Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(40)
“Galla—”
Gallagher called his cap before Vandekamp could order him to perform, and a collective gasp echoed across the room. No one actually saw the hat disappear from the floor, and no one actually saw it reappear on his head. Somehow, it happened in midblink. For everyone. All at once.
The audience burst into applause and excited chatter. And like a true showman, Vandekamp dismounted the stage without offering any further information, keeping them curious for Gallagher’s event in “the ring.”
He shook more hands on his way out of the room, then disappeared through the massive double doors without even a glance my way.
Gallagher and Eryx remained on display in front of the stage.
For the next hour, I avoided invasive questions and wandering hands, eager to escape into the kitchen every time my tray was emptied. Lenore sang and the rest of us served, and the patrons quickly got drunk on top-shelf alcohol and their own egos.
“What are you?” a man asked, plucking a tiny caprese skewer from my tray.
“I’m a Gemini,” I said, as he stuffed the bite into his mouth. “That makes us totally incompatible.”
The man next to him laughed into a fragrant glass of expensive whiskey.
As I left to refill my tray, the event coordinator brought Lansing and the groom onto the stage and announced the start of the hypnotist game.
At first, the “tricks” were simple and stupid, but the guests were all drunk and privileged, so the game devolved quickly. Lansing made Lenore compel his friends to tell their most humiliating secrets and when one of them admitted onstage to having slept with the bride, the host told Lenore to make him strip to nothing and take one of the servers’ trays. He spent the next half hour serving his friends in the nude, with a cloth napkin draped over the erection Lenore had made sure he wouldn’t be able to get rid of.
I was leaving the kitchen with another tray, reluctant to rejoin a group of men evidently determined to prove that money doesn’t equal class, when something clattered to the floor across the room, accompanied by a familiar low-pitched feline growl.
Eryx took three thundering steps into the fray, eager to protect a friend, and his handlers grabbed him. I waved him back, to keep him out of trouble, then pushed my way through the crowd toward Zyanya.
I found her surrounded by half a dozen drunk partiers. Her tray was on the floor, bits of fancy cheese, crackers and tapenade scattered across the marble.
“I’m just saying, we paid to see her. We should get to see all of her.” The groom reached for the tie of Zyanya’s cheetah-print bikini top and tried to pull it loose. Again.
Zyanya turned to put her back out of his reach, and then it became a game. Each time she turned, there was another set of hands eager to tug on the straps. A man in gray slacks finally succeeded, and Zyanya clutched her loose top to her chest with both hands.
“Let her go.” I put one arm around the shifter’s shoulders and turned to the nearest handler, who was leaning against one black-draped wall, sipping from a bottle of water. “Aren’t you supposed to step in here?”
The handler slowly screwed the lid on his water, then pushed away from the wall and sauntered toward us. He towered over most of the partygoers. “What’s the problem?”
“I paid to see her, so I want to see her.” The guest of honor pouted like a child as he flicked the untied bikini strap from beneath my protective grip. Before I could point out that he hadn’t paid for anything, the handler shot me a censoring glance.
“That’s not part of your package.” He crossed thick arms over his chest, and I was almost as relieved to hear that as I was horrified that such a package existed.
“This should cover it.” James Lansing pulled a clip of bills from his pocket as he pushed his way into the huddle, and though I only got a glance, they all appeared to be hundreds. “But for that much, I want a private show. Just me and the groom and your pretty little pussycat.”
“That can certainly be arranged,” the handler said.
Lansing tossed him the entire clip. “Take one for your trouble.”
The handler thanked him and peeled a bill from the stack, then shoved it into his pocket. “Follow me.”
“Wait!” I tightened my grip around Zyanya’s shoulders.
The handler grabbed her arm and pulled her away from me. “Customers get anything they want at the Spectacle—as long as they’re willing to pay.”
“Hey,” Lansing said as the handler pulled back a section of the black drape to reveal a door in the rear wall. “I want her too.” He nodded at me, then pulled a credit card from his wallet.
A cold wash of fear froze me in place. The handler shoved Zyanya into the room he’d just opened, then marched toward me. “No.” My voice was hardly a whisper, but it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d screamed. The handler dragged me toward the small room as if I weighed nothing. “No. I won’t do this.” I closed my eyes and dragged my feet, to no effect.
Over the handler’s shoulder, I saw Gallagher clench both fists. Eryx’s bovine nostrils widened when he huffed, and he pawed the marble floor with his right hoof. His promise to keep Gallagher in check seemed to have been forgotten.
“Let her go!” Gallagher bellowed.
The entire room went still. Every head swiveled toward him, and several people gasped. He looked swollen with rage, every muscle in his body standing out beneath his skin, his neck bulging against the confines of the steel collar.