Ghost of a Chance

“I could ask you the same thing about Dr. Bell,” she said. “But yes, Linda is Dr. Kellin’s only family, so she had no one to pass her recipe book on to. When I told her I’d do anything to help Linda, she started training me.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Six years now,” Jessica said.

Alex was stunned at that.

“You’ve been living this way, sleeping during the day and brewing potions all night, every night for six years?” hee wondered. “When do you have time to go to dinner or catch a picture?”

“Why, Mr. Lockerby,” Jessica said, her smirk returning and mischief in her eyes. “Are you asking me out?”

Alex hadn’t meant that, not at all, but he was a trained observer and a man of action.

“Of course I am,” he lied. “Unfortunately, you don’t seem to have the time.”

She broke into her girlish giggle again.

“It’s true I have to mind the lab,” she said. “But there are long stretches when I don’t have anything to do. Usually, I read, but I can make… exceptions.” She stepped close to him so they were almost touching, and looked up into his eyes. “As luck would have it, there’s a three-hour window opening on Saturday night at seven. You can take me to dinner, someplace nice, since as you pointed out, I don’t get out much. Pick me up here?”

“I will,” Alex said, without bothering to wonder if he even had the time. For a woman like Jessica, he’d make the time.

“Now give me a minute,” she said. “And then I’ll check your nerve tonic.”

She turned to the experiment and began taking measurements and adjusting mixtures. At every step, she noted down what she had done in the book from the shelf, then checked off some things on the clipboard.

“So,” she said, pulling the door shut once she was done and re-locking it. “You shook off four bullets the other day?”

“Isn’t that supposed to be poisoned?” Alex asked, pointing at the doorknob.

“If you turn it, a needle will pop out and stick your palm,” Jessica said, her voice easy as if what she’d said were the most normal thing in the world. “I’m careful, but I forget every now and again. It stings like the dickens, but, as you might remember, since I told you last time you were here, I’m immune.”

Alex had forgotten about Jessica and the poison paint job on her nails. He glanced down and found them the same off-red color they had been before. Maybe the color was a result of the toxin.

“Now,” Jessica said, leading him over to the workbench by the windows at the front of the room. “Take off your jacket and roll up your sleeve. I need some blood.”

Alex’s face soured at that and she laughed at him.

“What’s the matter, tough guy,” she said, actually leaning against his chest. “You aren’t afraid of a little needle, are you?”

Alex had to take a breath before answering. Her presence that close was about as intoxicating as David Watson’s single-malt.

“In my experience, it’s never a little needle,” he said, only half-joking.

She smiled and patted his face.

“Don’t worry,” she said, her lips drawn up in an adorable pout. “If you’re a good boy, I’ll get you a lollipop.”

Alex took off his jacket and laid it on the table before rolling up his shirt sleeve. Jessica motioned him onto a wooden stool, then put down a syringe with a needle that looked about the diameter of a swizzle stick. He knew his mind must be exaggerating it, but he decided he didn’t want to find out. As she tied a rubber hose around his arm, he resolved to look the other way until she was done.

“Okay,” she said, a few pain-filled moments later. “All done. Hold this on your arm.”

She gave him a cotton ball and he pressed it over the puncture wound in the crook of his arm. Jessica moved to the next workbench down and squirted some blood from the syringe into a glass dish. She added some chemicals from various bottles, then heated the dish over a burner for a few seconds.

“I think I like Dr. Kellin’s method better,” Alex said, checking to see if the bleeding had stopped.

“She cheats,” Jessica said. “This would be a lot easier with a Lens of Seeing, though.”

“Can’t you just make your own?”

Jessica snorted at that.

“Dr. Kellin says I’m not ready yet.” She swirled a toothpick into the blood mixture in the dish. “So, I do things the old-fashioned way.”

Jessica pulled the toothpick out and Alex noticed that the end had turned a lime green color. She held it up to a chart with various colors on it and nodded.

“I see the problem,” she said at last. “You’ve got the wrong kind of blood.”

Alex had no idea what to make of that.

“Well, it’s the blood I came with,” he said, a little defensively.

Jessica flashed him her sardonic grin.

“I mean the wrong kind for the tonic,” she explained. “You have O-negative blood. That’s fairly rare.”

“Is that bad?”

Jessica shook her head, sending her red hair flying.

“Usually it’s a very good thing. Your blood can be used on someone with any blood type. It means you’re a universal donor. The problem is that while this tonic is fine for most people, it has a strange reaction with you O-negative types.”