“I am so glad that is gone,” she said, relief evident in her voice. “Just having it here was creeping me out.”

“You know it is only just the beginning though?” asked Dmitri, then continued without waiting for an answer, “I’m going to have to expose some of the rats to this disease before we can convince Draycott that we’ve done it.”

Claudia nodded, her mirth gone.

“But there is good news,” added Dmitri. Claudia looked at him, intrigued. “It’s only going to be today,” he declared with conviction.

“I have some good news too; I have set up several mixtures here. All they need is time. Then we can dilute the mixture a little and start filling jars with it. So I’ll work on a way to feed Akahaziel his own corruption. But first,” she walked over to Dmitri and stood close to him, “I,” she kissed him quickly on the lips, her voice breathy, “am,” another kiss, Dmitri’s expression became expectant, “going to,” another kiss.

“Yes?” asked Dmitri.

“Link with Wayte again!” Exclaimed Claudia and burst into laughter. She twirled on the spot and danced away, leaving a bewildered Dmitri shaking his head.

Retrieving the jars he had left with Claudia, Dmitri opened the seal on one and took a small section of the sample out. He reached for his magic before realising that Claudia had broken their link so she could link with Wayte. Sighing, he started to leaf through Claudia’s books.

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Finding nothing of interest to him, he took his sample over to one of the caged rats and put the sample inside with the rat. The rat nibbled on some of the uncorrupted parts of the sample. Dmitri sat and observed this for a while; the rat was perfectly healthy. Pressing his experiment a little further, Dmitri ruptured one of the lesions on the sample; a black liquid oozed out. The rat, previously unaffected, began to wheeze. It ran around its cage in a frenzy. Then it stopped and rolled over, it’s breathing became even more laboured and it began to cough up blood. Small black boils began to erupt over its body, behind its front paws and in the groin area. The sores began to swell and the rat began to shriek in pain. The noise alerted Claudia and brought her running over, “What in the world-“ she began, but then she turned ashen-faced upon seeing the rat. Dmitri could see it on her face the moment she lost concentration and she dropped the link with Wayte. Her eyes widened and her knees buckled. If Dmitri hadn’t turned to her at that moment, she would have hit the floor. Instead, he caught her and carried her over to one of the beds where he lay her down.

As he passed the rats cage on the way to get Claudia some water, the rats shrieking had hit a crescendo. Then one of the boils ruptured, aside from the oozing black liquid, the rat was still; it was dead.

Dmitri returned to Claudia with water to find her sitting up, well enough for her to tell him she was fine and not to fuss over her. Dmitri shrugged and raised the water to his lips, but Claudia snatched it off him and took a big gulp from it.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” said Dmitri gently, “I’ll give you warning next time.”

Claudia shook her head, “No, I need to be able to stomach this. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you up to linking?” asked Dmitri, “I’d like to try a few things with the samples.”

“Sure,” she replied, “as long as I don’t need to do anything, I just want to sit down for a while.”

Dmitri nodded and formed the link with her. The flare of magic within her relaxed her somewhat as it distracted her from thoughts of the rat.