8. A TEMPORARY CURE. II.

Emma had no idea if what she was about to do was going to work but she had to try. From her discussion with Steve, she had realized that she needed to slow down the attack of the virus until she could find an actual cure. She already had everything she needed. The blood sample and the biological make up of how the virus worked.

However, she still had no idea about the main substance used to engineer the virus but she knew that werewolf DNA was involved. She had left Steve in his ward and was finding her way back to Sarah’s office.

Sarah almost bumped into her as he got to the entrance of her lab.

“Emma!” Sarah cried out in excitement. “You are not going to believe what I have found.”

“I hope it is a miracle, Sarah, because I need all the help that I can get.” Emma replied as she fully entered the lab. “What did you find?”

Sarah sat on her work stool and pushed her microscope towards Emma to look. “I extracted the virus itself to see what it was specifically made of.” Sarah said. “I could only identify one substance but there was no record of the other three in the hospital archives.”

Emma peered in the microscope and saw the virus.“Is that silver nitrate?” She asked Sarah with surprise on her face.

“Yes, but it is mixed with the other two compounds that I have never seen before,” Sarah answered.

Silver was very lethal to werewolves but it was not really enough to kill them, however transform the silver into a chemical organic matter, a nitrate, and a deadly poison was created.

“Whoever made this thing knew exactly what they were doing,” Emma said shaking her head in disbelief.

Emma recognized the other compound but she was not going to tell Sarah just yet. The less she knew about this werewolf business, the safer it was for her. Whoever was aiming to kill Steve was not playing around.

Wolfsbane.

That was the second substance mixed with the silver nitrate. Emma did not know what the third substance was but in time she was going to find. She needed to get to her lab.

“Thank you so much for this, Sarah,” Emma said as she got up.

“So, what now?” Sarah asked with a hopeful lilt in her voice. It was clear that she did not want to be left out of whatever Emma was doing.

And Emma herself was going through immense guilt as she thought of what to do.

“Okay, now we find a serum to slow down the virus,” Emma replied, finally deciding that there was no point in keeping Sarah out of the loop. Besides, an Immunologist was what she needed the most right now.

“Why don’t we simply eradicate it completely?” Sarah asked.

“Because we still don’t know what the third compound is,” Emma said.

“Alright, let us get to work,” Emma told Sarah. Almost everything had an antidote, a remedy, an opposite.

Wolfbane was an illegal substance in the werewolf community and was a severely punishable offence if someone was caught or found with it in their possession. However, it did not stop anyone from getting their hands on it if they had the money and the connection.

Wolfbane was the number one most sought-aftersubstance in the supernatural black market and it was also very hard to get or even make. But it also had an antidote but not many people knew that.

During her time at Moonlight Valley, my former home, Emma had secretly begun to experiment on Wolfbane. She wanted to know how it worked, and how it was made. Wolfbane could only grow under the light of the full moon and it withered and died under the sunlight, which made it extremely difficult to make. Even the soil it was meant to be planted in was hard to get.

Sarah and Emma hastily walked into my lab. Emmatook the vial of the virus from her and put an injected it into a small plastic rectangular transparent plate and inserted it into the microscope.

“Since we have discovered that silver nitrate is involved, we need to neutralize it with another stronger compound,” Emma told Sarah.

“Like what?” Sarah asked Emma with a sceptic look on her face.

“Mercuric Chloride,” Emma answered with a knowing smile.

“Emma, you want us to add a heavy crystalline poisonous compound into an already poisonous virus,” Sarah replied in disbelief as she watched Emma with worry.

“Let us try it first and then see the result, if you do not like it, then we try something else, trust me.” Emma said as she peered into the microscope watching how the virus moved.

Sarah went ahead to get a syringe and small sealed glass of mercuric chloride. She punctured the cap with the thin syringe and took some before carefully injecting a few drops on the rectangle plate.

The result was instant. Emma saw that the virus changed from its usual blood red colour to blue. “Come see,” she told Sarah.

“Okay, its blue,” Sarah said unimpressed.  

“Yes, but is it still multiplying?” Emma asked.

Sarah frowned and looked again. “Unbelievable!” Sarah exclaimed.

“The Mercury coated the silver nitrate stopping it from multiplying, but it is still active though.” Emma replied.

“Now what?” Sarah asked.

“Now, we make a large batch of it and inject it into the IV of our patients,” Emma replied.

“Are you insane?” Sarah demanded in shock. “You want to inject Mercury into people!”

“It is totally safe, Sarah, trust me on this.” Emma replied calmly. “They are not really human.”

Sarah frowned at the what Emma said. “What do you mean by that?”

“Remember, Sarah, I told you that I will let you know when the time is right. Now is not the time.”

“Fine, you owe a lot of explanation,” Sarah grumbled and left the lab.

Emma sighed. She had managed to neutralize the virus but it was only temporary.