Lisa looked away for a moment, the hairs on her neck standing on end.
"Why?" she asked. "Why are creatures with such great mental strength, who should have far greater intelligence than their peers, acting so stupidly?! Why would they act like this?"
Lohan didn't have an immediate answer, but something about that scene felt wrong in a more specific way than simple cruelty.
Those creatures moved as if under some kind of compulsion, with no control over their own behavior, and the sweet, sickening smell he'd caught in the corridor was growing stronger and stronger in there.
He focused his enhanced senses, filtering the chamber's air, separating the components one by one.
There was the smell of heated stone, the smell of dried blood and necrotic wounds, and underneath it all, a subtle chemical layer, sugary and heavy, that seemed to stick to the back of his mind as he analyzed it.
The more he concentrated, the clearer that smell became.
