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I tilted my head. “I’m thinking of having her house painted black,” I said. “And I’m stealing her rosebushes. I’ll probably end up killing them, but I’m feeling kind of immature and petty.”
“And take that stupid Welcome sign, too.”
“Ha! I’m burning that thing.”
A whisper of amusement crossed his face, then he nodded to someone off camera before looking back at me. “I need to get going. Rift burped.” He smiled. “It was good talking to you, Kara.”
“Ditto. You take care of yourself.”
The screen went blank.
“Kara?” Pellini called from the front room. “You need to come here.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Cory?” I shoved up from the chair and broke into a run. “Is he okay?”
“Honestly, I have no idea,” Pellini said.
I slid to a stop then could only stare. The red rubbery egg was gone, and the sofa bed had buckled under the weight of a four-foot-wide sphere of what looked like polished obsidian laced with pulsing luminescent red veins.
I finally found my voice. “That’s him?”
Pellini gave me a look. “Unless someone snuck in, kidnapped Cory, and left a small asteroid behind, I’m thinking that odds are it is indeed him.”
I moved close and peered at the surface in amazement. “The arcane is active
all over it, so I’m going to assume Cory is still alive and well in there.”
“If the egg was Phase Three, and the final mutated form is Phase Four, then what is this?” Pellini asked.
“Phase three and a half, I guess,” I said with a shrug. “The Feds didn’t have anyone in a ‘meteor’ phase. They’d concluded that the Fours were emerging changed from the red jelly egg—the chrysalis, according to their terminology.” So was this the last phase before the mutation? Worry resurfaced. What would Cory be when he emerged?
“I’m betting this is the actual chrysalis,” Pellini said then leaned close and squinted at the sphere. “How long do you think this phase lasts?”
“I have no idea, but my oh-so-accurate guess is not too long. They had a couple of people who’d already been transformed and who weren’t discovered in this chrysalis stage.” I shook my head. “My tongue keeps wanting to say ‘crystal-fitz.’ Let’s keep it simple. Pod.”
I regarded the pod and my poor, smushed sofa bed. “I’d love to try and roll him into the corner to clear space, but I don’t dare. Not after people died when the gel-stuff was disturbed.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t anyway.” When I shot him a perplexed look, he continued, “Squig and Cake were chasing Sammy through the living room as I came in, and when I tried to avoid stepping on a kitten, I lost my balance and fell against the pod. Hard. That sucker didn’t move a millimeter.”
“Weird.” I cautiously placed my hand on the surface. “It doesn’t look big enough to be that heavy.”
“I’m not sure it’s an issue of weight, per se.” Pellini spread his arms and nodded down at his bulk. “I ain’t exactly a little guy, and it felt like falling into a building.”
Curious, I gave an experimental push, then a harder one. The thing might as well have been Thor’s hammer.
“Y’know, I think Cory can stay right where he is,” I said, earning me a bark of laughter from Pellini. My phone rang, a welcome distraction from Cory’s predicament, even with the caller ID showing Knight. I headed out to the porch before answering. “Hey, Marco.”
“Kara,” he said, voice strained. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“No, I’m the one who owes you an apology. I was being bitchy, and you didn’t deserve to have me take it out on you.” But surely my bitchiness wasn’t enough to warrant the undercurrent of anxiety in his tone. “Is everything okay?”
“Not really.”
My heart sank. “Shit. Did you get in trouble over not reporting Giovanni?”
“No.” He paused. “I’m . . . sweating. A lot. It’s red.”
My heart finished dropping all the way down to my toes. “Are you able to drive?” I even managed to keep my voice mostly calm.
