25
Blood didn’t serve as much of a lead as I thought it would. All aspects must be looked into, no matter how insignificant. It just ruled out one factor and confirmed another known fact—I was sick or starving, most likely both.
Very few things upset my stomach, all of which appeared to have no nutritional value to my new body. Cooked, fermented, or Vipera blood; the latter being dead poisoned blood in essence anyway, as is their nature.
Venom was next on my list, and highly anticipated.
I had two test tube racks, ten samples between Silas and Phoebe. Luka was nowhere to be found, so all I could do was try my own.
Silas and Phoebe both had rather concentrated venom, above-average potency indicated by the rich golden color and from personal experience.
My hypothesis wasn’t very elaborate; Silas and Phoebe have potent venom thanks to their pedigree.
I would predict that mine was more potent than Luka’s, but landed in the average percentile.
I wasn’t special. I was dysfunctional, and possibly not eating enough to even heal at an average rate, never mind produce my best venom.
I took a clean tube with the cheesecloth pulled tight over the opening.
Just as I had practiced many times on my less-than-cooperative subjects.
This time it was more exciting being that I was the subject.
Exploration of the human body was already a lifetime of wonders, my mind electrified with possibilities of relearning a new one.
The voluntary function of the fangs was instinctual but with some range of control, similar to a bladder, I suppose.
My hunger had reached beyond the threshold of knowing what stomach pain was, and I was numb to the churns and grumbles by now. That being said, I couldn’t bring my fangs forward, not without stimulus.
I closed my eyes, imagining John’s arm again.
Nothing stirred within me.
My patience wasn’t strong enough to try to think of anything more appetizing, so I used my tongue to push the fang from the roof of my mouth and fold it forward. The mechanics were just as simple as a tree boa’s teeth. An uncomplicated feature that needed no adaptation after all these years.
It was tricky keeping it forward, as it tried to spring back into my mouth as if it knew there was nothing appetizing waiting.
My tongue pressed hard against the root, hyperextending to make sure I could find the small opening of the tube.
The tip dragged against the fabric. My fingers pinched tight to keep the surface taut. Then finally, I pushed the tube up into my tooth, releasing my tongue to make room for the glass.
My gums stung when the cloth slipped up the shaft of the fang, rubbing against the gums and the glands behind the tooth. Pressure released from my sinuses, like a stuffy nose that finally drained. I pushed up again and the pressure was even lighter, until there was no change.
When I pulled the tube from my mouth, I almost didn’t see it.
The liquid was so clear it may as well have been water.
Even when I never expected experiments to be predictable, this was the most disappointing outcome. I placed the . . . venom next to the others, if that’s what it even was. Perhaps I didn’t make any venom yet. Lack of proper nutrition could be the cause, or my Viperic age, just like my new cycle.
A light rasp at the door. Luka poked his head in, then encroached on my laboratory anyway when he saw I was present.
“Come for a donation?” I wagged a clean tube in the air, then rolled it across the table toward him.
“If you don’t mind its lack of usefulness.” He shrugged, grabbing one of the torn cloths as he stepped next to me to inspect my progress. “Is that the control group?” He pointed to my vial.
“No,” I said, more defensively than intended.
He leaned down to look closely at the samples. “Is it water?”
“No.”
“Spit?”
“Just give your sample and go.”
Luka let out a slow whistle as he stood straight. “Who had the honor of putting you in such a mood?”
I slapped my journal open, jotting down the visual observations for the samples I had so far.
“Wait,” Luka laughed, “is that one yours?”
“Actually, I don’t need your sample.” I snatched the vial from his hand.
“How did Silas describe it?” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Impotent?”
“Give me your hand and I’ll show you impotent.”
“Give it a go.” He held his hand out, as if to shake mine. His palm tipped to me, veins of his forearm prominent. Enough to at least entice my more carnal instinct, which was miraculously functional despite my best efforts to stimulate them from memory.
“It won’t work.” He smirked.
“Why not?”
“Venomous snakes have antibodies that make them immune to their own venom,” he explained. “Vipera are no different.”
“So you never feel anything?”
“You can feel it a little, but no more than if you rubbed cocaine on a wound.” He glanced down at his hand, wondering if I’d take it at all.
I took his hand, turning his palm upward and gravitating toward the wrist. Even as I inspected for a good play for a firm bite, I could feel the ache in the roof of my mouth. The dryness of my throat made it as if he were water in an oasis.
“Clench your fist,” I instructed.
The wrist was close enough where I could see the small ticking of the veins as fresh blood coursed through him.
I opened my mouth, the fangs pulling forward without the help of my tongue this time.
Without a second thought, my fangs disappeared below the skin. Except this time I didn’t wait to bite down fully. After another pulse of my jaw, I released the arm from my fangs. His hand was open still.
When I looked up at him, he was distracted by the cabinets and the mess on the counter.
“Luka,” I said, shaking his wrist, “I said clench your fist.”
His brow twitched before looking back. “I am—”
We both stared at the hand.
Slack, open flat, and a slight paleness to the fingertips.
He pulled his hand from me and held it, pinching the palm, the fingertips, flexing it carefully.
“I thought you said it wouldn’t work.” I touched his hand; it was cold.
He could curl his fingertips, but that was it.
I used the scalpel to poke his palm in several places, but not even as much as a flinch.
When I looked up at him, he just stared at his palm. For once, the man had nothing to say, not even a jest.
“I assumed it wouldn’t be potent, even if I had any.” I went to my journal, the pen moving faster than I could think about the situation at hand. Clearly color was not an indication of strength, not reliably.
This was more than numbing—it was paralysis.
Not only was my venom chemically different from the rest, but the Vipera had no antibodies to combat it.
“Clearly you have something. Not sure what that is.” He held his arm to his chest, inspecting it carefully in his bewilderment. He checked his watch. “You bit me at ten forty-two. Write it down.”
I scratched the time into my notes before checking my wristwatch. “How long do you think it will take to wear off?”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of wearing off, but a matter of when my nerves will repair themselves.”
“Are you saying it’s a local paralytic?” My eyes broke from the page to stare at his hand. “Nerve damage?”
“That would be the logical direction.”
“It will repair, right?”
“Through metabolic detoxification, yes,” he confirmed. “I’m not worried, just surprised. We have Viperic regeneration and metabolism to thank.”
“I didn’t mention worrying—”
Except it wasn’t only Vipera I’d bitten.
Everything in my hands fell and I pushed past him as if he were never there in the first place. Every step became faster, harder, until I was at a light jog, then picking up my skirts to run.
There were two girls in the hallway.
“Have you seen John?” I grabbed one’s shoulder, which startled them. The look of bewilderment only made me move on, quickly approaching the parlor.
It was full of people having coffee and snacks while waiting for an early lunch service. So many people—and not one noticed the dazed man sitting among them.
The Buffalo girls gathered in the corner. Among them, in a lone chair off to the side, John was breathing heavy, his coloring paler.
“John!” I shouted, pushing through and towering over him. I grabbed his face, pushed his eyelid open. “John, can you hear me?”
He swallowed thickly, a small mumble.
In all fairness, he looked tired. But his slow responses were telling me that the envenomation the day before was spreading, and his body’s attempt to break it down failed.
At this point, my skirts were thrown over my arm as I ran back to the lab. I lost my shoes along the way, my hair was coming undone, nothing about me had any motivation to remain together.
I burst through the doors of the lab again, Luka’s hand was already flexing more than it had been, but my hastiness earned a look of panic from the man.
I grabbed a syringe from the drawer and rummaged through the supplies from the blood draw.
With no hesitation, I removed the plunger and spat into the barrel as many times as I could while uncorking the bottle of the irrigation saline.
“Clench your jaw in between,” Luka said, helping me with the cork as I collected as much saliva as possible. Once it reached the first notch on the scale, I held it out to Luka as his steady hands poured the rest of the way. “Inject slowly.”
I put the plunger back in and squeezed out a small bit of fluid, running back down to the parlor as people were now exiting from all the fuss.
“Move, move!” I yelled, the bodies throwing themselves out of the way as my feet pounded against the floor. I nearly slipped on my way across the room before throwing myself to my knees in front of John.
I tugged his sleeve up and pulled away the bit of cloth he used to cover the bite.
The bite was irritated, skin inflamed from the venom reaction.
I held the needle to the skin, pushing it into the vein as steadily as I could. The plunge started at fifty milliliters, then with quiet hands it slid to forty, then thirty, then to zero.