Night of the Animals(117)
As he stumbled south, through the cave-art tunnel, keeping off the paths now, and made his way toward the area of the big cats, he stopped at every enclosure, paddock, and cage he could, releasing as many animals as opportunity afforded. He swung open the great rear gate of the elephant paddock, and Layang, Dilberta, and the fierce Mahmoud came lumbering out. The giraffes and nervous okapis proceeded from their large faux-African diorama gingerly. A threesome of yipping fennec foxes from Algeria came out in a playful sprint, tumbling over each other, ready to cavort with any creature that was game. The shy black-and-white tapir named Gertie, from Malaysia, had to be pushed along from its leafy pen by St. Cuthbert, then shoved, but it soon returned to the safe-smelling imported plants, cowering. The cow-like anoa from Sulawesi, a pair of Andean pudús, and a quintet of pert peccaries from southern Mexico—all of them trotted out quite happily and expectantly, as if their enclosures had merely been expanded.
As the saint walked on, freeing all manner of mammal, reptile, marsupial, and bird, a question he hadn’t counted on began to trouble him: had all these animals really ever spoken to him?
Yes, answered the lions. Don’t be a fool, for at the sound of our roars, sorrows will be no more.
But he wasn’t so sure. For a few moments, he began to suspect that his mind, under the influence of decades of abuse, had been playing an extraordinary, elaborate ruse. There was a strange feeling of unreality almost suffocating him, as if every part of the whole crazy night itself had been thrown into outer space, and all he had left was a dark, unbreathable vacuum in every direction for a trillion miles.
BY THE TIME St. Cuthbert had reached the Asiatic lion compound, the London Zoo was being overrun. Because much of the hubbub from the police and autonewsmedia was near the northeastern end of the zoo, the animals naturally fled in the opposite direction, toward its southern tip, where St. Cuthbert had so effectively created his huge hole in the main fence. It was a funnel, and through it the screaming beasts were about to spill into London like unruliness itself, in scalding streams.
At the same time, in St. Cuthbert’s mind, there was another, even scarier presence invading the zoo. More and more, he could see flashes of white-bodysuited Luciferian Neuters, gliding unnaturally, as if on wheels, and drawing silver quantum contra-fluxal staves that popped out of their wrists like long daggers. St. Cuthbert knew they were coming for the animals, and that both he and the Red Watch must do everything to try to stop them.
His nemesis, his abuser, his pursuer—the thuggish Watch—now shared the same enemy as he.
“The Watch and I—on the same squad,” he said, snickering. “That’s not on, not on.”
father drury and his “dogs”
AFTER LEAVING REGENT’S PARK, THE JACKALS RELEASED earlier snouted around for a long time in a shadowy rubbish collection point behind a gastropub on Marylebone Road. They scrounged among lemon rinds and stale loaves of pain de campagne, and licked sweet dark oil leaking from a broken deep fryer. The canines would dart away whenever any of the workers came outside to dump bottles and cans or to take cigarette breaks, but always drifted back, more nervous and irritated. Eventually the jackals managed to tip a giant blue recycling bin filled with lager cans and the huge clatter scared them away. But the pack was in a bit of a state now, a peculiarly canine blend of curiosity, fear, and bloodlust.
They ran south, into Marylebone proper, staying close together and attracting almost no attention. It was May Day. An emaciated young hedge fund trader who normally monitored the Asian markets at night was crouched, wide awake, in his new red Bayerische glider outside the famed London Clinic. He had taken off work to wait for an appointment at 7:00 A.M. He had been unable to concentrate on his accounts. He was trying to eat a carton of Kung Pao Prawns and crab puffs picked up in Chinatown. It wasn’t going well. Like Dr. Bajwa, he had metastatic lung cancer, although he had never smoked, yet unlike Dr. Bajwa, his had been discovered cruelly late. It seemed to be in the air, like radon gas. His appetite had been absent for weeks. He kept putting prawns to his mouth and taking them out. When he saw the jackals, he rolled down the window and clicked his fingers to attract them.
“Allo,” he said. “Come on, busters, let’s have a pet.”
The jackals at times showed few inhibitions around people if it served their purposes. One trotted up and began licking the traces of sweet, peanuty sauce off the trader’s bony fingers. The man was lonely. He had faced his disease, so far, with great valor, but he was far away from his family and friends in Yorkshire. He thought of his small collie, Barney, from his childhood—a loyal little animal, who used to chase hares in the beetroot field across the lane. He wondered if he ought to move home to die.
“You’re right good sorts,” he said. “Right good tykes.”
The other dogs surrounded the hand and the good smell wafting from the Bayerische.
“That’s it,” he said. The trader looked around the street. He saw no one. He turned the carton upside down and let all the food fall on the pavement. One of the jackals lunged forward, snarling at the others, bullying them back, but they resisted, and every jackal managed to get at least a mouthful. The viciousness of the animals took the trader aback.
“Steady,” he said. “Steady, boys.”
Then the jackals ran off, south again. Their loyalties were only to the pack.