Red Shadow
Chapter One
House
was
looking at the wall of drawers in the morgue. They were old;
fronted by
stainless steel, with black handles and a little clip to hold the
name
tag of
the deceased within. The morgue at Princeton-Plainsboro
Teaching
Hospital had
storage for over forty bodies at any given time; clearly the
builders didn’t
have as much faith in medicine nearly a hundred years ago.
The brick floor had
long ago been replaced with tile and the overhead lamps
with fluorescent lights;
the drawers were refrigerated now, but their number
was still the same: four
tall, ten across of storage for the dead.
The
morgue
was nearly silent and in semi-darkness, with the only light
spilling
in from
the door leading out hallway. House checked his watch,
wondering
how much
longer it would take. Arliss, the M. E. wouldn’t be down
unless
there was a
death tonight, which was unlikely. House settled his shoulders
back against the
cold tile wall and kept his gaze along the gleaming doors. It
was nearly two
twenty seven in the morning, and his leg was seriously
complaining about the
extra standing time, but House had already downed
another little helper that
would kick in soon.
He
gripped
the silver-headed cane loosely.
After
another ten minutes, he looked up, alerted out of his musings
about
whether
Cuddy was a C 36 or 38. The creak was soft, but definite, and
House
let his
gaze move along the wall of drawers in a quick, sharp scan.
Down
along
the third row, three from the end, a morgue drawer door slowly
swung open.
House
felt
the hair on the back of his neck rise; felt his balls tighten. He
forced
himself to stay perfectly still and overcome the primitive responses.
For a
long moment, nothing happened. The door stayed open, revealing the
black square
it had been covering, and House had to squint to see it properly. He
slipped
his hand into his pocket.
Long
pulse
beats went by, and House smelt the traces of formaldehyde,
chlorine now tainted
with a hint of dead roses. He watched as quietly, the tray
rolled out of the
drawer in a slow glide of oiled metal. It clacked when it
reached the end of
its extension, and the body lying on it didn’t move.
House
didn’t move either, feeling his arms suddenly chill with
goose
bumps,
his jaw
tighten in a reaction he couldn’t control. Shadows loomed
and
stretched.
Finally, the feet flexed. The toe tag rattled softly; with a
sudden
lurch the
body sat up. House pressed back against the wall, biting his lower
lip
hard
enough to taste a hint of blood.
The body
turned her head stiffly, looking around the morgue. Her glance
passed over the
room for a moment, then she snapped her gaze to the right
so quickly that her
hair swung loosely.
House
kept
his gaze on her paper gowned chest; he knew better than to
look
into her lurid
red stare, so like the banked glow of a pyre. He cocked his
head
and waited,
forcing his shoulders to relax; his damp palm gripped the cane
more tightly and
the other hand flexed in his pocket.
With the
slow sinuous movements of a pale viper, the body slipped
sideways
and got to her
bare feet; House noticed the pink polish on her toenails as
she
glided over to
him. All his nerves were on high alert, and the smell of dead
roses mingled
with the sharp stench of fruit long rotted and gray with mold.
House forced
himself to look at her chin, her neck of marble white. The urge to
raise his gaze
higher grew stronger with every step closer she came.
House
closed his eyes. He pulled his hand out of his pocket, and the soft
hiss
of
falling rice echoed off the tile walls of the morgue, the grains
scattering
everywhere in a cascade.
The body
froze, her attention shifting instantly to the spilled mess. Rice
rattled,
small polished bits rolling out of the darkness into the light coming
in from
the hallway beyond the morgue. House held his breath, and for eternity
the cold
room stood in stillness.
He
wanted
to breathe. He wanted to look more closely at her and knew if
she
caught his
gaze he’d be lost in those gutted flames of her eyes.
The body
moved, bending down to the rice. There was no sigh since there
was
no breath,
but the slump of her shoulders in the paper gown made it clear
that
this time,
folklore was right. House waited until she turned a pale palm up
and
began to
drop grains into it one by one before he shifted his weight
and
brushed by her.
Cold.
He moved
carefully, not wanting to slip on the mess that was saving his life.
At
the
door he stepped through and looked down the hallway. Chances
were
better than
ninety percent that she already had Arliss under her influence,
and
that he’d
either see nothing when he came back to the morgue, or that
he’d
be her
sustenance for the night if House couldn’t keep him out.
One day
earlier
House
had
come to a decision. He had a room full of brains; good ones,
and
not likely to
dismiss his whim if he bullied them. Carefully he leaned on the
whiteboard and
wrote a list of symptoms down, his letters thick and strong on
the gleaming
white surface.
Extreme
sensitivity to sunlight
Altered nutritional needs
Halitosis (severe)
Anemic complexion
Possible dental anomalies
Hemophagia
“Diagnosis?”
House demanded with a smirk he didn’t feel. Cameron
was
taking the list
seriously; Foreman was leaning back, rolling his eyes and
Chase was trying not
to grin.
“Come
on
House—watch too many Hammer horror films over the
weekend?”
Foreman muttered.
Cameron looked slightly confused.
“What?”
“He’s
pulling our leg. Look at the symptoms—“ Chase
murmured
softly. “--The
only
other two to add to that list would be negative respiration and
negative
pulse,
right?”
Cameron
got
it, and shot House an incredulous look that he ignored as he
sipped his coffee.
Foreman finally gave a noisy sigh. “You really expect us
to
do a differential
diagnosis on vampirism?”
“Why
not?
Got bigger plans today?” House shot back. “Call it
a good
exercise
is
hypothetical thinking, an extended look at a malady with a
historic
precedent
of sorts.”
“Taking
into account that it’s completely
fictional—“ Foreman
snorted, crossing
his
arms. Chase cocked his head thoughtfully.
“I
dunno--there had to be a basis for it somewhere though—too
many
legends
in too
many countries; too many similarities for sheer coincidence.”
“Isn’t
the
consensus that most cases were probably attributable to
porphyria?” Cameron
murmured, chin in hand, “erythropoietic porphyria more
precisely?”
“Yes,”
House murmured, looking back at the whiteboard. “And that
works
as
long as the
patient is alive. It’s when the symptoms continue after
alleged
death that
bothers me. Pumping a patient full of Hematin and haem
arginate
once they’ve
stopped breathing seems like such a waste of perfectly good
drugs.”
“Once
they’ve stopped breathing, they stop being our
patients,”
Foreman
snapped.
“They
just
become our pain in the necks—“ Chase punned,
earning
himself a muffled giggle
from Cameron and a roll of the eyes from House.
“Chase,
Chase, Chase—something tells me you’re not taking
this
seriously.
Since you’re
willing to speak up, why don’t you share with all of us what
the
traditional
treatment would be for our post-terminal patient.”
“A
one
meter stake, preferably seasoned ash or rosewood, hammered
through
the thoracic
cavity with enough force to penetrate the four chambers of the
heart. If the
patient doesn’t spontaneously turn to dust, then filling the
mouth
with garlic
is reccommended.” At the incredulous looks from Cameron
and
Foreman, Chase
shrugged a little. “What can I say? My mother was a
Christopher Lee fan.”
“Let’s hope she never went from stalker to
staker—any
further suggestions?”
House looked around at the other two. Foreman managed a cynical smile.
“I
thought
you were supposed to cut their heads off. Vampire or not, that would
DEFINITELY
inhibit any ambulation from that point on,” he drawled.
“Right—so
you’d just get the patient to lie down on the exam table,
whip
out a Bahco
number eight and just start sawing away,” Cameron smirked.
“I doubt
you’d get
the consent form signed for a procedure like that.”
“Next
of
kin,” Chase pointed out knowingly. Or permission from the
wronged
party. Even a
verbal permission qualifies.”
“The
wronged party . . . “ House mused. “So the standard
staking
or
beheading are
effective treatments.” Inwardly he was amused to see all
three
of them taking
the hypothetical situation with more interest.
Cameron
frowned
prettily. “And sunlight. I suppose if you can’t get
the
vampire
to step out
into daylight you could always turn one of those Maglites on
them.”
“I
thought
it had to be natural sunlight—“ Chase objected.
“Othewise you
could just flood
a cemetery with Klieg lights and be done with it, right?”
“It’s
not
like we can put it to the test,” Foreman interrupted with
barely
suppressed
annoyance. “Since nobody’s been diagnosed with
vampirism
lately.”
“Not
officially. But consider: the disease basically transforms the patient
into a
parasite, the search for a host or food source would become primary,
right?
All
organisms adapt and strive to live—in this case the infection
acts as a
parasite within the host—our patient—who then
becomes one
GIANT parasite
with the
capacity to reproduce and pass on the original infectious
agent,”
House rattled
off.
“Back
up to
the ‘not officially’ part,” Foreman
grumbled,
impressed with the explanation,
but still not willing to give in completely. “Has a patient
actually presented
all of these symptoms you’ve listed?”
House
held
the pause for a moment, not meeting anyone’s eyes. He set
his
marker down on
the tray and reluctantly sighed. “No. No patient has
presented
these symptoms
here at the hospital.”
Yet, he
added mentally.
His
conversation with
“Want
to
stay up all night with me here at the hospital and hunt for
vampires?”
“Wow,”
on going home and planting a
stake somewhere else tonight.”
“I
thought
you and Julie were on the outs.” House accused, studying the
other man’s face.
“We
. . .
still have good sex,”
the knowledge that we’re separating tends
to make things more interesting.”
“You’re
rehearsing infidelity and getting off on the guilty pleasure.
That’s so
very—“
House trailed off, making a moue.
“—Jewish?”
“—Typical.
For you, anyway. Fine. If you can’t make it, maybe I can
get
Cuddy to be my
girly sidekick. She doesn’t scream as well as you do, but
I
like her necklines
better.”
“I’ll
make
it a point to sob myself to sleep tonight. I hope you’re not
planning
on
hauling around any stakes—Security will take them away from
you,
you
know,”
stepped into exam room three in the
clinic.
House
shot
his back a withering look, and lumbered his way out again. He
hadn’t expected
been nice.
For a
moment he debated NOT going to Cuddy; despite his suspicions,
the
lack of hard
evidence bothered him. As a doctor and a scientist, it annoyed
him to harbor a
hypothesis with no factual data beyond sick leave and lost
supply records. A
pattern hinted at but not solid. The only bright spot was that
there was enough
of one there to intrigue the Dean of Medicine if he laid it
out
right. And if
all else failed he could argue with her until midnight and
she’d
be
forced to
come along.
House
made
his way to Cuddy’s office and quietly opened the door,
looking
in.
Very slowly
a smirk crossed his face.
“Those
have
to be pectoral implants . . . “ She muttered, flipping to the
next
page of the
beefcake calendar, oblivious to House slipping inside the
door.
“ . . .
Definitely.”
“Doctor
Cuddy, I’m SHOCKED!” House shot out, delighted to
see Cuddy
flush
brick red and
fumble with the calendar in her hands. She looked up at him and
scowled,
dropping the glossy set of pages on her desk, but House loomed
over it and
sneered. “You sick little monkey.”
“Oh
give me
a break,” Cuddy muttered weakly. “My last clinic
patient
gave it
to me as a
thank-you for clearing up his sinuses.”
“Likely
story—so who was he? Mr. July?”
“Mr.
March,
actually—“ Cuddy shot back, toying with her pearls,
“Ironic he’d
be featured in
the month with the most hay fever cases. So, any reason for
this drop-in
harassment?”
“Yes.
Once
you wipe the drool off your chin I need you to issue me a UP
key
for the
evening,” House replied, still sneering at the calendar. He
absently
reached
over and began flipping through the months, his expression
souring.
Cuddy shot
him a withering stare.
“A
universal pass key. And just why, pray tell, would I even CONSIDER
giving
you
access through every door in this hospital, House?”
“Because
we
have a dangerous parasite located somewhere in this
hospital,”
he grimly
replied, looking up at her so sharply she hesitated. When he
didn’t
smirk, she
met him stare for stare.
“Tell
me
what you’re talking about,” came her quiet order.
House
paused, and
then came
around her desk, unceremoniously pulling her keyboard towards
himself and
typing quickly. Slightly affronted, Cuddy watched him pull up a few
different
screens. When House glanced at her, she rolled her eyes and
gave
up her seat
for him; he dropped himself into and finally did smirk.
“Still
warm--“
“Get on with it,” Cuddy snapped, leaning on the
desk. House
did. Moving one
long hand along the screen, he spoke in a low tone.
“We’re
going back about a month, maybe five weeks—the ER has a
sudden
run on the blood
supply, but in the course of that, three units of O positive go
missing. Your
head nurse down there is good enough about keeping records
to note it, but
can’t account for where they’ve gone.”
“Missing
blood?”
Cuddy asked. House nodded, his attention on the screen.
“Two
days
later, it happens again. Three units missing from the
refrigerated
supply for
the ambulance restocking room, no accountability for
it—no
biohazard spill
reports, no tainted disposal reports, no doctor authorization for
it—just gone.
It’s pretty nice that almost all the records for the hospital
are
computerized,
because it makes cross-referencing a lot easier.”
Cuddy
gave
a little headshake of disbelief. “So we’ve got
missing
blood.
Maybe someone’s
stealing it and selling it. We’ve had problems with
the
pharmacy before.”
“Possible,
but unlikely—the blood banks around here know our juice. I
called
and
checked—nobody’s been offering up any PPTH labeled
blood,
but there is
a note
in the janitor’s log for a few days later that an empty
packet
was found
in the
women’s bathroom down in Radiology.”
“Just
one?”
came her question as she stared intently at the screen. House
turned his head
and looked at her, his eyes narrowing. For a long silent
moment he glared hard;
slowly his expression shifted from professional
concern to controlled anger.
Cuddy closed her eyes a moment, then turned to
face him, meeting his flinty
gaze head on.
“You
KNOW
something,” he accused in a low compelling tone.
Cuddy
swallowed, not saying
anything for a moment. Then she dropped her gaze and
gave the tiniest of nods.
