Menagerie

  Claudio nodded, taking it all in. “And where did we acquire you?”

  “Oklahoma. That’s just north of Texas. A century ago, it was full of buffalo, and horses, and cattle, and until the repeal of the Sanctuary Act, back in the eighties, we had skin walkers. A couple of the more prominent flocks of thunderbirds used to migrate through every fall.”

  I closed my eyes, trying to picture wide-open skies and magnificent giant birds, rather than the inside of a wide-load trailer, but the scents of hay and livestock were pervasive.

  “Metzger’s has a thunderbird,” Claudio said. “Nashashuk. His mate died a few months ago, and le vieil homme is angry because Nashashuk is refusing food. Rommily says he’ll die of an overdose of tranquilizer, though, so I suppose starving himself isn’t going to work out.”

  “Rommily. What’s her story?” I could see her across the narrow aisle between rows of cages, curled up between her oracle sisters in their long faded skirts. Mirela and Lala were friendly enough. Lala had even offered to trade her mostly unmoldy slice of bread for my nearly cooked hunk of cow liver, an exchange I’d jumped on, even though my exhausted body cried out for protein.

  But Rommily...

  In the week I’d been incarcerated, I hadn’t heard her complete a single coherent sentence.

  Claudio sat up on his blanket and blinked at me from across the aisle. “Did she say something to you?”

  “Just names.”

  “What names? People you know?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” Secret Mary. Princess Sara. “She just said several names and called them fate’s bastards. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Elle est folle. Everyone has a limit. An end to what can be endured.” Claudio glanced at the end of his cage, beyond which his daughter lay sleeping in a pen of her own, beyond his help when the handlers mistreated her.

  “Rommily hit her limit a few months ago,” he continued. “Clyde took her to the restroom near the end of the night, and she wasn’t back by the time they closed the front gate. They had the whole staff looking for her, then she just came wandering down the midway in the rain, her clothes torn and bloodstained. Most of what she sees now is death, and everything she says comes out broken. The best she can do is...hint. Drop clues.”

  “Clyde.” His name tasted rotten on my tongue, and I couldn’t spit it out fast enough. “That bastard!”

  Fire flared deep in my stomach and my scalp began to prickle, as if my hair wanted to stand upright, and with a shock, I recognized the symptoms. Finally, my inner monster wanted to come out and play.

  “Clyde swears he turned around for a second, and she was gone. He says he has no idea what happened to her.”

  “He happened to her,” I insisted. Clyde had shattered Rommily, physically and mentally, and maybe that’s what he’d had in mind when he’d chained me to the front of my cage. Maybe that’s what would have happened, if Gallagher hadn’t come in.

  Could I be broken that easily?

  The tingling in my scalp faded and the flames in my stomach began to sputter, leaving me hollow and cold inside, and more than a little disappointed. I had no intention of performing in front of an audience, but if I had on-demand access to my beast, I could make sure Clyde got what he deserved. Just like Jack had.

  “Clyde did it, and he’ll pay for it,” I whispered, lying down to stare at the ceiling of my cage. By the time sleep finally came, I was no longer sure whether I was promising Rommily or myself.

  * * *

  “Take off your clothes and slide them through the tray slot.”

  I didn’t recognize the handler shouting orders at me, but I did recognize the hose he held, and I knew exactly what it was for. He’d already blasted it at the adlet, at Zyanya—the most feral of the cat shifters—and at poor little Geneviève, right there in their cages, lined up across from mine on a patch of grass behind the Denton County fairgrounds.

  “I’m on hygiene plan A,” I insisted, pulling myself to my bare feet with my fingers curled through the wire mesh. “I’m supposed to shower with the sirens, succubi, and oracles.” I’d had enough trouble adjusting to group showers with sexual predators. Being hosed down in front of the entire carnival—that was too much to endure. “Ask Alyrose. She’ll tell you.”

  “Today, you’re on my list.” Yet the handler made no effort to actually show me the list clipped to his clipboard. “So either you take your clothes off, or I accomplish your laundry and your shower in one convenient step.”

  Across the patch of grass, Genni sat shivering in one corner of her cage, even though the late-morning temperature had to be pushing ninety-five. She wasn’t cold. She was nearly naked, soaked, and traumatized.

  In the cage next to her, the drenched cheetah shifter prowled back and forth in feline form, hissing and spitting at anyone who came near. I understood why both the cat and the pup had been denied a proper shower, and the adlet was a no-brainer. He hadn’t left his cage once in the week I’d been with the menagerie. But I was no obvious threat.

  “Just go ask her. Or Gallagher. I’m supposed to shower with group A, then head to Alyrose’s trailer for makeup.”

  “You’re not going on tonight, which means no shower and no makeup for you. Now take off the dress. You smell.”

  What? Gallagher hadn’t said anything about a change in my schedule, and he would never have okayed a public hose-down.

  My temper overtook both fear and logic. My fingers clenched around the mesh. “No.”

  The handler set his clipboard on the ground and twisted the nozzle on his hose. Water slammed into my chest and punched the air from my lungs, driving me to the far side of my cage.

  The blast trailed lower, stealing my breath and pounding the entire width of my body with a thousand needles. I clung to the side of the cage, determined not to curl up and hide. Not to show further weakness. I sucked air in and spit it back out in staccato bursts as the bruising jet pelted my stomach and my legs, then worked its way back up, over my breasts and shoulders. But when the water hit my neck—a thousand tiny fists pummeling my throat—I lost control. I threw my hands up to protect my face and let loose the scream clawing at the inside of my skull.

  When the spray stopped, I wiped my face as I lowered my hands, thankful the hose water would disguise my tears.

  “Turn around,” the handler ordered.

  My teeth chattered as I crossed my arms over my thin, soaked dress and refused as civilly as I could manage. “Go fuck yourself.”

  He shrugged and leaned to the left to nod at someone behind me. Before I could turn to look, a second blast hit the back of my head, throwing me face-first into the wire mesh on the opposite side. Metal bruised my face and I tried to push myself back, but the pressure was too strong. I could only cling to the side of my cage, soaked and gasping, trying not to drown.

  Then the first handler turned his hose back on and reality splintered into sharp missiles pelting every inch of me, from every direction. My eyes burned from the chlorine, my throat was raw from screaming, and my skin felt like I’d been rolling in shattered glass.

  When the spray finally stopped, I collapsed to the floor of my cage, soaked and gasping, bruised all over from the pressure of the blasts, and just as vulnerable to wandering gazes as if I’d taken off my linen dress, as ordered.

  I crawled into one corner of my cage and tucked my knees up to my chest, struggling to control the hitching, but I couldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t stop crying. And when I finally calmed down enough to push soaked hair from my face, my right hand came away bloody. My collision with the side of my cage had gashed open my head, just above my hairline.

  With a groan, I swiped at my dripping nose and looked up. Peeking through swollen eyelids, I found Clyde watching me, still holding the hose that had blasted me from behind.

 
* * *

  By the time the sun hit the apex of its arch, my dress had dried, except where my back was pressed against the end panel of my cage. Hose water had been replaced by a thin sheen of sweat all over my body and my hair was a frizzy mass tangled around my face. My jaw ached from being clenched, and every time I looked up from the floor of my cage, I found someone staring at me as the staff worked to get everything ready for our first stop in Texas.

  I’d been watching the parade of tent poles, massive sheets of canvas, and centaurs hauling cages for about an hour when the clanks and rattles of the food cart made my mouth water. I didn’t want to want the scraps and entrails I’d come to expect from the food cart, but if every meal I’d been served in my week with Metzger’s were to be scraped onto a plate, that pile would hardly equal two or three of my pre-captivity meals.

  Hunger had become a perpetual state of being. Every time I passed a mirror, my cheekbones appeared sharper and my eyes a little bigger. My face seemed to be shrinking to the shape of my bones, and my knees looked knobbier than ever before.

  My heart hurt when I saw Clyde in a stained apron, pushing the food cart between the two rows of cage wagons. Gallagher had never served a meal—the boss of livestock had more important things to do—so I hadn’t really expected to see him, but I would have taken anyone other than Clyde.

  Anyone.

  “Hey, Drea, you all dried out yet?” Clyde stopped the cart in front of my cage, leering at me with one brow arched.

  “That’s not my name.”

  “It is now.” He pulled a tray from the stack and filled one compartment with a ladle full of what appeared to be dark-meat chicken, swimming in broth so fragrant that saliva gathered in the corners of my mouth. I think I even saw a couple of noodles. “You can thank Gallagher for letting you keep your initial. Who knew he was such a softie?”

  “You’re all bastards.” I tucked my feet beneath me and made myself let go of the wire mesh. “Someday someone’s going to balance the scales, and I sure hope I’ll be there to see it.”

  “Is that a prediction? You think you’re an oracle now, Drea?” He pulled the heel from an otherwise empty bag of bread and dropped it right on top of my chicken soup.

  “That’s not my name.” I couldn’t drag my focus from the tray. My stomach cramped and my fingers clenched around handfuls of my dress. I couldn’t think about anything but food.

  “It’s written on your placard. It’s on the duty roster in the silver wagon. It’s on the top line of the registration packet, all ready to send in and get you officially registered as a live exhibit, belonging to one Mr. Rudolph Metzger. We’re still waiting for the blood test to tell us what you are, but the question of who you are has been answered.”

  Clyde flipped the latch on the tray slot, and the steel panel fell open. He slid my tray about a third of the way into the cage and I lunged for it, but he jerked it out of reach. “Say your name for me, and this is all yours. Chicken thighs in broth. The very last slice of whole wheat bread. And this fancy spring water. I brought it just for you, still cold from the fridge in my trailer.” He pulled a bottle of water from the cargo pocket over his left thigh, and a drop of condensation rolled down the plastic to splat on the grass. “All you have to do is say your name.”

  My stomach growled. My throat ached and my tongue felt thick and unbearably dry. My fingers curled, as if they already held the tray. But to get fresh food and clean water, I’d have to give up my name—the only connection I still had to my mother.

  I said a mental farewell to my lunch, then looked up to meet his expectant gaze. “I am Delilah Marlow.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad, because there’s no Delilah on the lunch list.” Clyde’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head in exaggerated disappointment. “This is for Drea.” He dumped my lunch onto the ground, then set the empty tray back on the stack.

  I blinked away tears and clenched my teeth against the sob building in my throat.

  Clyde cracked the water bottle open and took a long swig from it, then screwed the lid back on and dropped the bottle into his pocket.

  As he pushed the food cart past my cage, he planted one big black boot in my ruined lunch.

  Geneviève

  The pup huddled in one corner of her cage, knees tucked up to her chest, head buried in thin arms folded around her legs. Dirty toes peeked from beneath a curtain of long tangled hair that shone like gold when it was clean, but more often matched the grime the shower hose had managed to cake instead of rinse out.

  “What’d the old man say?”

  Genni peeked through her hair at the man with the mustache, but squeezed her eyes shut again the second his gaze met hers. Her arms tightened around her legs and her toes curled on the floor of her cage. She made herself as small as she could.

  “He told me to make the deal,” the tall man said. Genni knew he was the boss and that his name was Ruyle, though she couldn’t read the letters sewn on his shirt. But her father secretly called him l’imbécile grand, and she thought that suited the tall man much better than his name. “He wants her gone before he gets back next week.”

  “But their offer’s an insult. A werewolf bitch in perfect health is worth twice what they’re quoting, and this one’s never even been bred.”

  Geneviève cowered even tighter into her corner.

  “Decision’s not yours, Clyde,” the tall man said.

  “We’re hardly getting paid as it is, and he just bought that arrogant free-range bitch when everyone knows the menagerie’s in trouble,” the shorter man grumbled.

  Genni peeked above her arm to see his lip twitch, which made his mustache appear to crawl like a caterpillar.

  “The equipment is outdated, the harnesses and muzzles are frayed, and if the government passes that new mandate, we’ll have to upgrade to medical restraint cages. None of that will get any better if he accepts half what the pup’s worth. I’m not taking another pay cut, Ruyle.”

  “With any luck, neither of us will have to,” l’imbécile grand snapped. “The old man’s looking at whatever we get for Genni as a down payment on a new bitch we can put in with Claudio. This time next year we’ll have a cute little werewolf pup to sell, and hopefully another to keep in inventory. You know puppies bring in crowds.”

  “This one used to,” the mustached man agreed.

  Genni peeked through her hair again and saw l’imbécile shrug. “Yeah, but she’s more trouble than she’s worth now. We sell her to All American, and she becomes their problem. Let them try to breed the feral bitch.”

  Geneviève whimpered, and the sound of her own fear startled her so badly that she sank her teeth into her forearm until blood filled her mouth. The torn skin hurt, but that was nothing new. Ever since they’d put her in a cage of her own, pain had become a way of life. It was punishment, incentive, and bribe. It was the introduction to and the conclusion of every day. Pain told her to speak. Pain told her to shut up. Pain told her to move, and to be still. Pain was administered more reliably than either food or water, and there was no sure way to avoid it.

  “Shit, she’s bleeding.” L’imbécile reached for the keys clipped to his belt, and Geneviève scooted as far from the door as she could, leaving a trail of blood across the floor of her cage.

  “Shouldn’t be.” The man with the mustache frowned. “Werewolf bitches don’t go into estrus ’til late November in the northern hemisphere. She’s not even fertile right now.”

  “Someone’s been doing his homework.” Ruyle sounded impressed. “But that’s not it. She bit herself again.”

  “Damn it!” the mustached man swore. “The electrical burns are bad enough. How are we supposed to tell All American she’s in perfect health if she’s covered in bite marks?”

  “She’s been like this since we sold her dam.” L’imbécile slid the side panel open wi
th a heavy metallic crash, and Geneviève flinched, but had nowhere left to flee.

  “The problem isn’t that we sold her dam,” the mustached man insisted. “The problem is that we let dam and pup spend so long in the same cage. They should have been separated as soon as the pup was weaned. They would have been, if I were in charge of the livestock. I was next in line, after Venable.”

  Geneviève remembered Walter Venable. He’d been an old man with a shaky voice, firm hands, and even firmer opinions. When he’d retired the year before, she’d been sure that Clyde—the man with the mustache—would take his place, but then old man Metzger had hired Gallagher from outside the menagerie.

  “You’ll be in charge of livestock when the old man puts you in charge of livestock.” L’imbécile reached into the cage for Genni’s ankle, but she hissed and swiped at him with short, sharp claws growing from human hands. “Until then, you answer to Gallagher. But he answers to me.” When Geneviève tried to tear his hand open again, l’imbécile turned back to the man with the mustache. “Give me the hypo.”

  Genni began to tremble when the man with the mustache slapped a syringe into his boss’s palm. She clawed at him and tried to crawl away to avoid the needle, but only managed to tear open the boss’s forearm, which made him curse at her in graceless, guttural English syllables.

  On his third try, slippery from spilled blood, he grabbed the pup’s left ankle and pulled as hard as he could. She slid across the cage toward him, thrashing and clawing at the blood-slick metal floor for purchase, but that was a struggle she had never won.

  L’imbécile stabbed Genni in the thigh with the needle, then pressed the plunger, shooting fire into her leg. Geneviève screeched and the cage around her began to ripple and wave like a mirage. Her arms fell into the growing pool of blood. Her head rolled to one side and her eyelids grew insurmountably heavy as l’imbécile pulled her closer, widening the thick trail of blood on the floor.