Read Online Elysian Fields by Suzanne Johnson - Free Book Online

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    Dear Ms. Jaco—or may I call you Drusilla?
    I hadn’t told him my real name—I don’t tell anyone DJ stands for Drusilla Jane, no offense to Great Aunt Dru, and I’d registered my email account under DJ . But I was the local sentinel, so his knowing my name didn’t mean he’d been checking up on me. No point in being prematurely paranoid. There would be plenty of time for that.
    Nice to hear from you again—I’ve been meaning to call and see if you’d like to do lunch sometime
    Only if he doesn’t try to read my mind.
    and I promise not to read your thoughts.
    Ha-ha. A Yellow Congress comedian.
    I had to chuckle at your question about wizards being infected with the loup- garou or other were virus—I have a couple of Green Congress friends and this is exactly the type of debate they get into at parties themselves.
    Yeah, yeah. We’re proudly geekish.
    I can assure you that wizards are NOT immune to were viruses,
    Oh, shit.
    and the cases I’ve read about were very sad indeed. Not surprisingly, the Elders cannot allow a werecreature with magical abilities to wander free, so a wing of the wizarding mental facility at Ittoqqortoormiit is set aside for them as long as they’ve not injured anyone.
    That the Elders had asylums for crazy wizards was news to me. And what the hell was an Ittoqqortoormiit?
    As for the other part of your question, the answer is no—a Yellow Congress wizard, even a strong healer, would not be able to tell if a wizard would turn after exposure to a virus such as loup-garou.
    Well, crap on a stick.
    Much depends on the individual makeup of the wizard, and I’ve heard of a few cases where wizards were exposed but never turned—although only a few. But all I or another Yellow Congress wizard would be able to tell is whether or not exposure had occurred. We can make psychic connections and tell what a person is thinking, but do not have such specific gifts of divination.
    That was of no help whatsoever, except . . .
    As you know, I’m a psychiatrist. While in medical school, I did a rotation in hematology. One of the things I did as a private project, just out of curiosity, was to look at werewolf blood alongside that of a human. There is a distinctive curved-cell signature in were blood that doesn’t occur in humans or wizards. So I suppose a blood test could theoretically tell a person whether or not changes were occurring on the cellular level if that signature were present, although I’m not sure at what point after exposure the blood change occurs. This is not widely known, so you might use it to stump your friends at the next party!
    Call me about lunch!
    Adam Lyle
    My heart thumped. A blood test. I could find out and maybe, just maybe, this would all be over and we could move on.
    I shot off a quick reply to thank him and suggested a date after Thanksgiving for lunch. By then, I’d either be really thankful for my fried turkey or tearing into a raw bird with claws and teeth, spitting out feathers.
    Next, I Googled Ittoqqortoormiit.
    Awesome. It was a remote outpost of Greenland with a maximum daytime temperature of six degrees, which usually occurred in late July. Nine months of the year, the town of less than 500 never got above zero. My future could take place in a home for insane and homicidal wizards, with possible field trips to hunt muskoxen. On the plus side, I’d be so hot-natured the absurd temperatures might feel pleasant.
    Adam’s email had left me depressed and craving pralines, so I made do by adding cream and sugar to my coffee. While waiting for Zrakovi to arrive, I logged onto the Elders’ secure database and clicked on the supplies tab. I was a Green Congress wizard; ordering a good microscope wouldn’t look suspicious.
    I ordered it, paying extra for overnight delivery to the transport in my library. I thought about calling Alex, but no point in telling him until I knew something, especially since he and Ken were going over past cases this morning to