Not something, I realized. Four very dangerous someones would do the trick. And to make it happen, all I needed was a key.
I turned to the seamstress. “Omar is dead.” Her eyes widened at the news and then her lips pulled back. A smile? “Do you know where they would put his body?” I asked. With all the chaos, hopefully no one had thought to empty Omar’s pockets.
The seamstress led me down yet another dark corridor and pointed to a walk-in freezer. “Thank you,” I whispered, and with a nod, she was gone. I pried open the rusting door and stepped in, only to stumble. Omar had been dumped just over the threshold, limbs akimbo. I shoved him onto his back and unclipped the key from his belt loop — the very key that he’d used to taunt the queen. I clipped it into the neckline of my maid’s uniform.
I was just about to step out when a thought hit me. The queen — her breeding program. I pivoted to look at the shelves that lined the walk-in. Where else would she store the infected blood but in a freezer?
And there they were — vials, on a shelf, tucked inside a metal box with a glass top. I unclasped the top, lifted a vial, and read the word scrawled on masking tape along the side: “cuscus.” Was that a kind of animal? I didn’t know. I pulled out another vial. This one read “colobus monkey.” That was definitely a type of animal. I counted the rows. There were forty vials of blood in the box. A yelp of triumph escaped me. Thank goodness I was inside a freezer.
I quickly refastened the lid and put the box back on the shelf. I didn’t have time to check if the vials were all different or if there were duplicates, and I couldn’t take them to the zoo with me. The blood would spoil at room temperature. I’d have to leave the box here until just before Rafe and I met Everson on the roof.
I slipped out of the walk-in freezer only to hear the handlers’ whispers down the hall. I hurried in the opposite direction and came to a large room lined with animal pens. The servants’ quarters. This was where Cosmo had once lived with his mother. Thinking of him left me feeling shivery and close to collapse. I crouched in an empty pen with the heel of my palm pressed to my lips to trap a welling sob.
Cosmo … I buried my face in my arms. I could keep certain images pushed to the edge of my brain but not the sounds. Those kept playing in my mind, distorting and magnifying. The crunch of the handlers’ batons battering Cosmo long after he’d crumpled to the ground. The wet noise of Chorda tearing out the queen’s heart. His deep-throated growl. I curled onto my side in the hay, dizzy and on the brink of vomiting. But I couldn’t afford to give in to my grief. Not if I was going to escape and free Rafe. I squeezed my calf, digging my fingers into the bandage. Pain blazed up my leg and sharpened my mind.
A creak outside my pen propelled me into a crouch. I peered over the rough wooden wall. Manimals wearing thick collars had emerged from their pens to stare at me with glowing eyes. I swallowed against the ache in my throat and wondered what explanation I could possibly give for invading their privacy. And then I saw the babies cradled in their mothers’ arms and the children peeking out from behind their parents’ legs.
Hate for Chorda and his handlers hardened in me like clay in a red-hot kiln. How evil did you have to be to force people — children even — to live in pens in a dark, dank basement? It wasn’t their worst crime against these manimals, but after seeing so much mistreatment, it was one cruelty too many. Something inside of me snapped and suddenly I knew how it must feel to go feral.
A spiky-headed man straightened, his pointed ears erect. A badger-woman’s nose twitched. And then they all scurried back into their pens, dragging their children with them. A moment later, three handlers stomped into the room.
Flashlight beams crisscrossed the servant quarters. Hay snapped underfoot and gates were thrown open as the handlers searched the pens, breathing heavily under the weight of their leather aprons. I pulled my head scarf low over my eyes. The handlers kicked manimals awake, questioned them, and raked through their possessions.
A glaring flashlight sought me out and I lifted my face the way I thought they’d want. Someone gave a satisfied grunt. “Anything?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Only people who belong here,” said a husky voice. A familiar voice. I peeked over the top of my pen and saw Everson in a leather apron. He had bandages on both cheeks from where the feral had scratched him.
“People,” snorted the guard nearest to my pen. “That’s funny. I’m done with this pigsty. I’m going back to the barracks.”
The third handler followed him down the aisle, but before Everson could fall in line, I launched to my feet and blocked his path. “Stay,” I whispered.
He blinked. “What?”
I moved closer, lifting my gaze to his. “Please stay here with me.” If he’d just look at me … but no. He fixed his attention on the aisle beyond me as color crept into his cheeks.
“No offense, Miss,” he said stiffly, “but I can’t.”
One of the handlers behind me broke into raucous laughter. “Sure, you can. The queen is dead and so is her little project. No one’s gonna care if you get yourself a girlfriend.”
The other handler groaned. “Don’t listen to him, kid. And don’t get fooled just ’cause she’s not showing any animal now. If she’s down here, she ain’t human.”
Everson tried to sidestep me, but I couldn’t let him get away. Throwing my arms around his neck, I pressed him to the pen wall and put my mouth to his ear. “Ev, it’s me.”
He froze, then his bandaged cheek brushed my lips as he turned to look into my eyes and, finally, saw me. The me under the dirt and maid’s dress. He pressed a hand to the small of my back and fisted the fabric, pulling my dress tight, holding on to me as if I might suddenly vanish.
A tremor ran through him. “Actually” — he cleared his throat and shot the handlers a wry look — “I think I will stay.”
The first handler chortled. The other sighed. “Suit yourself,” he said.
Everson waited for them to disappear up the stairs before pushing back my headscarf. My hair tumbled down and he stared. I understood his doubt. I barely recognized myself. “What happened?” His voice was heavy with dread. “Are you …” He couldn’t finish the thought.
“No,” I assured him. “I’m fine. I —”
My words ended up muffled against his chest. He’d pulled me to him so fast, my brain hadn’t kept up. And now his breath stirred my hair. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” His relief was so intense that something inside of me, which had been knotted tight, loosened a little.
There was so much I needed to tell him, and I would, but not yet. For just a moment, I wanted to be happy that we’d found each other and to feel sheltered against his chest. His hands lifted to cradle my face and suddenly, his lips were on mine. He kissed me softly at first, then turned ardent, and for the first time ever, I wanted more. My fingers curled against him as the warmth of his mouth sent electricity arcing through my body. When he leaned away to look at me, I was tempted to pull him back. To get lost in his kiss again, so that everything around us went away — the basement and the handlers and the things I had to tell him…. Sad things, I remembered with a start. Devastating things.
I stepped out of his arms and felt instantly cold. “What was that?” I asked in a breathless voice.
His expression turned rueful. “Back at the park, Rafe was right. I should’ve gone for the kiss.”
“You just thought about that now?”
“No, from the second you walked away. And after the handlers grabbed me, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. How I’d missed the moment. Missed it forever if I didn’t pass their test or if I never found you … I —” He glanced away with a half shrug. “I wanted to make up for it.”
“You did,” I assured him with a shaky laugh. “And then some.”
We stood awkwardly for a split second and then I reached for his hand. “Come on.” I tugged him into my pen, where we settled down in the hay. I traced a finger over the bandage on his right
cheek. “I saw the fight. I was on the roof.”
He looked surprised. “And now you’re down here…. A lot’s happened, huh?” he asked gently.
I swallowed the ache in my throat and nodded. I wanted one more minute before I spilled it all and relived the horror. “Did you need stitches?” I asked, taking my hand from his face.
“Probably. The cuts feel deep.” He touched the other bandage with a grimace. “A handler closed them with surgical tape. I wanted to do it but they said there are no mirrors in this insane place.”
My minute was up. No more stalling. “Yes, by the king’s order,” I said, forcing out each word. “He doesn’t want to see that he’s turning into a tiger.”
Everson’s eyes flew to mine. “Chorda?” At my nod he sat back heavily against the pen wall. “That’s why they’re all scared of him. All except Omar.”
“Omar is dead,” I said and then softened my voice. “So is Cosmo.”
“What? No. I just saw him. He …” Everson’s words trailed off and for a moment we just stared at each other. “He’s dead?”
My eyes felt dry and hot as I nodded. Everson seemed as if he was about to say something but then he bowed his head and laced his fingers behind his neck. “How?”
I told him all that had happened since we’d separated outside the compound fence — what the queen did to Cosmo’s mother and how the handlers beat the little boy to death. I had to pause, breathe deep, and swallow. The memory of him clutching the queen’s cape, crying and moaning “Mom,” cracked my heart all over again. I took satisfaction in describing how Rafe had knifed Omar — vicious satisfaction — which was lessened only by the wish that it had been me.
Everson glanced up as if surprised by my tone. “Where’s Rafe now?”
“Chorda had him taken to the zoo. We have to get him out.”
“The handlers’ barracks are there in the zoo. And the hyboars have free run of the place.” He met my gaze. “We’ll get Rafe, but we don’t have a lot of time. I used a ham radio in the barracks to call Arsenal. The captain agreed to send a ’copter to pick us up from the Cultural Center roof at nine. They’ll drop a ladder, but they can’t land.”
I nodded, knowing the law.
He paused. “Did Chorda bite him?”
“No.”
“Okay.” He inhaled deeply. “We need to get the key from one of the handlers.” Grasping the pen wall, he hauled himself up.
I rose as well and the ache in my calf surged, threatening to swallow me whole. We weren’t exactly in great shape to run three miles to the zoo and back. “I already did.” I lifted the key from my neckline to show him. “Cosmo said that Omar had the master key, so I took it off the body in the —” I clapped a hand to my mouth. How could I have forgotten? “Follow me!”
I led Everson through the sewing room and into the walk-in freezer. Ignoring Omar’s frozen corpse, I crossed to the back shelf and flipped open the metal box.
Everson grew very still. “Are those what I think?”
“I don’t know how many different strains are in here or which ones, but there’s more than eighteen. There should be some that you don’t have.”
“You’re amazing.” He swept me up in a hug and again brought his mouth to mine. His lips were as warm and as sweetly demanding as before, but the kiss wasn’t nearly long enough. When he set me back on my feet, I suppressed a sigh.
“I can’t believe you found blood samples,” he said in a hushed voice. “In vials. Labeled.” He touched the box as I refastened the glass lid. “You’ve saved us years of searching.”
I set the box back on the shelf. “We’ll leave it here until we get back from the zoo.” When Everson didn’t reply, I looked up. “What?”
He drew in a ragged breath. “I can’t go to the zoo.”
“But — you said you’d help me get Rafe.”
“That was before you showed me this.” He gestured to the metal box with a swipe of his hand. “If we don’t make it back, no one will know these samples are here. I can’t take the risk. I have to get them to Dr. Solis. Lane, I’m sorry. I —”
“You said you would!”
“And I meant it. I want to help Rafe. I do. But this is bigger than me and what I want. A cure would save everyone.”
My anger ignited like a combustible gas. “Your captain will be so proud. You’ve put the population first — stopped seeing the people. People like Rafe.”
The muscles in Everson’s jaw shifted and clenched. “If that’s what it takes to end a plague, then yes, fine, I’ll act like a guard.”
“Act? Don’t kid yourself. You’re a guard through and through. That’s why you can’t break the rules. Why you needed me to do it for you. Because, no matter what you think, you still do what you’re told.”
I’d taken him from mad to furious — his eyes blazed with it — but I didn’t care. He’d hide it under his guard face soon enough. Not that I’d be here to see it. I shoved open the freezer door and stepped out.
Everson followed me into the corridor and caught my wrist. “You’ll never make it to the zoo and back. There are handlers and hyena-things at every gate.”
“Let. Go.” I tugged on my wrist but he held tight.
“Lane, you can’t go out there alone! It’s too —”
I ducked and sank my teeth into his hand. Hard. He gasped and his fingers sprang open. Without so much as a glance at him, I bolted.
I took the stairs two at a time, heaved open a slanted storm door, and crept into the castle yard. Two handlers stood guard by the gate. I slipped through the shadows to the lionesses’ enclosure, which was lit by a single overhead light. In the center of the cage, Mahari lounged on a couch piled with furs, her golden eyes hard and bright as she watched me make my way to a dark corner by the bramble fence. The others strolled forward, curious as well. I stopped within an inch of the cage, feeling as wild as the lionesses within.
Deepnita arched a brow at my maid’s dress and leather collar. “You’ve come down in the world.” Her voice was low and gravelly, much like a rock star’s after a concert. “Did the queen decide you were too much of a threat?”
“The queen is dead.”
Mahari stretched, arching her back like a cat. “Oh my, the girl’s gone wild.” She sauntered to the edge of the cage.
“Chorda killed her, not me.” I unbuckled the leather collar around my neck and threw it aside.
Mahari’s fangs flashed in the shadows — a smile. “And you were just beginning to impress me.”
“I came to make a deal.”
She stepped so close I could see the golden starbursts in her irises. “I’m all ears, little human.”
“The handlers took Rafe to the zoo and I need to get him out.”
Charmaine tossed back her curls with a chuff. “Good luck.”
“They’ll put him in the cage outside the feral house,” Deepnita informed me. “Smack in the middle of the zoo.”
“Which will be crawling with handlers,” Neve added and dropped into a leather chair.
“Or they might put him in the small cage,” Mahari said conversationally.
“The small cage?” I asked.
“It’s not a real cage. It’s the space between two exhibits in the feral house.” Her voice turned so rough it was almost a growl. “One used to house a man infected with lion, the other, baboon. The space is so narrow that if you move more than a foot in either direction, one of the ferals will snag you and pull you to him.”
“Is that what happened to you?” I swept my gaze over them. Had they all chosen to be bitten by a lion-feral over a baboon? That would have been my choice too.
“Infection is grounds for an instant divorce, by the king’s law,” Charmaine explained. “That way he can marry his next wife, the very next day.”
“Whether she wants to or not,” Mahari added dryly.
“If Rafe stays very still in the center of the small cage, then the ferals can’t reach him, right?”
Mahari lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “The one who infected us was killed in an initiation test last year. I don’t know what lives in that cage now. Maybe something with a longer reach.”
I began to feel frantic. “I have to get Rafe out of there.”
Deepnita snorted. “Even if you could get past the handlers, the cages are locked.”
“And one key opens them all, right? The same key that unlocks your cage.” I stepped back before unclipping the key from my maid’s dress. Good thing, because when I held it up, three of the queens slammed against the wire fence. The cross-hatching wasn’t wide enough for them to push their hands through, but their fingers strained for me with their claws extended. The hair on my arms stood on end, but I didn’t back up any farther.
They yowled and hissed until a voice cut through their inhuman sounds. “Get back!” Mahari ordered, hauling one away from the fence and then flinging the other two aside as if they were sock puppets. No wonder she was the head lioness. For all her voluptuous beauty, she was stronger than three jumpsuits on steroids. She licked her palms and ran her hands quickly over her dark hair, smoothing it down. “So, about this deal … ?”
I knew that they weren’t as tame as they looked and that if I let them out, there would be no way to re-cage them. I also knew that once released they’d unleash their fury on the handlers who’d tormented them. Mahari had made that very clear this afternoon. And I was counting on it. “I let you out and in return you get me past the gate.” I pointed at the briar fence where the two handlers stood. “And then create a distraction at the zoo while I free Rafe.”
Mahari’s eyes smoldered and a smile crept over her lips. “Little human, you have a deal.”
She looked so savage, I wondered if she’d rip out my throat once she was free. Maybe. But I was willing to take that chance because if anyone could clear my path to Rafe, it was the lionesses. I unlocked the cage and threw open the door. The women stalked out, grinning and stretching. Their muscles rippled under their dusting of gold fur.