Page 9 of A Malicious Menagerie (Fangs & Fables #1)
The Kelpies
T hat night, John greets me by unceremoniously dumping a large pile of white plastic into my arms. “What’s this?” I grumble, already in a bad mood from the lack of sleep and spending long hours debating ethics with myself.
“Death worms need fed,” he replies shortly. “That’s the venom-resistant suit.”
And that’s how I find myself in a vinyl hazmat suit that smells of shit and rotting carcasses, as well as other people’s stale sweat.
Thankfully, the worms decide not to investigate because I’m distracted tonight.
Distracted is a bad thing to be around venomous predators, but I can’t help it.
Before leaving for work, I sat down to go over finances.
Twelve dollars. That’s what I have left in my bank account after settling the rest of Nan’s bills and filling the loaner car with gas. Honestly, it could be worse. At least the number is black.
After poring over a calendar and plotting out bill and credit card due dates, I’ve hit the realization that I can keep that number from going red.
I can. I just need to survive this job and my moral angst long enough to collect a paycheck.
After that, I’ll have some decisions to make on what the hell I’m doing here.
Once my pleasant task is done, I catch up with John outside the jackalope exhibit, where he’s just refreshed the antlered hares’ hay and laid out fresh produce. “Moving on,” he mutters, dusting his calloused hands off on his heavy khaki work pants.
John leads me through the door in the back wall and a series of bland white hallways until we emerge in the jungle section.
The air is so thick with humidity that I’m worried I might drown on dry land.
Dashing damp strands of dark blonde hair out of my eyes, I follow John past towering trees with thick, twisted trunks and flora in every dazzling shade of the rainbow.
He leads me below another cliff and brushes aside some of the vines to reveal the roughly-hewn entrance to what looks like a mine.
There’s a faint, argent light illuminating the tunnel, and John motions me in. “C’mon.”
Once we traverse the short tunnel, we emerge in a large cavern, though a chain-link fence that extends to the ceiling blocks our access to all but a small section of the cave.
The silver light I noticed before is coming from near one top corner, where the source appears to be attached to a stalactite. “What…?”
Before I can finish my question, the light expands as the creature perched near the ceiling spreads luminescent wings.
It launches off the stalactite and dives down and away toward the back of the cavern, where it disappears behind a boulder.
The cave is immediately thrown into darkness as the bird’s light is obscured.
Gasping, I reach out and grab John’s arm, then just as quickly cringe away when I realize what I’m doing.
“Alicanto,” John grunts, moving away from me like I might throw myself at him. As if. “It’s shy. That might be the most you ever see of it. In any case, we need to feed it.”
“What does it eat?” I ask curiously. I follow the sound of John’s scuffing footsteps and muffled curses toward the far end of the chain-link underground aviary.
“Silver.”
I blink. “Silver… fish?”
“Silver silver ,” he replies with a sigh. “The metal.”
“Of course it eats silver,” I mumble under my breath.
“Old man Mathis likes to complain that he could only get a silver one,” John explains as a bright white light suddenly clicks on. I squint against the sudden flare of his flashlight, my eyes accustomed to the alicanto’s more subtle illumination. “The really rare ones eat gold.”
The first part of the night goes on like that, with me trailing behind John as he reluctantly makes his way through a list of chores.
We tackle the rest of the jungle first, chaining up a goat for the chupacabra in a scene reminiscent of Jurassic Park and leaving a bowl of blood mixed with ants for a creature that John calls the “capelobo.” Neither creature makes an appearance, and I’m both dismayed and relieved in equal measure.
We venture back into the warren of hallways behind the outer wall and emerge next in the woods section.
The cool shade under the trees is an instant relief to my flushed cheeks.
“Come on,” John grumbles, his mood not nearly as cheered as mine by the scent of decaying leaves and damp soil.
“I’ll show you how to feed the kelpies.”
“Kelpies are water horses, right?” I ask a few minutes later as I help John load a wheelbarrow with trout from a tank by the door.
“Yes and no,” he replies distractedly. As I watch, he reaches for a handbell resting on its lip on the ground and gives it a few sharp shakes.
The sound is loud and biting, and I wince as my ears ring.
As the echo fades, I become aware of a more subtle sound, though it’s growing louder by the second.
Finally, I recognize the percussion of hoofbeats just as two horses come into view through the trees.
The larger of the two horses is the color of the Atlantic Ocean, a deep green just tinted with blue, and its eyes are uniformly pale and reflective like moonstone.
Its long mane and tail are white and intricately braided with interwoven river weeds.
The smaller horse is black as pitch from its glistening obsidian eyes to its sleek coat to its mane woven into a waterfall braid, which makes the white water lilies threaded into its hair even more striking.
Both horses’ coats are damp as if they’ve just been swimming, and the brackish scent of pond water follows them as they trot toward us.
As I stare at them, mesmerized, they turn to the corner of the enclosure closest to us and come to a halt, their uncanny, pupilless eyes fixed on us.
Once they’ve arrived at the corner, John flips a switch fixed to one of the iron bars beside the door.
The sound of rattling metal accompanies a chain- link divider as it slides diagonally across the corner from the adjacent wall.
It comes to a stop by us, effectively enclosing the horses in a small triangle.
“How do they know to do that?” I ask curiously as John opens the gate and lets us into the enclosure.
“They know they won’t get fed if they don’t,” he grunts, which only partially answers my question.
I follow close behind as John drives the wheelbarrow inside, but I can’t help peeking back at the kelpies as we start toward the pond at the front of the exhibit.
My heart lurches when I notice that the sea-colored kelpie’s eerie eyes are fixed on me.
Its finely tapered ears are pricked, and its nostrils flare as it observes me.
Unnerved, I scurry after John until the trees block my view of those luminous moonstone eyes.
Once we’ve dumped the fish in the pond, we retrace our steps toward the back of the enclosure, the empty wheelbarrow bumping along over partially exposed tree roots and rocks.
My eyes immediately fall to the kelpies when we emerge from the trees, and my feet freeze to the hard-packed earth when I see that there are no longer two horses but one black horse and one man.
He’s tall and broad, his muscular build emphasized by the way he leans forward into the chain-link divider with his fingers curled in the mesh on either side of his head.
Shaggy white hair just brushes his shoulders, the snowy strands adorned with green river weeds.
His skin is pale, but in a certain slant of light, I notice faint blue-green dapples across his shoulders and over his hips.
His very naked hips with that prominent V, and sweet Jesus, I’d say the man was hung like a horse if it wouldn’t be too on the nose.
Realizing the inappropriate direction my thoughts have taken, I jerk my gaze up to his face only to catch him smirking.
His lips are full and sensual and compellingly at odds with the harsh lines of his cheekbones and blade-sharp nose.
His eyes are so pale a gray they’re nearly white, the only thing keeping them from fading into his sclera a darker gray outline ringing his irises.
The overall effect is devastating, and it takes John’s derisive snort to shatter my trance and alert me to the fact that I’m at serious risk of drooling.
“Put that away,” John growls, scowling at the horse-turned-heartthrob. “No one wants to see that. ”
“Agree to disagree,” the kelpie replies in a low rumble, his eyes never leaving mine.
His voice is tinged with amusement and an Irish brogue that makes me shiver.
His smirk turns into a full grin that reveals even white teeth with a set of canines just a little too long to be fully human.
“Your new friend here certainly seems to like what she sees.”
Calling John my friend, more even than calling me out on my lascivious staring, is what finally makes me look away with a skeptical snort. “Friend is too strong a word. Begrudging coworker is closer to the truth.”
John throws me an exasperated look but doesn’t correct me or look overly offended. After all, it’s not like he’s particularly fond of me either.
“You’re new,” the kelpie observes, not a question. He releases the divider with one hand to press his palm to his (very firm) chest. “I’m Fionn. And you are…?”
“None of your business, horse,” John grumbles, but I ignore him. “Anna,” I supply, earning me another glower from John.
“Anna,” Fionn breathes, and the sound of my name on his lips is sweeter than any music I’ve ever heard. Unbidden, I take a step toward him, my whole being yearning to be closer. Before I can come within reach, a harsh grip on my upper arm halts me. I hiss in pain as I glare back at John.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he barks, yanking me backward so hard I nearly lose my footing. “This is what they do. Don’t you know the stories?”