Menagerie

  Property. Damage. Money. I would be an exotic pet. An insured asset in some rich prick’s ledger. Because even animal lovers keep dogs on leashes.

  The deputy shrugged. “I could say something to the sheriff about a private collector,” he offered. “He’d have to think it was his own idea, but that shouldn’t be hard. He still thinks it was his idea to install a vent fan in the men’s room, and—”

  “That was my idea.” Pennington pushed the door open and marched into the interrogation room. Atherton’s jaw tightened and his gaze dropped to the table between us for a second before he stood to relinquish the chair. “But I like where your head’s at, Deputy.” Pennington settled across the table from me, and the chair groaned beneath his weight. “I’ve found a fella out near the panhandle who’s lookin’ to replenish his collection. He doesn’t care what flavor of freak you are, so long as we pass along the results of your blood test as soon as we have ’em.”

  My chest felt so tight I could hardly breathe. “What kind of collection?”

  “Well, I guess calling it a collection is kinda puttin’ on airs. Fella actually calls it a reserve.”

  Wayne frowned. “Sheriff, are you talking about Russell Clegg’s operation? He’s running a game park over there, bringing hunters from all over to—”

  Pennington twisted to look up at his deputy, and the chair creaked again. “Atherton, shut your mouth. You know no such thing.”

  I swallowed convulsively, struggling to hold down what little dinner I’d had as horror washed over me in waves. “You can’t just let them chase me through the woods and shoot me down like a deer!” I wouldn’t stand a chance, with hunters wearing infrared goggles and hound dogs following my scent.

  “Handin’ you over to Clegg will save the great state of Oklahoma thousands of dollars a year in upkeep, and in the process, I’ll be making the streets of Franklin County a safer place to live. Folks want you gone, Delilah. Voting folks.”

  “I thought you couldn’t send me anywhere until my blood test comes back.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “After talking to your mother, I agree that whatever you are, you’re probably not a surrogate. If the test says otherwise, the feds can seize you from Clegg just as easily as they could seize you from me, and as long as my check has cleared, I could not give a—”

  The door to the interrogation room flew open, startling us all.

  “What?” Pennington roared at the deputy who stood in the threshold.

  “There’s a man out ’ere wants to talk to ya, Sheriff. It’s about Lilah Marlow.”

  “What about her?”

  The deputy shrugged. “He said he’d only talk to you. We put him in the next room, now that they got Mrs. Marlow moved to a cell.”

  The sheriff nodded. “I’ll be there when I’m done in here.” His deputy disappeared into the hall, and I glanced at Atherton with my brows raised, silently asking what he knew.

  He only shrugged.

  As the sheriff turned back to me with more questions, I stared at my own reflection in the one-way mirror, wondering who was looking back at me from the other side, and why.

  I’d already been threatened with prison, a collection, and a hunting reserve. How much worse could this stranger’s plan for me possibly be?

  “Ladies and gentlemen, our lead story continues to grow stranger and more disturbing. So far, in every single one of the reported cases of this mass prolicide—the killing of one’s own children—it appears that one child in each family has survived, completely unharmed. Even more bizarre—all of the surviving children are six years old, each born in the same month—March of 1980.”

  —Continuing coverage on the Nightly News, August 30, 1986

  Rudolph

  “Just twist that button next to the window, and you’ll be able to hear what they’re saying.” The sheriff’s deputy still had one hand on the doorknob, clearly eager to leave the observation room. Rudolph Metzger was neither surprised nor offended. Often locals were almost as unnerved by menagerie workers and their close proximity to the beasts as they were by the beasts themselves. “They can’t see or hear you. The sheriff will be with you shortly,” the deputy added on his way out.

  Rudolph exhaled slowly when the door closed behind the officer, leaving him alone in the dim interrogation/observation room with Gallagher.

  One hundred and twelve years.

  That’s how long the menagerie had been in Rudolph’s family. The Metzgers had been bringing quality live entertainment to small towns all over the U.S. since before cell phones and personal computers. Since before the internet brought footage of dangerous and exotic creatures into private homes with one simple click of a mouse.

  Since long before the reaping and the repeal of the Sanctuary Act.

  Back then, business was simple and the creature carnival was smaller. Beasts only. The chimera. The phoenix. The basilisk. Nothing with human parts could be caged or put on display, but business was good because outside of zoos and traveling menageries, private citizens couldn’t get an up close look at a griffin without getting their eyes pecked out or their limbs ripped off.

  But the technological boom had not been good to traveling circuses.

  Rudolph shrugged off bittersweet nostalgia and waved a hand at the button on the wall, his gaze focused on the occupants of the room beyond the one-way glass. Gallagher stepped forward to twist the knob, and voices filled the room.

  For a while, Rudolph only watched, uncomfortably aware of the fact that if the woman hadn’t been chained to both her chair and the floor, he would’ve had no idea she wasn’t, in fact, a woman at all. She was a monster. A female monster, certainly, but not a woman.

  Only humans can be men and women.

  But she looked like a woman, and that was a problem.

  Most monsters could not hide for long among humanity—monstrosity shone through, even among the most normal-looking of creatures. Werewolves, for instance, had wolf eyes and canines even in human form. Ifrits gave off an unnatural body heat and had hair the color of flames. Sirens’ eyes often came in colors foreign to humanity. Each species had its tell.

  But this one...

  After five minutes of studying her, scrutinizing every visible part, Rudolph could see no sign of aberration. Of course, the same was true of oracles, until their eyes clouded over in the grip of second sight.

  “You’re sure?” he said, still staring at the female chained to the chair. Strands of her ordinary dark hair hung over her ordinary blue eyes. She was ordinary, in the human sense, but somewhat attractive.

  Yet another problem.

  Gallagher nodded without pulling his gaze from the subject behind the window. He was a man of few words, but he was also a man of strong instinct and no bullshit, both qualities the old man considered himself to have in spades. If Gallagher said this beast was more than she seemed, then she was more than she seemed.

  She was also the kind of exhibit that could make or break a menagerie. Rudolph could not afford the risk she represented, nor could he afford to pass up the crowds she could draw. The profit she could bring.

  When the Sanctuary Act was overturned, mere months after the reaping, traveling menageries began to evolve into modern creature features, complete with humanoid and hybrid exhibits as well as specialty shows. Demand was high and regulations were few. Insurance was optional and inspections were rare in most venues. Costs were low and profit margins were wide.

  At first, Metzger’s had flourished.

  Yet by the time Rudolph’s father passed the reins on to his middle-aged sons in the late 1990s, everything had begun to change. Rubes had become skeptics accustomed to movie magic and special effects. Audiences were harder to impress and less willing to pay for the privilege. Safety regulations, inspections, and insurance for traveling menageries had become astron
omic expenses in an age when customers could sue a restaurant over too-hot coffee.

  Rudolph’s three brothers—and their prissy, gold-digging wives—wanted no part of the circus lifestyle, and after he bought them out to keep them from running Metzger’s into the ground with their own disinterest, the menagerie’s liquid assets were nearly drained.

  Fortunately, Rudolph had a head for figures and an eye for beasts. He could tell at a glance which werewolf pup was the hardiest of the litter and which centaurs could subsist on oats and water without compromising their stamina. Rudolph knew just how to coax the livestock into breeding, and exactly when to sell which offspring to supplement income during the rough winter months when traveling was restricted by the weather.

  Thanks to Rudolph’s talent and attention, Metzger’s had survived when many other menageries folded. But survival wasn’t enough. He wanted Metzger’s to flourish!

  Gallagher’s discovery could help make that happen.

  “We can’t show her like that.” Rudolph waved one hand at the glass, and Gallagher nodded. “If people think she’s a surrogate, no one will come see her. And if it looks like we’ve put a human woman in a cage, the rubes will feel sorry for her and we’ll be the bad guys. You’ll have to bring out her beast. Show them she’s a monster—but not a surrogate.”

  Gallagher scowled. “I will have to...?”

  Rudolph sank onto the edge of the table to relieve the pressure on his bad hip. “She was your idea. She’s your responsibility. I want to see the eyes, and the veins, and the claws. The audience needs to see those things. You will train her.”

  “We don’t know what she is.” Gallagher’s focus returned to the room behind the glass. “Hell, it sounds like she doesn’t know what she is.”

  “If we’ve never seen anything like her, the audience won’t have either. Play up the mystery until you figure it out.” Rudolph glanced up at the large handler’s harsh profile. “She’s dangerous, Gallagher. Don’t underestimate her.”

  “She stuck her fingers through Jack’s skull. There’s no underestimating that.”

  “No.” Rudolph’s tone demanded his employee’s full attention, and Gallagher turned again. “No matter what she can do when her beast shows itself, she’s more of a threat in her human guise. Look.” He pointed through the glass, where the female’s jaw was clenched in anger while tears still stood in her eyes. “She’s not just scared, she’s indignant. She thinks she deserves better than she’s getting.”

  For several minutes, they watched through the glass while the female made demands and begged for exceptions.

  “She wasn’t in hiding here in bumfuck, Oklahoma,” Rudolph said. “She wasn’t trying to pass for human. She thought she was human. The world thought she was human. When audiences look at her, they will see themselves, locked up and helpless. When the other exhibits look at her, they will see possibility. Opportunity. She grew up with freedom and human privilege. She’s smart, she’s loud, and she has a severely inflated sense of self-worth. Her delusions make her dangerous.”

  Gallagher nodded slowly, and they both stared through the window again while the female shouted at the sheriff, as if fear fueled her spirit, rather than cowing it.

  Rudolph shook his head to disguise the chill traveling up his spine. This female could incite riots. She could save the carnival—or be the end of everything he’d been working toward his entire life.

  “You must break her, Gallagher. She is the spark, and if that spark kindles, it will burn my menagerie to the ground.”

  Delilah

  With no clock or watch, I couldn’t be sure how long I sat alone in the interrogation room chained to the floor, but it felt like forever. At some point during my isolation and immobilization, the threats I was facing—prison, private collectors, exotic game parks—began to coalesce into a steady baseline of anxiety. My new normality, it seemed, would be fear, and once that became clear, my other, lesser complaints began to stand out.

  My shoulders were a constant source of pain—dull when I sat still, sharp and paralyzing when I tried to move. My hands had gone numb again, and no amount of finger wiggling would bring back pins and needles.

  My bladder, though, was the real problem, and the inability to take myself to the restroom was one fresh hell of an indignity.

  When the door finally opened again, I started to insist on a bathroom break, but one look at the sheer joy on Sheriff Pennington’s face stole the words right off my tongue. The hair on the back of my neck stood up; his pleasure couldn’t mean anything good for me.

  Pennington strode into the center of the room and waved one pudgy arm at me. “There she is. Make it quick.”

  Two men eyed me from the hallway. An adrenaline-charged bolt of fear shot through me with one glance at them, and I forgot about my pain and discomfort. I recognized the large man in the red baseball cap even before I saw that Gallagher was embroidered on his Metzger’s Menagerie polo.

  The smaller, older man wore a slick-looking button-down shirt in that same shade of red, tucked into a pair of pleated black pants. He pushed past the deputy into the interrogation room, where he stared down at me from across the table.

  My skin crawled under his methodical assessment. His gaze was cold and quick, efficiently inventorying my features without pausing to notice intelligence in my eyes, or tension in my frame, or fear in the rapid rising and falling of my chest with each breath.

  My focus snagged on the crow’s feet branching from the corners of his eyes and the wrinkles framing his mouth like nested parentheses. The script on the left side of his shirt read Rudolph Metzger.

  “Any health issues?” Metzger glanced over his shoulder at Pennington, then turned again to study the chains binding me to my chair. “Allergies? Seizures? Anything communicable?”

  “What the hell?” I demanded as Deputy Atherton stepped into the room, but he could only shrug. Pennington may have thought of me as a thing, but at least he’d talked to me like a person. Rudolph Metzger might as well have been examining the teeth of a racehorse.

  Gallagher only watched from the doorway, his expression as featureless as the wall behind him.

  “Regular bowels and menstrual cycles?” the old man continued, addressing me for the first time.

  My cheeks burned. “Are you fucking serious?”

  When I refused to answer, he turned back to the bewildered sheriff. “Normally we’d wait for the lab results on a cryptid of unknown origin, but since half a dozen of my own people witnessed the incident, we’ll take her. You get half up front, and the other half when we have her blood work in hand. We can’t register an exhibit without it.”

  “No.” My pulse raced so fast the room started to look unsteady. “Hell, no. I am not joining the circus.”

  “It’s not a circus, it’s a carnival,” Pennington said, while I tried to breathe through my fear and fury.

  “Actually, it’s both,” Metzger corrected, without acknowledging that I’d spoken. “The menagerie itself is technically a circus—a single traveling unit, whose employees live, eat, and work together. But we engage carnival-style independent contractors who bring their own food carts, game booths, and rides at each stop.” His contemptuous gaze settled on me. “This transaction doesn’t require your approval. You’re not joining my menagerie. You’re being sold into it.”

  “Well, I can guaran-damn-tee you that requires my approval,” Sheriff Pennington growled.

  “Of course.” Metzger glanced at his employee. “Gallagher, write the man a check.”

  Gallagher pulled a long checkbook from behind his back.

  “Hang on now. We’re gonna need more than half up front,” Pennington insisted. “If you don’t even know what she is, she must be rare, and rare is expensive.”

  Metzger gestured for the sheriff to precede him into the hall, and
he took the checkbook from Gallagher on the way. “Let’s talk money. But keep in mind that I’m the one assuming all the expense and risk...” Their voices faded when the door closed, and through the window set into it, I saw both men gesturing as they negotiated.

  Gallagher watched me from his station near the door. His focus only strayed from my face when he studied the chair and the chains holding me in place, and after a second, I realized he was checking for weaknesses in my bindings.

  “Deputy.” My heartbeat hammered in my ears. “Please don’t let him do this.”

  Atherton sank onto the chair across from me and leaned over the table. “There’s nothing I can do, Delilah.”

  “Talk the sheriff out of it. Tell him you heard Russell Clegg pays big.”

  “You’d rather be hunted than sit in a cage?”

  I’d rather do neither, but the drive to the panhandle would give me several hours to think. Maybe I could break free at a rest stop. The chances of that were slim, but with Metzger, my chances of escape dropped to zero; the county fairground was only a few miles away.

  “Delilah.” Atherton cleared his throat and glanced at the table between us. “I think you should keep your head down and roll with the punches on this. These guys look like they’re prepared to do this the hard way.”

  “You should listen to him.” Gallagher’s voice was like the rumble of distant thunder.

  Before I could respond, the door opened again and Metzger walked into the interrogation room as if he now owned not just me, but the entire Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.

  Pennington followed him, holding two checks. He handed one to a deputy whose name I couldn’t remember. “Write up an invoice and send that in with it to the state treasurer, up at the capital.” The deputy left, and Pennington folded the other check and stuffed it into his own back pocket. “Deputy, give ’em the keys.”

  “No. Please!” I thrashed against my bindings, though I knew that would do no good. I couldn’t help it.