Bestiary

The animals heard the shot, though, and suddenly there was a howl from the griffin’s cage, a rumbling snort from one of the basilisks. The phoenix, from its perch high above them, let out a piercing scream, a thousand times worse than the cry of the peacocks, and even Sadowski looked up, rattled.

“What the fuck is that?” he said. The monstrous bird was still concealed in its straw-filled nest.

“You don’t want to know,” Greer said. “You and your boys just want to get out of here… while you still can.”

Carter didn’t know what he feared more — harm coming to one of the people present, or harm to the animals, surely the last of their kind, that had by some miracle survived for millennia.

“What is your plan, soldier?” al-Kalli taunted him. “Or are you as stupid as most Americans — blundering in where you have no business, and with no idea of how to get out again?”

“Oh, I’ve got a plan,” Sadowski said. He glanced at a massive black and chrome wristwatch. “And trust me — you’re going to find out all about it.”

“And what do we do until then?”

Carter heard a metallic screech, and saw Rashid, who had quietly gotten to his feet, yanking a lever in the concrete wall.

Sadowski shouted, “What are you doing?” at him, but Rashid simply turned and ran toward the glassed-in office at the far end of the bestiary, zigging and zagging with his cupped hands attempting to protect the back of his head. Sadowski cursed, and fired another round, the wild shot sparking off the bars of the griffin’s cage.

The phoenix screamed again, and this time Carter knew it would emerge from its aerie. He looked up just as its massive hooked beak poked over the edge of its nest and its claws, in preparation for flight, wrapped themselves around the rim of the platform. Sadowski and his two accomplices stared upward, slack-jawed.

With a sudden, even ungainly, lurch, the phoenix plummeted from its nest, then spread its wings, the width of a school bus, and soared above their heads. The two soldiers behind Sadowski fell back a few steps, and as the bird came lower, heading, Carter suddenly realized, for the open doors behind them, one of the two — the one with a bell tattooed on his bare forearm — took a furious swing at it with the aluminum bat. The end of the bat caught the claws with a loud crack, and the bird, squawking in pain, wheeled in the air and beat a retreat toward the other end of the bestiary.

“I got it!” the tattooed man cried, his voice filled with as much terror as exultation. “I got the bastard!”

But the phoenix wasn’t done — it simply coasted in a great slow circle, then with one more beat of its red- feathered wings, a beat that sent a shivering wind through the whole facility, it shot back toward the open doors. Sadowski fired, missed, but the bird had its prehensile claws extended; there was a look of fire in its eyes and its vulture-like head was tucked into its body. It went straight for its attacker, and before he could even think to swing the bat again, the phoenix had snatched him up in its claws — one of the talons appeared to tear completely through the man’s body — and then, with its wings folded back like a missile, it flashed through the open doors and out of sight.

Dust from its exit filled the air. And all that was left of the tattooed man was an aluminum bat lying in the dirt.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sadowski said in a tone of mechanical disbelief, and Greer said, “Didn’t I tell you you’d fucked up?”

The other man with a bat stood stunned, looking at the spot where his accomplice had been just seconds ago. Then, throwing his own bat on the ground, he turned without a word and ran out the doors… leaving Sadowski to fend for himself.

It was only then that Carter thought to look at the row of cages — and saw that the lever Rashid had pulled had opened all of their gates at once. The animals had not yet realized their freedom, but they would, soon. Greer must have reached the same conclusion because he suddenly made for the lever.

Sadowski shouted, “Hold it!” and fired again, and this time Greer collapsed, blood spurting from his right thigh. “God damn you, Sadowski! That was my good leg!”

“I told you not to move!”

But something now was moving — and it was at the farthest cage, the one that held the gorgon. Carter saw the tip of its enormous snout protrude from the open gate, as if it wasn’t sure if this was a trap or not. Then its head came out entirely, and swung, like a huge pendulum, from one direction to the other, taking in the whole arena.

Jakob stepped between al-Kalli and the emerging monster, drawing out his gun, but al-Kalli angrily batted it out of his hands. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Jakob looked at a total loss; he’d thought he was doing his job.

“It won’t harm me.”

It was then that Carter realized just how mad Mohammed al-Kalli really was.

The beast approached slowly, still swinging its ponderous head from side to side so that its bulbous eyes, situated far back on either side of its skull, could take in the whole landscape. It was like watching a tank rumble cautiously across land-mined terrain.

Jakob walked backward, never taking his eyes off the animal, and toward Sadowski, who was speechless and immobilized.

But al-Kalli actually took several steps forward. He opened his arms, the white sleeves billowing, and said something, not in English, to the beast.

Carter knew that the creature would be attuned to movement, that it would notice whatever was in motion, so he tried to make his own retreat as subtle as possible. When the animal’s snout was pointed directly at him, temporarily limiting its vision, he took a giant step back. And then, seconds later, another. He glanced backward, over his shoulder, but Jakob and Sadowski were already gone.

Greer, too, was hobbling toward the doors, using one of the aluminum bats as a makeshift cane and leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

The doors to the outside were still wide open, the waning sunlight casting a golden pool on the hard-packed earth just inside the entrance.

Al-Kalli spoke again, in Arabic it seemed, and Carter detected movement behind the gates where the basilisks and the griffin were kept. At any moment they, too, could stagger from their enormous pens and into the greater world beyond.

The gorgon, with its stumpy legs splayed out from its body like a gigantic toad, stopped a dozen yards or so from al-Kalli. As both a reptile and a mammal, a bizarre precursor of the dinosaurs and the large land mammals to come, it displayed a strange collection of traits: Its skin was green and scaly, like a crocodile’s, but it was also tufted here and there with clumps of grizzled black fur. Its eyes were large and lizardlike; it had no visible ears, just hollow indentations well behind the eyes; canine fangs, shaped like sabers, grew down from its upper jaw; and a long, thick, serpentlike tail dragged along the ground behind it.

Al-Kalli spoke again, in the soothing tones you might use to calm a nervous stallion, and he even held up one hand as if he were prepared to stroke the neck of the waiting beast.

Carter had never seen the creature so clearly as he saw it now; usually, it was lurking in the back of its pen, or hidden altogether in the enormous rocky grotto provided at its rear. It didn’t like to be fully exposed; it shied away from the light. But now, as he studied its stance — its terrifying head held high, its broad, clawed feet planted firmly on the ground, its jaws parted — he knew what was about to happen… and even if he’d found a way to warn al-Kalli, to tell him that he was exposing himself to the most ruthless predator the planet had ever known, the man would never have listened.

And there wasn’t time, anyway.

Carter saw the gorgon lower its body, gathering strength, and then, like an enormous jumping bullfrog, it leapt into the air and landed, claws extended and already tearing at him, on top of al-Kalli. He screamed once, but the gorgon quickly put a stop to that, dropping its jaws and snapping his head off with a swift, sideways ripping motion; the head rolled to one side, the mouth still open, the eyes still staring, as the gorgon shredded the flesh it still squatted over.

Carter, knowing there was no time to waste, made a run for it, racing toward the open doors. The gorgon would make quick work of al-Kalli, and be right back on the hunt again. He bolted outside, and nearly crashed into Del, who was just about to run in.

“What’s going on?” Del said as he grabbed Carter’s shoulders. “What’s in that place?”