“Does that include me?”
Gallagher frowned. “I guess we’ll find out. I’ll bring earplugs, just in case.”
“Thanks. What time do the gates close tonight?”
“Eleven,” he said.
My pulse spiked at just the thought of what we were about to attempt. “So we should start introducing the staff to Raul and Renata around...what, 2:00 a.m.?”
He nodded. “That should work. With any luck, by the time the sun rises, you’ll be a free woman.”
* * *
That night, they gave me a real talker and a bigger tent, which was open across the front so the crowd could spill out onto the midway. Alyrose had dressed me all in black and applied sparkly, scrolling black makeup, which, she’d assured me, would only enhance my “natural look,” once I’d “become the monster.”
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, when Freddie—chest hair still poking from the unbuttoned top of his Metzger’s polo—pulled me out of the dental chair to haul me out of Alyrose’s trailer. The makeup artist had left my hair down in a wild tumble of dark waves so they would be free to twist on their own later. She’d emphasized my newly hollow cheekbones and enlarged my eyes with several shades of powder and lots of blending. The sequined costume hid my visible ribs, yet emphasized my narrow waist. Alyrose had given me the kind of dangerous, ethereal beauty both sirens and succubi were born with, and I hardly recognized myself.
Yet the beast within me stirred, content with what she saw and eager to add to the effect.
A sheet of canvas was draped over my cage when they opened my tent, so I could be revealed with a splash at the appropriate time. I could hear chatter from the audience. I could smell their popcorn and corn dogs, their beer and their sweat. I could feel their excitement.
It was hard not to hate every single one of them.
“We don’t know what she is yet,” the talker called from outside my tent. “But we know what she can do, and you do not want to miss one of the most dramatic transformations in the cryptid kingdom!”
That was a flat-out lie. The phoenix bursting into flames, then rising from his own ashes—that was dramatic. The shifters taking on two completely different forms—three, in the berserker’s case—that was dramatic. My bloodshot eyes, long nails, and crazy hair didn’t really compare.
However, I took a certain amount of petty satisfaction from the fact that Gallagher and most of my fellow captives knew what I was, while the rest of the staff did not.
When the sheet of canvas slid off my cage, the audience and I stared at each other, but they seemed...disappointed. Even with the dramatic black makeup and sparkly costume, I looked human.
“She may seem normal now, but you’ve seen the posters,” the talker said, draping the canvas he’d removed from my cage over a folding chair. “Our mystery monster is a sight to behold.”
They’d made posters?
I turned to my left and saw Chris Ruyle standing next to Claudio’s cage, just outside my tent, concealed from both the audience and the midway by a large framed canvas panel, probably printed with an ad for one of the acts. Claudio lay on the ground in wolf form, muzzled so that he could not howl. He wore a nylon harness—a sturdier version of the kind guide dogs wear—which was chained to a tent stake.
Ruyle stood just out of Claudio’s reach, holding an electrical prod, but Claudio didn’t even seem to know he was there. At first I thought the wolf had been sedated, but when he blinked, I saw that his eyes looked clear.
He wasn’t medicated. He was in mourning.
My heart broke for him, but my blood...my blood boiled for him.
I let that anger flow through me unchecked, and the furiae took over from there. My fingers and scalp began to tingle. My vision sharpened until I could see individual hairs on Claudio’s pelt, and when the audience oooohed, I knew that my eyes had changed. Static electricity propelled my hair away from my head, and my throat throbbed with a dull ache even as my fingertips began to burn.
I stared out at the spectators through my cage and found all gazes on me. Mothers held their infants. Fathers clutched older kids’ hands. Teens and single adults were filming with their cell phones, and no one told them to stop.
“Drea, why don’t you turn a circle and give us a good look?” the talker said, his chest all puffed out, as if he’d had something to do with making me perform.
“Fuck you,” I said, nice and clear, in spite of my fuller voice, so everyone could hear.
A couple of teens near the back of the crowd laughed, but the mothers scowled and covered their children’s ears.
“Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen,” the talker called with an amiable chuckle. “Most of our exhibits were born and raised in the carnival, and they hear a lot of rough language.”
“Most of our handlers are full of shit,” I added, drawing more laughter from the back of the crowd. “I learned to cuss the same place all of your kids did. In middle school.”
I’m pretty sure my online debut went viral.
* * *
Because I drew a pretty big crowd, Ruyle kept me on display until shortly before the main gate closed, and for the first time since I’d been sold into the menagerie, I was one of the last to make it back to wagon row.
My pulse raced for the entire two hours it took the staff to get everything sealed up and put away for the night, and I couldn’t have fallen asleep if my life had depended on it.
By 1:00 a.m., by my best guess, the independent contractors had packed up their rides and booths and moved on toward their next stop, and most of the circus performers, handlers, and roustabouts had retired to their trailers and campers.
Over the next half hour or so, I watched the Metzger’s employees’ lights go out one by one. After that, there was nothing left to do but measure the passing seconds in the snores and grunts of trolls and ogres.
When Gallagher finally stepped silently out of the shadows, I was so startled I nearly screamed.
“You ready?” he whispered, pulling his key ring from the loop on his belt.
“I’ve never been more ready for anything in my entire life.”
He unlocked the cage and helped me down, and when I stepped onto the grass unfettered, my heart pounded so hard I was afraid it would wake every shifter on wagon row.
“Let’s go,” he whispered, and I followed him through the unlocked rear gate and across the darkened menagerie into the empty hybrid tent, where a single pole-mounted light remained lit. Gallagher knelt to pick up a bag stowed just inside the entrance. “I had to guess at your size. Alyrose’s clothes looked like they’d be the best fit.”
I reached into the bag and pulled out a red Metzger’s polo and a pair of jeans. At the bottom of the bag was a pair of black hightop sneakers.
“In the dark, if we put your hair up, I don’t think anyone will recognize you.”
He was right, but that had less to do with the dark than with the fact that no one on staff would ever expect to find me uncaged, unchained, and dressed like a normal human being.
Alyrose’s shirt and jeans were loose, but by some miracle, her shoes fit me perfectly. When I was dressed, Gallagher led me across the hybrid tent toward the special canvas room adjoining it, where several of the rarer cryptid hybrids—including the minotaur—were displayed during operating hours.
My friends and I hadn’t made it that far during our tour the day I’d been exposed.
“Let me know immediately if you start to feel strange at all,” Gallagher said, and when I nodded, he pushed open the tent flap and gestured for me to precede him inside.
Eryx had already been returned to wagon row, but the other two acts spent all of their time, except during transit, in that canvas room, and once I saw them, I understood why.
The largest of the two mermaids c
ouldn’t have been longer than four and a half feet, and maybe weighed eighty pounds, at most. Yet despite their small stature, if I’d come across them in the wild, they would’ve been more than enough to keep me out of the water.
Isla and Havana had webbed hands, scales climbing the sides of their necks, and bulbous eyes on either side of pointy, fishlike faces. The mermaids had human mouths and noses, along with a set of gills just below their ears. Though they were clearly able to breathe both in and out of water, only a few inches of air stood between the surface of the water and the tank’s covering, and there was too little space inside the tank for them to do more than slowly circle each other, their long seaweed-like hair floating around their faces.
“Delilah,” Gallagher called, and when I reluctantly tore my gaze from the poor mermaids, I found him waiting for me next to the other, even larger tank. A young man and woman, each about the size of a human twelve-year-old, sat on Plexiglas benches built into the aquarium, near the open top, their bare human feet dangling in the water. “This is Raul.” Gallagher gestured to the man. “And this is his sister, Renata.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, trying not to notice the fact that they were completely nude, and fully mature, despite their size.
Raul grinned. “Encantado,” he replied, and when Renata laughed, I realized he’d made a pun out of the greeting.
Their age was difficult to determine because their pale skin was flawlessly smooth and completely hairless. And like the dolphins they would become the minute they were submerged in water, each had a small blowhole—vestigial, in human form, if I remembered correctly—at the top of his/her smooth, bald head.
“Gallagher says you’re to thank for clearing our minds,” Renata said, and after hearing her voice, I decided she was a little older than my original guess. “To what do we owe the pleasure, of both lucidity and your company?”
I shrugged. “We’re staging a coup, and we need your help.”
Raul’s bright blue eyes widened and he turned to Gallagher. “Is she serious?”
Gallagher nodded. “But first, we need to know whether or not you can enchant her.”
“We can’t,” Renata said, and when I shot a suspicious glance her way, she shrugged. “I’ve been trying to make you cluck like a chicken since you walked into the room.”
“What are you?” Raul asked.
“Human.”
He frowned and pulled himself up on the edge of their tank, his arms dangling on the outside while his feet kicked gently in the water. “What else?”
“She’s a furiae,” Gallagher said. “We don’t—”
“And what are you?” Renata demanded, leaning forward on her Plexiglass bench for a better look at him. She’d just discovered that Gallagher—whom she’d been too sedated to try to enchant before—wasn’t human either.
“He’s a redcap.” I propped both hands on my hips and stared up at them. “Look, if you’re on board, we need to get—”
“On board?” Raul repeated, and I wondered if they were ever going to let me complete a sentence. “You’re asking us?”
“If we were ordering you, this wouldn’t be much of an emancipation,” I pointed out. “No chains. No cuffs. No sedatives. We want you to voluntar—”
Renata’s hairless brows rose. “If this is truly our choice, what’s to stop us from just walking out of here right now?”
“The fact that on your own, you’ll almost certainly be caught, and probably shot on sight.” Because few humans would be willing to get very close to them. “However, if you help us, we can guarantee you full citizenship in a sultanate south of the border. The deal’s already in place. But we need you to help us take the menagerie.”
Renata turned to her brother, and for a moment, the encantados only stared at each other. Then she shrugged, and he returned the gesture, and as one, they turned back to us. “How can we help?” Raul asked.
It took serious effort to conceal my excitement. “By doing what you do best...”
* * *
We got Raul situated in the small canvas room with two folding metal chairs, which—he insisted—were all he needed. He didn’t even want any clothes. I set up two more chairs for Renata in the main hybrid tent, just outside the red circus ring, where the wagons would have been on display during business hours.
When everything was ready, Gallagher headed into the employee lot to get the first staff member, while I went back to wagon row to recruit some help.
“Eryx,” I whispered, standing next to the first cage in line—a reinforced steel crate mounted on a custom heavy-duty wagon base. The minotaur’s cage didn’t have a fancy frame because during exhibition hours, he stood for hours on end chained to a tent stake in the ground.
“Eryx,” I whispered again, and the bull snorted, startled out of whatever dreams made his thick human fingers twitch. His eyes opened and slowly focused, and when I was sure he recognized me, I smiled and put one hand on the corner of his cage. “How would you like a permanent change of address?”
I held up Gallagher’s key ring, and the minotaur’s eyes widened. “Shhh...” I said while I unlocked his crate, and he peered out into the dark, on the lookout for trouble. “We’re letting the staff know that they’re no longer needed, and we could use your help.”
I led him—unchained, possibly for the first time in his life—to the back of wagon row. Several of the other captives twitched or rolled over in their sleep, but they were accustomed to sleeping when and where they could, and if any of them woke up, I couldn’t tell.
At the end of the row, I asked Eryx if he would be willing to help, and in response, he harnessed himself to my empty wagon, eagerness shining in his brown human eyes.
On the way to the hybrid tent, I caught movement in the shadows to one side of the deserted midway and froze, one hand on Eryx’s arm to bring him to a silent halt. A second later, Gallagher stepped out of the shadows, flanked by two large handlers in jogging shorts and tees they’d obviously slept in. I couldn’t hear what he was telling them, but as per the plan, it sounded urgent.
When they disappeared into the hybrid tent, I waited several seconds, then tapped Eryx’s shoulder. “I think we’re good.”
We followed them inside just in time to see Gallagher lead the second handler into the small canvas room. The first sleep-groggy handler stood in the middle of the main tent, hands clasped at his back, as if he were waiting for an important meeting to start.
“Come on in, David,” Renata said, and the man in shorts jumped, startled, as if he hadn’t seen her sitting right in front of him. “Have a seat.” She waved one hand at the folding metal chair facing hers, and I watched, amused, while David sat, his spine straight, picking nervously at his fingernails.
“Is something wrong, Mr. Metzger?” he asked, staring right at the encantado.
“Unfortunately, I have to let you go today,” Renata said, and the handler frowned, his mouth already open to object. “It’s nothing you did. This is a budgetary issue. We’re making cutbacks in every department.”
“But I’ve been with the menagerie for three years!” David cried, and I wondered what he was seeing. Did he think he was in the silver wagon, staring across one of the metal desks at old man Metzger?
“And I’m sure you’ll find work with another outfit in no time. I think you’ll find that if you head out immediately, you’ll miss the morning rush hour. Please leave your uniforms and any menagerie property with Gallagher. Best of luck to you, son.” Renata gave him a dismissive nod, then pretended to shuffle papers on a desk that didn’t exist.
Stunned but compliant, David stood and walked out of the tent without even a glance at me or at Eryx, who still stood harnessed to the wagon. When the tent flap fell closed, Renata stood and stretched with her thin pale arms over her bald head, beaming a smile that seemed to take up
the width of her entire face. “Damn, that felt good! How was I?”
“You were incredible.” Far better than I’d had any reason to expect from a cryptid who’d spent most of the past few years in a medicated stupor. “He thinks he was let go?”
“He was let go. By the old man himself, in his office. The images were already in his memory. I just had to dig them out and project them for him,” she explained, and suddenly I understood why Renata and her brother spoke more like my former, human friends than like most of the other captives—even sedated, they were inundated by thoughts and images from the minds of every human they saw. “Right now, David wants nothing more than to drive his camper back to Alabama and park it in his ex-wife’s driveway until she agrees to take him back.”
“That’s brilliant, Renata!” I couldn’t believe how well the plan had worked.
“I hear this whole thing was your idea,” she said, as I helped Eryx out of his harness.
I shrugged. “We couldn’t do it without you. Or you,” I added, turning to Eryx, who blinked at me in acknowledgment. “Okay, two employees down, many still to go. It’s going to be a long night.” Yet it was already the best night of my entire life.
“Hey, what’s going on?” a voice called from behind me, and I spun to see Abraxas standing in the entrance, holding the loose canvas flap back. His eyes widened when he recognized me, in spite of my Metzger’s uniform, and before I could stop him, he turned and took off down the midway, headed straight for the employee lot.
“Damn it! Gallagher!” I yelled over my shoulder. Then I raced into the dark after a terrified kid armed with knowledge that could derail our plans before we’d even gotten them off the ground.
Abraxas
His heart pounding like thunder in his chest, Abraxas Lasko raced up the aluminum camper steps and hammered on the door with his fist. When he got no response after two seconds, he glanced into the dark around him, on alert for any movement from the shadows, then banged on the door again.
“What?” Chris Ruyle yelled from inside. “It’s two-thirty in the morning!”