A Perfect Blood

as she tried to speak. “Oh, dhit,” she moaned, feeling her mouth. “Ah dink mih ’onge is ’orked.”
    I winced, drawing back from the door as a clearly disappointed Jennifer noisily dropped a dart gun back into the box. As Chris snorted, Jennifer got her blood-gathering stuff together and cautiously knelt before Winona to tie her arm off. Gerald, too, was watching, his back to the monitors and his arms crossed over his chest. Eloy’s eyes never left me as he assessed the threat I posed. Maybe I should have cried in the corner like Winona.
    “Thank you,” he said, and Winona jumped when the needle slid in.
    Jennifer undid the rubber band around Winona’s arm, nervously sneaking glances at the woman’s mutilated face. It really was horrific. Chris made a scoffing sound and dug her spoon for the last bits of soup. “Bloody waste of time. We should have just darted them.”
    “Got it,” Jennifer said, and Winona pulled her arm back, her eyes widening as she discovered it was double jointed. She gingerly rubbed the spot since Jennifer hadn’t thought to give her a cotton ball to stop the bleeding. I could see why. I might use it and the tourniquet I’d pulled off my arm earlier to escape with. God!
    Jennifer got to her feet, and Chris set down her soup mug and met her at the machine.
    “A few more blankets would be nice,” I said. “You’re down a man. We can use his.”
    Chris tossed the old vial out and dropped in a new one. “Don’t open that cage, Eloy.”
    “Winona needs her clothes,” I said softly. “And I have to go to the bathroom. You’ve got to have a way worked out by now. I’m what, the eighth person you’ve held?”
    Winona gasped, and I mentally kicked myself. Chris hit the go button on the machine and turned, smiling beatifically at me.
    “Wha appen oo da uhders?” Winona stammered, then took a breath and tried again. “What appened do da uh-thers?” she said more slowly, her brown, goat-slitted eyes showing fear.
    I sat down beside her, my thoughts going to the woman they’d buried in the basement of the museum. “They died from Rosewood syndrome,” I said, unable to give her the entire truth.
    “My sisder died of th-that when she was th-three months old,” Winona said, and I nodded. Her speech was getting better.
    “You’re a carrier,” I said, giving Eloy a disparaging glance as he got the last dregs of soup. “That’s why they abducted you.”
    The machine dinged, and Chris reached for the tape. I held my breath, wondering if Winona would be able to do demon magic. But Chris frowned, handing the strip to Jennifer to paste in her lab book. I exhaled, relieved.
    “That’s good,” I whispered. “You’re not a demon, Winona.”
    The woman pulled her hand from mine and hid her face in her arms, now draped over her thick knees. “Whoopie friggin’ do,” she said to the cold cement. “If ah look like this, you’d . . . dink ah might have some of da perks.”
    Perks? I looked at my band of silver. I’d never thought of demon magic as being a perk and to having been labeled as one, but the madness I was now wallowing in wasn’t working, either.
    Chris methodically cleaned the machine and ran a clear sample through to recalibrate it. “So are we good here for a few days?” she asked Eloy.
    Eloy had put himself half in the dark on one of the rolled-up sleeping bags, again watching me. “Should be. I contaminated everything the FIB and the I.S. had before it got back within city limits. All they have now is a sample of dog spit. If they use it to make a finding charm, they’ll lose an entire day until they figure out they’re following a stray,” he added, watching me for my reaction.
    I shrugged at him, wondering if we would get any of that soup.
    Eloy took his eyes off me, and I stifled a shudder. “We should be good for four days. Maybe longer. They’ll probably try to find us using Morgan’s hair. Good thing I put you so far from the city center this time.” Tilting his head back, his Adam’s apple moved as he got the last swallow of soup.
    Jennifer leaned over her lab book and tore a strip of tape from a dispenser. “I don’t understand how they found us this last time. Too bad we can’t transform her, too,” she said as she taped Winona’s results down. “Change her so far that the charms won’t recognize her,” she added, her head tilted as she assessed the latest addition to her scrapbook from hell.
    Arts and crafts. Would the