Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Dr. Mafi settled another piece of paper onto the first. “This is what a human genome looks like.” Then another paper. “And this is what hers looks like.”
Graves frowned, his eyes zipping across the page. “So, she’s not human, either.”
Emmaline shrugged. “No. Which we already guessed, but she’s not any of the other known monsters I’ve mapped.” She looked to Kierse apologetically. “Sorry. I’m not sure what she is.”
“I don’t understand,” Kierse said.
“You look pale. Hold on.” Dr. Mafi reached into a nearby refrigerator and brought her a juice box. “Drink this.”
Kierse dutifully put it to her lips, sucking down the grape juice.
“What did you learn from the other samples?” Graves asked.
“Not much,” she admitted. “For almost all metrics, she looks human. I mean, look at her. She looks human.”
“So do you,” Graves pointed out. “So do I.”
“Right. Yeah. I mean . . . besides her DNA, nothing really looked different except one other metric.” Dr. Mafi retrieved one last piece of paper. “It probably won’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Graves looked at the paper. Kierse craned her neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of it. Dr. Mafi was showing all of this to Graves and not to her, after being all cryptic about her privacy. She must have been really flustered.
“What am I looking at?”
“Elevated white blood cell counts,” Dr. Mafi said, pointing at a number.
“So, she’s fighting off an infection?”
“I’m not sick,” Kierse told them.
“No, you’re not,” Dr. Mafi agreed. “In fact, you’re one of the most fit people I have ever seen in my lab. Have you ever been sick?”
She nodded. “I got the flu once. Right after the collapse.”
“Were you tested positive for influenza? Do you know the strain?”
“Well, no. I was young. No one could afford to go to the doctor, but I had all the symptoms. I was working with my mentor on a big job. It was a few days away, and I couldn’t back out. So I did it anyway, and then, I don’t know, I was in bed for like three weeks.”
“But what did the flu look like?”
Kierse shrugged. “The flu. I had an outrageously high fever. So high that I was seeing things, hallucinating. Then I blacked out in the middle of a recon mission. Once I finished the job, I was so weak. Weaker than I’d ever been. As weak as . . . Wait.”
Something like realization flickered onto his face. “As weak as you were after the powder?”
She nodded. The whole thing was dawning on her. “Yeah. Just like that, actually.”
He turned to face Dr. Mafi. “You have an explanation?”
“Her body eats magic,” Dr. Mafi said.
“Excuse me?” Kierse blurted.
“Eats magic?” Graves asked in disbelief. She’d never seen him look so confused. “Explain what you mean by that.”
“This is a supernatural facility. It’s common practice to use magic to make things easier or to make them faster. I was using some of those techniques on the blood while I was testing it, and it gobbled the magic right up. The white blood cell count is higher because it’s breaking it down in some way. I didn’t have enough blood. I’m still figuring it out.”
“I don’t eat magic,” Kierse muttered. “Wouldn’t I know if I was doing that?”
“Her body’s not eating it,” Graves said slowly. He tapped a gloved finger to his lips. Then, when he looked back up at her, a light was in his eyes. He knew. He’d figured it out. “It’s absorption.”
“Absorption. You’ve heard of this before?” Dr. Mafi asked in awe.
“I’ve heard of someone who had this ability. The magic doesn’t go up against a barrier. It absorbs into the body.”
Dr. Mafi tapped her fingers together. “Huh. Yeah. Yes, okay, that’s a great thought, Graves.” She immediately went back to her computer and began typing away. “I’ll analyze what we have here and get back to you if I see anything else.”
Then she strode back over and unhooked Kierse. She removed the bag of blood and transferred it to a cooler.
“Have you told anyone else about this?” Graves asked immediately, his voice suspicious.
Dr. Mafi looked affronted. “No. Of course not.”
Graves glowered at her, and she stared resolutely back. Kierse didn’t know if she believed her. It was a big hospital. Anyone could have seen what Dr. Mafi was doing. Not that she had any idea what it would be if she could absorb magic. But if she was valuable enough for her immunity, she couldn’t imagine what it would mean if she could draw other people’s magic into her body.
“Emmaline,” he said, his voice on the verge of threatening. “No one can know about her.”
“Patient confidentiality, Graves,” she reminded him.
Graves’s eyes cast back to Kierse with something like worry in them. No, it was definitely worry. She was starting to recognize the stoic looks he cast her way. And he didn’t like that she was something unexplained. More importantly, he didn’t like that Dr. Mafi knew about it, either.