Body Surfing

process and show it worked. What they didn’t know is what the jars were actually for. They thought they might have been used for electroplating jewelry, but in order to generate enough power to actually plate something you had to string together about a dozen batteries, and there was no evidence this had been done. The most likely explanation for the batteries’ use was that priests gave certain privileged worshippers—kings and queens and other dignitaries—a little shock, which the priests would describe as a taste of the power of God.”
    “Okay, first of all,” Jasper said, “did you write a paper on this or something?”
    “I did write a paper on it. I’m half Shia and half Jewish. Got to give props to my peoples.”
    Jasper laughed. “And secondly…” He broke off. “I’m not sure what secondly is. But I think you know.”
    Q. nodded. “Well, look. It seems too much of a coincidence that the perfect materials for making a battery all come together in one little package. Everyone’s obsessed with the batteries’ ability to generate an electrical charge, but the whole point of a battery is not just that it makes power, but that it stores it. It’s only released if you hook it up to a conductor. Otherwise it’s trapped. And the Baghdad Batteries that were found were completely sealed with asphalt—which suggests that the people who built them were using them as power storage devices. But what if it wasn’t the batteries’ own current the manufacturers were storing? What if the power came from outside the batteries, and they just sealed it up?”
    “By power, you mean Mogran.”
    “I’m totally guessing here. Totally guessing. But the pieces fit scary well.”
    “Eyes on the road, Q.”
    Q. nudged the car to the right. “The tricky thing is, you can’t get electricity into a battery unless it’s hooked up to a conductor. But anything that’ll let the current into the battery is also going to let it back out. So somehow you have to get the demon into the battery and then disconnect it before he realizes what’s happening. I mean, assuming we’ve got our basic facts right. We still have no idea if it works without testing it. And unless you know of a demon who’s willing to be locked into a clay jar with who knows what consequences, then, well, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
    For a long time there was only the faint sound of asphalt whirring beneath the car’s tires. Then: “You said Leo was going to go after my dad.”
    Q. cleared his throat. “I don’t think Leo’s gonna stay in Dr. Thomas long. He’s in a frenzy right now. When he was in Michaela’s body, he almost—well, you saw. It was like he couldn’t stop himself.”
    Jasper suddenly understood. “You want me—”
    Actually? Michaela cut him off, he wants me. Jesus Christ, Jasper, you want me to have sex with that thing?
    “But how can Leo have sex with Michaela? He’s possessed her once.”
    Jasper’s senses were so keen he could feel the temperature of Q.’s cheeks rise when he blushed. “It’s just, um, intercourse. He won’t be going into Michaela. Just out of Dr. T.”
    “And into my dad,” Jasper said.
    Q. swallowed. “Hopefully.”
    “Hopefully,” Jasper echoed. “Jesus, Q., that’s a scary word.”

7
    I leana didn’t want to open her eyes. The light hurt them, even through her closed lids, but it was nothing compared to the pain in her stomach. She tried to look inside herself, but it was hard to concentrate. As far as she could tell, there was nothing life-threatening. Not immediately anyway. Not for someone with her skills.
    She forced herself to open her eyes. She was surprised to discover that she was in a hospital. Q. His gallantry had probably saved her life, but it made him a terrible hunter.
    Even peeling back the blanket hurt. There was a large bandage on her abdomen. Leo’s spear seemed to have missed liver, spleen, kidneys. Had nicked the wall of her stomach and lodged in her guts. She knew moving around ran the risk of expelling waste matter from her ruptured intestines into her abdominal cavity, which in turn would lead to sepsis, but she had no choice. Both demons were still loose.
    It was only when she started to limp to the closet that she noticed her roommate. An old woman. Asleep, or unconscious. The smell of death was all around her. She picked up the clipboard hanging from the foot of the bed.
    Patricia Myles. Lymphoma .
    Ileana stared at the woman for a