How could she endure? Her heart continued to race and slow at intervals, and her feeble breath wheezed as if she were drowning. She could not keep much water down—and her caretakers had abandoned their attempts to feed her, worried that vigorous retching might use up whatever strength remained to her.
The sudden turn had come so quickly after Van Resen’s departure an hour past that Mr. Quarrie was just now convincing Phillip Holmes to fetch the scientist. Quarrie had made a perfunctory search by calling for him from the raised platform outside the door, but Van Resen was nowhere to be seen.
The young Englishman had been dawdling, and as he delayed, Mr. Quarrie had grown apoplectic.
However Holmes could not be induced to hurry as he quibbled over such decisions as whether to take a kitchen knife or the Cossack sword for self-defense.
Mr. Quarrie fumed at the younger man’s indecisiveness, and would have thundered his contempt if they had not been so close to Lilly’s sickbed.
“Take either! Take both!” Mr. Quarrie finally snapped. “Take the damned forks and spoons while you’re at it. But go...”
“I can’t leave the cabin undefended,” Mr. Holmes countered, and Miss James smiled despite her worry. She had been right to think the man a coward.
Mrs. Quarrie sat at the bottom corner of the bed ignoring the argument as she reached out quickly to draw Virginia’s damp cloth away.
“Wait! She’s cold, and shivers now,” the old woman warned, gingerly touching the girl’s hand. “Oh, how can we help her?”
“If only the captain were here!” Virginia was upset that she did not get a chance to welcome the ranger back properly, though she had experienced a minor twinge of guilt at the relief she felt at his absence. Captain Seward had a way of seeing things, and her night with Gazda was not something she wanted to explain to him—at least until she had the opportunity to sort out her own emotions on the matter.
“What can that old walrus do?” Holmes hissed through the curtain.
“Plenty, boy!” Mr. Quarrie answered. “You don’t get to be an ‘old’ anything in the Texas Rangers unless you know how to think on your feet. I’m sure Captain Seward would know what to do about snake bite, venomous insects, and poisonous plants. And who knows how much Indian medicine he’s picked up.”
“Well, the sun is setting...and the only doctor we’ve got has abandoned us,” Holmes said indignantly. “I must have the lamp if I’m to go look for him!”
“Devil take you boy we can’t spare it!” Mr. Quarrie growled. “Give me that sword, and another old walrus will go find him blind!”
Virginia and Mrs. Quarrie drew more blankets over the shivering girl, but halted when the yurt door swung open and the final light of the day threw shadows against the curtain.
Mr. Quarrie’s squat form appeared on the left in conflict with Mr. Holmes’ tall, lithe silhouette on the right. Both men had a hand upon the curved sword that they held high between them, while beneath this arch stood the wiry shadow of Van Resen.
“Fascinating tableau, gentlemen,” the scientist’s sharp voice rang. “And well suited to the straits we find ourselves in. Though, the threat to Damocles would be nothing compared to the perilous knowledge I bear.”
“Doctor, please!” Mr. Quarrie cried. “It’s Lilly!”
“Take these, Mr. Holmes,” Van Resen said, and Virginia watched the scientist’s silhouette move to Holmes’. “Put them on the table for safekeeping.”
Both shapes disappeared as the door closed.
Then Dr. Van Resen whipped the curtain aside and stepped through with Mr. Quarrie crowding the space close behind.
“Ladies,” the scientist said in greeting. “How is she?”
Virginia noticed that Van Resen’s lively face was ashen and the skin around his eyes looked bruised. He gestured for the damp cloth she held.
“Lilly looks flushed,” he said, using the compress to wipe away the dark earth that stained his hands and arms to the elbows before reaching out to press the girl’s forehead with a palm. The governess saw that the man’s clothing was similarly soiled.
“Miss James,” he said quietly, leaning over the girl. “Some light please.”
Virginia took the lamp from the crate on which it rested and brought it to where Van Resen held the girl’s eyelids open.
“Her pupils are unresponsive,” he reported, moving his hand in and out of the space between Lilly and the lamp. “Now the test...”
He set his fingertips to the girl’s rosy lips and parted them to show her glossy white teeth against red gums.
Virginia gasped, and the Quarries clutched each other in disbelief.
“So I feared...” The scientist glanced at Virginia and back to Lilly’s teeth. They were of even space and height save for her upper canines that had somehow grown longer; the needle-sharp points overlapped her lower teeth by a quarter inch.
“Nosferatu,” Van Resen whispered quietly, lowering his head. “Is the cause...”
“But...what?” Virginia stammered, as she took up the girl’s hand. “Lord, her skin! Look at her cheeks—she burns.”
The governess reached for a fresh cloth to soak, but the scientist stayed her.
“Miss James there is no need,” he said, gesturing to Lilly’s mouth before he drew his hand away and the sweet lips closed over monstrous fangs.
“But, doctor?” Mr. Quarrie rumbled behind him, his heavy-knuckled hands clenching his wife’s rounded shoulders. “We must cool her fever!”
“Only if it comforts you,” Van Resen said. “She is beyond our help now.”
He turned to their disbelieving faces. “Bring the lamp. I will explain in the other room.”
“I entered the moringa wood,” Van Resen said, when all were settled. He had placed the lamp on the table behind him so its flickering light now cast him in silhouette. “That dark and sickly stand of trees that I told you to avoid.”
The castaways gasped, remembering the noisome stench that came from the wood on the ocean breeze.
“Most interesting that a plant known the world over for its beneficial qualities could
