Immortally Embraced

chapter sixteen




I headed straight to the lab. Well, I stopped to put on some pants first. Rodger had left the hutch, hopefully to consult with his rock club buddies. I didn’t even bother to move the new stash of geek-tastic action figures from my bed. Or from the top of my locker. Or the front of my bookcase.

My mind raced with everything I had to get done. I needed something beyond sphinx venom will knock out an immortal. I needed to show how we could use that knowledge to develop a controlled anesthetic.

Quickly, I changed into surgical scrubs and a pair of tennis shoes. The limbo suns beat down hard, making the inside of the tent steamy and the outside even worse. Sweating, I scraped my hair back into a ponytail as I made my way out of camp and up through the cemetery.

There was no way to predict how fast research would go. The idea of doing several weeks, months, maybe even years of work in three days was staggering.

I shouldn’t even attempt it.

It’s not like I could just phone this one in. Surgery was pressure enough, and that was the part of the job I enjoyed. I was never meant to be a researcher. I would never have taken this on, except that it was important.

Sphinx venom could knock out an immortal. It was an amazing discovery as far as I was concerned. Frankly, I was shocked HQ hadn’t given it more weight.

No, they wanted proof that I could use it.

It seemed I wasn’t going to get any investment until we had a sure thing, which negated the need for a lot of investment.

I wanted to punch something.

We were talking about a potential breakthrough here. I understood the gods didn’t necessarily rush to embrace change, but come on.

I kicked a rock and reached into my pocket for a stick of Fruit Stripe gum as the leaning heaps and jutting peaks of the junkyard greeted me. It was hard to make a difference in this war. This was my shot.

My responsibility.

My current lab was just inside the minefield, past a large char mark on the ground where my last lab had been. I preferred keeping caustic experiments away from camp. Plus, the minefield offered a degree of privacy. People had to go out of their way to bug me.

It still didn’t stop them—not completely.

I shoved open the door marked CRITICAL CARE. I’d commandeered it from the pile of junk that had been the old intensive care unit. After a patient escaped, HQ approved steel doors and double-thick walls. I’d taken the leftovers.

In fact, most of my new lab was our old unit. It had been designed to break down quickly and easily, in case our unit needed to re-deploy in a hurry. So Marius relocated it here. As a vampire, he was super strong. Plus, he understood the value of a good lair.

The pinewood walls were smooth and clean. I had a basic floor and a roof. This was junkyard luxury.

As usual, the place smelled like desert dirt and the sweet, fig scent of sphinx venom.

It was dark inside. Marius had sawed two windows that let in some light, but mostly dirt and dry air.

I lit the lanterns that hung throughout the long, narrow room. Electricity would have been nice, if only to hook up the steel refrigeration unit I’d acquired, and even some of the plug-in burners.

It was dangerous to have fire around some of the fluids I was testing.

But I’d applied for an electric hookup along with everything else I’d asked acquisitions to provide. HQ had denied it lock, stock, and barrel. Said it was unnecessary. Extravagant. As if the generals in charge knew what that meant.

Father McArio had built me a small desk in the center of the lab to hold all of my papers and reports. I’d positioned old cafeteria tables on the walls to the right and left. The only other furniture was a small cot Father had set up in the old storage hold in the back.

When you got right down to it, a separate room was a needless luxury. I could sleep in the lab.

I rubbed my eyes as I opened my notebook and prepared to get started. The key was to find a solvent to mix with the sphinx venom that would allow us to control the amount of time an immortal was knocked out.

As soon as the venom got into a person’s system—mortal or immortal—it completely took over. I’d never seen a toxic agent run so rampant.

The venom on its own could put an immortal under for up to seven days, which was dangerous. Any anesthesia carries a risk. I wasn’t about to submit critical patients to a week of it. Plus, it was impractical. Recovery would be overwhelmed. And if the old army knew our soldiers were asleep and defenseless, they could slaughter them in their beds.

I pulled up a stool and studied my notes.

We had to be able to manage the delivery and effects of the venom. Caustic chemicals that were deadly to mortals, but like candy to the gods, seemed to work best. The challenge was finding the right amount and then stabilizing it.

In three days.

Still, work felt good. It was better than focusing on what I’d done to Marc, or on everything I’d lost.

Death had been certain the last time. Marc was gone. I had no choice but to move on. Now I wasn’t sure of anything. I didn’t know if Marc was alive or dead. I didn’t know if the world would end or not. I didn’t know what part I had to play to stop it all.

I sniffed, trying to get a handle on my runny nose and watering eyes.

One step at a time. First, I worked on a combination of eighty-seven-octane unleaded gasoline and the venom. It was the mildest combination I had so far that would (in theory) work, with the least amount of risk.

Sure, it would torch the lab if it came in contact with any sparks from my Bunsen burner, or the lanterns hanging from the ceiling above me. But such was the nature of the beast.

I heated the solution carefully. I’d always liked the smell of gas, in theory. This much so close was making me a little dizzy. I edged nearer to the window and wished I had a fume hood.

Still, it was better than the peracetic acid. That solution had smelled like liquid fire. It worked beautifully in tests, and I was almost ready to try it on an immortal volunteer. But it explodes violently at 100 degrees Celsius, which is 212 degrees Fahrenheit. I figured that could be safe. Turned out my metal storage shelf did get that hot under the baking limbo sun.

Thank God I’d had to leave for a shift in the clinic.

I measured out five milliliters of venom into a graduated cylinder and then added twenty milliliters of gasoline. I worked on various combinations throughout the afternoon. Mixing and testing them for effectiveness and stability.

And—Father McArio would be proud of me—I even remembered to step outside every hour or so. For the first few batches at least.

I’d learned that after a mixing and a stabilization period, I could gauge each anesthetic’s impact on the immortal metabolism with reasonable certainty by testing it on patient blood samples and measuring breakdown rates.

I rubbed at my eyes as I sat on a stool in front of my desk, recording breakdown rates. The gasoline wasn’t performing as well as I’d hoped. At this rate, patients would be waking up mid-surgery.

There was a gentle knock at the door. “Petra?”

Father McArio.

I winced. If it was anyone else, I would have told them to scram.

My eyes felt like sandpaper. I rubbed them as the door opened behind me, letting in shards of blinding light.

“Rodger said you might be in here,” the raven-haired priest said, holding a tray that smelled like warm bread and meat.

Leave it to him to bring a bribe. My stomach growled.

“How hungry am I when mess hall food starts smelling good?”

“That’s the spirit,” he said, easing the door closed behind him. He wore a black shirt and clerical collar, along with fatigue pants. His nose wrinkled as he took a whiff of my latest concoction.

I smoothed the hair out of my face. “I’d love to, but I can’t stop for dinner. I’m way behind.”

“This is breakfast.” He set the tray on the only clear spot on my desk.

Oh. No wonder I was ready to pass out. I picked up the tray and set it on top of my notes. It wouldn’t hurt them. Besides, the gasoline was a bust. General Argus wouldn’t be seeing these files.

It was rehydrated scrambled eggs and bacon. There was nothing else like it. Literally.

I scooped up a big bite that managed to taste both runny and sticky at the same time.

Father watched me. “You should rest.”

I appreciated his concern, but, “I’m way behind.” What I’d needed was food. I hadn’t even realized how starving I was until I’d started eating. I bit into a crumbly mess. Mmm … biscuit.

Father walked casually through the lab, clucking over spreadsheets and test tube holders, but I knew what he was going for.

Sure enough, he peeked behind the curtain to my little sleeping room in the back. It hadn’t been used. He didn’t show any reaction. “I think all of us appreciate the dedication you’re showing with this anesthetic research,” he began.

“But,” I began.

Let’s just have out with it.

“Well,” he said, in that overly patient tone of his. “I was just wondering. Is there something else driving this? Something you’d like to talk about?”

Hmm … like the fact that my research, important as it was, might not even make a difference if the old gods wiped us out with their new weapon? Or maybe the fact that I’d shot and quite possibly killed the one man who could put a stop to it?

Perhaps it was the fact that I’d spent all day and all night beating my head against the wall over formulas that didn’t work. Meanwhile, time was running out. And although I appreciated Thomas Edison’s little ditty about how he was so much closer to discovering electricity because he knew nine-hundred-and-something things that didn’t work, I frankly didn’t have that f*cking kind of time.

“Petra?” Father pulled up a stool.

“I’ve got nothing,” I said, scraping the last bits of egg from the metal tray.

“You’re frightened,” he said, as if he were just figuring it out himself.

I closed my eyes. Put a lock on it. “I don’t have the time or the emotion for this.”

He folded his hands in his lap. “You don’t have to deal with it right now. But maybe telling me will help ease the burden. You know you can talk to me.”

Sure, I’d told him all kinds of things over the course of this stupid war, but I’d never had to tell Father I’d shot a person. And so I did. I told him what had happened at MASH-19X. How I’d leveled a disruptor at Marc, how I’d run. “He trusted me to help him,” I said, hoping Father would understand, needing it. “Instead, I might have killed him.”

Hell. Father was still looking at me like I was a good person. I didn’t deserve it. “You care for him beyond this assignment,” he said.

I shook my head. I couldn’t not care for him. I was trying, but our love had been too strong. And while it had been beautiful then, all it did was hurt me now. I sighed. “For a large part of my life, I was sure he was the one.”

Before this war. Now all I knew was bloodshed, suffering, and death.

I couldn’t do anything about Marc, but maybe I could do something to ease the pain for these soldiers.

Father placed his hand over mine. I hadn’t even realized how hard I’d been clutching the leg of my scrubs. “I’ll check with some of the chaplains on the other side. He’s at the MASH-19X, right?” I nodded, loosening my grip. “They may be able to see how he’s doing.”

All I could feel was a hollow ache. “I really think I killed him.”

We sat in silence for a long moment. Finally, Father spoke. “Tell me. Would Marc punish you for what you did?”

What? It was crazy. “Of course not.”

“Then be kind to yourself. For him.”

I didn’t know what to do. I planted my elbows on my knees, ran my hands through my hair. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Would you like to pray?”

“No.”

Father lowered his eyes, understanding. “Then I’ll pray for you.” He paused. “At least promise me you’ll get a few hours of sleep.”

I gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I’ll try.”

“That’s not the same.”

I slumped, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. “I don’t want to lie to a priest.”

He smiled at that.

“I’ll rest when I can,” I said. When I’d reached a stopping point.

That seemed to satisfy him, or at least make him realize he could bring the cot to the doctor, but he couldn’t make her sleep.

He took the empty tray. “Can you tell me why there are several metal cans of lighter fluid outside your lab?”

“Oh, goodie.” They’d arrived.

We walked outside and he helped me gather them up and set them up along the right wall.

“I’ll rest after I work on these.” I did a quick calculation in my head. Six gallons. Excellent.

Father gave me a long look.

“I promise.”

We both knew I was lying.

* * *

I worked my way through a sleeve of saltine crackers, a pack of water bottles, and a half-eaten sandwich, courtesy of Jeffe. He’d come in for an extraction and stayed for a catnap—or more like a pass-out-on-my-notes-and-drool nap—before I kicked him out.

At least I knew now that the only solvents that were having any kind of an effect on the venom were the flammable liquids with low autoignition temperatures. Luckily, we had plenty of those around: gasoline, ethanol, liquid hydrogen. I was going to try to work my way through the top ten.

Three failed formulas later, my head felt like it was ready to explode. If that weren’t bad enough, Rodger pounded on the door. “Hello! Land of the living here. How are you doing?”

I was spilling ethanol down the side of my graduated cylinder, thanks to startling noises made by over-eager werewolves. “Go away.”

My eyes and throat stung from the constant chemicals and I could barely think straight unless I was focused and working.

He clomped up behind me. “This isn’t a race.”

“It actually is.” General Argus had told me himself he wouldn’t be able to argue my case without solid results. If I didn’t have anything to impress the higher-ups, there was no telling what they’d do.

They could decide my time was better spent in surgery. They could take my work and give it to another scientist. They could shut the project down altogether—force me to ingest my own experiments, like they’d done to the doctor who’d experimented with hormonal birth control for goddesses. Of course, they wouldn’t see any difference between estrogen and ethanol, until it was too late.

I remeasured sample number four. “I have until three o’clock on Thursday.”

Rodger glanced at his watch. “Which means you have ten minutes.”

“What?” I spilled the sample again. I thought I’d kept track of the days better than that. I was reduced to counting on my fingers while Rodger tossed a rag on my ethanol sample. “Monday I came out here,” I said, “Tuesday I saw Father…”

My roommate thumped a clean set of military fatigues onto my lap. “Time to get dressed, Cinderella. Come on,” he said, easing me off the chair. “Less counting. More moving.”

I ran a hand through my raving-crazy-woman hair. I hadn’t left the lab in three days. “I need a shower.”

Rodger sniffed. “Er, yes, I would have thought you’d have taken a shower in the last three days. Obviously, I was wrong.” He rechecked his watch. “Nine minutes.”

“Stop pressuring me,” I said, fingers unsteady as I dragged off my scrub top. There was a moist towelette packet with my breakfast utensils. I ripped it open and gave myself the most pathetic sponge bath of all time.

“I talked to my rock club buddies,” he said. “Guess where Titurate comes from?”

“Now is not the time for twenty questions,” I ground out, trying to locate the towelette under my arm.

“Limbo. It’s formed when layers of rock are compressed by the heat of Hades.”

So what was up with the hush-hush mining operation? “Why keep it a secret?”

Rodger had his back to me. “Are you almost ready? Six minutes.”

I struggled into the clean shirt. “You know I hate the uniform.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but first impressions count,” Rodger said as I tried to fit my feet into my pant legs.

I really did need to sleep.

A bang at the door made both Rodger and I jump. “Robichaud!”

I yanked my pants up and struggled with the button as Kosta burst into the lab, followed by General Argus, looking even pastier than before.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, saluting, hoping my pants would stay up. “I was under the impression I was meeting you.”

Kosta strolled up to me, his nose wrinkling. “The general here decided he’d like to inspect the lab for himself.”

I could tell neither one of them was impressed.

Rodger made a quick escape while I focused on General Argus. He wore an impeccably pressed uniform and four gleaming stars on his shoulders. His hard eyes dissected me from head to toe. Then he turned and I saw that he literally had eyes on the back of his head—two of them. They canvassed my tables like something on the bottom of his shoe. “I thought you were hard at work.”

“I am, sir. Here,” I said, heart racing as I gathered the notes on my desk, “let me walk you through what I’ve been doing.”

He wasn’t listening. He picked up a used test tube. “This isn’t impressive at all.”

He held the test tube up to the light, which was a really bad idea since we were talking about lanterns and lighter fluid.

I shot a look to Kosta, who moved in on the side.

“Can I see that, General?” Kosta asked.

Argus handed off the explosive tube. “I take it you don’t have my anesthetic.”

For Pete’s sake. “Not yet.”

He raised a brow. “Can you provide me with unarguable proof that you’re close to an anesthetic?”

My stomach clenched. I’d never wanted to desperately to lie. “No. Not exactly.”

“You’re working too slowly.” He fingered through my notes. “You need help.”

He wasn’t walking out. At least not yet. “Let me show you what I have so far. I think when you see it, you and your superiors will agree that this project is worthy of funding.”

“You will have a partner.”

No. “With all due respect, sir. I don’t work well on a team.” I hated group projects in school and I despised the thought of one now. Having to work with someone else, having to explain things, would only slow me down.

He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You will relieve her of all her other duties,” he said to Colonel Kosta.

“We can put her on emergency backup only,” the colonel said, guarded. “If the fighting starts up again, I’d like to have as many docs as I can on the roster.”

“I’ve been tasked with a peacetime responsibility,” the general said with a barely disguised sneer. “The new army is to work with the old army on … special projects. This will be one of them.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t against sharing research. In theory. Anything that helped alleviate suffering on both sides was ideal. Still, “I don’t see how I can work with the enemy on this.”

I glanced at Kosta, who gave me the shut-up-and-do-it narrow eyes. I licked my lips. “Perhaps if you’ll allow me a week to come up with a workable plan,” I said.

One week to try to get out of this.

“I already have a solution,” the general said, in the way of out-of-touch big bosses. “The old army has volunteered a top researcher to work with you, in this lab.”

“Perhaps we can talk about some better equipment,” I said, digging for the report I’d already given the army. It detailed what I’d need.

“You will discover an anesthetic within the month.”

Sure. Why not? “Listen, sir. I can’t guarantee—”

“You will discover the anesthetic,” the general said, daring me to contest him again. I didn’t.

The general stared me down. “Do not disappoint me. Or make me look foolish for trusting you.”

I took a deep breath, the rush of fumes making me a little dizzy. “Of course not, sir.”

Kosta crossed his hands over his chest. This was over his head and we both knew it.

Argus grunted, satisfied. “Now you will meet her.”

My mouth slacked open. She was here now? So much for even pretending I had a choice.

I might have been better off before the army had taken an interest in my work. At least then I had autonomy, the freedom to come to my own conclusions at a reasonable, human pace.

Kosta opened the door to admit my new team member. So he was in on it, too.

“Enter.”

I stood still, as if ready to face the firing squad. This doctor better be good. She’d better not slow me down or screw me up or make this impossible task even worse.

She’d better not be a damn immortal.

But nothing I could have imagined prepared me for what I saw.

Marc walked through the door.