There were a lot of things I was willing to do, but putting on ritualistic and spiritual war paint for bears? Forget it. “I’ll put some paste on my arm or something.” “Why not?” Vera waited while Gemma painted her face. “I thought you were up for being a guinea pig.” “When we were talking about experimenting with the crystals a little, not smearing it all over my face.” I left out my issues with the ritual factor. I wasn’t a bear, and I wasn’t going to pretend to be one. Instead I went down another line of argument. “It’s not going to change anything. It’s not really going to help.” “Of course it’s going to help. At least in theory it will.” Gemma put several dots of paint around Vera’s eyes. It was the same pattern already on her face and Slade’s. They’d done each other’s. “Then how do you know it’s safe to wear on our faces?” I glanced up at a particularly long crystal. If they were as strong as we thought, they were incredibly dangerous.
