“But there is no sense in testing his resolve in such a direct and potentially damaging way,” said Kumari. “I quite agree, and I appreciate that you have both considered this, and rejected it for good cause. I will ask around about arranging another safe house for him. If only my husband,” she caressed the head of the great snake that encircled her body, “could already tolerate the presence of his son-in-law to be, this would be so much easier.”

“Yes, it would,” I said, and tactfully didn’t ask any more questions about the situation. I might not like the answers I got. “Do you mind if I go back several steps in the conversation?”

“Not at all; I was the one who derailed us. You were asking whether I was aware of the deaths. I responded that I am.”

“Shelby and I went to visit the local Pliny’s gorgon community, to see whether they might be able to tell us where the cockatrice we believe is haunting the zoo came from. We have some good leads to follow. In the meanwhile, we needed to sleep, and we returned to her apartment for the night. I woke to the smell of gasoline . . .”

It only took a few minutes to tell the full story, including our escape via the second-floor window. Kumari looked appropriately shocked and dismayed. Daksha remained wrapped around her the entire time, his tongue occasionally flicking out to taste the air. Normal snakes don’t hear, exactly; they soak up vibrations with their bodies. I wasn’t sure how male wadjet were able to listen to verbal communication, but knew from my dealings with Shami that they could, probably due to an inner ear structure that was dramatically different from their serpentine cousins. When I finished, the male wadjet turned his head away, letting out a long, low hiss.

“My husband is shocked and saddened by the trouble you have experienced, but wonders what it has to do with us,” said Kumari. “Surely you don’t think that we had anything to do with the burning of Miss Tanner’s building.”

“Actually, I came here because I thought the opposite, and because we need your help,” I said. “The local bogeyman community has never been exactly friendly toward me.”

“They mistrust your grandmother,” said Kumari.

Shelby snorted. “A Johrlac not being trusted. What are the odds, really?”

I eyed her but didn’t say anything. Instead, I returned my attention to Kumari, and said, “They have their reasons. That doesn’t change the fact that I need to know who is trying to have me killed—or whether I was the target in the first place. The arsonist could have been attempting to murder Shelby, and been willing to take me out as collateral damage.”

“I find it more likely that they were hoping to kill both of you,” said Kumari. “I will ask around, however. Perhaps someone has opened a contract, and your life is now valued in a small but viable number of dollars.”

“What a lovely way of putting it,” Shelby said, wrinkling her nose.

“Everything has a price.” I stood. “Thank you for your hospitality. Will you call me if you learn anything?”

“Everything has a price,” agreed Kumari. “Will you help us find a place to house Shami if it proves needful?”

“I will.”

“Then, yes. I will call you.” She stood, her husband slithering into a new position around her shoulders. He looped himself there, head bobbing like a wax museum prop. The temptation of Eve, as recreated by cobra and pediatrician. “For both your sakes, I hope the killer was trying for the two of you together.”

Shelby blinked. “Why’s that?”

Kumari smiled. “Because it will make you twice as difficult to destroy.”

Twenty

“Being smart isn’t good enough. You need to be educated, and you need to be open-minded, and you need to remember that what you don’t know can most definitely hurt you.”

—Martin Baker

Driving through downtown, returning to an only moderately creepy suburban home

“ALL RIGHT,” said Shelby, once we were back on the road and moving away from the Sarpa household. “Do you want to explain to me how a woman can be married to a cobra? Because I’m afraid that’s where I got lost.”

“Kumari may look like a human woman, but she and Daksha are the same species,” I said. “Wadjet demonstrate extreme sexual dimorphism. Kumari is female, Daksha is male.” That wasn’t necessarily a given. Kumari had more in common biologically with an alligator than she did with either Sarah or Dee. Specifying gender seemed like the safest way to go.

Shelby blinked several times. Finally, she asked, “Is that why the bossy little girl who let us in is always lurking around the reptile house when she thinks you’re not looking?”

“Yes. Her fiancé, Shami, is the zoo’s spectacled cobra. It’s only temporary, until Chandi gets old enough to move into a place of her own. Male wadjet don’t coexist well.” That was an understatement. Male wadjet had a nasty tendency to try to kill each other. “He was placed here shortly after I arrived in Ohio. I figured I could handle his care along with my basilisk breeding program and the fricken survey.”

“What’s a fricken?”

“Uh—little frog with feathers.”

“You have those here?” Shelby sounded delighted.

“We do, and I’ve been researching them in my spare time. I can take you out to see them next time we have a minute to ourselves.”

“Is this part of your research?” Shelby twisted in her seat enough to face me as I drove. “Explain it.”

“It’s boring,” I cautioned.

“I’m dating you,” she countered.

I snorted. “All right,” I began. “We’ve been seeing a dramatic decline in amphibian populations lately . . .”

The explanation of what I was doing with the state’s fricken population took most of the drive home, especially since I’d never tried to discuss the details with another biologist outside my own family. Shelby asked several questions that required actual thought to answer, forcing me to assess my replies more carefully. I finished as we were turning into the driveway.

“All right; let’s go see if your clothes are back from the dry cleaner’s,” I said, reaching for my seat belt. “If not, we can always stop by the Old Navy and pick up something you’ll be more comfortable in before we head for our next step.”