Menagerie

  His people? What people? How could I have spent so much time with him, yet know so little about him, beyond his role in the menagerie?

  Why would a man who kept sentient beings in cages be so concerned with truth and honor?

  “That service must be selfless and it must cost us something, because that which costs nothing is worth nothing.” He gently lowered my right foot and lifted my left. “I have nothing to offer the world except physical strength, the simplest, most humble of all gifts. But you have something truly extraordinary to give, and it has cost you everything.”

  My chest felt so tight that breathing had become a blissful agony.

  He unlocked the other cuff, and the shackles fell away, but his hands did not. His fingers felt warm and strong, yet made no demands and took no liberties. “You are bold, and fearless, and even the darkest parts of you serve at the discretion of your compassion and empathy. You exist to seek justice, and it has become increasingly clear to me since I met you that the most worthy service I will ever be able to offer the world is the facilitation of your work.”

  “Facilitation? You want to help me be a furiae? How? By getting me out of here?” Was that why he wanted to help me escape—so he could feel like he deserved every breath he took?

  That sounded pretty odd, but who was I to criticize someone else’s culture, especially if it led him to set me free?

  “By freeing you, and by protecting you, so you can live out your purpose with no fear for your personal safety.”

  “Wait, like a bodyguard?” That was hands-down the strangest proposition I’d ever received, and on the surface, it seemed to make little sense. Yet somehow it felt reasonable. Gallagher looked and sounded sincere, and I had no trouble picturing him in that role. “You’re serious?”

  “Of course.” He looked up at me from his knees. “I’ve spent my entire life searching for an opportunity to serve. You are that opportunity, Delilah.” He cleared his throat. “Will you consider me as your champion?”

  “My champion?” That sounded like a hell of a lot more than a bodyguard. And I was suddenly very aware that he was still holding my bare, filthy foot.

  “Yes. Your defender and guardian.”

  My heart thumped so loudly I was sure he could hear it. Those words obviously meant something very specific to him. Something primal, which the furiae stirring contentedly inside me seemed to understand, but I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around.

  “What does that entail, exactly?” Hadn’t he already sworn to rip hands off for me?

  Gallagher released my foot, then stood straight and tall—all six and a half feet of him. His speech took on the cadence of a formal vow, and I could only stare up at him, riveted. “As your champion, I will serve at your side. I will protect you with every bone in my body and every beat of my heart. I will rip apart anyone who comes between us, and I will litter the ground with the corpses of our enemies. I will be your sword and your shield, in all matters. If you will have me.”

  “My sword and shield.” My throat felt inexplicably tight, and his camper suddenly looked unsteady, as if it might start spinning at any second. “Do you understand how strange that sounds?”

  “To you? Yes. But for my people, it’s an honored tradition. It’s a way of life.”

  “And just who are these people?” I knew of several religions and a couple of cults which required less formal vows.

  Gallagher’s expression softened, and he looked pleased by my interest. “You have my word that when I have the chance, I will tell you everything you want to know about my people and our traditions. But right now, we’re pressed for time, and I need your decision.”

  He looked nervous for the first time since I’d met him, as if I had the power to break him with a single word, when he’d spent the past year working with beasts strong enough to pull his head from his shoulders. Literally.

  “I’m not sure I understand what I’m getting into,” I admitted, my thoughts racing. “Would I be obligated to do anything?”

  His brows rose. He looked almost impressed that I’d thought to ask. “Only to seal our alliance when the probationary period concludes, if you choose to continue the partnership.”

  “Seal...how?” I was assuming he had something more mature in mind than cutting our palms and shaking hands. Was that why he’d brought me to his home?

  I glanced at his bed, but I should have known better.

  Gallagher looked painfully offended.

  “Delilah, this is the most honorable relationship my people recognize. More so even than marriage, because conjugal pairings are typically built upon a foundation of lust, which is notoriously capricious. I know you don’t understand, but assuming that I’m asking for anything improper from you is a grave insult to my honor.”

  “Oh. I’m—I’m sorry.” I looked down at my bare feet, my face flaming. But I wasn’t sure what other conclusion I was supposed to draw. I’d never met a man who valued honor over sex. That wasn’t human nature—honor didn’t propagate species.

  “No need to apologize. Our relationship would be sealed with your acceptance of four offerings and the recitation of a sacred vow.”

  “Presents and a promise?”

  “No. Offerings and a vow,” he insisted, and finally I understood that for him, words were as important as actions. His words were specific. They seemed to carry power.

  “Gallagher, your people... They aren’t human, are they?”

  For a moment, he only stared at me, his features so perfectly blank they had to be hiding something big. Something important. Then I understood the problem. His word was his honor, so he couldn’t lie. But telling the truth would be dangerous.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone. You have my word.”

  Gallagher exhaled slowly. “No. They aren’t human.”

  Exhilaration surged through me with each beat of my heart. He was hiding in plain sight, in a position of authority, and had been for at least a year. No wonder he didn’t abuse the captives. No wonder he’d talked Metzger into buying me. He really did think he could protect me. Maybe he could.

  “What are—”

  Gallagher shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything else right now, but I will hold you to your word. And you still haven’t answered my question. Will you consider me as your champion, Delilah? I swear on my honor—on my life—that no one will get to you without going through me.”

  An alliance with a strong and by all appearances honorable ally, who had the keys to my cage and a personal interest in keeping my secrets. An alliance with a trial period. That was exactly what a woman with a big mouth, no self-defense skills, and no civil rights needed.

  “Okay,” I said, and adrenaline rushed through me, amplifying my heartbeat until I could hear it in my ears, the rhythm of my very existence. I’d been certain the universe owed me a break, and what it had given me was Gallagher. I’d have been a fool to turn his offer down.

  “Are you sure?” His gaze searched mine, looking for doubt.

  I shrugged. “If we’re allies, you’ll definitely get me out of captivity? Soon?”

  “I swear on my honor.”

  “Then, yes, I’m sure.”

  “You have to say the words,” he insisted, taking my hands as he looked down into my eyes, and he was almost smiling.

  Almost.

  “There are words?” Of course there were words. Words, evidently, meant everything to his people. Whoever they were. “What are these words?”

  He grew solemn again, as if someone had flipped a switch. His eyes even looked darker, and a beat of doubt pulsed along with my heart. “You have to say you’ll take me as your sword and shield.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and swallowed my doubt. I would get no better opportunity to escape, and he’d already taken many risks
for me. “Gallagher, I will take you as my sword and shield.” Probationally.

  Without releasing my hands, he gave me a formal nod—almost a bow. “And so you shall have me.”

  “Great.” I gently pulled my hands from his grip and took a step back, just then realizing that I was both unbound and uncaged for the first time since being sold as livestock. “So, now what? How are we going to get me out of here? Where are we going to go? Can we leave tonight?”

  “We’re going to Mexico, and no, we can’t leave tonight.” Gallagher leaned back against the kitchen countertop, and I realized he towered over his own refrigerator. “And we’re taking Adira and Nalah.”

  I started to ask why, when Genni and Rommily were clearly faring much worse in captivity, but then I understood. “You made them a promise, too.” I frowned. “Wait, are you championing them, too?”

  That hint of a smile was back, as if he wanted to laugh, but wasn’t allowed. “No. A champion can only have one benefactor. And I didn’t promise the girls. I promised Adira’s father. He hired me to return his daughter.”

  “What?” I sank onto the couch, trying to puzzle through that unexpected revelation.

  “I applied for the job at Metzger’s so I could stay close enough to break her out when the menagerie swings near the southern border. That’s the only way to avoid going on the run during a nationwide manhunt. Adira and Nalah can’t pass for human.” He shrugged. “We’ll never make it if border patrol—not to mention the rest of the country—knows to look for us.”

  “How did you get this job without lying?”

  Gallagher’s gray eyes shone. “Fortunately, in the entire year I’ve been here, waiting for the southern loop of the menagerie circuit, no one’s ever actually asked me if I’m here to free the djinn from captivity.”

  “A year.” I had trouble wrapping my mind around that. “Her dad must be offering one hell of a payout.”

  “He can afford it.” Gallagher sat on the edge of one of the padded benches and propped one elbow on the broken table. “Her father is Bruhier, sultan of the merids.”

  “Wait, she really is royalty?” He’d told me, and she’d told me, but I hadn’t really believed it. “How did she wind up in the menagerie?”

  “She ran away a week before her wedding, and because she’s not the brightest merid in the pond, she fled north, into the U.S. She’d been here less than a week before she and Nalah were captured, and old man Metzger swooped in with his checkbook.”

  “She was a runaway bride more than a year ago?” Adira looked very young, even having lived in such rough conditions. “How old is she?”

  “She’s sixteen now.” Gallagher shrugged. “Each culture has its own customs. That’s no different for cryptids than for humans. Adira’s marriage to the crown prince of the ifrits is supposed to unite the two djinn kingdoms, or something like that. My job is just to take her home. What happens after that has nothing to do with me.”

  “But she doesn’t want to get married.” Anger stirred in the pit of my stomach at the thought of a teenager forced into marriage.

  “And I’m not going to make her. I told her what her father was offering, and she decided she’d rather take her chances at home than sit in a cage here.”

  I couldn’t blame her for that. “Do the other handlers know who she is? Does Metzger?”

  “Everyone’s heard her talk, but I don’t think many believe her. Which is probably for the best. She’s worth quite a lot to her father.”

  “Which is why you took the job?” That didn’t sound much like the man who’d volunteered to be my champion. “For the money?”

  “There is no money. I wanted to go south of the border, and the sultan has provided passage.”

  “You have passage into Mexico?” Even having grown up human, I knew what that was worth. Few cryptids even made it to the border thanks to the U.S. Border Patrol, and of those who did, fewer than half were accepted into Mexico. Worried about a flood of refugees, the sultans south of the border only took in those who could pay, or who could otherwise benefit the kingdom.

  “Sultan Bruhier sent a pass for each of the girls, and one for me.”

  Passage for three. “No wonder the girls are scared. They’re afraid I’ll take one of the spots.”

  “Yes, but it won’t come to that. My trip into town the other day was so I could contact Adira’s father, to ask for a fourth pass.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s considering it. I’m supposed to call again from the next town.”

  “Can’t you just borrow another cell phone?”

  Gallagher shook his head and shifted on the couch. “I can’t risk anyone finding a call to Mexico on their bill, or someone walking in while I’m on the phone. But I’ll get another pass, Delilah. I’m not going to leave you here. My word is my honor, remember?”

  How could I forget?

  Gallagher stood and scruffed his sun-bleached baseball cap back and forth over his short hair, a habit I’d noticed my first day in the menagerie.

  “You need a new hat.” I stood and reached up to thump the bill, and he tensed. “This one’s all faded.”

  “I’ll wash it soon, and it’ll look as good as new,” he insisted, but I had my doubts.

  Gallagher picked up the cuffs and leg shackles, and a familiar, devastating dread glued my bare feet to the cheap linoleum.

  “I can’t put those back on.” I couldn’t climb back into that horrible cage. Not with liberty so close. Not with Gallagher’s promise to free me still echoing in my head.

  “It’s not for long. We drop stakes near Laredo in a couple of days, then this’ll all be over.”

  “Swear?” I said, as he reached for the doorknob.

  Gallagher hesitated, his brows tugged low by the weight of what I was asking for. “I can’t foresee all the possible complications, but I swear I’ll do my best to set all four of us free there.”

  “Thank you,” I said, when I realized that was the best I was going to get.

  Gallagher gave me an almost formal nod, then gestured for me to precede him outside. He turned off the light, then followed me onto the steps, clanking like a captive thanks to the metal he carried. He was about to recuff me when a growl cut through the night, too loud to have come from wagon row.

  “What the hell?” I whispered.

  “Pipe down, Papa, or I’ll light you up until your insides boil,” Clyde said, and I gasped at how close his voice was. He had to be right behind the camper.

  “Stay here,” Gallagher whispered, carefully lowering the cuffs and shackles to the ground, so they wouldn’t clank again. He rounded the end of the RV, and after a moment’s hesitation, I followed, barefoot.

  I’d recognized that growl, and I’d sure as hell recognized the soft canine whine accompanying it.

  Geneviève was in trouble.

  Congress officially repeals the Sanctuary Act, stripping cryptids of protection under the U.S. Constitution. Millions lose their jobs and homes in the immediate aftermath.

  —From a December 12, 1986 article in the Tulsa Herald

  Delilah

  From the shadow of Gallagher’s camper, I could see the figures gathered near the flatbed truck, but they hadn’t noticed me yet.

  Eryx was harnessed to Claudio’s wagon, which he’d obviously hauled from wagon row toward the truck with an animal crate strapped onto the bed. The truck’s headlights threw two cones of bright light over the grass, which made the ambient darkness look even darker.

  “Come here, you little bitch, or we’ll have to do this the hard way.” Clyde had opened the side panel of the werewolf’s cage and was brandishing a cattle prod at the father and daughter inside, both in canine form.

  Gallagher stepped into the beam of the headlights, and Eryx’s brown e
yes widened. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “My job.” Clyde didn’t turn, nor did he seem surprised by Gallagher’s presence; he’d obviously recognized the camper. “Ruyle signed the papers on the little bitch this afternoon, and I’m supposed to have her in Wichita by noon.”

  That’s when I realized Clyde had parked the menagerie’s flatbed truck next to the camper hoping to attract Gallagher’s attention. Because he wanted to gloat.

  My hands curled into fists. He couldn’t sell Genni. She was just a kid—the only child her father had left!

  Clyde brandished the prod at Claudio, who scuttled back, growling while he shielded his daughter with his own body. “Unfortunately, separating the whelp from her sire is a real pain in the ass. Any idea why this cage is at double capacity?”

  Gallagher ignored the question. “Ruyle didn’t say anything to me about selling Geneviève.”

  “That’s because you are no longer in the loop. Once the old man gets back and signs off on it, you’ll be answering to me. If you wanna get a head start on that, come help me get her onto the truck.”

  “She’s not going anywhere until Ruyle verifies that you’re not just poaching menagerie assets. Close the door and back away from the cage,” Gallagher ordered.

  “I don’t answer to you anymore.” Clyde turned back to the werewolves. “Papa, send the pup out here before you both get hurt.”

  Claudio growled louder, baring sharp teeth, still firmly installed between his daughter and the handler.

  “Have it your way.” Clyde thrust the electrical prod at Claudio. The wolf lunged. He began to convulse from the voltage just as his muzzle clamped down on Clyde’s bare right forearm, and for one long, stunning moment, mutual foes shared a splendid dance of agony.

  A high-pitched squeal leaked from Clyde’s lips, but it contained none of the volume or power I’d expected in response to a brutal werewolf bite. All at once I realized the electrical voltage was flowing into him through the werewolf, completing a circuit that prevented Claudio from letting go of Clyde’s arm and Clyde from letting go of the cattle prod.