill her circle. Her pulse quickened at the different feel to it as it rose, tainted with her aura. It was a blood circle, heavy with intent. Gally would show if only to know why she’d drawn one.
Quen stood silently at the bars, knowing she was right, knowing she was risking all their lives. Beside him, Daniel watched in unexpected anticipation, not a lick of fear on him.
“Besides,” she said as she steadied herself, “I don’t think we’re going to get to Detroit. Sa’han Ulbrine wants proof? I’ll give him proof.” Taking a deep breath, she exhaled.
“Algaliarept, I summon you.”
21
Breath held, Trisk watched the smoky black haze fill her circle. Her instructor had told them it was the demon looking for any weakening of will or unexpected conduit either above or below ground that could be exploited. She’d drawn blood circles before, but never actually used one to contain anything. It felt different from a chalk line or salt circle: deeper, with more intent.
“Holy crap,” Daniel whispered as the haze thickened, shrank, and finally coalesced into the familiar but unsettling figure of Algaliarept.
“This is different,” the demon said, his lip curled in distaste as he poked at the tight confines. It was a relief that he hadn’t shown up as Kal or that unsettling “beach guru” but in his crushed green velvet frock, lace, white gloves, shiny boots, and the round blue glasses he liked to look over at her to make her feel stupid.
Unmoving because of the close confines, Gally shifted his head to see Quen and Daniel. He jumped when his elbow hit the inside of her circle and a whiff of burnt amber grew stronger. “Just because you are in a cell doesn’t mean I should be. This is barbaric.”
Barbaric, perhaps, but the circle was holding, and her breath slipped from her in relief. “My finger wasn’t going to bleed long enough to make it bigger.”
Again, his nose wrinkled as he took her in, eyes lingering on her helix necklace in interest. “Perhaps you should have chopped it off. It would bleed then. Why do I smell . . . dead human?”
“Because there are some in the room next door.” Quen’s shoulders were tight around his ears. Daniel just looked shocked—at the demon, not the dead-human comment.
A wide smile came over Gally’s face as he leaned to look toward the open door, and he beamed, showing his flat, blocky teeth. “You are in a delightful pickle. Come for another favor, Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri?”
Trisk frowned. “There should be a ‘doctor’ in there somewhere,” she muttered, and Gally inclined his head, laughing at her.
“That’s him!” Daniel pointed a shaky finger, and Gally sighed heavily, clearly too tired and blasé to play the evil demon tonight. “That’s who I saw in your barn.”
A new anger pulled Gally’s his brow tight. “No,” he said, wide shoulders hunched. “I will not reimburse you for the purchase of a memory curse.”
“That’s not why I summoned you.” Trisk shifted her weight to ease the ache in her hip.
“You maintained contact with . . . Doctor Daniel Plank,” Gally said tightly. “I outright told you that would break it, and therefore you invalidated any implied warranty.”
Trisk pulled her blanket tighter about her shoulders. “I want the mark off my foot.”
“It was your own stupidity!” the demon exclaimed, jerking when his forehead hit the circle and a ribbon of smoke rose and vanished. “I am so weary of people not treating curses with enough respect. I am an artist!” he shouted, stomping his foot where he usually would have flung an expansive arm. “You can’t use a flower to cut a steak.” He hesitated. “I suppose if you flash-freeze it you could, but honestly, if you want to preserve the anonymity of your species, you kill the offender, not soften them to ignorance with forget charms.” Gally leaned toward the barrier between them, leering. “Especially if you like them.”
Flustered, Trisk glanced at Daniel. “Uh, I called you to give you a sample of my donor virus,” she said. “I want the mark off. As agreed.”
Gally lost his anger, the quickness of it making Trisk think he never had been upset at all. “Truly?” Gally drawled, flicking nonexistent fuzz off his sleeve with his white-gloved hands.
“And maybe you could analyze Daniel’s virus,” she said, knowing the likelihood of them making it to Detroit to meet Sa’han Ulbrine was slim at best. “See what went wrong with it. I think I caught it, and that’s impossible.” She’d been feeling ill all day, tired and nauseous. It was better now, but she was afraid to push up her sleeves to see if there was a rash.
“I knew it!” Quen pressed into the bars of his cell as if trying to phase through them. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well?” he accused.
Trisk shrugged and pulled her blanket tighter. “What good would it do?”
“What good!” Angry, Quen smacked the gate with the flat of his hand, a growl of frustration coming from him. “Damn bars!” he finally shouted.
Gally watched Quen pace, the elf’s hands fisted. “Cages,” the demon said slowly. “More fun than a kraken in a bathtub, eh?” Shifting his shoulders, he turned back to Trisk. “You called me to exchange one mark for another? How am I to access the sample?” A wicked smile lit up his eyes as he looked over his glasses at her. “You’d free me to fetch a sample myself? Fun. I might even do that for free.”
“My God,” Daniel whispered, sitting down right before the bars.
Trisk wished she could tell him it would be okay, but she wasn’t sure she believed it herself. “The sample is in there with you,” she said, and Gally looked at his feet, inches from the circle she’d drawn.
“Your blood,” he said flatly, as if disappointed. “Well, if you have contracted it, it will be there. What about the donor virus? The one you so desperately want your name attached to?”
Trisk glanced nervously at Quen. “Uh, it’s in there, too,” she said softly.
“What!” Quen exclaimed, his face flashing red. “You infected yourself with your virus? When did you do that?” he asked, clearly appalled.
Her shoulders lifted and fell. “I wasn’t going to have it in a vial where anyone could steal it,” she said, both embarrassed and resolute. “It’s harmless. That’s why Kal wants it.”
Daniel’s head came up, lips parted and looking pale. “That’s brilliant,” he said, clearly meaning it. “Whenever you needed it, it would be there. Is it contagious?”
She shook her head. “With a blood transfusion, sure. But not casually.” She turned to Gally, not liking that she had to give this up. “Go ahead and look. If I’ve caught Daniel’s virus, it will be there, too.”
The demon’s eyebrows were high. “Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri. You might just be clever enough to survive. Excuse me a moment. I’ll be right back. It takes a second or two.”
With an audible whoosh of inrushing air, he vanished.
“Is he gone?” Daniel whispered, and Trisk shook her head, eyes fixed to the rising haze. Not gone, just analyzing the residue of the circle.
“We should be so lucky,” Quen grumped, hands on his hips as Gally solidified, his gloves absent and a red smear between his fingers.
“Well?” Trisk took a step forward, her pulse hammering as the demon began to smirk. She put a hand to her stomach, feeling ill. “I’ve caught it, haven’t I,” she whispered, and Quen pushed forward into the bars.
“No!” he protested, almost frantic. “How can she be sick, when he isn’t?” Quen said, looking at Daniel. “It’s his virus!”
Gally’s smirk extended up into his eyes. “Well, well, well . . .” he drawled, breathing deeply of the red smear between his fingers. “Isn’t this interesting?”
Trisk swallowed hard, tugging the blanket tight around her shoulders. She hadn’t been feeling well, but she’d been so careful. “How did I mess up so badly?” she whispered, and Quen looked at her helplessly. She would have sworn the virus was Inderland-safe. Kal might tweak it to kill her to
mato out of spite, but why would he make it break the species barrier?
“I don’t understand,” she said, fumbling behind her for the bench and sitting down. “I made it perfect.”
“You made it perfect?” Daniel accused, and Trisk looked up.
“You made it perfect,” she amended. “I just made it unable to infect anyone but humans.”
“Yeah,” Daniel muttered, “I can see that.”
She knew that nothing she could say would take that betrayed expression off his face. “And it shouldn’t have made anyone so sick they’d die,” she added. “Even if my tomato is allowing it to multiply outside of a lab.”
Gally’s hand dropped, again encased in a white glove. “That would be my guess.”
“Guess?” Quen scoffed. “You don’t know?”
Goat-slitted eyes narrowed, Gally stared Quen down. “My guess is better than a year’s worth of your research. Plebeian,” he said dryly. “For all your skills and advances, you are scratching in the dirt. Who do you think had the knowledge to send your genome into a catastrophic crash? Not my great-ever-so-great ancestors, but us. Me and mine. And I guess . . . you are correct that your tomato is responsible.” He turned to Trisk. “Doctor Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri.”
Quen turned away, a hand held up in acceptance, and Gally sniffed, brushing off his sleeves. “The Angel tomato is condensing the virus into lethal doses,” the demon added, apparently mollified. “Eat a tomato, and you die. Death by BLT.” He chuckled, but Trisk felt ill, her side aching where she’d hit the truck and then the road.
“That’s impossible,” Daniel said, still sitting on the floor of the cell. His face was white, and Trisk imagined he was doing the same thing they all were: going over what he had eaten the last couple of days. Spaghetti.
“The virus couldn’t have possibly been in our lunch,” Quen said, more to Trisk than Gally. “It came out of a can. Those were last year’s tomatoes.”
“Probably.” Gally tugged his glove down, finger by finger. “But it’s just as likely that they were Angel tomatoes, the savior of the third world and the boon to the Midwestern farmer.” He clasped his hands behind his back, rocking on his boots expectantly. “It’s all you people plant anymore,” he said lightly. “All over the planet, acres and acres of monospecies gardens.” Gally shook his head as if chastising a stupid child. “Why take a canary into your coal mine if you don’t listen to it sing? Sometimes I wonder how you have lasted even this long. And now, since the virus is attaching to the hairs, which are in everything from ketchup to . . . spaghetti sauce, was it? The virus multiplies like botulism, spreading with a gust of wind and a produce truck running west to east.” He smiled. “Giving a virus the characteristics of a bacterium? Inspired, lovey. I applaud you. What a marvelous way to infect large numbers of people quickly.”
Quen sat down heavily at the back of the cell, head bowed as he whispered, “That’s how it’s moving. It is airborne, but it goes from tomato to tomato, not person to person.”
“Tomato, hell,” Daniel said, white-faced. “It’s going product to product.”
Quen’s head came up. “I’ve been exposed, too, then.”
“Bad luck, chap,” Gally said as he rubbed the red smear between his fingers, the digits going misty for a moment. “Curious . . .”
“I don’t believe it,” Trisk said, unable to accept she had left an opening that large. “Even Kal wouldn’t be so stupid as to change the species barrier.”
Gally blinked. His expression went utterly blank for an unreal three seconds before a wide, evil grin settled onto his features. “You little trickster,” he said as he snapped his fingers, the blood vanishing and the white glove taking its place. “Perhaps you should sit down, Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri. A woman in your condition can never be too careful.”
“I am sitting down,” she whispered. God help her. She’d killed them all. There would be no one left but perhaps pixies and fairies.
“Why, so you are. Don’t be too hard on yourself, lovey,” Gally said as she tried not to hyperventilate. “These things happen to the best of us, though you have been particularly stupid.” His laugh made her shudder, and she hunched deeper into her thoughts. “I’m glad you have taken my counsel,” he said slyly. “For a time, I thought it might be difficult to get your name on your research, but you, my little whore, have done the hard part for me.”
“Hey!” Daniel said, affronted, his harsh cry shocking through her.
Trisk lifted her head, arms wrapped around her middle as if to hold her together. “I haven’t taken your counsel. I never agreed to anything. You just started talking.” She pressed her fingers into her forehead. “I can’t believe Kal would break the species barrier to put us in danger of infection.”
“But you are not in any danger, lovey,” Gally said merrily. “The species barrier is still intact. You’re not ill because you carry Daniel’s virus. You are ill because you are pregnant.”
The worried frown slid from Trisk’s brow in shock, and her jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”
Gally’s laugh exploded from him, long and deep. “You’ve got a bun in the oven,” he said, delighting in the look of horror that flooded her. “Flunked the rabbit test. Enrolled yourself in the pudding-of-the-month club. Let me be the first to congratulate you and your little bastard.”
“Pregnant!” Quen exclaimed, his eyes going to Daniel.
“Don’t look at me,” Daniel said grimly as Trisk sat unmoving in shock. “I’m not the one who’s been following her around the last couple of weeks.”
Trisk felt herself go pale as they both turned their accusing eyes on her. Kal, she thought as they all figured it out together. “I think I’m going to throw up,” she whispered. Oh God, she’d gotten herself pregnant? By a Kalamack?
Gally was still laughing, apparently not caring that he was singeing his elbows and knees.
“How?” Trisk said, then waved a hand for him to shut up when he took a breath to answer. “I know how,” she amended. “But it’s so difficult for us to become pregnant at all.” Her pulse quickened. “Is it a viable fetus? Can you tell?”
“From your blood?” Gally said, glancing at Daniel when he got to his feet. “I’m good, but not that good. By the amount of hormone coursing through you, I’d say chances are good you’ll carry to term if you stop rolling over truck hoods. Tell you what. I’ll let you all out of your cages if you give it to me on his or her sixteenth birthday.”
She swallowed hard, hand on her middle. “Go to hell.”
“Is that an official banishment? Come on now. Do it properly,” he coaxed, knowing that wasn’t what she’d meant.
“Trisk.” Quen stood before the bars, hands helplessly at his side. “He’s a loathsome, prejudiced bastard! How could you have a child with that jackass?”
“Back off, Quen!” she shouted, embarrassed. “Don’t lecture me on morals. With men holding all the keys, women don’t have a lot of choice but to whore themselves out for their bodies or whore themselves out for their minds.” Her face warmed, and she stared Quen down, seeing his understanding but not finding any joy in it. “So what if I did both at the same time for the chance that my work might stand as my work and not someone else’s.” She slumped, feeling the tears prick. “Maybe it was a bad idea,” she whispered. “But I’m tired of not being allowed to make my own life.” Besides, it had been damn enjoyable, so enjoyable that the thought of it kept popping into her mind at the most inopportune moments.
“That’s not what I meant,” Quen said, and her head snapped up.
“Then what did you mean?” she said bitterly.
“This is just delightful,” Gally said, wiping tears of laughter away with a gloved hand. “Truly, I will take the unwanted child off your hands. I’ll give you three wishes for it. A dozen.”
Unwanted? Trisk’s attention flicked from Quen to Gally. “Why don’t you leave?”
The demon looked affronted. “What about your foot?”
“Ge
t out!” she shouted, rising to fling a hand at him. “Take your mark and go home! Now!”
Gally frowned, his hands clasped quietly behind him as his expression fell. “Bad dog, eh?” he grumbled. “Fine. But I own you, Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri, and if I take you while you are pregnant, that child is mine, too, by association.”
That fast, he vanished with an inrushing pop of air. Trisk shuddered, reaching down to rub a cold hand under her even colder foot. It was smooth. His mark was gone. But her tension didn’t ease. His grip on her felt stronger, not weaker.
“Trisk?” Quen said, and she turned away, not wanting to deal with anything right now. There was nothing left in her circle, and she let go of the line. Flickering, the energy holding the circle vanished.
Unwanted? No, it wasn’t unwanted, but his or her appearance was really bad timing. Shuddering at the thought of a child raised by demons, she vowed not to call Algaliarept again. It was too dangerous. No wonder my grandmother hid his name on a stone she swallowed.
“Trisk,” Quen said again, and thinking she heard recrimination in his voice, she put up a hand to stop his next words. Damn it, she couldn’t go to NASA now. They would never hire her. Not with a child to care for. She could hide a pregnancy for a time, but how responsible was it to work in a genetic lab with a developing fetus?
“I’m sorry, Trisk,” Quen said, and she bowed her head, shaking as she shuffled to her cot and sat down. “I didn’t mean—”
“Not now, Quen,” she said as the springs gave way under her.
“I promise, it’s going to be all right,” Daniel said softly, and she glanced up, relieved there was no reproach in his eyes. It only seemed to make it worse.
“How is this going to be all right?” she said as she lay down, facing both the wall and her uncertain future. With a sinking sensation, she realized Kal had won, because she could not in good conscience allow her work to lie fallow for the decade it would take before she would be allowed back into the workplace. And that was even assuming they would let her. A viable child was almost a mandate to make more. How could I have been so stupid?