CORA'S ROOM

House turned and headed toward the attic.

"Where are you going?" Cuddy pulled him the other way.

"I'm going to rescue my friend." House said indignantly.

"You heard her House. Cora will here us coming. We have to be smart about this." Cuddy dug her heels in and started dragging House toward the staircase. "You're going to get us all killed."

"You believe what that woman said?"

"You don't?" Cuddy hadn't thought of that option.

The trouble was, House did believe her. Wilson was above them, suffering god knows what nightmare, and there was not a single thing House could do about it. Instead of charging up to the attic to rescue his friend, he was headed downstairs for a scavenger hunt.

"Come on." Cuddy pulled him onto the staircase, and didn't ease her grip until she felt him start willingly down the stairs.

"What do you think we're going to find Cuddy? Step by step instructions on how to stop voodoo Cora's evil plot, that she's been executing with expert precision for at least fifty years?"

"Exactly." Cuddy's response was dripping with so much sarcasm House nearly slipped on a stair.

Cora's door was locked, which wasn't a surprise, but House was surprised by Cuddy's quick and expert work. "You remember how to do that?"

"Yes." She turned and smiled a playful smile at him. "I don't know why you bother locking your office door." She dropped the nut pick into her pocket, grateful she hadn't lost it, and opened the door.

The room smelled heavily of flowers and incense, and was tinged with red. House pulled a thin red scarf off the lamp and the room snapped into sharp, stark focus. "Nice place."

"It smells like something died in here," Cuddy found it hard to will herself to breath. The air was stale and thick.

"Something probably did." House stepped into the room further. "We should hurry." He was thinking of them as well as Wilson. The smell in the room was overpowering, and if they lingered too long, well, he didn't want to.

They both began to tear through drawers and shelves and under the bed and in the closet. "What I don't get is, why are they both still young?" House was flipping through the pages of a photo album. Though their hairstyles and clothing had changed, Cora and Renata looked exactly the same in every picture, and some were clearly not of this decade.

"I don't know House." Cuddy was checking the now empty dresser for hidden compartments.

"They're not vampires, or there wouldn't be photographs." House pulled out a picture of a beautiful young blonde. He flipped it over and read the name scrawled on the back. "Betty Monroe. Cuddy, come look at this."

Cuddy waded through the mess they'd made in the short time they'd been in the room and took the photo from House.

"It's Betty Monroe." House informed her.

"Are you sure?"

"That's what it says on the back."

"But this outfit...this picture couldn't have been taken more than a few years ago."

"Exactly!" House wasn't sure what it pointed to, exactly, but he had a bad feeling about it.

"But she just died of old age." Cuddy handed back the photo, which House then shoved in his pocket.

"I know." He replied.

"So whatever Cora is doing to her victims, it is prematurely aging them?" Cuddy was starting to see where he was headed.

"And keeping her and Renata young." House mused. "Unless..."

"It's too different processes." Cuddy felt it all coming together. "She's doing her little trick with the books..."

"AND she's stealing their youth while she's at it." House finished the thought. "She's good."

"House! She's EVIL."

"Yeah, but she's good at it." House shrugged, then frowned. They still hadn't found it, whatever it was.

"There has to be something here!" Cuddy flipped through the pages of another book.

"Why? Just because you want there to be?" House snapped, losing his patience.

"Yes! Because if we don't find something, Wilson's going to die of old age before he collects social security."

A sly smile crossed House's face as he held a dusty old book in her direction. Just because he's House, he blew the dust in her direction.

She began to cough and speak. "What the...what is it?"

"I do believe it's the answer to you were looking for."