“You can’t blame yourself for what they do,” Lenore insisted.
“Well, you can,” Zyanya purred from the cage on the papa wolf’s other side. “But that won’t fix anything.”
Claudio spoke into the corner of his cage closest to his daughter. “Geneviève? Genni, chère, dis quelque chose.”
The werewolf pup rolled toward the side of her cage, but her eyes did not open.
“She’s okay. I think.” I’d almost said she’s alive, but I didn’t want her father to know I’d had any doubts. “Genni, wake up, honey.” The duct tape was gone, and I couldn’t see or smell any vomit.
“Geneviève!” Claudio snapped, his voice sharp and commanding, with more than a hint of fabled werewolf aggression. “Réveille-toi!”
“Papa?” she whispered, and Claudio exhaled deeply.
“Are you okay, chère?”
“J’ai mal à la tête.”
Her head. “She hit her head on the ground.” A lot. “Are you nauseated?” I asked.
“Comment?”
“Do you feel like you’re going to vomit?” I clarified. “Throw up?”
“Non.”
“Does anything look...strange? Are you seeing okay?”
“Oui.” She pushed herself upright, and her knee brushed something that crinkled like cellophane. When I squinted into the dark, I made out one of Gallagher’s ubiquitous protein bars. He must have slipped them to her at some point after I’d been recaged.
“There’s a snack bar next to your left knee. I think you’ll feel better a lot faster if you have something in your stomach.”
Genni reached down for the bar, then tore into the wrapper with her teeth. For a couple of minutes, we all listened to her chew. Farther down my row, one of the djinn was singing to the other, and both trolls had started to snore again.
“So...” Zyanya said, when Genni didn’t vomit or pass out, and everyone had relaxed a little. “What are you?” Her golden eyes shone at me in the dark. “Why would they have to torture Genni to bring out your beast?”
“It doesn’t have to be Genni.” I crossed my feet beneath me on the aluminum floor, which was already warm from my skin. “Clyde electrocuted her because that’s what was happening when I transmuted the first time. He still doesn’t know what I am.”
“But you do.” Zyanya’s cat eyes practically glowed at me from the shadowy depth of her cage, and I realized she was shrewder than I’d given her credit for. “How long have you known?”
“Known what?” the berserker asked from a couple of wagons down.
“What is she?” one of the succubi called, though I couldn’t tell if I was hearing Trista or Zarah—the sisters sounded just alike.
“Born of blood and wrath!” The shout came from a cart several down and across the aisle from mine, and I recognized Rommily’s voice. “The crone is set upon her path!”
Zyanya pressed against the steel mesh to see as far down the aisle as she could. “What the hell does that mean?”
“She’s a furiae,” Mirela said, and I could tell from how surprised she sounded that even Rommily’s sisters were rarely able to interpret her riddles.
“As in...an Erinyes?” Lenore’s voice was high-pitched with excitement. Or maybe with disbelief. “My grandmother’s people called them the Eumenides—the kindly ones—to avoid insulting them.”
I scooted closer to the Lenore end of my cage, so I could hear her better. “Did she say what they look like?”
“The old stories describe them with snakes for hair, bodies as black as coal, wings like a bat, and bloodshot eyes.”
I was two for four, assuming twisting, gravity-defiant locks could be seen as the logical interpretation of “snakes for hair.”
“But the truth is that no two Erinyes look alike, because ‘Erinyes’ isn’t a species,” Lenore added. “It’s a... It’s like a calling. A pull from some higher purpose. An Erinyes can be a werewolf, or a dryad, or an elf, or any other species capable of feeling the sting of injustice.”
“Yeah, that fits with what Gallagher told me,” I said, and when the djinni’s lullaby ended abruptly, I realized my audience had grown. “As it turns out, I actually am human. How’s that for irony?”
“Delilah, this is wonderful!” Lenore’s voice sounded like sunshine. Like hope, joy, faith, and anticipation, and when she spoke, I started to feel all those things, too. Which was why her handlers wore earplugs during her performances—the modern-day Odysseus really could’ve sailed his ship into the rocks under a siren’s influence.
“They will have to let you go!” Claudio said, his accent thicker than usual with emotion.
“Oh, no, they won’t.” I’d been thinking about that a lot. “I’m not sure my test results will matter, considering that there’s footage out there showing my transmutation. I’m still a monster in their eyes. And even if by some miracle I actually got a court to verify my test results and get me out of here, they’d just charge me for what I did to Jack and to Wallace, which would either get me locked up and isolated for the rest of my life or executed.”
“But Gallagher knows?” Claudio said.
I started to answer, then thought better of it. Gallagher couldn’t afford to be seen as less than loyal to the menagerie, and he’d already given Genni a protein bar, probably in full view.
“He thinks there was a mistake at the lab. They’re rerunning the test. But that won’t help me.”
“Mysterious ways...” Rommily murmured, so softly I could hardly hear her.
“What does that mean?” I asked the world at large, and to my surprise, Lenore had an answer.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways.” The siren’s crate squealed. “My grandmother said it all the time. Rommily means that you’re meant to be here. Don’t you see? You were sent to us, Delilah. My grandmother said the Eumenides would only be called forth when and where they are needed.”
And that was exactly what had happened. Gallagher was right. My purpose was to avenge the wrongs committed against cryptids, and I’d been called forth when and where I was first needed.
“You’re where you’re supposed to be.” Lenore’s voice felt like a call to action, and my heart pounded harder. My inner furiae was eager to accept that call. “No place on earth needs you more than we do. You can avenge us.” Her pitch dropped into a range most women weren’t capable of, and a shiver rolled through me, accompanied by the phantom taste of blood on my tongue. “You can kill them all, and...set us free.”
Lenore could have launched ships and formed armies with nothing more than her voice—her pull was much stronger than I’d realized. Claudio had told me once that the only reason she and Finola didn’t try to talk their way out of their cages in broad daylight was because Finola’s older sister had been shot on sight for doing that very thing.
Fear is often more effective than chains at keeping people in captivity.
“You chameleons are all alike,” Zyanya growled, breaking the siren’s spell. “You pass for human for most of your lives, then when you get captured, you think you can just overthrow the system and take your life back, but that’s not how it works. Even if Delilah could kill them all and set us free, how long do you think we’d stay free? Where would we go? There’s no place for cryptids in this country, except as entertainment and playthings. And even if we make it to the Mexican border alive, it’s not like they’re welcoming everyone across the river with open arms.” Moonlight reflected from her cat eyes and shone on the tips of her elongated canines. “You dream all you want, songbird, but leave the rest of us out of it. Hope is much more dangerous than any damn cattle prod.”
With that, the cheetah shifter slunk to the other side of her cage and curled up in the shadows.
“Don’t listen to her,” Lenore insisted. “You’re here for a reason, Deli
lah. You can do what the rest of us can’t.”
And for the first time since I’d been locked up, I realized that my escape from Metzger’s would feel more like abandonment to those I left behind.
I wasn’t sure either part of me could live with that.
Charity
“You in town for the circus?” The convenience store clerk rang up Charity Marlow’s coffee, breath mints, and two energy drink cans with a handheld scanner, then swiveled the display to show her the total.
“No.” Charity dug a twenty from her wallet and laid it on the counter. “Just passing through.” And anyway, the menagerie would be pulling up stakes first thing in the morning, according to the schedule posted online.
“Too bad.” The clerk counted out her change. “I saw it last night. Hell of a show. The Courtyard Inn on the highway is booked solid for the first time I can remember.”
“Is that the only hotel in town?”
“It’s really more of a motel, but yeah, that’s all we got since the Bluebell shut down a few years ago. You need a place to stay?”
“No,” Charity lied, as the cashier packed all of her purchases except the coffee in a small brown paper bag. “Thanks.” She slid her change into her pocket and took the bag, then headed out into the brightly lit parking lot with her new cell phone in her hand.
Alone in her car, she locked the doors and set her coffee in the cup holder, then touched a series of icons on her phone screen. Shelley Wells had shown her what to buy and helped her set up her email account on a device that had only one button, yet about a million functions. She still only understood three of them—telephone, email, and internet.
The texting program seemed promising, but Charity had no one to text. Most of her friends had quietly backed away from her after Delilah was arrested. Shelley had made it clear that her involvement ended with setting up the cell phone and, as hurt as she was, Charity couldn’t blame her. Any good mother would be willing to take risks for her daughter, but she couldn’t justify dragging someone else into danger.
The progress icon cycled for a minute or so, while Charity stared at the tiny email inbox, mentally crossing her fingers. She’d been waiting for a reply from Paige Wilmington, the civil rights attorney, for three days, and as far as she was concerned, any attorney whose services required old women to mortgage their homes should be on call twenty-four hours a day.
Wilmington’s work was usually pro bono, at least on the front end; if she won her clients’ cases, she took a percentage of the settlement. She’d successfully sued police departments, school systems, and even the Veteran’s Administration, multiple times. But because she’d never won a case brought on behalf of a cryptid, she couldn’t afford to work for free.
In the end, Charity had decided she’d rather have her daughter back than keep her home. No one who knew her was surprised. But at some point along the way, Ms. Wilmington had decided that she stood a much better chance of keeping Charity out of jail than of freeing Delilah.
Finally, the email program loaded, and a single new message appeared. Charity’s hand tightened around her phone as she read, squinting at the small print.
Mrs. Marlow,
I’m sorry to say that we’ve been denied access to Delilah’s blood test results based on your own admission that you are not her biological mother. This is a setback, for sure, but it’s not a roadblock. I’m appealing the decision, and while we’re likely to get the same ruling from the circuit court, the appeal will put us on the judicial radar on a national scale, and that kind of attention can really only help our cause.
Either way, we’re still going to need those pictures. Let me know when you have them.
Sincerely,
Paige Wilmington
Charity pressed the only actual button on her phone and dropped it onto the passenger-side floorboard in disgust.
That was the problem with civil rights lawyers. They were always more concerned with the big picture—with throwing light onto the problem—than with fighting for any single oppressed individual.
Delilah couldn’t spare that kind of time, and Charity’s budget could not support a two-year fight toward a—likely unfavorable—Supreme Court ruling.
Still, nearly two weeks of research and planning had revealed only two other alternatives. She could try to buy Delilah from Metzger’s, but that would be financially unfeasible, even before she applied for the necessary permits and bought the required equipment and facilities.
Or she could help Delilah escape. The obstacles in that case were both financial and logistical. How would she break Delilah out of the menagerie? Even if they managed to escape, where could they go? The last cryptid to escape from official custody was shot to death in the street like a dog, and the relative who’d helped him escape was sentenced to life in prison.
Charity started her engine and backed out of the parking lot, then drove east for a mile and a half to an empty lot she’d scouted on the way into town. She’d slept in her car before, and she could do it again, especially fueled by the knowledge that Delilah now slumbered under much harsher conditions.
Charity dreamed about the woman in the mirror and the baby in her arms, then woke up with tears on her cheeks. Failure as a mother had already torn Elizabeth from her.
She was not going to lose Delilah, as well.
Delilah
The squeal of metal woke me, and I had to blink several times to bring the man-shaped shadow standing in front of Genni’s wagon into focus. The lock clicked, then he slid the side of her cage open slowly, to dampen the noise. The furiae stirred inside me. Geneviève was only thirteen!
I sat up, ready to wake the whole world with my outrage, but then I recognized Gallagher’s distinctive, broad outline as he helped the werewolf cub from her wagon.
She stood mute and docile while he closed and locked her cage, then opened Claudio’s. Genni curled up next to her father, and Gallagher slid two bottles of water and a few more of his ubiquitous snack bars into the cage before he closed it.
“You lied to me,” I whispered, as he quietly unlocked my wagon.
His brows rose in silent question.
“You told me you weren’t a nice guy.”
He shook his head as he slid open the side panel of my cage. “I have never lied to you, Delilah.”
He cuffed my hands and helped me out of my cage, and a few steps later, I spoke too softly for anyone else to hear. “Where are we going? Is tonight the night?” I still had no idea what his plan for breaking me out entailed, and I felt almost as imprisoned by that ignorance as by my chains.
“Gallagher!”
The strained whisper came from my left as Gallagher led me toward a fairgrounds service entrance, and we both turned to see the teenage djinn seated side by side on their knees, in their shared cage.
Gallagher groaned, but veered toward their wagon, positioned first in the double row. “What?” he growled, pulling me to a stop at his side.
The one on the left—the paler one with the silver hair—turned to her cage mate expectantly.
“I need feminine supplies.” The redhead’s voice was soft, and she stared at the floor of her cage while she spoke, her face flushed even beyond what was normal for an ifrit.
Gallagher groaned again, and I scowled at him. The poor thing was already humiliated by the circumstance, and he wasn’t making that any easier.
“Just go get her something!”
His eyes flashed at me in silent censure, but he knelt to chain one of my ankles to the axle beneath their cage, then took off toward the supply trailer at a jog.
“You are called Delilah, are you not?” The silver-haired djinni was young and coldly beautiful. Her wide blue eyes literally twinkled in the light from the parking lot, and her hair shimmered like water flowing through a starlit riv
er.
“Yes. And you’re...Nalah?”
She flinched, as if I’d insulted her. “I am Adira, a merid, highborn among glittering fountains and glistening seas. Nalah is my ifrit companion.” She tossed a careless gesture at the girl next to her.
Nalah was one of the most stunningly beautiful girls I’d ever seen. Her smooth skin was golden bronze and nearly glowing, her long hair so many shades of crimson it seemed actually to be on fire, even in the dim light from the parking lot. Next to her, the merid looked pale and cold.
“Nalah hails from a land of roaring flames and broiling deserts, but I would never hold her unfortunate origin against her. She serves me very well.” Adira gave her companion a lofty smile, and I had to bite my tongue to hold back the criticism ready to leap from it.
“Okay...” It was hard for me not to frown. “Good for her.”
Adira nodded, accepting my congratulations with haughty ease. “Delilah, why are you out of your cage in the middle of the night?”
I scrambled for a logical explanation, since I couldn’t tell her that my handler and I needed to discuss his plan to set me free. “Gallagher wants me learn how to call my inner furiae on demand. Without having a...target to aim for.”
That was close enough to the truth that I didn’t feel bad about lying to my fellow captives.
“You seem strangely eager to cooperate,” Adira said, and the criticism in her voice made me bristle.
“If I’m not useful, Metzger will sell me to a collector.” I shrugged. “We do whatever it takes to survive, right?”
Nalah nodded solemnly, the oranges and yellows of her irises leaping like flames, practically glowing from the shadowed interior of their wagon.
“Of course,” Adira agreed. “But we’d heard that you were above such concessions.” Her tone was full of reprimand and I wondered whether she was using the royal “we” or was including Nalah in her backhanded compliment. “We’re especially surprised to see that you’ve submitted to Gallagher, out of all the handlers, considering his role in your captivity.”