The Serpent's Shadow

grip and shot out the door. Now he could push and shove his way through to the examining room, his heart plummeting with dread at what he would find there.

They had laid her out on her own examination table, and at first sight, with her face so white and still, and not so much as a flutter of her eyelids, she did look dead. All of her pets had crowded into the room, and surrounded the table; the moment that they sighted him, they burst into a clamor or made for him. Charan leaped up into his arms, and the three birds waved their wings frantically at him. Then the green parrot launched itself across the gap to land on his shoulder.

Peter put Charan on his other shoulder, and went to Maya's side, heart in mouth. There were no outward signs of life, not even the rise and fall of Maya's chest to show that she breathed. But when he took up her hand and felt her wrist, there was a faint pulse—and over her hung an invisible pall that only he could see, a nasty, clinging yellow-gray fog that made him sick when it brushed against him.

Gupta made his way back into the room. 'Get these people out!' he snapped. 'No one here but household, Lord Almsley when he arrives, and Norrey when she returns. Have you sent for a doctor?'

Gupta cast him a reproachful look. 'From the Fleet, sahib,' was all he said, then set about clearing the office, then the hall, of people who, however well-meaning they were, at this point were nothing but a nuisance.

When he had closed the door on the last of them, Gupta returned. 'What is this, sahib? Magic— surely—'

'Magic and something else, I don't know what—' Peter was half into a trance. He might not be a doctor—he wasn't any kind of a healer—but he was a Water Master—

And the body is—what? Three-fourths water?

Well, in this case, it was water with something horribly wrong about it. It wasn't only the sickening fog that hung over it, there was something foul in her very blood—coursing all through her veins, some poison or drug or both—

'Move yer bloomin' arse, ye wretched donkey!' said an Irish-accented voice, and he came abruptly out of trance as a rough hand shoved him to one side.

'Doctor O'Reilly—' Gupta protested, while Peter coughed and shook his head to clear it.

The newcomer had a beard and head of fiery red curls, and a temper to match—but had the air of authority and the slender hands of a surgeon. He pulled off his coat in such haste that the sleeve tore. 'Quiet!' O'Reilly snapped, as the man snatched up a scalpel from a tray of instruments and began cutting Maya's clothing off of her, with a fine disregard for propriety. And as he moved, Peter saw with his inner eye a very familiar flicker of power around him. 'But—you're a Fire Master!' he gasped. 'How—where—'

'In Eire, of course, ye gurt fool!' O'Reilly growled. 'An' as to why I'd no joined yer precious club, ye can ask that bigger fool Aldershot or whate'er it is he calls hisself when he's at home!' He threw the remains of Maya's shirtwaist on the floor and started on her camisole and corset cover. 'Didn't guess she was a young mage till after ye came along.' More rags joined the shirtwaist. 'Saw no rhyme nor reason t' interfere then when you had her in hand, and her takin' a likin' to ye, so kept meself to meself. If I'd known she was with troubles, though—Hah! There!'

He'd gotten the corset cut off and tossed it aside, much to Peter's acute embarrassment; the doctor didn't seem to care, but Peter couldn't help flushing painfully at Maya's nude torso laid bare for all of them to see—

But his flush faded as O'Reilly pointed at a nasty round bruise on her side, just above her hip.

'That's a syringe mark, or I'll eat me own shoes,' O'Reilly said in angry triumph. 'And that 'counts for how they got their divil brew into her! Happen they got summat from her, too, or I miss my guess, filthy heathen.'

He flung the scalpel down on the floor and seized the stethoscope, hauling it on over his ears and putting the listening end to her chest, then jerking it from his ears again.

'There's two sorts uv diviltry here, drugs and magic. An' the one that'll kill her first is the drugs.' O'Reilly's accent got thicker as time flew past and tension grew. 'You—' He glanced up at Peter. 'You, Water Master! You can be givin' me a hand here—I'll be wantin' ye to drive what's in her back out toward th' wound, here. That's not somethin' I can do; I can't work inside uv her wit'out burnin' her up. Can ye do that?'

'I—' he was going to say he would try, but trying was not good enough, not here, not now. He nodded, dumbly, placed his hands gently on the cool skin of her abdomen, and fought his way down past that sickening fog mantling her body again. It was harder the second time; the magic was stronger. How much stronger would it get?

The wrongness was everywhere; where to start? It was only going to continue to get pumped around in her veins as he worked! He couldn't count on keeping any place 'clean' for longer than a heartbeat or two.

It didn't matter. What mattered was that he started. Indecision and hesitation were the enemy's allies. Work like a seine net; strain out the stuff and shove it in front of me, then go back again and