The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(16)

“It doesn’t look like a baby,” Cachito said.

“It’s not one,” Carlota said.

“What is it?”

There was no answer. The creature floated in the dark, pale and still and full of secrets. Lupe leaned forward, breaking formation, pressed herself close to the glass and tapped her finger against it.

“Hey there,” she said.

“Don’t,” Carlota warned her.

“Why not?” Lupe replied, she kept tapping against the glass.

Carlota had wanted to touch the glass when she’d first seen the hybrid but hadn’t dared. Lupe raised her chin and slammed her palm against the glass, and then she giggled. Cachito giggled, too, touched the glass, and Carlota shook her head. She tapped her finger against the glass, not wanting to be the one who didn’t dare. It felt warm against her skin.

Her nail traced a circle on the glass.

An eye opened. It was shrouded by a white membrane.

Lupe and Cachito gasped and stepped away. Carlota stared at the unblinking eye. She opened her mouth to tell the others they ought to go.

The hybrid slammed its head against the glass, making Carlota spring back and clutch her hands.

“We should leave,” Cachito whispered.

The hybrid slammed its head against the glass again, and the membrane slid away, revealing an eye that was golden and huge. It was the all-seeing eye of an ancient god, a Leviathan, terrible and hungry. Its mouth opened, revealing razor-thin teeth, like the maw of an eel. It screamed, but the water muffled the noise, and in silence it unleashed its agony. The hybrid’s body rippled, swinging back and forth against its prison. It was scratching itself, drawing lines of red across its throat.

“It’s dying,” Lupe said. “We need to get it out of there, it’s dying.”

“We need to fetch my father,” Carlota whispered.

“It can’t breathe. It’s drowning.”

“Give me the lamp,” she told Cachito. But the boy held on tight to it, like it was a talisman. “Cachito, let go of it!”

Instead of obeying her, Cachito scrambled away, bumping his back against a table. She turned her head to tell Lupe that she needed to wake up her father. But Lupe was not next to them anymore. She had grabbed one of the iron shovels above the oven and was heading toward the box.

“Lupe!” she yelled.

“We have to get it out of there!” Lupe yelled back, and she swung hard.

A crack ran down the glass. She swung again, and a third time. Carlota rushed toward her and shoved the girl aside. Lupe fell on the floor, and the shovel fell out of her grasp, clanging and landing under a table.

Carlota looked at the glass box with its deep cracks, and for one brief, brief second she thought they might be able to fix this. Then the hybrid threw itself against the glass with uncontrollable violence, and the glass shattered, sending shards flying through the lab. Water spilled out over the floor. It smelled bad, like meat that had spoiled. Carlota pressed a hand against her mouth to keep herself from gagging.

The hybrid twitched and stood on all fours. Its limbs were slick and looked fragile; its skin was almost translucent, like something that had been plucked from abyssal depths. It let out a sound that was between a mewl and a growl. Then it turned its head in Lupe’s direction and rushed forward. It didn’t walk. It seemed almost to slide but at such a frenetic speed Carlota was barely able to yell a warning. Lupe scrambled to her feet but was not quick enough and the thing lunged at her, digging its teeth into her leg.

Lupe screamed, and Carlota threw herself against the creature, tried to pull it away from the girl. But it was slippery, like a fish, and even though she tugged at it and pounded her fists against its body, the creature would not let go.

She remembered the shovel and reached under the table. Her fingers were slick, and the shovel almost slipped from her hands as she hit the creature in the head. She had to hit it twice more before it let Lupe go, and even then it was not dead. It growled and flopped around the floor.

She dropped the shovel and tried to pull Lupe to her feet. The girl was crying, and she clung to Carlota.

“We have to leave,” she said.

“It hurts!” Lupe bawled.

Carlota looked around. Cachito had jumped on a table and was covering his eyes. She tried to drag Lupe out of the laboratory, but they hadn’t taken more than a few steps when the hybrid stood up again and rushed toward them. They shuffled back, then stumbled and fell.

Lupe screamed again, and Carlota joined in the scream as the pale thing leaped toward them, its back rippling and arching, its fangs bared.

A shot rang loud in the semidarkness, and there was an equally loud, wet thud.

Breathe in. Slow breath in, then let it out. That’s what Carlota’s father said when she grew nervous, when one of her old attacks threatened to wreck her body. But Carlota was gulping for air, unable to control her breathing, and Lupe whimpered.

Carlota turned her head. She saw the hybrid shivering on the ground, blood spilling from its belly. It growled and snapped its jaws in the air.

A pair of boots crunched over broken glass.

The Englishman got close to the hybrid and discharged his gun again, the barrel pointed at the head of the creature. The hybrid let out one last shiver and lay still as its blood mixed with the water coating the floor. Carlota had bitten her lip, and there was the taste of blood in her mouth and all around her the thick, coppery scent of death. She clutched Lupe, and Lupe pressed her face against her shoulder, crying.