Half-Off Ragnarok

Nineteen

A nice, if borrowed, bedroom in an only moderately creepy suburban home in Columbus, Ohio

I WOKE TO THE sound of shrieking. I was out of the bed and on my feet in less than a second, already reaching for the gun that I kept in the nightstand. The fact that I was stark naked hit me mid-motion, followed immediately by another shriek. This time, I identified the voice as Shelby’s. It was coming from the floor on the other side of the bed.

“I’m coming!” I shouted, and ran around the bed, already searching for a target . . .

...only to find my girlfriend, who was wearing my bathrobe, lying on her back with Crow sitting proudly in the middle of her chest. His wings were half-mantled, and when he moved them the tips of his primary flight feathers dragged against her arms, tickling her. He moved them as I watched, and another shriek was the result. I lowered my gun, blinking in bemusement, and wished I’d thought to grab my glasses before coming to her rescue.

“Er?” I said.

“You!” Shelby sat up, performing a complicated maneuver with her arms, so that Crow wound up in the classic feline “forepaws on shoulder, hind legs resting on arm” position. He turned to look at me over his own shoulder, and I swear the feathery bastard actually looked smug. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Shelby, there is a list of things that can be used as answers to that question. It’s annotated. There’s even an index. How’s your burn?”

“Hurts like a bitch and a half, but I’ll live; hope you like girls with interesting scars. You’re moving away from the point.”

“I’m naked, I’m sore, and I just woke up. I don’t know what the point is, ergo, I cannot be moving away from it on purpose.”

“This fellow!” Shelby shifted her arms again, presenting Crow to me like he was an adoption drive puppy. He put up with it admirably, telegraphing his mild annoyance at being held that way with nothing more than a swishing of his tail and a ruffling of his feathers.

“When he pecks your eyes out for manhandling him, I’m not going to be as sorry for you as I should be,” I said. With that, I turned around and walked back to my side of the bed, where I sat down, stowed my gun in the nightstand, and finally put on my glasses. The room snapped into blessed clarity. I’m not blind without my glasses, just nearsighted, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy everything being blurry around the edges.

The mattress jolted as Shelby pulled herself up from the floor and plopped down on the edge of the bed. “Did I wake you?”

“Given the last few days, not only did you wake me, but I thought you were being murdered.” I twisted to scowl at her. She was still holding Crow, and her torso was mostly concealed by the mass of black feathers and tawny fur.

“Sorry,” she said. Giving Crow’s head a scritch, she added, “But you could have told me about this big fellow. I woke up with him sitting on my chest, trying to sort out who I was and what I was doing in bed with his monkey.”

“Oh, hell, I didn’t warn you about Crow? I’m sorry.” Anger transitioned to contrition in an instant. “It was late, and I was crashing so hard, I didn’t even think. I hope he didn’t freak you out too much.”

“If by ‘freak me out’ you mean ‘absolutely delight me,’ he did that in spades.” She kept scritching Crow’s head. He let his beak hang open, eyes closing in bliss. “I had to leave my poor Flora back home in Australia. There was no way I’d have been able to smuggle her through customs, but I’ve missed her every day since, you’ve no idea how hard it’s been on me.” Crow’s purring was loud enough to be audible from across the bed.

I blinked. “You have a miniature griffin?”

“No, they’re not native to Australia, and while they’re certainly handsome creatures, they threaten the ecosystems of several of our indigenous species.” The subtext was clear: if miniature griffins were spotted in Australia, and couldn’t be relocated or contained in private collections, they would be destroyed. I couldn’t find any fault with that. There’s a cost to maintaining an island ecology, and sometimes that cost can be unpleasant.

“So Flora is . . . ?”

“She’s a garrinna. A very pretty one, too.”

“I’d love to see her.” Garrinna are sometimes referred to as “marsupial griffins,” even though the title is completely inaccurate and doesn’t describe anything about them beyond their shape. They’re about the size of Welsh corgis, which makes them larger than most species of miniature griffin, and they’re very social creatures. As in “a flock of them can and will dismantle a car, given the opportunity.” They’re virtually extinct, for much the same reason. Well, that, and the part where they look like bright pink parrots crossed with stripy cats. Not much in the way of natural camouflage, there.

“What’s this one’s name, then?”

“Crow. He’s a pest, aren’t you, Crow?”

Crow opened his beak and made a self-satisfied churring noise, seemingly content to remain in Shelby’s arms all day long, if that was an available option.

Sadly for all of us, it wasn’t. I stood, more slowly this time, and winced as my ankles and knees took this opportunity to object to the way I’d treated them the night before. “What time is it?”

“Half-seven. I called the zoo before I settled in with this fellow. They know not to expect us today. I think the fact that the fire was on the news last night made my story just that little bit more believable.” Shelby grimaced. “That does take away any chance there might have been that the management doesn’t know we’re sleeping together, though. Sorry about that.”

“It’s not a problem. I wasn’t really trying to hide it, and what are they going to do, fire us when the rest of the staff is dropping dead?” I stretched, trying to make the muscles in my lower back release. “I need a shower. I smell like forest fire and antiseptic.”

“Mind if I join you? I don’t mind you running about naked, but I feel like a trash heap.”

“Not if you promise to remember that while my grandmother may not be a receptive telepath, my slightly scrambled cousin is, and she’s likely to come into the bathroom and start asking inappropriate questions if we make any mental noise that interests her.”

Shelby wrinkled her nose. “That’s a libido killer, but no, I promise, I just want to clean off right now, and I’m not much in the mood for being on my own. Something about my apartment combusting around me has rather put me off solitude.”

I paused in the act of reaching for a pair of clean sweatpants to stop and look back at her. “I guess things have gotten a little exciting, huh? I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. I’m a big girl; you didn’t drag me into anything I didn’t force you to allow me to be a part of.” Shelby put Crow down on the bed, where he wrapped his tail around his feet and croaked in irritation. “I wouldn’t be a cryptozoologist if I didn’t like a bit of excitement every now and again. I just didn’t expect the excitement to be quite so flammable, that’s all.”

This time, I managed to swallow the marriage proposal before it could escape. “Okay, then. Let’s go shower.”

Twenty minutes, a lot of soap, and only two accidentally poked bruises later, we were clean and semi-presentable. Shelby scooped Crow off my bed before following me downstairs to the kitchen, where Sarah was attempting to eat a bowl of oatmeal, under the watchful eye of my grandmother. At least, I thought it was oatmeal. Oatmeal isn’t usually that red, but the color could be explained by the ketchup bottle that was sitting off to one side.

Grandma looked up as we entered, and smiled. “Good morning, sleepyheads. Shelby, how’s the robe?”

“Quite good, thank you, but er . . . where are my clothes?” Shelby shrugged, expression sheepish. “I got up this morning and my suitcase had gone.”

“Your clothes are at the dry cleaner’s, along with Alex’s. You’d never have been able to get the smell of smoke out otherwise.” Grandma stood, patting Sarah once on the shoulder, and crossed to the stove. “There’s toast and oatmeal, if either of you are hungry.”

“I’m starving,” I said. “Shelby?”

“I could eat. But er, if the clothes are at the dry cleaner . . . you didn’t just hand over the suitcase, did you?”

“Your knives are in the box on Alex’s dresser,” said Grandma, beginning to dish up two large bowls of oatmeal. “Didn’t you have a gun before?”

“It’s upstairs with my clothes. I put it on before we left the apartment.” Crow squawked. Shelby obligingly put him down, and he began twining around Grandma’s ankles, churring to be fed.

“That was probably wise of you.” Grandma ignored the begging griffin as she turned, holding out the bowls. “Brown sugar, raisins, and curry powder are on the counter, butter and ketchup are on the table. Can I get you anything else?”

“Er . . . is there coffee?”

“I’ll take care of coffee,” I said. “I’ve never heard you say ‘er’ so many times before.”

Shelby glared at me. “Shove off,” she suggested. I laughed.

Things were calm for a little while after that. Shelby and I doctored our oatmeal—neither of us added ketchup, although she did add a pinch of curry powder—and sat to devour our breakfasts. Sarah ate about half her oatmeal before pushing the bowl aside and leaning back to stare at the ceiling. I paused with my spoon halfway to my mouth, waiting to see if she was going to do anything else. When several seconds passed without her moving, I shrugged and went back to the food.

I was finishing my coffee when Grandma said, “I think it’s about time we started talking about what happened last night, don’t you?”

“Do you mean the visit to Dee’s neighborhood, or someone deciding to burn down Shelby’s apartment while we were still inside?”

“Both, if you would be so kind.” Grandma took the seat next to Sarah, folding her hands primly on the table. “I would have asked last night, but it was clear you needed to sleep. So you’re going to tell me now. And then you can call your parents.”

“This day just gets better and better,” I muttered. “We started by following Dee to the local gorgon community . . .”

Twenty minutes seems to be the most common interval in human experiences, because that’s also how long it took me to explain the situation to Grandma, including the fight with the lindworm and our dinner with Hannah. From there, Shelby and I took turns relaying what happened at the apartment—slightly edited, of course, since I had no interest in discussing my sex life with my grandmother.

When we finished, Grandma nodded, and then looked to Sarah. “What do you think?”

“They’re telling the truth, and four times four is sixteen,” said Sarah, still looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. “My head hurts. You were hurting a lot last night.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said.

“You aren’t a candle.” She lowered her head, fixing me with an accusing stare. “You can burn and burn, but you’ll never give any good light. And I don’t think it would smell very good, either.”

Shelby snorted laughter. “She’s got your number down to rights, Alex. No playing candle.”

“You got burned worse than I did,” I said defensively. Then, to Sarah, I said, “I promise to do my best not to get set on fire, but I can’t promise it’s never going to happen again. We have dangerous jobs. You know that.”

“Knowing that and knowing it aren’t the same thing, even if they use the same words,” said Sarah. She sounded frustrated. Pushing back her chair, she stood and walked out of the kitchen.

I sighed. “Grandma, I’m sorry. I—”

“Alex Price, I could kiss you right now.”

“What?” I blinked at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you noticed that’s Sarah’s making a lot more sense these days? You just had a whole conversation with her, and yes, it was unsteady in places, but she knew who you were. The whole time, she was talking to her cousin Alex, and not to some college professor whose class she audited or a character from one of her PBS shows.” Grandma beamed. “She’s coming back to us. She’s putting the pieces of herself back into the order they’re supposed to be in, because she knows you need her. This is wonderful.”

“Great, I should have arranged for someone to start trying to kill me sooner.” I stood. “I need more coffee. Shelby?”

“I’m good, thanks.” She looked at my grandmother, expression uncharacteristically earnest. “I know we didn’t meet under the best of circumstances, what with that whole ‘I came here intending to kill you’ aspect of things, but I hope you do understand that I’m genuinely sorry about all that.”

“It’s a common reaction to my species,” said Grandma. “Since you didn’t start dating my grandson just to get access to the house, I’m not angry. Now, if you’d actually shot me, it might be a different story.”

“If I’d actually shot you, I think Alex would’ve shot me immediately after, and my story would be finished now,” said Shelby. “I’m not in a hurry to wind up in a shallow grave.”

“Hey,” I said, stung. “I’m a professional. Shallow graves get discovered. No one would ever find your body.”

“Oh, yes, that’s very reassuring,” said Shelby. “Anyway, Ms. Price, what I’m trying to say is . . .”

“It’s Baker, actually,” said Grandma. “I’m Alex’s mother’s mother. His father’s mother is Mrs. Price. We didn’t get along at first, and I think calling me by her name might convince her that we’re not getting along now. Alice can be a little . . .”

“My paternal grandmother is about as stable as the San Andreas fault right after it’s been ripped open by a rock elemental,” I said. “Love her. Love her lots. But, yeah, we try not to push her buttons when there’s any possible way to avoid it, because she habitually carries a backpack full of grenades.”

Shelby blinked. “That doesn’t sound safe.”

“And now you’re starting to understand Grandma Alice.” I stood and walked over to the counter, where I refilled my coffee cup.

“I . . . see.” Shelby shook her head, almost as if she was trying to physically force the weirdness away. Sitting up a little straighter, she looked at my grandmother, and said, “To return to an earlier topic, I would greatly appreciate it if you would accept my apologies for the way we met, especially as you’ve been so hospitable during what could have been a genuinely trying time. Well. Is a genuinely trying time. I think my apartment burning down counts as a trying time.”

“So does everyone else, dear,” said my grandmother, cutting Shelby off before she could begin another round of awkward apologies. “You’ll be staying with us until the police have finished their investigation of your building, of course. Maybe longer, depending on how bad the smoke damage is.”

Shelby’s eyes widened. “Oh, I couldn’t impose, it would be—”

“The sensible thing to do, under the circumstances.” Grandma shook her head. “Maybe whoever burned your building was after Alex, and you simply had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He usually stays here, after all, and only a fool would approach this house with malice on their mind.”

Shelby, who had done exactly that, reddened.

Grandma was polite enough not to say anything, for which I was profoundly grateful. She continued calmly, saying, “But it’s also possible that whoever burned your building was trying to kill you.”

“Me?” squawked Shelby. “What in the world would someone have against me? I’m just a visiting zoologist. And I’m quite charming; ask anyone who’s met me. I’m not the sort of girl who inspires murder attempts, not unless I’m really working at it.”

“You did go with me to the gorgon community,” I commented, as I returned to the table. “Someone could have seen you, and decided you were a threat. Maybe they would have tried to burn the building even if I wasn’t there, and getting us both was just two assassination attempts for the price of one.”

“You’re an optimistic lot, aren’t you?” Shelby crossed her arms, slumping in her seat. “So maybe whoever torched my place was trying to kill me, not you, or me and you, or just you. Regardless of how you slice this, you’re looking at someone trying to kill someone I’m fond of.”

It took me a moment to untangle her sentence. Then I smiled. “I’m fond of you, too. And there’s a way we can find out whether someone is trying to kill one or both of us.”

“Oh? How’s that?”

“First things first. Hey, Grandma, do we have anything Shelby can borrow?”

Slowly, my grandmother began to smile.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“You look fine.”

“I’m quite serious. I’m going to murder you. I’m going to murder you to death. And then, after I’ve finished doing that, I’m going to kill you again, just to be sure you got the point.”

“Shelby, honestly, you look fine.”

Shelby sank deeper into the passenger seat of my car, folding her arms, and glared at me. I had enough of a sense of self-preservation not to snicker, but it was a close thing. It wasn’t the outfit, either. Sarah’s clothing might not fit Shelby’s sense of style—somehow, I couldn’t picture Shelby ever voluntarily donning a knee-length green skirt and a white peasant blouse that looked like it had been stolen straight out of the 1960s—but it was clothing, it was clean, and I’d seen stranger, usually on one of my sisters. Being the only male in my generation has made me very flexible where female fashion is concerned. (Artie doesn’t count. Artie divides girls into three categories—“terrifying,” “related to me,” and “Sarah.” Near as I can tell, the only category he actually looks at is Sarah.)

No, it was the sulking. My sisters, again. Having two of them, both younger than me, meant I’d learned that the only way to survive a sulk is to mock it: a sulking sister, rewarded for her efforts, will proceed to push her sulking to ever-greater heights, until an entire platoon of pigeons could perch on her out-thrust lower lip.

“I look like a first grade teacher from the pioneer days,” said Shelby.

“I don’t think they had machine stitching in the pioneer days,” I said, turning onto a narrow residential street lined with attractive brick houses, each on its own privately landscaped stretch of land. Even the air smelled like money. It was something of a relief to see a few fallen leaves clogging the gutters in a distinctly un-artistic manner. If not for that, I would have been afraid we were driving into a completely fabricated community, and started looking for signs that we’d discovered a new form of ambush predator, one that looked like a pleasant suburban neighborhood right up until it slammed its jaws closed on your car.

“Fine, then, I look like a first grade teacher from the 1970s.”

“Your sense of history is very brief.” I consulted my GPS before pulling to a stop in front of one of the attractive brick houses. “We’re here.”

Shelby forgot her sulk long enough to peer past me at the house. “Are you sure?”

“What did you expect? A hole in the ground? Wadjet are civilized people. Chandi’s mother is a doctor.” And Chandi’s father was an impressively large spectacled cobra, which was why Chandi’s fiancé lived at the zoo. Male wadjet don’t coexist well.

“Are you sure she’s home?”

“I called first.” Never surprise any member of a venomous species with a home visit. It’s not only rude, it’s potentially hazardous to your health.

We walked up the narrow path to the front door, Shelby shamelessly gawking at the landscaping, me watching for signs that we’d been followed. No one drove down the street, but that didn’t mean anything; any tail smart enough to stay with us this far would probably be smart enough to park farther down the block and observe our activities from a distance.

There are times when I hate being as paranoid as I am. Life with my family makes paranoia a vital survival trait, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it. It can be a lonely way to live. I glanced at Shelby out of the corner of my eye.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t so lonely after all.

I stepped up onto the porch and rang the doorbell, which made a pleasant chiming sound before tapering off. Running footsteps replaced the sound of the bell, and a familiar voice called, “I’ve got it!” just before the door was wrenched open to reveal Chandi. She blinked at us, eyes wide and bewildered. Then they narrowed, and she demanded, “What are you doing here?”

“I came because I wanted to speak with your parents,” I said. “Ms. Tanner accompanied me because she needs to be formally introduced as a visiting cryptozoologist.”

Chandi wrinkled her nose. “Ew. Are you running a breeding program for those, too?”

I gaped at her, not quite sure how I was supposed to respond. I was still gaping when she turned and ran back into the house, leaving the door ajar.

“Mooooooo-om! Dr. Price from the zoo is here and he brought a girl!”

Shelby stepped up next to me. “Look at it this way,” she said. “That’s one little girl who’s never going to need the facts of life explained to her.”

“That’s one little girl whose explanation of the facts of life looks nothing like whatever you’re picturing,” I replied.

Fortunately, Shelby’s reply was cut off by the appearance of Chandi’s mother. Dr. Sarpa was a tall, slender woman with skin the same deep, rich brown as the scales on a spectacled cobra’s back. She had her long black hair pulled into a ponytail, and was wearing a pencil skirt and a flowing white blouse. Her shoes were three-inch heels that my sister would have coveted, but which made me wince in sympathy. She’d only dressed this fancily for me once, and that was the first time that we met; this was all for Shelby’s benefit.

“Alex,” she said, with considerably more warmth than her daughter usually managed. She even smiled at me in the human style, showing her teeth without baring them. “This must be Dr. Tanner from the zoo. I’ve heard so much about you. Won’t you both please come in?”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” I said, stepping over the threshold and bending to remove my shoes. Shelby nodded quickly, indicating that she got the hint, and copied my actions. There was a low bench near the door. We placed our shoes on it.

“Daksha is waiting for us in the back garden,” said Dr. Sarpa.

“Thank you,” I said again. “Kumari, may I please properly introduce you to the scholar, Shelby Tanner, who has come here seeking only knowledge?”

“You may,” said Dr. Sarpa, and turned her human-style smile on Shelby. “You are welcome in my home so long as you travel with Alex, who is known and beloved to us, and do not offer any harm or threat unto my family. Do you agree?”

“Yes, of course,” said Shelby, looking puzzled but still agreeable. I understood her confusion; I shared it, the first time I had to deal with wadjet in a social setting. Humans are primates, and primates generally wait to see whether something is a threat before inviting it into their homes. Wadjet are something different. For Kumari, bringing us inside put us within striking distance. If we were going to pose a danger to her family, she wanted to control the environment. She wanted us in her den.

“Good.” Kumari’s smile died, taking the implied threat with it. “This way.” She turned, heading deeper into the house. Her heels clacked sharply against the floor, while our bare feet made no sound.

Shelby paced herself to walk beside me, looking faintly ill-at-ease. That was a good reaction, all things considered. I followed her gaze and saw that she was looking, not at the artwork on the walls or the general design of the house, but at Kumari’s shoes.

“We can’t wear shoes indoors because we might step on something we shouldn’t,” I murmured. “People are heavy. You’re more likely to realize what’s happening and pull back before putting your full weight on someone’s tail if you’re barefoot. Kumari gets to keep her shoes on because this is her home. She’s demonstrating dominance over you.”

“Just me?”

“She demonstrated dominance over me a long time ago.” I paused, realizing how that sounded, and winced. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“No, but it’s what you said,” said Shelby, clearly amused. I decided to stop trying to correct her. Amusement was better—much better—than any of the alternatives.

Kumari was waiting by the sliding glass door to the backyard, which was already standing open. When we reached her, she calmly removed her heels, leaving them on the mat, and stepped through the doorway, onto the cobblestone path that wound its way through their lush rainforest of a yard.

The back fence of the Sarpa residence was high enough to brush up against the restrictions laid down by the local homeowners association. I knew that well, since I’d helped Kumari deflect three attempts to have her fined for building her fence too tall. It had to be the height it was in order to conceal their private greenhouse from prying eyes. Anyone flying over would realize the Sarpas were essentially maintaining a backyard hothouse, but as it was perfectly legal and all their building permits were in order, none of us were particularly worried.

I’m a herpetologist, not a botanist; I couldn’t have named any of the trees, climbing vines, or flowers that filled the enclosed glass box of their yard. A fountain chuckled quietly to itself in one corner, feeding into a pond filled with decorative fish. Birds flashed by in the canopy, as captive as any denizens of the zoo. And in the middle of it all, coiled on a large, flat stone intended for that very purpose, was the master of this household, a spectacled cobra fully seventeen feet in length. As we approached him, he lifted the first third of his body into the air, looking down his nose at me as he opened the great flare of his hood. Shelby’s hand closed on my upper arm, fingers clenching convulsively tight.

I smiled. “Hello, Daksha. It’s nice to see you again. Your scales look remarkable. Did you shed recently?”

The massive cobra continued to study me, his tongue flicking in and out three times before he closed his hood, lowered himself back to the basking stone, and slithered down to the garden path. Moving fast enough to be the stuff of nightmares, he zigzagged to Kumari and twisted his way up her body, moving like the stripe on a barber pole. She held perfectly still, helping him along, until his head was resting on her right shoulder and his body gathered in a thick belt around her waist and torso.

“He greets you, and thanks you for your continued hospitality toward our daughter,” she said, walking over to take his recently abandoned place on the central stone. “As you ask, yes, he did shed recently, and is pleased with his pattern brightness in this current molt.” Daksha arranged himself around Kumari as she sat, moving with her to avoid any unpleasant accidents, like her settling her full weight on his tail. Her lips turned downward in something that was closer to a frown than I liked, and she said, “He wishes to know why you have brought your colleague from the zoo here, as he did not believe she was aware of our nature.”

“If you didn’t think I knew what I know, why are you telling me what you think I didn’t know but might have come here looking to find out?” Shelby paused. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure even I understand what I just said.”

“Dr. Tanner is from an organization with goals much like those of my family,” I said, taking a seat on one of the decorative benches. I tugged Shelby along with me, and she settled to my right. “She studies the cryptid world in Australia, and hopes to someday bring the human and cryptid populations of her home continent into a peaceful coexistence. This meant that when people at the zoo began dying of petrifaction, I couldn’t keep her from becoming involved with the investigation of their deaths, and she found out about a great many things. At this point, I feel that it is safer for all of us if she knows as much as possible about the local community. That way, no one can slip and tell her something she’s not meant to know.”

“I agree with Alex, husband,” said Kumari, speaking in a slightly more casual tone now that she was speaking for herself and not the great snake that she wore around her waist and torso. “He called before he came, and I agreed to this visit.”

There was a pause while Daksha adjusted his grip. She nodded, and said, once more in the formal tone that meant she spoke for her husband, “He knows what I have told him, but wanted to hear your reasoning for himself. It seems sound; he does not question your motives as much as he did before you came here.”

“That’s good,” I said sincerely. Wadjet are incredibly venomous. Having Daksha question my motives could end in my untimely demise. “I do trust Shelby with my life at this point: she’s saved it several times.”

“Bringing her here means you are trusting her with ours, and that you are trusting us with hers,” said Kumari, a faint edge on her voice. “It is not a trust to be cheaply given.”

“It hasn’t been,” I assured her. “There was, however, a motive for bringing her to meet you now, rather than waiting until things were calmer. I assume Chandi told you about what was happening at the zoo before I did?”

“She’s very put out,” said Kumari. “She was counting on spending more time with Shami before she had to resume her schooling at the end of the summer. If the deaths continue, her bond could be set back by a matter of years.”

Shelby sat up a little straighter. I put a hand on her knee, squeezing, and hoped she would read the touch as a request that she not say anything. She shot me a quick look, confusion writ large across her face, but nodded, and kept silent. I smiled gratefully before returning my attention to Kumari.

(For Shelby, and for most human beings—myself honestly included, when I didn’t make an effort—referring to the deaths at the zoo so casually was almost like erasing the suffering of the victims. For Kumari and her family, while the death of a few humans was sad, it was by no means a tragedy. The human population of Ohio was in no danger. For Chandi and Shami, however, failure to properly bond could mean they would never be able to have children. It could also mean she would fail to develop the appropriate adult physiological responses to his venom, which would make her vulnerable to him later in life. Wadjet biology is not forgiving of things like zoo closures, and they only had one shot at a happy ever after.)

“The zoo closures are likely to continue, but if necessary, I can help smuggle Shami out of the reptile house,” I said. “The difficulty will be finding a place for him to stay until we’re ready to reopen. I’m terribly sorry, but my grandparents’ house isn’t an option, due to the presence of a colony of Aeslin mice. I know Shami is well-mannered and would do his best to abide by the local rules, but . . .”

“But there is no sense in testing his resolve in such a direct and potentially damaging way,” said Kumari. “I quite agree, and I appreciate that you have both considered this, and rejected it for good cause. I will ask around about arranging another safe house for him. If only my husband,” she caressed the head of the great snake that encircled her body, “could already tolerate the presence of his son-in-law to be, this would be so much easier.”

“Yes, it would,” I said, and tactfully didn’t ask any more questions about the situation. I might not like the answers I got. “Do you mind if I go back several steps in the conversation?”

“Not at all; I was the one who derailed us. You were asking whether I was aware of the deaths. I responded that I am.”

“Shelby and I went to visit the local Pliny’s gorgon community, to see whether they might be able to tell us where the cockatrice we believe is haunting the zoo came from. We have some good leads to follow. In the meanwhile, we needed to sleep, and we returned to her apartment for the night. I woke to the smell of gasoline . . .”

It only took a few minutes to tell the full story, including our escape via the second-floor window. Kumari looked appropriately shocked and dismayed. Daksha remained wrapped around her the entire time, his tongue occasionally flicking out to taste the air. Normal snakes don’t hear, exactly; they soak up vibrations with their bodies. I wasn’t sure how male wadjet were able to listen to verbal communication, but knew from my dealings with Shami that they could, probably due to an inner ear structure that was dramatically different from their serpentine cousins. When I finished, the male wadjet turned his head away, letting out a long, low hiss.

“My husband is shocked and saddened by the trouble you have experienced, but wonders what it has to do with us,” said Kumari. “Surely you don’t think that we had anything to do with the burning of Miss Tanner’s building.”

“Actually, I came here because I thought the opposite, and because we need your help,” I said. “The local bogeyman community has never been exactly friendly toward me.”

“They mistrust your grandmother,” said Kumari.

Shelby snorted. “A Johrlac not being trusted. What are the odds, really?”

I eyed her but didn’t say anything. Instead, I returned my attention to Kumari, and said, “They have their reasons. That doesn’t change the fact that I need to know who is trying to have me killed—or whether I was the target in the first place. The arsonist could have been attempting to murder Shelby, and been willing to take me out as collateral damage.”

“I find it more likely that they were hoping to kill both of you,” said Kumari. “I will ask around, however. Perhaps someone has opened a contract, and your life is now valued in a small but viable number of dollars.”

“What a lovely way of putting it,” Shelby said, wrinkling her nose.

“Everything has a price.” I stood. “Thank you for your hospitality. Will you call me if you learn anything?”

“Everything has a price,” agreed Kumari. “Will you help us find a place to house Shami if it proves needful?”

“I will.”

“Then, yes. I will call you.” She stood, her husband slithering into a new position around her shoulders. He looped himself there, head bobbing like a wax museum prop. The temptation of Eve, as recreated by cobra and pediatrician. “For both your sakes, I hope the killer was trying for the two of you together.”

Shelby blinked. “Why’s that?”

Kumari smiled. “Because it will make you twice as difficult to destroy.”