Red in Tooth

By Thalia Drogna

Author's Note: I am overwhelmed by the positive response to this fic. Thanks to aurora151989, klcarr892, LetMeWalkTheEarthWithYou, Katherine41319, Cazza799, sbchak, idonthaveanam, blufair and anon for reviewing and saying such nice things.


Cho was standing in the doorway of their murder victim's house watching two grown men stalk a missing snake when his phone rang. Outside, Van Pelt and Rigsby were still talking to the victim's girlfriend, but as they saw Cho answer the phone, Van Pelt wound up the conversation.

"Hi Boss," said Cho. "How's Jane?"

"He's stable, and sleeping," said Lisbon. "But we need to know what kind of snake it was, so that we can get him the right treatment. Have you caught it yet?"

"No. Animal control are on it now, but so far no luck."

Cho heard the disappointed sigh from his boss, he wasn't surprised when she followed it up with instructions for the case they were working on.

"Do me a favour and get them to grab the crate that the snake came in and any paperwork that went with it. There has to be something else going on here. Jane seemed to think that packing crate was important. It might even give us the species of the snake. Find out where the snake came from and see who else the victim had contact with."

"We're on it, Boss. Tell Jane to get well soon."

"Will do," and Lisbon rang off.

"How is he?" asked Van Pelt.

"Lisbon says he's doing okay but we need to find out what kind of snake it was that bit him," replied Cho. He turned back towards the animal control guys. "Hey, could you bring me the crate that the snake came in."

One of the men from animal control checked the box carefully and brought it over to Cho. It was a wooden crate with a plastic liner. There was an address printed on a label on the top of the crate that was for one of the pet stores that the victim owned. Other than the remains of some bedding for the snake, there was nothing else in the crate.

Cho frowned. "There should be a packing slip in here. Van Pelt, stay here and let Lisbon know as soon as they get the snake. Me and Rigsby will go to the pet store and see if we can find any paperwork there."

"Okay, shouldn't take us long to get there. We need to start talking to the pet store employees anyway," said Rigsby, taking out his keys and heading for their SUV.

Van Pelt nodded, and exchanged positions with Cho. "I'll let you know once the crime scene is clear."

Cho followed Rigsby, wondering how much more complicated this case could become. "I really hate snakes."

The store was the largest in the chain, called "Paws, Claws and Scales", and was currently staffed by Addison's shop manager, Jonathan Barnes, and two younger staff members Kumiko Hatayama and Dan Gorski. Cho and Rigsby flashed their badges and were allowed into the back office. The office was actually a large room but it was incredibly cramped. It was half full of boxes of pet food, bales of animal bedding, animals that weren't ready to be moved into the main shop and filing cabinets. The rest of the office was taken up with a large desk, upon which sat a rather dated computer, a table with a coffee machine and a battered sofa that Jane probably would have wanted to try out immediately.

Rigsby began to search the desk for anything which might relate to the snake, it was piled with papers and there didn't seem to be much order to the clutter.

Cho turned back to Barnes. "Your boss had a snake delivered here for his personal collection yesterday. Do you know anything about that?"

Barnes frowned. "We had a batch of new snakes delivered to the store yesterday, but I didn't think Marcus had any for his personal collection in with them. He only goes for the interesting ones, and usually venomous species. We don't sell the venomous snakes in the store, except by special request, and there's a hell of a lot of paperwork involved. We're a licensed snake importer, but even so, you're talking applying for permits and government forms as long as your arm."

Kumiko came into the room and headed for the coffee pot, mug in hand. Everyone turned to look at her. She was a small Asian woman, probably about nineteen or twenty, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with the store logo on it. She looked around as if she hadn't realised that she might be walking into the middle of something, "what?"

Barnes frowned. "This is a private conversation, Kumiko."

Kumiko put the cup down beside the coffee machine. "Marcus is dead. Don't you think you should be telling the employees what's going on? Are we closing up shop or what?"

Barnes sighed and folded his arms across his chest. "As soon as I know what's happening, I'll get everyone together and let them know. They just found him this morning, and we don't even know when the funeral is yet."

Kumiko rolled her eyes, shook her head and left the room.

"Difficult employee?" asked Rigsby.

"She liked Marcus, but not me. The two of them had a love of reptiles, and he was training her up on their care. Marcus mentioned once that she had a troubled childhood, I've never asked for the details. She's always been reliable and good with the customers and animals, so I can't complain too much."

Cho glanced in Kumiko's direction, but turned back to Barnes. "Where's the paperwork for the snake shipment?"

"Erm, it'll be in the filing cabinet," said Barnes. "I'll get it for you." Barnes moved over to the filing cabinet and shuffled through the top draw of papers. "Hmm. Maybe it was misfiled. It's not where it's supposed to be. We enter everything on the computer too."

Barnes moved over to the computer and logged on. "That's strange. It doesn't look like we logged in the snakes that were delivered yesterday."

"Who's job would it have been to do that?" asked Cho.

Barnes frowned again. "Kumiko, usually." He shrugged. "She's normally pretty good with the paperwork. I've never had to ask her twice to do it."

"I'll get her," said Rigsby. The tall agent stepped out into the main store, and was just in time to see Kumiko run out of the door. With an annoyed shout back to Cho, he gave chase. He ran headlong out of the store and onto the street, just in time to see Kumiko at the wheel of a beaten up blue sedan car driving away. He kicked at the dirt and pulled out his notebook to write down the licence plate number before he could forget it. Cho joined him, a few seconds behind him in his dash to the door, as Rigsby was calling in the number plate and description of Kumiko to the local police.

"Barnes should have an address for her, but I doubt she'd be stupid enough to go back there now. I'm not looking forward to telling Lisbon about this," said Rigsby as he put his phone away.

"Me either. We're going to need to track her down fast."

Rigsby nodded. "Do you think she shot Addison? Or did she just run because there was something illegal about those snakes?"

"Who knows?" said Cho. "Until we've got somewhere to start looking for her, she's in the wind."


Jane felt weird. Every time he opened his eyes it felt like he was looking down a long tunnel, after a while the effect became unsettling and made him feel dizzy. However that paled into insignificance compared to the feeling that a pile of bricks seemed to be weighing down his chest and legs. It had eased slightly once whatever was in his IV had started to work, but that had just made him realise that he was also now feeling somewhat nauseous and his leg ached fiercely even with the large amount of pain medication that was probably being pumped into him.

He was lying between crisp white sheets that had a hospital issue pale blue blanket thrown over the top of them, and he was pleasantly warm. The head of the bed was slightly elevated, and he was propped up on a couple of pillows. At some point in the last hour or so, a couple of nurses had wrestled a gown onto his semi-naked body with the practiced ease of professionals who did it several times a day, every day. For some reason the procedure had both amused and fascinated him, which he knew meant that his brain was misfiring in some interesting ways. He supposed that was what being bitten by a snake would do to one.

The soft beeping of the machines that monitored his vitals was sounding more rhythmic than it had any right to be, and seemed to be falling into time with the whooshing sound from the oxygen supply in a kind of musical duet. He noted it as another symptom of the snake bite playing with his mind, or perhaps the painkillers; at this point it was hard to know which.

He absent-mindedly scratched at an itch on his arm and prised open his eyes again. He carefully turned his head to see Lisbon, tapping at her phone.

"You… don't have to stay," he croaked, his voice sounding strange and weak even to his own ears. He attempted a smile, hoping to show her it wasn't as bad as it seemed, but the oxygen mask rather spoilt that.

She seemed a little surprised to see him awake again, as she rested her phone on her lap. "Cho is handling things and they don't need me there right now. I'll stay a bit longer."

Jane was quite capable of knowing when he was being placated with a half-truth, but didn't call Lisbon on it. If she wanted to say "I'll stay a bit longer" but mean "I'm not leaving" then he wasn't going to complain. He actually liked having her here and although he hated to admit it, he wasn't quite so freaked out about the hospital stay as he had been on previous occasions. Maybe it was because she was here, waiting with him to see how things unfolded, that his instinct to flee as soon as possible was somewhat lessened. Not that he could have left even if he wanted to, right now keeping his eyes open was enough of a struggle. Even with Lisbon to keep him company, he still felt vulnerable, just lying here. He preferred to be the one in control of any situation and being held captive in this bed by his own malfunctioning body, while others held his fate in their hands was not the way he usually did things.

He kept his eyes on Lisbon for the moment, putting all his strength into holding something close to a normal conversation.

"Did they… find the snake?"

"Not yet, but how far can a snake get? They'll probably find it dead up a corner after biting you." Lisbon's eyes had a very tiny bit of amusement in them, which actually made Jane quite pleased, despite the situation. He'd rather the two of them resumed their usual banter than sit here in gloomy silence.

"Lisbon, insulting the sick… I'm surprised at you." He gave her his best aggrieved look, which he knew she would see through. He scratched at another itch on his other arm, as he waited for her reply.

"Cho said to "get well soon"," said Lisbon.

Jane raised his eyebrows. "Must be bad then. I wonder if they've… discovered that the snake was… imported illegally yet."

"Why do you say that?" asked Lisbon.

"Addison's house was neat… he wouldn't throw out paperwork accidentally. It wasn't there… because he didn't have it," replied Jane, scratching at his collarbone. "Didn't expect… to have cops tramping through his house."

"Jane, why are you scratching?" asked Lisbon.

He hadn't even realised that he still was. He looked down at his arm to see that it was covered in red scratches made by his nails and underneath that was a growing, slightly raised, red rash. He realised that it wasn't just his arm that was itching either, now that he was concentrating on it, he was beginning to realise that his whole body was itching. He frowned and looked back at Lisbon, who had risen from her chair and come to the side of the bed.

"I think… this is the allergic reaction… kicking in," he said, tiredly. He watched a rather worried Lisbon hit the call button, as he tried to ignore the itching without much success.

He sighed and let his eyes fall shut again for a moment. He'd always quite liked snakes, knowing that they weren't the cold creatures that they were often portrayed as. All the snakes he'd even handled had been harmless and warm to the touch, with a feel to their skin like fine, soft leather. He desperately needed to remember what this snake had looked like, but there was a dense fog in his mind and it was making it hard to even find his way around the normally familiar structure of his memory. Even when he got to the right room, the door was resolutely shut to him and the memory would fade, leaving him back at square one. The most he'd been able to retrieve was that the snake had been brown and that wasn't enough. He needed to be able to describe the detailed pattern, and before he became too ill to do it.

His thoughts were disturbed by the return of Doctor Talavera, summoned by the call button.

Doctor Talavera was an interesting conundrum he decided, unable to stop himself from considering his doctor. She'd confirmed that he'd been right about her military background, which was interesting in itself. It took a special kind of person to sign up for an organisation whose main purpose was to kill, but be there to save lives. Sort of like someone who was lactose intolerant working in an ice-cream parlour. He expected that there probably were lactose intolerant people working in ice-cream parlours, but surely they missed out on most of the fun employee benefits. Or maybe it was more like a former conman working for the CBI, trying to make something bad into something good. He dismissed that errant and rather uncharacteristic thought quickly.

But her military background wasn't the only thing that made her interesting, after all there were a lot of doctors in the military. No, it was the fact that she cared more than she should. She was definitely taking a special interest in his case, and he wondered why. Normally a nurse would have answered the call button, and a doctor would have been called if needed. However, putting all that to one side, she was extremely competent, for which Jane was exceedingly glad, and he'd come across a few quacks in his time.

"Hi there, Mr Jane. What's the problem?" asked Talavera.

Jane prised open his eyes again and raised an arm, or at least tried to. His muscles were aching and weakness was spreading across his entire body. "This."

Talavera stepped up to the bed and began to examine the rash that was now obvious on both arms and the top of his chest.

"You're having an allergic reaction to the antivenin, as we expected, but the antihistamines aren't keeping it at bay. We'll have to move on to corticosteroids." She looked up at Jane, clearly noting how much moving his arm had hurt. "Aching joints are another symptom. How's the pain? On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst pain you could imagine."

Jane gave a shrug. Things hurt but he could bear it, and he didn't need to be any more mentally impaired than he already was. More painkillers would just make him loopier. "Four."

She frowned just a touch as she replied, as if she didn't really believe him but wasn't sure why he'd lie. A slight shrug suggested she would listen to her patient. "Okay, you should be fine with what you're on, but if it gets worse then shout. Or press the call button."

Jane nodded. "Oh, I'll definitely do that."

A nurse, one of the ones who'd dressed him in the gown earlier, came in with a slim brown file. She had light brown hair and darker brown eyes. Jane had already pegged her as a mother of several children, probably at least one of them was a girl because of the remains of badly applied bright pink nail varnish on her fingers. She wouldn't have done that herself, so it was likely that it was one of her kids. Most boys didn't think it was fun to paint their mother's nails in his experience. She didn't have a lot of money to spare from the evidence of careful repair work on her clothes, but her neat mode of dress indicated that she was smart enough to balance the family budget and they weren't on the breadline. She wore a wedding ring on a chain around her neck, next to a small cross on the same chain, so he was fairly certain that she was a widowed single parent. She seemed nice and he felt sorry for her, but he doubted that she'd want to know that. Besides, he'd caught a whiff of cologne on her uniform earlier and he'd bet money that she had a new man in her life.

"Doctor, I have Mr Jane's test results," said the nurse.

Talavera took the file and flipped it open, scanning down the lines of data. She wasn't holding it at the right angle for Jane to be able to see what was written inside, although he was trying despite the oxygen mask getting in his way. The tunnel vision effect wasn't helping either. He gave up, closed his eyes for a moment and drifted for a few minutes, somewhat involuntarily.

"Hmmm," said Talavera and Jane knew immediately that it wasn't a good "hmmm", which brought him back to the room rather abruptly.

He pulled the oxygen mask down and opened his eyes again. He'd read enough about snake bites in his time to have a reasonable idea of what she might have seen in his blood test results. "You're going to tell me… my kidneys are failing."

She frowned again. "I thought I was the one with the medical degree, but actually you're only half right. You have elevated CK enzyme levels in your blood, and that's a precursor to kidney failure. It indicates that your muscles have been damaged by the venom. The antivenin should be slowing the progress of the damage, but we really still need the right antivenin. The chances are that it was an exotic variety and we don't carry it here, which means calling Venom One in Miami to get it flown in." She looked at Lisbon again. "I need the name of that snake and soon."

"Yes, Ma'am," said Lisbon. She flicked her phone open again.

"Don't bother…Lisbon," said Jane. "They'll call… the moment they have it. You're just… going to distract them."

Jane was feeling weird again, or more weird than before anyway. The room had taken on just a slight tilt and spin to it. It was making him feel decidedly sick. He retreated back into the darkness behind closed eyelids. He vaguely heard his heart monitor begin to beep more erratically, but he was already slipping into confusion and the lower levels of consciousness by that point. He still wasn't completely out of it because he could hear Lisbon calling his name. He really wanted to reply but the growing weight on his chest was just too much, and all he could do was let things happen around him whilst he drifted in a bizarre twilight reality, where everything that was happening, was happening to someone else. Finally, even that sensation ceased and he passed into a deeper state of complete unconsciousness.