Curran frowned. "Why no practice?"
"Playing in an undead's head leaves your mind's footprint in it. Someone like Ghastek could take it from the dead vamp, assuming it's fresh, and pull my image right out of its head. Then I would have to answer interesting questions. The fewer questions, the better."
"Any other surprises?" Curran said.
"I can eat apples of immortality. My magic is too old to be affected by them, so it's just like eating a regular Granny Smith. You can, too. I made you an apple pie with them once."
"Aha. Okay, the next time you decide to put magic apples into my pie, I want to be notified of that before I eat it." "You liked it."
"I'm serious, Kate."
"As you wish, Your Majesty."
We fell silent.
"The blast zone turned the shapeshifters in warrior form human," I said.
Curran nodded. "It takes magic to maintain the warrior form."
"What if we brought Julie into it? The virus would disappear. She would be okay, right?"
Curran's face slid into his Beast Lord expression. "Bad idea."
"Why?"
"Carlos was able to shift after he came out of the zone, which means it doesn't destroy the virus, it just negates its effects. The moment Julie stepped foot out of the zone, it would hit her all at once. That's a guarantee of instant loupism. Besides, do you remember the way Julie looked when we brought her in?"
My memory served up a twisted wreck of a body: a mix of fur, skin, exposed muscle and bare bone, and a grotesque face.
"I remember," I said through clenched teeth.
"She is alive only because Lyc-V holds her together. A regular human body can't sustain that much damage. You move her into the zone, all her regeneration will vanish. She would die quickly and in a lot of pain."
I stared out the window.
"I'm sorry," Curran said.
"She isn't going to beat it, is she?"
Curran exhaled slowly. "Do you want me to lie to you?"
"No."
"There is a way to calculate the probability of loupism," Curran said. "It's called the Lycos number. An average shapeshifter has ten units of virus per blood sample. I don't know exactly how the units are determined, but Doolittle can explain it to you. The unit level fluctuates as the levels of virus rise and fall in a shapeshifter's body. An agitated shapeshifter might show twelve units; a shapeshifter in a fight post-injury might show as much as seventeen or eighteen. The number isn't the same for everyone. For instance, Dali shows sixteen units at rest and twenty-two when agitated. Her regeneration is really high."
I filed it for future reference.
"Next we have shift coefficient. A loup can't maintain a human form or an animal form," Curran continued. "They can't fully shift. This is where it gets complicated. A normal shapeshifter in either animal or human form is considered to have a shift coefficient of one. As the shapeshifter begins to change shape, the coefficient changes. Suppose you're going from human to animal. You turn twenty percent of your body animal, while the rest remains human. Your shift coefficient is two. Thirty percent--three. And so on, until nine. When you turn a hundred percent, you go back to one. With me?"
"Yes."
"The Lycos number is determined by multiplying shift coefficient by the units of virus by the time it takes you to shift completely. Let's take Dali. She can completely shift in less than three seconds. Her Lycos number is one multiplied by sixteen multiplied by point zero five minutes. Point eight. Anything under two hundred seventy is safe. Over a thousand is a guarantee of loupism. Dali isn't going loup anytime soon."
"What's Julie's number?"
Curran glanced at me. "Julie's fluctuating between thirty-two and thirty-four units. Her shift coefficient is six point five and she's been at it for sixteen hours."
Dear God, I'd need a damn calculator.
"Twelve thousand four hundred eighty," Curran said. "We stop counting after an hour if there is no significant change."
Twelve times the loupism limit. My mind struggled to comprehend it. I knew what he was saying--it was right there--I just couldn't force myself to believe it.
The realization hit me like a punch. "When did you know?"
His voice was hoarse. "Once Doolittle pulled her unit number. It took us forty-five minutes to get to the Keep. She had begun the transformation at least fifteen minutes prior. I knew that unless she shifted within the first hour, her chances were cut by three quarters, unless her unit number was below twenty."
My heart hammered, as if I were running full speed. "I've heard of first transformations taking hours."
He nodded. "That happens when the unit number is low. Not enough virus entered the body during infection, or something is inhibiting it, so you might get somebody with five units in his blood, sitting at twenty percent of the shift for an hour. Five by two by sixty is only six hundred. Then the virus blooms and he shifts."
I was grasping at straws. "What about Andrea? During the flare she was in a partial shift for at least a couple of hours."
"Andrea had an object in her body that interfered with her shift. Once they pulled it out, it took her half an hour to rebuild the virus and change shape."
Damn it. "Then why bother with sedation at all?" Doolittle must've done it for a reason. He must've had some glimmer of hope.
Curran reached over and covered my hand with his. "It's not for her. It's for you. Doolittle is using all of his skill to keep her alive and comfortable. He's giving you time to come to terms with it ..."
I stared at the road through the windshield. They were waiting until I gave up and agreed to put my kid out of her misery.
Curran kept talking. "I brought her in wrapped up, so nobody except the two of us, Doolittle, and Derek know how bad she is. The kid won't say anything." His hands gripped the wheel, his knuckles white. His face was calm, his voice completely flat and measured, almost soothing. He must've expected me to fall apart, because he'd locked his emotions inside, asserting absolute control over himself. "Julie isn't in pain. She's sleeping. You can take your time. I know how much she means to you. You care for her. Sometimes it can be very hard. If it's too hard, I'm here. I will help her, if you need me."
"Please stop the car."
He pulled over. The outskirts of Atlanta had long ago succumbed to the magic's onslaught. Ruins surrounded the road on both sides. The long stretch of highway lay deserted.
I stepped out of the car and marched out into the crumbling wreck of some old building, singed from the inside, its walls black and draped with dead kudzu. I didn't know where I was going. I just had to be on my feet, so I paced back and forth, one wall to the other.