A Perfect Blood

numbers before our meeting tomorrow, it would be helpful. I say more time, less stimulation. Andrea wants to toss the batch entirely, but we’ll lose three months. Won’t take but a moment to go over the numbers.”
    I’ll give Trent credit—he didn’t even sigh as he looked over me to Quen.
    “I’ll show her the instruments, Sa’han,” Quen said, and Jenks rose up from the chair.
    “Yeah, we know our way around,” the pixy said, his hands on his hips.
    Trent turned halfway from where he had started down the hall with Darby. “I’ll meet you there,” he said, then strode briskly away with Darby almost jogging to keep up.
    Quen started us forward, our pace slower but following their path until they took a sharp right down another corridor and vanished. “I didn’t know Trent did anything but fund this merry-go-round,” I said.
    “He doesn’t do the grunt work, no,” Quen said softly from behind me. “But he enjoys analyzing the data. His new interests lately have been pulling him away from it, and it shows.”
    New interests. His sudden zeal in practicing wild magic, maybe?
    We passed the corridor that Trent and Darby had turned into, and Jenks rose up to follow them. “Jenks, if you would stay with us, please?” Quen said, and Jenks buzzed back, giving me a shrug as he landed on my knee. No one said anything, and the silence became uncomfortable as Quen slowed, then stopped before a door that looked like any other—apart from the formidable lock, that is.
    “In here,” Quen said as he came from behind me and unlocked it using a mundane key instead of the card reader. It looked like the reader wasn’t even powered up, and again I wondered if the latest break-in had been the end of Trent’s love for gadgetry.
    I felt like an invalid when Quen opened the door, then backed me in like a professional, swinging me around to face the silent but clearly in-use room. It was a good size, with the expected lab benches, counter space, and machines lining the walls. There was a desk in the corner, and a table used as a makeshift second desk. Charts and graphs took up a bulletin board, and a small, locked cabinet held books, visible behind the glass. It looked very professional and up front, not at all like a place where illegal bio drugs might be researched or prepared, the tools of Trent’s blackmail and rise to power on the back of his father’s legacy—the same one that had kept me alive.
    “What instruments did you see at the sites?” Quen asked, bringing my awareness back to why I was here.
    Sighing, I stood, reaching for the crutch that Quen handed me. I fitted it under my arm, and the sudden throb retreated to a dull ache under the pain amulet. Jenks had already gone over the room in three pixy seconds flat and was now getting a drink from the dripping faucet.
    “That one,” I said, pointing to a machine whose purpose I couldn’t begin to guess at, but it looked the same. “And they had an autoclave smaller than this one,” I added, pointing to the tabletop version. “It had a lot of scratches on it. They also had a mini deep fridge, which I don’t see here, a couple of battery backups, and a test-tube centrifuge almost identical to that one.” I turned, seeing Quen still standing beside the door with my wheelchair. “Bunsen burners, data books, syringes, the usual lab stuff.”
    He nodded. “Thank you.”
    “Is this the room they stole them from?” Jenks asked, and Quen’s mood became guarded.
    “No,” he admitted, and my instincts sang out at his reluctance. “That’s across the hall.”
    Crutch swinging, I started for the door, almost pushing Quen out of my way. “Just over there, you say?” I said, and he backed up as Jenks nearly flew into his face.
    “Rachel,” Quen protested, but I got the door open despite the wheelchair’s being in the way.
    Triumphant in my small success, I hobbled out the door with Jenks, coming to a quick halt when I almost ran into Trent.
    “Oh! Hi!” I said cheerfully as Jenks dropped in altitude, thinking we’d never get a look now. I knew better. Trent wouldn’t have asked me down here to simply identify machines. I could have done that from a photograph. He wanted me to look at something more, and I was willing to bet it was the crime scene. “Does this tour include the crime scene?” I asked, and Trent glanced behind me at Quen.
    “It does.” Trent took my elbow, surprising me. “I was hoping you would, if it’s not too much