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All things considered, it might be better if there wasn’t.
* * *
Dr. Reese Dante compared the two PCR reports.
Damage to the genetic sequencing matched what he’d seen in the Utah Facility, while he worked on the Anubis project, when a non-compatible host purged the ichor.
The ichor had been found in an Egyptian tomb. A material unknown to man and, according to the laws of physics, couldn’t exist.
A thixotropic dark material, liquid or gel in appearance, able to slide between one state and the other at will.
A substance that had an affinity for the dead and brought them back to life as the exact person they were before they died.
Only with a few aftermarket perks.
An ache beat through Reese’s shoulder. Apparently, pain was an aftermarket perk of having his clavicle crushed by inhuman teeth.
The door to the office opened and Laura Phillips walked in, high heels clicking with each step. She somehow maneuvered through the narrow space between the desk Reese sat at and the wall of the cracker-box room the military had rented for him in a building thirteen miles from his home. Most of the occupants were lawyers or insurance salesmen, so at least it was quiet.
Reese could have had a larger place. He was pretty sure Colonel Harrington would have bought the building, gutted it, and retrofitted it with anything Reese wanted. But the woman staring down her nose at him had superiority and had denied all requests for an upgrade.
Reese was convinced she was trying to persuade him with claustrophobic torture techniques to come back on board with the hunt for Nash Kelli.
Joke was on her. Reese ate claustrophobia for lunch.
During Reese’s first four years of college, he’d shared a dorm room of the same size with three other students. As an undergrad, he’d rented a room too small for a broom closet so he could study without enduring the cacophony of fellow students bent on partying to death. While in grad school, he’d stayed because the rent was cheap, and it was only a three-minute walk to campus.
So the less than appealing accommodations of his new office were worth being able to sleep in his own bed.
Phillips crossed her arms.
Reese was all too familiar with her silent commands. “No. I don’t.” He dropped the folder into the third drawer of the file cabinet.
“You told me you’d know more in a week.”
“And you told me you’d get me more data. This is the same data as I received last week and the week before that. I can’t give you anything new if you don’t give me anything new to work with.”
Her expression remained blank.
Great. Now she was mad.
Reese pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes with a finger and thumb. “I’m sorry, I’m tired. I missed lunch. And a few days ago, my favorite fish died because I let the salinity get too high in my tank.”
Not that she would care about a fish, no matter how beautiful it was. It took Reese a year to acquire the Mauritius Leopard Wrasse, and he’d had the delicate animal for three.
One late night at the closet office and forgetting to top off his tank after he went home had cost its life.
“Dr. Dante, I don’t have to tell you how important this is.”
Yeah, he knew.
“I don’t have to tell you how dangerous Nash Kelli is.”
He was downright deadly. But Reese had known him in the lab as one of Koda’s betas. Then later, he’d met him again when he was with Luca, Koda’s younger brother. While all the betas had loved Koda, they hadn’t beeninlove with him. And Nash’s attachment to Luca wasn’t born from the bond of the ichor. It grew from the heart.
Reese wasn’t an expert on romantic relationships, but anyone with a comprehension of empathy would have seen what Luca and Nox had in the same few minutes he’d been captured with them.
It was clear Nash had only one goal: to protect Luca. There’d been no desire for violence or harm. He simply wanted for them to be left alone.
