Curse of the Nandi (Society for Paranormals Book 5) (5 page)

Yao pouted playfully. “What a pity,” he murmured. Observing Mr. Timmons’ lethal look, he hastily added, “Yao believes Kamalu intends for us to not eat you but to help you.”

“To die,” Yawa hissed.

“No, my sister dear, not to die,” Yao admonished. “We can help others to die, but not them.”

“Yes, yes,” his sister said, her bug body lighting up at the prospect.

“What a delightful couple,” Mr. Timmons noted, his energy anything but delighted.

“Indeed,” I said, “and I can’t allow any hunting in my backyard.”

Yao graced me with a smoldering look and it was all I could do to block out an overwhelming urge to fling myself into his arms and offer up my vein and anything else he cared to take.

“Death has already arrived,” he murmured, and it sounded like a lullaby.

“The Kerit,” Jonas added with a solemn tone.

“The Adze,” Mr. Timmons said.

“The Plague,” Yao whispered in a dreamy voice.

“The Kerit,” Yawa sneered. “Those foul creatures, always wasting blood and ripping off heads. So careless. The blood…”

With a disgusted snort, Jonas shook the glass jar, smacking the insect against the side.

“Little man, go easy,” Yao warned, his entrancing voice hinting at unspoken violence. His dark eyes alighted on me. “The Plague is here. Delicious disease. It will decimate everyone, but we can help.”

“Yes, yes we can,” Yawa squeaked.

Mr. Timmons’ countenance perfectly mirrored my sentiments: distrust mingled with curiosity, for if Kam had in fact sent these creatures to us, he must’ve had a reason. But was it one we could trust? Kam was by no means enamored with the presence of European settlers, and would quite gladly be rid of us all. Be it by Plague, pestilence or vampire, it wouldn’t matter.

“How?” I asked.

Yao licked his full lips. “Give us permission and we will sniff out the Plague victims and drain them before they can spread their illness.”

“
That
is how you wish to help us?” I demanded, my lips curling back as if an unwholesome air had entered the room. “What was Kam thinking?”

“That we can prevent a pandemic,” Yawa argued. “Not that we should care about you nasty humans.”

Jonas smacked the jar onto the dining table; a satisfied yet grim smile appeared at Yawa’s accompanying sound of protest. Yao snatched up the jar and hugged it to his chest.

I glanced at Mr. Timmons and found him closely observing my reaction. Of his, there was no indication and there could be only one reason for that.

“You agree with this plan?” I asked, incredulous, an accusatory tone punctuating my words.

“If the Plague gets out of hand, which it could easily do in the camp, there shall be nothing left to save of Nairobi,” he said, his eyes unreadable, his true feelings hidden away from even my scrutiny. “Not to sound too cliche, but this may be the lesser of two evils.”

I faced Yao who was preoccupied with opening the jar’s metal lid, a task at which he was failing.

“And why do you need our permission?” I inquired.

The magnificent creature paused in his efforts. “Kamalu told us this was your territory, Miss Knight, and that you are a lethal entity not to be angered.” He looked me up and down, as if unsure how this could possibly be true.

Miffed by this pronouncement, I could think of no rejoinder and instead said, “Jonas, help him with the lid.”

Jonas huffed, an elongated and exaggerated sound, and with reluctance in his every movement, took back the jar and opened the lid.

With much less reluctance and far greater speed, the firefly within zipped out and snapped into her womanly form. Her teeth bared, she hissed at Jonas, who to his credit showed more interest in the jar than in the Adze.

I cleared my throat and in a tone I hoped was becoming of a lethal entity reigning over her territory, I informed the vampires, “I’ll consult with Dr. Ribeiro and provide you my response in three days.”

“As you wish, Miss Knight,” Yao answered for them, as his sister was too enraged by Jonas’ disinterest to vocalize more than a snarl. With a word to her and a slight bow to me, Yao zapped into his firefly form and flew out the window. With a hiss, Yawa followed.

“Well, now, what a pickle that is,” I said into the silence.

“Yes, it is,” Mr. Timmons said. “And I shall have to protest.”

“At what?” I queried. “At Kam’s pronouncement that Nairobi is my domain?” I couldn’t suppress the smirk, and I wasn’t really the smirking sort.

“Of course not, dear,” he responded with a knowing smile. “It’s just that everyone insists on referring to you as Miss Knight, and that simply won’t do.”

Chapter 7

Bubonic Plague is unpleasant under any circumstances, but particularly so when one is confronted with it over breakfast.

Generally speaking, breakfast is a dreadful time for announcing news more dramatic than the flavor of jam. To take advantage of that delicate time of day to provide details more demanding than the condiments available for spreading on toast is entirely uncivilized.

Sadly for my breakfast, Dr. Ribeiro had little hesitation and even less regard for such delicacies, or so it seemed. Mr. Timmons and I had only just sat down when the zebra-training doctor burst into the house with barely a knock and tipped his brown felt hat in our direction.

I waved a hand at him before he could speak. “Please don’t tell me you’ve brought another brainless head with which to instruct me,” I implored him as I smeared a yellowish jam over our freshly burned toast. The jam, I noted, had a consistency not so dissimilar to mushed corn.

“Oh no, there are no brainless heads today,” Dr. Ribeiro said as he waggled his own, which fortunately still contained a brain. “I am only wondering if now is being an appropriate time to converse about the Plague? You are remembering I mentioned there is Bubonic Plague in the camp?”

“How could we forget?” Mr. Timmons observed dryly as he reached for the jam.

“Oh bother,” I muttered, eyeing my metal teapot. It was embossed with swirls and vague images, and was the only memento I possessed from my mother. It was also full of tea, which meant I had yet to imbibe the requisite liquid in sufficient quantity to coherently engage with any conversation more complex than the weather.

“You are remembering, Miss Knight?” the Goan doctor persisted.

“Humph,” I said and poured a cup before offering the pot to our guest.

“I am thanking you most profusely,” he enthused. “But I am too distracted for that.”

I stared at him, aghast. “Surely you jest. How can you ever be too distracted for tea, Dr. Ribeiro?”

“You are so correct, Miss Knight, my very most, profuse apologies,” the doctor corrected himself and accepted the proffered pot. “Still I am most distracted and perturbed, and even a little bit worried, Miss Knight.”

Mr. Timmons cleared his throat. “I believe the appropriate appellation is Mrs. Timmons,” he suggested and twitched an eyebrow while observing my response.

I hesitated, for I’d been Mrs. Knight (or, to the locals, Miss Knight) for long enough that it had become who I was. The moment passed and I nodded, adding, “Absolutely correct,” to compensate for my hesitation.

“Oh yes. Mrs. Timmons, Miss Knight, same-same,” Dr. Ribeiro said around a mouthful of tea and toast. Before either of us could inform him that it most certainly wasn't ‘same-same’, he continued. “You are still being you, madam. But the Plague!” He clapped his hands against his temples. “It is being more serious than the brainless heads.”

I hurumphed at that, wondering if the Kerit’s victims would’ve agreed with the doctor’s prognosis. “Be that as it may, I’m not sure what you expect from us,” I said. “You are after all the doctor. If you’re stumped, well…” I shrugged, trying to avoid reflecting on the Adze’s offer of assistance, morbid as it was.

“How contagious is this Plague, anyway?” Mr. Timmons queried as he reached for the teapot.

“Oh, very, very, very so,” Dr. Ribeiro gushed as he sat upright and slapped his hands on the table. His hat, which he’d set on his lap, flopped to the floor. He leaned over, disappearing from view while explaining, “It is being so very, very, very contagious. I told the Medical Officer of Health, but he is not believing me, not at all.” His head popped up from below the table.

Mr. Timmons frowned. “Dr. Alfred Spurrier hasn’t practiced medicine for some years. And I suspect he rather enjoys his lofty administrative position a trifle too much. Announcing a Plague wouldn’t benefit him in the least.”

“But ignoring it won’t much benefit its victims,” I noted.

“I am supposing not, Miss Knight,” the doctor said and helped himself to more toast. “Even more so because it’s not really the Bubonic Plague anymore.”

I reached for my cup, for I suspected I’d be in need of further fortification. “Then what, dare I ask, is it?”

“It is seeming to be a mutation or hybrid of sorts,” Dr. Ribeiro enthused as only a doctor could when discussing mutating diseases. “I am finding Trypanosoma brucei in the victims.”

“Trip-a-what?” Mr. Timmons inquired, although he seemed disinterested in the definition and was merely humoring our friend.

“It’s the parasite that causes sleeping sickness,” I said. “It’s transmitted by the tsetse fly.”

Dr. Ribeiro beamed at me. “Exactly correct, Miss Knight. But that’s not being all.”

I huffed. “Of course not. Heaven forbid we should have a disease that merely combines the Bubonic Plague with sleeping sickness.”

“And I’m so happy there is no forbidding,” Dr. Ribeiro said, his eyes gleaming as I imagined a child’s would when confronted by a pile of presents. “For there is another element that is combining with these diseases to cause a condition that is reminding me of zombies.”

“Zombies?” I repeated while Mr. Timmons snorted.

“Zombies,” Dr. Ribeiro affirmed. “It is the condition being referred to as Necrosis.”

“Death?” I asked.

“Yes, but in this condition, it is death only to parts of the body,” Dr. Ribeiro said, his eyes glowing brighter at the imagery he was conveying. “In mild cases, it is only being a patch of skin. But in extreme cases, it is a whole limb that dies and rots away even as it is attached to a living body. The person is living and breathing, but with a dead, rotting arm or leg.”

“Let me offer a guess as to which version we are facing here,” Mr. Timmons drawled. “It’s the extreme case.”

Dr. Ribeiro nodded his head with great enthusiasm. “Oh, yes! A perfectly perfect guess. The case is being very extreme. I believe after a few days of infection, a person will be carrying around at least two whole limbs that are dead. It is a most fascinating infection, combining as it does with the Plague and the sleeping sickness.”

“Fascinating,” I repeated with significantly less zeal.

There was a pause during which we gathered our thoughts which were now scattered between breakfast and mutating diseases.

“So what are the symptoms?” Mr. Timmons was now fully engrossed in the doctor’s elucidation, and had abandoned tea and toast to studiously listen.

“Oh, I am most happy you should be asking, Mr. Timmons,” Dr. Ribeiro said with a grand smile that beamed through his dark goatee. “Just as with Bubonic Plague, we are having the buboes, those enlarged and so very painful lymph nodes. Sometimes they pop open and it is being a very messy business.”

I set down my toast and frowned at it. The jam was messy as well.

“Then the sleeping sickness, which is making people very zombie-like in their alertness,” the doctor persisted in his description. “They lose interest in their surroundings, they are in a very sleepy state, their speech is being slurred, they don’t want to eat, and their mental capacity is greatly diminished. And finally the necrosis of limbs. It is all so much like a zombie, isn’t it?” He let out a contented sigh.

I finished the toast. Messy or not, the jam tasted better than it looked, which was most fortuitous for my appetite.

“Cure?” Mr. Timmons asked.

“Not one,” Dr. Ribeiro announced with a flourish of a hand. “The best cure is being prevention. The Plague was introduced by fleas, but now, the combined, mutated version can be passed from physical contact. Person to person.”