“Artist’s choice,” I said, nodding slowly as I scanned the space. I was already digging the bundle of Sharpies out of my coat pocket. “Suh-weet.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Alright,” Neffe said, exchanging a look and a nod with Aset, “we’re ready.” The two petite Nejerets stood on either side of something that looked an awful lot like a dentist’s chair—only the kind a demented, evil dentist would use, what with all the strappy restraints holding down the brilliant duo’s first subject.

Mitch Carmichael was being used as the inaugural lab rat for the ba-grafting procedure. Even though Constance had volunteered, Heru thought she held too much value to be used so negligently. She was willing to work with us—to share everything she knew about the inner workings of the Ouroboros Corporation and Initiative Industries, not to mention the negotiations and deals made with the Senate—and that made her an invaluable asset, especially compared to rancid Mitch Carmichael.

If the procedure was a success, Mari promised to infect Carmichael with anti-At as soon as the positive outcome became clear, and his short-lived, partially formed ba would be erased from existence once and for all. No gentle eternity for this pathetic excuse for a human being. That was just fine with me.

Standing at the foot of the chair, Nik held a marble-sized orb of At, a minuscule sliver of Heru’s ba writhing within its temporary prison. It was one of nearly a dozen such marbles filling a metal lockbox on the counter behind me. Heru was the oldest Nejeret on site, and though Mari hadn’t been able to explain why, she believed his age would make his ba the best candidate for a successful soul-grafting.

The ba extraction itself had only taken a few minutes, though it had taken Mari more than twenty-four hours of constant work to get the extraction apparatus—a modified MRI machine—up and running. With Nik’s help, Mari was able to harvest a baseball-sized chunk of Heru’s ba, which she claimed should be all she’d ever need, since the fragment would ceaselessly replenish itself within its At prison, just as Heru’s ba would regrow until it was fully repaired within his physical body. Probably a good thing, because I doubted Lex would ever let her husband go through a ba extraction again. It had been excruciating even to watch.

Mari stood beside me, arms crossed over her chest and expression rapt. Lex stood on my other side, and Dom, watching from the pendant hanging around my neck, was the only other soul present. Heru was two floors above us in his and Lex’s bedroom, recovering under the attentive “care” of his toddler, and it had been Mari’s suggestion to clear the basement laboratory of everyone else to ensure that word of this potentially world-changing procedure didn’t get out. Nobody had argued.

Nik glanced over his shoulder to look at Mari. “You’re sure this’ll take?” He frowned. “I don’t need to do anything more invasive?”

Mari nodded. “A human’s soul is contained within every single cell of their physical body. The moment that ba fragment touches his skin, it’ll recognize a potential host. It wants to be whole, and merging with a human soul is the path of least resistance. Go on . . .” She gestured to Carmichael with her chin. “See for yourself.”