Greg Cox - A Touch of Fever

Congratulations, Nick and Shelly! It seemed a wedding was in progress.

Worrall smirked at his good fortune. He pulled over to the side of the road. Checking himself in the mirror, he straightened his clothing and joined the procession toward the church. A few curious looks were cast his way, but nobody challenged him. He forced himself to maintain a smiling countenance, despite the pain and nausea driving him onward.

His swollen veins pulsed horribly. His teeth ground together. Worrall entered the church, gratified to discover aisles of unsuspecting people. The bride and groom were not yet in evidence, but he had no doubt that they were nearby. He had his own gift to bestow on the happy couple. A helpful usher who couldn’t have been more than seventeen approached him. “Are you here for the bride or the groom?”

“All of the above,” Worrall said.

WAREHOUSE 13

Claudia and Artie were in full search mode.

Scattered notes, files, and printouts were strewn across their respective desks as well as large portions of the floor. A whirring fan rustled the documents, which were held down by assorted oddball paperweights. Claudia was glued to her keyboard, scouring the Internet, while Artie went old-school, leafing through various dog-eared dossiers, catalogs, and history books in search of some clue to the glove’s provenance-and Nadia’s possible whereabouts. They had been going at it all day without a break. Leena had headed back into town to check on the B amp;B. Claudia figured she’d catch up with her later. Right now, the game was on. “Gloves… gloves.” Artie muttered to himself. A neglected mug of herbal tea went cold. He repeated the refrain like an incantation, as though trying to summon up some stray scrap of knowledge from his voluminous memory.

Frustrated, he slammed shut yet another volume. “But whose gloves?

That’s the question. If we can just pinpoint their origin, we might be able to predict where they will turn up next.” “Not sure I can help you there,” Claudia said. “But I might be onto something.” “What is it?” His interest piqued, he rolled his chair across the office to join her. “Anything interesting?” She scooted over to give him a better look at the computer screen. “I was prowling hospital and emergency databases, looking for more cases of people being cured inexplicably,” she explained. “Just in case there really is another glove out there.” “And did you find any?” “Just the opposite, actually.” She nodded at the glowing monitor. “There’s been a chain of freakishly sudden, unexplained illnesses popping up all along the East Coast, more or less in sync with Nadia’s recent spate of healings.

We’re talking perfectly healthy people suddenly coming down with typhoid fever of all things… for no apparent reason. Several people have died already, and the rest are still hospitalized. The last outbreak was a few hours ago, at a wedding in Pennsylvania. The whole production-bride, groom, guests, et cetera-had to be hospitalized before they even got to the cake.” Artie lifted his glasses to squint at the screen. His eyes weren’t what they used to be. “Typhoid?” “Yeah. Weird, right? And that’s not all.” Her fingers danced over the keyboard, calling up a map of the eastern seaboard. “I plotted the epidemic’s vector against Nadia’s magical mystery tour.”

She stabbed a macro key. “Check this out.” On the map, a green line charted the southward progression of the Whitman Bros. Carnival as it made its way from Rhode Island to Connecticut. Blinking dots marked documented healings along the route. A red line, connecting each of the bizarre fever outbreaks, meandered north from Florida to Pennsylvania. “They’re on an intercept course,” Artie realized. A theory instantly formulated in his brain. “The two gloves, separated for who knows how long, are being drawn back to each other.” The same notion had crossed Claudia’s mind. “But are we sure there’s a connection? Maybe these two patterns are unconnected?” “Not on your life,” he said confidently. “There’s no such thing as coincidence where artifacts are concerned. This is all starting to make sense now.” At least by Warehouse standards, Claudia thought. “So how does this work, then? One glove heals people, the other one makes them sick?” “Exactly! Complementary forces. Yin and yang. Left and right.

Sickness and health…” The words came tumbling out of his mouth excitedly. Claudia could tell he was onto something. He lurched from his chair and started pacing back and forth across the carpet.

“Healing, disease… typhoid fever…” “Maybe Typhoid Mary?” she suggested. “Unlikely. Mary Mallon never healed anyone, and she didn’t wear gloves, although she probably should have.” He smacked his palm against his forehead. “Of course! How could I have missed it before?

Clara Barton!” Claudia didn’t get it. “Can I have the bonus commentary, please?” “Clarissa Harlowe Barton, ‘the Angel of the Battlefield.’” He pulled a heavy tome from the bookshelf. It landed with a thud onto the desk. “During the Civil War, she nursed thousands of wounded and dying soldiers, her tireless efforts bringing her to many of the war’s bloodiest battlefields. Fredericksburg. Richmond.

Bull Run. Antietam.” Artie blew a thick layer of dust off the book’s cover. Claudia coughed and fanned the cloud away with her hand. He flipped through the pages until he came to a sepia-toned photo of a somber, matronly-looking woman wearing a Red Cross medallion around her neck. An army tent formed the backdrop for the photo. Artie rummaged atop the desk until he found a magnifying glass. He held the glass over the photo, then beckoned to Claudia. She peered through the lens at a pair of elegant white leather gloves-just like the one Pete and Myka had described. “Along the way, her gloves must have absorbed both the blessing of healing… and the deadly curse of the war.

During which, it should be noted, disease and infection killed far more soldiers than bullets ever did.” “Diseases like typhoid fever?”

Claudia asked, catching on. Artie nodded. “Nadia is healing people with Clara Barton’s right glove. I’m sure of it.” Claudia took his word for it. She glanced back at her computer screen, where the red line continued to pulse ominously. Over two dozen people had already died of fever, and who knew how many others were on the verge of death? “So who has the bad glove?” “That’s what we need to find out,”

Artie said grimly. “After we bring Pete and Myka up to speed.” He reached for his Farnsworth. Drip, drip… Cider trickled from John Chapman’s pot, raining gently on the artifact one shelf below: an ornate marble bathtub whose claw feet resembled demonic talons.

Reinforced steel rods supported the weight of the tub, which had once belonged to Elizabeth Bathory, the infamous Blood Countess of Hungary.

Over four hundred years ago, the countess had bathed in the blood of hundreds of murdered young women in the belief that such sanguinary cosmetic treatments would preserve her youth. Walled up inside her own castle for her crimes, Elizabeth had been outlived by her tub. Ancient brown stains discolored the once-pristine marble. Drop by drop, the cider filled the bottom of the tub. The spicy amber juice grew saltier, and began to take on a disturbing crimson hue… Artie was pacing again. Claudia didn’t stop him. She figured he could use the exercise. “All right,” he said, thinking aloud. “We have two gloves, both in the wind. How do we track down Nadia Malinovich… and the other glove?” Claudia leaned back in her chair, the heels of her sneakers resting on the desk. She spitballed ideas off the exposed brick walls, while chewing distractedly on a ballpoint pen. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s some way we can take advantage of the fact that the gloves are being drawn back to each other?” “Hmm. Not a bad idea.”