Pocket Apocalypse
Page 9
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“No,” I said. “None of the common forms, and none of the exotic ones either. It’s one of the only horrible things in the world that Australia didn’t get as part of the starter package. That means they’ve never handled an outbreak before, and from what Shelby said, I think they’re pretty scared.”
“They should be,” said Grandma grimly. “But Alex . . . you’re human, honey. Are you sure this is a good idea?”
Sarah and Grandma Angela had more in common with parasitic wasps than they did with humans, at least on a cellular level. Grandpa Martin had been human once—had been several humans once—but he’d become basically immune to all known diseases following his death and resurrections, since nothing could figure out how to infect him. Of the four people in the kitchen, I was the only one with the potential to be infected or killed by lycanthropy-w.
Which naturally meant I was the one planning to head for the site of the outbreak. “No,” I said. I didn’t bother to keep the quaver out of my voice. “But it’s the only idea we have. The Thirty-Sixers need help.”
“Maybe they can find someone in their own organization who can figure this out,” said Grandma. “Let them do what they’ve always done, and handle this themselves.”
“Shelby helped me when Lloyd was using that cockatrice to turn people to stone,” I said quietly. Grandma didn’t flinch or look ashamed. I hadn’t been expecting her to. No matter how human she seemed and how normally she often behaved, she was never going to prioritize the lives of humans she didn’t know above the people she considered her family.
Maybe she wasn’t so strange in that regard.
“Yes, and we were very grateful,” said Grandpa, before either Grandma or Sarah could say something they’d regret. “And yes, I know she was at just as much risk of being turned to stone as you were. Don’t think we don’t all appreciate what she did for you. But, Alex . . .”
“I love her.” It was a small, simple admission, and it still burned, because it shouldn’t have been necessary: the fact that the Thirty-Six Society needed help should have been enough. I’d never lived in a world without the specter of the Covenant of St. George hanging over us, but I couldn’t help thinking that if it hadn’t been for them, the various cryptological societies wouldn’t have been so reluctant to help each other. Philanthropy was so much easier when there wasn’t a multinational organization of fanatics waiting to slaughter you if you dared to show your face. “She’s the only woman I’ve ever been able to say that about—the only one who isn’t family. She’s one of my best friends. She needs me. Her family needs me. How can I look her in the eye and tell her I won’t help her family after she helped mine?”
“Besides, if Alex goes to help Shelby with the werewolves in Australia, he can meet her family, and maybe they’ll approve of him.” Sarah’s suggestion was calmly made, and so lucid that the rest of us turned and stared at her. She shrugged. “You were thinking it pretty loudly, Alex. I couldn’t not see.”
“It’s not that I mind you reading my mind,” I said. “It’s that you sounded so together. You’re really getting better, aren’t you?”
Sarah’s smile widened. “No thanks to you, Mr. Thinks-too-loud. I should have made you ship me home to Artie. At least he thinks about soothing things.”
“Yeah,” I said, smothering the urge to smirk. My cousin Artie’s crush on Sarah was public knowledge: everyone knew about it except for Sarah herself, who seemed to think that the rest of us were delusional when we thought about how cute they were together. Verity and I had indulged in more than a little private betting over how long it would be before she caught on to the fact that the cousin she was hopelessly enamored with was equally enamored of her. So far, neither of us was winning. “So I should take my loud thoughts to Australia, huh?”
“Yes.” She turned to her parents. “Alex is going to go. I can hear it. He didn’t come to ask for permission—he’s a grownup. He came to ask for support. We owe him that. Don’t we? He always supports us.”
Grandma sighed. “You’re right, honey. Alex, I’m sorry. You know we’re only worried about you, right? Lycanthropy is nothing to play around with.”
“I know, Grandma, and I’m scared out of my mind,” I said. Like rabies, lycanthropy—all the known varieties, from the common –w (for “wolf”) all the way to the rarer –b (for “bear”) and –r (for “rhino”)—was incurable after the infection reached a certain point. It was just that for lycanthropy, “a certain point” meant “transforming into a giant wolf-beast.” There was no vaccine, and the treatments intended to prevent a bite from progressing to an infection were potentially fatal. Smart cryptozoologists avoided outbreaks whenever possible, sending in nonmammalian allies to clean it out.
It was sort of funny. Here I was, standing in my kitchen with two nonmammalian allies and one mammalian ally who couldn’t be infected, and I couldn’t take any of them with me to Australia. Sarah wasn’t fit to fly, Grandpa couldn’t risk a TSA scanner, and Grandma . . . well, Grandma would be fine, but the Thirty-Sixers might shoot her on sight. They’d had a cuckoo infestation a few years previous. Now they habitually wore anti-telepathy charms that would interfere with her natural camouflage field, and were inclined to shoot on sight. If I went, I was going alone.
Except for Shelby, of course. Dangerous as the proposed expedition was, I had to admit that I didn’t mind the idea of an international flight pressed up next to her.
“You get to tell your parents,” said Grandpa, apparently reading my decision in my face. “I’m not going to be the one who informs your mother that you’re finally running into absolutely certain danger for the fun of it all.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed. “If I give you a list of the supplies I’m going to need, can you let me know what we have in the house?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m assuming you’re planning to fly out of JFK?”
“Yeah.” Getting from Ohio to New York would mean hours in the car, but it would also mean going through customs at an airport where we knew people in both the TSA and the international processing side of things. It would have to be timed just right—smuggling the kind of firepower I habitually carry into a large airport hasn’t been easy in more than a decade, and it hadn’t been a cakewalk before that—but we’d done tight connections before, and it would mean I was heading out well-armed and prepared for whatever was coming next.
“They should be,” said Grandma grimly. “But Alex . . . you’re human, honey. Are you sure this is a good idea?”
Sarah and Grandma Angela had more in common with parasitic wasps than they did with humans, at least on a cellular level. Grandpa Martin had been human once—had been several humans once—but he’d become basically immune to all known diseases following his death and resurrections, since nothing could figure out how to infect him. Of the four people in the kitchen, I was the only one with the potential to be infected or killed by lycanthropy-w.
Which naturally meant I was the one planning to head for the site of the outbreak. “No,” I said. I didn’t bother to keep the quaver out of my voice. “But it’s the only idea we have. The Thirty-Sixers need help.”
“Maybe they can find someone in their own organization who can figure this out,” said Grandma. “Let them do what they’ve always done, and handle this themselves.”
“Shelby helped me when Lloyd was using that cockatrice to turn people to stone,” I said quietly. Grandma didn’t flinch or look ashamed. I hadn’t been expecting her to. No matter how human she seemed and how normally she often behaved, she was never going to prioritize the lives of humans she didn’t know above the people she considered her family.
Maybe she wasn’t so strange in that regard.
“Yes, and we were very grateful,” said Grandpa, before either Grandma or Sarah could say something they’d regret. “And yes, I know she was at just as much risk of being turned to stone as you were. Don’t think we don’t all appreciate what she did for you. But, Alex . . .”
“I love her.” It was a small, simple admission, and it still burned, because it shouldn’t have been necessary: the fact that the Thirty-Six Society needed help should have been enough. I’d never lived in a world without the specter of the Covenant of St. George hanging over us, but I couldn’t help thinking that if it hadn’t been for them, the various cryptological societies wouldn’t have been so reluctant to help each other. Philanthropy was so much easier when there wasn’t a multinational organization of fanatics waiting to slaughter you if you dared to show your face. “She’s the only woman I’ve ever been able to say that about—the only one who isn’t family. She’s one of my best friends. She needs me. Her family needs me. How can I look her in the eye and tell her I won’t help her family after she helped mine?”
“Besides, if Alex goes to help Shelby with the werewolves in Australia, he can meet her family, and maybe they’ll approve of him.” Sarah’s suggestion was calmly made, and so lucid that the rest of us turned and stared at her. She shrugged. “You were thinking it pretty loudly, Alex. I couldn’t not see.”
“It’s not that I mind you reading my mind,” I said. “It’s that you sounded so together. You’re really getting better, aren’t you?”
Sarah’s smile widened. “No thanks to you, Mr. Thinks-too-loud. I should have made you ship me home to Artie. At least he thinks about soothing things.”
“Yeah,” I said, smothering the urge to smirk. My cousin Artie’s crush on Sarah was public knowledge: everyone knew about it except for Sarah herself, who seemed to think that the rest of us were delusional when we thought about how cute they were together. Verity and I had indulged in more than a little private betting over how long it would be before she caught on to the fact that the cousin she was hopelessly enamored with was equally enamored of her. So far, neither of us was winning. “So I should take my loud thoughts to Australia, huh?”
“Yes.” She turned to her parents. “Alex is going to go. I can hear it. He didn’t come to ask for permission—he’s a grownup. He came to ask for support. We owe him that. Don’t we? He always supports us.”
Grandma sighed. “You’re right, honey. Alex, I’m sorry. You know we’re only worried about you, right? Lycanthropy is nothing to play around with.”
“I know, Grandma, and I’m scared out of my mind,” I said. Like rabies, lycanthropy—all the known varieties, from the common –w (for “wolf”) all the way to the rarer –b (for “bear”) and –r (for “rhino”)—was incurable after the infection reached a certain point. It was just that for lycanthropy, “a certain point” meant “transforming into a giant wolf-beast.” There was no vaccine, and the treatments intended to prevent a bite from progressing to an infection were potentially fatal. Smart cryptozoologists avoided outbreaks whenever possible, sending in nonmammalian allies to clean it out.
It was sort of funny. Here I was, standing in my kitchen with two nonmammalian allies and one mammalian ally who couldn’t be infected, and I couldn’t take any of them with me to Australia. Sarah wasn’t fit to fly, Grandpa couldn’t risk a TSA scanner, and Grandma . . . well, Grandma would be fine, but the Thirty-Sixers might shoot her on sight. They’d had a cuckoo infestation a few years previous. Now they habitually wore anti-telepathy charms that would interfere with her natural camouflage field, and were inclined to shoot on sight. If I went, I was going alone.
Except for Shelby, of course. Dangerous as the proposed expedition was, I had to admit that I didn’t mind the idea of an international flight pressed up next to her.
“You get to tell your parents,” said Grandpa, apparently reading my decision in my face. “I’m not going to be the one who informs your mother that you’re finally running into absolutely certain danger for the fun of it all.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed. “If I give you a list of the supplies I’m going to need, can you let me know what we have in the house?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m assuming you’re planning to fly out of JFK?”
“Yeah.” Getting from Ohio to New York would mean hours in the car, but it would also mean going through customs at an airport where we knew people in both the TSA and the international processing side of things. It would have to be timed just right—smuggling the kind of firepower I habitually carry into a large airport hasn’t been easy in more than a decade, and it hadn’t been a cakewalk before that—but we’d done tight connections before, and it would mean I was heading out well-armed and prepared for whatever was coming next.
