The Menagerie #2

by Tui T. Sutherland

  Zoe shook her head. “No, that was a different Tracker. Your mom brought the alicanto, though; you should meet it sometime. With earplugs.”

  Blue’s feet appeared through the gap in the door, followed closely by the rest of Blue, and then almost immediately by Keiko. Now that he’d seen her as a fox, Logan wasn’t sure whether he was more or less intimidated by the sixth grader Zoe’s family had adopted from Japan.

  Keiko had changed out of her shape-shifting white kimono into a pair of sleek black pants and a fitted sapphire-blue T-shirt that spelled out FOXY in little rhinestones.

  “Oh,” Logan said, pointing at her shirt. “Foxy! Ha-ha! I get it!”

  Keiko gave him a golden-brown glare.

  “Because you’re a . . . kittensy . . . kiztoony . . . um, the thing where you turn into a fox sometimes . . .”

  “Kitsune,” Keiko snapped. “And I do not turn into a fox. I am a fox, but right now I’m choosing to be a girl.”

  Logan blinked in confusion, but no one seemed to think that required any more explanation.

  “Why is she here?” Zoe asked, plucking her iPod out of Blue’s hand. “She’ll just make Aliya worse.”

  Keiko tossed her braids over her shoulders, put her hands on her hips, and sniffed the air. The roc shifted on its nest, rumbling unhappily. Logan realized that it didn’t like having Keiko around—like most of the animals in the Menagerie, now that he thought about it. The unicorns hated her, too. Perhaps they could all smell or sense her foxiness.

  “She saw me taking your iPod,” Blue said, “and she wanted to know what was going on.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes and crouched beside the speakers, scrolling through songs on her iPod. A moment later, the faint sound of Bollywood music echoed tinnily through the air, and the roc visibly relaxed, flopping her head down on her nest.

  “Someone murdered Pelly,” Logan said to Keiko. “It’s a huge mess down there.”

  “Oh, I highly doubt she was murdered,” said Keiko.

  “Really?” Zoe said, lifting her head with a hopeful expression. “Like, you can’t smell enough blood or something?”

  “Right,” said Keiko. “More likely she was eaten.”

  “Oh, VERY COMFORTING,” Zoe yelled.

  “I wasn’t trying to be comforting!” Keiko yelled back.

  “Shhhh,” Blue said. They all fell silent, and Logan realized that the adult voices below had stopped.

  “Oops,” said Zoe.

  The spiral staircase began to shake, and then Mr. Kahn emerged from the trees, climbing toward them. His reddish-brown hair was standing up in wild tufts and he looked exhausted.

  “Zoe!” he said in a shocked voice. “What—”

  “We were checking on Aliya!” Zoe said quickly. “Didn’t you hear how upset she was? We were just making sure she was all right.” She patted the nest of branches, and the roc clacked her beak in a self-righteous way.

  “You should be back at the house,” he said sternly.

  “All right, I know,” said Zoe, “but come up here and look at this door first. It was a little bit open when we got here. Maybe someone came in and out this way last night.”

  The two SNAPA agents did not look pleased when they followed Mr. Kahn up to the ledge and found not only Zoe but also Logan, Blue, and Keiko gathered around the roc’s nest.

  “Dad, is Pelly really dead?” Zoe asked.

  Logan could guess what she was thinking, because he was hoping the same thing. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was some kind of stunt Pelly set up to scare us all into appreciating her more.

  “I’m afraid so, dear,” Agent Dantes said softly, and Mr. Kahn nodded, his shoulders slumping.

  “Although it’s impossible to know for sure with no body,” Agent Runcible said in a voice that sounded like it had its edges ironed flat. “Robert, I must insist we lock down the entire Aviary. This is no place for children right now.”

  Logan tried not to stare at him. So far it seemed like the SNAPA agent hadn’t recognized him, and Logan wasn’t sure how Agent Runcible would react once he realized where they’d first met.

  It had been six months ago, when Logan and his dad still lived in Chicago. They’d gotten the postcard from Logan’s mom only two days before Runcible showed up. The postcard that said basically, Hello hello, sorry to say, just got a great new job opportunity, love you heaps but I won’t be home again anytime soon, have a nice life, etc.

  Dad had asked if Logan wanted to take a couple days off from school “to process,” which had sounded kind of dopey to Logan. Lying on the couch watching TV wasn’t going to make him feel any better about Mom being gone, so he might as well take his math test. Even failing couldn’t make him feel worse, he’d figured.

  So he’d heard Runcible before seeing him—that clipped, severe voice on the other side of the apartment door when Logan got home from school.

  “You’re telling me you have no idea where she is.”

  Logan had stopped with his keys halfway out of his pocket, leaned into the door, and listened.

  “Sorry,” said Logan’s dad. “We haven’t heard from her since she left.”

  No mention of the postcard, Logan thought. Okay. So Dad doesn’t trust this guy.

  “No packages?” said the stranger’s voice. “Does she have a security deposit box anywhere? Or a storage unit?”

  “Nope,” said Logan’s dad, sounding slightly less friendly. “What is this about?”

  “Your wife didn’t just disappear,” said the other man. “She disappeared with something quite important to us. If you’re helping her hide it, there will be serious consequences, Mr. Wilde.”

  There was a pause. “I think you’d better go,” said Logan’s dad.

  Footsteps on the other side of the door. Logan had scrambled back to the stairs and pretended like he was just reaching the top of them as the apartment door opened.

  Runcible had given him a severe look as he went by, but they had seen each other for only about ten seconds in passing. Maybe that was why he didn’t remember Logan now. Or maybe he made so many kids feel bad about their parents that he couldn’t keep them straight.

  The other agent, Delia Dantes, seemed much nicer than Runcible. She smiled more, and according to Zoe, she kept telling the kids to call her Delia. Logan couldn’t imagine doing that; it was strange enough when Zoe did it.

  But even Agent Dantes was frowning as she inspected the roll-up door. She pushed a strand of dark hair out of her face and pointed at a few scratches on the paintwork with her pen.

  “Something big could have come through here last night,” she said. “Judging from these claw marks, perhaps a griffin, a taniwha, or a mapinguari.”

  Logan felt a shiver run down his spine. He didn’t know what two of those were, but he knew plenty about the Menagerie’s griffins. And the tone of the agent’s voice didn’t bode well for his new friends.

  “Our griffins would never attack another mythical creature,” Zoe protested.

  “That’s true,” said Logan. “Besides, the cubs are afraid of the goose—Squorp told me they once tried to play with her and she snapped at them.”

  “Ah,” said Agent Dantes, making a note. “That could be a motive for one of the parents to kill her.”

  “No!” Logan said. “They’re not like that. Nira wants them to learn to fend for themselves and Riff—well, Riff can be kind of overprotective, but—”

  “Logan, stop helping,” Keiko said snidely.

  Logan subsided, feeling awful. Zoe was fidgeting anxiously with her fingernails and didn’t meet his eyes.

  “These griffins are bred for intelligence rather than ferocity,” Mr. Kahn interjected calmly. “And our mapinguari is well contained, so he’s a vegetarian these days.”

  Keiko snorted and muttered, “Eating carrots. Might as well be a cow.”

  “And we don’t even have a taniwha,” Zoe said. “Besides, we’d be able to see its tunnel outside if a taniwha came this way.”

 
“Well then,” said Agent Dantes. “Perhaps a dragon.”

  “No way,” said Zoe, nearly dropping her iPod. “Not our dragons!”

  “We have strict security measures in place on our three,” said Mr. Kahn. “I can’t imagine any of our dragons would do this even if they could get past their restraints. Given the claw marks, the probable use of the tranquillity mist during the attack, and the advance planning that must have been involved—could it have been a werewolf?”

  Logan wasn’t sure why he was surprised. After meeting griffins and unicorns and mermaids, finding out that werewolves were real should have been quite normal. But it still sounded so weird. He imagined that guy from the Twilight movies trying to eat a giant goose. Somehow he thought Pelly would be a match for him.

  “You keep werewolves here?” he whispered to Blue.

  “No,” Blue whispered back. “Werewolves are classified as Mostly Human, so they don’t usually end up in places like the Menagerie unless they choose to—like my dad’s merfolk. There’s a different agency that monitors us Mostly Human guys.”

  “There are no registered werecreatures in this part of Wyoming,” Runcible said with a scowl.

  “Perhaps an unregistered one—” Mr. Kahn started.

  “Very unlikely,” Runcible said forcefully. “And before you go pointing fingers at hypothetical creatures outside your Menagerie, I suggest we investigate the predators within these walls.” He drew a tablet computer out of his briefcase and started tapping on it vigorously.

  “Dad,” Zoe said, “why don’t we just check the security camera footage? Wouldn’t that show us exactly . . .” Her voice trailed off at the look on her dad’s face, and the roc made a sympathetically dismal noise.

  “Your mom already checked,” said Mr. Kahn, holding up his walkie-talkie. “And there’s a . . . problem.”

  “Yes,” said Runcible icily. “I’d call the loss of all your camera feeds a problem, indeed.”

  “Nothing but static on all the recordings from last night,” Agent Dantes said grimly.

  Logan and Zoe exchanged shocked looks. That can’t be a coincidence, Logan thought. Someone wanted to make sure nobody saw what happened to Pelly. But what kind of creature can both hack into a computer and eat a goose?

  “This is why we insisted on the upgrade for the surveillance equipment,” Agent Runcible said, his stern tone sending a shiver up Logan’s spine.

  “But we did that!” Zoe cried. “We did everything you asked. Matthew spent all day yesterday installing the update you gave us.”

  “It’s okay, Zoe,” her father said. “I’ve told them the upgrade was in place. Something must have severed the connection, or perhaps the software patch had a problem—”

  “It hasn’t malfunctioned at any of the other locations where it’s been installed,” Agent Runcible pointed out.

  “What about Nero?” Logan asked. The roc couldn’t talk, but Logan knew the melodramatic phoenix could. “We could ask him if he saw anything last night.”

  Mr. Kahn sighed. “I had the same thought. So I asked Mooncrusher to find him, but Nero burst into flames the minute he saw the yeti.” The phoenix tended to spontaneously combust any time he felt stressed or unappreciated, or whenever he just wanted to make a point about how nobody paid any attention to him. “He’s a very unhelpful pile of ashes now. We’ll have to try again later.”

  “Regardless, we have to launch a full investigation at once into the death of the goose,” said Agent Dantes. “Do you have any predators with a grudge against her?”

  “The goose was not a particularly beloved bird,” said Mr. Kahn evenly, “but she had no specific enemies that I can think of.”

  Logan spotted the expression on Zoe’s face before she could hide it. Hmm. Did that mean there was someone who had it out for Pelly?

  “Then let’s start with the dragons,” Agent Dantes murmured. “They are, after all, the most dangerous.”

  Despite the tension, despite the murder scene, despite the threat to the Menagerie, Logan felt prickles of excitement scramble along his skin.

  He was about to meet a dragon.

  THREE

  “Okay, these things looked cool on the wall, but I feel ridiculous.”

  Logan shifted uncomfortably in the fireproof suit. His whole body was encased; only his face was visible through a clear pane in the helmet. The heavy fabric of the suit insulated him a little too well. He could feel sweat collecting on his back and behind his knees. Who even knew you could sweat behind your knees?

  Ahead of him, Zoe pivoted around in her own suit so he could see her face.

  “I know, it’s an annoying rule, right? SNAPA worries a lot about dragonfire accidents.” She turned to keep climbing.

  Blue held out his gloved hand to help Logan up the rocky slope. “As they should,” he said. “Dragons aren’t known for their impulse control. It’s safer this way.”

  Mr. Kahn and the two SNAPA agents were way ahead of them. Logan wasn’t sure how they could move so fast in their bulky suits. Keiko had gone back to the house; apparently the dragons really couldn’t stand being around her, which she said was “totally mutual” and fine by her.

  Logan clambered up the final stretch with Blue’s help and paused at the top of the embankment. In front of him lay a shelf of rock the size of a soccer field, surrounded on two sides by steep cliffs, each with a large, dark cave in it. On the third side was a jagged low wall of boulders and then the craggy hillside stretching down to the Menagerie lake. The path they’d taken through the rocks continued along the side of one of the cliffs to another cave higher on the mountain.

  Outside one of the caves, sprawled in the sunshine, was the most magnificent creature Logan had ever seen.

  The dragon’s scales shone, moving from a pure silver over most of its body to an opalescent sheen on its underbelly. Massive wings that looked like beaten silver leather stretched out on either side of its torso. If Logan had to guess, he’d say that the dragon was sunning itself, like a cat.

  “Stay back here,” Zoe said, stopping Logan at the edge of the path. Mr. Kahn had let them come only if they promised to keep out of the way.

  “Technically, SNAPA says nobody under sixteen is allowed to work with dragons,” Blue explained.

  “But that’s one of those bendy rules,” Zoe said with a shrug.

  Blue shook his head at Logan. “It’s really not. And Zoe wonders why this Menagerie keeps getting in trouble with the agency.”

  “Clawdius,” Mr. Kahn said, so quietly that Logan almost couldn’t hear him. “We request a moment of your time.”

  The silver dragon’s eyes slowly slid open into narrow slits. Gleams of dark red glinted in their black depths. His head, which was as big as an SUV, lifted as the humans approached.

  “You remember Agent Runcible and Agent Dantes,” said Mr. Kahn.

  Logan noticed that Agent Dantes had stopped a fair distance from Clawdius, allowing her partner to get closer while she scanned the rocks around them. She kept glancing at the other two caves as if waiting for another dragon to leap out, teeth bared. But only a faint line of smoke from the upper cave indicated that either of the other dragons was home.

  “SSSSSSSSSNAPA,” hissed the large silver dragon, eyeing the agents.

  “That’s right,” said Zoe’s dad. “We’d like to question whoever was on intruder alert duty last night.”

  The dragon closed his eyes and sat still, as if he was thinking.

  “Intruder alert?” Logan whispered to his friends. He remembered the alarm that had blared when he first snuck into the Menagerie with Squorp. It had sounded like someone bellowing “INTRUDER!” at the approximate volume of four hundred roaring jet engines. “Wait, the dragons are your alert system?”

  “Yeah, they’re perfect for it,” Zoe said. “All dragons have a kind of sixth sense that keeps track of everyone around them. They know exactly who should and shouldn’t be in the Menagerie, and they can tell when a stranger gets inside o
ur walls. They’re also, as you may have noticed, really freaking loud.”

  “And untrustworthy,” Blue added, sitting down on a boulder.

  “Blue’s not a fan of our system, but we think it works great,” said Zoe. “We were the first Menagerie to figure out dragons could be used this way, and now everyone’s doing it.”

  “The only reason dragons have that skill is to protect their treasure and hunt their prey,” Blue said. “They don’t care about human problems.” He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be hard to figure out a way around it, is all I’m saying.”

  “It’s worked fine so far,” Zoe said. “They let us know when Jonathan tried to steal the jackalope, and they warned us about Logan sneaking in.”

  “But aren’t you hoping it didn’t work last night?” Logan said. Zoe gave him a confused look. “I mean, because if the system was working fine, then whatever happened to Pelly was done by someone inside the Menagerie. Right?”

  Zoe went pale and turned back to the dragon without answering.

  Clawdius opened his eyes again, slowly.

  “Last time of darkness,” he said in a deep voice. “Turn of Scratch.”

  “It was Scratch’s turn to guard the Menagerie last night,” Zoe translated, glancing up at the higher cave. Logan saw her reach for her wrist, but with the suit in the way, she couldn’t twist her hand around it in her usual nervous gesture. She tugged on the sleeves and gloves instead.

  “So you detected nothing,” Agent Runcible pressed. “No intruders, nothing unusual? Do you know what happened?”

  The dragon turned his silver head so the morning sun glinted off his scales, shining right into the SNAPA agents’ eyes. His tongue flicked in and out like he was tasting the air.

  “Gone the fat honk-bird now,” he intoned. “Quiet the birdcage.” His claws curled, scraping the rock underneath him. “Sad is nobody.”

  Logan glanced at Zoe. “Is he saying nobody is sad that Pelly’s dead? Can dragons sense that kind of thing, too?” Because he’s wrong, he thought. Zoe looks like she’s lost someone’s favorite puppy.

  “No. He’s just guessing,” she answered.

  “Or projecting,” Blue said.