“Why?”
Dr. Cheban hesitated, probably thinking “because it would be cool” wouldn’t be a very scientific response. “Are you experiencing any reaction to the contact?”
“None.”
“Any pain?”
“No.”
Dr. Cheban turned to Moreau. “Sir, could you arrange for us to keep the spearhead for a while longer?”
Moreau already had his phone out and was texting. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Ian now had the same thousand-yard stare as Tierney.
I moved closer. “Ian?”
No response.
I reached out to touch his arm. A faint zap, like static electricity, ran through my hand. My partner was definitely paler than it was good for him to be. I held on to Ian with one hand and pulled over a chair with the other.
“Ian, you need to sit down. Now.”
He sat without protest, which made me even more concerned.
“I’m fine,” he told me.
Someone, probably Moreau with his text, had called Mike Stephens, SPI’s chief medical doctor. The lab techs stood aside as Dr. Stephens came in, bent over, and did that obnoxious thing with a penlight to Ian’s eyes.
“I’m fine,” Ian repeated, with more emphasis.
Dr. Stephens put away the penlight, but he wasn’t giving up. He squatted down next to Ian’s chair. “Agent Byrne, I want you to come down the hall for an examin—”
Ian sighed and half rolled his eyes. He put his hands on the arms of the office chair and pushed himself to his feet. “Okay, I’ll come and get checked out, though there’s nothing . . .”
He took one step and went as white as a sheet.
Dr. Stephens grabbed Ian’s arm and missed. He missed, because my partner was already falling backward. I did what any good partner would do—I let Ian squash me flat when he fainted.
• • •
Ten minutes later, the only thing wrong with my partner was an acute case of embarrassment.
“So you passed out,” I said for what felt like the umpteenth time. I was careful not to use the “f” word. For some reason, men had a problem being told they’d fainted. Passed out was better. Knocked out was best. It meant you’d probably been engaged in a manly activity like fighting or football when you’d gotten your bell rung.
We were in the same room in SPI’s infirmary where I’d spent the night after going one round too many with a squid demon in a parking garage.
Exciting times, and it hadn’t even been the weekend.
“Are you all right?” Ian asked, also for what seemed like the umpteenth time.
“I’m. Fine. Nothing got broken or even bent.” Though I was going to have one hell of a bruise tomorrow from where my hip had slammed into a desk, but unless I up and decided to come to work tomorrow without pants, no one would see it.
Ian was in a bed, hooked up to a whole mess of machines, most of which I had no clue what they did. My partner glared at the various tubes and wires that ran from him to the machines.
“Hey, at least Dr. Stephens only took your shirt. You could have woken up in one of those gowns that lets your ass hang out.”
Ian grunted.
Actually, that’d been my doing. Dr. Stephens had been ready to have Ian stripped. I intervened, asking whether it was really necessary, and couldn’t he hook up all his gadgets and leave Ian with a shred of dignity—and at least his pants. Dr. Stephens relented, even though he didn’t like what some of the machines were telling him; actually it was more like he didn’t understand what they were telling him. He insisted they weren’t malfunctioning, which added one more worry to my quickly growing stack.
I believed my partner was going to become a lab rat for the next few hours—or longer.
The door opened and Kylie O’Hara hurried to Ian’s side. “What happened? I heard you fai—”
“Got his bell rung but good,” I finished before she could.
Kylie didn’t get to where she was without being perceptive. She took a sharp left turn into “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Ian started to sit up, but Kylie’s dainty hand on his shoulder pushed him right back down. Dryads were strong. “I’m better than fine, but try telling that to Dr. Stephens.”
I grinned. “When Stephens gets someone new to poke and prod, he likes to hang on to ’em for a while. Smart people get bored easily. Ian touching that spearhead and lighting it up made him downright irresistible to the lab-coat crowd around here. They probably stuck a tracking device somewhere on you in case you try to make a break for it, which has happened a lot around here.”
Kylie fixed Ian with her sharp green eyes. “But you’re not going to be the latest escapee, are you?”
Ian met her fix and raised her a glare. Kylie didn’t back down.
I stepped in. “Ian, if the ghoul left it for you, that means he knew it would react to you the way it did. He knows why. We don’t.” I paused for emphasis. “We need to know. There’s a lot more to this than just a ghoul chasing the one that got away.”
“And I need to be out there finding him.”
“All of our people are on this one, Ian,” Kylie told him. “And since that spearhead is Irish, our Dublin office is involved now. The men and women of this agency admire and respect you. This thing is after you, and it’s baiting a trap. They take that personally. If this thing can be caught, they will do it. We will do it.”