Claire shrieked, and the bottle went flying to shatter against the wall. Bob didn’t budge when she violently shook her hand, trying to get rid of him; he clung to her like Velcro, and he felt different, somehow—heavier. Yes, he was larger. Claire batted at him with her right hand, and his fangs glittered as he lunged for her, skittering up her left arm.

She grabbed a book in her right hand.

Bob leaped from her arm, headed to her face.

She smacked him out of the air with the book, and he landed on his back, all eight legs wriggling in the air. Before she could slam the book down on top of him, Bob flipped himself over and skittered underneath the table.

It was not her imagination. Bob was getting bigger. In the space of just a few seconds, he’d gone from the size of a walnut to her palm, and now he was almost as big as the book she’d used to smash him out of the air.

“Ada!” she screamed. “Ada, I need you!”

Her cell phone came on, and gave an unearthly screeching noise . . . and then a soft, ghostly laugh.

Something knocked over a pile of papers at the edge of the table, and Claire saw a long black leg waving in the air. She backed away, fast.

When Bob climbed up on top of the table, he was the size of a small dog. His fangs were clearly visible, and if she’d thought he was ugly at small size, he was terrifying now.

“Hi—Bob—,” Claire said. Her voice was shaking, and sounded very small. “Nice Bob. Heel?”

Bob bounced off the table, landed lightly on the floor, and skittered toward her, racing incredibly fast. Claire screamed and ran, knocking over anything she could behind her to slow him down. Not that it did, but when she looked back as she reached the stairs, Bob had stopped chasing her.

He was sitting on a table in the center of the lab, trembling. She could actually see him shaking, as if he were having some kind of a fit . . . and then he rolled over on his back, and his legs curled in, and . . .

And he was dead.

“Bother,” Ada said. Claire jumped in reaction, bit back a curse, and saw Ada glide out of a solid wall to her left. Ada’s image went right up to Bob’s motionless body, leaning over him, and shook her head. “So disappointing. I truly thought he’d be able to sustain the change.”

“Change?” Claire swallowed hard. “Ada, what are you doing? What did you do to Bob?”

“Unfortunately, I believe I exploded his organs. So fragile, living things. I forget sometimes.”

“You did this. Made him grow.”

“It was an experiment.” Ada’s image slowly revolved toward Claire, and her smile was small and cold and terrifying. “We’re both scientists, are we not?”

“You call that science?”