Delilah
We hid Pagano’s body beneath Claudio’s bed. Anyone who looked would find it, but it wouldn’t be visible at a glance. The towels that mopped up his blood went into the trash, which conveniently covered Gallagher’s handcuffs with legitimate-looking medical waste.
The hardest part of sneaking out of the infirmary was leaving the rest of the patients behind, but we couldn’t stage a full-scale escape until we’d disabled all the collars and taken out as many of the handlers as possible. As far as I could tell, none of the patients’ injuries were life-threatening. Evidently, Vandekamp considered it more financially feasible to exterminate the mortally wounded than to treat the wounds.
With any luck, most would be able to walk away from the Spectacle under their own power—if and when Gallagher and I could free them.
But without a captured carnival to hide us...
“We need a plan,” I whispered as I led him down a back hallway of the infirmary toward the service entrance, where I’d often seen Eryx unloading supplies during lunch delivery. Hopefully at night, it would be empty.
“I have a plan. Kill them all.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I said as we slipped out the back door into the night. “We need a plan for afterward. We have nowhere to go and no way to get there.”
“If we wait for those things to fall into our laps, we’ll die here, Delilah.”
“And if we don’t have a plan, we’ll die out there.” I pulled him to a stop in the shadows behind the building, acutely aware that the next time a handler did a security check in the infirmary, the whole compound would know we were missing. “In the menagerie, you had a plan. You were calm and smart, and you made balanced decisions. We need some of that tonight.”
“In the menagerie, I spent a year strategizing and laying the groundwork. Here, we have minutes. If they find us before we can deactivate the rest of the collars, we will never leave this place alive. And do you know what they’ll do when they find out about the baby?”
“They already know. That’s why they put me in a private cell. That’s why they’re feeding me better and giving me exercise.”
“They...?” He blinked at me in the dark. “What?”
“Tabitha Vandekamp had me artificially inseminated—while I was unconscious—with her husband’s sperm. She’s infertile, and because I’m genetically human, she’s decided that fate sent me here to give them a baby.”
“Why would they let you be paired with me if they want you to have their baby?”
“Vandekamp didn’t know about it. She wasn’t going to tell him until she knew I was pregnant, but by then, he’d already sent me on other engagements.”
His scowl darkened. “Wait, other engagements? Plural?”
“Just one, other than...you. I can’t remember it. Gallagher, I’m the one who had my memory buried, and I think I did it so you wouldn’t find out about the other...event. Because I knew you’d get yourself killed trying to avenge me.”
“Dying in your service would be an honor.” He sounded almost wistful. “You’re not supposed to choose my well-being over your own.”
“None of that matters now. I had a test a few days ago, to determine the baby’s species. If it’s not human, she’s going to kill it.”
“Meaning...if it’s mine?”
“Yes.” I glanced at my feet on the pavement, barely visible in the dark. Then I made myself look him in the eye. “I know this is weird. I know neither of us asked for this. But...” I didn’t know how to put my conflicted tangle of emotions into words.
“But it’s happening.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“No.” He shook his head firmly. “I apologize. My words were woefully inadequate for what I intended to express. What I mean is that you are the most important thing in the world to me. What you do... I’ve pledged my life to making sure you can do it safely. I will be by your side as long as I have air to breathe and blood to spill, and that’s a stronger vow than any minister or court official has ever presided over. Whether or not the baby is mine, the baby is yours. I will protect him or her with the same vehemence with which I protect you. Which is why I’m getting you—both of you—out of here. Come on.”
He took my arm and tried to guide me deeper into the shadows, but I pulled him back.
I’d been thrown away by every friend I’d ever had, when fate had called me into service, and I’d been so bitter about what life had taken from me that I hadn’t thought to be thankful for what it had given me in return. Twice, I’d been taken in by people who shared no blood with me and owed me nothing. And twice those people—first my parents, then Gallagher—had set aside their own lives to make sure I was cared for.
“Thank you,” I said when he turned to see why I hadn’t moved. “My words are also ‘woefully inadequate,’ but I mean them sincerely.”
Gallagher nodded, accepting my gratitude with the same grave formality with which he approached important events in his life. “Now, we really must go. And we’re damn lucky it’s Sunday.”
“It is?” I’d lost track of the days in isolation, but the empty parking lots we passed as we moved from shadow to shadow supported his declaration. The Savage Spectacle was closed on Sundays, which meant it would be operating on minimum manning until nearly dawn.
We would get no better chance to make our move.
We stuck to the shadows, which Gallagher’s fear dearg heritage let him fade into almost seamlessly, and we were nearly to the main building when we saw the first handler on patrol. He carried a flashlight and an automatic rifle, as well as the usual stun gun and remote control, and while he peered into every shadow, he only walked on the well-lit sidewalk. He didn’t expect to find trouble, because he never had before.
“Stay here,” Gallagher whispered, and before I could argue, he disappeared into the shadows entirely.
A second later, he reached into the light. The guard grunted as he was pulled off his feet and into the dark. His grunt of surprise became a wet gurgle, followed by the gristly sound of ripping flesh. I flinched as something thumped to the ground. An empty, bloodstained shoe tumbled onto the sidewalk.
Then Gallagher was suddenly beside me, holding the dead guard’s remote control and his employee ID, which had a bar code across the bottom. “Will this be of any use?”
“With any luck, it’ll open the door to the control room.”
He huffed. “No door lock has ever kept me out.”
“But plenty of broken door locks have set off alarms. We’ll use the card.”
We headed for the main building, skirting pools of light along the sidewalk to tread in darkness. Gallagher faded into it so well that at times I couldn’t even tell if he was still next to me. The grass beneath my feet was dry and crisp, and sharp in places, with fall in full swing. The night was cold and clear. Every breath seemed to invigorate me, and the fact that I couldn’t be paralyzed or shocked into compliance gave me more confidence in our mission than I probably should have had.
At the back of the building, I used the dead guard’s ID to unlock the door, and we stepped inside, traversing the marble silently on bare feet. “Where’s the control room?” Gallagher whispered.
I led the way down one dark hallway and into another, avoiding cameras as much as possible, until we stood outside the locked control room door. “You can’t kill whoever’s in here,” I whispered, as I held up the stolen ID card. “We need him to disarm all the other collars.”
“You mean I can’t kill him until he’s disarmed the other collars.”
I nodded because that was as much of a compromise as I was going to get out of Gallagher. We’d taken over the menagerie with minimal blood spilled, but that wouldn’t be possible at the Spectacle, in part because we weren’t merely taking it over.
We were putting it out of business.
“I need you to get ahold of the guard before he can raise an alert. Ready?”
Gallagher nodded.
I held the ID badge beneath the scanner built into the wall. The door beeped softly, and there was a metallic scraping sound as the bolt slid back. I opened the door just as the guard swiveled toward us in his chair.
Gallagher rushed past me. The guard’s eyes widened. He tried to stand, but Gallagher grabbed him by the neck and lifted him six inches off the floor. “Delilah, confiscate his devices.”
While the guard clawed at Gallagher’s hand, trying in vain to breathe, I plucked the pistol, stun gun and remote control from his belt, then pulled the communication headset from his head and turned it off.
Gallagher set the guard down, and as the man bent over, coughing and gasping I saw that his name tag read Petit.
“Petit,” I said, as Gallagher pushed the door closed behind us. “If you want to live, sit down at your desk and disable the collars.” No need to tell him that cooperating wouldn’t actually save his life.
“How did you get in here?” he gasped, rubbing his throat.
“Disable the collars,” Gallagher growled. “Now.”
Petit took a step back and bumped his chair, which rolled toward the console. “Which ones?”
“All of them.” I glanced at the wall full of live camera feeds, watching for any sign that Pagano’s body had been discovered. “Turn them all off.”
The guard glanced nervously from me to Gallagher, then back. “I can’t.”
“Bullshit,” Gallagher growled.
“No, seriously. It doesn’t work that way, for this very reason. It’s a fail-safe. I can turn them off one at a time, but not all at once. And turning off more than three in a five-minute period sets off an alarm.”
“We don’t have time for that.” Gallagher glanced around at the equipment. “I’m just going to smash it all.”
“Wait,” I said, when Petit made no objection. “That’ll set off an alarm too, won’t it?”
He shrugged. “Probably.”
“Okay, we can’t turn off all the collars at once, and we don’t have time to do them individually.” I paced the length of the small room, while Gallagher stood over Petit. “And we can’t smash the system. So...” I turned and looked up at the guard. “Can you shut the system down? Just...turn it off?”
Petit shrugged, but the brief, slight dip in his brows was telling. “I don’t think so.”
“He’s lying,” I said.
Gallagher picked him up by the throat again. “Turn it off,” he demanded, while Petit clawed at his hand again, feet kicking ineffectually. “And if you trigger an alarm, I will make sure that you die very slowly.”
He let Petit down, and the guard sank into his chair, coughing and gasping again.
I stood over him while he worked, watching every keystroke, unsure that I’d recognize an alarm if he raised one. Gallagher watched the video monitors.
After a couple of minutes and several open windows on the screen in front of him, Petit found a software menu with a shutdown option. But he hesitated to click it.
“Do it.” I laid one hand on his shoulder—a silent threat—and he flinched. Then he clicked the command.
A box popped up, demanding an administrator password.
“Damn it.”
“What?” Gallagher glanced down at the screen. “Are you an administrator?” he asked.
Petit shook his head. “I’m just the night guard.”
“So, what, you have to wake someone up every time there’s a glitch or an update?” I demanded.
Petit’s brows dipped again, and his gaze flicked to the left for a second before dropping to the ground. He was a terrible liar.
I looked to the left, searching for whatever he’d automatically glanced at.
A row of shelves full of technical manuals. Those would take forever to search. A pod-based coffee system. A folding metal chair, with a jacket draped over the seat.
Bingo. I grabbed the jacket—clearly his—and searched the pockets. They were all empty. Then I noticed the employee ID clipped to the front. I flipped it over. Written on the back in block letters was an eight-digit code comprised of four letters, two numbers and two other symbols.
“Got it.” I unclipped the badge and rolled Petit out of the way, then typed the password into the box.
“Don’t do this,” Petit begged. “You’re going to get a lot of people hurt.”
“No,” Gallagher growled. “We’re going to get a lot of people killed.”
I clicked Enter. The window disappeared, and another one popped up, asking if I was sure I wanted to shut down the system. I clicked Yes, and a third window popped up, informing me that I had just shut down the system.
Relief flooded me. “We did it.” Every cryptid on the property would be able to fight back, walk through any unlocked door, and use any and all natural abilities.
The odds had been evened.
I looked up at Gallagher with a triumphant smile.
Then the remote controls I’d stolen from Pagano and Petit began to flash red. They made a single high-pitched beeping sound. Then they powered down automatically.
Petit laughed, and I realized that every remote control on the grounds would be doing the very same thing.
We hadn’t merely shut down the system. We’d announced that we’d shut down the system.
We’d just raised the alarm ourselves.