I kept a firm grip on the knife but lowered it. “Why are you following me?” I asked.
He cocked his head. “You were following me. You were in the bamboo. Watching.”
So he had seen. He could have attacked then, but he hadn’t. I narrowed my eyes, wondering why. He curled his lips in response. He was smart, I realized. Smarter than most humans.
“Where is Edward?” I asked.
“The castaway.”
Surprise nearly made me drop the knife. How did he know?
My discomposure made him smile all the more. “Montgomery told me about the castaway,” he said. “Montgomery says watch the girl. Doesn’t say watch the castaway.”
“When did you speak with Montgomery?”
“Questions. Questions. Come with me, now.”
His paw curled, beckoning. The tip of his tail twitched. I felt myself drawn toward his hypnotic yellow eyes. But I caught myself.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, squeezing the knife. “This is madness.”
“It isn’t safe without me.”
“It isn’t safe with you!” I stepped back, a branch snapping under my foot. “I’d sooner take my chances alone.”
“You don’t know what hunts you.” His nose twitched. “I do.”
His words were unsettling. On the whole of the island, I couldn’t imagine any beast or man more terrifying than him. And yet, if he hadn’t clawed those islanders to death—which I wasn’t sure he hadn’t—something else had.
“What’s hunting me?” I asked cautiously.
“The monster,” he said, lips curled diabolically. I didn’t know if he was as mad as my father or just toying with me. It was ludicrous, anyway. Talking to a walking experiment. Yet he hadn’t tried to hurt me, which was more than I could say for some humans.
“I want to go to the compound,” I said.
He cocked his head. “The Blood House.”
A tense breath escaped me. Blood House. There could be only one place he meant. The red laboratory.
“Come with me, now. No questions. No questions.”
I gave a shaky nod and waved him forward with the knife. He moved through the undergrowth so silently that he hardly left a path for me to follow. My skirt caught every thorn. I made as much noise as ten of him. I studied the way he stepped, dissecting his movements. Ball of the foot first, then rolling back to the heel, which only grazed the ground. His body moved side to side, swaying almost imperceptibly but giving him better balance. I mimicked his steps and soon I was almost as quiet as him.
He wore no shoes. I’d counted his toes again and again, but always the same. Five. It hadn’t been him stalking me at the cabin, but something else.
The monster.
Not once did he look back. At times his specter melted into the jungle like a shadow. I stumbled to keep up with him. My head ached. The heat was relentless. I lost my balance and held on to a tree branch to steady myself. The missed treatments were taking their toll. I could hear the roar of dizziness before I felt it, and then my vision disintegrated into black spots.
The coarse brush of his fur against my bare arm made me jump. I clutched the knife, though I was too weak to raise the blade. “Stay back,” I said. My voice was barely audible above the blood rushing in my ears. “I just need a moment to rest.”
But he came closer. I could smell his musty scent, like wool and unwashed man.
“You are unwell.” The warm moisture of his breath misted my neck.
“I’m only dizzy. It will pass.” My fingers squeezed the tender flesh inside my elbow.
The thick pads of his fingers grazed my forearm, turning my elbow gently. The knife in my weak hand flopped uselessly. I closed my eyes.
He ran a finger down the inside of my arm. There was something familiar yet perverse about his touch. A creature like him shouldn’t exist, and yet here we were, in the solitude of the trees.
He sniffed my arm. Something wet and warm nicked at the pinprick.
I jerked my eyes open.
He’d licked me.
“Let me go!” I pulled away.
“The doctor’s medicine,” he said.
“Yes.” I clutched my inner elbow. My mouth hung open, searching for words. “Just keep going.”
He’s an animal, I reminded myself. Dangerous.
“As you wish.” He nodded.
I kept more distance between us as he led me deeper into a valley. There were only more trees, more vines, as far as I could see. We entered a copse of fernlike trees taller than my head. As his figure faded in and out of the wispy green fronds, I drifted farther back and farther still, until he was just a shadow far ahead.
Then I turned. I didn’t know if he’d been taking me to the compound or not. I didn’t know if he was the murderer or not.
I didn’t intend to find out.
Using his calculated, silent steps, I vanished into the jungle.
TWENTY-THREE
I WALKED FOR HOURS. The jungle rose around me like a fortress of tree and stone. Through the canopy breaks I glimpsed the volcano’s ever-present plume of smoke drifting up, up, into the sky.
After a while, I detected the smell of a campfire. It wove into my hair and clothes, pulling me forward until I heard a faint hammering noise. The trees opened ahead into a clearing. I pushed aside the high grass and found myself on the edge of a village.
I immediately covered my nose. The smell of smoke only thinly covered an overpowering stench of rotting food and dirty animals. A few sloppy thatched huts sat at the village’s edge, with dirt paths running between them. Big, ugly rats dug through piles of decaying food. One hissed as I passed.
I peeked inside a hut’s doorway and glimpsed a few signs of life: a wooden branch shaped into a plow, a tattered cloth pooled in a corner, shriveled onions drying in the rafters.
The pounding began again, making me jump. It wasn’t hammering, I realized, but drumming. As I moved closer, I heard chatter and grunts. One droning voice rose above the rest.
I wasn’t sure if I should hide or show myself. I didn’t trust the islanders, but at least these lived some semblance of normal life in a village, not like Jaguar. I slunk along the next path until I could glimpse the village center. Dozens of islanders clustered, feet kicking clouds of dirt, hands swaying in the air. Most were dressed like Jaguar, in ragged blue canvas, though some women wore faded cloths wrapped around them. They all moved with stilted steps and hunched shoulders.
Seeing so many—a whole village—made it seem inconceivable that my father had actually made them. I couldn’t deny they were unnatural. But to fabricate something as complex as a man who spoke and danced and dressed in trousers … it was impossible.
The crowd parted slightly. In their midst stood a tall man with a powerful set of elk antlers growing out of his tawny-colored hair. My mouth fell open. The odd tusk or horn on the other creatures looked malformed, but this being’s antlers looked perfectly suited to him as he held his head and arms high, blood-red robes dragging in the dirt. He was the chanter. His voice droned like beetles. At his side was a boy no higher than my waist. It was Cymbeline, though the wilderness had robbed him of his sweetness. His eyes locked on to me and he pointed.
They all turned. Their faces were things of nightmares. One of them, I thought, might even be a murderer.
Run, my body urged, but it was too late. They had already swarmed me, dirty hands reaching for my hair and pulling at my clothes. They dragged me into their midst. The antlered man raised his staff, silencing their wild chatter.
“Her hand,” he commanded.
Beside me was a slanting-eyed, bald woman with oddly translucent skin that seemed to reflect sunlight. She splayed my hand with four smooth, strong fingers. I tried to jerk away, repulsed.
“A five-finger woman,” he said.
The woman hissed, revealing a snake’s forked tongue. A python, I thought. That’s where I’d seen that skin before. The boar-faced man beside her was also
missing one digit on each finger, as were the two dingy boys who pulled at my skirt. Everyone was, except the tall man in the robes whose five fingers were long and stiff and covered in a thick, coarse hair.
“A five-finger woman!” he bellowed, and the crowd pressed closer. Their sour breaths turned my stomach. My illness grappled at me, making me weak, knotting my insides.
“Who are you?” I asked the robed man.
“He is Caesar,” the python-woman hissed, petting my sleeve with strong fingers.
The crowd repeated the word, rolling it like thunder.
Caesar. Caesar. Caesar.
The antlered man brought down his staff. The sharp points of his antlers gleamed in the sunlight. “I am Caesar,” he said. “Minister of the island.”
A beast posing as a religious man. It was as absurd as the commandments that Balthazar had chanted on the ship. Montgomery had refused to tell me what they meant, and now I understood why. I’d have thought him mad.
“Where have you come from, five-finger?” he asked.
There was something too human about his dark-brown eyes. “England,” I said.
The crowd parroted the word, but it sounded foreign on their tongues.
“Across the sea,” Caesar explained. The crowd murmured and nodded, but still seemed vaguely confused.
“You come with the other one.” Caesar nodded to the boar-faced man. “Bring the five-finger man.”
I strained to see above the bobbing heads as he disappeared into the crowd. The python-woman eagerly petted the smooth skin of my arms, her fingers tickling my skin. Another woman slid forward, reaching for my ring, but the python-woman snapped at her. She grinned at me as though she and I were both in a higher class than the others.
The crowd started yapping as the boar-faced man returned. He shoved a scraped and dirty body at my feet.
“Edward!” I dropped to my knees. He sat up, a hand to his head where a small cut bled. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, throwing a wary look at the boar-faced man. He wiped the dried blood off his forehead with his shirt cuff. “As well as can be.” He spit a bloody line of saliva into the dirt. “They grabbed me by the falls. Your father’s behind this. They think he’s some kind of god.”
The crowd grew more agitated. They circled us, leaning in, watching our every move. Cymbeline and the two other boys dropped to all fours, crawling closer, but Caesar pointed his staff at them.
“Thou shalt not crawl in the dirt!”
The boys shrank back and stumbled to their feet.
I pushed myself up, but Edward pulled me closer, just for a second. “Whatever happens, stay close.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, a shadow was cast over his face. The crowd suddenly grew quiet. I spun to find the face of a different kind of beast peering at us, a fresh white parasol balanced on his shoulder.
TWENTY-FOUR
FATHER SMILED. “AH, THERE you are. You’ve given us a devil of a time trying to find you.”
Edward and I scrambled to our feet. Through a break in the crowd I caught a glimpse of Montgomery standing next to the wagon with a rifle resting on his hip, avoiding my gaze. I was in part relieved to see him. He’d take us back to the compound’s strong walls and away from the lurking danger in the jungle. But I couldn’t get the image out of my head of the beast strapped to the table, Father humming while the candle wax slowly dripped, and Montgomery assisting. I felt betrayed, as though the boy I’d idolized was nothing more than a fantasy.
“I see you’ve already met our neighbors,” Father said. “Let me introduce you properly.”
Father was acting like nothing was amiss. I glanced at Edward. We’d said we would play along until we had a chance to escape the island, but this was excruciating. Father had abandoned me. Lied to me. Ruined my life. It was all I could do not to claw his face. I almost would rather have faced the murderer than go back with him.
The beasts stared at him with wide eyes and quivering lips. He was king here. And Montgomery hovered on the outskirts like a reluctant prince.
My knees buckled suddenly. The snakes of my illness were coming fast, coiling up my legs. Edward grabbed my elbow but I waved him away, swaying slightly. I needed an injection. I needed to get away from my father’s all-consuming presence that stole the oxygen from the air.
I leaned on my knees, drawing in quick breaths. Trembling. Trying to quell the rage at this man I had once called family. I felt Edward’s hand on my shoulder, heard a few reassuring words in my ear, but I couldn’t make them out. All I could picture was the beast strapped to the table, writhing in pain. Its torturer’s blood flowed in my own veins, a cruel inheritance. I pressed my fingers against my eyes to keep from crying. But a single sob escaped.
Then Edward’s hand was gone.
I saw it happen from the corner of my eye, just a quick movement. The crowd gasped. There was a crack like a twig snapping. And then a flash of blood.
It happened so fast.
Father stumbled back, clutching his face, the parasol falling to the ground. Blood trickled between the white slats of his fingers. Edward’s arm was still balled in a fist. He’d punched Father in the mouth. I gaped.
What happened to pretending everything was fine?
Edward flexed his hand. “He made you cry,” he explained.
Montgomery rushed through the crowd as the islanders erupted in a frenzy of excitement at the smell of the blood. Caesar raised his staff, the red robes sweeping out like a curtain. Even his nose flared at the smell.
Montgomery tackled Edward. They scuffled, kicking up clouds of dust. The python-woman threw herself in front of Father protectively. Several others followed her lead. At last Montgomery wrestled Edward to his knees and pinned his arms behind his back.
My skull pounded as if I were drunk. Montgomery was slave to my father’s will. Helping him with his terrible work, defending him, even at Edward’s expense. Montgomery wasn’t cruel, I knew that to my core. Father might have dragged him here as a child, raised him to do terrible things, but Montgomery wasn’t a monster. He shouldn’t act as Father’s puppet.
“Don’t listen to him!” I yelled, pounding my fist against Montgomery’s shoulder. The surprise made him hesitate. I dug my fingers into his hand, trying to pry his fingers off Edward. “Let him go!”
“Stop this!” Father’s voice was like the thunderous voice of God. Specks of blood spattered as he spoke.
A rough hand closed over my mouth. Lumpy scales grazed my lips—Puck. I recoiled in disgust, tasting the sweat on his palm. He wrapped his other arm around my chest and pulled me off Montgomery with the strength of two men.
My chest heaved. Tension still crackled in the air. The islanders fawned over Father, but he waved them away, rubbing at his split bottom lip. I stared at Montgomery. Don’t listen to him, my every thought urged. You know this is wrong.
Montgomery only looked away.
“Really, this is no way to act.” Father drew out his handkerchief and spit into it. Red blood flashed against the crisp white linen. “We must set a good example for them. You most of all, Juliet.”
“I know what you’re doing in that laboratory,” I said. “You’re a monster.”
Father stared, his black eyes deep and unreadable. He tucked the handkerchief back into his vest pocket. “Release them. They won’t run again. They’ve no place to go.”
A low growl came from deep in Puck’s throat, but he released me. Montgomery slowly let go of Edward’s arms.
Father picked up the parasol, now broken and stained. “So you’ve found me out, have you? You saw what was on that table and you’ve seen my islanders. Of course you’ve reached the only logical conclusion. You’re smart, after all. Smarter than you should be.” His black eyes shone. “It’s a shame you weren’t a boy.”
“You’ve crossed the line,” I said. “This is God’s work, not ours.”
“You sound like your mother,” he said. It wasn’t a compliment. He walke
d among the beasts, picking clumps of dirt from their hair, straightening their ragged clothes, as a father might tend to a child. A shaggy man with striped hair falling in his eyes stood straighter as Father approached. Father placed a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Juliet, dear, these animals have been given a great gift, made man by careful and studied science. They’re exceptional, don’t you see? Capable of human thought and action, but without mankind’s corruption.”
Anger seeped backward up my spine.
“You’ve been listening to this silly boy. He’s not one of us—I told you that from the beginning. Come back to the compound. You need an injection, and food and water. I shall explain my work to you. It’s only the shock of it that has you so tightly wound. Once you understand the science behind it, you’ll see things my way.”
My growing anger was overshadowed by an encroaching weakness in my legs. I could feel my illness’s cold grip on me tighten. I doubled over, bracing myself on my knees. As my legs faltered, Montgomery’s arms were suddenly around me, picking me up effortlessly. His heart beat wildly through his shirt.
“Get her back at once,” I heard Father say, though my senses were fading. “And you, Prince. When we return, you and I will need to reexamine the nature of our arrangement.”
If the arrangement had anything to do with Father’s plan to marry me off to Edward, I couldn’t imagine Father was still pleased with his choice for son-in-law.
The village spun as Montgomery carried me through the crowd. The python-woman pushed forward, grazing her fleshy fingers delicately against my cheek. Montgomery ordered her away. I grabbed at his biceps, feeling vertigo. His heart beat faster.
“I tried to warn you.” His voice was a fierce whisper.
I heard the big draft horse grunt, and then the rusty hinges of the wagon’s back gate. Suddenly Montgomery’s arms were gone, replaced by stiff wooden boards. Something was beside me in the wagon bed, something long and wrapped in cloth. The stench of congealed blood choked my throat. I twisted away from the smell, too weak to sit up.
“You insisted on coming here,” Montgomery whispered harshly. I couldn’t tell if he was mad at me or mad at himself. “I should have refused. I’d hoped … Blast, it doesn’t matter.”
The Madman's Daughter (Madman's Daughter - Trilogy) Page 17
