Half-Off Ragnarok
Page 19

But back to the larger subject. All known petrifactors (IE, “things that can convince the minerals in your body that they really want to change formation and become different types of mineral”) are members of the Ophion family, a group of synapsids which includes everything from gorgons to cockatrice. This is more a matter of convenience than any strong scientific evidence proving their evolutionary relationship. They range in size from the greater gorgons, who are substantially larger than humans, to basilisks, which are the size of irritated chickens. Really, they only have one absolute unifying feature. All of them are capable of turning flesh to stone, to one degree or another.
Lesser gorgons stun with their gaze and petrify with their bite, although you’d have to work to find traces of petrifaction in most of their victims. They prefer their meat to be, well, meaty, not filled with delicious veins of silicate and carbon. Pliny’s gorgons like Dee could stun and petrify with their eyes, although they were better at the stunning part, and needed to have their hair uncovered if they wanted to petrify, or even stun something particularly large. They needed the extra eyes. Greater gorgons . . .
If we had a greater gorgon, I was going to be tempted to grab Shelby, my family, and anyone else that I was fond of and declare that it was time for a month-long vacation somewhere very, very far away. Like Hawaii. Or the moon.
Petrifaction can be stopped if you catch it early, but once it’s gone far enough, there’s no known treatment. If it happens, it’s happened, and there’s no force in this dimension or any other that will undo it. It’s supposed to be a very painful way to die. Personally, I never want to find out.
But Andrew found out. On that somber note, I reached the reptile house, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
Kim and Nelson were working with the latest school group, a bunch of bored-looking sixth graders who clearly thought of themselves as far too cool for anything as jejune as a bunch of stupid snakes. I waved to the other zookeepers and kept walking, noting in passing that Shami was back in his tank.
Dee’s office door wasn’t locked. Good; that meant she hadn’t let her hair out of its confinement. I opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind me. “We have a problem,” I announced.
“You just came into my office without knocking,” said Dee, lowering the sandwich she’d been about to bite into. It was dripping red. I was willing to bet it wasn’t because she’d used too much ketchup. “I’ll say we’ve got a problem. We’ve discussed privacy and appropriate boundaries before, Alex, and this is—”
“Andrew’s dead.”
Dee froze. Seconds ticked by while she stared at me, apparently too stunned to move. I waited as long as I could before snapping my fingers. She jumped in her seat, an audible hissing sound coming from beneath her wig.
“Earth to Dee, come in, Dee,” I said, only realizing after the words were out of my mouth that I was unintentionally parroting Shelby’s words to me in the tiger garden. “I need you alert and tracking, so if you could stop being stunned and useless, that would be awesome.”
“Little heavy on the sarcasm there, boss,” she mumbled, still sounding half-present. She shook her head, eliciting more enraged hissing from her hair, and looked at me pleadingly. “Is this some sort of really shitty joke? Because if you say it is, I’ll laugh. I promise to laugh.”
“I wish. The police are in the tiger garden now. They’ll be showing up here soon, to verify that I arrived when I said I did.” Belatedly it occurred to me that my beeline for Dee’s office could be seen as an attempt to solidify my shaky alibi. I sighed, forcing myself not to dwell. If they were going to try and pin Andrew’s murder on me, there wasn’t much I could do about it, aside from being innocent. Since I hadn’t killed him, I figured I had that part in the bag. “Look, Andrew’s death isn’t the problem. It’s the way he died.”
Dee’s eyes widened behind the tinted lenses of her glasses. “Oh, God, he was murdered, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t know. It’ll depend on what killed him. If it was a sapient being, then yes, he was murdered. If it was a nonsapient, then no. He was just killed.”
“Wait . . .” Dee paused, cocking her head to the side as she frowned at me. “Are you saying that a cryptid of some sort did this?”
“Worse, at least from your perspective. I’m saying that a petrifactor did this.”
This time, the agitated hissing that rose from beneath Dee’s wig needed no translation. I turned and flipped the lock on the door, guaranteeing our privacy at least until the police arrived. “Do you need to let them out?”
“Yes, I think that would be best. I’m sorry.” Dee reached up and pulled her wig from her head, allowing her serpentine hair to uncurl and hiss fiercely in my direction. A few of the smaller snakes dropped to frame her face, hanging so that they mimicked human curls. It was pretty, in a reptilian sort of a way. “Are . . . are you sure?”
“His eyes were stone, Dee. Most of him was still flesh, so I can’t be sure what killed him, but his eyes were stone. Only a petrifactor could have done that.”
“If it started with his eyes, he probably met a gaze-based petrifactor,” said Dee slowly, clearly selecting her words with care.
I nodded. “I thought of that immediately. I’m not here because I think you did it.”
“Oh, thank Athena.” Dee groaned, slumping back in her chair and sliding her hands up under her tinted glasses so that she could rub her eyes. “You scared the crap out of me, Alex. I was half-waiting for you to whip out one of those giant knives of yours and kill me on the spot.”
“Do you really think that little of me?” I asked quietly.
“No. But I think that little of the Covenant, and sometimes it’s hard to remember that your family isn’t associated with them anymore.” Dee removed her hands from her face, checking to be sure her glasses were still in place before she opened her eyes and offered me a wan smile. It faded quickly. “What are we going to do?”
“I’m going to go home and tell my grandfather that he needs to get me a copy of Andrew’s autopsy file. Maybe he can get samples at the same time, and we can figure out what did this before it strikes again.”
Dee nodded. “That poor man. It’s a horrible way to die.”