“Another minute, Clairmont, and I would have started without you. Hey, Diana,” Chris said, kissing me on the cheek. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Why aren’t you at the Beinecke?”
“Special delivery.” I motioned toward the messenger bag, and Matthew handed it over. “The page from Ashmole 782, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” Chris didn’t sound the least bit interested. He and Matthew were clearly focused on other questions.
“You two promised,” I said.
“Right. Ashmole 782.” Chris crossed his arms. “Where’s Miriam?”
“I gave Miriam your invitation and will spare you her response. She will be here when—and if— she chooses.” Matthew held up his ID card. Even the employment office couldn’t take a bad picture of him. He looked like a model. “I’m official, or so they tell me.”
“Good. Let’s go.” Chris took a white lab coat off the nearby rack and shrugged it over his shoulders. He held another out to Matthew.
Matthew looked at it dubiously. “I’m not wearing one of those.”
“Suit yourself. No coat, no contact with the equipment. Up to you.” Chris turned and marched off.
A woman approached him with a sheaf of papers. She was wearing a lab coat with the name CONNELLY embroidered on it and “Beaker” written above it in red marker.
“Thanks, Beaker.” Chris looked them over. “Good. Nobody refused.”
“What are those?” I asked.
“Nondisclosure forms. Chris said neither of you has to sign them.” Beaker looked at Matthew and nodded in greeting. “We’re honored to have you here, Professor Clairmont. I’m Joy Connelly, Chris’s second-in-command. We’re short a lab manager at the moment, so I’m filling in until Chris finds either Mother Teresa or Mussolini. Would you please swipe in so that we have a record of when you arrived?
And you have to swipe out to leave. It keeps the records straight.” She pointed to the reader by the door.
“Thank you, Dr. Connelly.” Matthew obediently swiped his card. He was still not wearing a lab coat, though.
“Professor Bishop needs to swipe in, too. Lab protocol. And please call me Beaker. Everybody else does.”
“Why?” Matthew asked while I fished my ID out of my bag. As usual, it had settled to the bottom.
“Chris finds nicknames easier to remember,” Beaker said.
“He had seventeen Amys and twelve Jareds in his first undergraduate lecture,” I added. “I don’t think he’ll ever recover.”
“Happily, my memory is excellent, Dr. Connelly. So is your work on catalytic RNA, by the way.”
Matthew smiled. Dr. Connelly looked pleased. “Beaker!” Chris bellowed.
“Coming!” Beaker called. “I sure hope he finds Mother Teresa soon,” she muttered to me. “We don’t need another Mussolini.”
“Mother Teresa is dead,” I whispered, running my card through the reader.
“I know. When Chris wrote the job description for the new lab manager, it listed ‘Mother Teresa or Mussolini’ under qualifications. We rewrote it, of course. Human Resources wouldn’t have approved the posting otherwise.”
“What did Chris call his last lab manager?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“Caligula.” Beaker sighed. “We really miss her.”
Matthew waited for us to enter before releasing the door. Beaker looked nonplussed by the courtesy. The door swooshed closed behind us.
A gaggle of white-coated researchers of all ages and descriptions waited for us inside, including senior researchers like Beaker, some exhausted-looking postdoctoral fellows, and a bevy of graduate students. Most sat on stools pulled up to the lab benches; a few lounged against sinks or cabinets. One sink bore a hand-lettered sign over it that said rather ominously THIS SINK RESERVED FOR HAZMAT. Tina, Chris’s perpetually harried administrative assistant, was trying to extricate the filled-out nondisclosure forms from beneath a can of soda without disturbing the laptop that Chris was booting up. The hum of conversation stopped when we entered.
“Oh. My. God. That’s—” A graduate student stared at Matthew and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Matthew had been recognized.
“Hey, Professor Bishop!” A graduate student stood up, smoothing out his lab coat. He looked more nervous than Matthew. “Jonathan Garcia. Remember me? History of Chemistry? Two years ago?”
“Of course. How are you, Jonathan?” I felt several nudging looks as the attention in the room swung in my direction. There were daemons in Chris’s lab. I looked around, trying to figure out who they were. Then I caught the cold stare of a vampire. He was standing by a locked cabinet with Beaker and another woman. Matthew had already noticed him.
“Richard,” Matthew said with a cool nod. “I didn’t know you’d left Berkeley.”
“Last year.” Richard’s expression never wavered.
It had never occurred to me that there would already be creatures in Chris’s lab. I’d visited