“Keep drinking and I’ll tell you the rest.”
I do it.
“Grandma got the recipe in Barcelona. It’s a preservative for corpses people think might be vampires or shape shifters. It was customary to dismember a body and rearrange the limbs before burial so that the corpse couldn’t reanimate and dig its way out of the grave.”
I finish the potion and hand Ray the vial. Wipe my mouth on the back of my hand.
I say, “But I’m not a corpse.”
“Yes, but you’re close enough that I’m hoping the preservative will still work on you.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
I go back to my clothes and pull on my shirt. I’m as sick of looking at my rotten skin as they must be.
“How long do you think it will give me?”
Ray crosses his arms and thinks for a minute.
“Ordinarily, you could keep a fresh corpse intact for a week with this potion.”
I put on my coat.
“But I’m not exactly fresh, am I?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“So, how long have I got?”
“A day,” he says. “Maybe two.”
I think about it.
“That’s a hell of a lot longer than I had before. Thank you, Ray.”
He shrugs.
“I wish I could have given you better news.”
“You didn’t have to help me at all, but you did. I won’t forget that. For a day, at least.”
I turn to Carlos. He shakes his head, tense and frustrated.
“Relax,” I tell him. “These people were never going to let me off easy.”
He says, “You need to hang around with a better set of monsters.”
“Now you tell me.”
Ray puts a hand on my shoulder.
“What are you going to do with these remaining hours?”
“I’m not giving up. I’m going back to Howard, the necromancer, and see if I can talk him into fixing me.”
“Good move,” says Carlos.
“And if I can’t, I’m going to kill him and as many other Wormwood members as I can before I fall apart.”