Inhuman

29

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.

I pulled my dial out of my maid’s dress and pressed record. If I died tonight at least there would be a record of what happened, though I doubted anyone would ever see it.

“All right, girls,” Mahari purred, tipping her head toward the handlers by the gate. “Let’s get feral.”

The other queens extended their claws and roared in answer. The sound sent an electric current down my spine. The handlers whipped around to peer at the enclosure. In the split second it took them to realize that the queens were free, the lion-women sprinted for them with long effortless strides. Deepnita flung one into the air. He landed on the coiled barbed wire on top of the fence, where he thrashed and screamed. Neve took the other down, laughing as she straddled his back, her blond hair spilling around his head. “He’s a big one.”

“Play later,” Mahari ordered. She vaulted over Neve and threw open the gate.

With a quick twist, Neve snapped the handler’s neck. She rose and dashed after the others. I ran after them as well, but they were too fast for me. I raced onto the street and nearly fell over when two figures stepped from the shadows. Dromo and the Pekingese-maid named Penny stared after the bounding lionesses.

“The queens …” Dromo gasped and dropped the shovel he’d been holding. “What have you done?”

“I set them free.” I lifted my chin, daring him to berate me, but then I noticed the mound of freshly turned dirt behind them. My breath caught. “Cosmo?” When Dromo nodded, I flinched and very nearly bolted. But I wouldn’t let myself run away from Cosmo. Couldn’t. I dragged my wet palms down my dress and ventured closer to the small unmarked grave.

“The queens will … They’ll” — Penny dropped her voice to a whisper — “go after the handlers. They’ll kill them all.”

“They’ll try,” Dromo agreed. “We have to tell the others.”

I sank beside the mound of fresh earth, pulled down by the heaviness in my chest, and began patting the loose soil into place.

“With the queens free, we have a chance,” Dromo went on, his voice rising. “More than a chance.” I glanced back to see him unbuckle his collar. “We serve no more,” he declared and threw his collar to the ground. Penny dropped hers too, though with less fire.

I gave the dirt one last pat. “I’m so glad I got to know you,” I whispered to the small mound. “Good-bye, Cosmo.”

I rose and cut past the others. “Good luck.”

“Where are you going?” Dromo asked.

“The zoo.”

“You can’t,” he sputtered. “The queens have gone to free their followers — friends and family who were rounded up and infected after each divorce. No human will make it out of there alive.”

I stared at him, aghast. “Rafe!” I took off running for the bridge.

“Wait!” Dromo shouted, but I didn’t.

When I reached the bridge that crossed the Chicago River, I heard a clatter of wheels behind me. I turned to see the bull-man, Irving, trotting up with the rickshaw. “Dromo sent me,” he said. “I can get you there faster.”

“Thank you.” I scrambled onto the padded seat and felt no guilt about being hauled around by a manimal this time. Nor did I feel guilty to see that the queens had taken down the guards who patrolled the gate.

When we arrived at the south entrance to the zoo, Irv stopped the rickshaw by an iron fence. I climbed down, feeling shaky. “Will you wait for me?”

“You can’t go back to the castle.”

“I have to. A hovercopter is going to pick us up off the roof.”

He shook his immense head. “You’d never make it to the roof. Tonight we’re declaring war on the handlers. The smartest thing a human can do is stay away from the castle. Better yet, get out of Chicago for good.”

“But I have another friend who’s still in the castle.”

“Then you better pray for him.” Irv dropped the rickshaw poles and strode back toward the compound.

I slipped past the freestanding cages inside the entrance, which contained mongrels, each stranger than the last. I slunk up the brightly lit path toward the stone animal houses in the main part of the zoo. It was all so quiet. Maybe Mahari and the other lion-women had run off and not caused the distraction as promised or even freed their followers as Dromo had predicted.

I arrived at a row of cages along the outside wall of the primate house. Each enclosure contained at least one person, all in advanced states of mutation. Some growled as I hurried past, others hunkered down, moaning and rocking. Most were wild-eyed and foamy-mouthed — well into stage three of Ferae. A girl with spines down her back gnawed on her fist and licked off the blood. A dark figure hurtled out of the shadows of the next enclosure to mash his bumpy face against the steel wires. “Taaassste.” He grabbed for me. I whipped away, feeling hot claws drag over my back.

In the next cage, a ghostly woman crouched. She was completely hairless — nothing on her head, no eyebrows, no lashes. Her skin was so white, her veins showed through. She scratched her fingernails across the cement floor. “Why are you here?” she rasped.

She could talk. Good. “Which one of these buildings is the one they call the feral house?” I asked.

“Let me out and I’ll take you.” She rose on twisted legs, her eyes glinting.

“I’ll find it myself.” I moved on.

“The lion house,” she called after me. “That’s where the king keeps the most feral of us all.”

I turned back. Did I believe her?

“De nada,” she said with a flick of her forked tongue. I broke into a run.

The infected people paced alongside me as I passed their cages. They were so mutated and animalistic, they barely looked human. If Rafe had been shoved into a cage with one of them, given the battered state that he was in, he’d never be able to defend himself.

Voices came from around the bend. I ducked behind a tree, just as a group of handlers appeared, along with several hyboars. I scrambled up the back of the tree and perched on a thick branch, praying that the hyboars wouldn’t pick out my scent from all the other smells in the zoo.

There was a sharp bark. I twisted on my branch but saw nothing. Then I heard another cry — an animal screech. I crept out farther on my branch and looked down to see Charmaine slinking between the bushes. She was stalking the handlers. More bushes rustled. The handlers jerked to a stop, turning in place as roars welled up around them. Branches cracked as the lion-women burst out of the brush, racing for the handlers.

The men shouted and the hyboars leapt at the lion-women. Mahari raked at a hyboar’s face and sent it skittering back with a canine yelp. Two more lunged at her, squealing with rage. The handlers fired flares into the sky to call for backup. But it was too late. Growling lionesses took them down.

I should have felt sorry for the men, but all the pity had been wrung out of my heart when Cosmo died. The handlers had beaten him to death without a moment’s hesitation. Who knew how many other manimals had suffered at their hands?

The ferals in the nearby cages grew frenzied. Shifting back and forth, they slammed the bars of their cages, scratched at their own flesh, and beat their chests. The lionesses roared and the caged ferals responded in kind. Mahari bent over the dead handlers, plucking keys from their aprons, which she threw to Charmaine and Neve. “Free them all!”

“No,” I yelled, but the word was drowned in the bestial sounds thundering through the zoo. If the queens freed these ferals, Rafe and I would never make it out of the zoo alive.

The lion-women raced from cage to cage, unlocking them faster than I could follow with my eyes. The most savage ferals pounced from their enclosures while the timid hung back.

More handlers and hyboars ran up the path. They must have seen the flares. A wolf-man launched himself at the handler in the lead. The handler aimed his gun at the creature and pulled the trigger. The gun jumped in his hands, yet the wolf-man was upon him, ripping the gun away as his jaws closed on the man’s face. He whipped him from side to side. The handler went limp and the feral dropped him, threw back his head, and howled.

And then he noticed me.

He bounded for my tree and leapt into the air, trying to catch hold of my foot. I drew up into a crouch on my branch as the wolf-man jumped at me again, his eyes red with hate. But this time when he dropped, he collapsed on the ground in a heap. His clawed hand moved over his ribs and then stilled. Blood seeped under his fingers and his hand fell away, revealing the gunshot wound in his chest.

I dropped out of the tree and took a path that the lionesses hadn’t. I ran in a mindless haze, ignoring the searing pain in my calf. I paused when I heard a shrill chittering. A hunchbacked, rodenty-looking man jumped down from an ancient carousel and ran at me. I screeched at him and he veered off.

I whirled to try another path but a large brick building loomed before me. Mosaic lions decorated either side of the arching glass door. The feral house! The queens had said that the handlers would put Rafe in the enclosure outside or the small cage inside.

I tried the outside first, rounding the corner to peer into the cage that ran the length of the building. I crept along the bars, searching for any sign of Rafe, but the enclosure had been landscaped with trees and rocky ledges. The streetlamps on the path cast strange shadows, making it hard to tell what lay beyond the bars. I brightened my dial, which was still recording.

Gunfire rattled somewhere close by, followed by men’s screams. I’d reached the door of the cage, but had seen no sign of life inside … which didn’t mean that something wasn’t hiding within the greenery. And then I noticed the form huddled on the ground by a trickling waterfall. It was Rafe — eyes closed, his skin gleaming with moisture. Was it from the splashing waterfall or was he sweating out a fever? I pressed against the bars. “Rafe,” I whispered as loud as I dared.

He didn’t so much as twitch. Oh no, I thought. No. Please don’t let him be infected! “Rafe, please wake up.” He wouldn’t lie to me. He’d tell me if he’d been bitten. “Rafe!”

The bushes across the path rustled as the branches were thrust aside. It was the blond handler, drenched in blood, his eyes wide and terrified. He staggered toward me but then something dark sprang from the bushes and brought him down with a snarl.

I jammed the key into the cage door, unlocked it, flew inside, and slammed the door behind me. I’d rather take my chances in here than out there. I hurried across the enclosure to where Rafe lay on his back by the man-made creek at the base of the waterfall. His tux jacket was gone, his silk tie undone, and his shirt, ripped and damp, clung to his body. All the color had drained out of his face. I could see that even in the dark. And worst of all, he was so still.

“Rafe,” I said hoarsely. I dropped to my knees and touched his face. His skin was warm, but not on fire. I gave him a gentle shake. If he didn’t wake up, how was I going to get him out of here? I could drag him through the cage door but then what? I’d never be able to carry him through the zoo without the ferals catching our scent. “Rafe, you have to wake up.”

He swallowed and then whispered a single word: “Run.”

He was conscious! “Where are you hurt?”

His eyes fluttered open. “Run,” he croaked, more urgent.

“Not without —”

A clawed hand sliced through the waterfall and clamped on to my wrist. I screamed.

“I knew you wouldn’t leave him behind.” Chorda unfolded from the crevice behind the curtain of water, dragging me up with him. “Your humane heart wouldn’t let you.”

Reeling back, I twisted and scratched at his hand, but he pulled me closer still. I flew at his face and ripped the bandage from his head. With a roar, he released me. I staggered back with the bloody gauze in hand. His right ear was gone, eaten by weevlings, leaving only mangled skin and gristle. Bile burned my throat. Spinning, I ran for the cage door, but he got there first. I bit back a cry.

Chorda smiled, his long canines appearing yellow in the lamplight. “Look at us, together again.”

“Is Rafe infected?” My words came out ragged. “Did you bite him?”

“Shouldn’t you worry about what I’m going to do to you?”