Grotesquerie's hunters make periodic expeditions to Earth to search out these monsters and bring em back alive, as the saying goes. They do it for the sake of preservation – many of the Grotesquerie's monsters are rare species or literally one of a kind – but a side benefit is that humans don't have worry about getting stomped on by gigantic radioactive lizards, so it's a win-win all the way around.
Lazlo dropped us off at the main entrance, and brilliant detective that I am, I immediately suspected something was wrong when I saw all the people running screaming into the street. I turned to Devona and almost asked her to stay outside and watch Shamika, but given how the girl had handled herself with Magilla, I figured she was probably be in less danger going in than I was.
The three of us pushed through the mass of fleeing zoogoers, Varney right there alongside us. With his camera-eye inoperative he should've had no reason to follow us into what was undoubtedly a hazardous situation, but I wasn't surprised that he'd decided to accompany us. He might've been a reporter, but it had become clear to me that he had a hidden agenda for sticking so closely to us, and right then wasn't the time to try and figure out what it was. There'd be an opportunity to question him later – assuming the four of us survived our visit to the Grotesquerie.
Once we made it past the crowd and through the main gate, we moved off to the side to get out of the way, but we needn't have bothered. The majority of the Grotesquerie's visitors had managed to make it out, and only a handful of stragglers remained.
Inside, the Grotesquerie resembles an Earth zoo, with paved walkways winding between habitats set up for the creatures on display. The major difference is the landscaping. Instead of the pleasant trees and shrubs of an Earthly zoo, the Grotesquerie's paths are lined with deadly leech vine, tanglethorn, and rotweed. Visitors are always careful to give the plants a wide berth, and the plants usually leave them alone. But then they weren't put there to attack visitors. They were an additional deterrent should any of the Grotesquerie's attractions manage to escape their enclosures.
Huge Frankenstein monsters were employed as keepers, and a half dozen of them clomped past us in their gray coveralls and overlarge work boots, each of them clutching long metallic rods with glowing red tips at one end. The keepers' expressions were grim, but since Frankenstein monsters aren't known for their cheerful, sunny dispositions, it was hard to tell if they were upset over whatever was happening or if it was just another day on the job for them. Given the panicking visitors fleeing for their lives, I opted for the former. Told you I was a brilliant detective.
'Follow the keepers!' I said, and we did so, setting off at a run.
Given my undead state, I'm not that well coordinated at the best of times, even if I've just had a fresh application of preservative spells. But considering that I was currently a jigsaw puzzle of a zombie holding himself together through sheer concentration, I was even less coordinated than usual. With every galumphing shuffle-step I took, I felt my body literally threatening to come apart at the seams, and it took an extra effort of will to keep myself intact.
We followed the keepers past several enclosures, and though it had been a while since my last visit to the Grotesquerie, I remembered the creatures we passed well: the Beast with a Million Eyes, the Killer Shrews, the Monster That Challenged the World, the Crawling Eye, Q the Winged Serpent, and my personal favorite, the original Hound of the Baskervilles. Each of their enclosures had been specially designed to contain the beasts, using a combination of high-tech science, powerful sorcery, and good old-fashioned titanium steel. And if by some impossibly remote chance any of them somehow escaped, the Grotesquerie's deadly flora would stop them – or at least slow them down long enough for visitors to flee for the exit. The creatures glared, snarled, snapped, roared, and raged at us as we ran by their cages, but that was all they could do, and we were damned thankful for it.
When we caught up with the keepers, we found them, along with a dozen others, battling a large di nosaur that, despite all the Grotesquerie's safety precautions, had escaped its enclosure. I recognized the beast as Titanus, an oversized version of a T. Rex that had been captured in a hidden valley on Earth, and from his less than placid demeanor, it was apparent that his time in captivity hadn't mellowed him. The dinosaur stood on the path, roaring in fury, bleeding legs wrapped in tanglethorn, while Frankensteinian keepers jabbed him with their energy lances. The keepers were tall and their lances long enough to reach Titanus' abdomen and sides, and every time a lance struck the dinosaur's leathery hide, there was a bright discharge of crimson energy accompanied by a sizzling sound. Titanus thrashed and tried to get away from his tormentors, but the tanglethorn lining the path was doing its job, holding him in place while the keepers fought to subdue him.
As impressive as the sight of a dinosaur in full battle fury was, our attention was immediately drawn to a large chunk of meat caught in Titanus' dagger-like teeth – a chunk that looked disturbingly like the upper half of Tavi's body. Like most Darkfolk, lykes can take a lot of damage and survive, but getting bitten in half is a damned serious injury no matter what species you are, and though it was difficult to tell with Titanus shaking his head back and forth and roaring in pain and anger, Tavi appeared to show no signs of life.
'We have to get Tavi out of there!' Devona said. 'As long as his brain's intact, there's a chance he'll be able to regenerate the rest of his body. But if Titanus swallows the rest of him…'
Devona didn't complete the thought. She didn't need to. Once Tavi's brain had been dissolved by the digestive juices in the dinosaur's stomach, neither magic nor science would be able to bring him back. We had to rescue Tavi – or what was left of him – but the question was how? We couldn't exactly walk up to Titanus, give him a stern look, and say, 'Bad dinosaur! You spit that out now!'
'I think those keepers could make better use of their lances,' Devona said, and without waiting for a reply, she dashed toward the closest of the Frankenstein monsters.
'What's she going to do?' Shamika asked.
'Something ridiculously brave and incredibly foolish,' I said with admiration. I turned to Varney. 'Well, what are you waiting for?'
He gave me a look that said he should be trying to come up with some excuse to act, but then he obviously decided to hell with it. His expression changed, and I watched as Varney the slightly airheaded hippy cameraman once more became a cool, determined man of action. He raced after Devona, and I followed at the best speed I was capable of. Shamika kept pace with me, but I didn't worry about her. Maybe she would summon a few hundred chiranha to show Titanus what it was like to be someone's dinner.
Devona reached a keeper and snatched the energy lance out of his hand. The Frankenstein monster might've towered over my love, but she's a hell of lot stronger than she looks, and she'd had the additional advantage of taking the keeper by surprise. She flipped the lance into a throwing position, aimed, and hurled it at Titanus' open mouth. The metal rod streaked toward the dinosaur, its tip glowing a baleful red, and struck the roof of his mouth with a crackling blast of released energy. Titanus, unsurprisingly, was less than thrilled with this development, and he opened his mouth wide and let out an ear-splitting cry that was half roar, half scream.
The moment the lance struck Titanus, Varney leaped into the air and transformed into a whirling black vortex of shadow that flew toward the dinosaur like a miniature dark tornado. I'd never seen Varney assume his travel form before, and I was impressed as he flew swiftly up to Titanus' mouth, wrapped his shadowy substance around Tavi, pulled him free of the dinosaur's teeth, and carried him back down to us, keeping the lyke aloft by spinning beneath him to create a cushion of air. Once Varney deposited Tavi gently on the ground, the vampire reassumed his normal shape, and Devona and I grabbed hold of Tavi under his arms and together carried him a dozen yards to get him out of further harm's way. Varney and Shamika followed, and we laid him down gently once again and examined him.
It wasn't pretty. The lower half of his body from mid-abdomen down was gone, and bits of viscera dangled from his open body cavity, though there was little blood. His shapeshifter healing ability had already cut off most of the bleeding, and it was struggling to grow new skin to close off the huge gaping wound where his abdomen had been. It was slow going, though. Tavi's injuries were incredibly extensive, even for a lyke, and repairing them was pushing his system to its limits.
Devona placed a pair of fingers against the artery in Tavi's neck. 'His pulse is faint and erratic, but at least his heart's still beating.'
As if her words had roused him, Tavi's eyes flickered open and a long sigh escaped his lips. He began speaking then, pausing now and then to catch his breath. As he spoke, his wildform slowly gave way to his human guise.
'I… tracked Papa Chatha's scent to the… dinosaur's enclosure, and-' He broke off coughing, and bloody spittle flecked his mouth. 'the trail dead-ended there. I… called you, Matt, and as I was talking, somehow… the
