Half-Off Ragnarok

Eleven

In the basement of an only moderately creepy suburban home in Columbus, Ohio, getting ready to go on a cockatrice hunt

I MIGHT BE WILLING to go out at night hunting for a creature capable of turning me into solid stone. I wasn’t willing to do it without proper preparation. On a normal day, I have the gun on my calf, three or four knives, and a garrote. This called for something a little less, well . . . basic.

Shelby looked around the basement with the saucer-wide eyes of someone who has just been allowed to glimpse the hills of Heaven, and has found them to be very pleasant indeed. “This is an armory,” she said.

“Not compared to the weapons room at home, but it does well enough,” I said, picking up a brace of throwing knives and making them disappear, one by one, into my coat. “Check the drawer underneath the pole arms. There should be some polarized glasses in there. You’ll need a pair if you don’t want to become a really confusing new lawn ornament.”

“This is all horrible,” said Shelby, even as she obediently opened the drawer and started rooting through the assorted forms of protective eyewear. “I don’t understand how you can be so calm about people being turned to stone.”

“Grandpa?” I picked up a second pistol and started loading it.

My grandfather, recognizing a request for information when he heard one, sighed and said, “Petrifaction is the process of flesh or plant matter being converted into stone.” Shelby looked at him blankly. “Basilisks, cockatrice, and stone spiders are all petrifactors. They can, one way or another, turn flesh to stone.” Shelby continued looking at him blankly. “Don’t you have any of these things in Australia?”

“I think the crocodiles ate them,” she said flatly. “Can we go back to the core question here? How can a person be turned into stone when nothing’s been injected or dumped on them?”

“You saw my eyes,” I said, tucking my new pistol into the waistband of my pants. I rubbed the corner of my right eye with a finger, dislodging another bit of gravel. I was going to be putting in eye drops for the next few weeks, while I waited for the moisture levels to get back to normal.

“You explained that, though,” she said. “Visual allergies.”

“Calling petrifaction a ‘visual allergy’ is pretty accurate, but it doesn’t describe the whole process,” said Grandpa.

“You’d be better off calling it poison that you see,” said Grandma, stepping into the room with a jar of bilberry jam in her hand. “In the case of visual petrifactors, like the cockatrice, it enters via the eye—making it most dangerous to actually lock eyes with one of them—and travels down the optic nerve to the rest of the body. From there, it will begin petrifying whatever it encounters.”

“Cockatrice petrify from the inside out, starting with the eyes and internal organs, while basilisks petrify from the outside in, starting with the eyes and skin,” added Grandpa. “A basilisk will actually leave most of its prey unchanged, counting on suffocation to provide the killing blow.”

“Why?” asked Shelby.

“Crunchy outside, chewy inside,” I said, taking the jar of jam from my grandmother and shoving it into my pocket. “They peck their way through the hard stone shell and have a nice meal all pre-packed and waiting for them. The two species do have one thing in common, though.”

“They’re horrible?” ventured Shelby.

I laughed. “No. They both start with the eyes.”

“So do some gorgons,” said Grandpa pointedly.

“I know.” I shook my head. “I think the presence of a cockatrice in our backyard is a pretty strong indicator that a gorgon didn’t kill Andrew. Yes, a Pliny’s gorgon could have turned him partially to stone. It can’t have been a greater gorgon. There would have been no flesh left.” I didn’t want to think of a Pliny’s gorgon being responsible for this. Dee had been as shocked as the rest of us.

Dee had spent her entire adult life pretending to be human, and doing it well enough to fool almost everyone she’d ever met. Dee disguised her history, her culture, and her species on a daily basis. If she was a good enough liar to manage all that, why wouldn’t she be good enough to fool me by looking surprised when a dead man was found on zoo property?

“You know you have to consider it,” said Grandma.

“I know,” I said miserably.

“Hang on a second,” said Shelby. “There’s different kinds of gorgon?”

I turned to eye her. “What do they teach you in the Thirty-Six Society?”

“Not that,” she replied. “You may have a Eurocentric view of the cryptid world—which doesn’t make much sense to me, mind you, since you lot are living in North America—but it’s not the only view there is, and we’re an island ecology. Mostly, we try to keep the native species from eating each other, and we only worry about the non-native ones when they turn invasive.”

Given the climate and geographical isolation of Australia, I’d be stunned if there weren’t at least a few families of gorgons living there. That doesn’t necessarily say anything about the skill of the members of the Thirty-Six Society. The chupacabra predates European colonization of the Americas, and we didn’t know they existed until about fifty years ago (as far as I know, the Covenant still thinks they’re just werewolves with a skin condition). When something has good reason to stay hidden, it finds a way.

“Since we’re about to go looking for a cockatrice that we know was responsible for partially petrifying at least me, is it okay if we save that particular natural history lesson for later?” I asked.

Shelby nodded. “Yes, although I suppose I ought to ask: is there a way to find a Pliny’s gorgon? Are there any in this region?”

My thoughts went to Dee again. “There are a few,” I admitted.

“That makes them strong suspects,” said Shelby. Then she paused and eyed the three of us, expression turning suspicious. “You’re being awfully forthcoming with all this information, you know. With as long as you’ve been living under the radar, I’d expect more restraint.”

“It’s simple.” Grandma smiled sweetly, showing more of her teeth than she really had to. Something about that expression triggered a reminder at the back of my mind, telling me that I was basically a very advanced monkey, and that even very advanced monkeys need to worry about bigger predators. “We can always kill you later if it turns out you can’t be trusted.”

“Grandma,” I said sternly. “Please stop threatening my girlfriend.”

“I’ll threaten anyone I want to,” said Grandma.

Shelby laughed. We all turned to look at her. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know I should be taking this all terribly seriously, but this is so much like listening to my own family argue that it’s actually very relaxing. Do let me know if we reach a point where I should be running for my life, all right?”

“Good lord, there’s more than one of them,” said Grandpa.

“Okay, well, that’s a disturbing concept for all of us, but I think we should get moving if we want to track this thing before it disappears again,” I said, sliding a pair of polarized goggles on over my glasses and motioning to Shelby to put hers on. “Shelby, you’re with me. Grandma, I want you to stay here and keep an eye on Sarah. Grandpa—”

“I’ll go out front and look for suspicious cars,” he said.

“Great.” I grinned. I couldn’t help myself. “Let’s go commit some senseless acts of science.”

Even with the kitchen lights on, the backyard was dark enough that Shelby and I had to pause for several minutes in order to let our eyes adjust. She stuck close beside me, her gun in her hand. I would have told her to put it away, but she seemed to be treating it more as a security blanket than a weapon. I couldn’t blame her for that. Even coming from a cryptozoology background, this had to be a pretty major shock to the system.

It had definitely been a shock for me. I adjusted my polarized goggles and began walking slowly forward, stepping as lightly as I could. “Cockatrice have internal ears, like snakes,” I said, pitching my voice low. “They’ll hear you coming mostly through vibrations in the ground.”

“So it’s safe to talk, yeah?”

“Yes. Just don’t stomp.” My grandparents had chosen their home partially for its spacious yard, which had seemed perfect when they were planning to start a family. Now, it seemed too large, and the old swing set by the back fence was surrounded by strange shadows, where anything could be lurking.

“I’m not much of a stomper,” said Shelby.

She matched my pace step for step. I took my eyes off the ground long enough to steal a sidelong glance at her. In the moonlight, her hair seemed to almost glow, and the expression of intense concentration on her face was one of the sexiest things I’d ever seen. I frowned, forcing myself to look away. She was a distraction. I didn’t need that. Not here, not now—and maybe not ever.

“So were you really planning to break up with me when you realized I had a Johrlac nearby?” I tried to keep the question light. My bitterness still seeped through.

“You meant it when you said we could talk, huh?” Shelby shook her head, a quick blur in my peripheral vision. “This doesn’t seem like the best time . . .”

“Really? You don’t think this is the best time?” We had reached the bushes that grew up against the fence. I stooped, pulling the LED flashlight out of my pocket. It had a red lens, to protect our night vision and hopefully keep from startling the cockatrice if we found it.

“No, not really.”

“Well, I think that the aftermath of you threatening to shoot a member of my family is the perfect time for a relationship discussion. Since most people who threaten my family don’t have much time for conversation afterward.” There was nothing under the bush, not even tracks. I straightened, turning the flashlight off again.

“You know, threats make it a little hard to have a conversation.”

“Then you should break up with me. This is how we communicate.” The cockatrice had been standing in the middle of the yard when it locked eyes with me. I backtracked to the place where I estimated it had been, crouching down to study the grass. Here, at least, there were signs of its passage: bent grass, churned-up bits of earth. “I wish the damn thing didn’t have wings. It’s always harder when they can fly . . .”

“Dammit, Alex, you’re not making this any easier for me.”

“I’m sorry, Shelby. I didn’t know that ‘making it easier’ was part of my job.” I turned my flashlight back on, sweeping it across the grass. The faint indentation that marked the cockatrice’s passage swerved off to the left. “It went this way.”

She sighed and followed as I straightened and started toward the fence. “All right, yes. I was planning to break it off with you. Happy now?”

“Not so much, no, but thank you for being honest.” I kept my eyes on the ground. No matter how much I wanted to be looking at Shelby, I wasn’t going to let myself be distracted again.

“I started seeing you socially because it seemed like a laugh, and I was bored. You weren’t the same kind of boring.”

“Not making me feel any better, Shelby.” The tracks stopped about a foot before the bushes on this side of the fence. I walked a little faster, running my light along the top of the bush. There were broken twigs there. The cockatrice had left the lawn, landed on the bush, and then taken off again.

“Still being honest, like you asked. You’re not . . .” Shelby made a frustrated noise. “You cancel dates. You keep secrets. You talk about lizards at the dinner table. You’re a geek, Alex, and that’s fun for a while—I like smart men—but you weren’t willing to let me see anything deeper. You wouldn’t even watch bad science fiction shows with me, and most geeks love that sort of thing.”

“I should introduce you to my sister.” I squinted at the fence. It was about eight feet high, and the neighbor on that side didn’t have a dog. “Come here.”

“Why?” asked Shelby suspiciously.

“I’m going to boost you up so you can see into the next yard. It looks like our cockatrice went over the fence.”

To her credit, Shelby came right over, putting her hands on my shoulders as I stooped to form a basket for her foot. “I didn’t stay with you only because your cousin was a Johrlac, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Then why?”

She stepped into my joined hands, smiling impishly before she said, “The sex has been amazing.” She pushed off the ground before I could formulate a reply. I straightened automatically, boosting her until her head cleared the top of the fence. Shelby put her hands on the wood, steadying herself.

Silence fell. She wasn’t getting heavier, so she wasn’t in the process of turning to stone—good. Finally, when I could restrain myself no longer, I asked, “Well?”

“We need to go next door,” she said, voice sounding strangely hollow, like she was trying to divorce herself from the scene. “There’s a dead man on the back porch.”

This time, the pause was mine. “All right,” I finally said. “Let’s get you down.” It was time for a little recreational breaking and entering. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

My family has always had what can most charitably be called a complicated relationship with the law. We understand the need for laws that cover an entire population. We just get cranky when those laws are applied to us. It’s hypocritical as hell, but when you’re trying to balance the needs of several dozen nonhuman species against the needs of the human population, sometimes hypocrisy is the only answer. In the four generations we’ve been active in North America, we’ve racked up charges ranging from breaking and entering and vandalism to assault with a deadly weapon and murder. So far, we’ve been able to make all those charges go away. Our luck isn’t going to hold forever, and every time we stretch the law, there’s a chance that this will be the time that things fall apart.

All this ran through my mind as my grandfather boosted me over the fence and into the yard of Bill O’Malley, aka, “the dead man on the porch.” He’d been living there alone since his wife had died some eight years previously, which was a good thing for us; it lowered the odds of someone coming in and finding us creeping around the property. I’d already been questioned by the police once today. I really wasn’t in the mood for a second conversation.

I hit the grass in a crouch, straightening and turning to help Shelby lower herself down. Then I grabbed her hand and pulled her farther into the yard, moving away from the fence as fast as I could without actually running. Shelby frowned at me.

“What’s the hurry?” she asked.

“Grandpa’s coming.”

She opened her mouth to ask another question, before Grandpa answered it the easy way, vaulting one-handed over the eight-foot fence and landing on the grass so hard that it seemed to vibrate the ground. I winced. The thump made by his impact meant that we weren’t going to be finding a cockatrice in this yard—the vibrations would have driven it as far away as its wings could take it.

“That’s amazing,” said Shelby.

“That’s engineering,” said Grandpa. He started toward the porch. I moved alongside him, watching the ground for signs that the cockatrice wasn’t as far off as I thought. Nothing moved within my field of vision, and so I turned my attention to the body.

Bill O’Malley had been in his seventies, still the kind of man who could manage his own house, although he’d been using a yard service for the past few years, according to my grandparents. He was lying facedown on the brick of his back porch, one arm straight out in front of him like he was pleading with something. I moved closer, crouching for a better look.

The tips of his fingers were gray.

The door was still open. Looking through into the kitchen, I saw nothing that seemed out of the ordinary or even out of place. He’d probably heard a noise and gone to investigate. There had been no one there to mix a poultice for him. He’d never had a chance.

“Poor bastard,” I murmured, straightening. “Grandpa, do you think you can jump the fence while carrying Mr. O’Malley? I want to examine his body under better light.”

“How invasive?” he asked.

“We won’t be able to put him back.” I felt a pang of guilt at that, and knew I had some sleepless nights ahead. Any family he still had would never know what had happened to him. But I needed to confirm, once and for all, that this was a cockatrice, and that meant a physical examination. This was how we’d save lives. I tried, with only limited success, to put the thought of his grieving family out of my mind.

Sometimes it can be hard to reconcile being a Price and a scientist with being a decent human being.

“What are you going to do with the remains?” asked Grandpa.

“Crunchy.” Alligator turtles are immune to petrifaction, as are all true reptiles. He’d enjoy the meaty bits, and any rocks that wound up in his dinner would just be spat out like so much unwanted roughage.

Grandpa nodded. “All right.” He cast a regretful look at the house. “He was always a good neighbor. Never asked too many questions. I like that in a man.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I, Alex. So am I.” With that, Grandpa knelt and scooped Bill O’Malley into his arms. The old man’s face was uncovered in the process, revealing eyes the solid, unwavering gray of granite. Grandpa carried him like he was light as a feather, walking back toward the fence. Shelby and I followed. With no reason to suspect foul play, our footprints would be gone long before the police came to check on Mr. O’Malley. Even Grandpa hadn’t been able to dent the sunbaked Ohio ground.

One by one, we climbed and boosted each other over the fence into our own yard, leaving the dead man’s empty house behind us, lights burning in the windows like signposts, trying to beckon their departed owner home. But he was never coming home again.