that word too.” She added with a shrug, “As for myself, I get called far worse on a regular basis.”
Hearing her darkest suspicions so blithely confirmed left Rachel too stunned to reply.
Milada continued with blank disinterest. “There is a substance in my venom that under certain conditions mimics the properties of epinephrine. What any doctor would have given the boy in his condition.”
“But his allergies—”
As Kammy would tell you, evolution is not sentimental. It speaks to the self-interest of the parasite to keep the host alive.”
“Your sister—”
“The doctor. Understand that I am only repeating what she has told me. Unfortunately you met the wrong sister.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Rachel, I cannot help you. I can’t cure cancer. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
Rachel closed her eyes and nodded.
“Call me a hopeful monster if you wish, but I am no miracle worker.”
“Why didn’t you—why didn’t you infect him as well?”
“It doesn’t work that way. There is no virus in the venom. Kammy says it is bound to the hemoglobin. I don’t understand it well enough to explain the reasons why, except that blood must touch blood.”
A sudden insight illuminated Rachel’s thoughts. “It’s not the cancer. It’s the transplant. My bone marrow. It’s like an allergic reaction, only different in degree. Her immune system—”
“As I said, the effect is unpredictable.”
“What would make it less unpredictable? What would your sister say?”
“What, indeed? She would say it was unproven and inadvisable, a breach of family law. More than that, she would call it a violation of established medical protocols. She is traditional that way.”
“And after that, what would she say?”
For a long minute, Milada refused to respond. “The venom affects certain antigens in the host. Apparently there is a benefit to keeping small the circle of our prey, something we do not always take advantage of.”
Rachel’s brow furrowed in thought. “So the immunologic properties of your—venom—should react according to a specific blood type.”
“I suppose so. But necessary only to condition the blood for our consumption.”
“And you can introduce—inject—the venom more directly—more deliberately—as you did with Andy—”
Again, hesitation. Then, “Yes.”
Rachel straightened. She took a deep breath and looked straight into Milada’s almost-transparent eyes. “It was my marrow they used for Jennifer’s transplant. I was the closest HLA match. If your venom follows upon blood type, taking my blood should condition it to suppress the antigens triggering Jennifer’s GVHD. Just as you did with Andy—”
Milada’s soft laughter interrupted her mid-sentence. “Do you know who you remind me of? Sister Gertrude. Mother Superior of the orphanage in Szeged. My God, how we used to argue. Like a pair of Greek philosophers. And she thrashed me every time through sheer force of wits. I guess that’s why you surprise me, Rachel. I would have thought you too level-headed to allow your own logic to lead you to such fanciful conclusions.”
“Now you’re being cruel.”
“I meant it as a compliment. You are familiar with what Chesterton had to say about God and belief? But that would be cruel.” Milada took a longer draught of the Catawba and set down the glass. She leaned back in the chair and recited in a sonorous, singsong voice, as if to mock some long-dead preacher: “And when Saul enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by prophets.”
The words twisted like knives into the softest parts of Rachel’s soul. She shut her eyes tightly and finally brought her hands to her face to cover her ears.
“Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her.”
A long moment of silence followed. When Milada spoke again, she quoted from the Book of Luke, answering her own soliloquy: “So must I avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me?”
“Hear what the unjust judge says,” Rachel echoed, dropping her hands and opening her eyes. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Really?”
Before Rachel could react, Milada strode across the room to her side, standing so close that their cheeks almost touched. Rachel reflexively shrank away until she was wedged into the corner of the kitchen dining nook. Milada planted her left hand against the wall like a bar across her breasts. Her lips touched the back of Rachel’s neck, sending a shiver down her spine. She tried raising her hands to ward her off, but Milada pressed her into the corner, rendering her immobile.
Low and husky, Milada’s voice resounded in her ear, “I sleep with my prey first.”
Rachel hunched