BREAKBONE FEVER  

CHAPTER TWO: THREE MEN MAKE A TIGER  

	So the doctors came on the evening train 

	With their flasks, and their caskets, and vials  

	"Mass psychosis" was the diagnosis 

	So we all cashed our checks and went wild. 

		- Squirrel Nut Zippers, "La Grippe" 

	The first thing the patient said when House walked into the exam
room was, "I'm here against my will." 

	"Join the club. We have jackets," he replied.  

	Not only did the diagnostician find his required clinic hours
beneath his dignity, what was far worse was that they were boring. There
was the occasional mildly amusing case, like the teenage boy who'd set his
cell phone on vibrate and stuck it where the sun don't shine, but for the
most part clinic duty was an endless trudge of drippy noses, mild coughs,
and miscellaneous aches and pains that could be easily treated by the
patient's regular doctor. House blamed the internet for half the traffic
in and out of the clinic.  

	He would love to personally lethally stab whoever was behind
wrongdiagnosis.com, for example. Wipe your ass and find blood on the
toilet paper? It could be a simple anal fissure or it could be (and here
he always heard a cheesy drama chord) colorectal cancer! Of course, the
patients who thought their ability to use Google meant they had a right to
a medical opinion always decided they were in their death throes, because
human beings have an innate sense of melodrama with no balancing sense of
proportion.  

	And then, lucky him, he got to spend hours assuring them through
gritted teeth that no, he didn't need to give them a proctology exam, all
they needed to do was lay off the fiber and switch to a higher grade of
bog roll.  

	The new patient certainly was a change from the usual panicky
schlubs House had to deal with. He perched on the exam table still fully
clothed, not to mention dressed well enough to make anyone else look as
though they had been wearing the same shirt for three days, which House
was, in point of fact. He looked sublimely out of place in the cold,
sterile little room.  

	"Let me guess," House said. "Bad bit of pâté foie gras at the
yacht club's social? I see you came dressed for your own funeral, that's
encouraging." 

	The man didn't crack a smile. Did not, in fact, register any
emotion at all. His blanched, ascetic face looked as if he were incapable
of any expression besides a lordly disdain. Just add a pair of pointy
prosthetic ears, and he'd be snapped up in a second by a casting director
looking for a Vulcan or the King of the Elves.	

	House busied himself checking over the man's chart. This AXL
Pendergast - did he have three given names, or was he a Guns N' Roses fan?
- had collapsed while investigating a crime scene, which was admittedly
interesting. Not a cop. FBI. He'd come by ambulance and been admitted with
high fever, headache, and a hemorrhagic rash. Under questioning, he
admitted in a quiet, uninflected voice that a few days ago he had
developed tooth-chattering chills and a low grade fever, and that his
muscles had felt sore and bruised. 

	"And you figured it would just go away," House asked. 

	"I did. And I was correct. The symptoms disappeared. I've been
under a lot of strain lately, Doctor. And even the most well-adapted human
being can succumb to physical and psychological stress." Pendergast turned
slightly, fixing his gaze on a chart of skin diseases on the wall. "I
enjoyed a few asymptomatic days, then woke yesterday with another fever
spike, aching eyes, and a rash. When I flossed my teeth that morning I
tasted salt." 

	"Let me see that rash." 

	Pendergast unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled them back, baring his
arm. House noted that although the man seemed thin to the point of
frailty, the muscles of his forearm were sharply delineated, defined
without gym brat bulkiness, and he had the bulging, wide-bore veins of an
athlete. But most of his attention was captured by the rash. Against the
paper white skin, it looked as though someone had drawn shooting stars in
purple ink. 

	"Normally, I would have tried to carry on," Pendergast said as
House continued to run through some quick exams. For his own amusement
more than anything else, House shined a light into Pendergast's eyes,
holding it so the beam fell almost directly across. The man squinted
painfully, and House was rewarded by seeing the silvery blue of his iris
take on a distinct purple cast.  

	"However, one of my colleagues noticed my gums bleeding, and when
I experienced a momentary faintness, he insisted the ambulance bring me
here." 

	Momentary faintness, my ass, tough guy, House thought. According
to what the other FBI agent who`d accompanied him in said, Pendergast had
suddenly exhibited delusional behavior, crawling on the ground, grabbing
at something invisible in the air, then did a face plant onto the ground
and remained insensible for several minutes.  

	"Good thing, too. Any episode of loss of consciousness should be
checked out, and your other symptoms suggest meningococcemia."		

	"A bacterial infection of the blood?" Pendergast looked mildly
surprised.  

	"It can infect the meninges of the brain, which is the important
bit, but actually, I have suspicions it's something different. Ever hear
of dengue?" 

	Pendergast frowned. "As I understand it, dengue is a disease of
the tropics. Carried by mosquitoes, correct?"  

	"There are two potential mosquito carriers in the southern US and
Mexico, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. Do you recall being bitten?" 

	"I have been in New York since early this summer," he said. "I
arrived here a week ago." 

	Now it was House's turn to frown. Dengue did not lay dormant for
very long. Pendergast must have been bitten in New Jersey, unless it were
not dengue at all. But his symptoms did not quite seem right for
meningococcemia. 

	He decided to bluff his way through it. After all, Pendergast was
a patient. It was House's job to figure out what was wrong and what to do
about it; it was Pendergast's job to shut up, lay still, and be cured. "At
any rate, if it's bacterial we can knock it out with broad spectrum
antibiotics. I'm going to admit you for a few days until your lab tests
normalize . . . " he trailed off. Pendergast was shaking his head, no. 

	"I have work to do. I can't be spared, I'm afraid." 

	"No one's irreplaceable except Hendrix, and you ain't Hendrix." 

	"Will you take responsibility for the next murder," Pendergast
asked.	

	House was taken momentarily aback. Murder? Well, why else would an
FBI agent be poking around . . . and then he realized that no FBI agent in
his right mind would be so loose-lipped about an investigation. Pendergast
was attempting to bluff him.  

	If he hadn't been endangering his own health, House would have
admired Pendergast's chutzpah. As it was, his primate subcortex was ooking
and eeking at him that he needed to teach this guy you don't challenge the
alpha male on his own turf. To mix a metaphor, this silverback still had
an ace up his sleeve. 

	"Look, you're shocky, you're not thinking straight. As a matter of
fact . . . " House grinned evilly. "As a matter of fact, Agent Pendergast,
you might not be in full possession of your facilities. I'm going to have
to admit you against your will, for your own safety." 

	"That's illegal," Pendergast said emphatically.  

	"And you're free to contest it. Call your lawyers." House dug out
his cell phone and tossed it on the exam table. "By the time they spring
you, you'll be feeling so much better you won't even want to sue me." 

	Pendergast stood up - and immediately slumped forward. 

	"Insufficient blood volume," House explained cheerfully, catching
him by the arm. He felt Pendergast flinch under his grip. "Luckily, you'll
be so woozy we won't have to do anything undignified like put you in
restraints." 

	The agent looked for a moment as if he were going to do something
that certainly would get him placed in restraints, then reconsidered.
Tightlipped, not meeting House's eyes, Pendergast docilely allowed himself
to be led out of the exam room. 

	Forty minutes later, House gathered his diagnostic team and
presented the case to them. Although he would never admit it, something
about this case was bothering him.   

	"So why are we meeting," Foreman asked. "It's dengue, isn't it?
The petechial rash is pretty clearly diagnostic." 

	House shook his head. "Sadly, one bothersome little fact destroys
your lovely theory. The patient hasn't been overseas or anywhere he could
have encountered a dengue-carrying mosquito." 

	"Are you sure?" Chase persisted. "Maybe he just can't tell us." 

	"Can't tell us? Jeez, is he deaf-mute, too?" 

	Foreman, who hadn't seen Pendergast yet, leaned back in his chair
and caught Cameron's eye. He subvocalized, Too? 

	Albino, Cameron mouthed silently.  

	Foreman frowned, shook his head slightly and mouthed back, What?  

	Al-bi-no, she said, exaggerating her lip movements to distinctly
shape each syllable. 

	"Wow, that's sexy," House interrupted, fanning himself with
Pendergast's chart.  

	They jumped, guilty.  

	"What she's trying to tell you is that he's hypopigmented; he has
Type 2 oculocutaneous albinism, commonly called gray-eyed albinism. Slight
amount of pigment present, enough to negate some of the visual acuity
problems associated with OCA1a and OCA1b, but not enough to, say, tan." He
plucked invisible strings and hummed a few bars of Dueling Banjos, pulling
a weird, cross-eyed face. 

	"Actually, he's very good looking," Cameron protested. 

	"He's handsome the way a purebred dog is. His family tree probably
makes the Hapsburg dynasty look like a pack of mongrels." 

	"Are you suggesting he's inbred?" Foreman scoffed. "Albinism isn't
necessarily a result of inbreeding, and inbreeding doesn't always result
in genetic damage, it just increases the chances of doubling up on bad
chromosomes." 

	"Yeah, I know." House widened his eyes in mock innocence. "But how
much do you want to bet he's got a bug up his ass about it?"  

	"What I meant was," Chase said, "If he's FBI, maybe he's working
undercover on a case or something." 

	"One unsolved murder does not a spree make," House said. He looked
at each of them in turn. "Thoughts?" 

	"Meningococcemia," Foreman said with finality.	

	"Unless you can explain where Pendergast found a dengue-carrying
mosquito around here, I'll have to agree," Chase added, shrugging. Cameron
nodded. 

	"Have you ever heard of the 'Three Men Make a Tiger' fallacy? No?
Apparently, some ancient Chinese emperor came up with it. If a man said he
saw a tiger in a crowded marketplace, you'd think he was mad or lying. If
two men claimed to see a tiger, you might have your doubts. But if three
men swore they saw it, the emperor said he'd have to believe no matter how
ludicrous the idea of a tiger was . . . "  

	Cameron said, "It doesn't make a difference, does it? We're sure
it's one of those two, so we just put him on the ampicillan. If it's
meningococcemia, he'll get better, and if it's dengue, it won't hurt." 

	As she spoke, House felt his pager go off. He glanced at the text
scrolling across the tiny screen.  

	 

	"Actually, we won't do either. He's gone." 

	Pendergast hadn't merely left against medical advice, he'd
disappeared.  

	*	*	*	*	* 

	Now that the visiting Special Agent had been admitted to
Princeton-Plainsboro hospital and the evidence from the Morgan case was in
the capable hands of the forensic team, Agent Kittredge found himself at
loose ends.  

	He had the vague idea he should stay with Pendergast out of
courtesy if nothing else, but Pendergast himself had dissuaded him of that
notion pretty quickly. Then he'd tried to corner a doctor in charge of
him, but the tall, scrawny man with the jackdaw's nest of graying curls
and a three day growth of beard had limped past him without a word,
leaving it to one of his underlings to explain what was going on.  

	 

	Pendergast, he'd said, was suffering from some sort of infection
they didn't know the source of. If it was bacterial it could be treated
with strong antibiotics, if viral there was nothing to do but make him
comfortable and treat the symptoms as they occurred. Since it would be a
few days until the lab work told them the cause for certain, they'd
started him on antibiotics just in case. Either way, it involved keeping
Pendergast in bed, quiet, and watched over for some time.  

	Kittredge had thanked them profusely, phoned the FBI offices and
informed them of what was happening, taken a last look at Pendergast,
arranged to have the man's small amount of luggage sent to his hospital
room, and then decided it might be worthwhile to visit the crime scene
once again. 

	The drive into the forest took over an hour, and the trip in
Kittredge's car was considerably less comfortable than in that silver
monster Pendergast drove. The Rolls might look antique, but judging from
the excellent suspension the man had had it completely modernized.
Kittredge, who'd for the last year or so spent his days off restoring a
Harley Knucklehead, tried to have a conversation with him about vintage
vehicles on the trip up, but Pendergast didn't bite. Hadn't, for that
matter, hardly said two words to Kittredge since he arrived.  

	Cold bastard, Kittredge decided, and it was fairly clear he
considered Kittredge himself a bit of a dingleberry (in both senses of the
word). It had been like pulling teeth just to get the small amount of
information about the cult killers from him. There was no paperwork to
look at all. Pendergast more or less swooped down and snatched Kittredge
away without a how d'you do. He got the strong impression that the man's
investigation was perhaps not entirely official.  

	He wondered if, in fact, Pendergast had been ill for longer than
the doctors thought. 

	He'd heard about the New York headhunter murders, of course. They
were the bread and butter of the all-news networks for a few days, until
some blonde heiress had gone missing and an avalanche buried a small town
in Argentina.  

	While the facts that a cult of killers had been chopping off
people's heads in Manhattan was indisputable, there was nothing in
Kittredge's opinion to link them with anything going on here in New
Jersey. When Pendergast arrived, in fact, there had not been a murder at
all. It was almost as if he were expecting what happen to Tom Morgan to
occur . . . he'd appeared in anticipation, a psychopomp in a Italian suit.


	Kittredge let out a morbid laugh. And he got what he expected,
apparently. So far, the forensics team had come up with nothing that could
be identified as traces of the killer, no bits of thread, no hair, just
fur and blood and gobbets of flesh from the deer he had shot. The site
hadn't even yielded any valuable tracks except Morgan's, his wife's, and
dozens of cloven hoof prints.  

	It was as if he'd been slaughtered by something insubstantial,
supernatural. Ghostly.	

	Brenda Morgan still insisted that what killed her husband was
neither human nor animal. She'd even made a drawing for them. Childish,
probably useless, it depicted an upright figure with a long neck and
narrow head, skinny arms with knifelike claws on its hands, legs with
either too many joints or backwards knees, and cloven hooves.  

	Now, as he pulled off into the small clearing, Kittredge couldn't
quite shake the feeling that Pendergast was on to something. Perhaps his
actions had all been due to illness, but when he last saw the other agent
there had been no feverish befuddlement in his expression.  

	He stood for a moment, taking in the scene. In the arctic
austerity of the late winter afternoon, the leafless trunks of cedars and
oaks stained red by the lowering sun, the Barrens looked every bit as
desolate as its name. Yellow police tape still marked off the crime scene,
but even to Kittredge's trained eye there wasn't much left to see.  

	The dense carpet of fallen leaves, orange pine needles and
straggly weeds had been swept away, and anything of interest bagged,
labeled, and removed. Even the tracks of the Morgan's truck were
vanishingly faint in the permafrosted soil. Here and there were the
shallow craters left from where footprints had been lifted in plaster
casts.	

	Kittredge slowly walked the perimeter, bending low to get a
clearer look at suspiciously bent twigs and trampled moss. When he
recognized the spot where Pendergast had fainted, he even lowered himself
onto all fours and sniffed the ground, wondering what the man had
detected. There was only the faint scent of pine and the earthy mustiness
of long dead leaves.  

	Feeling a bit ridiculous, Kittredge scrambled upright. Already the
cold had soaked into his knees and palms through the thin cloth.  

	What did he think he was going to smell? Traces of sulfur from the
hooves of the Jersey Devil? 

	He sighed. That had been the weirdest part of Pendergast's visit.
For the first few days he'd been ferried around to historical societies
and libraries where he'd sat staring at the wall and wilting from boredom
while Pendergast spent endless hours leafing through old maps and books
printed before the Revolutionary War. He had no clue what the man was
looking for, and Pendergast obviously did not care for him to know. Any
offers of help he made were politely but firmly rebuffed.  

	He wondered if the agent were killing time until the murder he
predicted would happen, or if there was some link between his research and
the investigation. At the time, he had suspected the former, since among
the other things Pendergast had done were stop at just about every little
mom and pop shop and buy pamphlets and small press books on the Jersey
Devil. It was a bit of a disappointment that Pendergast was as goofy over
the stupid old legend as any other tourist. Maybe he had a Fox Mulder
complex.  

	Kittredge was spontaneously and totally disgusted. Pendergast was
playing him for a stooge.  

	The sun was almost below the horizon now, and a bitter wind
rustled the branches and numbed his nose and ears. All he wanted now was
to go home, order a meatball sub from the deli by his house, maybe watch
some of his Tivo backlog or work on the Harley. There was absolutely no
demonstrable link between Morgan's death and the cult killers, hence no
reason for FBI to be involved. If Pendergast wanted to chase devils, he
could wait till he kicked this flu or whatever it was and do it his own
self. 

	He was mentally composing a request to shift responsibility for
Pendergast to some other sap when the wind died down a bit . . . and the
rustling sound didn't. 

	Instantly, Kittredge was on high alert. Of all the explanations
he'd heard, he thought that bear attack was the most reasonable sounding
one for Morgan's death. He didn't know much about bears. Shouldn't they be
hibernating at this time of year? That had raised the prospect of a bear
that was sickened, maybe rabid. And here he was, a man alone in growing
darkness armed with a standard issue Glock with laser sights he'd added at
his own expense. He could bring down a human being, no problem. But a
bear? He had no idea, and he didn't plan on staying around to find out.  

	Keeping his gun aimed in the direction of the rustling, he backed
slowly towards his car, shivering as he clenched his muscles against the
atavistic impulse to run like hell. Could bears smell fear? What did that
smell like, anyways? The sourness of sweat, a spike in adrenaline?
Perspiration popped out over his forehead, moistened his armpits, trickled
down his spine and pooled in the curve of his lower back. Hell, he
probably stank like fear on rye with a side order of pickles. 

	It was probably nothing. A squirrel or a raccoon. Something small
and cute and harmless, the sort of critter who'd be the sidekick to a
Disney heroine. He was past the crime scene now, almost to the car.  

	Even as he felt his heel catch in a rut, as he overbalanced and
fell flat on his back, Kittredge was able to think clearly. Stooge. It was
the last lucid thought he had.	

	Something dark and demonic stepped from the trees into the
clearing. Kittredge lay there on the cold ground, stunned, as if he'd
stepped through brittle ice and plunged into a fast moving river.  

	He took the creature in a series of disbelieving glances, unable
to focus on any section of its horrible aspect for too long. Humanlike in
stance but animal in the details, goatish, apelike, dinosaurian. Huge,
towering over eight feet tall on its crooked hind legs. Long sweeping
tail, scaly and sparsely coated with coarse hair, like a rat's. Eyes
glowing an unnatural reddish-gold. Muscular arms raised up, thick mats of
shaggy fur hanging down like clumps of Spanish moss. Gleaming, scimitar
claws stretching out yearningly, then snapping closed like a trap.  

	The frost caves of Kittredge's brain suddenly began to function
with crystalline clarity. He seemed to watch, detached from his own body,
as his arm raised the gun, waiting until the little red dot danced between
those blazing eyes, his finger tightened and the gun jumped in his hand .
. .  

	*	*	*	*	* 

	Wilson leaned on the front desk, flirting pathetically with the
nurses who flocked around him like pigeons on a handful of crumbs. He was
summing up the latest news with, "And House must be mad enough to bite
nails," when he felt an unfriendly hand clamp on his shoulder. 

	"I checked, but there aren't any rust stains on my teeth," House
said from behind him. He grabbed Wilson by the sleeve and dragged him
towards his office, growling, "Gossiping about me to the nurses? What is
this, third grade? Should I check the back of my head to make sure
Marjorie Harris isn't flicking boogers at me again?" 

	Wilson, who knew House was well aware of his own reputation as one
of the more gossipy fishwives at Princeton-Plainsboro, had the great good
sense to try to look convincingly penitent and keep his mouth shut until
the door slammed behind them. 

	"You know, it's just funny. You can handle the patients not being
able to grasp what you're telling them, or disagreeing, or even flipping
out and cracking you in the rear with your own cane." 

	House grimaced. That had hurt more than he'd let on. 

	"But this guy just accepts, understands, and then completely blows
you off and goes on his merry way, and you can't cope." He chortled. "It's
killing you." 

	"No, it's killing him." 

	House flung himself in Wilson's most comfortable chair and
restively tapped his cane against the corner of the desk. 

	"Look, House. What does it say on my door?" 

	He glanced up at the glass door obediently and read, "Tsigolocno."


	"And what does that mean I do?" 

	"Treat recnac?" 

	"Exactly, and this secret agent of yours doesn't have recnac. So
what are you doing here putting dents in my desk? He has meningococcemia
or possibly dengue, and if he stays outside for much longer he'll likely
have frostbite and severe hypothermia." 

	"And dementia. Don't forget the dementia." 

	"From what I heard, the dementia is extremely debatable to the
point of being delusional on your part. Pendergast is a grown man, he
knows the risks of what he`s doing. There`s no point having his competence
called into question and giving the hospital's lawyers yet another reason
to want to throttle you in your sleep." 

	"Hah. You're looking at the former high school debate club
champion. Check these out." Out of his jacket pocket he produced a handful
of pamphlets, booklets and brochures, ranging from slick full color
numbers to bad photocopies that had obviously been hand folded and
stapled. All were on the same subject and all of them were heavily
annotated in a tiny, cramped version of Pendergast's distinctive
copperplate hand. "Seems he's a Devil fan, and I don't mean the hockey
team." 

	"I hardly think interest in a local version of Bigfoot is a sign
of dementia." 

	"I'm not talking about interest, I'm talking about belief." House
leaned across Wilson's desk, lowering his voice to a conspiring whisper.
"I googled our buddy Pendergast. If that's his real name, he keeps a low
profile. Only one juicy link came up, in an excerpt from a book about the
Museum Beast murders a few years back." 

	"So you think he thinks the Jersey Devil is a real animal, and it
killed that hunter and maybe some other people? I don't know which of you
needs the psych consult more." Wilson sighed and massaged his forehead.
"Come on, House. Let security handle this, it's their fault he slipped out
in the first place. Just admit what's really bothering you is you think
the guy outwitted you personally." 

	Realizing no amount of reasoning would sway Wilson, House gave the
innocent desk a final vindictive whack and leaned back, almost pouting.
"How the hell do you lose a six foot three albino, anyway?" 

	"In a snowstorm?" Wilson glanced out the window, where a few
tentative flakes were falling with a deceptively picturesque prettiness
from ominous slate blue clouds.  

	House grunted irritably. The state troopers very well might, if
Pendergast decided to go back and finish scouring the crime scene. Wilson
hadn't been joking about the potential for severe hypothermia. The cops
could end up not finding Pendergast until the thaw, in the form of a
cryogenically preserved corpse washed by the spring runoff into the
cedar-stained blood red waters of the Mullica River. 

	"Unless . . . " House's head lifted, his pale eyes suddenly
alight. "Unless, of course, he weren't albinistic at the time." 

	"What?" 

	But House was already out the door at the closest gait he could
manage to a sprint.