Though his delivery was slightly stilted, his words weren’t as flat as Mali’s way of speaking, so he must not have been taken from Earth as young as she had been. At his announcement, another Kindred guest came through the veranda doors, dressed in safari clothes that looked bizarre against his metal-like skin. He dragged a bobcat by one leg. A rifle was slung over his shoulder.
“The first kill of the day!” the blond boy said. “This bobcat weighs in at nineteen kilos, and let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, these animals are fast, with a top speed of . . .”
Cora felt her head spinning as the boy went on. The bobcat’s blood streaked the floor between her and the stage but was mopped up quickly by the dark-haired bartender. She rubbed her temples, feeling like she was going to be sick. “That’s real blood,” she whispered to Cassian. “Real rifles. You thought I’d be safe here?”
Cassian led her toward a row of alcoves separated from the main space by wooden screens. “I had no choice,” he whispered. “You would not have lasted long in the Harem menagerie; girls never do. They would have drugged you in the Temple, and I need your mind sharp. There are fewer regulations here, yes, but that is why I chose it. We shall be able to work together privately.” He gestured toward the nearest alcove, which contained a table laden with dice and decks of cards. “Kindred come here to gamble in private. It isn’t unusual for them to want a human companion to serve them drinks or to play card games with. As soon as I handle Issander, no one will spare a second glance to what we do here, alone.”
She glanced at the alcove with its low lighting and soft cushions. “Alone?”
Despite the fact that he was cloaked, his breath seemed suddenly shallow. She wondered if he too was thinking of the last time they had been alone, standing in the surf, when he’d pressed his lips to hers.
“For the training,” he said curtly. “You will need to master your perceptive abilities if you are to succeed.”
Worry crept up her back. “Succeed at what?”
He leaned close. “The Gauntlet.”
3
Lucky
“I’M SERIOUSLY SUPPOSED TO wear this?” Lucky held up the faded khaki shirt, matching shorts, and dented pith helmet the girl had just handed him.
The girl giggled. She had to be at least fourteen years old, but from the way she chewed on the end of her mousy-brown braid, she seemed much younger. Behind her, two rows of cells spanned the walls like prison barracks. About half of them were occupied by wild animals: a kangaroo, a hyena, a lioness asleep in the corner.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. For days he’d been locked alone in a tiny observation room he could barely pace in, trying to figure out what was going on and what had happened to the others. He finally had someone he could talk to, and she could only giggle.
“Listen . . . What was your name again?” he asked.
“Everyone calls me Pika.” Her nails, he noted, didn’t look like they had seen soap and water in years. “It’s the name of a rodent. But, like, a cute rodent.” She grinned, revealing a few missing teeth. “I like animals. That’s why they put me back here. At home my parents raised, um, I forget what they’re called. Oh! Ferrets. They said I could start raising my own when I turned twelve.” Her face fell momentarily, as though remembering that twelve had come and gone long ago. She swallowed nervously. “Anyway, I like animals.”
Lucky rubbed his nose harder. “How long ago were you taken?”
“Three years,” she said, then frowned. “Wait.” She counted on grubby fingers that were marked with lines and circles, just like his. “Four. Maybe five. Vampires of the Hamptons had just started. Is that show still on? Did Tara ever hook up with Jackson?”
His head was seriously starting to ache now. “I never watched it.”
Pika’s face fell.
“Listen,” he tried again. “Have you heard anything about a girl named Cora? She has long blond hair and—”
“They said you’re good with animals too,” Pika interrupted. She grabbed his hand and led him along the wall of cages toward a warren of back rooms that smelled like unwashed feet. There was a medical room, a feed storage room, and a shower room with drains in the floor—which, judging by Pika’s smell, didn’t get nearly enough use. He’d never imagined he’d think this, but he almost missed the cage. At least it hadn’t reeked.
Pika went to the end of the corridor and cautiously pushed open a bright red door. “Take a peek,” she whispered. “But don’t let them see you.”
The sound of music came from the door. Jazz? Well, after the collection of wild animals, nothing surprised him. He glanced through the crack to find a safari lodge straight out of the British Empire, with a bar and lounge furniture and—was that a giraffe? Before he could take it all in, Pika shut the door.
“That’s the lodge,” she said. “That’s where Dane and Makayla and the others work, the important ones. You and me, we stay backstage with the animals. Don’t ever go through this door. Got it?”
“I guess—”
“Come on.” She tugged him back down the hallway into the main room of cells. The lioness had woken and was flicking her tail. “What animals have you worked with before?”
“I lived on a ranch,” he said, blinking. His granddad’s farm felt so distant. He could barely picture the barn where his motorcycle had taken up the first stall on the right. “Chickens, horses, dogs. A stray cat.”
“We don’t have those here,” Pika said, climbing up a short flight of metal stairs to the upper row of cages, where she went to the lioness’s cell and threw in a pellet of something that smelled like rotting bread. “I’ve heard there’s a farm menagerie somewhere, or maybe it was a rodeo. Anyway, here it’s about hunting.” She swung down from the upper story, landing with a thud on her feet.
“You mean the Kindred hunt these animals?”
Pika giggled. “Well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? We’re in the Hunt. Each menagerie specializes in something that helps the Kindred release their emotions. Fighting, or drinking, or racing cars . . . Here, they hunt.”
Lucky gripped the bars of the closest cage to steady himself. “I thought they were supposed to protect lesser species. That’s their whole moral code.”
“They don’t actually kill the animals,”
Pika explained, as though he were slow. “Their rifles look like ones from Earth, but they aren’t. They use these instead of bullets.”
She dug around in her dirty safari clothes and came back up with what looked like a used fireworks casing. “It knocks the animals out. Makes them go numb. Bleeds a little where they’re hit, but that’s it. They drag them back to the lodge, make a big show of the hunt up onstage, everyone’s supposed to clap, and then they dump them back here for you and me to patch up so they’re ready to be hunted again.” She blinked at him like it was all supposed to make sense. “See? It’s humane. They don’t kill them. If they hurt them, we just make them better.”
Lucky’s fingers curled tighter around the bars, squeezing until his knuckles were white. He thought again of his granddad’s farm, and this time the memories were clearer. He remembered his granddad hobbling out to throw kitchen scraps to the chickens and collect any eggs. When hens got too old to lay, his granddad would slaughter them and they’d freeze the meat for winter. All that death had bothered Lucky. But somehow, that seemed more humane than this.
A thump sounded from the long corridor. The faint sound of jazz trickled from the hallway.
Pika grinned. “Take a look!”
She hurried back down the corridor, where the red door was propped open. Two humans, a boy and a girl in safari clothes, dragged in a heavy burlap sack. They eyed Lucky with interest.
“They actually found somebody to help you back here?” the boy teased Pika. He had an Australian accent, and hollow cheeks that spoke of malnutrition.