5. You’re stuck with me, so you better like me. #3
“No. You probably will at Easter. His hive is rather large, and his wives are closely bonded. They hate leaving anybody at home, so they either all go or they all stay. Add in the whelps, and getting everyone moved around is quite the challenge. But, we can help with that moving forward, as we can babysit sometimes to give them some space, although we’ll have to recruit some help from other hives. ”
“How many whelps does he have right now?”
“Twenty or so, all girls.”
My mouth dropped open. “Twenty?”
“They’re all six, too.”
“All of them are six?”
“My grandmother is getting older, as is my grandfather, so that’s their last clutch.
He won’t accept another bride at this point in his life, nor does he plan on cultivating any new wives.
This clutch is from his youngest wives. That’s just how it goes.
That’s why my father is the current king of our line.
Grandfather wants to spend the rest of his days doting on his children, his wives, and his bride.
My father handles the diplomacy, and my grandfather shows up to help remind the other gorgons of my father’s authority.
My father has it easy. The hives don’t tend to push because my grandfather may be retired, but he’s still spry, and I have a far shorter temper than my grandfather does. ”
“Big, scary gorgon-incubus doohickey.” I grinned at him. “We just need to find out who has been hurting the gorgons, brutally kill them, and go about our business. Babysitting for him sounds like fun!”
“I should be telling you that we shouldn’t brutally kill the guilty, but I’d be quite the hypocrite if I did that, as that’s precisely what I’d like to do if I get my hands on the fuckers.”
My husband would. “I’ll try not to brutally kill them if you try not to brutally kill them. That whole day in court thing.”
“We’d be saving the court system a lot of money,” he muttered.
“I’ll just ask Sariel really nicely for a favor to close the case quickly.
Really nicely. Extremely nicely. I’ll tell him it’s cheaper to help the court system than it is to pay for or handle my rabies treatments.
Until this is solved, I’ll be working on my world record for most times a single woman can contract and be treated for rabies. ”
“That reminds me. That CDC rep wants you to not get treated for rabies the next time you rescue some animal from a dumpster, and if you’re positive, they want to see if you can purge the disease like angels do.”
“But will I get to keep the animal?”
“We can discuss that when it happens.” According to my husband’s resigned tone, he understood we’d have a new pet when the time came for that experiment.
I had severe issues with dumpsters and wanting to keep the animals I found in them. “I have the feeling this is going to happen even without the help of a dumpster. What if you contract rabies?”
“Standard treatments can work on me. I am concerned about the food supply for their snakes, though. Most eat feeder mice.”
“So, we look into the mice situation, figure out why your family’s gorgons haven’t contracted rabies and other local hives have, and start there. Where does your grandfather get his mice?”
Quinn blinked. “Huh.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“I bet he’s been catching them with extermination groups, as the whelps are young and need to learn to hunt mice if they’re unable to get to a supplier.
That is an example of what gorgon young are taught.
Beauty and Sylvester must have been fed feeder mice, where my grandfather’s hive would have been using live-caught mice and rats.
” Quinn snagged his phone and dialed a number.
“Sorry to bother you again, Grandfather, but have you been teaching the whelps how to hunt for mice? Excellent. Thank you. Have you been catching and freezing the excess? What is your general supply right now? How long have you been doing live hunts? Okay, thanks.” Shaking his head, my husband chuckled.
“Yep. They’ve been live hunting mice, and he’s been taking his wives out for group hunts before that because it’s a fun family activity.
They petrify the mice, take them home, neutralize them, dispatch them, and then freeze them.
They’ve been doing this for years. Apparently, he made an agreement with several exterminator groups to help handle swarms of rats and mice.
They do eat rats, too—they just cut them up before freezing into pieces small enough for their snakes. ”
“And so your family dodged being infected because they weren’t using a regular supplier.”
“And I bet my cousin does the same thing. They just have to dish out for the neutralizer, and that’s cheap enough compared to buying vast quantities of feeder mice.
Better yet, the neutralizer would purify the wild rodents of most problems, including rabies.
They just stack the statues, spray the whole lot of them, and then prepare them for eating later. ”
“Let’s open the rest of our presents, then we’ll make a to-do list, and get this show on the road!”
I wanted to begin the rest of my life with my family while keeping them safe. Maybe some of my life’s problems couldn’t be solved with a liberal application of fire, neither rabies nor gorgon dust could survive through me.