heartburn.
Devona leaped on top of the Gila monster's back and crawled along its pebbly neck with inhuman speed and grace until she reached its head. She leaned down over its left eye, gripped its pebbly hide with one hand to steady herself, made a fist with the other hand, and rammed it into the beast's shiny black orb. The eye popped like a liquid-filled balloon, and the Gila monster threw back its head and cried out in pain. It thrashed back and forth, trying to dislodge Devona, but she held on with superhuman strength and tenacity.
'That's my husband you're trying to eat!' she said through gritted teeth, and jammed her arm into the lizard's eye socket all the way to her shoulder and groped around inside, trying to get hold of the beast's tiny brain.
I reached out psychically to her. Have I told you lately that you're magnificent?
Tell me a few months from now, when I'm big as a house and feeling like I swallowed a couple bowling balls.
I'll make a mental note.
An instant later, Varney jumped onto the Gila monster's head – an impressive feat considering that the creature was still thrashing and bucking. Varney reached into his own eye, the cybernetic one that Varvara had ruined, and drew forth a thin cable. He continued pulling until he'd exposed several feet, and then he bit the rubber coating off the end and plunged the exposed wires into the Gila monster's other eye. Crackling electricity discharged, and the beast's cries of agony became shrill. Devona continued rooting around in the lizard's skull, and she finally found what she'd been searching for. She smiled grimly, yanked her arm free of the socket in a spray of dark blood, and threw a handful of giant lizard brain onto the path. The Gila monster shuddered, stiffened, and then collapsed to the ground, even deader than I was.
Devona jumped off the Gila monster's carcass and rubbed her hand and arm along its rough hide to scrape off the worst of the goo coating her. Varney also climbed off and fed his cable back into its eye socket.
'We need to keep moving,' I said. 'The lizard's body is going to attract hungry monsters before long, and it would be a good idea for us to be somewhere else when they get here. We don't have time to put me back together, so if you three wouldn't mind…'
Varney grabbed the bulk of my body. Since my clothing held most of my pieces together, he cradled the bundle against his chest and wrapped his arms around it.
'Don't forget Tavi's in my pocket,' I said, and Varney nodded.
Devona picked up my head-and-hands combo and perched me on her shoulder as if she were a vampirate and I her zombie parrot. The four of us then continued toward the exit, trying to ignore the loud footfalls of giant predators eagerly approaching the Gila monster's corpse.
We had more to worry about than the Grotesquerie's escaped creatures, though. The zoo's defensive flora was going crazy – perhaps goaded into action by the sound of alarms – and was reaching out to grab anything that came near. The leech vine couldn't harm me since I had no blood for it to drain, but the same wasn't true for Devona, Varney, and Shamika. Even though the former were vampires, they still had plenty of the red stuff pumping through their veins, and leech vine actually prefers blood aged and refined in a vampire's body. All tanglethorn would do to me was create puncture wounds I'd need to have repaired later, but rotweed was a different story. It causes accelerated decay in anything it touches, and since I already struggled with decomposition, rotweed can reduce me to dust in short order, so I make sure to stay well clear of it.
As we ran, we did our best to avoid the guard plants, and while we took a few hits, none of us were seriously injured, and it began to look like we would make it out. But when we reached the main gate, I was once again reminded why I'm not an optimist. Two behemoths the size of office buildings blocked the entrance, one a giant ape, the other a huge sinuous dragon-like creature. I expected to see Kongar and Reptilikan fighting each other, but the monsters stood side by side facing the entrance, roaring with fury as they slammed their bodies against an invisible force field. Energy crackled and flared bright with each blow the monsters struck, but the force field held strong.
'The Grotesquerie's security system initiated a total lockdown when all the creatures escaped,' Devona said. 'The whole place has been sealed off – nothing can get in or out.'
'Maybe the force field isn't covering the entrance,' I said. 'We were able to get inside without any trouble.'
'Every way in and out of the Grotesquerie is blocked, no matter how small,' Devona said. 'Including the entrance we came through. Remember, not all of the monsters in here are giants. Hopefully, the keepers will be able to get things under control soon. The Grotesquerie's security system is designed to release powerful knock-out gas throughout the zoo in the event of a mass escape.' We looked at her and she shrugged. 'What? Security's my business, remember?'
It's true. Other people come to a zoo to look at the animals. My love prefers to spend her time examining the traps and alarms.
Still perched on Devona's shoulder and feeling absurd, I frowned. 'If that's true, then the gas should've been released as soon as the monsters were freed. Something's wrong.'
'I should think it's obvious,' Varney said, sounding even less like the airheaded cameraman than ever. 'Whoever freed the monsters also disabled the knockout gas to prevent them from being recaptured.'
Shamika had been quiet while we ran, but now she spoke. 'We should put Matt back together… while we can.' She glanced around nervously, which given that we were trapped inside the Grotesquerie with any number of deadly behemoths was only natural. But instead of directing her gaze skyward, she kept looking toward the ground, as if she were worried about a threat of much smaller stature. I remembered thinking that I'd seen something out of the corner of my eye just before the monsters were released: many small somethings, as a matter of fact, moving so swiftly I hadn't been sure that I'd seen them at all.
'Good idea,' Devona said, and she took me off her shoulder, and with Varney's help, managed to reassemble me without too much trouble.
I stood. Everything stayed where it belonged, but I felt even more like a scarecrow than I had before. It seemed the more often the connections between my parts were broken, the harder it was to keep myself together again afterward. I'd have to be more careful.
Once I was a whole man again – or at least a reasonable facsimile of one – I reached into my pocket and removed Tavi to check on him. The miniaturized lyke was still unconscious, but at least he was breathing. I tucked him away again
Kongar and Reptilikan were still too busy trying to beat the hell out of the force field to pay any attention to us, but I knew we wouldn't be safe for much longer. One or both of the monsters would eventually notice us, or worse – more of the behemoths running loose in the Grotesquerie would arrive to try to break through the force field, likely stomping us into jelly as they went by. So far the force field was holding, but only two giant monsters were battering it right now. How long could it hold up under the onslaught of five gargantuan beasts? Or a dozen?
And that thought led to another. 'If the saboteur responsible for releasing the monsters also disabled the knock-out gas, why didn't he, she, or they also deactivate the force field? If Talaith is behind this, she'd want the monsters to escape and flood the streets of the Sprawl. So why aren't the monsters out there right now, doing what they do best – performing urban renewal on a macro scale?'
'The force field won't hold up forever,' Devona said. 'Right now emergency power is being fed to the field to strengthen it, but the power boost is designed to be temporary. It's only supposed to last long enough for the knock-out gas to be deployed.'
'And since the gas isn't working-' I said.
'The force-field generators will eventually burn out,' Devona said, 'the force field will collapse, and the monsters will break free.'
I told myself not to worry about that right now. Tavi needed medical attention, and as long as the force field was in emergency mode, we were trapped inside. Time to call for help. I grabbed my vox, selected one of my contacts, and pressed call. Varvara had probably already been informed of what was happening at the Grotesquerie, but in case she hadn't…
'It won't work,' Varney said. 'You won't be able to get a signal through the force field.'
He was right. The vox's mouth said, 'I'm sorry, but your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try again later.' And then it gave me a loud raspberry to taunt me. I flipped the cover closed with a bit more force than
