Chapter 5: Fangs in the night

Julian had warned me that I needed "human friends." He ended up needing them before I did. I supposed that I was the only person – human or otherwise – who was bothering to snoop into the circumstances of his death. I still wasn't completely sure why. But for the third time in a week, I found myself following the road out of town, heading toward Dr. Aemilia's compound. This time alone, and after midnight. Much like Julian had been doing on the night he died. At least the moon wasn't full. The pale crescent barely illuminated the path, leaving the trees on either side deeply shadowed. Well, I wasn't trying to sneak through the woods. Hopefully nobody else was, either.

I heard the emptiness ahead before I could make out the shapes of the structures. I waited for a few minutes, watching, but the clinic and the apotekopoiia remained dark. Dr. Aemilia's residential quarters were behind the clinic, while the records I wanted were in her private office, at the other end of the compound. If she was asleep there was little risk of me waking her.

Of course, I could have just asked the doctor for the records, but I doubted she'd give me access now that the case was officially closed. Besides, Aemilia had already given me the facts that made the official narrative awkward. If there really was a conspiracy around Julian's death, she hadn't known about it.

Or had she?

"…you shouldn't rely on just one person," she'd said. It had been obvious who she meant, but I'd chalked it down to jealousy at the time. Had Aemilia tried to hint at something more nefarious?

I'd have to make a private appointment soon, and ask some discreet questions. Maybe Aemilia was a better friend than I'd suspected. Tonight, though, I was searching for answers elsewhere.

There were no lights or signs of movement in the laboratory. I didn't add much to the night's noises as I moved around to the door Yurilee and I had used before. The door was locked, of course, but Julian's lockpicks solved that problem. I thought he'd appreciate being along for the mission.

I carefully let the door close behind me, leaving it unlatched. Idle machines blinked silently at me as I walked between the glassware-strewn tables to Aemilia's office.

I wanted a penlight for this kind of work, but without one I had to switch on the desk lamp. The sudden brightness made me squint, but it couldn't be helped. The lock on the file drawer was a simple one. In a moment I had Julian's file open on Aemilia's desk.

Aemilia's handwriting was better than most doctors', but her notes challenged my limited Krataiic vocabulary. Based on context I figured out the word "allergy," or thought I had, and tried to follow the story of Julian's treatments. It was slow going. I could read the dates, and recognized some symptoms, but not much else. Eventually I flipped to the end of the file, and started working backwards. The last few pages detailed Julian's autopsy. Before that, the report of his most recent visit.

…which looked much like the others. Until I re-read the date, and frowned.

Hadn't Doctor Aemilia said that she hadn't seen Julian for months?

I double-checked the month. Sure enough, Julian had been in Aemilia's office in the last couple of weeks. My gut started clenching as I counted back the days. It looked like Dr. Aemilia's last appointment with Julian had been two days before Yurilee had asked me to look for her missing playmate.

The same day as the full moon.

I really should have paid more attention to my gut. By the time I heard movement, clawed fingers had already gripped my arms, and I felt the familiar pain of fangs in my neck. A heavy, feminine body pinned me against the desk while the strength bled out of my muscles. When my brief struggle had subsided, strong hands lowered me gently to the ground, and a whisper tickled my ear.

"Oh, you stupid, beautiful man," she said.


I lay where I had been placed, on my side, facing the file cabinet I'd been rifling. I couldn't see her, but I could hear my attacker rustling around the clinic, muttering to herself.

It was Dr. Aemilia, although her beautiful voice lost some of its charms as I caught the words "kill him" and "venom" within the staccato stream of Krataiic that accompanied the rattle and clink of instruments.

The noise stopped, and then I could feel her leaning over me. My skin crawled in anticipation of a needle or a scalpel, but I couldn't move at all.

"I didn't kill him," she whispered in urgent English. Obviously she wasn't expecting an answer. "He wasn't supposed to die! I could have saved him easily. It's a simple allergic reaction."

"I really was treating him for allergies, you know. Native pollens. Nothing serious. Just enough that I had to be his damned doctor!"

Dr. Aemilia paused, gathering her professional poise. "It gave me the idea, though. If his allergies made him off limits to me, then I could make him allergic to her, too."

"But it wasn't going to kill him. Just simple anaphylaxis. I could bring him back easily. And then warn everyone that her venom was going rancid." The whisper became an acidic hiss. "She would never dare touch another one of her students."

So that's who "she" was. Yurilee. Of course.

"I DIDN'T KILL HIM!" she shrieked in my ear.

"But I have to kill you, now." Her voice conveyed calm rationality now. I wasn't convinced.

"I did this for you, you know. I wanted you. You were so wounded when they brought you to me. So wounded, and so charming. I heard what you did for Madiyan. So romantic. I wanted to make you well, and strong again. If you healed and weren't my patient anymore, then I could make you more than my patient…"

"And then that HAG got her fangs into you. Like she does ALL of you."

"I don't have a choice now." She seemed to be convincing herself. I couldn't argue the point, although I would have liked to. "I've told you everything, so I don't have any choice. The serum will make you react to any medusa's venom. I've already bitten you, so you'll go into shock immediately. I won't…be able to save you."

"It's late. Maybe I'll wait a little later. If I drop you off near Yurilee's house, nobody will know she didn't bite you. They'll bring you back to me for the examination, anyway."

"I can still make this work. She'll still be the common element. Poisoning her students. She…it'll destroy her."

I felt a cold pressure against my neck, and with a convulsive effort, managed to blink. It was just an alcohol swab, the doctor following her professional habits under stress. I heard a small, metallic sound as she selected something from her tray of instruments.

"I'm sorry, Mark. I wanted to love you."

Sudden impact shook the building as a metal door slammed open. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HIM?!"

I had never heard Yurilee roar before. It was a glorious noise.

Aemilia wailed. "YOU! Go away!" A frantic scramble among her instruments. "Stay away! I've got medicine for you, too!"

"DO YOU?" I heard glassware shattering and overturned tables crashing as Yurilee surged through the laboratory. "Will it put me down before I CRUSH YOUR ROTTEN NECK?"

Massive bodies collided above me. Heavy blows and cries of pain narrated a furious struggle. An overturned cart spilled instruments and broken glass onto the floor near me, but my fingers wouldn't reach for them.

Finally I felt clawed fingers at my neck again. With my last, desperate strength, I tried to make my arms and legs obey, to rise, or do something. They refused.

Then Yuri rolled me over, so I could see her flushed, worried face.

"Are you OK, sweetbit?"

I needed to ask her the same vital question, wanted to assure her that I was fine. I couldn't thank her for rescuing me in the nick of time.

But she had.


"My people have investigated your report," Madiyan began. "We've corroborated what you told us."

"Glad to hear it."

Madiyan shot me a look, but I wasn't offended. I know the limits of single-source reporting. I was just tired.

A lot had happened in the last thirty hours. Yurilee had carried me back to town in her arms, had awakened a local friend who ensconced me in a spare bedroom. By the time Aemilia's venom had started to wear off, Madiyan and two of her staff were gathered around my bed. I mumbled through a description of what I'd heard and seen. Madiyan had snapped orders to her aides to search the apotekopoiia and track down Aemilia, and left. I fell asleep with Yuri coiled protectively around me. The next morning we'd been summoned again to Madiyan's offices.

"Aemilia is in custody," she continued.

"That was quick."

"It isn't a large island. And she didn't try very hard to hide. She told us basically the same story you did. With some rather caustic comments added," she said, looking pointedly at Yurilee.

"I do not understand. I never did anything to injure her."

"You didn't have to," I said. "She was violently jealous of you and your students. Seeing us together, after I'd spent so much time under her care, drove her into extreme measures."

"I would have shared him, if she had only asked…" Yuri sounded lost. I reached a comforting arm around her, then looked to Madiyan.

"So what happens to Aemilia now?"

Madiyan's eyes narrowed. "She will be banished, to an uninhabited island. What she does there is up to her."

Yuri shuddered under my arm. I'd seen worse punishments handed out, but it still hurt to think of my graceful doctor left to survive in a lonely place. "I don't believe she truly meant to kill Julian."

"And do you think she intended to kill you?" She paused for rebuttal. I didn't have one. "At best, she was reckless with the lives of two village husbands. We can't tolerate that sort of danger among us."

Abruptly, Yurilee pulled away. "I…I cannot…please, excuse me." She crawled away from us, hurrying from the offices. I waited until she'd left the hall before speaking.

"So what are you going to tell the Exchange Program?"

Madiyan stared at me, the way Medusae do. "As you said, Aemilia didn't intend to kill him. The Chairwoman will still report Julian's death as a tragic accident. We may be imprecise about the details. But you and I know that the guilty party has been found, and punished. Does that satisfy you?"

Eventually I nodded. Truth is a furtive thing. It wasn't like Julian's family would ever know the truth about why he was here, among the lamias. Rough justice had been done. I could live with it.

Madiyan's eyes softened. "Our island has lost a husband, and now a doctor. Some of us have lost even more." I knew who she meant. "But you smelled out a serious threat to our community, and did us a great service. The Lamia nation is grateful, Mark. I'm grateful." She gifted me one of her rare smiles. "You may consider all of your debts paid."

I didn't smile back. My debts weren't paid. She still expected me to conceal the facts of Julian's death. And Julian had assumed that I would keep his secrets from her. America expected me to keep its secrets from the lamia. Yurilee didn't expect a damned thing from me, but she'd offered her life to save mine.

Enough was enough.

"Maddie…"

"Yes?"

Well, I'd betrayed my country for her once before.

"Julian was working for the same Company that I used to. He was here on business, if you know what I mean."

"You mean that he was a spy."

"Well, yes." Madiyan was still smiling. "…and you already knew that, didn't you?"

Another loose puzzle piece dropped into place, and I nodded to myself. "That's why you assigned me to investigate his death. You anticipated that his identity might be uncovered, and calculated that I would keep it a secret. So nobody would know that you'd already compromised him."

"I was right, wasn't I?"

The heat I felt wasn't quite anger, but it was a reminder that the "Special Assistant to the Chairwoman" was a dangerous operator.

"The Company will send someone else, you know."

"Of course. Mankind has been sending spies to the Lamia Islands for thousands of years. Many of them change sides very quickly. The rest…" She shrugged sinuously. "Men have a hard time keeping secrets from us."

"So it appears."

"Speaking of which, I wonder if you would have told me about Julian's activities if he hadn't died?"

I'd wondered the same thing. "If I thought he was a threat to anyone here, absolutely."

Madiyan snorted. "As if spying on us wasn't a threat in itself. Because America would never do anything to endanger our little nation."

She was right, of course.

"Mark, I appreciate your sense of honor, and your loyalty to your former country. I only hope that, in time, you'll come to think of this as your homeland. That would make me very happy."

"I…"

She hushed me before I could say anything else stupid. "Go now. I have a very busy day ahead. Your role in this is done. Go, and take care of my grandmother."


I found Yurilee waiting outside the government complex, staring down the street toward the sea. A few boats were moving in the bay, sailing through a thousand sunstruck diamonds. Just another beautiful Mediterranean day.

"Maddie said I should take you home and get you drunk."

She tried to smile. "Is it over now?"

"Our part is, anyway. The politicians can handle the rest."

She didn't resist as I took her arm and steered her toward the road home.


Epilogue

It was a quiet walk back to our village. Yurilee thought of something to say before I did.

"I would have been happy to share you with Aemilia. You and Julian as well."

I reached and squeezed her hand. "I know."

"I did not know that she was hurting so much."

"None of this was your fault, Yuri."

She sighed, and kept crawling down the road beside me.

"One thing I still don't understand, though. Why were you at the lab that night? You couldn't have known I was going there."

Yurilee looked into the trees. "You will despise me."

"That's damned unlikely."

"You were gone when I woke up. I…wanted to know where you lived. For when you stop coming to see me. So I followed your smell." She smiled doubtfully. "I told you I was a scent-imental old woman."

I grinned at her pun. "Lucky for me that you are."

She clenched my hand, hard. "I do not want to think about what could have happened."

We walked. It felt like I'd been walking for three days straight. Back and forth to Yuri's village, and Maddie's offices, out to Aemilia's clinic and back.

Well, except for yesterday, when Yurilee had carried me.

Finally I took a deep breath, let it go. "You know, I'm struggling to learn Krataiic. If I'm going to gain any sort of proficiency, I'll be taking lessons for a long time yet. It probably makes sense for me to just move into your library, really."

"Nonsense, darling. Your Krataiic is quite…" Yurilee stopped in the road, looking at me with wide green eyes. "How long…do you think that might take?"

"It's a very difficult language," I smiled. "Mastering it would be the project of a lifetime, don't you think?"

Abruptly I was wrapped in her arms and body. Snake-like plekti swirled around my head. "You want to stay with me?"

"Aghh," I replied, and then she let me breathe. "Assuming you'll have me, of course."

Her answer was another coiling embrace. Tears dampened my cheek. "But you belong to the village."

"And you have your students. But I think we'll be alright."

"Y-you do not break my heart? You promise to me?"

I pressed my mouth against hers, and promised her. It took a while.

Finally Yuri broke the kiss, and whispered. "Sweetbit?"

"Yes?"

"When we get home, would you…do you think we could…have a little bite?"

Enveloped in her coils, I had to chuckle. "You know I almost died that way, right?"

She nuzzled against my ear. "Oh, but I will be gentle with you. So gentle."


And she was.


THE END