Cody picked up the beaker. It contained maybe half a pint of dark, viscous fluid. Cautiously, he sniffed the contents, his nose wrinkling in response. The odor was pretty foul, but not intolerable. He doubted the addition of the coca leaf extract would alter the potion’s palatability very much one way or the other.

  “You still haven’t told your wife, have you?” Keeler’s tone as he shut off the blender and transferred its contents to the centrifuge was mildly accusing.

  “I didn’t want to worry her. In case anything should go wrong. Which I don’t think it will.” It was dark outside now, the lights of the campus starkly illuminating walkways and entrances. Occasionally, a hard-working student or two would materialize out of the blackness and pass through the light, only to be swallowed up by the next patch of gathering night. “Besides,” Cody finished, “if she knew, she’d kick my butt.”

  “I’m not so sure that wouldn’t be the proper course of action.” His mouth set, Keeler switched off the centrifuge and removed the outer container.

  As Cody looked on expectantly, the older man added its contents to the oily liquid in the beaker, then placed the Pyrex container over a burner and activated the flame beneath.

  “I hope this doesn’t ruin everything,” he murmured. “You said you didn’t think it was necessary to use a wood fire, in the manner of the Chachapoyans.”

  The archaeologist shook his head, his attention fastened on the soft roar of blue flame beneath the beaker. “I’m convinced it’s the heat that’s important, not the source.”

  Keeler nodded once. “How will you be able to tell when it’s ‘done’?”

  “Color. When it comes to a boil it should be a dark green.”

  “How dark?” The chemist was nothing if not precise.

  Cody studied one of the last photographs in the small album he held. “We’ll just have to guess. The age of the original paint on the relief makes it impossible to tell exactly. But then, the artists may not have had the necessary pigments to depict the colors exactly, either.”

  He chose to let the odorous concoction boil for several minutes before directing Keeler to remove it from the flame. Refrigeration would have made it drinkable sooner, but Cody was anxious not to employ any processes unavailable to the Chachapoyans. The gas flame had been a necessary evil, but he felt that utilizing refrigeration simply to improve the taste would have been pushing matters too far. So he and Keeler sat and chatted and did their best to ignore the beaker of liquid that sat slowly cooling on a stone slab atop the workbench.

  When the fluid had been reduced to the temperature and consistency of warm cocoa, Cody hefted the beaker. Keeler stood nearby, cell phone in hand. His younger associate eyed the device uncertainly.

  “Who are you going to call?”

  “Nobody, I hope.” Keeler was all business now, his expression dead serious. “Emergency medical if I have to. You’re sure you don’t want to try this potion on a lab rat first?”

  Having had weeks to think the matter through, Cody shook his head sharply. “The results would not necessarily be applicable to a human. I decided a long time ago that I’d have to be the lab rat.” He raised the mouth of the beaker to his lips. “Besides, why inflict something that smells like this on some poor, unsuspecting rodent.” He laughed nervously. Now that the experiment had proceeded beyond speculation to actual execution, he found himself hesitating. The longer he pondered what he was about to do, the stronger the urge became to set it aside for further study.

  “You don’t look in the least Frankensteinish.” Despite the seriousness of the moment, Keeler was ultimately unable to suppress his natural good humor for more than a few moments.

  It was the slight boost to his confidence Cody needed. Tipping back the beaker, he drank, swallowing hard and fast lest the taste linger too long in his mouth. It was less vile than he anticipated, but he didn’t think he’d be seeing the concoction on supermarket shelves anytime soon, squinched in between six-packs of Pepsi and Seven-Up—or even next to bright yellow bottles of citrus-flavored Inca Cola.

  The bitter liquid settled in his stomach. After forcing himself to drain the contents of the beaker to the last, acrid drop, he set it carefully aside and sat down. Holding his cell phone tightly, Keeler stared across at his tall colleague, searching the younger man’s face for signs of distress.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” Cody replied after a moment’s deliberation.

  “What do you feel?”

  The archaeologist paused for another long moment before replying. “Not a damn thing.” It was too soon to tell if he was more relieved than disappointed. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Five minutes passed in comparative silence, interrupted only by the chemist’s occasional soft-voiced inquiries as to his associate’s state of health. Other than acknowledging a slight queasiness, an obvious and unavoidable consequence of ingesting so unsavory a libation, Cody felt nothing whatsoever. The longer he went without experiencing some sort of harmful reaction, the angrier the archaeologist became.

  Finally, he’d had enough. He rose from his seat. “Kelli was right. I’ve been wasting my time.” Quietly furious at himself, he searched the room. “Where’s my sweater? I’m out of here.”

  “Not a proper scientific summation,” Keeler admonished him.

  Though he appreciated the older man’s attempt to cheer him, Cody was in no mood to engage in strained, uplifting banter. Locating his neatly folded sweater where he had left it in a corner, he pulled it angrily down over his head, thrusting his arms through the sleeves as though taking a couple of punches at an unseen opponent.

  “I appreciate your help, Harry. I really do. It’s just a damn shame it didn’t lead to anything.”

  “You’re sure?” Keeler followed him to the door. “Your vision has not changed in any way? You don’t see clearly now that the rain is gone?”

  In spite of the sour mood into which he was rapidly sinking, Cody had to grin. “I see clearly that I’ve spent the equivalent of more than three solid weeks of lab time obsessing on a blind alley. Maybe you have to be a Chachapoyan shaman to get the full effect of the potion. Unfortunately, the last one died about five hundred years ago, and I don’t think my pharmacist at Walgreen’s is going to be able to help me much with this.” Turning in the doorway, he shook the senior chemist’s hand. “Thank you, Professor, for your help. Not to mention your tolerance of an overeager younger colleague’s fevered imaginings.”

  Keeler responded understandingly. “Hey, it might have led to something. You never know. You don’t carry out the experiment, you never find out if you can blow something up. Or cure a disease, or vulcanize rubber, or whatever else it might be that you’re after. You and your lady—Kelli, right?—must come to dinner at my house some evening. Marlis is one helluva good cook, and I know she’d like to meet you both. Call me.”

  “I will.” Feeling a little better, Cody gripped the older man’s hand firmly one more time before letting go. No great discoveries had been made, no revelations had been forthcoming as the result of his hard work, but he had made a friend—no small achievement in the tempestuous world of academic social life. Kelli would like Harry Keeler too, he felt.

  There was no one in the elevator, no one in the hallway, and no one loitering outside the chemistry building when he let himself out. A short walk would take him to his car, parked on one of the interior campus streets. When he told her everything that had transpired, Kelli would share his disappointment. Privately, he knew she would be relieved to hear that his preoccupation with the single panel of reliefs was at an end, and they could resume a normal life with normal office hours. He tugged at the hem of his sweater, the cool night air invigorating his stride. Even if nothing had come of his work and the resulting experiment, the procedure had been instructive. In good science, nothing was ever wasted, including a lack of results.

  He was halfway to the car, striding nimbly through the west-side sculpture garden, when his traitorous stomach mercilessly and viciously ambushed him.

  The sharp pain did more than snap him double: It short-circuited his legs and brought him to his knees. Eyes wide, he clutched ineffectually at his stomach with both hands. Breathing hard, he looked around, staring through shocked eyes that were rapidly blurring with tears. The pain was intense, as if he had swallowed a bucket of acupuncture needles that suddenly hit bottom. Weak as a kitten, he fell over on his side, his legs drawing up into a fetal position, his arms locked against his belly. His guts were on fire. No students, no groundskeepers, no patrolling security personnel saw him lying there among the mostly abstract and overpriced sculptures, a long drink of professor writhing spasmodically on the neatly clipped grass.

  The timer-controlled sprinklers came on without warning. Lying in the damp turf, soaked through, he did battle with his own insides, uncertain as to the ultimate outcome. After what felt like hours but in reality was no more than ten minutes, the pain began to subside. He found he could breathe normally again. The irrigating water, falling like rain, aided his attitude if not his digestion.

  Coca leaves, arrow frog toxin, and bug guts, he told himself as he struggled to his knees. Serves you right. Serves you damn well right. He hacked up the residue at the back of his lungs, and something black and thick spewed from his mouth. Rising slowly, he wiped his lips with the back of his wrist, not caring if he stained the sweater. Keeler would be delighted to hear that their little clandestine experiment had produced some results after all, even if their nature was such that Cody could have done without them. He felt that the same consequences could have been induced much more simply and cheaply by drinking from the carton of milk that had been sitting in the back of the small refrigerator in his office for two weeks too long.

  As shaky as if he had been puking for hours, he straightened and took a hesitant step. Encouragingly, the movement did not induce the pain to return. Advancing carefully, one step at a time, he resumed walking toward the car, ready to collapse anew if his belly should try to waylay him again. It did not, but the queasiness remained, as if the ground itself had suddenly become infirm. He had never been seasick in his life, but from first-hand experiences described by others, he supposed the sensations must be very much akin to what he was presently feeling. Glancing furtively around the gently rolling, grassy sculpture garden, he was relieved there had been no one around to witness his embarrassing little nocturnal episode. As he staggered toward the street where his car was parked, his thoughts focused on home, on Kelli’s waiting embrace, on bed, but truth be told, not more than a very little on the supper that she would have waiting for him.

  Food! Azahoht sensed its approach. He had come close to feeding and reproducing several times in the past month, only to be thwarted on each occasion by last-minute changes in the paths of his intended quarry. But this one was very near, and moving unsteadily. It might well need to rest against something solid for support, to steady itself, and Azahoht’s dwelling was as solid as any object in the vicinity. Let the food make but casual contact, and feeding could begin immediately. Azaholt waited expectantly as he monitored the erratic course of the food. Come closer, he thought hungrily. That’s right. This way, not that. Just a little closer. There, that left hand! Stretch it out, reach for my abode, touch it. Make contact. Eagerly, he extended a portion of himself in the direction of the food.

  Something happened then that was so extraordinary, Azahoht could scarce believe it. It was unprecedented in his experience, in the entire long course of his existence. He knew that such a thing was possible from contact with others of his kind, but he had never actually observed the phenomenon himself. Now that it happened, involving him directly, he was too stunned to know how to react. He could only draw back into his dwelling in shock. It was impossible, it was astounding, it defied anything and everything in his far-ranging experience. It was as if the very fabric of existence had been suddenly turned inside out. Inconceivable though it might be, there was no mistaking what happened. None whatsoever.

  The food saw him.

  Four

  Still woozy from the gastrointestinal tremor that had knocked him to his knees, Cody was less than fifty feet from the street and his car when he reached out to steady himself against the nearest sculpture. It was a sinuous, free-form needle of bolted-together pink and black granite boulders that aspired to inspiration but fell more than a little short of the artist’s lofty intent. It would be cool to the touch and, if necessary, would support his weight easily, providing a convenient backrest with which to ease his disturbed equilibrium for a few precious moments. His left hand fumbled in the direction of a stone protrusion.

  And quickly drew back without making contact. Blinking hard, he gawked at the smooth, polished stone. At the approach of his hand, something had begun to emerge from within. It looked like a triplet of intertwined tentacles. Each tip terminated in a dime-sized sucker, and a handful of small, glowering eyes were scattered like black marbles along the slick, writhing surfaces.

  Uttering soft guttural sounds that only resembled words, Cody staggered away from this hazy apparition. Still clearly visible and making no attempt to conceal themselves, the tentacles fluttered in the still night air, rampant eyes goggling at him, before finally withdrawing back into the hard granitic body of the sculpture.

  His breathing rapid, heart pounding, stomach still threatening possible eruption, Cody forced himself to stand motionless as he contemplated the beguiling but deceitful work of art. It loomed before him in the darkness, belabored with sharply defined shadows cast by the overhead lights that illuminated pathway and street, no longer the innocent expression of an unknown artist’s aspirations. Bending slowly, never taking his eyes off the twisted, spiraling shape, he reached down to pick up a handful of white gravel from the decorative border that lined a flower bed. At the last instant he happened to look down, only to have his questing fingers recoil in horror.

  Each thumb-sized chunk of river rock was twitching a tiny, ethereal filament in his direction.

  Emitting a soft, startled cry, he lurched backward—and fell. The thick grass helped to cushion his fall. He lay there, panting like an overheated dog, and stared at the gravel. It lay like a frozen white river behind the boundaries of its decorative border, innocent and unmoving. Rolling onto his side, he let his gaze flick between gravel and sculpture. The ground was comforting beneath him, almost cushiony. Almost—massaging. Uncertainly, he turned his face to the earth.

  Inches below his nose, miniscule, almost invisible threads were reaching for him, one for every single blade of grass.

  With an inarticulate cry he scrambled to his feet, pulling free of the almost microscopic tendrils, and ran for his car, pursued by nightmares. Exhausted by fear and tension, he reached it without incident, though as he ran he thought he had felt the blades of grass clutching with individual, infinitesimal force at his shod feet. Afraid to look down, scared to touch anything, he was relieved to see that nothing sprang at him from the body of his little four-door, and that the surface of the sidewalk on which he was presently standing remained flat, white, and inanimate.

  God, he thought wildly, oh God—what’s going on? What’s happening to me?

  Slowly, he turned, believing he was prepared for anything. The carpet of questing filaments had vanished back into the lawn. The granite sculpture stabbed virtuously skyward. Smooth-surfaced river rock gravel shielded its bed of pansies and petunias. The sculpture garden sat silent, motionless, and sane beneath powerful overhead lights.

  Espying an empty beer can, he bent to pick it up, his fingers halting less than an inch from the crumpled metal. Nothing coiled forth from the shiny, garishly decorated aluminum cylinder to fumble for his fingertips. Tentatively, he plucked it from the ground. It lay in his hand; inanimate, immobile, unmoving, wholly synthetic.

  Artificial. His car was a complex aggregate of manufactured materials. The sidewalk on which he stood was made of concrete, another composite material. The beer can was refined aluminum covered with paint. These manufactured articles put forth no tentacles, writhed no filaments beneath his eyes. Those had emerged from the unhomogenized rock of the gravel bed, from individual blades of growing grass, and from facilely carved but otherwise naked granite. Or possibly just from his potion-addled brain. He needed desperately to find out.

  Drawing back his arm, he threw the can. It ricocheted off the sculpture with a muted but clearly audible clang. The sculpture did not react to the impact. Nothing creepy or crawly thrust in protest from its smooth surfaces. Where the can landed in the grass, the grass did not react.

  Someone else did, however. “Hey! What d’you think you’re doing?”

  In the midst of his rounds, the security guard accelerated his pace. As the man approached, Cody made an effort to straighten himself and regain a little composure. He was aware that he was still young enough to pass for a graduate student.

  The guard gestured meaningfully in the direction of the sculpture before looking back at Cody. “That’s university property, friend.” Small, intense eyes narrowed accusingly. “Lemme see your ID.”

  Cody surprised himself by finding his wallet on the first try. The guard didn’t notice the slight trembling in the fingers that flipped it open. “Coschocton Westcott, Department of Archeology.” Realizing he was not dealing with a mischievous or destructive student, the guard metamorphosed from accusatory to concerned. “Are you all right, Professor?”

  “I’m fine.” Cody did not sound so to himself, but the guard was satisfied. “I was trying for that trash can over there.”

  The other man’s gaze swerved. The receptacle in question stood more than ten feet to the right of the granite monolith. “Not real close, were you?” The stocky guard was relaxed now, realizing he was not dealing with some nocturnal vandal. “Better stick to your digging, Professor Westcott.”