When the mess on the floor had been reduced to just another stain of indeterminate origin, I returned the mop, bucket, and cleaning supplies to their places. Shelby was waiting when I came back. “All good?” she asked.
“All clean,” I said, offering my arm. “We’re going to have to find another way out of the zoo.”
“What about the delivery gate?” asked Shelby. “That’s how you had Dee get Chandi out before.”
“That might work. Can you walk?”
“I could hike a mile without noticing it, but only if we left now,” said Shelby. Her grip on my arm belied her careless tone. She was worried, and frankly, so was I. “I’m sorry we didn’t find the cockatrice.”
“No, but we know it’s here.” I began walking toward the exit, taking it slow out of consideration for Shelby’s injuries. This time, I was hoping we wouldn’t see any other security guards. As we walked, I explained what I’d found in the capybara enclosure, including the poor, petrified duck.
She laughed, sounding a little bit perplexed as she asked, “So what, you just walked off and left him there? Won’t someone notice?”
“Maybe. But everyone will assume someone else did it. In five years, everybody will swear the duck came from one of the fountains, or that it was put there as a prank by one of the summer trainees. It’ll become part of the landscape. Trust me. Denial is a powerful force in the human psyche, and anyone who works around animals gets extremely good at it.”
“Swell. How do you think they’ll explain away us if we get petrified? Will we be a tribute to the two zookeepers who mysteriously decided to abandon their posts after a few people got murdered?”
“Since statues wearing real clothes aren’t exactly considered high art in Ohio, probably not.” I kept scanning the bushes as we walked, watching for signs of the cockatrice. “They’d remove us quickly and without making a fuss, and write it off as a terrible prank committed by someone with no social skills whatsoever.”
“Sounds like you’ve really thought this through.”
“I think most things through, even when it might be better not to.” The zoo was built in a mostly circular design. Every path curved slightly, either conforming to the shapes of the enclosures, or leading the guests inexorably toward the money-making points on our local compass: the gift shop, the café, the exit. We were trying to avoid falling into that easy passage, working against the shape of the land as we pressed on toward the gate that was used for large deliveries.
We could have taken the back passages, hidden from the main facility by clever fencing and building placement, but those were narrow and confined, and much more likely to be observed by the skeleton crew of security on the premises. Counterintuitive as it seemed, cutting straight through the middle of the zoo was the best way to move unobserved.
Then there was the matter of Lloyd. I kept the hand that wasn’t supporting Shelby on my gun as we walked. I didn’t know why the old security guard had stabbed my girlfriend, and if he put in a repeat appearance, I wasn’t going to give him the luxury of explaining.
Something rustled in the bushes. I looked over and saw another smug, well-fed goose waddling out, tail wagging as it approached us. “Just a goose,” I said, shoulders relaxing slightly.
Shelby didn’t answer.
“Shelby?” Even as I said her name, I realized she wasn’t walking so much as stumbling along, more than half-dragged by my own momentum. I turned toward her. She was sagging on my arm, shoulders slumped, head dangling like it was simply too heavy to be held up. “Shelby?”
“’M okay,” she slurred. “Just a little shocky, that’s all. ’M fine . . .”
“Liar,” I said. Speed was suddenly more important than safety. I took my hand off my gun and swung her up into my arms, only staggering slightly under the weight of her before I started jogging down the path toward the delivery gate. She gasped a little at the jostling. I winced, and kept going. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry, but we need to get you looked at as soon as possible, and that means we’re running.”
She didn’t say anything. I chose to take that as an admission that this was the only way, and jogged faster, trying to keep myself as calm as possible under the circumstances. Panic would just slow me down and reduce Shelby’s chances.
How deep had the knife actually gone into her body? How much blood had she lost? Questions warred with my absence of answers, but only briefly: then guilt showed up, and was more than happy to take over for everything else that I might be feeling. I ran, and kept running, until I reached the wood gate that would lead to the loading area. I shifted Shelby enough to free my right hand, undid the latch, and slipped quickly through, trying to tell myself that her unresponsiveness wasn’t a bad sign.
I wasn’t really listening by that point.
Luck was with us, in a small way: there was no one in the loading area. I was able to carry Shelby to the outside gate without anyone questioning what I was doing or what we were doing at the zoo while it was supposed to be closed.
The delivery gate was closed and padlocked. Of course. There wouldn’t be any deliveries today, not with no one here to accept them, and this would have been seen as a potential security risk. One that I’d very much been looking forward to exploiting. There were no cameras on the delivery gate. Why did they need a damn lock?
“I’m going to put you down for a moment, all right?” I didn’t expect a response from her, but I wanted her to know what I was doing as I carefully lowered her feet to the ground and propped her against the side of the gate. There was a chance she’d leave bloodstains behind, but I couldn’t worry about that, not now. I needed to worry about getting her out of here. That took priority over everything else.
The lock on the gate was a straightforward one, probably purchased from the local hardware store when someone realized that having unfettered access to the zoo could result in drunk teenagers breaking in and getting eaten by alligators. I produced a set of lock picks from the inside pocket of my jacket and set to work.
“I don’t know what your childhood was like, but my parents began teaching me the basics of breaking and entering when I was five,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral, like I was having a conversation with my girlfriend and not babbling at her semiconscious body. “The day I can’t take out a lock like this in thirty seconds is the day I find myself disowned—ha.” The tumbler snapped open. “Today is not that day. Come along, darling, your ride to much-needed medical care awaits.”
With Shelby in my arms, I was able to close the gate, but not relock it. Hopefully, everyone would assume someone else had left the padlock open. If not, that would become one more problem that we would have to deal with later. I had my hands full with the problem I was dealing with now.
The frontage road used for zoo deliveries ran around the back, following the curve of the fence. That was a good thing; the trees were thick between us and the highway, and unless one of the delivery drivers had missed the memo, we would be able to walk here undisturbed. And that was the bad thing: we would have to walk for quite some distance, because my car was safely hidden in the trees on the other side of the zoo.
Shelby wasn’t moving at all. Only the slow rise and fall of her chest told me that she was even alive. If I tried to run to the car, I’d face the risk of dropping her, and even if I didn’t drop her, the bumpiness of the trip wouldn’t do her any favors. It would be a shorter trip through the woods, but that would be even harder on her—and on me. If I was being truly honest about the situation, I wasn’t sure I could carry her that far. Shelby was a slim woman, but she was muscular, and almost as tall as I was.
“Shelby? Can you hear me?”
She mumbled something. Or maybe that was my imagination assigning meaning to a random gasp. It didn’t matter. Either way, I knew what had to be done if I wanted there to be any chance for her.
“I need to leave you here while I go and get the car,” I said, stepping off the road and into the trees. I walked
a few yards in, positioning us so that we wouldn’t be visible to anyone who happened to be passing by. “I’m sorry. It’s the only way I’m going to get you to a doctor in time. I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.”
She didn’t make a sound as I lowered her to the ground, propping her up against a nearby tree. The temptation to check her stomach wound was high. I quashed it, forcing myself to turn away from her and head back to the road. I broke into a run as soon as my feet hit the pavement.
I felt incredibly light without Shelby in my arms, and the guilt and fear that nipped at my heels drove me to break all my previous records for distance running as I covered the half mile between my starting point and the car. It was still where I had parked it, thank God; if it had been gone, I would probably have stood frozen in the woods outside the zoo until the police found Shelby’s body and came to collect me.
Throwing myself into the front seat, I jammed my key into the ignition and broke several speed laws pulling out and turning around, heading back to where Shelby was waiting. Just hold on, I thought desperately, thankful for the short distance, and even more thankful for the fact that there was no one else on the road. I’m almost there, so just hold on.
Cars are wonderful things. I was back where I had left Shelby only minutes after I got into the driver’s seat, and less than fifteen minutes total after leaving her behind. I stopped the car in the middle of the road, stumbling out onto the pavement, and ran into the trees. I pushed through the branches to the place where I’d left her—
—and stopped, blinking in confusion at the scene in front of me, or rather, at what wasn’t in front of me.
Shelby was gone.
Twenty-two
“There is a moment, just before the bullet hits, just before the serpent strikes, when you will realize that your life is about to change forever, and not in a good way. That is the moment when you will try to make a bargain with God. That is the moment when you will become an atheist.”
—Jonathan Healy
Outside the wall of Ohio’s West Columbus Zoo, somehow missing a girlfriend
“SHELBY?”
The question hung in the air unanswered, making me feel foolish for asking it. Shelby wasn’t there, and with her injuries, there was no way she’d recovered enough to move on her own while I was getting the car. I still took a few precious seconds to scan the nearby brush, looking for the blood trail she would have left if she’d tried to move on her own. It wasn’t there. Someone had taken her.
I took a deep breath, trying to force down the wave of panic clawing at my chest. She was gone. That was a fact; that was something I was going to have to deal with. All it really meant was that I was going to need to get her back.
I stepped deeper into the brush, watching the ground for signs of disturbance. Lindworms don’t normally have territories that span more than a few miles, but she’d killed the local male’s mate. If it had somehow tracked her, it might have—
No. I rejected the thought as quickly as it came. Shelby had not been dragged away by a hungry lindworm. This wasn’t Jaws: an animal that consisted of nothing but hunger and survival instinct wasn’t going to come looking for revenge. Even if it was, it wouldn’t come near the zoo—too many people, too many large scavengers. And besides, there would be traces if something that large had been through here. The brush was almost undisturbed. Nothing larger than a human had passed recently.
The trunk of the tree where Shelby had been leaning was damp and sticky with her blood. I touched the bark, unsure whether or not I should be reassured when my fingers came away red. Then I looked down, and began trying to sort through the broken branches as I looked for a direction. This trail was where I’d carried Shelby from the road, and this trail was where I had forged my way back in . . .
When I was done, there was only one trail unaccounted for, wider and slightly more uneven than the others, like whoever had walked there had been dealing with an unexpected weight. I followed it to a spot on the road a few yards from where Shelby and I had originally entered the trees. Crouching down, I studied the pavement, looking for tracks. There were some muddy scuffs, like someone had walked here recently. And there was a single drop of blood.
Someone had taken Shelby. Someone had followed us out of the zoo and taken her.
I wanted to be sick. Instead, I pulled out my phone and walked back to the car, scrolling through my contacts until I came to the number labeled “dry cleaning.” I pressed it and raised the phone to my ear.
“Yes?”
“Grandma.” I closed my eyes. “I need you. Please come.”
I was still standing next to my car when my grandmother pulled up, parking her own car so that it blocked the entire road. She launched herself from the driver’s seat at me, and Crow was close behind her, his wings spread wide as he arrowed for my chest. He hit me like a small feathery missile, and I wrapped my arms around him, automatically supporting his hindquarters in order to keep him from shredding my shoulders.
“You’re projecting panic, Grandma,” I said, fighting to keep my voice level. Maybe it was my anti-telepathy charm taking the edge off, and maybe it was the fact that I was panicking quite well without any outside help, but I didn’t want to run for the woods. I just wanted the extra waves of fear to stop. “Please pull it back. I don’t know how much I can take.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, stricken. Her eyes flashed white, and the foreboding in the air decreased. I only wished she could take my panic away as easily as she’d stopped projecting her own. “What can I do?”
“You’ve already done it. You brought Crow.” I walked back to the place on the road where that last drop of blood glittered dark and foreboding against the pavement and knelt, putting Crow carefully down. He looked up at me and cawed, tail lashing. “Shelby, Crow. Where’s Shelby?”
He sat down and croaked at me.
“Shelby. You liked Shelby. I know you can track by smell. You’ve tracked me through five miles of dense forest because you thought it was time for dinner. Now where is Shelby?”
Crow looked at me for a moment, head cocked to the side. Then he leaned forward and sniffed the ground, wings half-mantling, before he launched himself into the air. In seconds, he was gone, flying up over the zoo and disappearing.
I gaped. When I asked my grandmother to bring the Church Griffin, I hadn’t been counting on the fact that he had wings and I didn’t. “Oh, shit,” I said, and ran back to my car. “Southeast, he’s going southeast. What’s southeast of here?”
“Lots of things, Alex, that’s not exactly a small question!” said Grandma, following me. “Woods. Some cave systems. Dayton . . .”
“The gorgons.” I raised my head and looked at her. “That’s where the cockatrice came from. That’s where this all started. And they’re to the southeast, too. Someone from the gorgon community has Shelby.”
Grandma stared at me. Then, in a dangerous tone, she said, “I don’t have to move my car. I can keep you here.”
“No, you can’t.” I got into the driver’s seat, fastening my seat belt on autopilot. “I’m going after her, Grandma. I have to go after her. I’m the reason she got involved in all of this to begin with.” She was the reason I was distracted. I’d spent years keeping myself from forming any attachments that could interfere with my work, and then Shelby goddamn Tanner had come along and fucked everything up. And all I wanted now was to see her safely home.
“Then I’m coming with you,” said Grandma. “I can’t let you run into a nest of snakes alone.”
“That’s racist,” I said automatically. Then I shook my head. “No. Grandpa’s at work, the cockatrice is still somewhere in the city, and you can’t leave Sarah alone for as long as this is going to take. I’m trained for this. Now please. I’m not going to argue with you while Shelby’s out there bleeding to death.” Assuming Shelby still had blood; assuming she wasn’t a statue by now.
That kind of thinking wouldn’t get me any closer to saving my girlfri
end. I shut the car door, rolling down the window so that I could say, “I’ll call as soon as I know anything. Trust me and my ability not to get myself killed over something stupid, all right? Now please. Move your car.”
She looked at me sadly for what felt like hours but was probably just a few seconds before nodding and walking back to her own vehicle. I rolled up my window and clutched the steering wheel, waiting for her to get out of my way so that I could follow Crow’s flight path across the city.
The second her car had rolled far enough to leave me room to maneuver, I hit the gas, blasting past my grandmother and heading for the main road at an unsafe speed. I made matters worse by pulling out my phone again, driving one-handed as I pulled up the number for the Sarpas.
Chandi answered the phone, sounding surprisingly polite as she said, “You have reached the Sarpa residence. Who may I say is calling?”
“It’s Alex Price,” I said, and swore under my breath as I swerved to avoid a VW bug that seemed to think the appropriate place to slow down and smell the roses was in the middle of a major thoroughfare. “I need to speak to your mother. Can you put her on the phone?”
“What? Why are you on my phone?” Her tone turned irritated and slightly scornful, which was much more normal for her. “You were just in my house. Why are you on my phone?”
“I need to speak to your mother,” I repeated. “If you want me to open the reptile house tomorrow, you’ll put her on the phone.”
“What? You can’t threaten—”
“I’m not threatening anything. I won’t be able to open the reptile house if I’m dead. Now put your mother on the phone.”
There was a pause as Chandi considered my words, weighing their meaning. Then she said, “I’ll get my mother.”