A Perfect Blood

the tolerance for the Rosewood antigens forward that much more.” Chris set the syringe aside and smiled. “Like every other chubi we’ve had.”
    I pressed into the fieldstone wall, fingering my band of silver. This was bad. Really bad.
    “Um,” Jennifer said, shifting nervously as she slid from the table. “He said not to do anything until he gets back.”
    “The hell with him.” Motions stiff, Chris strode to a cardboard box and began digging through it. “I’m not going to sit on my ass and wait. I’m the one doing the science, not him. If she’s a demon, I want to know. Where’s that damned book? The one with no title?”
    Book? With no title? Oh, no, I thought, fear sliding into me when Chris made a happy sound and lifted out an old leather-bound book with frayed pages and a broken binding. It was a demon text, filled with demon curses. I could tell from here.
    “Uh, ladies?” I said when Chris dropped the book on an open space and pulled her folding chair up to it. “I know you’re all excited about thinking you’re the superior species and all, but you seriously need to rethink this.”
    Chris’s lips pursed. “Oh, that’s interesting.” I stared as she whispered Latin, practicing. “I need a strand of hair,” she said, and I pressed deeper into my corner. Jennifer came to stand before the mesh door, and I growled at her, “Come in here, and you’ll find out how it feels to have my foot in your face.” But she only plucked a strand from the mesh, handing it to Chris and wiping her hand on her pants.
    “I don’t like using magic,” she said, glancing at me. “Eloy says it’s evil.”
    “Eloy is old school who calls blowing things up progress.” Chris held the strand up between two fingers. “He has his place, but it’s not making decisions. Magic isn’t what makes them animals. It’s that they prey on sentient beings.”
    “Kind of like what you’re doing here, eh?” I said, but I was trembling inside. I had no idea what she was going to do, but it was going to be nasty.
    Chris’s attention flicked to me, then back to the book. “Anoint the hair, and break it while you say Separare . It’s a communal curse, already twisted and just needing to be invoked.”
    Separare . That was Latin for sunder, wasn’t it? Crap, what was she going to do? I pushed forward. “Don’t do this,” I said, gripping the mesh of the cage and giving it a shake. “I’m warning you!”
    But what could I do, caged like a dog?
    My pulse thundered and Winona looked up, scared, as Chris took a drop of my blood from the syringe and pulled my hair through it. “Separare!”
    I braced for anything, staring as Chris’s eyes grew wide. With a howl of pain, she shoved the demon book off the counter. It hit the floor as Jennifer gasped in fear, a few pages coming loose from the binding and drifting almost within reach.
    “Chris!” Jennifer cried out as the woman gasped and hunched over in pain. “What’s wrong?” she said, holding on to Chris’s shoulders and trying to keep her from falling off the chair.
    Was it the imbalance? I thought, feeling myself as if looking for a gunshot wound, but nothing felt different, nothing hurt. I heard Winona shift, watching now.
    “Bitch . . .” Chris rasped, still hunched in pain as she glared at me.
    “What happened?” Jennifer asked, bending over her in concern.
    Chris shoved Jennifer away. “I’m fine!” she snapped, finally able to straighten up. Her eyes were bloodshot as she glared at me, her skin pale. “Not so helpless after all. Demon. Demon whore!” Taking a breath, she looked at her hands. They were trembling. “The bitch bounced the curse back at me.”
    Jennifer looked confused, but I wasn’t. “Uh, if that band of charmed silver prevents her from doing magic, then how could she bounce it back at you?”
    “I don’t know!” Shaking, Chris stood up, bending to snatch the pages that had fallen out and shoving them into the front of the book before turning to glare at me, reminding me of Jenks with her hands on her hips like that. “Maybe curses don’t work on demons. Maybe that’s why the last woman died so fast.”
    Winona caught her breath, terror making her eyes wide.
    I edged back from the front of the cage, relieved. The curse hadn’t bounced back because I was a demon. Like Trent had said, if the curse worked through the demon collective, it wouldn’t recognize me and would bounce back. I was safe. But Winona