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Chapter Thirty-Two

CARMINE

In the dark room behind the glass, Watanabe slides over a tray with my belt and shoes, fiddling with his knobs while I put it all back on. The ring goes on last. I hold it a few inches from my fingertip.

Will it fit? Will I be rejected?

My hand shakes. What if I miss? Every breath hurts more than usual. The vibrating stake has made my breastbone ache.

Am I still worthy in this ridiculously human condition?

“That was the wildest shit I’ve ever seen.” Watanabe rolls a chair away from the wall. “You can sit here.”

For the third time, he pats the seat and waits. He’s going to pat it again if I don’t sit.

Expecting the worst, I put the ring on my finger. It slides on as if it doesn’t know how broken and unworthy I am.

I sit. Watanabe turns the screens. The images look like denser, more detailed X-rays. He flips through what looks like the same slice of brain over and over, with only subtle changes.

“What was it?” I rub the place around the stake.

“No clue. So let’s start up top.” Watanabe points at the screen with his pencil.

“So this here? This is the tremors in your hands. It’s Parkinson’s Disease.

You can live a long, annoying life with it.

” He taps some keys. My head disappears in favor of a neck, shoulders, then a chest. “This here is what’s going to kill you. ”

“Is this kind of bedside manner common now?”

“That’s why they keep me back here.” He laughs, then clears his throat. “Sorry, different time, you know? This is my fourth medical degree and… gotta say, gets exhausting to start over and over.”

“What’s going to kill me, Doctor Watanabe of twelfth generation Ibis blood?” I don’t mean to sound condescending, but I do.

“How’d you know that?”

You think you’re so interesting, but you’re just sour and crabby.

“A king needs to be able to scent his people.”

“Incredible.” He points his pen at the screen, where a gray blob rests in a darker gray field.

“That explains the activity in your limbic system.” He flips through images of blobs that I can only assume are detailed X-rays of my head.

“We still don’t know how the blood-brain barrier is crossed during siring. ”

“Is my sense of smell going to kill me?”

“No.” He sits straight and flips back again.

“This is going to kill you.” He taps a series of light gray shapes.

I lean forward to follow the pencil point.

Even with a predator’s eyes, I see nothing.

No change. No lightness or darkness. But he’s convinced, and since this machine is all voodoo to me, I have to take his word for it.

“There’s some hypointensity in the motor cortex and hyperintensity in the corticospinal tract. I’d start working you up for ALS.”

“That is?”

“Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

“The baseball player?”

“Yeah. He shoulda seen that coming.” He chuckles then clears his throat.

“Sorry. Dennis Leary. Never mind. So, I’ve never met a kindred with a human medical problem before, but if you were human, I’d say it’s probably ALS, but you could have any number of terminal and non-terminal conditions so you need a full workup blah-blah. ”

“ Il Blocco says it’s what I would have died of, had I lived.”

“I’d take that guy’s word for it.” His chair squeaks when he turns. “What’s he like?”

“Old and cranky.”

“Huh. Interesting. Anyway.” Deep breath. “I’m not much of a clinician. You’ll have a degeneration of motor skills. Weakness, inability to grip, you’ve already experienced the shaking so… the other hand will go. The outer extremities, maybe.”

“That means legs?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like it’s the same for everyone until it moves inward, toward the spine. You’ll have trouble swallowing. Loss of respiratory function. Talking will get harder and… look, this isn’t what I usually do, okay?”

He’s obviously more uncomfortable telling me about the acceleration of the illness than I am hearing about it. I know there’s a knife that will fix this. He does not.

“I get it.”

“How about I find you a clinician?”

“Is this disease a thing I can goggle?”

“Google? Yeah. Sure.” He breathes deeply and exhales slowly, opening his eyes with new energy.

“Let me show you this though.” He turns back to the screen and changes the slide.

“Here’s the stake. It was chill up to .63 T.

You can see how the tissue has healed around it, which is why you can’t just pull it out.

But once we hit 1.1T…” He taps his keys to get closer to smears I can’t make head or tail of.

“To go deeper… see how it’s blurry here?

It was buzzing. When I dialed down, see?

It’s clear again, but… dial up to get deeper and it shakes like a maraca.

I don’t know what to say about that. I examined it myself and it’s wood.

” He spins his chair to face me. “How this relates to the ALS, on a physical level…” He shakes his head.

“I really could spend the next hundred years studying.”

“It’s comforting to know it wasn’t obvious from the beginning.”

“It’s guys like you who make me wish we had our own medical journal.”

I stand up and offer my hand. He shakes it and we say our goodbyes.

As I’m about to leave, he says, “Hey, you going to that club? The one that’s opening on Friday? It’s going to be insane. Willing human donors.” He jiggles his hands as if he’s in a Broadway chorus.

My first reaction is to say no. I have not been interested in clubs since I came out of stasis, and regular human donors are even less interesting, willing or otherwise. I have had a sweet tooth for Strega since the Second World War. But I have questions about something besides human donors.

“Is this the Bourbon’s club?”

“Maybe?” He shrugs. “What’s the difference who’s in charge if they’re promising to put food on the table?”