Chapter 7 - Dr. Smith

Bo returned home just after lunch time. She dragged herself into the living room, dropped a box of double chocolate cookies on the coffee table, and then plopped onto the couch.

"Dude you look like you've been hit by a truck and then dragged two miles," Kenzi commented, concerned. Though, her attention was immediately drawn to the bittersweet aroma of the cookies. "Are those double chocolate cookies?"

"Yes," Bo muttered. She was too exhausted to stay focused but at the same time so over-stimulated that she could not rest.

Kenzi cooed her and stroked her hair a few times, before she picked up the cookie box. "Oh my fucking Mother of Russia are these from Mr. Sugar Crumbles? The Mr. Sugar Crumbles?"

"Mhm..." Bo nodded weakly. After a crazy day (and night) of blood, death, pain and information overload, she was so relieved and happy to be here and see Kenzi obsessing over a box of cookies.

"I've wanted to try these for like ages but every time I got there they were sold out! How did you even manage to grab a box of these?"

She paused suddenly as she eyed Bo. "You didn't-did you have to fight an army of cookie monsters in order to grab a box of these or something? Is that why you look like crap right now?"

Bo laughed. "No, I was there early enough to snag a box…I didn't have to fight cookie monsters but I did fight an 8 feet scorpion."

Kenzi gasped with her eyes shot wide open. "An 8 feet scorpion?! Seriously?"

Bo took a deep breath, and started to describe the battle. She then told Kenzi about Valhalla and the fact that she wasn't entirely human.

Kenzi was too shocked to respond. After a long pause she gently placed the cookie box down and put the back of her right hand on Bo's forehead. "Okay…so you are not having a fever and you are not insane…."

Bo shook her head.

"And all the things you just said were real, like…legit real, like the actual truth?"

Bo nodded.

Kenzi's lips slowly pulled up and eventually bloomed into a huge grin. "Oh my fucking God, Bobo!" She gave Bo a heavy slap on her shoulder. "You are like a freaking superhero? My bff is a superhero?!"

"No, Kenz, it's more like I'm just able to see creatures that other people can't. And even that isn't going to last. Apparently I'll soon stop seeing them and just…be normal."

"Whateves, still absofuckinglutely cool!" Kenzi exclaimed and grabbed a cookie from the box. While eating it, she pinched herself on the cheek and let out a painful cry.

"What are you doing?" Bo frowned.

"Nothing...just checking..." Kenzi muttered with a chuckle. "So…since you are like an…an…."

"An Einheri."

"Right, that, are you going to…join the clan or something?"

"Join Valhalla?" Bo frowned a little.

"Yeah, that."

"Nah…" Bo shook her head. She pulled Kenzi over to kiss her on her temple. "I already have a home and a life, don't I?"

"Of course you do, Bo!" Kenzi nodded hard.

While eating her second cookie, she noticed the welcome package that Bo had brought home. Out of curiosity, she opened the bag and checked each and every item inside: a small tumbler, a pocket knife, a kitchen magnet, a notebook with a pen, and a hoodie, all of which had Valhalla's three triangle logo on. The package also contained a booklet.

Kenzi fidgeted with the pocket knife for a few seconds. Then, she forced Bo to try on the hoodie despite Bo's protest.

As Bo struggled to take the hoodie off, Kenzi started to read the booklet. After the first page, she gasped loudly and stared at Bo. "Gal you have another brain?!"

"I don't think it's really another brain," Bo tried to remember all the things she had heard during the lecture. "It's more like an extra brain part that has…glands and stuff. They produce pheromones and what not."

"Cool..." Kenzi murmured, nodding along. She seemed to be fascinated by the spirit companion part, and asked Bo a lot of questions, but as she learned that Bo wasn't able to summon one, she let out a sigh and pulled Bo into her embrace to console her.

"It says here you can bond with a Valkyrie. Is this Valkyrie the same Valkyrie as the one in…you know, Thor?"

Bo almost immediately rolled her eyes as Tamsin's face popped into her mind. She was baffled slightly that she seemed to resent the Valkyrie yet somehow be drawn to her at the same time. Also…why would she always feel that she knew her every time they met?

"So they-these Valkyries, what are they like?"

"Well, I've only met one actually, and she's kind of….annoying," Bo said hesitantly. And hot. She added absentmindedly.

"It says here that you can bond with a Valkyrie and the bond is the most sacred," Kenzi read.

"Bond? Like a friendship or something?" Bo frowned hard. She didn't remember hearing anything regarding a bond at the lecture session but thought that it could have been discussed while she was dozing off.

"No, it's more like…chemical and physical and-your body has this…Pro…xa…whatever thingy that…that…needs to be regularized sometimes and only something something from a Valkyrie could do that."

"Well…she did say that Valkyries were supposed to guide Einherjar."

"What do you mean by guide?"

Bo shrugged. "Something like…an Einheri is prone to over focus, which is very dangerous, and a Valkyrie could help her get out of it. Anyway, I honestly don't know if anything she told me was true. I mean, she also said that we were supposed to save the world from Ragnarök."

"Dude, the whole thing sounds like a low budget sci-fi movie," Kenzi shook her head and tossed the booklet to the corner of the couch. "If you ain't joining them, you don't need to know any of this, right?"

"Right?!" Bo nodded. She sighed and asked, "how is it that I feel hungry and thirsty and tired but I don't feel like moving at all…."

"Dude, you've just described me like 95% of the time..."

Several days had passed since Bo visited Valhalla. She had not encountered any new monstrous creatures, nor had she had contact with anyone from Valhalla. She sometimes wondered if any of it had actually happened.

Her life went on. She was ready to put everything Einheri related behind, if her episodes would just stop coming back. She also couldn't shake off the dreadful feeling that something bigger and more evil would eventually pounce at her when she was least expecting.

She spent her free time looking for Dr. Olivia Smith. Even though she no longer needed answers from the doctor, she was simply concerned for her wellbeing.

Bo did visit the clinic, but it had been closed "until further notice". Dr. Smith's apartment was empty, and judging by how full her mailbox was, she probably had not been home for weeks.

Bo pulled some strings trying to track her down, but to no avail - Dr. Smith's cell phone had gone offline several days before Laura Davis' death. Her social media had not been updated for months, and even those old updates were strictly about promoting her clinic business. Her credit cards had not been used for weeks, and her bank accounts had not had any activities besides bill auto-pay.

Bo thought she'd dig deeper, but found that Dr. Smith only drove a car that was too old to have built-in GPS systems to track. She also did not own any smart devices.

Dr. Smith did have a few friends, but none of them knew her well enough to know where she might be right now.

The woman was a complete mystery, and now she was just…gone.

Bo had to enlist a few helping hands. One of them, another PI whom she had helped before, reached out and introduced her to a rogue big data specialist who claimed that they could find anyone.

Days later, this person found a clue: for the past two decades or so, Dr. Smith's clinic had been paying a cleaning company for regular cleaning services. However, this cleaning company, despite having every possible legal document and registrations, did not not have a single employee on its payroll besides the registered owner.

Bo looked into the cleaning company and discovered that it regularly deposited checks from Dr. Smith's clinic into its bank account, and then used the money to pay for the property tax of a small house in a nearby rural area. The owner of the house was the same person who owned the cleaning company, who according to an obituary she had found, had died many years ago.

Bo grabbed a few things and left Kenzi a note, before she headed to the small house.

It took her two hours and many wrong turns to eventually get there, for not only the house was buried in woods behind farmlands but it also had an access road that was covered by overgrown vegetation.

Bo did notice tire tracks over the grass. They looked new, and that finding gave her encouragement.

The house, a wood cabin with an old fashioned brick chimney, was maybe 800 square feet, if not less. It had a covered carport. Inside parked Dr. Smith's tan Crown Victoria.

Bo scanned the surroundings, before she approached the door. She knocked a few times but no one answered.

Letting out a deep breath, she decided to pick the lock and go inside.

No one was inside, but the house looked like it had been ravished by a storm. She saw fallen furniture, broken windows, ripped rugs and what seemed to be the most bizarre - claw marks on almost everything.

Bo examined those marks carefully. It appeared that there were two distinct sets. The first set was larger and deeper, and consisted of four marks. The second was smaller and shallower, with three marks only.

After looking through the living room and the kitchen, she entered the only bedroom the cabin had. Against the near right corner, there was a young woman lying there. Her eyes were wide open and so was her mouth. She looked very dead.

Bo went to examine the body, noticing claw marks on her exposed arms and face. She also noticed that those claw marks seemed to be consistent with the second set of marks that she had found in the living room.

She flipped the dead woman and checked her back. There, she found a chunk of hair missing on the back of her head. It was as if someone had torn it off with great force, leaving behind a bloodied bald patch.

The dead woman did not carry an ID with her. She did have a non-smart phone and it was smashed.

After having stared at the dead body for a second or two, something suddenly occurred to Bo. She rolled the dead woman's shirt up to expose her right shoulder blade.

Just as she suspected, there was a tattoo. It looked like a cat but instead of a single tail, it had three. Tattooed with the cat was the name "Bakeneko".

So, another agent from that whatever organization… Bo thought with a big frown. How did she die? Who killed her?

She looked around as she pondered the most important question: where was Dr. Smith?

She had searched every room in this cabin, but the doctor was nowhere to be found. Did something happen (for example, being attacked by an evil agent) so she had to leave? Why didn't she take her car? Maybe…Bakeneko wasn't the only person who came for the doctor? Maybe she was taken by someone else? Now, to whom did that second set of claw marks belong, and where did that person (or creature) go?

Bo paused when a set of long scratch marks caught her attention. That set of four marks was about four feet above the floor and went all the way from the corner of the wall to the recessed bookcase in the middle of the wall. They stopped abruptly there, right at the edge of the bookcase, and did not scratch on the bookcase at all.

Bo traced her fingers along the marks with a frown. She stopped as her fingers reached the bookcase edge - she felt a weak airflow coming from behind the recess.

With her heart pounding nervously, she pushed and pulled, fumbling with every item on the bookcase. Eventually, the bookcase opened like a door, revealing a secret study behind it.

Inside, there were a few bookshelves, an office desk and some chairs. In the corner it was a small, wood burning fireplace, and in front of it sat a tall woman who was facing away from Bo and leaning against the rustic fireplace mantel. She had a set of deep, bloodied claw marks on her back.

Right beside her, on the floor, there was a key ring with a few keys and a black leather key tag. The key tag had an embossed hawk silhouette.

Bo swallowed hard. Cold sweat covered her palms instantly.

She recognized that key tag. She had seen it multiple times before.

It belonged to Dr. Smith.

She fought the urge of running away and walked to the woman. One glance at the woman's face, her heart sank.

It was Dr. Smith. She had suffered severe blows on her chest as well as her lower abdomen.

Bo still decided to check her pulse. She did so very gently, as she didn't want to disturb her.

Tears welled up in her eyes when she felt how cold the other woman's skin had already become. She started to sob, gagging in her own tears.

It was sad to see Heidi Vaughn's body, since she only knew her through a stack of patient files. It was sadder to see Laura Davis dead, because she had talked to her personally. Dr. Smith's death, however, was devastating to Bo to say the least. Not only did Bo know this woman, she also considered her a friend.

Bo's trance came as her eyes were blurred by tears. Vaguely, she remembered the first time she had met Dr. Smith.

That was when she had intense episodes and thought she was either going insane or having a brain tumor. She had sought help from other doctors and even the school nurses but none of them could help her. When she had been most scared, Dr. Smith's clinic reached out to her and set up an appointment.

There, she met Dr. Olivia Smith, a tall woman with broad shoulders, a sharp confidence and a comforting smile.

The doctor immediately shook her hand then, and introduced herself. "Hi, I'm Olivia, Olivia…Smith."

Bo still remembered how warm her hand was. She still remembered the genuine kindness in her hazel eyes. She still remembered when she introduced herself, that brief pause between her first and last name when she had said it.

Bo still remembered when Dr. Smith had assured her that her episodes were harmless, that she wasn't sick or crazy, and that she'd do everything she could to help her. At that time, her tone could only be described as "motherly".

And that was when Bo had stopped being afraid.

Bo snuffled as she held Dr. Smith's cold hands. How could this have happened? She asked herself. How could she die? Why didn't I find her sooner? Maybe if I had she would have still been alive.

Wiping her tears off on her sleeve, she stood up and examined the room. She wondered if the dead agent had come here looking for information, just like Antares had done at the clinic, but she didn't find anything that was worth looking into.

Then, she thought: could that agent be after Dr. Smith all along? The two sets of marks, those wounds and the fact that both of them were dead….Maybe she came here to kill Dr. Smith and…they fought? The doctor managed to kill Bakeneko and then locked herself in the secret room, but she was gravely wounded as well….

Was Dr. Smith…and Einheri too?

Bo pondered that question. Dr. Smith, an Einheri. Hard to believe but it seemed to be the only reasonable explanation here. It could also explain why she was so certain that Bo's episodes were harmless and that everything would be alright….

Bo sat there for a while, and decided to give Kenzi a call. Thanks to the only bar of signal that she had, she was able to get to Kenzi and asked for the general contact information on Valhalla's booklet.

While on her phone, she was facing away from the fireplace, and was completely unaware that a big, brown viper with pale gray diamond pattern slid down from the chimney in stealth.

At Valhalla headquarters, Tamsin was called to a meeting while she was going through her daily training sessions.

When she arrived at the conference room, she was surprised to see Acacia there with the chief medical officer Alex, the chief scientist Rowan and her psychiatrist Finola in the room.

"Okay, what did I fuck up this time?" Tamsin let out a sigh.

"Sit," Acacia commanded simply as she eyed the empty chair between her and Finola.

Tamsin complied.

Alex, who sat across the table, gave Tamsin a smile as she put down her coffee mug. She clasped her hands and placed them on the table as she scanned everyone in the room. "Sooo…shall we start?"

Acacia gave her a nod.

"Rowan and I were looking at the test results of subject 3974 earlier, and those results were…interesting, to say the least."

She then turned to Rowan and the two of them exchanged a look. Rowan then logged into the conference room computer and started a slideshow, where the first slide had a table of blood work results. "The subject has an unusually high level of Proxatyl and-"

"Hold on…" Tamsin interrupted her. "You guys brought me in here because someone has a high level of Einheri pheromone?"

"We brought you in here because it was you who brought subject 3974 in, Tamsin," Acacia replied.

Tamsin frowned hard. "Who the hell is that?"

Alex flipped through the visitor log that she had obtained from the front desk. "I think the name written on the visitor log was Bo."

Tamsin scoffed. "She has a high level of Proxatyl? That's not possible. That chick is well into her late twenties and hasn't had her dawning yet."

She turned to the slide and threw her hand at it. "If she had that much Einheri pheromone in her system, trust me she'd have summoned her companion by now."

"Late stage dawning is very rare but not unseen," Acacia reminded her.

"Yeah, sure, but the reason that they have late stage dawning is that they have late Proxatyl peak," Tamsin argued.

Rowan proceeded to the next slide. "Upon further analysis, Alex and I discovered that the Einheri pheromone in her system isn't binding with the neuron receptors."

"Whaaat?" Tamsin furrowed her eyebrows.

"Well, as we all know," Alex chimed in, "Proxatyl has to bind with the AXT7 receptors to trigger the entire dawning process. If it does not bind with AXT7 properly, then-"

"Yeah, yeah, we all know how the damn pheromone works," Tamsin grunted. "Just tell me why hers isn't binding."

"She has a very high level of Novopiraxin in her system," Rowan explained. "It is three times more efficient than Proxatyl when it comes to binding with the AXT7 receptors. No binding, no dawning."

"Isn't Novopiraxin the stuff found only in prepubescent Einherjar?" Tamsin frowned hard. "Shouldn't her body have stopped producing it right around the time she hit puberty?"

"Right, usually, yes. Young Einherjar would have a high level of Novopiraxin in their system which is kind of a self preservation mechanism. The Novopiraxin binds with the AXT7 receptors so those receptors wouldn't bind with Proxatyl, thus preventing the young Einherjar from going through the dawning process which is very overwhelming both physically and mentally. When they hit puberty, though, the level of Novopiraxin would decrease, allowing Proxatyl to bind with AXT7 instead.

"Please don't tell me she's still going through puberty," Tamsin whined.

"No, her other hormone levels look normal. She's not going through puberty. However, this level of Novopiraxin post puberty is unheard of. She might have some sort of abnormality in her Einheri brain which…anyway, Rowan and I think it would be best if we could get her back here and order some more tests, if possible.

"I still don't get why I am here," Tamsin rolled her eyes. "If you want her back, give her a call."

"Well, she didn't leave any contact info. Since you brought her in, we thought maybe you'd know her number or something."

"Do I look like I get numbers from random mutes?"

Finola cleared her throat. "Tamsin, she was actually the first mute that you recruited."

"I did not recruit her!" Tamsin drawled. "I just brought her in because she just had so many questions that I didn't have time for."

"Okay, so she was the first mute that you brought in. Still, the first. Don't you find that interesting?"

Tamsin was about to say that there was nothing interesting about that at all, but the ringing phone on the table interrupted their argument.

Acacia put the incoming call on speaker. "We are having a meeting here," she announced.

"I'm so sorry Ma'am. Someone's on the phone and she demanded to speak to Tamsin. Wouldn't take no for an answer."

"Wow, maybe it's my date from last night wanting more," Tamsin smirked.

"She says that her name is Bo," the caller said.

Tamsin cleared her throat and went quiet.

"Patch her through," Acacia ordered.

"Hey, Tamsin," Bo's voice echoed in the conference room. "I found Dr. Smith and she's-"

She stopped abruptly, letting out a loud gasp. Then, there was some loud noise which sounded like she had dropped her phone. After that, the call ended.

Tamsin let out a heavy sigh when she noticed the stare from everyone else. "Fine, I'll go grab her," she grunted before leaving the room.

Bo had no idea that a viper was looking over her shoulder until she heard a hiss right beside her ear. She jerked her head and gasped, dropping her phone.

She threw herself to the side as the snake snapped at her, narrowly escaping the attack.

She scrambled to reach for the fire poker beside the fireplace. Wielding the cast iron piece like a sword, she stood up and faced the viper bravely.

Her hands were shaking a little, and so were her legs. She bit back her fear as she swung the fire poker at the viper.

The viper lowered its head and darted at her, giving her an open mouth hiss. It came so fast that Bo had to fall back.

She stumbled, tripping over Dr. Smith's dead body. As the back of her head hit the floor, the viper caught up to her. It coiled itself around her body and pulled her up forcefully.

The viper's mouth was less than an inch away from her cheek. Instead of taking a bite, though, it paused there, flicking its tongue at her. Just the smell coming out of its mouth made Bo gag.

"No spirit companion?" A soft voice came to her. It sounded almost like a hissing whisper. "Hmmm…thought Valhalla would have sent someone stronger."

Coming down from the chimney was a young woman in her late teens with a short mohawk. She had the greenest, and coldest eyes that Bo had ever seen.

"I am not with Valhalla," Bo bit out. She squinted her eyes shut when the snake started to lick her cheek with its forked tongue.

The young woman raised one eyebrow at Bo. "Not with Valhalla? So a loner then…."

She leaned in and stared at Bo closely. "You are here for the doctor, aren't you?"

"Why does it matter to you?" Bo bit out.

The other woman didn't answer her. She started to trash the place looking for something. After going through everything inside the cabin, she came back to Bo.

Putting her hands on Bo, she started a body search despite Bo's struggles. She was visibly disturbed when she had found nothing. "Where is it?" She hissed.

"Where is what?" Bo asked as she tried to get the viper to loosen up a little because she could barely breathe.

"The file," the other woman bit out.

"What file?"

"Don't play me. You are here for the file, just like we are. Where is it?"

"I literally have no idea what you are talking about!"

The other woman grew angry and whispered something to the viper. The viper tightened its body, squeezing the last bit of air out of Bo's lungs.

"I said I don't know!" Bo argued weakly. Then, she froze as she saw a dark shadow creeping down the fireplace chimney.

A centipede, about the same size as the viper and with a freakishly bright sheen on its exoskeleton, descended from the chimney. The moment it touched the floor, it darted at Bo.