Page 72 of Curse of the Wolf
Once more, the bugs shifted about, clumping together to block his path. He picked one up, looking like he intended to hurl it into the laboratory, but it flashed white, and he dropped it.
“Bloody hell. They’re electrified.”
Numerous orifices opened, and a great puff of vapor clouded the air. Duncan and I were the ones to jog into the laboratory, closing the door behind us. We huddled in front of the noisy industrial fan he’d turned on. The air soon smelled clearer.
“There aren’t any protective suits in here, are there?” I asked.
“Something like your oven mitt but full body?”
I snorted, reminded of all the times I’d used the mitt to pick up the wolf case. “Something more effective than that I’d hope. Like a hazmat suit.”
“I haven’t seen any yet.” Duncan poked into closets and looked in a refrigerator filled with racks of vials with different colored liquids in them.
A couple of the metal bugs clinked around outside the laboratory.
“Obnoxious things.” I looked at the time on my phone, pondering how long it might take for Radomir to send hordes of his thugs up here to check on a breach in the security.
“Quite.” Duncan leaned his hands against a flat section of wall without any cabinets or counters blocking it. It appeared to be made from metal, similar to the door. Sturdy metal. “The room the bugs are denying us access to should be on the other side of this wall.”
“Did you bring a blowtorch?”
“I was hopingyoudid.”
“I only brought important supplies.” I delved into my pocket and held up an unopened bar of dark chocolate laced with sea salt and dried huckleberries.
“Thatisimportant, but it sadly won’t get us through such a sturdy wall.” Duncan thumped the side of his fist on it. It didn’t sound like it was as thick and solid as the exterior walls of the building, but the metal wouldn’t be easily destroyed.
“Could a bipedfuris rip through it?”
“Maybe, but…” Duncan looked grimly at me.
“What?”
“I’ve tried to change a couple of times now, thinking I might be able to destroy those beasties out there faster than they could gas us.”
“And?”
“The power is eluding me. I’m… stuck as a man.”
21
“I’msure there’s plenty you can do as a man,” I said to Duncan’s dejected head shake.
“Not right now, unfortunately.” He slumped against the wall but only for a second before he returned to searching cabinets and drawers. “There are answers in that room over there, Luna. I’m sure of it.”
I removed my bag and poked into it, hoping I’d packed something that might prove useful. I had one of Bolin’s Orbs of Entanglement spheres. Might I throw that in a spot that would cause most of the bugs to stick to it? I lifted the sphere, on the verge of suggesting that, when I remembered the sample that Rue had given me the last time I’d ordered potions from her.
“Do you think a delightfully versatile blue-spider acid might go through that wall?” Those had been her descriptors when she’d given the vial to me. I fished through my belongings until I found it.
“I’ve never heard of that before, but the wordacidsounds promising in this context.” Duncan walked over to consider the wall again. “Applying it to a vertical surface would be challenging. I don’t suppose it came with an applicator brush?”
“It’s not a tube of eye shadow.” I offered the vial to him in case he wanted to try it. “There have to be droppers or something in a laboratory though, right?”
Ticksat the door made me jump. Were those bugsknocking?
“Don’t answer that.” Duncan jogged toward one of the drawers he’d investigated.
“You think? It’s not like it’s going to be Dominos.”
