Pocket Apocalypse: InCryptid, Book Four (21 page)

“What made them change their minds?” I asked.

“I pointed out that if I didn’t bring the mice, someone else would have to convince them to move,” she said.

“Hail the Unpredictable Priestess!” piped one of the mice, drawing a cheer from the others before they went back to studying my wounds.

Shelby blinked. “That’s a new one.”

“That’s . . . yeah.” I shook my head. “About what you said back at the med station—”

“Hold that thought: the mice weren’t the only reason I was allowed to come here.”

I swallowed a groan. “I should have known there was something else going on. What is it? Are you under orders to shoot me?”

“No. But I thought you might like to meet your doctor.” Shelby turned back to the door and called, “He’s decent, wearing trousers and everything. You can come on in.”

“Thank you for the confirmation of trousers,” said a mild female voice. Its owner followed it into the room: a tall, slender woman of apparently Indian descent, dressed in tan slacks, sensible shoes, and a blue medical scrub top. Her long black hair was braided back from her face and tied off with a red hair tie, and if not for the way the mice stiffened as soon as she entered, I might have mistaken her for human. She smiled as she approached the bed where I sat, holding out her hand. “Dr. Helen Jalali, at your service. My cousin speaks well of you.”

“Is your cousin Kumari Sarpa, by any chance?” I asked, taking her hand and shaking it.

Her smile broadened, showing the oddly curved sides of her incisors. It was a minor physiological difference, easily overlooked—unless she decided to extend her fangs. “She is. However did you guess?” She had a strong Australian accent, confirming my suspicions that the wadjet had been unable to resist establishing a community here. It was perfect for them: no Covenant, lots of space, no native cobras to complicate the issue, and plenty of venomous snakes they could eat without feeling bad about their dietary choices. Australia and Arizona were the modern wadjet’s dream homes.

“I had a hunch.” I released her hand. “Did Shelby tell you what was going on?”

“Yes, and I was fascinated to hear that we have a lycanthropy-w outbreak in our own backyards.” Helen slanted a narrow-eyed glance at Shelby. “No one thought to notify the local cryptid populations. We don’t rank for ‘need to know’ information, it seems.”

Shelby held out her hands, palms facing Helen. “Don’t shoot the messenger, all right? I’ve been in America the last eighteen months. I haven’t been making any decisions about who tells what to who—and besides, I didn’t even know you were here.”

“No, but you were here before that, and you never came to tell us when there was a crisis,” Helen replied. She didn’t sound angry; just tired, like this was a conversation she had often had with herself, and now felt obligated to share with an actual person. “This place is less than four kilometers from my house. We weren’t
hiding
ourselves from you; you just didn’t care. I have kids, you know. They could’ve done with knowing that there was a group of rangers, however misguided, close enough to keep them safe.”

“I’m sorry,” said Shelby. “I’ll talk to the rest of the Society. We’ll try to be better.”

Helen blinked, nonplussed. Apparently, that wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting. “Ah,” she said. “Well, thank you. Now, as for you, Mr. Price . . .” She turned back to me, attention going to my arm.

That was when one of the mice decided to speak up. “Not sick,” it pronounced.

Helen blinked. “Excuse me?”

“The God of Scales and Silences is not sick,” said the mouse. The others joined in with nods and sounds of rodent agreement. “He is damaged, yes, and will need Tender Care and perhaps Kisses for his Boo-Boos, but he is not sick.”

“I wouldn’t be sick yet, guys. Lycanthropy has a twenty-eight-day incubation period. It’ll be weeks before we know one way or the other.”

The mouse that had initially spoken turned and looked at me like I was being intentionally obtuse. “No,” it said. “We know right now. Today or twenty-eight days, it will make no difference, because you are not sick.”

“I don’t think you can—”

“Hold on,” said Helen. “The, ah, mouse may be on to something here. What are you, mouse?”

“Aeslin,” squeaked the mouse proudly. “We Stand in Service to the Gods.”

“Aeslin mice traditionally do,” said Helen. “Can you detect sickness?”

“Not all sickness,” said the mouse. “Some things smell wrong quickly, like flesh going sour, or breath going dank. If there were sickness here, we would know.”

“You can’t know,” I insisted. “Okay, yes, you’re pretty good at catching the early stages of a cold, and we’ve learned to listen to you when you say it’s soup and juice time, but you’ve never been around lycanthropy. Let Dr. Jalali do her job.”

The mouse looked at me, whiskers bristling. “The Spring was New, and the green leaves of the willow trees were coming into Bud,” it snapped, in the rapid singsong that meant a point of scripture was being made. “And lo, the Patient Priestess did come to the God of Uncommon Sense and say Dear, Something Is in the Sheep Flock, and We Should Investigate. Then did the God of Uncommon Sense call upon the Sitter of Babies—”

“Wait.” I held up a hand, cutting off the flood of rodent theology before it could build to an unstoppable pitch. “Are you saying that Great-Great-Grandpa Alexander and Great-Great-Grandma Enid took a member of the congregation with them to deal with
werewolves?
”

“He got all that from a mouse beginning a religious parable?” asked Helen, looking to Shelby incredulously. “How are these not the most protected species in the known universe? They ought to be everywhere.”

“But they’re not,” said Shelby, looking regretful. “As to the parable bit, yeah. They go on, and he translates. Unless we’re having sex at the time. Then I just chuck a pillow at them and tell him that noise was the wind.”

I rolled my eyes but otherwise ignored her. I had more important things to worry about, like the mouse clinging to my arm and looking at me with surpassing rodent smugness. “Not one member,” said the mouse. “A full
dozen
. We scattered through the grass and led them to the den, and oh! Such cheese! Such cake! We feasted well and thoroughly!”

“HAIL!” shouted the rest of the mice, exulting in the memory of a feast that happened generations before they were born.

“Hold on a moment.” Helen leaned closer to the mouse, which held its ground surprisingly well, considering that she was a giant cobra that just happened to look like a human woman. “Before they became extinct, Aeslin mice were renowned for their ability to preserve institutional knowledge. We know they pass their rituals from generation to generation. Why wouldn’t they also pass the descriptions of scents they wanted to catalog. Mouse?”

“Yes?” asked the mouse.

“What does lycanthropy smell like?”

For a moment, we all held our breath. The mouse didn’t seem to notice. Calmly, it replied, “Like rabies, but sweeter, the way a spider’s bite smells when it is fresh and hard to see. There is no smell of sweetness here, only torn flesh, and blood, and bruising. He is not sick.”

“Do you mind if I proceed with preventative care despite your no doubt excellent diagnosis? I’m sure you’re right—you’re talking mice, after all, and I honestly can’t think of any studies saying
not
to use talking mice as diagnostic engines—but it’s best if I do my job anyway.” She leaned closer and whispered conspiratorially, in a voice still loud enough for Shelby to hear, “The local humans get shirty when they think we silly monsters know more than they do.”

“Hey,” protested Shelby, without any real heat. She knew the local attitude toward human-form cryptids as well as I did, if not better: she had shared it, on some level, until she’d met my family and friends. It was hard to keep thinking of people who didn’t descend from monkeys as inferior when they were smarter than you were, or at least better read.

Helen looked at Shelby and shrugged. “Sorry, princess. I go with what I know, and what I know is that your people were going to let a werewolf run rampant through the state without telling anyone they didn’t feel protective toward. It makes a girl a little cranky. And you, sir.” She turned back to me as she stood, putting herself on higher ground. It was a snake instinct that the wadjet shared with their cobra cousins. Male wadjet sometimes used the females to become taller still, and if the sight of a woman in heels with a spectacled cobra balanced on her shoulder wouldn’t strike fear into your heart, then your heart is made of sterner stuff than mine. “I’m told you have a treatment. Is this correct?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, resisting the urge to stand and put myself on her level. It would just make her uncomfortable, and I needed her to stay in my corner, at least long enough to prepare her report to the Society. “It’s in my bag. The nasty black sludge with the little sparkles in it.”

“I’ll get it,” said Shelby, sounding glad to be of use.

“Be careful,” I said, earning myself a sour look. I shook my head. “I mean it, Shelby. This stuff is incredibly toxic. If you get any of it on you, you could make yourself really sick.”

“And you’re going to swallow it anyway, aren’t you, you silly man?” She crossed the room to my field bag and rummaged through it for a moment before pulling out the jar of antiserum that I’d managed to mix before collapsing. “What do you want done with this?”

“I’ll take it,” said Helen, holding out her hand. “You don’t have to stay in here for the next part if you don’t want to. I know that seeing your mate in pain can be troublesome.”

“No,” said Shelby, in a flat tone devoid of the humor she had been forcing herself to project only seconds before. “I stay.”

“As you wish.” Helen took the jar from her and turned back to me. “Please remove your shirt and assume a neutral sitting position. If you make any hostile moves, I will strike. If I feel threatened in any way, I will strike. If you attempt to reach for a weapon, I will strike. Do you have any allergies I need to be aware of?”

The change in tenor between the portions of her speech was abrupt enough to leave me blinking as I unbuttoned my already-ruined shirt and stripped it off, exposing my bruised and bloodied chest. Shelby made a little hissing noise between her teeth as she saw the damage without anything to obscure it or make it look less bad than it really was. “I don’t intend to threaten you, but why did we just go from friendly to ‘I’m going to pump you full of venom’?”

“I’m about to start doing things that could cause you a great deal of pain.” Helen turned to Shelby. “I know you want to be here for his treatment, but I’m going to need that chair now.”

Shelby scowled, but couldn’t deny the lack of seating in the room. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “Don’t start without me.” Then she was out of the room, heading into the hall with irritated quickness.

Helen turned to me immediately, dropping her voice to something more conspiratorial than her earlier staged whisper. “Are they holding you prisoner?” she asked. “My cousin vouched for you, and I am willing to get you out of here if that’s necessary. We can discuss payment later.”

I blinked at her. What tactics did the Thirty-Sixers use to keep the Covenant out of their continent? “No,” I said. “I’m here voluntarily, because they asked for help, and it seemed like a good idea to keep werewolves from getting established in Australia. Didn’t Kumari mention Shelby?”

“She said you traveled with a blonde girl from the Society, but I wasn’t sure how much of that was keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.” She set the jar of black sludge on the bedside table, abandoning her hushed tone. “I don’t know how much you know about how things work here, but the Thirty-Six Society does not call in the local wadjet to play doctor.”

“Then they should,” I said. I moved into a sitting position as I spoke, sending the mice scattering for the relative safety of the bed, which at least wasn’t moving. “I asked them to call you. You can’t catch what I might have.”

“You are not sick,” squeaked the mouse who had diagnosed me, indignant. It took up a perch on my knee, wrapping its tail around its paws and fixing me with a stern eye. “You must learn to have Faith,” it chided.

“I do have faith,” I said. “I just have more faith in science than I do in, er, faith itself. It’s a God thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

All the mice made a low “ooo” noise, clearly enthralled by the idea of being in the presence of divine mysteries. I was going to pay for this later.

Helen looked amused. “Your life is one long theological argument, isn’t it?”

“You have no idea,” I said. “But my point stands. You can’t catch lycanthropy—which I do not have—” I added, before the mice could start objecting again, “but you understand human physiology and how to provide medical treatment. That makes you the best person for the job.”

“It’s nice of you to say so.” Helen turned as Shelby walked back into the room, now lugging a folding wooden chair. “Thank you. I apologize for sending you away before, but I needed to speak to my patient in private.”

“Gotcha,” said Shelby. She plunked the chair down next to Helen before looking at me. “You didn’t bite him. We’re fine. What do you want me to do now? I’m not leaving, so don’t even suggest that. Fighting isn’t fun when one of us is venomous and the other is heavily armed.”

“It’s just like being at home,” I said, garnering a cheer from the mice.

Helen didn’t rise to the bait, thankfully. We could be here all evening if she really got Shelby going. “If you’re not going to leave, you can help me with my equipment. I’d rather avoid any chance that you’re going to come into contact with his bodily fluids, just to be safe.”

The mouse on my knee made a small huffing noise, but otherwise didn’t argue.

“Right,” said Shelby. “I’ve already had two showers today, and I’d rather not take a third. I’m here for whatever you need.” She sat on the end of the bed, close enough to be reassuring, but far enough away to be out of the logical splash range for anything that happened to come out of me.

Helen sat down in the chair Shelby had provided, setting her medical bag on the floor between her and Shelby. She leaned over to dig around in it, producing a pair of thick-lensed glasses and a suture kit. “Now,” she said. “Let’s begin.”