Worlds Apart (22 page)

His brow wrinkled, eyes gentle
with concern. “STD?”

She took a nervous sip of tea.
“No. It's… complicated.”

He spread his hands. “I'm a smart
guy. I can take it.”

Her hands trembled and she swept
them through her hair to hide it. She had to tell him someday. “All
right. I'll show you.”

She crossed to her desk, pulled
out her keys, and unlocked the bottom right drawer. Her hand shook
as she reached for the file she'd hidden at the bottom. Her own
file. Medical records that Sharon must not see.

She stared at the folder in her
hand, and bit her lip.
He won't believe me. I had to see for
myself before I believed Kasia. What do I tell him?

She jerked in surprise when he
came to stand in front of her desk. Guilt made her look away from
his disturbed expression.

“What is that?” he
asked.

“Results of my blood
test.”

“What? Where did you have them
done? Why did you go somewhere else?” His tone revealed both hurt
and insult, although he was trying to remain impartial.

“I did them myself.” She held out
a hand. “I'll try to explain, but you won't like this. I’m sorry,
Will. This is hard.”

He shook his head. “Just
talk.”

She handed him a paper from the
folder. “This is a printout of my blood sample.” The photo, labeled
with the date, time, and magnification, showed hundreds of the
white
anti-vyra-stribdal
. Will stared at it, turning it up
and down to view it from different angles. He pulled the entire
folder from her hand and walked back to his chair to sit, before
looking up at her. “What is it?”

She stayed behind the desk.
“They're antibodies. My baby has a disease, but my body is
producing this antibody in response.”

“That's not how it works,
Tina.”

“I know.”

“Tina….”

“I'm
trying
, Will. It's
hard to explain.”

“We're both doctors. Just tell me
what the hell it is.”

Will never swore. Tina felt guilty
to have driven him to that point.

“It's called a
vyra-stribdal
.” Tina waved a hand. “But that's not
important. It's genetic, from the baby's father. It's very rare,
Will. So rare, it's almost non-existent. I… I should have played
the lottery that day.”

He closed his eyes, but she saw
the anger in his tight jaw. When he opened his eyes again, she
realized he wasn’t just angry. He was afraid, too. For her. For the
town.

“What are you doing, Tina?” he
asked.

“Doing?”

“Vyra-stribdal
is not
Latin. It's not anything. If you're going to make up a
name….”

“I'm not making anything up. Look,
I told you this is hard to explain. Don't make it harder by calling
me a liar.” Her own anger strengthened her voice. “It's not
important what the disease is or does. But I've got to work with
another doctor on this. That's why I haven't been seeing
you.”

He tossed the folder on the table,
stood, and reached her desk in one long step. Gripping the edge of
it with both hands, he spoke in a hard, cold voice. “I am not just
your doctor. You can’t dismiss me for your own convenience. I am
your colleague, and I am your
friend
. You can see any doctor
you want, Tina, but you owe me the courtesy of an explanation. Who
are you working with? What are their credentials? And what...” He
turned, swept the folder up and threw it on her desk with such
force it knocked several other papers onto the floor. “What does
this
…
organism
…
do?”

Her mouth trembled as she fought
to contain both anger and sorrow. She and Will seldom argued about
anything. Yet she had no right to betray the secrets of
Kaarmanesh.

“It has… morphological…
properties.” She waited for his response, but he just stared at
her. She tried again. “Given the right triggers, the
vyra-stribdal
join together and cause damaging changes to
the body. I don't know how I'm producing an antibody to it. I just
know I am, and if we can figure it out, it could mean a cure or a
treatment at the very least. My baby has this disease, Will. So
does his father. I
want
to find a treatment.”

He continued to stare at her, jaw
tight as he thought about it. He gave a slight nod, but his next
question proved he was not yet satisfied. “Did the CDC discover
this while they were here? Are you working with them?”

It was tempting to say yes. But it
would be easy find out the truth. “No,” she said. “It's not the
CDC.”

His eyes narrowed, flashing with
frustration. He glanced at his watch. “I want to see a sample. We
have a few minutes. Do you have any live cultures?”

A surge of longing went through
her, surprising in its intensity.
I want to show him. I don't
want to be the only human being who knows about this. I can't keep
holding it in.

She stepped from behind her desk,
heading for the door. “Come on then. I'll show you.”

In the lab, she grabbed a slide
and lancet, holding her hand out to Will. “Let's start from
scratch, so you know without doubt it's from me.”

He shook his head, but swabbed her
finger and jabbed the lancet into it. He squeezed a large dot of
blood onto the slide and set it up while she bandaged her finger.
She didn't say anything as he gazed into the microscope. When he
finally turned from the scope, he stared at the counter rather than
look at her.

“I want to work on this, too.” He
met her eyes. “You tell them that. Whatever's going on here, I want
in on it.”

“They may not agree.”

He leaned toward her, anger in
every pore. “You make them agree. I don't care if they're
corporations with proprietary rights, or the government, or the
X-Files, you make them agree.” He stood and moved to the door
before turning back. “This town has been through hell in the last
few months, Tina. Everyone knows how hard you worked to help them
through it, and people are excited about your pregnancy. Since
you're not married, everyone feels protective of you. So unless you
plan on packing up and moving away for good, I suggest you let your
collaborators know you can't shut us out. Think about
it.”

Chapter 26

The afternoon's patient load was
small, and at Sharon's insistence, Tina took a nap after the last
one left. Sharon put up several posters of Beowulf around town, and
the paper promised to print a notice in the next issue. That
wouldn't come out for two more days, but Sharon also sent an email
blast to everyone on the patient list.

Tina was surprised she was able to
sleep, waking up after fifteen minutes, feeling more in control of
herself. She lay on the sofa, softly stroking her stomach.
My
baby's a werewolf. No, that's not right. He's a human with a
werewolf virus. Except it's not exactly a virus, it's a special
class of organism.

She understood Will's frustration.
Would Shandari agree to include him? Could she pass information to
him while hiding the werewolf connection? He would never believe
her if she told him.

Shandari was coming over that
evening. May as well talk about it then, and get it over
with.

She freshened up, then helped
Sharon update insurance forms and patient charts. Once they were
finished, Sharon seemed hesitant to leave. “Why don't you come over
for dinner, Doc? Frank won't mind. We can play some poker or
something.”

Tina managed to smile at that.
Sharon's husband could rout her at poker, and Sharon knew it. “If
you want a raise, just say so,” she said, glad when Sharon laughed.
“I'll pass. Actually, I've got company tonight. A friend from
Portland is coming down. So I'll be busy.”

“That's good. I guess.” Sharon
frowned.

“You guess?”

“Ah, it's none of my business Doc,
but... you will be careful won't you? With your friend?”

Tina stared at her, unable to make
sense of that comment. Then it clicked, and she flushed with
embarrassment. “I got myself knocked up, and now everybody thinks I
never make the guys use condoms, is that it?”

“No,” Sharon said weakly.
“Everyone knows accidents happen.”

Tina sighed. “I do use condoms.”
Usually,
she thought, uneasy with the knowledge that the
subject never came up with Clive. She wondered why it hadn’t. “But
for the record, tonight's friend is of the girlish variety. In
fact, she's a doctor. We're working on a project in the lab. So no
alcohol or debauchery. Feel better now?”

Sharon nodded, her expression
contrite. Tina laughed and hugged her. “Get out of here. I'll take
you up on dinner and poker another time.”

~~

Shandari shrugged her backpack to
the floor of Tina's lab. “I've got fifteen vyra-stribdal samples,”
she said, removing a rack of five vials from the pack. Tina hefted
it above her head to look through the vials with light behind them.
They contained a thick, red liquid, and she arched a brow at her
visitor.

“Is the medium blood?”

Shandari nodded, pulling out
another rack. “We're always working on this problem, and we have a
large pool of volunteers who donate often. Everyone wants to find a
cure.” After the third rack of vials, she pulled a small black box
from the pack. Setting it on the floor, she passed both hands over
it, murmuring a few words in a chanting voice.

Tina couldn't stop a gasp of
surprise as the box expanded to two feet in each direction.
Shandari smiled up at her, then tapped a finger on the top of the
box.

“Think of it as a refrigerator,”
she said. “So we have something to store the vials in, but can
still keep them separate from your world. Watch.” She placed a hand
on the right side of the box and said, “Varesh,” in a clear voice.
The front of the box opened with a
click
.

Just like a refrigerator
door,
Tina thought. There was even a light.

Shandari placed the racks inside,
closed the door, and stood. “It's a mini-portal, of sorts. The
inside of the box is in Kaarmanesh. It's a bit more complicated
this way, but I don't want a chance of contamination. I've rigged
it so you can open it, too. Give it a try.”

“What? How?”

Shandari gestured at the box. “Do
what I did. Varesh means “open” in the language of the Montarian
elves. There is magic in the language itself, but I assure you,
this is very minor stuff.”

“Magic,” Tina muttered. “Great.”
She placed her hand on the side and said, “Varesh.” The door popped
open, the racks gleaming in the light. At the same time, she felt
warmth in her womb, and pressed a hand over the spot. “That's
weird.”

“Did you feel something?” Shandari
asked, staring down at Tina’s hand.

“It felt warm when I spoke the
word. Just briefly. It's already gone.”

“May I Look?”

Tina heard the capital “L.” She
nodded. “Yes, please. Is he all right?”

Shandari sat on one of the lab's
rolling stools. Tina watched the light flair in her eyes, but she
trusted it now, and didn't flinch as Shandari's gaze fixed on her
womb. After a few seconds, the light faded and Shandari glanced up
at her.

Tina took a seat on the other
stool. “What did you see?”

“There's no change in the
well-being of the fetus,” Shandari said. “But there is a slight
increase in his magical aura.”

“What does that mean?”

“In a normal Kaarmaneshian
pregnancy, I would say it means the child will have some level of
magic ability. Remember that magic is natural to Kaarmanesh. It
develops in the womb along with everything else. He simply
responded to your use of magic.”

“It won't hurt him?”

“Not at all.”

“Will it hurt him to not be around
magic? If he stays in the Flatlands?”

Shandari hesitated. “I don’t know.
This is something we have to consider eventually. Kaarmaneshians
cannot live without magic, just as we cannot live without iron or
other nutrients. It may be that the child will need periodic visits
to Kaarmanesh.”

Tina shook her head, biting her
lip as she rubbed her stomach. “The thing is, I've been wondering
about how I've developed this resistance to the
vyra-stribdal
. I wonder if it has something to do with the
absence of magic in this environment.”

“That's possible.”

“It makes me wonder if it would be
dangerous for the fetus if I'm in Kaarmanesh, especially around the
full moon. I'm afraid the magic in Kaarmanesh will override the
anti-vyra-stribdal
that's in me. That he'll
Change.”

Shandari fell silent, thinking
about it. Tina watched her and waited.

“There is enough merit in the
idea. I think it would be a good idea for you to stay out of
Kaarmanesh. However, it may turn out that the child needs some
exposure to magic. It may be that avoiding Kaarmanesh during the
full moon is enough. Until we know more, you should stay here.
There are very few reasons for you to go there, anyway. But I
suspect the
anti-vyra-stribdal
has more to do with you,
caused by the interaction with your blood and your immune system,
and that of the developing fetus. “