“It wasn’t her, okay?” he muttered.
“The plague is not my doing,” she said, frustrated. “I can’t even figure out why it’s affecting some more than others. I mean, look at you. You made the stuff. Why aren’t you sick?”
Quen sat straighter. “Yes, why aren’t you sick, Dr. Plank?” he accused. “Been doing a little self-inoculating in your lab?”
Daniel’s look of surprised shock melted into a sudden guilt. He hadn’t, at least not intentionally, but maybe multiple accidental exposures while it was in development had given him some resistance. God knew he wasn’t an Inderlander. She would’ve been able to smell it on him. He might look like an elf, but he wasn’t one.
Head bowed, Daniel turned away. “I thought it was ready. This is my fault.”
“It was ready,” she cajoled, wanting to reach through the bars to touch him, but she wasn’t sure he’d accept it even if she could. “We made that virus perfect. If you want to blame anyone, my money is on Kal. God knows he had the time to modify it. Why, though, is beyond me. He was the best genetic engineer in our class.”
“Except for you,” Quen said. He had stood and was testing every bar. Giving up, he smacked at them.
Trisk gave him a brief, mirthless smile. “If Kal did this, we can fix it. It will be harder without the sample in my truck, but if we can get out of here and reach Detroit, I imagine we can find an Angel tomato along the way.”
Daniel glanced past Quen to the silent, unseen offices. “I’m sure we’ll run into someone sick with my virus as well,” he muttered. “Though I’d rather work with a sample from my lab. Unfortunately, that’s not an option anymore.”
Quen turned, his face ashen. “Trisk,” he whispered. “Your virus is gone.”
“My what?” she said. It was Daniel’s virus, not hers.
“Your universal donor,” Quen said, coming right up to the bars. He looked scared in a way that he hadn’t been when telling Daniel about Inderlanders. “You had it in the lab’s computer system, right? The fire dropped the entire floor of your lab onto the computers. Everything in them is gone, along with your research. How are you going to pay Gally back for the forget curse?”
“What virus?” Daniel asked, and Trisk’s flash of worry vanished.
“Don’t worry about it,” she muttered, but Quen gripped the bars of the cell, clearly upset.
“You have a demon scar!” Quen said, and she nervously flicked a look at Daniel. “I can see the smut on your aura, Trisk.”
It sounded ugly when he said it like that. Grimacing, she hunched into herself, feeling filthy. “I said, don’t worry about it,” she repeated, louder.
“Demons,” Daniel said dully. “I knew he wouldn’t be able to make me forget.”
Trisk nodded, a sudden idea making her stand. “Yep. Maybe I should get my money back.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Quen demanded, clearly knowing why she was looking at the floor. “No. Trisk, it’s not worth it.”
“Why not?” she said, embarrassed and resolute. She had no chalk, no salt, nothing. But she did have blood, and that would make a fine circle. “I want that mark off my foot. His curse didn’t stick. He owes me. He can get us out if nothing else.”
“You’re not getting a second mark for us.” Quen stood against the bars, his worry obvious. “Besides, you don’t have a sample of your virus to give him.”
“What virus?” Daniel said again tiredly as Quen began to pace.
“Trisk has developed a universal donor virus that has the potential to introduce healthy genetic code into failing elven infants. It will save our species. We’re in a catastrophic genetic meltdown. A parting gift from the demons when we left the ever-after two thousand years ago.”
“Oh, well, if that’s all,” Daniel said flippantly as Trisk scanned the cell for something to cut herself with. It was intentionally sharps-free, but there was a burr of metal on one of the screws, and jaw tight, she gouged her finger. Blood slowly seeped out, and she crouched, pushing her blanket aside as she scribed a small circle. Her sock feet seemed small on the cement floor, making her feel as if she was being foolish.
“That’s why you’re all geneticists,” Daniel said, and she looked down at the tiny circle. Gally wouldn’t like its size, but seeing her in jail would probably make up for it.
“Or businessmen,” she said as she smeared the rest of the blood off her finger and backed up. Her pulse quickened. Summoning demons was a rush, and she hoped Quen never guessed how much she liked flirting with the danger.
“I can get us out of here,” Quen insisted, expression twisted in worry as he gripped the bars between them. “We don’t need his help.”
She stood well back from the circle. If Gally got out, he’d kill them all, the bars that held them meaning nothing to him. “If I’m going to die in a cell, I don’t want a demon mark on my foot.”