Page 12 of A Malicious Menagerie
I flush and mutter, “He told me to fuck off.”
He chuckles, like this is all justsoamusing. “Learned that one from me. Got sick of him jabbering at me.”
The nerve of this asshole. “Talking,not jabbering. Trying to communicate with you in his language, and picking up on our language along the way. With that kind of intelligence, you’re really going to stand there and try to convince me that keeping a person captive isn’t wrong?”
John’s humor fades and is replaced by indignation. “I just told you, he’s not a person. He’s a fucking horse.”
“Horses don’t talk!”
“Fine,Anna,” he growls, spitting my name like a Mongolian death worm might spit venom, “then what are you gonna do? Petition Mathis to let him go? Free him yourself? I’ll tell you right now, he’s not going to fit in the back seat of the company car. I’ll also tell you that Mathis will chew you up and spit you out if you turn on him. Heownsyou now.”
“No one ‘owns’ me,” I hiss scathingly.
He only smirks. “You keep thinking that, and you’re only going to end up getting yourself in trouble. Let me guess—your mommy or daddy is neck-deep in debt?” I don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer, but he continues anyway. “What do you think will happen to mommy or daddy if you double-cross your billionaire boss?”
I grit my teeth so hard I’m at risk of cracking a molar, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that he’s right. I signed a contract and, on top of that, an NDA, so I can’t even go to anyone for help with this. And while I can quit the job (with two weeks’ notice, anyway), where does that leave Nan? I’ll be back to square one, looking for a third job to make ends meet.
John must interpret my silence as defeat, and he smirks knowingly. “That’s what I thought. So, if you’re done with your tour, why don’t I teach you how to feed the kraken?”
I don’t bother telling him that I barely even started my tour. I also don’t react to the news that krakens are real and that there’s one hanging out in a landlocked urban warehouse. Honestly, at this point, all I want to do is survive the night and go home. I need to lie in my bed and sort out what the hell I’m going to do now.
Before I follow John, I cast one last look back at the tank. Once again, the only thing that moves is the seaweed as it dances and whirls in unseencurrents, and the only indication that the beast was ever there at all is the smallest scraps of white flesh suspended in the water. Suppressing a shudder, I trot after John and back into the light.
7
The Reason
By the time I drive home in my borrowed car (a silver Lexus, of all things) and climb into bed, I’m an absolute wreck. Every time I close my eyes and try to sleep, I startle awake from nightmares. First, my brain conjures up the vampire, her fangs dripping blood the same color as her eyes. Then, I dream I’m on that ship in the sea serpent’s tank as he pulls it down below the waves. Finally, I see the kraken’s writhing ivory tentacles grabbing hold of the cow carcass we lowered down to it.Albino,John informed me, as if I have any clue what color a kraken should be.
It’s not even noon when I finally give up on sleep and roll out of bed with a defeated sigh. Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way. Maybe I need to tackle the issue head-on, and like all problems, the solution is going to need some information.
Those thoughts are how I find myself staring up at the stately facade of the public library an hour later. I don’t know that I’ve been to the library since high school, and I frown down at the library card I dug out of the back of my wallet. Do library cards expire? I flip the card back and forth, but I can’t find a date. Oh, well. Here we go.
The lobby is cavernous and well-lit by wide skylights, and as I glance at all the hallways branching off the entranceway, I feel more daunted than ever. Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, I cross to the round information desk. Standing behind the wooden desk is a beaming brunette woman, and I feelmy shoulders relax a notch at her welcoming expression.
“Hi there,” the librarian chirps. “How can I help you?”
“Hi. I was looking for some books on mythological creatures.”
The woman tilts her head curiously. “Any in particular?”
“Well…” I hesitate before blurting, “Vampires? And mermaids? Maybe centaurs?”
The woman hums thoughtfully. “Interesting. Are you writing a book?”
“Sure,” I agree, but it’s the wrong response because she frowns thoughtfully. Anxiety trickles into my chest like ice water. Will Mathis know that I came here and asked these very pointed questions? Just what is his reach? And just how much does that NDA cover?
The librarian smiles cheerfully once again, and I tell myself to calm the hell down. Mathis is a man, not some omniscient deity. How could he possibly know that I’m doing research? And besides, what’s wrong with wanting to do a good job? If anything, he should praise me for taking the initiative.
“One moment,” the librarian says, snapping me out of my paranoid spiral. She taps away at her computer keyboard for a couple of minutes before a printer beside her churns out a list of titles. “Here we are,” she says as she collects the page from the machine before handing it to me with a smile. “This list should give you a good place to start. Can I answer any other questions?”
“No, thank you,” I reply, taking the list before hesitating. “Actually, yes: do library cards expire?”
The short answer isyes, library cards do expire, and mine did almost two years ago. After renewing the card, I take the librarian’s list and wander through what feels like miles of bookshelves and dusty stacks. Relearning the Dewey Decimal System feels like stretching mental muscles I never knew I had.
Once my back is stooped under the weight of my research, I drop the books onto an empty table with a sigh and plop myself into the adjoining chair. Looking at the landslide of books over the desk top, I feel incredibly daunted. Still, the best way to dive in is to startsomewhere, so I grab a random encyclopedia and slide it closer before flipping to the index.
I spend the next couple of hours sorting the books into piles that approximate “helpful” and “useless.” I learn about cryptids that I’ve never heard of before, like Fresno Nightcrawlers, the Flatwoods Monster, and the Pennsylvania Squonk. I squint at faded descriptions of harpies, mermaids, and centaurs. Hell, I even read speculation about alligators in sewers, Area 51, and Roswell Greys.
