“Good,” Wayne said. “I think you forgot an eyebrow though.”
MeLaan felt at her face. “Hell,” she said. “This is what you get by forcing me to work so quickly.” She ducked back into the room.
“Speaking of quickly,” Wax said through the door, “is this about what I can expect with Bleeder? A half hour to change bodies?”
Wayne nodded. That would be useful to know.
“No, unfortunately,” MeLaan’s voice said from inside, muffled. It was still the same voice as she’d had in her other body. Was she going to change that? “Paalm is old-generation, very practiced. I don’t think anybody is as good as TenSoon, mind you, but Paalm will be fast—particularly swapping into a body she’s used before. I’ve known early-generationers who can change bodies in under ten minutes, and that’s going in blind.”
“Isn’t that tough?” Wayne called. “Like … I once hadda eat twenty sausages for a bet. Won five notes, but spent an hour on the ground moaning like a fellow on the pot tryin’ to force a mango through his delicate doughnut, if you catch my meaning.”
Wax groaned softly, but a short time later MeLaan opened the door again, and was this time clothed in a black suit like the other guards. She was also smiling. “You’re cute,” she noted to Wayne. “How’s my eyebrow?”
“Uh, good.” Cute? “But I’m taken.”
“In answer to your question,” MeLaan said, “it is hard, but not for the reason you’re implying. We can force-feed and expel excess, which makes doing the transformation near a drain like in here convenient. The tough part is memorizing the muscle patterns as you digest them. That and getting the hair right. You people are practically drowning in the stuff. Fortunately, for a quick change like this, I can ignore the hair under the clothing.”
“So … wait,” Wayne said, rubbing his chin. “You’re saying we might be able to check if a person is a kandra by…”
“… Seeing if they put leg and arm hair on?” MeLaan asked. “That might actually work, but only if the kandra had to change fast.”
“Arm hair,” Wayne said. “Right. I was thinkin’ of arm hair.”
“That is the most difficult part to get right on short notice,” MeLaan said. “We can’t make hair, so we’ve got to use your own, and place each strand in a pore. Arms and legs have thousands of the things. What a pain. Far worse than a mass on the head or whatnot.”
“MeLaan,” Wax said, digging in his coat pocket and bringing something out. “Do you recognize this?”
“I don’t have a lot to go on, chief, but I’d say it’s an empty glass vial.”
“Take it inside and turn off the lights,” Wax said, tossing her the vial as Wayne stepped forward, trying to get a look. That stuff seemed interesting.
MeLaan withdrew, then shoved open the door a second later. She grabbed Wax by the mistcoat, somehow still imposing despite the fact that she was now shorter than either of them. “Where did you get this?”
“Bottom of Bleeder’s robes,” Wax said. “The ones she was wearing to imitate a priest.”
“This is perchwither,” MeLaan said. “It’s a bioluminescent fungus. It grows in only one place.”
“Where?” Wax asked.
“The kandra Homeland.”
Wax looked deflated. “Oh. So that’s where we’d expect her to be going, right?”
“No,” MeLaan said. “The kandra are no longer trapped there. We move in society—we have homes, lives. If we want to meet up with others of our kind, we catch them at the pub. The Homeland is a monument. A holy site. A place of relics. The fact that she’s been there recently, wearing the body of someone she killed…” MeLaan shivered visibly, letting go of Wax. “It’s nauseating.”
“I should check it out,” Wax said. “She might be staying down there.”
MeLaan folded her arms, looking him over. “Harmony says it’s okay,” she said. “You can get in through the tombs; look for the sign of atium and use your other eyes. We don’t use that entrance very often, but it’s probably easiest for you. Just don’t break anything, lawman.”
“I’ll do my best,” Wax said, turning as a footman peeked in from the hallway, then approached with a small silver tray bearing a card.
“Lord Ladrian?” said the footman, holding out the tray. “Your coach has arrived.”
“Coach?” Wayne asked. On a hunt, Wax was usually in full-on “fly through the city like a rusting vulture” mode. Why would he need a coach?
Wax picked up the card on the tray, then nodded and took a deep breath. “Thank you.” He turned to Wayne and MeLaan. “Keep the governor alive. I’ll send word if I discover anything.”
“So what’s in the coach?” Wayne asked.
“I sent a note soon after I got here to the mansion,” Wax said. “There’s one person in this city who might have an inkling of what Bleeder is up to.” Wax’s face took on a grim cast.