Half-Off Ragnarok

Twenty

Driving through downtown, returning to an only moderately creepy suburban home

“ALL RIGHT,” said Shelby, once we were back on the road and moving away from the Sarpa household. “Do you want to explain to me how a woman can be married to a cobra? Because I’m afraid that’s where I got lost.”

“Kumari may look like a human woman, but she and Daksha are the same species,” I said. “Wadjet demonstrate extreme sexual dimorphism. Kumari is female, Daksha is male.” That wasn’t necessarily a given. Kumari had more in common biologically with an alligator than she did with either Sarah or Dee. Specifying gender seemed like the safest way to go.

Shelby blinked several times. Finally, she asked, “Is that why the bossy little girl who let us in is always lurking around the reptile house when she thinks you’re not looking?”

“Yes. Her fiancé, Shami, is the zoo’s spectacled cobra. It’s only temporary, until Chandi gets old enough to move into a place of her own. Male wadjet don’t coexist well.” That was an understatement. Male wadjet had a nasty tendency to try to kill each other. “He was placed here shortly after I arrived in Ohio. I figured I could handle his care along with my basilisk breeding program and the fricken survey.”

“What’s a fricken?”

“Uh—little frog with feathers.”

“You have those here?” Shelby sounded delighted.

“We do, and I’ve been researching them in my spare time. I can take you out to see them next time we have a minute to ourselves.”

“Is this part of your research?” Shelby twisted in her seat enough to face me as I drove. “Explain it.”

“It’s boring,” I cautioned.

“I’m dating you,” she countered.

I snorted. “All right,” I began. “We’ve been seeing a dramatic decline in amphibian populations lately . . .”

The explanation of what I was doing with the state’s fricken population took most of the drive home, especially since I’d never tried to discuss the details with another biologist outside my own family. Shelby asked several questions that required actual thought to answer, forcing me to assess my replies more carefully. I finished as we were turning into the driveway.

“All right; let’s go see if your clothes are back from the dry cleaner’s,” I said, reaching for my seat belt. “If not, we can always stop by the Old Navy and pick up something you’ll be more comfortable in before we head for our next step.”

“Hold on,” said Shelby. She hadn’t moved, and was still watching me thoughtfully. “Isn’t the end thrust of your research basically that the discovery of the fricken by mainstream science is inevitable, due to the ongoing decline of the frogs and such?”

“Yes,” I said. “The problem becomes managing that discovery. I can’t be the one to make it. We’d really rather have warning. So that means navigating someone into a position where they can find out that frickens exist without realizing they’ve been managed. This is going to have huge repercussions for the cryptid world. Among other things, it may force the reexamination of a lot of ‘rumors’ that science currently dismisses out of hand.”

“Like snakes with wings,” guessed Shelby.

I nodded. “And fish with fur, and all the other ‘that could never happen’ hybrids. This isn’t going to lead to someone discovering the vegetable lambs or barnacle geese—not yet—but it’s going to open a lot of doors, and if we’re not braced when that happens, things could turn ugly, fast.”

“Sounds fun.” Shelby finally undid her belt and got out of the car. I followed suit, and we walked together up the pathway toward the house. Outside the door, she paused and asked, “Are you sure your grandmother isn’t going to mind me staying with you for a little bit?”

“If she minded, she’d tell you. Grandma is pretty good about mimicking human behaviors—she grew up with humans. But she never quite picked up the habit of social lying. It makes her uncomfortable.” Probably because normal cuckoos are the most dishonest things in the world. Grandma never did like being compared to her relatives.

“Good,” said Shelby, looking relieved.

“Nothing to worry about,” I said, and opened the door. “Grandma? Are you home?”

“I’m in the kitchen,” she called back. I glanced at Shelby, shrugged, and pushed open the kitchen door.

Grandma was sitting at the table, which was covered in a thick layer of financial reports from one of her clients. Most of the people whose accounts she handled were cryptids or otherwise involved with the cryptid world; when it came to accountants, you couldn’t find one who was better with nonhuman spending patterns than my grandmother. She looked up as we approached. “How did it go?” she asked.

“Not too badly; Kumari is going to ask around and see if she can get us more information about who might be trying to hurt us.” I walked past her to the fridge. “How have things been here?”

“Calm. The police came by.”

I nearly dropped my can of V-8. “What?”

“What?” echoed Shelby.

“Don’t worry about it. They know you had nothing to do with any of the current troubles, and they won’t be questioning you again. You could probably commit murder in front of the officers and they wouldn’t notice.” Grandma turned over a piece of paper, studying the back. “You’re welcome.”

I gaped at her, but it was Shelby who spoke, saying, “I thought you weren’t a receptive telepath.”

“Brainwashing is projective, as it turns out. Who knew?” Grandma raised her head and smiled sunnily. “Again, you’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” I said hastily, as I closed the fridge. “Has the dry cleaner called yet? We need to get Shelby into something a little less obtrusive before we break into the zoo.”

“They have, and her clothes are upstairs,” said Grandma. “It’s amazing what a fifty-dollar tip will do for a rush job.”

Shelby’s eyes widened. “I—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Grandma dismissed the matter with a wave of her hand. “If our little arsonist hadn’t burned down your apartment, they might have come after Alex here, and there’s no way we would have been able to get the mice out in time. Consider it hazard pay, and go get your clothes on. I don’t want you getting that skirt dirty.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Shelby, before turning and fleeing the kitchen for the dubious safety of my bedroom.

“She thinks you don’t like her,” I said, opening the V-8. “Brainwashing the police probably doesn’t help, although I think she’ll understand your reasons once she’s done being unnerved.”

“I don’t,” said Grandma, with a shrug. “But you do, and that’s good enough for me, at least for right now. If she hurts you, she’s going to learn the real reason you shouldn’t mess around with cuckoos.” She stood, walking over to ruffle my hair. “It’s nice to see you with a girl of your own species. I want great-grandchildren someday, and let’s face it, you’re my best bet.”

“Grandma!” I said, scandalized.

“What?” She shook her head. “Verity won’t have children as long as she’s dancing professionally, Antimony is . . . well, she’s Antimony and requires special considerations, and even if she completely recovers, Sarah is unlikely to ever get within ten yards of a male Johrlac without screaming her head off.”

“There’s always Artie,” I said.

Grandma sighed. “Oh, believe me, I know there’s always Artie. He called again this morning to find out whether I was ready to have him come for a visit.”

“That might not be such a bad idea,” I said carefully. “Sarah’s more focused lately. Seeing him could be what she needs to pull herself the rest of the way together.”

“Or it could make her fall further apart when she panicked and tried to put herself together without being ready,” said Grandma. She shook her head. “No. Artie won’t be visiting until she can ask for him herself. And even if those two eventually figure things out, they’re not genetically compatible.”

“True.” Artie was a blood relative, half-human, half-incubus. Sarah was well, Sarah. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to jump straight into the baby-making business with Shelby.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Grandma, with a smile. “Either way, she’s good for you. Now go do something illegal and dangerous with your girlfriend.”

“My family did not prepare me to date like a normal human,” I muttered.

Grandma just laughed.

Even closed, the zoo was easy to access; it had its own road, after all, and they couldn’t seal that off from the public. Still, we didn’t want to head down the main drive. We would have been too obvious. I turned off onto one of the maintenance roads as soon as the opportunity arose, driving through the trees as we paralleled the zoo’s rear retaining wall.

“There’s a skeleton crew on the grounds taking care of feeding and vital maintenance and security’s been stepped up, although that’s just going to take it from ‘joke’ to ‘slightly better joke,’” said Shelby, reading from her phone. Management had sent us all an email with the updated schedules and information on the closure. “I’m supposed to be on duty tomorrow to clean out the lion enclosure. Seriously? The zoo’s closed, I’m not even the one doing the feedings, and I still have to change the kitty litter?”

“Do you actually use kitty litter?” I asked, pulling off the road and parking behind a particularly thick copse of oak trees. They would almost completely hide my car from anyone who wasn’t really looking for it. As long as we didn’t somehow trigger a full police sweep, it should be fine here.

Shelby gave me a withering look. “Of course not. It’s a figure of speech.”

“Hey, I don’t look at you like that when you ask dumb questions about snakes,” I said. I got out of the car, easing the door carefully closed behind me. The forest was quiet; out here, a slammed door could echo like a gunshot.

“I don’t ask dumb questions about snakes,” she protested. “I’m Australian. We’re born knowing more about snakes than you will ever learn.”

“Uh-huh.” I crouched down, studying the loam around the car. “I don’t see any cockatrice tracks here. We should be safe, for the moment. Put on your glasses, okay? I really don’t want to explain to your parents that I have no idea where you went.” Explaining her disappearance to the police would be even less fun. Getting involved in a murder investigation after my girlfriend went missing would be a guaranteed way to blow this identity.

“Are you sure these are necessary?” asked Shelby, producing a pair of wire-framed glasses from her pocket and slipping them on. The non-prescription lenses were polarized, and would give her a measure of resistance to petrifaction.

Besides which, maybe I’m shallow, but I’m also a science geek. Shelby in glasses was hot.

“Yes, they’re necessary,” I said, straightening. “You should try not to lock eyes with a cockatrice if you can avoid it, since there’s always the chance that your glasses could be knocked askew or something, but they’ll buy you time. Even if it’s only a few seconds, a few seconds can save your life.”

“All right,” said Shelby.

“Follow me.”

We slunk through the woods parallel to the fence, watching our feet as we tried to minimize the amount of noise that we were making. I grew up in the woods outside of Portland, Oregon, and while I didn’t have Verity’s knack for moving through the landscape like it was just another dance floor, I did all right for myself. Shelby, on the other hand, had a nasty tendency to step on branches and slip on patches of dried leaves, making it very apparent that something was moving through the trees, even if it wasn’t quite clear what. I tried to focus on forging the quietest trail possible, rather than getting angry with her for not knowing the terrain. This wasn’t the kind of forest she’d trained in. Of course she wouldn’t know how to use it to her advantage.

A gnarled old oak pressed up against the fence about two hundred yards from our parking spot. The bricks were warped and bowed around the trunk of the ancient tree, and I estimated that we were less than ten years away from the zoo management needing to make a decision about either removing the tree or rebuilding the fence around it. I hoped they’d decide to keep the tree. It had been there a long time before the zoo showed up.

“This overhangs the alligator enclosure,” I murmured. “This time of day, they’ll either be inside, or they’ll be sunning themselves near the interior fences. We should have a clear shot to the access door.” Better, zoo security was unlikely to come anywhere near the place, since only a suicidal idiot would use this method of breaking in.

Shelby looked at me like I’d just proposed we grow wings and fly into the zoo. “Alligators? That’s your brilliant plan? We climb a tree into a pen filled with alligators?”

“It’s perfectly safe, as long as we’re careful, and don’t drop directly onto a gator’s head or anything.” I reached up and grabbed a low-hanging branch. “You can wait here, if you’d prefer.”

Shelby muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “madman” and climbed after me. I somehow managed not to laugh.

The old oak was broad enough and bent enough that climbing wasn’t difficult; in no time at all, we were inching our way along a branch that extended over the alligator enclosure. It was suddenly very obvious how Chandi had been able to use this method to break into the zoo. I made a mental note to talk to the groundskeepers about cutting this particular branch off the tree, and then dropped down to the soft grass below—

—only to find myself crouching almost nose to nose with Big Ted, the largest of the zoo’s three American alligators. I blinked. He blinked, looking as surprised as I was, in his slow reptilian way. I heard a soft thump as Shelby landed behind me, followed by the sound of her whispering, “Aw, fuck me.”

Evolution has been kind to the alligator. It discovered a form that suited the alligator’s function millennia ago, and rather than forcing the alligator to change, it backed off, leaving a living fossil to prowl the swamps and wetlands of the world. The alligator is the cardboard box of nature: perfect just as it is, and needing no further refinement.

Fortunately for us, that means the alligator is not the sharpest tool in the shed, since it’s never needed to be. I straightened and began backing away, hands raised, less because I thought Big Ted would understand what I was trying to tell him, and more because he’d learned to associate humans with raised hands with a coming mealtime. Sure, promising food I didn’t have to the giant reptilian killing machine was a potentially bad idea, but if he was waiting for me to drop a chicken, he might hesitate before taking a chunk out of my thigh.

Footsteps behind me told me that Shelby was following my lead. Good.

Big Ted appeared to finally finish processing the shock of our presence. He opened his mouth and hissed. It was a horrible, primeval sound, and I was probably going to be dreaming about it for the next few nights.

“Shelby,” I said quietly, as I continued to back up, “look behind you. Do you see any other alligators?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t see security, either.”

“That’s good. Do you see the door in the fence over there?”

“Yes.”

“That’s better. All right. American alligators can sprint at a speed of about eleven miles an hour when they really try.” Big Ted was growling now. That was worse than the hissing. I kept backing away, trying to put more distance between me and the massive reptile. “Humans can run much faster when they’re properly motivated. I’m feeling motivated. How about you?”

“I have never been this motivated in my life.”

“Good. On the count of three, run. One, two—”

Big Ted reached a decision: we were a threat to his territory. Jaws open, he lunged forward, aiming for my legs. I jumped backward, feeling my shoulder impact Shelby’s chest, and his mouth snapped shut on empty air.

“Run!” I whirled, putting my back to the alligator—not the most comfortable thing I’d ever been forced to do—and ran like hell for the door. Shelby was two steps ahead of me, not wasting time. Good. Big Ted was annoyed, but he didn’t seem angry yet, and for a well-fed reptile his size, chasing us all the way to the door would be a serious commitment of energy and resources. I was hoping that he would give up before we had to deal with the lock. If not . . .

Humans evolved from monkeys. Maybe it was time for us to put our primate climbing skills to good use.

When we hit the fence, I looked back. Big Ted was still in virtually the same spot, mouth open, staring after us. If alligators could look smug, he did. He had scared away the threat, and he’d done it without needing to put in much of an effort. He was still King Lizard.

“Thanks for that,” I said, half-panting, and turned to open the door. It was a safety model that required a key to open from the outside as a precaution against idiots trying to sneak into the alligator enclosure, but which was always unlocked on the inside, in case one of those idiots actually managed it. “After you.”

“I’m really glad you didn’t say that when we went up the tree,” said Shelby, and stepped out of the enclosure, onto the narrow strip of grass between the chain-link fence and the low stone retaining wall. I followed her, and together we hopped the wall and stepped, unsteadily, onto the walking path beyond.

“I try not to get my girlfriends eaten by alligators,” I said. “I mean, it’s a tidy form of breakup, but it’s so hard to explain to their families.”

Shelby punched me in the shoulder.

“Ow,” I said, rubbing the spot. “What was that for?”

“You dropped me into an alligator pit,” she said. “I don’t think I needed any reason beyond that.”

“Fair enough.” I adjusted my glasses, stealing a look back at Big Ted. He was still in the same place, mouth open, content with his world. I turned to Shelby. “We’re clear on the plan.”

“Check the underbrush for signs of cockatrice, which will look a lot like signs of chicken, only bigger. If I find anything, come find you. If I don’t find anything, come find you. If anyone finds me, tell them that I stopped by to pick up some notes from my office, and I got distracted thinking about whatever it seems like they’re most likely to believe.”

“Right. And if you see the cockatrice?”

“Shoot it.” Shelby’s lips thinned into a hard, uncompromising line. “I’m as fond of conservation as the next girl, but three people are dead, and it’s not an endangered species. It has to go.”

“Right.” I hated sanctioning the death of any cryptid, but a cockatrice in this ecosystem was a ticking time bomb. It wasn’t just killing people: by now, it would be killing rats, mice, and any other small animals that it came across. The cockatrice was innocent: it was just following its instincts. That couldn’t matter anymore. “I have my phone if you need me.”

“Same here,” she said, and stepped forward to give me a quick kiss before she trotted away down the path, her ponytail swinging behind her and flashing golden in the light.

I was pretty sure that I was in love with that woman. I was even more sure that she was going to be trouble, one way or another. Turning, I made my own slower way toward the portion of the zoo that we had reserved for me to search.

Walking through the zoo in broad daylight with no children staring raptly at the animals or demanding answers from their teachers was a surreal experience, like suddenly finding myself in one of those movies where most of the human race has died off overnight. The animals clearly found it as strange as I did, because they were restless, staring at me with their wide, alien eyes as I walked past their enclosures. The Columbus Zoo was built on an open plan, giving each of our residents plenty of space within a semi-natural environment, and it seemed like every one of those residents was out, waiting to watch as I walked by. I split my attention between them and the ground. It was entirely possible that the cockatrice was roosting in the trees of the zebra enclosure, or hiding amongst the flamingos. So I studied them, looking for signs of illness or petrifaction, and I studied the ground, looking for scat or tracks that could lead me to my prey.

The zoo’s claims of enhanced security were either idle boasting or failed to account for people’s tendency to gather around coffee pots and snack machines when not supervised. I didn’t see anyone.

I was halfway through my part of the zoo when I heard frantic quacking up ahead. I broke into a jog. Coming around the curve, I saw one of the many flocks of ducks that inhabited our open-air enclosures clustered on the bank of the artificial pond we provided for the capybara. I came closer. The ducks were directing their fury at the water.

Capybara aren’t great climbers, and they’re not a species that’s particularly interested in escaping from any location that contains food, water, and a lack of predators. I boosted myself over the stone retaining wall and was inside the enclosure without even breaking stride. The ducks, long since accustomed to the presence of humans, ignored me as they kept quacking at the water. I crouched down, peering closer.

If I hadn’t known better, I would have taken the stone drake that was mired in the mud at the bottom of the pond for a particularly well-sculpted bit of garden statuary. I reached in and carefully freed it from the muck, shaking it a little to clear the worst of the mess away before pulling it out of the water. It was frozen in mid-paddle, its legs fully extended, as if it had been swimming when it met the cockatrice’s deadly gaze.

The ducks continued to squawk and complain around me, although my presence seemed to be calming them somewhat. Humans brought bread and other tasty things. Humans might throw rocks or kick, but they never really hurt ducks. Humans were safe.

“Sorry, guys,” I said to the ducks, straightening up as I continued to study the petrified drake. I couldn’t tell how long ago the petrifaction had been complete; the drake was smaller than either a human or a lindworm, so the process wouldn’t have taken long. Death would have been virtually instantaneous. I’d need to crack the drake open to know whether the entire thing was stone, or whether it was still flesh inside, but that wouldn’t tell me anything. It would just destroy something beautiful. That seemed unfair, somehow.

If the ducks were still this upset, however, the cockatrice must have been here recently. I peered at the mud. Duck tracks obscured any tracks the cockatrice might have left on this side of the pond, and so I inched carefully around the water, aware that I was breaking a good dozen zoo rules as I made my way deeper into the enclosure. No capybara showed themselves, but I could hear them grunting and huffing at me from inside their artificial jungle. That was reassuring. They were mammal noises, nothing like the hiss or croak of the cockatrice. If it was still lurking here, it hadn’t petrified the capybara.

Not yet, anyway. I moved faster, scanning the ground . . . and there, at the edge of the pond, I found what I was looking for. They could have been mistaken for chicken tracks, if they’d been smaller, and if we’d had any free-range chickens at the zoo. As it was, they were clearly out of place.

The trail began in the bushes, made its way to the pond, and stayed there, driven deep into the mud. The cockatrice had stopped for a drink. That was probably when it petrified the duck. I followed the track to the other side of the enclosure, hoping that it wouldn’t disappear into the underbrush.

It didn’t. Instead, it just disappeared. “Shit,” I murmured, and peered closer. There were no scrapes to indicate that the cockatrice had taken flight; it was walking, and then it was gone. I straightened, trying to take in the enclosure around me. I was almost to the back, and that meant I was probably near the wall. I reached into the foliage. My fingers penetrated only a few inches before I hit stone. Feeling around, I found the latch that would allow the zookeeper standing on the other side to open the feeding hatch and toss in treats for the capybara—or, if they had a more nefarious goal in mind, allow them to lean in and lift out a runaway cockatrice.

Whoever was using the cockatrice as a murder weapon was still here at the zoo.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket, dialing Shelby’s number. It rang until the call rolled to voicemail and her cheerful voice offered me the chance to leave her a message. There was a killer loose in the zoo, and my girlfriend wasn’t answering her phone.

Somehow, I managed to walk non-disruptively through the enclosure to the retaining wall. The ducks quacked angrily as I bent to press the stone drake into the mud at the edge of the pond. Then I hopped over the wall and broke into a run, heading as fast as I could for the far side of the zoo, and hoping that I was being paranoid. God, I hoped that I was being paranoid.

Even though I knew I probably wasn’t.