Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(79)

“You think . . . you think the Bordens had somehow contracted tetanus?” My mind was prepared to reel, but it wasn’t spinning yet. He had drawn some interesting parallels, but it wasn’t enough to make me drop my wariness. It was too ordinary an explanation. It couldn’t be that simple. Not when monsters walked the grounds of Maplecroft.

No. It wasn’t that simple.

“I’m saying that what we’re dealing with, this Problem we have in Fall River . . .” I almost heard the capital letter he used to start the word “Problem.” “It shares some similarity in its presentation. There’s a pattern, Lizbeth. Not a perfect one, but if we stand far enough back . . .”

Yes, imperfect to say the least. “But the eyes, the pallid skin, the bloating . . . and what of the acute and dangerous madness?”

“Well . . . pronounced irritability is a known symptom.”

“That isn’t the same thing, and you know it. You’ve seen it yourself.”

He was losing his steam, and becoming frustrated with me, but he did his best to keep from showing it too harshly. “No, not exactly the same thing. It’s as I said, they share a . . . a general shape, if not a clearly delineated match.”

I granted him that much. “Very well, I see.” It was an overstatement to say even that much, but I didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm altogether. If there was any link between the two, any link at all, it was worth discussing—all my caution and concerns aside. Or at least tempered. “So explain it to me. Tell me everything there is to know about tetanus.”

“How much do you know already?” he asked, scanning the paragraphs from the book, hunting for highlights.

“Tetanus is . . . often fatal. And caused by wounds, isn’t it? Some kind of infection?”

“Yes and no,” he said. “It’s caused by a bacterium, Clostridium tetani—typically found in soil and animal feces, or the one contaminated by the other, as it were.”

And then he said something that sent a spark of recognition crackling between my ears.

“It’s often acquired from dirty wounds, yes, but it may also be carried in rust. At least that’s the going speculation. Injuries caused by old metal seem particularly prone to—”

I cut him off there. “Rust?” I blurted out.

He lifted his eyes from the textbook. “Yes. Rust. Did I say something helpful?”

“Maybe . . . ?” I went around the corner and retrieved my axe. I held it up close, so I could see it in detail—its blocky head and smooth cutting edge, sharp enough to trim paper. I honed it almost daily, but even if it’d seen no use there was always something, always a little grime to be filed away. Always a tiny smattering of rust, there at the corners.

“Lizbeth?”

“Here,” I said, returning with the weapon and placing it upon the table, beside the book. “Rust and iron . . . it’s another piece of your pattern puzzle. The same puzzle, I think—though it might not look that way at a glance. In my own studies, the arcane books and clandestine tomes that I keep downstairs . . . they routinely describe how iron wards against various kinds of evil.”

“And you’ve told me before that your axe is the only thing that truly fells them!” He was getting excited again, and I hated to admit it, but I was, too.

“It works better than anything else, though I’ve only tried shooting them once, to limited effect. We have Father’s old war weapons, but they’re a measure of last resort.”

“Not half so quiet as an axe,” he observed. “A wise course of action, considering.”

“Well, you know . . . we wouldn’t want to wake the neighbors. So if you ever hear gunshots at Maplecroft, you may assume that the end is nigh indeed. I always leave the guns with Emma,” I added, though I wasn’t sure why I was telling him this. It was true, but felt almost too personal to share. I shared it anyway. “That’s what I mean. If there’s shooting, it means they’re finished with me and they’re coming for her.”

This grim note gave us pause, but only for a moment. “Let’s not borrow trouble,” he gently urged. “Instead, let’s consider the possibilities. I say we should absolutely write down the axe and its attendant properties as part of the tetanus pattern, although . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Although?”

“It begs the question of whether the creatures are infected with the bacterium, or simply susceptible it. They do seem to . . . Hm.”

“Please stop doing that. Think aloud, I beg you. I’m a terrible mind reader.”

“My apologies. I was only considering that if the creatures suffer from some form of tetanus already, it seems unlikely that an added blow with a contaminated weapon would make the matter worse. Or perhaps it would.” He sighed, and closed the book. “It’s as I said—the pattern is far from perfect.”

“But it might be worth something, after all.” I pushed, a new idea working its insidious way into my mind. “What sort of treatments might one use to combat tetanus? I’m afraid this isn’t my area of expertise.”

“Ah, well. There are some fascinating studies on the subject overseas, with talks of vaccine prophylactics and antibody treatments.”

“Is there any chance we could . . . I don’t know, create these antibodies ourselves? Or import some from elsewhere? A hospital or . . . or a university, perhaps?”