Spectacle--A Novel

  By the time Finola came out of the shower, I’d written two questions in paint on the floor for her to see.

  Are you okay?

  What happened?

  Simra’s eyes widened when she saw the writing on the floor. “Huh. I never thought to try that. But she’s not allowed to tell you what happened.”

  More frustrated than surprised by that revelation, I groaned, yet no sound came out.

  Wait... If I could get around my collar’s restrictions by writing, why couldn’t she?

  I held the damp bikini up to Finola and mimed writing with my index finger. But fresh tears welled in the siren’s bright green eyes. “Delilah, I can’t read.”

  Which meant she couldn’t write either, and that was true for the vast majority of the menagerie’s captives. It was probably also true among the Spectacle’s prisoners. Except for Simra, who’d grown up in freedom south of the border.

  I held the bikini out to the marid, silently asking for her help, but she only frowned. “I don’t know what happened to her. I wasn’t with her tonight. But she’ll be fine.” Simra glanced at Finola with a look that was part sympathy and part demand for the siren to buck up. “There’s no other choice.”

  Finola insisted that she was okay and confirmed that her collar wouldn’t allow her to talk about her engagement, then she helped me wash the gold paint off the floor with trembling hands.

  Only after I’d tucked her into bed with both her blanket and my own draped over her to help her stop shivering, did I realize that there was a deeper significance to our inability to communicate—one that Rommily would have understood well. With our collars preventing me from speech entirely and her from revealing the details of her engagement, Finola had no outlet. She was alone with the trauma, cut off from her friends and honorary family by a brutal wall of silence.

  And she would be, as long as she wore that collar.

  Vandekamp’s information embargo was far crueler to those who lacked basic education, however, the writing work-around gave me hope. I’d found a weak link in his electronic chain, and it couldn’t be the only one.

  The rest of my night was mostly sleepless, as my thoughts raced with the possibilities. What else had Vandekamp missed? How else had he underestimated us? How big of a blind spot had pride in his own technology given him?

  When the sun came up hours later, I finally noticed an empty sleep mat and realized that only one of the two shifters who’d left with Finola and Simra had made it back to the dormitory.

  Dear Barbara,

  Our blessings continue to grow. Willem has been awarded a full scholarship to Colorado State to study cryptobiology. This Saturday, he will graduate as valedictorian of his high school class. We hope you’ll be able to make it to the ceremony. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you, and we would love to surround him with as much family as possible on this joyous occasion...

  —from a 1992 letter by Judith Vandekamp to her estranged sister

  Delilah

  I spent most of the next two days in front of one of the tall, narrow windows, staring out at fresh air I hadn’t had a whiff of since my trip to Vandekamp’s office on my first full day at the Spectacle.

  Since we’d arrived, most of my friends had been assigned chore duties and several had been requested for engagements, but Rommily and I had remained stuck in the dorm. I recognized the brutal boredom and frustration from my weeks in a menagerie cage, but my captivity at the Spectacle came with all new problems.

  I couldn’t study many of the security procedures from the confines of the dormitory. Beyond that, an odd kind of survivor’s guilt had turned every moment of my friends’ mysterious engagements into a new kind of torture for me.

  Each time one of them came back in the middle of the night, covered in bruises, cuts or bite marks, I felt as guilty for being spared the same abuse as I was frustrated by my inability to help them.

  When lunch came on my third day at the Spectacle, Lala brought over a tray for each of us and sat next to me by the window. The food was healthy but bland—a boiled egg, a slice of tasteless white bread, a handful of raw broccoli and half a boiled sweet potato—and I ate though I had no appetite, because I knew better than to let my body weaken along with my spirits.

  I’d forced down most of my sweet potato, a tasteless trove of vitamins A and C, when motion from outside caught my eye. I looked up to see a windowless delivery truck emerging from the woods at the back of the compound on the very narrow gravel road our cattle cars had probably traveled. The truck bore the Spectacle’s logo on the side, but had no other distinguishing characteristics.

  The driver backed toward the dormitory, then he and another handler got out of the cab and headed for the rear of the truck. They were joined by Woodrow, who held a tranquilizer rifle, and Bowman, who used a key to unlock and unchain the cargo doors. With the other three handlers armed and ready, he opened the back of the truck and stepped to the side, as if he expected something within to explode all over him.

  “What’s going on?” Lala peered through the glass over my shoulder, and I realized that our fellow captives had gathered around the other narrow windows.

  “I think we’re getting new company.”

  When no angry cryptid burst from the back of the truck, Bowman said something I couldn’t hear to his fellow handlers. The driver and passenger climbed into the cargo area. A couple of seconds later, a large pair of boots slid haltingly out of the truck, followed by a pair of thick male legs clothed in dirty, ripped orange scrubs.

  The kind a human prisoner wears.

  “No.” My protest carried little volume, but Lala heard me.

  “What?”

  I stood, and my lunch tray clattered to the floor, spilling chunks of egg and broccoli.

  Outside, the orange pants were followed by a large orange shirt, which gathered beneath the new prisoner’s broad torso as he was pushed out of the truck by the two men inside and pulled out by Woodrow and Bowman, who each had one of his legs. I knew who we were seeing long before familiar arms fell, thick fingers grazing the dirt. Before I saw the strong profile, strangely altered by an uncovered head.

  “Gallagher,” Lala whispered, and his name echoed in murmurs from across the room as the other former menagerie inmates came to the same realization. “What is he wearing?”

  “It’s a jail uniform.” The conclusion brought with it an odd sense of relief. “They must have thought he was human.” Because back at Metzger’s, he’d broken the Spectacle employee’s neck, rather than ripping his head off.

  All four strong handlers struggled beneath Gallagher’s limp weight, and his head sagged below his shoulders. His hair fell back from his face, revealing closed eyes, as well as several bruises and gashes.

  I blinked back tears, my face and hands pressed to the glass, and when my eyes opened again Gallagher was wearing his traditional faded red cap, unglamoured, because he was unconscious.

  That’s how they figured it out.

  As they turned to carry Gallagher into the building, I caught a better look at the side of his face. His left eye was purple and swollen. There was a deep gash in his chin, and both of his lips were split open and still dripping blood.

  But Gallagher’s hands bore no bruises or cuts that I could see. They’d beaten him while he was unconscious—I could think of no other reason he would fail to fight back.

  The furiae stirred within me. My veins surged with fire, lapping at the bounds of my temper like waves crashing over a levee wall. I spun to look up at one of the cameras. “Hey! Where are you taking him?”

  The entire room went still around me. The murmur of conversation died and all heads turned my way. But I got no response from anyone on the other side of the camera feed. So I ran for the door.

  “Delilah, no!??
? Mirela grabbed for my arm, and when she missed, Mahsa stepped into my path, leopard eyes wide with concern for my sanity.

  I dodged her and kept going until I saw the red light flicker over the door and felt the first warning twinge of pain from my collar. I skidded to a stop on bare feet, then inched backward until the light stopped flickering and the pain disappeared. I was two feet from the door—the programmed limit of the sensor’s range.

  “Zyanya!” I called, and she stepped forward from the crowd that had gathered to watch what they seemed to think was my total mental collapse. “I’m going to open the door, and I need you to push me into the hall.”

  “But—”

  “I have a theory.” I stared right into her golden cheetah eyes. “I think it’ll stop hurting once I’m exactly this far away from the door, on the other side. Which means if I’m willing to take the pain, I should be able to get out. And I’m willing.”

  Zyanya frowned. “What if you’re wrong?”

  “Then at least we’ll know for sure.”

  Mirela took my arm. “Delilah, there’s no one on the other side to pull you clear if you don’t get far enough away on one push. The electrocution might just continue.” She turned to the shifter before I could argue. “Zyanya, don’t do this.”

  Zyanya hesitated, then nodded. “Sorry, Delilah. I’m not going to help you hurt yourself.”

  As frustrated as I was, I couldn’t blame her. I’d have said the same thing if our positions were reversed.

  “Fine,” I said, and everyone looked relieved—until I lunged forward and kicked the door open, without bothering to turn the knob. Agony shot through my neck and down my spine, then blazed into all four of my limbs. Pain pooled in my fingers and toes and exploded behind my eyelids. The top of my head felt like it was about to blow open.

  Mirela pulled me backward, and the relief was immediate.

  The door was open. Mission accomplished.

  “Thanks,” I whispered as I struggled to catch my breath. Then I shouted into the hallway. “Hey! Where are you taking Gallagher? He needs to go to the infirmary, not intake!” Surely there was an infirmary.

  I got no response, but the shuffle of feet as my roommates moved away from me said they fully expected me to draw a swift, harsh reaction from our captors.

  “Okay, fine!” I shouted, staring up at the camera. “I get it. You’re scared of him. So let me take care of him. Please!”

  Again, I got no answer, and the desperate ring of my appeal cost me some of my confidence; they would hear that as clearly as I’d heard it. Time for a new tactic.

  I took a deep breath and prepared to make a sacrifice. “Tell Vandekamp I’ll give him what he wants!”

  For a second, nothing happened. Then static crackled from a hidden speaker. “Step away from the door. You will not be warned again.”

  It wasn’t the response I’d hoped for, but it was proof that a response could be provoked.

  “And if I—”

  Mirela pulled me away from the door. “We know what will happen if you don’t. And if we’re wrong about that, then it’ll be something worse.”

  Before I could argue with her, a door squealed open from somewhere down the hall. Footsteps thumped toward us, and when Bowman and another handler appeared, I assumed they’d come to close the door.

  Instead, Bowman pointed his remote at me and pressed a button. The red light over the door blinked, and though I couldn’t see my own collar, I knew its light had blinked, as well.

  “Step into the hall,” he ordered.

  I practically launched myself through the doorway, and I made no objection to the padded restraints he closed a little too tight. The handlers led me down the hall and out of the building without a word, and when we headed through the iron gate into the cryptid-themed topiary—now strung with soft white lights for some kind of event—I knew Vandekamp had gotten my message.

  Minutes later, I stood in front of the boss in his inner office. The handlers closed the door on their way out, but did not uncuff me.

  Vandekamp folded his hands on top of his desk blotter, and though he had to look up at me from his seat, I clearly held the position of least power, standing in front of two expensive guest chairs I wasn’t allowed to use. “I hear you have a request.”

  “Yes.” And I was honestly a little surprised that he was going to entertain it, considering the precedent that could set for captives who might want to bargain in the future. “Gallagher’s hurt, and I want to help him.”

  “Tell me about Gallagher.” The scar bisecting his lower lip stretched with each word.

  “What about him?” I didn’t want to give him anything he could use against either of us, but he had me over a barrel, and he knew it.

  Vandekamp shrugged and stood. “We know he’s fear dearg,” he said, and my surprise must have shown. “He’s the first I’ve seen in person, but I’ve studied the species.” Yet he obviously hadn’t recognized Gallagher’s species initially. “But I want to know what he is to you.”

  “He’s a friend.”

  Vandekamp’s pale blue eyes narrowed as he rounded his desk. “That feels like an incomplete answer.”

  “He’s a very good friend.”

  He watched me, clearly waiting for more, and when no more came, he crossed his arms over a neatly pressed dark blue button-down shirt. “You want to help your ‘friend.’ I want to know what you are. What’s your species, Delilah?”

  The answer was my only bargaining chip. “You’re asking the wrong question. The tests aren’t flawed. I truly am human. But I’m not only human.”

  Vandekamp leaned back against his desk. “Not possible. Even hybrids’ blood tests have recognizable animal or cryptid hormones.”

  “I’m not a hybrid. I’m fully human. Plus.”

  “Plus what?”

  “Plus an ideal. An abstraction.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Stop speaking in riddles, or I will silence you for a week.”

  “It isn’t a riddle. I don’t fully understand this myself.” I shrugged, and my restraints caught on the back of my shirt. “But based on the legend and what I’ve pieced together from personal experience, I am an embodiment of wrathful justice. The concept of vengeance given physical form.”

  I left out the fact that Gallagher was the primary source of that information, because I didn’t want Vandekamp torturing him for more details about me.

  “Legend?” Vandekamp scowled. “I’m asking you for scientific facts, not bedtime stories, and if you can’t provide them—”

  “No one can. But if you listen, you might learn something, Dr. Vandekamp.” I held my breath, expecting him to point his remote and make my existence dissolve into excruciating pain. “Please.”

  “You have one minute.”

  “Okay. The way it was explained to me is this. Sometimes, when mankind gets too big for its collective britches, the world—the pooled power of all existence—literally gives life to certain inalienable abstract truths, to remind us that mankind is not its own final authority. Powerful, uncompromisable concepts, like honesty and love and loss and pain and joy. Ideas that transcend human laws and authority, and that apply to every living creature.”

  “You’re saying the universe brings these concepts to life?” He still sounded skeptical, but fascinated.

  “Not the cosmos. But yes, the universe, in the sense of the collective of everything. Existence itself comes together to provide what the world is missing. It endows a select few people—regardless of species—with the essence of one of those truths. Some of them have names and have attained the status of legend over the millennia. Some of them do not and have not.

  “I have been endowed with the essence of justice. Specifically, I’m supposed to right wrongs where society’s laws and norms have failed. I am a furia
e.”

  “A furiae?” Comprehension raised Vandekamp’s eyebrows. “Like from Greek mythology?”

  “Yes. Though the concept actually predates Greek culture. As my test results indicate, biologically, I’m human. Becoming a furiae hasn’t changed that. But I am driven by a force I can’t always control to right injustice wherever I see it.”

  “So, when you feel that someone has been...wronged, you what? Sprout claws and punish people?”

  I could practically hear the gears grinding in Vandekamp’s head as his frustration gave way to consideration. He’d achieved financial and technological success—however barbaric—not by whining about conditions that didn’t suit him, but by twisting those conditions until they did suit him. And I could tell from the bright new gleam in his pale blue eyes that he was already trying to figure out how to twist the honorable nature of my gift to benefit his abominable business model.

  “Sort of. But I can’t control what form that punishment takes.” At least not that I knew of. “And even if you could figure out how to electrocute me every time the furiae tries to show herself, I’m not sure that would prevent anything. Hurting me won’t necessarily hurt her. Or stop her.”

  The furiae wouldn’t care how much pain I was in, as long as she met her goal.

  Vandekamp’s brows rose. “You’re saying there’s no way I can stop this furiae from acting on any injustice she sees?”

  “That’s my theory, yes.” Although cuffing my hands behind my back was a good start. Not that I would tell him that. Or the fact that I couldn’t avenge myself.

  “So, if I were to send you to Gallagher, you’d be compelled to avenge what was done to him?”

  “If you were to send me to Gallagher?” Anger flared in my chest. “That was the deal.”

  “We came to no deal.” Vandekamp stood, and I had to look up at him. “We each stated a desire, and you obliged mine, but I made no promise to return the favor.”

  “You better hope you don’t need anything from me in the future.” I spoke through gritted teeth.