Pocket Apocalypse
Page 84
“Take care of our girl, Basil,” said Shelby.
“I will,” pledged the great green man, as solemnly as if he was promising her the moon and the stars. Then he turned, Gabby still riding easy on his shoulder, and slogged away into the swamp. The three of us stood silently in the boat, watching them go until we couldn’t see them anymore. Raina sobbed, a short, cruel sound that cut off abruptly at the end as she swallowed the rest of her sorrow, forcing it to stay penned inside. We were alone.
Shelby was the first to move. Raina was in a state of something resembling shock, and I knew it wasn’t my place to try to force the matter: she wasn’t my sister. Shelby had no such compunctions. She picked up both oars, thrusting one of them at me, and said, “We need to get back to the house before Mum loses control completely. Alex, you’re going to help me row. Raina, you’re going to sit down, and hug your dog, and stop looking like someone’s just died. Gabby will be fine.”
“You don’t know that,” snapped Raina.
“You’re right; I don’t,” said Shelby, which stopped Raina in her tracks. The younger Tanner looked from her sister to me, clearly confused as to how she was meant to proceed. Shelby didn’t give her time to figure things out. “She could die from the wagyl’s bite. We know next to nothing about them. We don’t know whether their venom is hemolytic or neurotoxic, we don’t know whether they can control how much they deliver—it’s a gamble. But Basil wouldn’t have taken her if he didn’t truly believe that he could help, and our mother needs us. Dad’s in quarantine. We’re all she’s got.”
“This would never have happened if you hadn’t brought him here,” muttered Raina, directing a sharp glance at me as she fell back on what I was starting to think of as the Tanner family’s favorite song.
“Oh, because Alex is a mad virologist who traveled backward through time to invent lycanthropy and spread it through the therianthrope population, thus leading to a situation where Gabby would get bit? Don’t be daft, Raina. It’s not becoming. Alex isn’t at fault here. Cooper is, for having her bitten. We’re going to shoot that man until he’s more holes than skin, and then we’re going to shoot him again a few times, just to be sure.” Shelby sat down on the boat’s center board, dipping her oar into the water, and motioned for me to do the same. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before something else decides to have a go at eating us.”
I sat down next to Shelby, falling somewhat awkwardly into the rhythm of rowing toward the distant, unseen shore. She was better at this than I was, thanks to what must have been years of practice; I had only ever rowed the little rental kayaks around Puget Sound, and once in Lake Washington, when we had taken a trip up the coast to chat with the local sirens. My left arm shouted and moaned in protest at the repetitive pulling motion. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t enough to burst my stitches, and so I kept rowing. My discomfort was less important than giving Raina the time she needed to pull herself back together for the dangers that we had yet to face.
Dangers . . . “I saw Cooper,” I said.
Shelby’s head snapped around to face me, eyes so wide that I could see the whites of them even through the gathering dark. “What?”
“He and three of his werewolves came after me—and Basil—while we were waiting on the bank. Didn’t you wonder why I was sitting in a tree in the middle of the swamp?” I found myself mildly but irrationally annoyed at the yowie, who should have told them what was going on when he went to fetch them from the playhouse.
Maybe he’d assumed we would have more time together. Or maybe he just didn’t care about making things easier for me. Either way, he was gone, and I was here, with two Tanner sisters staring at me in the dark.
“Three werewolves?” demanded Raina. “Who were they?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “They stayed in wolf form the whole time. If I’ve met them in their human forms, I don’t know about it.” That would have been too easy. Cooper knew that. Things were chaotic enough back at the house that he could easily have pulled three, or five, or a dozen of his people from the fringes of the crowd without being noticed; all they’d have to do was return clothed and clean and join the others in shouting, and no one would remember that they’d ever been gone.
“Bastard,” muttered Shelby.
“It’s worse than you think,” I said, and took a deep breath, watching Raina carefully as I continued, “He’s the one who bit Gabby. In a way, though, that’s a good thing.”
“I’m going to slit your throat and bathe in your blood,” said Raina serenely.
“Alex, you’d better explain yourself fast, or I’m not sure I’m going to be able to stop her from making good on her threats,” said Shelby, a warning note in her tone. In that moment, she didn’t sound like she wanted to stop Raina from making good on her threats—and I couldn’t blame her. If it had been my sister, I would have felt much the same.
“Cooper’s cover only got blown when he was ‘killed’ during the encounter that saw me bitten,” I said. “He must have been planning the attack before we went out there. Let himself get wounded so we wouldn’t suspect him, and then get put into quarantine with me. It would have given him free access to convince me to break out with him. All he’d have needed to do was play up the Thirty-Six Society reaction to things that weren’t—or were no longer—human, and I might have listened. I’m sorry. It’s true.” Discovering that I had a toxic but effective treatment for lycanthropy would have accelerated his timeline. The tincture made me sick, but it could kill someone whose infection was already far enough along to allow them to transform. “When that didn’t work out, and he’d been forced to ‘die’ to avoid being treated for his disease, he took the first opportunity he had to get away. That’s when he went for Gabby. We know when she was infected. We know how far along she is.”
“So this is your fault.” This time, Raina sounded resigned, like she’d always known that if she followed the narrative for long enough, she would be able to blame everything on me.
“I think it’s more ours,” said Shelby. “We knew Basil. We knew that people could be nonhuman and still be, well, people. And we didn’t say anything. Not even when we grew into positions of vague influence, we didn’t say anything. We helped create an environment that made men like Cooper almost inevitable.”
“I will,” pledged the great green man, as solemnly as if he was promising her the moon and the stars. Then he turned, Gabby still riding easy on his shoulder, and slogged away into the swamp. The three of us stood silently in the boat, watching them go until we couldn’t see them anymore. Raina sobbed, a short, cruel sound that cut off abruptly at the end as she swallowed the rest of her sorrow, forcing it to stay penned inside. We were alone.
Shelby was the first to move. Raina was in a state of something resembling shock, and I knew it wasn’t my place to try to force the matter: she wasn’t my sister. Shelby had no such compunctions. She picked up both oars, thrusting one of them at me, and said, “We need to get back to the house before Mum loses control completely. Alex, you’re going to help me row. Raina, you’re going to sit down, and hug your dog, and stop looking like someone’s just died. Gabby will be fine.”
“You don’t know that,” snapped Raina.
“You’re right; I don’t,” said Shelby, which stopped Raina in her tracks. The younger Tanner looked from her sister to me, clearly confused as to how she was meant to proceed. Shelby didn’t give her time to figure things out. “She could die from the wagyl’s bite. We know next to nothing about them. We don’t know whether their venom is hemolytic or neurotoxic, we don’t know whether they can control how much they deliver—it’s a gamble. But Basil wouldn’t have taken her if he didn’t truly believe that he could help, and our mother needs us. Dad’s in quarantine. We’re all she’s got.”
“This would never have happened if you hadn’t brought him here,” muttered Raina, directing a sharp glance at me as she fell back on what I was starting to think of as the Tanner family’s favorite song.
“Oh, because Alex is a mad virologist who traveled backward through time to invent lycanthropy and spread it through the therianthrope population, thus leading to a situation where Gabby would get bit? Don’t be daft, Raina. It’s not becoming. Alex isn’t at fault here. Cooper is, for having her bitten. We’re going to shoot that man until he’s more holes than skin, and then we’re going to shoot him again a few times, just to be sure.” Shelby sat down on the boat’s center board, dipping her oar into the water, and motioned for me to do the same. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before something else decides to have a go at eating us.”
I sat down next to Shelby, falling somewhat awkwardly into the rhythm of rowing toward the distant, unseen shore. She was better at this than I was, thanks to what must have been years of practice; I had only ever rowed the little rental kayaks around Puget Sound, and once in Lake Washington, when we had taken a trip up the coast to chat with the local sirens. My left arm shouted and moaned in protest at the repetitive pulling motion. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t enough to burst my stitches, and so I kept rowing. My discomfort was less important than giving Raina the time she needed to pull herself back together for the dangers that we had yet to face.
Dangers . . . “I saw Cooper,” I said.
Shelby’s head snapped around to face me, eyes so wide that I could see the whites of them even through the gathering dark. “What?”
“He and three of his werewolves came after me—and Basil—while we were waiting on the bank. Didn’t you wonder why I was sitting in a tree in the middle of the swamp?” I found myself mildly but irrationally annoyed at the yowie, who should have told them what was going on when he went to fetch them from the playhouse.
Maybe he’d assumed we would have more time together. Or maybe he just didn’t care about making things easier for me. Either way, he was gone, and I was here, with two Tanner sisters staring at me in the dark.
“Three werewolves?” demanded Raina. “Who were they?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “They stayed in wolf form the whole time. If I’ve met them in their human forms, I don’t know about it.” That would have been too easy. Cooper knew that. Things were chaotic enough back at the house that he could easily have pulled three, or five, or a dozen of his people from the fringes of the crowd without being noticed; all they’d have to do was return clothed and clean and join the others in shouting, and no one would remember that they’d ever been gone.
“Bastard,” muttered Shelby.
“It’s worse than you think,” I said, and took a deep breath, watching Raina carefully as I continued, “He’s the one who bit Gabby. In a way, though, that’s a good thing.”
“I’m going to slit your throat and bathe in your blood,” said Raina serenely.
“Alex, you’d better explain yourself fast, or I’m not sure I’m going to be able to stop her from making good on her threats,” said Shelby, a warning note in her tone. In that moment, she didn’t sound like she wanted to stop Raina from making good on her threats—and I couldn’t blame her. If it had been my sister, I would have felt much the same.
“Cooper’s cover only got blown when he was ‘killed’ during the encounter that saw me bitten,” I said. “He must have been planning the attack before we went out there. Let himself get wounded so we wouldn’t suspect him, and then get put into quarantine with me. It would have given him free access to convince me to break out with him. All he’d have needed to do was play up the Thirty-Six Society reaction to things that weren’t—or were no longer—human, and I might have listened. I’m sorry. It’s true.” Discovering that I had a toxic but effective treatment for lycanthropy would have accelerated his timeline. The tincture made me sick, but it could kill someone whose infection was already far enough along to allow them to transform. “When that didn’t work out, and he’d been forced to ‘die’ to avoid being treated for his disease, he took the first opportunity he had to get away. That’s when he went for Gabby. We know when she was infected. We know how far along she is.”
“So this is your fault.” This time, Raina sounded resigned, like she’d always known that if she followed the narrative for long enough, she would be able to blame everything on me.
“I think it’s more ours,” said Shelby. “We knew Basil. We knew that people could be nonhuman and still be, well, people. And we didn’t say anything. Not even when we grew into positions of vague influence, we didn’t say anything. We helped create an environment that made men like Cooper almost inevitable.”
