Half-Off Ragnarok

Epilogue

The reptile house of Ohio’s West Columbus Zoo, a private back room where no one reasonable goes

Six weeks later

THE BASILISKS WERE AWAKE, circling each other in their carefully darkened enclosure with their wings outstretched and their tails lashing in what was either a mating dance or a precursor to bloody combat. I kept my eyes glued to the glass, waiting for the moment where one of them would make a move.

The male stopped circling, picked up a piece of the hard rocky shell that had protected him while he hibernated, and placed it gently at the female’s feet. She hissed. He offered her another bit of rocky shell. She lashed at him with her tail. He offered her a third fragment. She accepted it, striking him with her tail again—but this time it was less of an attack, and more of a caress. Beginning to croon, she turned and walked away into the high grass. He followed, head bobbing in what could only be interpreted as a victory dance.

“You go on with your bad self,” I murmured, smiling.

“Who’s going where, then?”

I turned, my smile widening at the sight of Shelby Tanner standing behind me in the dimly-lit room. She was the second person to have the code—not for any scientific reason. Just because I wanted her to. Crow was cradled in her arms, his tail swishing lazily back and forth. He’d been spending as much time with her as he could since we came home from the gorgon community. He loved having a second human to cuddle with, especially one who was endlessly willing to give him the petting and adoration he deserved. I didn’t begrudge him the attention. He’d earned it when he saved us both.

“I think my basilisks are finally mating.” I gestured toward the enclosure. “It’s not much to look at right now, but in a few months, we’ll have chicks.”

“Oh, yay, more horrible things to turn me into stone,” said Shelby. But she was smiling, and she kept smiling as she walked over to kiss me on the cheek. “Ready for lunch?”

“In a minute,” I said. “And basilisk chicks are surprisingly adorable. They have blue feathers.”

Shelby had been stable but very weak for the first few days after Lloyd attacked her. She hadn’t been strong enough to come home, and her injuries would have been hard to explain to the human hospital, unless I wanted to be arrested for assault. Luckily, Frank had done a more than competent job. He was a very talented surgeon. She couldn’t have been in better hands. Thank God.

She walked over to peer into the enclosure, where only the rustling of bushes betrayed the location of my basilisks. “Blue, you say. All right. What happens after the chicks come?”

“We raise them to maturity and then send them off to the people who need them. Walter has agreed to take these two on a long-term basis, and trade their offspring for whatever the fringe requires.” It was a tidy way for them to make a little money without betraying their ideals. Much. “Are you still coming to dinner tonight?”

“What, like I’d miss the opportunity for your cousin to school me at Scrabble again?” Shelby laughed. “I’ll be there at six, as planned.”

“Oh, good.”

Sarah wasn’t exactly “schooling” anyone at Scrabble, since half the words she used were made up, but she had fun, and she was getting better at keeping up with the conversation. Really, she was getting better at everything. She could reliably tell me from Shelby, which was a real accomplishment, considering how far gone she’d been when I’d first come to live with my grandparents. I was actually starting to think she might get back to her own personal definition of normal.

Shelby wrinkled her nose at the rustling bushes. “This is getting dull,” she said. “Anything else going on around here?”

“Just the usual,” I said, plucking Crow from her arms and dropping him on the floor. “It’s been blissfully dull all day.”

“Oh, really?” Shelby took her cue, sliding her arms around my shoulders as Crow croaked in aggravation. “Sounds like you need a little excitement.”

“Honestly, you’re about all the excitement I can handle right now.”

I’m a scientist. Excitement is supposed to be something that happens mostly to other people, and I’d been right at the center of way more than I wanted over the past few months.

Hannah had been devastated by Lloyd’s death, even if she wasn’t surprised. She’d been expecting this for a long time, and it had just been a question of when and how it would happen. I was pretty sure Shelby and I were no longer welcome at the gorgon community. I didn’t mind. We didn’t belong there, and any debts between us were paid.

Dee had kept her job at the zoo, thankfully. Shelby had been bedridden for several weeks after I brought her home, and I wouldn’t have been able to take the time off to care for her if Dee hadn’t been at the reptile house, keeping things running smoothly. I was glad she’d decided to stay. I would have missed her.

Lloyd’s cockatrice was still out there somewhere. It hadn’t shown up in any urban areas, and we were all assuming Lloyd had taken it back to the woods with him when he abducted Shelby. A cockatrice loose in the woods near the gorgon community was nowhere near the threat that a cockatrice loose near humans had been. As long as we didn’t see any further signs of it, we were willing to live and let live.

Shelby leaned forward and kissed me slowly. I slid my arms around her waist, shutting out Crow’s angry squawks as I focused on the business at hand. When she finally pulled away, I was a lot less interested in basilisks, and a lot more interested in her.

“Lunch?” she asked again.

“As long as it’s not in the tiger garden, that sounds good to me,” I said, before kissing her again.

I had my work; I had my family; I had my friends; and I had Shelby, who was a distraction from everything else, but only in the best of ways. Things were changing. I was changing with them. That was all right, in the balance of things; after all, people have paid a lot more to come away with a lot less. As I tightened my arms around Shelby’s waist and sank into another kiss, I couldn’t help thinking I was a very lucky man. I was a very lucky man indeed.