Mutagen - Chapter 2

“Any joy?”

Seran jumped where she sat by the desk, nearly upsetting the ink well in the process. Inwardly, she cursed. The thing on the table had her nerves in a vice grip.

“It’s impossible,” she told Reyfe flatly. “The damned thing can’t exist.”

He moved cautiously into the room toward the sound of her voice.

“But it does.”

“Details.” Seran waved a hand dismissively, and then rubbed her eyes. Gods, she was tired. And deeply confused.

Reyfe chuckled and stopped, leaning against the wall. Seran wondered briefly if that was a result of his blindness: a desire to touch something, to keep himself anchored.

“Details indeed,” he said kindly. “Any more important ones, though? How it works, what it is?”

“It’s got –” Seran broke off, biting her lip. “I ran some tests. On the venom from its fangs, firstly.”

“And?”

“And the protein markers are an almost exact match for lycanthropic venom,” she said quietly. “But,” she added quickly, “it wasn’t exact in any other way. It’s more acidic and far more unstable. And it reacts with too many hormones.”

“I see.” Reyfe stroked his chin with one finger. “A mutated form of lycanthropy, then?”

“Logically,” Seran nodded. “Except that’s never happened before. Ever. And beyond the clearly… mutative… nature of this thing, it bears no resemblance to classic lycanthropy.”

“How so?”

“It was a new moon last night,” Seran said simply. “Lycanthropics produce the hormones relevant for a transformation in accordance with the lunar cycle. No lycanthropic could produce those hormones during a new moon. This thing either managed it, or transformed purely on adrenaline.”

Reyfe groped his way to a chair and sat down. “Which do you think?”

“Adrenaline,” Seran said promptly. “I think it panicked when it was discovered, and accidentally changed. Except, that raises another rather large question: being an assassin is clearly a high-risk job. If this one knew he couldn’t control his own rather dramatic biological change –”

“-then why was he an assassin,” Reyfe finished, nodding. Beneath the dark lenses he looked troubled. “Do you think he knew? Could he have been unaware of the virus?”

“I don’t see how he could have,” Seran admitted. “Let’s keep assuming it’s Weird Lycanthropy. It could only be transmitted through the venom, and therefore a bite. Now in this case, the blood seems to carry something since the Prince Regent is so ill, but even then…”

“You’d notice if you swallowed blood,” Reyfe stated. “Particularly if it made you that ill,” he added. “Although, you did say that the Prince Regent’s body was probably rejecting the virus. What happens when a body contracts it?”

“There’s actually a good chance you wouldn’t notice, until the days approaching your first full moon,” Seran answered gloomily. “Then the mood swings start, and…” She trailed off. “Not that it matters. Weird Lycanthropy doesn’t need the moon, it seems.”

“So,” Reyfe said, pressing his fingers into a steeple. “An assassin who was accidentally and unknowingly infected with… Weird Lycanthropy… is sent to kill the Prince Regent, with inside help from the Citadel. When found, the virus triggers his unorthodox transformation, which regrettably for him is an aquatic form. He’s never transformed before, so he can’t change back, and kills himself in his panic.”

“Yes,” Seran said thoughtfully. “I wonder if he even could have changed back, you know. Lycanthropics can, with self control, but…” She looked at her notes. “There’s something odd about the preliminary test results on his genome. I’ll know more once I’ve tested more extensively, but this is showing signs of being a one-way transformation.”

“How can you tell?” Reyfe asked keenly. Seran smiled.

“With difficulty,” she answered. “But basically, you can test a lycanthropic’s genome in either human or lupine state and all of the genetic markers and protein markers and every other type of marker are there, allowing another transformation. Otherwise, with all the hormonal changes in the world the body couldn’t physically transform: you’d just get mood-swings. It tends to be what happens in people who don’t contract lycanthropy but don’t reject it, either.” She pointed at the assassin. “That thing doesn’t have those markers. Or rather, it does, but they’re all broken.”

“Are you serious?” Reyfe gaped at her. “A permanent change? Into that?”

“Ha.” Seran stood up and walked to the animal on the table, looking down at its neck. “Those gills aren’t open. Even under water, this thing couldn’t have breathed. This isn’t a working evolution.”

“Ah. It killed itself before it finished changing.”

“No,” Seran said quietly. “I don’t think so. The tests wouldn’t produce any sort of conclusive results at all otherwise. I think this evolutionary dead-end is the whole transformation.”

There was utter silence, pure and unbroken for a minute, almost as though the entire Citadel had dragged to a halt to contemplate the news. Then, in the distance, the Chimes rang out eleven o’clock, and Seran sagged. She could barely concentrate anymore, she was so tired, and the adrenaline she’d been living on for the last few hours seemed to be leaving her.

“You’re tired,” Reyfe said, standing. “Go home, and go to bed. We will probably need to call on you again before the day is out.”

Seran nodded, and began to gather up her notes. “How is the Prince Regent?”

“Dying,” Reyfe said shortly, glancing toward the corpse on the table, “although I think it’s probably for the best, considering the alternatives. I don’t suppose you can find a cure?”

“Outside of a silver bullet?” Seran regretted the words instantly, and more so at the look on Reyfe’s face. “Sorry. Sleep deprivation is catching up with me. No, I can’t find a cure. It’s a virus: we can’t kill those.”

“No,” Reyfe said quietly; and Seran saw a shadow pass across his face. “Well; thank you, professor. As I say, we’ll need you again, so get some sleep.”

Seran nodded, and only remembered after he left that she should have answered him verbally.