Page 22 of The Furies

Sometimes, it doesn’t struggle at all.

When the wasp is done, and the eggs have been laid, it places a chemical marker on the host. The wasp has to avoid injecting the same host twice, nor does it want other wasps to target it. But even now the caterpillar has not yet entirely lost the battle against fatal infection. If its instinct and strength allow, it can seek to purge itself of the parasites by ingesting alkaloids from certain plants. Yet not every host will attempt to do this. Why is unclear.

The host that does not fight, does not purge, will succumb. The eggs grow by absorbing bodily fluids before the larvae eventually hatch and feed on the surrounding tissue from within, chewing their way out as the host dies. Until this moment of revelation, all that may be observed is a creature, internally blighted but outwardly unchanged, going about its business.

I now believe that something foul had infested Raum Buker, although even with the benefit of hindsight, and some imperfect knowledge of the events that followed, I can’t be certain what it was. My guess is that his immunity to contamination—because only the very worst of us are born without some protection—had been compromised by flaws in his nature and upbringing, leaving him vulnerable to attack. I’d like to think he tried to fight it. I may be wrong. What I witnessed that day outside Ambar Strange’s cottage could just have been a man driven to mutilate himself by an irritated wound, but I feel—I hope—it was more than that.

I think it was Raum trying to purge himself before it was too late.

CHAPTER XXV

Unlike her sister, Ambar Strange didn’t immediately recognize me or display any particular resentment toward my presence on her doorstep. She might, though, have been anticipating greeting a chastened Raum Buker when she answered my knock, because she appeared simultaneously disappointed and mildly relieved, which is a difficult combination to pull off. Up close she looked tired, the kind of cumulative exhaustion that comes from the loss of more than a single night’s sleep.

I showed her my PI license, and she scowled as she made the connection.

“You the guy who stuck a gun in Raum’s mouth?” she said.

I was starting to wish that Louis had found another way to focus Raum’s attention. The way he was going, he was likely to get himself a bad name in every dentist’s waiting room and New Age coffee shop in New England.

“That was a colleague,” I said.

“You didn’t try to stop him?”

“He’s difficult to dissuade once he has his heart fixed on something.”

She mulled over this.

“I guess Raum probably asked for it,” she said at last. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened more often.”

She was still holding my license. She peered at it again. I thought she might have been nearsighted, because I could see a depression at either side of her nose where spectacles had left their mark. The license was returned to me, and her thought processes moved on.

“So who hired you?” she said. “Because that’s how you guys work, right? It’s not like you’re the police. Is this about Raum, or me?”

“Raum. As for who hired me, I’m working for someone who’s worried about your sister.”

“Will Quinn,” she said, brightening. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yes, it’s Will.”

“He’s sweet. Dolors could do a lot worse.”

“Like Raum?”

Her smile faded.

“There’s no need to be rude,” she said. She took in the dead-end street, searching for his car. “And you wouldn’t talk like that to his face.”

“He’s gone,” I said. “I watched him drive away. And I’ve said worse to his face.”

“He’ll be back.”

“You don’t sound completely happy about that.”

She shrugged. “Like your friend with the gun, Raum’s also hard to dissuade once he’s set on something.”

“And what would that be?”

She gave me the cold eye.

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