Chapter 11

"Kutner!" House greeted him loudly as the young Indian doctor walked in and sat down, a neon green cast around his forearm. "You missed your shining moment with the crash cart this morning."

Kutner looked confused. "My shining moment?"

"Actually, I suppose we should be glad that you weren't here," House corrected himself. "You set one patient on fire, then electrocute yourself on another… Who knows what could have happened this time? You might have cost Cuddy her Oncology Department head, and then I'd have to fire you for giving her something to yell at me about."

"Wilson's heart stopped?" Kutner realized, ignoring House's remarks.

His boss nodded, taking a large gulp of coffee from the mug in his hand. "At seven-thirty this morning, right after another seizure. He's lucky Foreman came in early."

Hooking his cane over the whiteboard, House erased all the symptoms, his arms moving tensely with a definite anger. "Start over," he said, his voice strained. "What do we already know about this disease?"

"It moves fast," Thirteen said. "Possibly delayed symptoms. AIDS doesn't present for ten to fifteen years, maybe this is something he got a long time ago."

"The symptoms are mainly affecting the brain," Taub added. "The nausea could be a result of the extreme agitation and stress. His heart could have stopped because his brain simply stopped sending signals to it. It's dying."

"There's also been no cases of it that I could find that have presented in the United States, so it must have come from somewhere else," Foreman mused.

"He hasn't traveled out of the country since he was twenty, and that was to Canada," House said.

"But Amber has," the neurologist replied. "Whatever he's got, it must be extremely hard to catch. She didn't present with symptoms even though she was carrying it."

House nodded. "You hear hoof beats, you think horses instead of zebras," he quoted. "But this isn't a zebra and it doesn't make noise. It's a poisonous snake in the grass." Scratching his chin for a few moments in thought, he ordered, "Research all possible causes originating from Central and South America. Bring me any and all ideas you come up with, even the dumb ones."

House was frustrated. Actually, 'frustrated' was a vast understatement. His mind normally ran like clockwork, perfectly fitting the pieces into the puzzle as they came, but this was different. He wasn't used to having to diagnose someone he knew personally – well, he'd diagnosed Foreman a couple years ago, but he didn't really give a crap about him. Just the puzzle. Now, the two sides were conflicting, and it was sending his rationality to Hell in a hand basket.

His thoughts bouncing back and forth in his skull like his oversized tennis ball, he limped into Wilson's room, sending the attending nurse out as soon as she finished changing his banana bag.

Honestly, this was the last place House wanted to be. What he really wanted was to head up to the roof and think it out, but the roof wouldn't give him any ideas. It was just a place to get some alone time when he couldn't organize his personal thoughts, and since this was a massive rat's nest of personal and professional, he figured that this was the place that might give him some inspiration. After all, no inspiration on this particular case meant that Wilson was going to die, so it seemed only logical. Sitting in the chair next to the bed, House rested his hands on his cane and studied his unconscious friend.

If Wilson had looked awful before he was bedridden, it was nothing compared to what he looked like now. Even in chemically-induced sleep, he looked absolutely exhausted. The shadows beneath his eyes had deepened, and even his eyelids were beginning to look grey. His hair was starting to look greasy, too, and House made a mental note to send for the nurses to get him into a bath later that day. Noticing that Wilson's lips were cracked with fever and dehydration, House reached for the IV drip to up the fluids being put into his system.

However, he stopped when he saw the beads of cold sweat on Wilson's forehead. Frowning, House looked at the monitor. The fever was still hovering above one hundred, but not enough for an ice bath. Bending over, House pulled back the blankets and then the hospital robe to get a better look at Wilson's chest. He was covered in droplets of sweat – his arms, his legs, his stomach, even his neck. He double-checked the chart to see the amount of fluids being deposited into his body to counteract the dehydration, and saw that the level was far above the norm. And yet, Wilson wasn't responding to it.

He's sweating it all out, House realized. Damn it, he knew this! It was at the front of his brain, on the tip of his tongue, and yet he couldn't quite grasp it. God damn, that was aggravating.

Snatching a pair of rubber gloves from the dispenser on the wall, he proceeded to poke and prod Wilson's limbs, searching for anything that would give the final clue. When his arms and legs and abdomen proved clean, House went for his neck. While feeling beneath Wilson's chin, House frowned, remembering something that may have been mentioned during his years in med school, or he might have seen it on television a long time ago. Gently, he opened Wilson's mouth, using his penlight to peer in. With his gloved fingers, House lifted the oncologist's upper lip to get a better look at his teeth.

His teeth were slightly yellowed from a few days without brushing, but they looked…off. They appeared to be in good shape, but…they were long.

"Oh, crap," House breathed.

House stood staring at the whiteboard and twirling his cane as his four minions tumbled into the outer office.

"You paged us?" Taub asked.

"Forget your research," House said, turning around and thumping his cane a couple times on the carpeted floor. "We have a diagnosis."

House moved aside so that they could read the two words he'd scrawled on the board in large, bold letters. Thirteen's eyebrows shot up. "Vampirism?" she read aloud, almost laughing at how ridiculous it sounded. "You can't be serious."

The other three looked equally dumbfounded. "Did anybody call Transylvania?" Taub asked. "Maybe they're missing one."

"Peruvian vampirism," House corrected, "is not, in fact, the result of venom from a creature of the night, but like many other diseases, is caused by little tiny things called viruses. I'm sure you've all heard of this phenomenon, being doctors and all."

"I've never heard of any actual illnesses that go by 'vampirism' before, House. Peruvian or otherwise," Foreman stated doubtfully.

"Well, lucky for Wilson, I happened to watch a late-night Discovery Channel program a few years ago that mentioned it. Amazing what TV can do for you, isn't it?" House went to pour himself a cup of coffee as the team members sat around the table, listening intently as he explained. "There have been only three other cases of this in the United States, because it's rarely transferred to humans and even more rarely to tourists. Amber went to Peru on a rainforest safari; she went on long overnight hikes and, at some point during her trip, was bitten by a bat."

House leaned against the board as he spoke. "The Incas used to attribute this disease to demons infecting the body and, instead of treating them, sacrificed the victims to the gods. Then, when the Conquistadores invaded, they blamed it on the undead, hence the overdramatic name." He began to pace back and forth restlessly.

"The main symptom that convinced the Spaniards of vampirism was the receding of the gums as a result of malnutrition, creating the illusion of growing teeth. Also, the virus often creates small sores in the sinuses where it eats away at the tissue, causing the veins to open up and bleed through the eyes and nose, which in turn builds up pressure behind the eyeballs and makes the victim über-sensitive to light. Coincidentally, legend has it that vampires can't go out in sunlight. The sweating and delirium are both direct results of the high fever." House punctuated his medical monologue with a sip from his mug; a deliberate dramatic pause.

"And, to make things worse," he continued, "the virus attacks specific brain tissues, causing a short-circuit that usually makes the afflicted behave highly aggressive and gradually lose their memory, in addition to making their motor skills and vitals go haywire."

"That's why his heart stopped?" Kutner said dubiously.

House nodded. "And why he had the seizures. It's also known as the South American bat lyssavirus. Evolutionary cousin to rabies, ladies and gentlemen. Except, compared to rabies, it's the cousin nobody wants to invite to Thanksgiving dinner."

Thirteen quirked an eyebrow.

"It's perfect," House emphasized. "It fits."

"What about the vomiting and nausea?"

"We were right the first time," House said. "Extreme levels of stress and nothing more."

"So what's the treatment?" Kutner asked.

"A lab in Brazil was able to develop a variation of the rabies shot that counters it during the '80s. Make some calls, have some shipped up here overnight, don't take no for an answer," House took a big gulp of his coffee and headed towards his office, tossing one last remark over his shoulder.

"Better get him a coffin. If we don't have it by morning, he might disintegrate."

A/N: Okay, so before you go eviscerating me for my extreme medical inaccuaries, please remember that this disease is, in light terms complete bullshit. I made it up, with some minor research on the rabies virus and Peruvian fauna. That being said, eviscerate away :)