Carol reached the alley after Tanner and his team had already lift.  That was fine with her.  She had hoped that the detour to her safe-drop had given her enough time to miss them.  The detective secluded herself across the street and watched the mouth of the alley and the surroundings for a long time.  Finally satisfies the coast was clear she crossed the street two blocks down and worked her way back up, then sauntered boldly into the alley.  She silently stared at the mayby-blood patch while she knelt and opened a small box:  A simple blood-test kit of the type used in classrooms by students for simple experiments, or just for the novelty of basic hands-on science.  She pricked her finger and dabbed a small drop of her O-positive blood in a small dimple of plastic.  Then - with considerably more care - she opened another small box and drew out a small glass vial holding what appeared to be blood - although the medical technicians she had allowed to examine very small samples of the stuff were not completely in agreement that it was in fact blood, there was something very odd about it.<br/><br/>For one thing, despite being six years old, it looked as fresh as the day it was spilled.  The other samples had deteriorated if they got exposed to organic material, they broke down like any other blood.<br/><br/>Neathawk had taken fanatical care with the couple of CC's she had in the vial.   She dipped an incredibly thin pipette into the vial, resealed it at once, then dipped the pipette into her own blood.  Her blood curdled instantly, all samples of blood did that when exposed to the stuff in the vial.   She unsealed the tiny container, dipped another pipette, resealed it, then scraped up a bit of mostly-dried blood from the pavement into another plastic dimple, and touched the pipette to it.  No reaction at all.<br/><br/>Carol turned as pale as her olive skin allowed.  "Fuck.  Me.  Bloody."