Exton

"Hellfire and damnation!" The epithet is drawn from me by the ringtone emanating from my cell. For a moment I consider blasting the damned thing into the nether realms, but I pick it up and answer.

It is Bloodstone. "Mortuis, Nick's worse. Rowan wants to know if you have any new ideas. She's packing ice around Nick to try and drop the fever, but that's all she has."

"Would that I had, my young friend, but I have not."

"I'm also to tell you that Keon is on the way to the Manse. He had his blood poison-proofed recently and he has some idea that maybe he can help Nick, maybe with a transfusion or something."

"My brother Rider is always welcome. I thank you for this intelligence, Bloodstone. In truth, it is probably time for me to step away from this problem and to consider a new approach. There may be something in Keon's idea. I will update you as I know more. Now I must to the wards to await his arrival, so I bid you adieu."

I shake my head as I belt Nemesis into place and shrug into the cape. What can Keon be thinking? How can you give a transfusion to one having violent convulsions? But his good heart is in the idea, so I will let him down gently.

I open my awareness, sensing the part of the wards that resonates to the presence of Otherness, and I move in that direction. Within five minutes I am there, admitting Keon and his blue-skinned paramour to the Manse grounds.

"Hail, Keon. What is this idea you bring me? And who is this charming creature?"

Keon explains quickly as we walk back to the Manse. I lead him to the laboratory and we attempt the experiment he has suggested. I stab a finger with a sterile silver lancet and squeeze a drop of blood onto a microscope slide. I add a drop of Nekron's blood and drop a cover slip in place, then take it to the microscope. The results are projected onto a television screen for greater convenience.

I blink, and look again, unable or unwilling to credit what I see.

Keon's blood and Nekron's have formed separate discrete pools. They refuse to combine, no matter how I agitate the slide. It is as though they hold the same magnetic charge, and they can in no way be forced to unite.

I sigh. "It would appear, brother, that your poison-proofing works too well for our purposes. I cannot imagine what would happen to Nekron should we attempt to introduce your blood into his circulatory system, but I suspect the results would be unhappy. Perhaps" - I sigh audibly - "perhaps you should invoke your status as Rider to bring this matter before Herne, for there is, I think, little doubt as to whose hand struck this blow."