“Kate!” Luther barked next to me, his voice sharp. “She’s dead.”
He was right. She was dead. I hit her again, just to be sure, straightened, and handed him the bloody microscope.
Conlan cried.
Oh no.
I sprinted to him and scooped him up off the floor. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. Mama’s got you.”
He wailed. I realized my hands were bloody. I got sahanu blood on his clothes.
Conlan cried, his voice spiking, tears wetting his cheeks.
“Shhh.” I rocked him. “It’s okay. It will be okay. I’ve got you. Mommy’s got you. I won’t let anyone eat you. I’ll kill every last one of them.”
He couldn’t possibly understand that she had been about to eat him. What the hell was coming out of my mouth?
I rocked back and forth. Conlan wailed and wailed, tears falling from his gray eyes. Oh dear gods, I’d traumatized my child. I’d beaten a person to death in front of him. He would be scarred for life.
“Do you have any food?”
Luther ran over to the fridge and flung it open. Salad, a pitcher of tea, a jar of honey.
“Honey,” I told him.
He brought the jar over. I held Conlan’s hand out. “Pour some on him.”
Luther got a spoon and scooped a big dollop of honey onto Conlan’s hand.
Conlan sniffled and licked his hand. For a moment he wasn’t sure it wasn’t a dirty trick, and then he stuck his hand into his mouth.
“Babies shouldn’t have honey,” Luther said, his voice slightly wooden. “It can contain Clostridium botulinum. It’s a bacterium that causes—”
“Botulism. I know. He’s a year old. It’s safe. Also he’s a shapeshifter and his werebear grandparents have been feeding him honey since he could hold a honey muffin in his hand, no matter what I said, and then lied to my face about it.”
“How do you even know about botulism?” Luther asked.
“When I was pregnant, I couldn’t do much, so I read all the books. I know all of the bad things that can happen.” I hugged Conlan to me. “I know about roseola and RSV and gastroenteritis. His biggest problem isn’t catching whooping cough. It’s that his delusional megalomaniac grandfather is trying to kill him.”
I kissed Conlan’s hair. Nobody would touch my son. Not a hair on his head.
Conlan leaned against me and pointed at the body. “Bad.”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Bad. Very bad.”
He was okay. I’d beaten her to a pulp and he was okay. It would be okay now. I just needed to breathe. The fury was choking me.
He’d ordered a hit on me. He’d put his grandson’s life in danger. The prophecy and all the visions of the future I’d received told me my father would try to kill him, but to feed him to his pet assassins, that was beyond even Roland.
Luther pushed a stool to me.
I sat.
He looked at the dead sahanu. “The temerity to attack me with plant magic in my own house.”
“Only you would use a word like ‘temerity’ at a time like this.”
He stared at her ruined head. “I’ve never seen you scared before.”
“Well, I’ve never seen you turn a room full of mind-controlling spores into a flower snowstorm before.”
Luther blinked.
“Miasma?” I told him. “You were telling me about the changes in the creature’s body.”
He stared at me as if I were speaking Chinese, then shook himself. “The creature. Right. Why do you vomit when you see and smell somebody else vomit?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s a biological survival mechanism. Primitive humans existed in family groups. They slept in the same place and they ate the same things.”
Pieces clicked together in my head. “So, if one person vomited, they likely got poisoned, so everyone needed to vomit to not die.”
“Yes. It’s the same with the miasma. Your body is telling you that whatever made that woman into that furry creature is a critical danger to you. It must be destroyed.”
A horrible thought occurred to me. “Do you think it might be contagious?”
“I can’t confirm it’s not.”
Curran and Derek would be immune. Lyc-V would kill the invading pathogen. Julie had my blood. She should be immune as well. But what about other people?
“Did Tucker’s corpse turn?”
“No. I checked on him last night in the morgue and again this morning. Whatever this bug is, it must need a living host.”
“You’re telling me that if these things are contagious, they could infect the whole city?”
“Pretty much. We might have a version of our own zombie apocalypse on our hands.”
We looked at each other.
“I need something to drink.” Luther jumped off his stool, pulled a flask from the fridge, and held it out to me. I shook my head. He brought it to his lips and took a swig. The lines of his face eased.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Artisanal Dutch cocoa. Fifty percent sugar by volume. Made it this morning just in case of an emergency. You don’t know what you’re missing.” He raised the flask. “To the shiny baby and not getting killed.”
The shiny baby. Conlan couldn’t cloak. He was emitting magic, like a lighthouse in the middle of a dark night. I hadn’t even realized it. It just came on when he had shifted for the first time, and I’d just accepted it without any thought. It felt so natural and normal somehow. If any sahanu could sense magic, they would see him. They could track him. He was enough like me and my father that they would instantly recognize the signature. We were sitting ducks here.
I jumped off the stool and ran to the box.
“What is it?”
“I have to go.” I jerked the lid open, set Conlan on the floor, and grabbed my belt. Conlan grabbed at my pants, hugging my leg.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I have to go, Luther.”
“Kate? Kate!”
I thrust my knife into its sheath and slid Sarrat into its sheath on my back. I didn’t bother with the shark teeth. They would take too long. I picked up Conlan and took off running down the hallway. People were rushing our way as the rest of Biohazard woke up to the fact that something had gone wrong. I tore past them, took the stairs two at a time, busted out the door, and dashed to the car, scanning the square for danger.
I started chanting twenty feet from the vehicle, thrust Conlan into the car seat, took a precious second to buckle him, and got into the driver’s seat, locking my seat belt. Minutes stretched by as the enchanted water engine warmed up. I’d give my left arm to be able to turn the key and get the hell out of here.
Finally, the magic motor turned over. I sped out of the parking lot and almost collided with another vehicle, an armored SUV that had more in common with a tank than a car. I veered right but still caught a glimpse of the driver. Knight-abettor Norwood. I took the corner at a dangerous speed. The last thing I needed now was the knights of the Order asking idiotic questions.
I had to get to a safe place, somewhere where Conlan and I would be protected, somewhere close. I couldn’t afford to get stuck in traffic. The Guild was too far. My office was, too. That left only one location. It was safe, secure, and only three miles from me. Three years ago, if someone had told me I would be running there for a safe haven, I would’ve laughed in their face. They had been the enemy for as long as I could remember. Life was an ironic bitch.
I stepped on the gas.
CHAPTER
9