Page 100 of A Touch of Treachery
I ground my teeth to hold back another shudder.
Henrika placed a drop of Redburn on a glass slide, then added a drop of my blood.I tensed, but nothing happened.No bangs, no booms, no explosions of any kind.
“Curious,” Henrika murmured, staring at the slide through a microscope.“Normally, when Redburn comes into contact with blood, skin, muscles, and bones, paramortal or otherwise, it immediately starts burning through and disintegrating the tissue.But your blood seems to be stronger than most ...”
She kept talking, muttering scientific ideas and theories to herself that I didn’t understand and frankly didn’t want to.While Henrika and Bryce worked, I glanced around, searching for a way to free myself from the chair, but my wrists and ankles were securely fastened.I didn’t see any guns.No knives or other obvious weapons.I would have been more than happy to break a glass vial and cut Henrika’s and Bryce’s throats with a shard, but all the vials were out of my reach, like everything else.
But I was a cleaner, and I was good at making my own weapons, so I quit looking at the objects around me and focused on my own supplies, such as they were.
My clothes and boots were still intact, except my left sleeve, which Bryce had cut to draw my blood.The gun and knife I’d had in the clearing were gone, and my pocket watch was also missing.I had no weapons, and I was well and truly stuck, like a fly in a spider’s web, and Henrika could do whatever she wanted to me ...
Unless I used my galvanism.
I might be in the middle of the lab, but I could still sense the electricity humming down through the walls, along the floor, and up into the thick cables that hooked into the back of the chair so it could be raised and lowered and tilted up and down.Thanks to the knockout gas Henrika had dosed me with earlier, the current felt much weaker than usual, which was my first problem.
My second and most pressing problem was that I just didn’t see a way to use my power to escape.The thick plastic bands around my wrists and ankles were manual, not electronic, which meant I couldn’t use the chair’s current to open them like I could do with a door locked with a keypad.
And then, of course, my third problem was the instant I used my galvanism, Henrika would realizethatwas how I had survived being blown to bits by her bombs.I wasn’t about to give the sadistic bitch any information she could use to make her monstrous formula even deadlier.Not after suffering through all those explosions on the beach.Not after watching my best friend die in my arms.Not after taking what little energy Graham had left to save myself.
I would rather die in this chair than help Henrika hurt anyone else.
Henrika stopped muttering and snapped her fingers at Bryce, who went back over to the refrigerator and drew out another syringe.This one contained a bright, shimmering pink liquid that looked like the color of cotton candy, strangely enough.
Bryce gave the syringe to Henrika, who nodded with satisfaction.She also handled this syringe with her bare hands, as though she wasn’t afraid of the contents at all.
“What is that?”I asked.
Henrika walked over and held the syringe up where I could see it.“I’ve been tinkering with my Redburn formula.Explosives are loud and messy, and sometimes my clients want a cleaner, quieter, and more discreet method of eliminating their enemies.So I’ve been working on a way to condense my formula down into a poison.You saw my first test earlier today.”
She was talking about the scientist she’d injected with Redburn and killed in the woods.A disgusted, angry snarl rumbled out of my throat.
“Don’t worry.This is a mild, modified dose, unlike what I gave Ethan.Designed to test a paramortal’s reaction to Redburn without killing them.”Henrika flashed me a wicked grin.“And since you seem to be so very durable, Desmond, you are the perfect test subject.”
More cold sweat beaded on my forehead.I jerked on my restraints yet again, but they remained as tight as before.Henrika ignored my flailing, rammed the syringe into my upper left arm, and pushed the plunger down.
Henrika jerked her head at Bryce.“Start recording.Now.”
He hit some buttons on the laptop.A camera dropped down from the ceiling, the lens swiveled in my direction, and a light on the side turned green.I struggled against my bonds yet again, but I was as secure and helpless as before.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Henrika advised.“Any activity increases your heart rate, thus pumping the poison through your body even faster.”
She was right, so I stopped struggling.
Henrika and Bryce watched me closely.For several seconds, nothing happened, and the only sound in the lab was my harsh, raspy breathing.
A strange, warm sensation erupted in my arm at the injection site.The odd, unnatural warmth spread across my chest and zipped down into my legs, even as it slithered up into my neck.With a sudden surge, the warmth reached my brain, making it hard to concentrate on anything else.Sweat beaded on my forehead and trickled down my face, and my skin became hot, clammy, and unbearably tight.
“Fascinating,” Henrika murmured.“Most people would have been burning up by now, but Desmond’s temperature has only shot up a few degrees.”
A few degrees?I felt like a lobster being boiled alive in a pot of scalding water.
“It seems you were right, and I was wrong, Desmond,” Henrika said, a thoughtful tone creeping into her voice.“You do have far more enduro magic than I expected, but we’ll see how long your power lasts before the poison takes full effect ...”
That was the last thing I heard before the slow burn ramped up into a raging inferno.Liquid fire rushed through my veins, and I screamed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHARLOTTE
