Maybe not. Gallagher shrugged. The last time I had a feeling about one of our patrons was when you visited the menagerie, and that changed everything. For all of us. Tell me about this man, he said as he picked up the empty rabbit box. What did his scar look like?
It ran through his lip and over the edge of his chin, and
Gallagher stopped walking so abruptly that I almost ran into him. His sudden tension made my pulse trip faster. Which side of his chin?
The left.
He dropped the empty box, alarm darkening his eyes. Thats Willem Vandekamp.
Vandekamp. Why do I know that name? Why was his face familiar? If Id seen him before, how could I possibly have forgotten that scar?
He owns the Savage Spectacle. At my blank look, Gallagher explained, his words rushed and urgent. Its a private cryptid collection catering to the extremely wealthy. But he also has a specialized tactical team. Vandekamp is who the police bring in when they need to capture a cryptid theyre not equipped to handle. If hes here, he knows. And hes not alone. This is over.
Fear raced down my spine like lightning along a metal rod. This? Over?
Gallagher dug a set of keys from his pocket and pressed them into my palm. Go straight to the fairgrounds main office and play the alarm tone over the intercom, then run back to our camper. We have to go.
A chill raced the length of my body. Everyone knew that if they heard an unbroken alarm tone they were to get in their designated vehicles and run. But our emergency procedure was so new we hadnt even practiced it yet.
Despite the risks, we hadnt really thought wed need it.
Go, Delilah. Ill get all the cash from the silver wagon, then meet you at the camper.
I nodded, but before I could take two steps, a man in a protective vest stepped out of the shadows, aiming a stun gun at Gallaghers chest. Dont move. He had a regular handgun on his waistband, the snap on the holster already open. The name Brock was embroidered in shiny silver thread on the left side of his vest. Beneath that were the initials SS, stylized and intertwined, as if they belonged on an expensive hand towel or pillow case.
I eyed the soldier, my pulse racing.
Put your hands up, Brock ordered. Or I will taze you. He thought we were human.
Gallagher didnt move, but I could feel the tension emanating from him. Every muscle in his body was taut, ready to explode into motion. Vandekamp deals in exotic fetishes. Hell rent them out by the hour, Gallagher said, trying to convince me of what needed to be done while he eyed the private soldier. Theyll die in captivity, Delilah. And in great pain.
Chains. Cages. Fists. Whips. Blood.
My heart ached at the memories. The terror. My lungs refused to expand. If Vandekamp knew about the coup, others knew, too. Gallagher was right. The menagerie was finished.
We had to sound the alarm and give people the chance to escape.
Kill him. My words carried no sound, but Gallagher read them on my lips. He turned, impossibly fast, and ripped the stun gun from the soldiers hand. It broke apart in his grip like a childs toy.
Brock grunted and reached for his gun, his movements clumsy with shock. Gallagher grabbed his head in both hands and gave it a vicious twist.
I heard a distinct crack. The mans arms fell to his side, but to my surprise, his head remained attached to his body. Gallagher hadnt spilled a single drop of blood, even though he needed it to survive.
Youre not going to...? I gestured to his faded red cap as the body fell to the ground at his feet.
No time. We have to
Something whistled softly through the air, and Gallagher stumbled. He slapped one hand to his thick thigh and pulled out a dart attached to a tiny vial that had already nearly emptied into his flesh. He growled as he stepped in front of me, shielding me, and turned toward the direction the dart had come from. Get down.
As I knelt behind him, I heard another soft whistle. He flinched, then fell onto his knees. Gallagher! My pulse racing, I pulled a second dart from his leg and stared into the dark, trying to spot the threat.
Get the gun. Gallaghers voice was much too soft. His eyes were losing focus.
I spun toward Brocks corpse and was reaching for the pistol still in his holster when Gallagher fell to the ground with a heavy thud.
No! The gun forgotten, I dropped onto my knees to put one hand on his chest. It rose, then fell. He was completely unconscious, his hat still firmly seated on his head.
Delilah Marlow.
Fear electrified every nerve ending in my body as I twisted to see the man with the scar staring down at me, his tranquilizer rifle aimed at my chest. I shoved my terror down to feed the rage burning out of control in my gut. You have three seconds to get the hell out of my menagerie before I scramble your brain.
His brows rose in an insulting blend of fascination and amusement. Do your worst.
My worst was already on its way.
Deep inside me, the furiae stretched as she woke up, intent on avenging Gallagher, and as her righteous anger rapidly filled me, my nails hardened and began to lengthen into needlelike points.
Vandekamps gaze flicked to my hands, but his expression did not change.
I stood, and my vision zoomed into an extraordinary clarity and depth. My hair began to rise on its own, defying gravity as my rage mounted.
Vandekamp held his ground three feet away. He twisted a small knob on his rifle and aimed it at my thigh.
I lunged for him, my thin black claws grasping for his head. He pulled the trigger, and pain bit into my thigh. I gasped and stumbled sideways, then tripped over Gallaghers thick leg. The world rushed toward me. My shoulder slammed into the dirt path.
Gallagher lay a foot away, his eyes closed.
The dart burned fiercely in my thigh, and my vision blurred. My arms were too heavy to lift. I couldnt move my legs.
From somewhere in the fairgrounds, a scream rang out, then was suddenly silenced.
Dont do this, I begged as a second scream split the night. But my voice was too soft. The world was starting to lose focus.
Vandekamp put his boot on my shoulder and pushed me onto my back. He knelt next to me, his rifle hanging from one shoulder, and stared into my eyes, apparently fascinated by the black-veined orbs they had become when the furiae awoke. Ive heard a lot about you, Delilah. He brushed hair back from my face and tucked it behind my ear. My name is Willem Vandekamp.
I blinked, and his face blurred as darkness engulfed me.
You belong to me now.
Delilah
The squeal of metal ripped through my head like a chain saw through wood, and my eyes flew open. Bright, warm light turned the throbbing behind my eyes into a sharp pain that pulsed with my heartbeat, and at first I couldnt tell what I was looking at. My world seemed to be composed entirely of shiny steel slats and canvas.
My tongue felt like it was dried to the roof of my mouth, and my throat hurt when I swallowed. When I tried to sit up, I discovered my wrists were bound at my back with something that didnt rattle or clank like metal handcuffs, and they must have been bound for a while, because I couldnt feel my fingers. I was lying on my stomach in a long, subdivided steel cage, draped with a sheet of canvas thin enough to let light through. I blinked, trying to remember how I wound up shackled and caged, and...
Vandekamp.
With his name came the memory of his scarred face staring down at me. The iron weight of fear threatened to press all the air from my chest as understanding crashed over me.
The menagerie had been retaken.
I was a prisoner. Again.
For weeks, Id battled nightmares about being recaptured. Recaged. But my dreams were pale shadows of the horrifying reality.
My lungs refused to expand. I gasped, trying to catch my breath as the steel slats seemed to be closing in on me. I cant do this again. I couldnt live in a cage and eat scraps. I couldnt wear rags and take orders. I couldnt perform in another menagerie, watching people I cared about suffer just to draw out my beast and its violent brand of justice.
Not again.
Motion to my left drew my eye, and I twisted on the cold steel floor to see Mirela lying in the next cell, unbound and evidently unconscious, still dressed in her fortune-teller costume. But I couldnt see into the cells beyond hers from my prone position.
Grunting with the effort, I tucked my legs beneath my stomach and pulled myself upright without the use of my hands. On my knees, I could see down the length of the steel cage into at least a dozen cells separated by steel-slat walls. I was in the very last one. And finally I understood.
We were in a cattle cara long horse trailer modified to hold human-sized cryptids. Each pen had its own roll-up door and the whole thing was much cleaner and newer than anything wed had at Metzgers. Much colder.
And much more expensive.
Mirelas sisters lay unmoving in the two narrow cells after hers, and beyond those were several more, each occupied by one of my fellow captives.
The light shining through the canvas strapped in place over the cattle car was too warm in tone to be anything but sunlight, and the canvas itself gave me no hint of our location. I closed my eyes and listened, trying to slow my racing heart.
I heard the rattle of a cage door rolling up on another cattle car and male voices, speaking too softly for me to understand. The only familiar sound was the breathing of the other captives.
Where are we? Lala whispered, and I turned to see her pushing herself upright in the middle of her cell. She blinked at me through eyes ringed in dark circles and drew her denim-clad knees to her chest.
I dont
Heavy footsteps clomped toward us, and two shadowy silhouettes appeared through the thin canvas, starkly backlit, growing larger as they got closer. The shapes were male and bulky from whatever equipment they wore, and when one of them came to disconnect the canvas from the two rear corners of my cell, I could tell from his outline that he had a gun and some kind of baton.
When the canvas was unhooked, the men pulled it from the cattle car with practiced motions, then folded it with the same efficiency. Both men wore the Savage Spectacles black tactical gear, including visored helmets, and each wore a pistol and a stun gun holstered on opposite sides of their waists. They worked in silence, and after an initial assessing glance into the trailer, they didnt leer, stare, laugh or point.
The soldiers professional bearing was so unlike that of Metzgers rough-edged roustabouts and handlers that Lala and I seemed more interested in them than they were in us.
From my left, I heard and felt movement as the rest of the captives began to wake up, but I couldnt tear my searching gaze from the world outside the cattle car. Where were the rides and the booths? Where were the campers, trucks and trailers? Where was the fairground?
I saw nothing but a gray building and, behind that, a thick patch of forest.
Where are we? Lala asked again. Whats happening?
I hardly even heard her questions over the chattering of my teeth, a nervous reaction Id had since I was a kid. My mouth was dry and my hands were shaking in my bindings, which chafed my already-raw wrists.
Weve been captured, obviously, Zarah said from the other end of the trailer, where she was confined in the pen next to Trista, her twin and fellow succubus.
But wheres the menagerie?
Probably right where we left it, Mirela said to her sister, while she watched the black-clad men stack the folded canvas on top of at least two others. It looks like weve been seized. They must know the old man is dead.
But how? Renata and Raul had done flawless work with Metzgers relatives. Wed hoped to get at least a year out of the ruse, which should have given us plenty of time to figure out how to get everyone south of the border.
I think were being sold, Lenore said, and for once, I didnt fight the calming pull of her voice. Instead, I let the sound relax my tense muscles and slow my racing heart, and finally my teeth stopped chattering. Clarity returned to my vision.
Our cattle trailer was parked in front of a squat gray brick building punctuated by a series of tall, narrow windows. Its resemblance to a prison was no doubt intentional. Two men stood guard at either side of the buildings entrance, wearing padded bite suits similar to what K9 trainers used to condition attack dogs. Their utility belts each held a Taser and a baton, but no guns.
The trees visible behind and above the building were taller than they typically grew in Oklahoma, my home state, and the flora was greener and more lush.
Were all being sold? Mahsa asked, and when I turned to follow the leopard shifters gaze, relief flooded me. Two more cattle cars stood about fifty feet away, on the other side of the parking lot, but their occupants were still unconscious, and I wouldnt be able to identify them until they sat up.
Mirela, I whispered as I watched the two tactical team members head for the building entrance. Do you see Gallagher?
She studied the other trailers, then shook her head. But they might have put him in that last one, with Eryx and the centaurs. Hes heavy enough.
I squinted, but the only thing I could tell about the third trailer, viewed through the one in the middle, was that its cells were larger and lower to the ground, and on the scale of horses and cows. More like an actual cattle car.
Even if all three of the trailers were full, they couldnt possibly hold even half the cryptids from Metzgers. Where were all the rest?
Hey! Lala shouted, and we both turned to her in surprise as one of the succubi tried to shush her. Where the hell are we? Who are you people?
Lala! Mirela scolded her softly, as the men continued to ignore us. Dont make trouble.
I wasnt sure whether to applaud the young oracle or cry for us all. Shed grown bold and confident after months of relative freedom, and she seemed much less willing than the others to fall back into the trembling and quiet comportment of a captive.
Before the two soldiers made it to the building, the door opened and Willem Vandekamp stepped out. All four mentwo in tactical gear, two in puffy, full-body bite suitssnapped to attention as he marched past them, with another man on his heels, and I could only stare, trying to figure out what his presence meant.
Was this his building? Was Vandekamp storing us until...what? An auction? A bulk sale? Seizure by the government?
Vandekamp took up a position between our cattle car and the next and one of his men handed him a clipboard. Okay, lets get them stored. Start over there. He pointed in our direction. Individual cells. Give them uniforms, then start processing.