A Perfect Blood

better with the dust out of them.”

Chris leaned against the makeshift lab bench, the nylon of her coat scraping it as she looked him over. She was ugly with her short hair, no makeup, the scratches from Jenks healing—and the fear I had reminded her of. “You do your job, I do mine.”

“Uh-huh,” he muttered, still standing hunched over the equipment.

“Wow, it got cold out there!” Jennifer said, her gaze going over the small room and seeing that Winona and Gerald were absent and that Chris had her coat on. “I thought we were staying in tonight,” she said, picking her bag up and setting it on the counter. A new name tag attached to the pocket of her scrubs peeped out past her unbuttoned coat.

“Captain America has plans,” Chris said shortly. “Any problems getting the stuff?”

Jennifer glanced at me, and I gave her a bunny-eared kiss-kiss. “No,” she said, her eyes darting away. “The charm worked great. In and out, no problem.” She shifted her shoulders as if shaking off a chill. “I feel like I need to take a shower, though.”

“It’s a curse, not a charm,” I said loudly, and a flash of fear crossed her as she took wrapped sterile syringes out of the bag. “You should see how black your soul is now.”

“Your aura is fine,” Chris said. “Don’t listen to the corr bitch.”

“Filthy,” I mouthed at Jennifer, and she paled. Hey, I took my digs when I could get them.

Jennifer set a small bottle of injectable something beside the syringes. “Why are we getting a new subject already?” she said, clearly still uneasy. “We can’t move three people if we have to bug out. Eloy says the next base isn’t ready yet. If something goes wrong and we have to leave, we’ve nowhere to go.”

Chris frowned, crossing her ankles and barking, “Break that curse and put your bar clothes on.” Turning to the dark, she shouted, “Gerald, get goat girl back in her cage! Let’s go!”

Goat girl? Oh, I owed her some serious foot-in-gut for that one.

Jennifer didn’t move, but the curse washed from her, leaving her in clothes too big and a very concerned expression on her face. “Four people can’t move three.”

I stifled a shiver when Chris smiled at me. “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”

What she meant was, they’d take the most useful and kill who was left. I suddenly felt like I was on the Titanic.

Jennifer spun to Eloy. “You’re going along with this?” she asked, and Eloy shrugged.

All my warning flags went up, and Chris noticed I was watching Jennifer intently. Her eyes never leaving mine, she said, “Can I talk to you for a moment, Jennifer?”

My eyes narrowed in suspicion as Chris put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, whispering into her ear. Jennifer’s eyes went wide, then she looked at Eloy as he stood and stretched, finally bending to check that his boots were tied. Frowning in thought, Jennifer went behind the curtain she’d hung last night between her cot and Gerald’s, changing into her bar clothes, I expected.

Eloy stood beside the syringes and picked up the tiny bottle, squinting as he read what it contained. “You know this is toxic, right?” he said, jiggling it in his palm. “You’ll have to wait twenty-four hours for it to work its way out of the subject’s system before you can alter him.”

Alter? My face burned, and I sat up, pulling my cold back from the stone. “Why not just say mutilate, Eloy? That’s all it does.”

“That’s not for the next subject,” Chris said, annoyed. “That’s for her if she becomes a liability.”

Eloy nodded, and he set the bottle down with a tap. Her frown deepening, Chris turned to the stacked clutter. “Come on, Gerald!” she shouted. “It doesn’t take that long to use the can!”

“We’re coming!” came back faintly. “She can’t walk that fast, for God’s sake!”

Jennifer pushed the curtain aside, dressed in some slinky black dress, high heels adding four inches to her height. She looked at me and beamed. I felt like the butt of a joke being told out of my earshot, and I touched the corner of my mouth to see if I had peanut butter on it. The awkward trip-trap of Winona’s hooves became obvious, and my pulse quickened. The door to the cage was going to open.

Gerald’s hunched form eased into the light, Winona looking small and frail on his arm as she wobbled, hanging on for dear life. They’d given her blouse back to her, and it looked odd with her thick thighs and cloven feet showing from under it. Balancing on her tiny feet with that heavy head must be hard. She looked okay, if having wrinkly gray skin, a curly red pelt, goat feet, and a tail somewhere between a monkey’s and a stingray’s was okay.

Winona gave me a smile, her oversize canines making her look like she was growling, but I smiled back, tensing to jump at the door.

Angry, Chris turned to Gerald. “Hurry up. I’m tired of smelling these stinking corrs!”

“All right, all right!” Gerald muttered, his head down as he wove Winona through the last of the boxes and toward our cell.

I got to my feet, eyes on the door. “Hey! What about my bathroom break?”

“Use the bucket,” Chris said, arms crossed as Winona grabbed the wire mesh for balance while Gerald fished the key from his pocket. There was only one, and Gerald had it.

“On your knees, facing the wall,” Gerald demanded, and shoulders slumping, I turned my back on them and dropped to my knees. I don’t know what movie he’d been watching, but it was effective. No big loss, I thought as I heard the door open and Winona totter in. Even if I did manage to get out, I wouldn’t get anywhere. Not with them standing around watching.

Hearing the door shut and lock, I stood and turned, reaching to take Winona’s thick hand. Her eyes met mine in thanks, and I helped her to her side of the cell and supported her until she was down. They really didn’t need to cage her. She could barely stand.

Chris put the bottle of sedative in her purse with a couple of syringes. “I doubt moving three people is going to come up,” she said. “We’ve never had a subject live longer than three days.” She looked at Winona. “This is what, day two?”

“Winona is healthy.” Why are they scaring her like this?

“And that’s why she was puking all night?” Chris gestured for Jennifer to get her coat.

My heart pounded as the distasteful woman sauntered closer until only a few feet, some twined wire, and a canyon of morals separated us. “If it should come down to it,” Chris said, her words crisp and mocking, “your surly nature might outweigh your blood, and we’ll take Winona instead. Maybe you should be nicer.”

I jumped when she smacked the door, my face burning when she laughed. “The last person who hit my cage died under a pack of dogs,” I said, but she’d already turned away.

“Okay, let’s go,” she said, and my anger turned to hope when Eloy stood up from the monitors. They were all leaving?

“Rachel?”

It was Winona, and I turned to her, almost impatient until I saw her fear. My thoughts jumped back to what Chris had said. After a moment of hesitation, I went to her. “It’s okay,” I said, sitting so I could see if they took the dart gun. “You’re not going to die. You were just getting rid of something you couldn’t digest anymore.”

“Maybe I should die,” she said, and I stiffened. “I mean, what good am I now?”

I shoved my first response down, and settled myself more certainly beside her, rubbing my legs, aching from disuse. “Don’t talk like that,” I said, watching them bundle up with hats and thick coats.

“You sure they can’t escape?” Chris said as she tugged on her gloves, and Eloy rattled the door.

“I can lock them in the bathroom,” Gerald said, and Chris snickered.

“At least then she would stop whining about potty breaks.” Her head came up. “Okay, let’s go. We have a small window and I want to use it. I’ve been stuck down here for two days.”

She was halfway to the edge of the light, and Jennifer and Gerald fell into place behind her, talking between themselves, their tension rising. Eloy was last, and I wondered at the look he gave me as he left.

Slowly their voices became faint, and with a thump that seemed to shake the air, the lights went out. Winona sighed, and I looked at her in the glow from the TV monitors. I could see them on the monitors at the stairway. Then even that light went off and the monitors glowed a dull gray of nothing.

“Couldn’t leave the light on, huh?” I said sarcastically.

Winona moaned as if in relief. “I’d rather have them off,” she said, surprising me. “The light was hurting my