Hell's Menagerie by Kelly Gay Read Free Book Online Page B

and know how to defeat it. We’d been trained to face every being and beast from both worlds, and we all had the scars and nightmares to prove it.
    â€œMa’am.” He nodded, stepping back.
    I turned to my daughter, lowering my voice. “What are you doing out of class?” I had to show my confident side, let her know everything would be all right. But my heart pounded. She was highly intuitive and knew me better than anyone. I reached out to smooth the wavy brown bangs behind her ear. She always wore a ponytail to school—couldn’t convince her to do anything different.
    She did a quick wave with her wooden bathroom pass. “Mom,” she began in an I’m-not-a-stupid-kid-I-know-what’s-going-on tone, “they told us to stay in class, that something happened with a student, but I saw you and Hank from the window and said I had to go.” She leaned close, her big brown eyes turning wide and glassy. “Amanda was supposed to be my lab buddy today, but she never showed.” Her nostrils flared and tears rose to the surface. “It’s not her, is it?”
    I opened my mouth to answer at the same moment the paramedics burst through the front door and raced down the hall. Great. I turned back to her. Two lines of tears trailed down her cheeks. Her bottom lip trembled, tugging hard on my protective instincts.
    â€œOh, God. I knew it!” There was a hint of accusation in her tone, as though I somehow had control over what had happened.
    â€œOh, baby.” I pulled her close, hugging her tight and smoothing back her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of Cherry Blast shampoo. She was too young to know this kind of worry and fear. But Emma was a strong kid. She’d had to fly by the seat of her pants right along with me when I became a mother at nineteen, and she’d handled that learning curve like a champ. And she’d been able to get through the divorce with way more strength and understanding than me.
    We’d get through this. And I damned sure as hell was going to find out who was flooding the city with ash . The optimistic part of me wanted to believe there was another explanation for Amanda’s condition, that somehow it was just a medical issue. But I knew it was a silly hope. No medical problems I knew of turned your eyes into something out of The Exorcist . How in the hell had it spread so quickly?
    â€œIt’ll be all right, kiddo.” I leaned back and gazed down at her, giving her my most reassuring smile. She was the one innocent, good thing in my world. And I intended to keep it that way. “Amanda will make it, you’ll see. She’s not hurt, not bleeding; she’s just asleep and we can’t figure out why.”
    I kissed her forehead, pausing there for a moment to breathe in her scent again. No one else could give me that kind of immediate peace. She grounded me, kept me always looking forward and never back. Kept me from lingering too long on all the evil things I’d witnessed over my career and in my past. I straightened and drew in a deep, cleansing breath, then looked her straight in the eye. “But we’ll fix this, I promise. Okay?”
    Her mouth dropped open. One hand went to her hip. “Okay? That’s it? Okay? Like I’m eight years old or something?” Her chin lifted a notch, and her eyes glinted in opposition. “It’s not okay. I want to see her.”
    â€œYou know I couldn’t let you, even if I wanted to, which I don’t.”
    â€œWell, I’m not leaving,” she said, “until I see her.” Attitude poured off her in maddening waves that, in any other circumstance, would’ve riled me. But the challenging stance and the belligerent cock to her head couldn’t hide her fear. She was like a wounded puppy—scared to death, too small to defend itself, yet baring its teeth anyway.
    I took her shoulders and turned her around to face the way