“We aren’t a pair,” I informed him, then immediately regretted my decision when his smile revealed fangs.
“The reason we’re here—” Linus casually nudged me behind him, “—is a delicate matter.” He reached in his bag and withdrew a white metal box with KEEP REFRIGERATED written down the side. “Here is the sample we discussed. I gave my word that it wouldn’t leave my sight and that we would destroy all traces after you conduct your tests.”
“Interesting,” he said, his gaze fixed on me, almost like he could smell the magic in my blood. But that was silly. Paranoid. He hadn’t opened the container. There was no basis for comparison. It wasn’t even my blood. And yet…
Clearly, he scented something on me. Perhaps he was old enough to have known one of my kind, or clever enough to grasp I wasn’t what I appeared to be. Either way, I didn’t want him drawing any connections between me and what he might discover.
“I need to use the ladies’.” I clutched the strap on my bag. “Can you point me in the right direction?”
Reardon indicated the hall adjacent to this one, and I kept my stride casual until I rounded the corner. Maybe this wasn’t such a great plan. I had a theory about how to conceal my scent, but it might not work, and it might still land me in hot water later.
Once inside the restroom, I turned the lock and reached in my bag for the modified pen. I had no reason to hope it would work, but I closed my eyes and focused on the idea of a sigil that might do the trick, letting my hand follow the path mapped by instinct.
With that done, I lifted my wrist to my nose and inhaled. I smelled nothing. Perfume wasn’t my thing, so it might be best if I tried the one spot where artificial fragrance clung. Yes, my armpits. I sniffed them. Not one single whiff of the aerosol I’d sprayed on earlier lingered. The sigil had masked my scent entirely.
Triumph welled in me, and I allowed myself a short happy dance before capping the pen and returning to Reardon’s office. The man himself greeted me at the door, and I caught him leaning in to sniff me as I walked past him to join Linus.
The frown tipping his welcoming expression toward annoyance made the gamble all the better.
So maybe I would never have moves like Taz or encyclopedic knowledge like Linus, but I had one thing in common with Maud I never expected to claim. I was an innovator. An accidental innovator, sure, but an innovator nonetheless.
A pang of sadness pierced my heart that Maud wasn’t here to see what I had done, what I had the potential to do, but she must have suspected. It was thanks to her I was in this position in the first place.
“Forgive us,” Reardon said. “We got started without you.”
The box lay open on the counter, and a vial of bright blood had been slotted into a sleek machine that whirred happily at having been fed.
“Linus failed to introduce us.” He pulled out a stool and nudged it closer to me. “I’m Reardon McAllister.”
“I’m Grier Woolworth.” I offered him my hand, which he flipped over in an elegant move, exposing my wrist to the ceiling. He bowed low and pressed his lips against the network of veins, and I saw his chest expand as he inhaled. “Linus and I grew up together.”
There was no harm in telling him that since my last name would ring all kinds of bells for him.
Chair legs scraped behind us as Linus rose. “Reardon.”
“Fascinating,” he murmured. “May I continue to blame my poor manners on being shoddily made?”
“You’re old enough to know better,” I answered, “and smart enough to know how dangerous it is to provoke a necromancer.”
“An assistant.” He fed my title back to me, and it took every ounce of strength I had to keep from flinching. “You’re not quite so deadly as my friend here.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Linus extracted me from Reardon’s grasp and urged me onto my stool, drawing his beside mine. “I wouldn’t provoke Grier if I were you.”
“Oh?” Interest sparkled in the vampire’s eyes. “Why is that?”
Squirming on my seat, I pretended I was getting comfortable, but what I was really doing was wondering why the heck Linus would dangle that kind of carrot in front of a vampire.
“She’s got a temper.” He traced the perfect line of his nose. “She broke this once.”
Laughter exploded out of Reardon, and the tension in the room shattered around us.
“I confess, I’ve wanted to do that a time or two myself.” At Linus’s arched brow, he explained, “Linus is so very good at everything. He makes for an annoying friend.” His smile turned wicked. “Especially when I’m trying to impress a pretty girl.”
A flush brightened my cheeks. I would have scrubbed them to cease the tingling, but it would have made things worse. Nothing like blushing to draw a vampire’s attention to the fact you’re a walking, talking blood bag.
“Ah, there she goes again,” Reardon murmured. “You have stumbled across my greatest weakness.”
Referring to my earlier thoughts, I blurted, “Food?”
Laughter pelted the air once again, and he couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off his face. “Humility.”
“Reardon,” Linus warned. “Perhaps we should return to the matter at hand.”
Tearing his gaze from my glowing face, Reardon resumed his position at the counter across from Linus. Using a dropper, he began several tests on Amelie’s blood that left me puzzled as to their purpose.
Heads bent over their workstation, the pair discussed what Linus hoped to learn and the sample’s origin.
Past that point, they might as well have been speaking a foreign language. I had no clue what they were discussing, only picking up one familiar word in ten. Chromosome. Platelets. Antibodies. Thankfully, science appeared to be Reardon’s true love, and he forgot all about me once she took center stage.
I didn’t mean to doze, but that didn’t stop me from jerking awake seconds before the dream took me.
One minute, I was resting my forehead on my stacked arms. The next, I was catapulting backwards from my stool, tripping over its legs, and falling on the tile hard enough to bruise my tailbone.
Not even the fear twisting cold knots in my gut over what they might find had kept me from dozing.
Fed a steady diet of terror, I was too full to make room for more.
I sprawled there, panting and mortified, while I caught my breath.
Reardon knelt at my side as the scream died in my throat. “Are you hurt?”
“Only my pride, and there wasn’t much of that left.” I winced up at Linus, whose eyes had bled full black, and only a fool would have refused the hand he offered me. “I’m good, really.” I flashed them a weak smile that lingered on Linus, on where he still held my hand. “Serves me right for falling asleep in class.”
Linus smiled at the joke, faintly, but puckers gathered across Reardon’s forehead.
“There’s a coffee shop on campus. No hot chocolate, but their mocha lattes are popular. Cletus can show you the way.” Linus released my fingers after a beat too long. “Why don’t you go get a drink and stretch your legs?”
“I’ll take you up on that.” I resisted the urge to massage my aching tailbone. “You guys want anything?”
“My usual,” Linus said with a straight face.
“I’ll take a tall black coffee.” Grinning, Reardon reached for his wallet. “I like the smell.”
“My treat,” I assured him. “You guys enjoy your science while I’m gone.”
Outside, I chose a direction and started walking. At a fork in the path, I stopped to read a sign that might have been helpful had I known Lindbergh Hall from Heinemann Hall. Just as I was wondering where my promised guide had gone, Cletus joined me with a moaned apology for his lateness. Or so I imagined.
“Take me to your coffee shop,” I beseeched the wraith.
With a clack of his nails, Cletus billowed in the opposite direction from the one I had been heading.