Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(68)
“Hey, Oakland, did she say anything to you?” the man in the white coat whispered from the other side of the room.
Rommily heard him, but she was much more interested in the lines of grout running through the tile floor.
“No, but she told Perkins he’d be trampled by a ‘mad pageant,’” the man in the black uniform answered. “Whatever the hell that means.”
The tiles were several different sizes, and the grout between them appeared to follow no pattern. It was like a maze with no center, and Rommily couldn’t seem to find her way out...
Sharp footsteps clicked into the room, and a pair of shiny white shoes with very tall heels stepped into the tile maze.
Rommily blinked, then looked up to see the woman with tightly twisted hair staring at her. Scowling.
“Mrs. Vandekamp.” The man in the white coat stepped forward, but Rommily’s handler stayed on the edge of the room.
“So?” the woman said. “What’s the prognosis? Is there any damage?”
“Nothing physical. We had to sedate her to do an exam and run X-rays, but there’re no healed fractures. No significant scarring. Her anatomy is virtually identical to that of a human, except in the ocular region, and—”
“Then what’s wrong with her?”
The man in the coat shrugged. “The problem seems to be psychological.”
“Are you suggesting we call in a therapist? For an animal?”
Rommily’s gaze fell to the floor again, watching the woman’s pointed left heel stab into an intersection of the grout maze.
“That’s your call, ma’am. All I’m saying is that oracles are so similar to us that they don’t actually fall within my training as a cryptoveterinarian. According to Rommily’s record, her entire family passed for human until she was around four years old, and—”
“So did the surrogates, Doctor,” the woman snapped. “Looking human doesn’t make her human. What I need to know is whether or not she can be fixed in a manner cost-effective enough to be practical.”
“Probably not.” The man in the coat cleared his throat. “But she might be worth keeping around if you want to maintain her sisters’ mental health and profitability. Considering the psychological fragility of oracles, in general...”
The woman groaned, and her right heel stepped into the middle of a small rectangular tile. “Send her back to the dorm,” she called over her shoulder on her way out of the room. But Rommily hardly registered her fate. Now that the intruding shoes were gone, she was feverishly tracing the grout lines. Searching for a way out.
“Come on.” Oakland pulled Rommily down from the table by one arm, careful only to touch her sleeve, even though he wore gloves.
The oracle dragged her feet, staring at the floor.
“Rommily,” the handler snapped. He gasped when she looked up at him through eyes clouded with a white film.
“Crushed by a child in the night...” she mumbled.
“What?” Chill bumps rose over Oakland’s arms. But the oracle wasn’t finished.
“The cock will crow at midnight, and the bull will rule the maze.”
Delilah
I spent the next day in isolation, in my concrete cell. Except for Pagano, who brought breakfast and lunch, I saw no one, and when I asked why I’d been given neither exercise nor a shift of delivering lunch trays, my handler replied only with silence.
When my cell door creaked open at dusk, I stood, expecting to find Pagano carrying my dinner tray. Instead, I came face-to-face with Willem Vandekamp. Pagano stood just behind him, in the hallway.
“You’ve been requested for another private engagement,” Vandekamp said.
Blood rushed to my head, and the small room seemed to swim around me.
Private engagement. Me, alone with a guest. I had no exotic features and no marketable cryptid abilities, so there was no reason for a client to want to see me alone, up close and personal, that I could think of. Except for one.
“No.” I held Vandekamp’s gaze, searching for some change in the way he looked at me. Some sign of cruel or intimate knowledge. If he knew I was pregnant, he must know how it happened. “I need to talk to you privately.”
“We’re not negotiating. You’re going, and you’ll do what’s expected, or Gallagher’s collar will malfunction for a full thirty seconds during his next match.” Which would be plenty of time for any opponent to do serious damage. Vandekamp had me, and he knew it. “I don’t know why you bother arguing. We both know you like it.” He gave me an infuriatingly casual shrug. “And even if you don’t, you won’t remember it.”
A bolt of surprise shot up my spine. “Why not?”
He gave me a strange look, then turned to Pagano without answering. “Get her ready. The van is fueled and ready.”
I blinked, trying to make sense of what I’d just heard. I was leaving the Spectacle, and Vandekamp was going to have my memory of an engagement erased. Had he done that before? Was he responsible for the entire two-month gap? Was that intentional, or had something gone wrong with what was evidently a standard practice?
“Erasing the memory of something doesn’t mean it never happened,” I said, as the questions compounded in my head.
Vandekamp laughed. “That’s exactly what you said last time.” As he turned to leave, he put one hand on Pagano’s shoulder. “Bring her to me as soon as you get back. I’ll be waiting.”