A minute later, he reemerged from the shadows around the huge trash bin and waved the rest of us forward with one finger pressed to his lips. We filed out of the van as quietly as we could and rounded the dumpster just as Gallagher twisted the back door’s knob so hard and fast that the lock snapped. Yet the door remained closed. So he pulled, hard, and metal groaned as the dead bolt ripped free, warping the frame.
The door swung open, revealing an unlit back hallway tiled in sterile white. Several doors lined the hall, spaced far apart and labeled with thin plastic plaques on the wall.
Halfway down, another hallway bisected the first one at a ninety-degree angle.
“Two groups,” Gallagher whispered. “We’ll take the right side.” He gestured to me and Zyanya. Which left Eryx and Claudio in the other group. “You take the left. Be quiet and on alert. If you find any security or custodial staff, disable them as quietly as possible and come find us.”
Eryx nodded. Then he gave the first doorknob on the left side of the hall a fierce twist. Something snapped, and the door swung open.
Gallagher broke open the first door on the right side, then he took a single step into the darkened room. I could tell from his stiff posture that he was scanning for threats with eyes that could see much better in the dark than mine could.
From within the room came a soft shuffling sound that could have been anything from boots against carpet to wings unfolding. I heard a soft snort, then a whine. But Gallagher’s posture registered no threat.
When he’d decided the room was safe, he flipped on the lights and stood back to let us in, while the soft chorus of shuffles and unidentifiable sounds swelled.
The fluorescent lights were still warming up to their true brightness when I stepped into the room, and the momentary flicker deepened the ominous feel of the space full of sterile tables and...animal cages.
“Oh my God,” I whispered as I glanced over walls lined in waist-tall cages, stacked two-high all over the room. Returning my gaze through wire mesh pens were young nine-tailed foxes, griffin kittens and several infant multiheaded Cerberean hounds—more commonly known as hellhounds. They were each small enough to fit into three-foot tall cages, sometimes two to a pen, and too young to be dangerous, beyond biting in self-defense. “They’re experimenting on hybrids. Onbabies.”
On infants of the cryptid beast category not protected by the ASPCA because they were combinations of two or more biological classes, rather than the more closely related “natural” genus or species hybrids like the liger or mule.
Zyanya gave me a skeptical look. “Why does that surprise you? They’ve been puttingourbabies in cages for decades. Why would you think they’d have any more empathy for creatures without a human face?”
She was right, of course. But I hadn’t given much thought to cryptids living in laboratories, after all the atrocities I’d seen on the carnival and private collection side of legal captivity. And I’d had no idea they would experiment on the young.
“We should let them out.”
“I wish we could,” Gallagher whispered, scowling out at the entire room. “But we can’t take them with us, and if we set them free, they’ll only be recaptured. Or shot on sight.” I knew he’d struggled with the same dilemma when he was undercover as a handler at Metzger’s Menagerie, where I’d met him. Where he’d been put in charge of my “training.”
What I didn’t know was how he’d survived the guilt.
“I shouldn’t have come.” I ran one hand over my stomach as the baby squirmed, and now when I looked over the room, all I could see was our child, alone, naked and suffering inside one of those cages. Screaming for parents unable to get to her. “I can’t stand this.”
Zyanya stepped in front of me and captured my tear-filled gaze with a hard one of her own. “We help those we can help. That’s always been the way. And right now, the only ones we can help are Miri and Lala. So channel your grief. Focus your anger. Let’s get this done.”
Again, she was right.
I nodded and blinked away my tears, struggling to get control of my emotions. “They’re not in here. Let’s move on.” I wasn’t going to make it if I kept staring at creatures I couldn’t help.
“Just a minute.” Zyanya headed for a huge plastic tub marked Food at the far end of the nearest lab table. She opened the tub and pulled out a large scoop full of dry, nearly scentless pellets, similar to the ones Metzger’s had fed Eryx by the pound. Then she went from cage to cage, folding down the built-in food trays and filling them.
The snorts and growls around us began to quiet as the young beasts eagerly devoured their extra meal.
Gallagher headed for the food container and took out one handful at a time to help her, and when I realized what he was doing, I joined in.
At the last cage, the lion head of a young chimera pressed up against his cage, trying to get to my hand. Desperate for any kind physical contact.
Sniffling, I dumped my handful of food into his tray and folded it back into his cage. Then I fled the room.
Gallagher caught up with me in the hall and slid in front of me before I could try the next doorknob. I let him snap the lock and push the door open, and after he’d assessed the danger and turned on the light, he led Zyanya and me into another room just like the one before, except that these cages were larger and fewer. They held adolescent and adult versions of the captives in the other room, in cages that were small enough to count as cruelty.
“Gallagher, we have to let them go. They’re old enough to fend for themselves. And they deserve the chance to try.” I shrugged. “Even if they get shot, they might find dying in freedom preferable to living in cages.”
“She’s right,” Zy said, eyeing a thin hellhound whose two heads looked almost skeletal.
“Agreed. But they’re scared and hungry. Animals in that state will lash out at anyone, and I won’t risk either of you.” His gaze dropped to my swollen belly. “Besides, if we let them out now, they’ll draw attention to the lab before we’ve found Miri and Lala. Once we have the oracles and you’re all in the van, ready to flee, I’ll let the grown beasts out myself. They’re on their own from there.”
“Thank you.” I stood on my toes to give him a hug, and he tensed beneath my touch for a second before returning it.
