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Cal seemed to be mulling that information carefully, so I added, “Now that we’ve hashed out my numerous issues, what are you doing tonight?”
Cal frowned. “More research. I’ve been trying to track Blue Moon and its various dummy fronts. Whoever set this up knows exactly how to put up as many paper shields as possible.”
“What about the employees at the synthetic-blood plant? Surely they didn’t just agree to put experimental additives in their product without so much as a meeting.”
“The arrangements were made by one employee, Margaret Rimes, Nocturne’s director of product development—not unusual considering it was a relatively minor change to the formula. Her notes show that she met with the Blue Moon representatives at their offices.”
“The abandoned office park?”
“Most likely dressed up with rented furnishings,” he agreed. “Ms. Rimes seemed pleased with the company’s work. Her supervisors stated nothing seemed amiss about her reports.”
“What does Ms. Rimes have to say about it?” I asked.
“Nothing. Ms. Rimes died in a car accident a month ago. She lost control of her car. It flipped and rolled one hundred yards down an embankment, then caught fire.”
“Let me guess, this took place late at night on a remote stretch of highway? Because it’s sounding less and less like an accident.”
“Convenient car accidents can solve a lot of problems.”
“Later, I’m going to Google how to check my brakes for tampering,” I muttered. “Give me the lab results. I had to take a lot of organic chemistry in college, so there’s a good chance I’ll understand some of it. It might help to have fresh eyes.”
“Please, take it.” He shoved the files in my direction unceremoniously. We sat there, sprawled on the couch, reading paperwork. I’d broken out several of my mother’s books to try to interpret the different lab reports. And then I broke out some Twizzlers, which Cal insisted I put away, because seeing me “orally toy with sucrose-based whips” was too distracting.
I told him he should be happy I didn’t go for the Blow Pops.
He made me face in the opposite direction.
Despite this refreshing change of perspective, I couldn’t make much sense of the lab reports. The analysis of the poisoned vampire’s blood showed compounds I’d never heard of and chemical traces that didn’t make sense. For instance, there were healthy amounts of silicic acid and saponins, consistent with extract of lungwort. But lungwort had astringent properties used to treat lung infections. Then there were traces of thymol, a natural antifungal that served as the active ingredient in most mouthwashes. Apparently, our culprit wanted the vampires disabled with healthy, minty-fresh breath.
I could not think of any possible reason for lungwort or balm plants to be used in a poison that was supposed to drive vampires crazy. The chemist who came up with this was either brilliant or brilliantly disturbed.
I flipped to the last page of the report and zoned in on one word. Aconitine. Huge amounts of aconitine. My first botany professor spent three days talking about the elegant “Queen of Poisons” derived from aconite, also known as wolfsbane or monkshood.
Dr. Bailey had been a big murder-mystery fan. He went on and on about the various people who had tried to bump off loved ones and not-so-loved ones with aconitine … Victims experienced numbness and tingling in the extremities, and if the dose was large enough, they felt burning pain followed by paralysis, then lung and heart failure. Dr. Bailey used aconite as an example of why we had to respect all plants, even the pretty ones, because they could be the deadliest.
Some ancient cultures used aconitine in battle to tip their spears and arrows, a sort of double whammy for those who survived wartime impalement. Cal should have found this interesting. But he seemed to be concentrating awfully hard on tax paperwork for Blue Moon, and if I interrupted, he might try to explain it to me.
Shudder.
After a few hours, my eyes started to cross over the tiny text. I stood, cracking my stiff neck and stretching my arms.
I wondered if Jane had this sort of thing in her shop, Specialty Books. She had an alarming range of titles, including werewolf relationship guides, biographies of the “real” Sasquatch, and remedial books for poorly trained witches. The copies of World War Z, a treatise on surviving the zombie apocalypse, were shelved in the nonfiction section under “self-help.” When I asked whether that was a joke, she sort of chuckled nervously and didn’t answer.
The problem with Jane is that I can never tell when she’s kidding.
“This is all starting to look the same.” I moaned. “I think we’re going about this in the wrong way. I’m looking up each chemical on the ingredients list to pin down which of them could cause specific symptoms. But botanical compounds work together. It may not be a one-to-one effect.”
“What if you looked up the individual symptoms and worked from there?”
“That’s a good idea,” I replied. “Except for the part where all of my resources refer to human symptoms. I would imagine that vampires are affected differently, since you’re … um, well, there’s just no other way to put it—you’re dead.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted.
“I am your detail girl,” I said, yawning widely. “I think I know where I can get some more relevant books. I could go online, but frankly, I don’t want to trust this to some wacko running a blog out of his mama’s basement.”
Cal growled and tossed his paperwork aside. Under the cursing and muttering, I could make out “clever bastard” and “goddamn invisible.” I shrank back into the couch cushions. When he saw me moving away from him, he closed his eyes. He stretched his hand out tentatively and stroked it up my calf.
“Why don’t you go up to bed?” he said. “You’ve been up all day, and you’ve spent the last three hours staring at chemical nonsense. You must be exhausted.”
