“This is what I am.” He threw the bag over his shoulder like Santa with a really morbid surprise, then stepped closer. “I am a monster, born and bred to kill. This is what that looks like. I cannot change my nature. I can only use my oath to reshape it, like tight clothes will reshape the physical form.” He reached for my hand, and I let him have it. “Or I can unleash it, and let the bodies fall where they may. Delilah, I’ve sworn to unleash the violence that swims in my veins for you.”
“You killed Clyde because you had to.”
“I had to kill someone, but it didn’t have to be him. I killed him because he saw you unrestrained. Because he hurt you. I killed him because he humiliated you and made you bleed. I killed him because you were not safe here while he still breathed.”
“I know.” And killing a coworker couldn’t have been the ideal scenario—there would be questions, and possibly an investigation. “Thank you.”
“There is no need to thank me. My honor is sullied when you suffer, and it shines when you are well.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice, but I was pretty sure the werewolves could still hear him. “Unfortunately, we have to endure your captivity for a little while longer.”
My gaze followed his to where my chains still lay on the grass. Reluctantly, I let him recuff my wrists, and when he knelt to do my ankles, the black bag recaptured my attention. “What about the body? I mean, the pieces.”
Gallagher gave me a small, morbid smile. “Fortunately, we travel in the company of several different species of flesh eaters, each of whom will be glad for the treat.”
“The adlet?”
“And the trolls. And the ogres. And the wendigo, the aswang, and the cyclops. And the lamia, if we had the corpse of a child, though I try never to have the corpse of a child. But the lion head of the chimera will be good for a hand or foot, as will the griffin.”
“Sounds like you’ve done this before.”
“Many times. But never with the body of a coworker.”
* * *
The sky was beginning to lighten when Gallagher led us all back to wagon row, my arm in his left hand, Eryx’s lead rope in his right, Claudio and Geneviève trailing behind in their wheeled cage. “How can you stand this?” I whispered as we walked. “You’re one of us. How can you stand to keep the rest of us in chains and cages?”
“If I could free them all, I would. But that’s well beyond one man’s ability. Even mine,” he added, before I could cite his supernatural strength as an asset. “I can’t stop a bullet with bare flesh, and I can’t stop the slaughter that would result when everyone I set free is hunted down. The best I can do is get you, Adira, and Nalah over the border, and hope that the others eventually find their way south.” He spoke softly because neither the wolves nor Eryx knew Gallagher’s true reason for being at Metzger’s, and I’d promised not to tell.
Most of the others were asleep when he locked me into my cage, then did the same for Genni and Eryx, and by the time he came back through with his black bag full of horrors, Geneviève was already deep asleep in her cage.
Though he hadn’t gotten much sleep either, and I’d had none at all, neither Claudio nor I were able to close our eyes for more than a long blink, and I couldn’t help wondering if I’d ever sleep again without dreaming of flying body parts and blood-soaked hats.
Delilah
While Abraxas was serving breakfast to Payat two cages down from mine, one of the handlers came running toward wagon row and skidded to a breathless stop a few feet from the food cart. My heart thudded in my ears while I waited to hear that body parts had been found in one of the cages or that Gallagher had been arrested. But the handler only asked Abraxas if he’d seen Clyde.
I glanced at Claudio. He said nothing, so I followed his lead.
“Not since last night.” Abraxas dropped a ladleful of oatmeal on Payat’s tray, then cursed when he remembered that cat shifters were supposed to receive 70 percent protein.
“He was supposed to be halfway to Wichita by now with the werewolf bitch,” the handler said. “But no one’s seen him since he got up at four this morning to load her onto the flatbed truck.”
Abraxas slid Payat’s tray into Lenore’s cage, then leaned back and glanced down the row in my direction. “Genni’s right there.”
“I know she’s there. Gallagher found her cage sitting by the side entrance to the fairgrounds, not fifteen feet from the flatbed, with Eryx still harnessed to the cart. He put her back in line and locked up the minotaur, and says he didn’t know anything about the sale until he reported the incident to Ruyle this morning.”
“I didn’t know about the sale either.” Abraxas scooped several chunks of organ meat onto another tray for Payat. “Are we sure it’s legit? Did anyone call Clyde?”
“Been calling him all morning, but he’s not answering. Ruyle’s so pissed off his face is purple.”
Abraxas shrugged and slid Zyanya’s tray through the slot in her cage. “Clyde’ll probably show up with a hangover in a couple of hours.”
The other handler looked doubtful, but he only nodded, then tapped the side of the food cart. “Hurry up with this. We’re shorthanded with Clyde missing, and that’ll get worse when Gallagher heads to town for supplies.”
When Abraxas had served everyone and pushed the food cart back to wherever it belonged, Zyanya looked up from her empty tray and arched one brow at me. “So, what really happened last night?”
“How should I know?” I avoided looking at her, hoping there wasn’t some weird cheetah shifter trait that let her hear my racing pulse.
“You left with Gallagher in the middle of the night, and you were with him when he brought the wolves back this morning.” She made a show of sniffing the air in my direction. “Though you’re not carrying enough of his scent to have done much rolling around.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Yet I could feel my cheeks flush.
“What about the predawn snacks Gallagher handed out to all the fastest, most thorough eaters?” Payat asked, holding his tray aloft, ready to be licked clean. “They smelled an awful lot like a certain missing asswipe handler.”
I shrugged. He didn’t need me to confirm what his nose and eyes had already told him. “Are you going to report him?”
Zyanya laughed out loud, exposing the sharp cat canines jutting from an otherwise human mouthful of teeth, and several softer chuckles echoed from farther down the row. “For feeding one monster to several others? No, and neither will anyone else. Though I don’t understand why he did it.” She turned toward Claudio, though he was blocked from her sight by the end panels of both of their cages. “Why would he cover for you, Papa wolf?”
I blinked, surprised by the conclusion she’d drawn, until I realized she could probably smell some trace of Clyde on Claudio, from the big pre-mortem bite the werewolf had taken out of the handler.
“To cover his own rule breach,” Claudio said, looking right at me. “For letting Genni into my cage and for taking Delilah out for the night. We agreed to call it even.”
Zyana snorted. “I’d say you came out ahead on that one, Papa.”
No one argued.
* * *
“What did Ruyle say about Claudio?” The question tumbled from my tongue the minute Gallagher finished anchoring the canvas flap.
He crossed the tent toward me, digging his keys from his pocket, and his steps looked a little lighter, his eyes a little brighter, probably thanks to the newly bright hue of his blood-hat.
“Ruyle won’t let him go with Genni. The old man plans to breed him with a new purchase.” He unlocked the side panel of my cage and slid it back, and I sat on the edge, with my legs dangling over. “I’m sorry. I tried.”
“I know.”
Gallagher lifted me out of the cage and set my bare feet in dry sawdust.
&
nbsp; My gaze found the handcuffs hanging from a hook on the end of my cage. “Should I put those on? What if someone comes in looking for Clyde?”
“Ruyle had the entire menagerie searched before 10:00 a.m. All they know for sure is that Clyde’s not here. The gate opens in a couple of hours, and everyone else is too busy covering for him to bother us before then. So, no restraints for the moment.” He leaned to his left and smacked the handcuffs, which made them swing like a pendulum. “Two days from now, if you like, we will throw these on the fire and watch as flames consume them.”
“Does steel burn?”
“Only at very high temperatures. Fortunately, an ifrit’s fire can burn anything.”
I stepped back for a better look at his expression. “Wait, you mean Nalah can just melt through her cage anytime she wants?”
Gallagher shrugged. “She’s young, so if she can’t yet, she’ll be able to soon. But not without frying Adira in the process, which is why they’re in the same cage. Nalah is the only captive ifrit in the country kept unsedated—none of the others have a reason not to burn through both cage and handlers.” He set up two folding chairs in front of my cage. “We should all be thankful that she’s even-tempered and fanatically loyal to that spoiled little merid.”
“Wow.” I sank onto one of the chairs. “Speaking of double occupancy, most of my fellow inmates think Claudio killed Clyde. He’s not correcting them.”
Gallagher’s eyebrows rose. “Why do they think that?”
“Zyanya smelled Clyde on him. And she saw me come back with you, so now everyone seems to think we’re doing something...illicit.”
Gallagher frowned. “This isn’t some unseemly fling to fuel gossip. We’re upholding an esteemed traditional imperative.”
“Yes, but we’re doing that illicitly,” I pointed out. “People are going to talk.”
“Well, they’re wrong. And to demonstrate the honorable nature of this merger, I have something for you.” Gallagher sank onto both knees in front of my chair and pulled what appeared to be a narrow leather envelope from his backpack on the ground. His steady eye contact told me that whatever was inside was important to him, and I wondered if I was being given some kind of test.
He reached into the leather wrapping and pulled out a short, thin blade with a simple leather-wrapped handle. “I took this from the corpse of my first kill—a soldier fighting against the militem during our civil war.”
“I thought you were just a kid during the war.” I stared at the knife. It was humbly appointed, but the edge of the blade looked as thin as a sheet of paper. I knew nothing about weapons, yet even I recognized the extraordinary skill that went into its production.
“I was eleven. This is my oldest possession, and it represents the day I accepted my calling as a warrior. I would be honored if you would accept it, as a symbol of my devotion to our partnership.”
“Gallagher, I can’t take your knife.” It was clearly his most precious possession, and beyond that, I had nowhere to hide it.
His brows dipped low in dismay, bordering on bafflement. “There is no more appropriate offering from a champion to the one he serves. This knife holds great value to me, and giving it to you means that I hold you in equal worth. If you refuse the blade, you’ll be refusing my services. My honor will never recover from the blow.”
“Wait, if I don’t take your knife, you can’t be my champion?” Meaning he couldn’t free me from captivity?
“Yes. This is the last of the four offerings. You readily accepted the others, and you seemed satisfied with the probationary period of our arrangement. This is the last step required to seal our union.”
“Wait, are you saying the trial period is over? It’s only been twelve hours!” By my best guess, in the absence of a watch.
Gallagher nodded. “The probationary period is defined by action, not by the passage of time.”
“What?” I felt like a child floating in the ocean, fighting an undertow she could neither see nor understand. “What action?”
Gallagher spoke as if the answer should have been obvious, and maybe it would have been to a redcap. “My first kill on your behalf.”
Clyde. But... “Are you saying the probationary period lasted less than an hour?”
“Twenty-three minutes, by my count.” His gray eyes shone. “A feat that would have been celebrated, if I still had friends or relatives with which to share the news.”
“I don’t have any either, anymore.” None except my mother, who would only be put in danger by contact with me.
“If you accept the knife, you’ll have me,” he said, and I could see the truth of that burning in his hungry gaze. “For the rest of your life, or until mine is taken as the price for failure.”
I stared at him, stunned. “For the rest of my life? That’s a hell of a commitment.” And not what I’d signed up for.
“A redcap may only take the role of champion once—it’s a lifelong devotion. It’s your choice, whether or not to accept me, but you need to decide. You’ve already accepted the first three offerings and we have concluded the probationary period.”
What had I accepted from him, other than kindness and a modicum of respect? He seemed to sense my confusion.
“The champion must offer and have accepted gifts of food, shelter, blood, and weapon—the pillars of life for a warrior.”
Food. Well, yes, I’d taken his food.
Shelter. I hadn’t... But, yes, I had. Clyde had said my private tent was Gallagher’s doing.
“Okay, I took food and shelter from you, but I didn’t know what I was doing. You said there’d never be a price.”
“There is no price.” Gallagher shrugged. “I would have given them to you regardless. But the point is that you accepted them from me, which indicates that you found me worthy of the offering.”
“Okay, but what about blood? I haven’t taken your blood.”
“It’s the blood of an enemy, delivered into your hand.” Gallagher’s eyes flashed with what could only have been bloodlust with the memory. “Michael Wallace.” Whom he had, in fact, sent right to my cage.
Shit. “So... I accept your knife and get a champion for life, or I reject it and lose—” Any hope of getting out of Metzger’s. “—you?”
He gave me a single, solemn nod. Despite the multitude of doubts rolling around in my head, I saw no other choice. Without him, even if I escaped, I would never get to the border. And even if I did make it, I would have no way to cross.
“There is no more sacred union among my people, Delilah. I will serve at your side with every beat of my heart and every breath in my body. If you will have me.”
His words—and the righteous hunger fueling them—gave me chills.
I nodded. “Fine. I’ll accept your knife, and with it, your service.” I lifted the knife from his palm, and the next word caught in my throat. “Forever.”
“I swear you will never regret those words.” Gallagher stood with the ease of a much smaller man. “Redcaps are the greatest warriors in the world.” His gray-eyed gaze shone with the first glimpse of true pride I’d ever seen in him. “Once, there were entire armies of us, each pledged to defend the crown we swore loyalty to. We stormed kingdoms and left battlegrounds littered with the bloodless corpses of our enemies. We don’t exist in such large numbers anymore, and I have no crown to serve. Instead, I lay all that I have and all that I am at your feet. Use me well, and ours will be a union spoken of for centuries to come.”
His words were obviously part of some ancient ceremony, but as I listened, I realized they were also true. If I gave the furiae full reign and he ripped people apart to protect me, we would be spoken about, and not just in oral traditions passed down by a fearsome but unknown species of fae. We would make history on television and online, and in any newspapers still being printed.
We would gain twenty-first century notoriety the likes of which he probably couldn’t even imagine.
Humanity would have to see us. They would have to see what they’d done.
“May I hold that for you, until you are free to wear it?” Gallagher asked, and I realized he was staring at his knife.
My knife.
“Oh. Yes, please.” I gave it back to him, and he slid it reverently into its humble sheath.
“How much time do we have left?” I gripped the seat of the metal chair on either side of my thighs, and he glanced at his watch. “A couple of hours until the gates open. Another hour after that before your show. Genni will be gone by then.” He met my gaze with regret. “Tonight Ruyle’s going to use Claudio to force you to perform.”
“But they don’t need to torture anyone! That was the whole point of the Mike Wallace incident.”
“They know you can transmute on your own,” Gallagher explained. “But they don’t know that you will. They’re holding Claudio in reserve, just in case.”
My fist curled around a handful of gray linen. “We can’t let him torture Claudio.”
Gallagher slid the knife back into his backpack. “Even if we could stop him, Ruyle would just replace Claudio with one of the kids from the petting zoo. That was actually discussed this morning, Delilah.”
Anger flared like a bonfire in the pit of my stomach, and bitter irony was fuel for the flames. Lenore had been so sure I could save them, but Geneviève had been hurt because of me, and her father could soon suffer the same fate. They’d both be better off once I was gone, I told myself. But that was a lie, and I damn well knew it.
My escape wouldn’t stop handlers from abusing their authority or management from stripping new acquisitions of their very identities. My absence wouldn’t give the captives better food or more substantial clothing, nor would it free them from chains or cages.
After I left, the menagerie would still load captives in sweltering cargo trucks, where they would be forced to soil themselves. Handlers would still starve, strip, whip, and hose down the captives. They would still put children on display in their underwear. They would still extort sexual favors in exchange for food. And one night, another missing captive might be found wandering down the midway, dripping blood.