“Unclear. Whatever killed him was a petrifactor.”
There was another pause, longer this time, before he said, “Alex, the basilisks . . .”
“Are still hibernating. I checked them myself, and their skins are too calcified for them to have woken up—or been woken—left the enclosure, turned a man partially to stone, and gone back to sleep. Not that they would have gone back to the enclosure anyway. They didn’t do this. And before you ask, yes, I also talked to Dee. I don’t think she had anything to do with it.”
“That’s a relief.”
“It is, except for the part where I started out with three petrifactors who could have been responsible for this and promptly eliminated all three of them as possible candidates.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“If it was a gorgon, it was murder. The victim’s eyes were definitely stone. Lesser gorgons can’t truly turn you to stone, and Pliny’s gorgons can’t always stone you with a glance; they’d need to have either uncovered their hair and locked eyes with him for long enough, or milked their hair beforehand for venom and sprayed him with it. I can’t rule out a Pliny’s gorgon, but it’s more likely that we’re looking for a purely glance-based petrifactor.”
“The greater gorgon is glance-based.”
“Yes, I’m aware. You’ll forgive me if I try to find any other possible answer before I go to the place where I get eaten alive, won’t you?”
“Your mother would never forgive me if I encouraged you to take any other course of action. There’s always the simpler answer, you realize.”
“I thought of that. A cockatrice would fit the situation as I currently understand it. It’s glance-based, it likes to hide in low bushes . . . it’s perfect.” And it wouldn’t be murder. Your average cockatrice makes an iguana seem like a super-genius. When animals kill people, it’s tragic, but it’s not malicious. “There’s just one problem with that theory.”
“Lots of things aren’t native to Ohio, Alex. You’ve just said that some of the frickens you’ve caught aren’t native to Ohio.”
“Yes, but there’s a big difference between something moving into an open ecological niche and something like a cockatrice showing up for no good reason.”
“So maybe there’s a good reason.”
That wasn’t the sort of statement that inspired confidence. I sighed, removing my glasses and putting them on the bedside table before pinching the bridge of my nose. “Maybe. Grandpa’s going to see about getting me access to the autopsy records. We should know more after that happens.”
“Keep us posted. You know we’ll be right there if you need us.”
“I do.” I also knew a family invasion of Ohio would mean things had gotten very bad. I wasn’t too proud to ask for help, but mobilizing the troops was the sort of thing that should only be used as a last resort. “Tell Mom I said hi and send my love when she gets home.”
“Any messages for your sister?”
“Tell her to stay out of my room.”
Dad laughed. We exchanged farewells and I hung up, slumping over backward onto the bed. Crow hopped down from the dresser to curl up, catlike, against my side. I stroked his wings absently, and he purred in response.
“It’s a mess, Crow,” I said.
He made a contented churring noise. I sighed and closed my eyes, continuing to stroke his wings. I had a lot of work to do, but other than preparing my notes on the situation, there wasn’t much that I could do now. I lay on my bed and listened to the joyful songs of the mice, trying to let my worries slip away, just for the moment, just for now. I needed to get some food in me like Grandpa had instructed. I didn’t want to move.
If this situation turned out to be as bad as I was afraid it was going to be, I wasn’t going to have any more moments like this one for a while. So I stayed where I was, and tried to enjoy the moment while it lasted.
I tried.
Seven
“Perhaps you misunderstand me. I am not afraid to die. Neither am I afraid to kill you. Now how about we put down the guns and discuss things like breathing men, rather than continuing this conversation in the afterlife?”
—Jonathan Healy
An only moderately creepy suburban home in Columbus, Ohio, waking up after an impromptu nap
CROW WAS CURLED UP on my stomach when I woke up. I blinked at the ceiling, only gradually coming to realize that I’d been woken up by the sound of someone knocking on my bedroom door. I sat up, sending Crow tumbling, and rubbed my face with one hand while he squawked in irritation.
The knocking continued, now accompanied by my grandmother’s voice calling, “Alex? Are you awake?”
“I’m up, Grandma,” I called back, giving my face one more good rub before I swung my feet around to the floor and stood. I grabbed my usual glasses off the table as an afterthought. It wasn’t like I needed to worry about being turned to stone in my own home. “Crap. I didn’t mean to go to sleep. What time is it?”
“Seven.”
“Crap.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket as I walked across the room, and found a text from Dee telling me that she had made it home. That was a relief, at least. I opened the door to find my grandmother standing in the hall, still wearing her work clothes, a concerned look on her face. I forced a wan smile. “Did Grandpa tell you what’s going on?”
“He did,” she said, with a nod. “Are you all right?”
“I am. Andrew’s not.”
“Now, you don’t know that. He could be getting his afterlife orientation right now.”
My Aunt Mary used to babysit my grandmother, and she died decades before I was born. That doesn’t stop her from showing up at every family reunion and Christmas party she can get to. I shook my head. “Breathing people like to keep breathing. When you stop, you’re not all right anymore, even if you get to have a new existence as a semi-corporeal houseguest. Has Grandpa heard back from the morgue?”
“He has,” she said. “The autopsy is being performed locally, which is good news—”
My stomach sank. “But it’s not being performed until the morning, is it?”
Grandma shook her head. “They’ve already ruled out contagion—there’s nothing to indicate that turning into stone is something you can catch. So while it’s being treated as a chemical attack for the moment, it’s not urgent.”
“Then we have to break into the morgue. I need to see the remains.” I shook my head, wishing I was the telepathic one, so that I could make her understand why this mattered so much. “Petrifaction isn’t a thing that just happens in the human body. We need to know how it happened so that we can determine what did it, so we can stop—”
“Alex, you need to stop.” Grandma folded her arms, looking at me gravely. “I love you, but you have the same problem your father does. You assume we haven’t been fighting this battle without you for centuries. You’re not the only answer to every problem.”
Her words stung, but she was right. I frowned before allowing my shoulders to sag. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I just want to help. This could be my fault.”
“Because of your basilisks, or because it happened at the zoo where you happen to be working? Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence, you know.”
“And sometimes it’s the start of something very large, and very unpleasant. I can’t bank on one and ignore the other.”
“I know.” She smiled slightly. “You’re my grandson, after all. Come on down to the kitchen. We have a proposition for you.”
Grandpa was waiting in the kitchen. Grandma led me to the table and pushed me into a chair, and Grandpa set a tuna fish sandwich in front of me. “Eat,” he commanded.