Inhuman (34 page)

After wrapping my hair in a towel, I eyed my lump of muddy, sweat-soaked clothes and couldn’t even bring myself to pick them up. I put on the white robe that hung on the back of the door and stepped into the bedroom.

At Rafe’s startled look, I realized just how short the robe was. Worse, the silk was clinging to my wet skin. I braced myself for the lewd remark that was sure to come.

“Oh, come on,” he said, sounding dismayed, not lecherous. “Do not make my life this hard.”

“What?”

He shot me an exasperated look. “You’re Mack’s daughter. You don’t get to have a body.”

For the first time since coming to Chicago, I felt a smile pulling at the corners of my mouth. “I don’t?”

“No, you’re a head. A floating head. And sometimes not even that. Unless you want me to be the jerk who’s just after one thing.”

“I can be a floating head,” I said quickly. “But … you are the jerk who offered to take me to Moline if I shared your sleeping bag.”

“That doesn’t count,” he sputtered. “I didn’t know who you were. I —” He paused brow crinkling. “Hey, listen, could you maybe not mention that to Mack?”

I nodded. “So, what you said to Omar and the queen …” I wanted to ask how much of it had been true, but suddenly I felt exposed. And it had nothing to do with the skimpy robe.

“I didn’t want them to split us up.” He eyed me. “You know that was a lie, right? I’m not really in love with you.”

“Of course,” I said quickly.

“Good. ’Cause I’m not.”

“I know.”

“Glad we got that straight.”

I’d known better than to believe that he was in love with me, but I did want to know about the rest of it. Had he actually thought of himself as a stray animal? And had he really hoped that I’d come find him?

“Dromo left this for you,” he said gruffly, and scooped up a teal dress adorned with feathers from the bed. He tossed it to me and headed into the bathroom without another word.

I left my questions unasked. What would I do anyway if he said the rest was true? Hold him close and tell him that I would’ve come sooner if I’d known he was real? Oh, he’d just love that. Part of me did want to though — hold him close. And not just because he was the wild boy, my favorite character come to life, but for who he was now, and for the parts of him he tried to keep hidden. I held up the blue-green garment — a satin evening gown that was even skimpier than the robe. The material was a little moth-eaten in places, but it still gleamed. How was I supposed to make an escape in this?

Ten minutes later there was a soft knock on the door, and a girl with the flattened face of a Pekingese came into the room, her eyes lowered. Her white maid’s cap sat over one ear and, as with Dromo, a thick leather collar encircled her neck. “I’m Penny and I’m here to — Oh, you’re already dressed,” she said, looking anxious. “Well, the fit is beautiful. Dromo always gets it right on the first try.”

I smoothed down the bodice, which was embroidered with two peacocks whose tails cascaded over the flowing skirt in a shimmering mix of feathers and satin. “I didn’t need help with the dress, but I do need a bandage.”

Penny yipped when I showed her my lacerated calf. She darted from the room and then returned with everything she needed to disinfect my leg and wrap it up tight. After that, I settled on a leather ottoman while Penny pinned up my hair. I even let her dab lipstick on me.

“Is there a mirror somewhere?” I asked and then felt a pluck of guilt. I had two days to get back to the Titan wall before the line patrol blocked off the tunnel, and here I was curious to see myself all dressed up.

Fear sprang into Penny’s smooshed face. She gave the barest shake of her head and hurried from the room on bowed legs.

O-kay. Were they extra superstitious here in the Chicago Compound?

Dromo entered without knocking just as Rafe stepped out of the bathroom. I’d seen my father in a tuxedo many times and had always marveled at how it magically transformed him into someone glamorous. Putting a tux on Rafe, however, just wasn’t fair. With that face, that lean form, he was already the prettiest person in any given room. Did he really need a boost up to jaw-dropping?

He looked from me to Dromo, trying to gauge our expressions. “Go ahead, laugh. I know I look stupid.”

Dromo lifted a brow. “You’re not serious?”

“You look okay,” I told him.

Dromo turned to me. “
You’re
not serious?”

“What?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “It’s nice to see him with combed hair for a change.” Though his hair was still unruly, waving past his ears and along the nape of his neck.

Rafe scowled. “Forget it. I’m not going anywhere like this.” He started to shrug off his jacket.

“No!” Dromo and I cried in unison.

“You look gorgeous, okay?” I added.

He broke into a slow grin. “Gorgeous?”

I directed a finger at him. “Don’t be obnoxious about it. Is there a mirror anywhere in this castle?” I asked Dromo. After one glance at his reflection, Rafe’s already healthy ego would probably grow as big as the Titan wall, but at least he’d keep the tux on.

“Mirrors aren’t allowed in the castle,” Dromo said flatly. “By the king’s order.”

“He’s that ugly?” Rafe asked.

“No one’s warned you about the king’s appearance?” Dromo asked in a low voice.

That sounded ominous. We shook our heads.

He smoothed the sleeves of his white dinner jacket without meeting our eyes. “You’ve met Omar?”

“Is the king as messed up as Captain Half Nose?” Rafe asked, coming to stand beside me.

“They were outside the compound hunting when a feral attacked the king,” Dromo said, speaking fast and low. “Omar saved the king’s life, though both returned to the castle badly wounded. They don’t hide their scars from that terrible day, but no one in Chicago ever dares to stare or bring up their deformities in any way.”

“Of course not,” I assured him … and then remembered that I was traveling with the rudest person alive. “We won’t stare or comment on the king’s appearance.” I said it precisely, so that maybe it would stick in Rafe’s brain. The grin he gave me wasn’t reassuring.

Dromo strode over to Rafe and got within an inch of him, their noses almost touching. Now it was Rafe’s turn to stiffen. “Here’s a tidbit you might want to keep in mind,” Dromo said so quietly that even though I was at Rafe’s side, I could barely hear him. “The queen says she has eyes in the back of her head, but really she puts an ear to the door. So be very careful about what you say … even in private.” He stepped back smoothly, lifting his hands to Rafe’s tie as if he’d just straightened it.

“Thank you,” I said, drawing his gaze to me.

He frowned as he looked me over and then clucked his tongue. “What was Penny thinking?”

I touched my hair, which Penny had pinned up in a loose knot. “She didn’t do a good job?”

“She did too good a job.” He began pulling pieces of my hair free of the pins. “She’s going to end up in the zoo if she isn’t careful.”

“Hey, let me —”

Dromo pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his suit coat and dragged it across my mouth, smearing rosy lipstick over the white cotton. “If the queen asks, say you declined Penny’s help. That way she can’t be blamed if the queen thinks you’ve upstaged her.”

I pulled free of his hold and touched my now-raw lips. “I don’t want to upstage her.” I wasn’t even sure what that meant, but it didn’t sound good.

“No,” he agreed. “You don’t.”

Dromo led us up the stairs and to the roof. At the top, Rafe and I opened the door and stepped out into a lush garden just as the sun dropped past the horizon. We saw Omar smoking a cigar as handlers armed with rifles took up positions along the edge of the roof at various strategic points. The center area was crowded with freestanding cages, which held the oddest creatures that I’d ever seen — a snakelike dog, a bat-faced rabbit…. Chicken bones and dry pet food lay scattered across the cement floors of the enclosures. At least I hoped they were chicken bones. I wanted to run to each cage and see what was inside. Judging by his wrinkled nose, Rafe didn’t share my curiosity.

“This is so wrong.” He flung a hand at the nearest creature. “That mongrel has got at least five animals mixed in to it.”

I peered inside the tall cage and saw what he meant. The long-necked creature had ermine fur and a body like a mini kangaroo. “They look like they belong in a dream.” I turned in a slow circle, looking into all the cages.

“So you like my menagerie?” the queen asked. She stepped out from behind a blooming shrub, dressed in a semitransparent gown of yellowing lace with a white fur cape draped over one shoulder. Her auburn hair had been put up with dried bird claws. “They are fun, aren’t they? I was in charge of infecting and breeding them even before I was queen. It’s how I caught the king’s eye. I impressed him with what I whipped up. Creatures with the softest fur, and leather in colors you wouldn’t believe.”

I murmured my amazement, while remembering the fate of the ugly offspring. On the jeep ride here, Cosmo had told us that the so-called failures were taken to the zoo and fed to the feral humans who were imprisoned there.

“You look pretty,” the queen said to me while fingering her electric blue Ferae test. “Very pretty …”

Out of her mouth, it didn’t sound like a compliment. It sounded ominous. “Um, thanks.”

“You two are going to fit in just fine.” She smiled at Rafe, but that smile tightened as her eyes moved back to me. If she’d only let us go, then she wouldn’t have to worry about the king noticing me.

She bent toward the cage beside her. Inside sat a dejected little hedgehog-monkey thing. The queen waved a celery stalk in front of the bars, and the small creature reached out a hand to take it, but the queen jerked the celery back, out of the mongrel’s reach, and laughed. “It’s getting weaker and weaker,” she said. “It hasn’t eaten in days. It’s an ugly one all right.”

I had to turn away, or my hands would have found their way around her throat. But her attention span was short — big surprise — and soon she dropped the celery and headed for the edge of the roof. “Let’s see who has arrived.”

When her back was turned, I bent to get the celery, but Rafe had had the same idea. Our fingers touched and his closed on the stalk and he tossed it into the little mongrel’s cage. Without a word about it, he strode toward the queen, while I stared after him in shock.

From the edge of the roof, we could not only see the guests arriving in their manimal-drawn rickshaws, we could also see the feral, still chained in the yard below. Eyes closed, he swung his head back and forth as if he was trying to shake loose a crick in his neck. Once the people climbed out of their rickshaws, they stopped to point and gape at him on their way into the castle. One man threw a rock at him, and the feral’s eyes snapped open. He lunged for the man, but the chain pulled him up short. The group below broke into peals of laughter.

“Almost makes me ashamed to be human,” Rafe muttered.

I glanced at him. “Almost?”

The queen waved to the stream of people arriving below. “Hurry up to the roof,” she called down and then sighed, leaning against the low wall. “Can you believe it? That’s just about everyone. All the humans left living inside the compound. Less than two hundred.”

“Were there more at one time?” I asked.

“Yes, but they either took off or got infected at some point. Oh, and a lot died trying to overthrow my husband a few years back. Idiots. They just couldn’t admit that we’re safer now than we’ve ever been.”

“Safer from what?” I asked.

She made a face as if I were too dumb to live. “Ferals. And then there’s the servants. Given half a chance, they’d have us waiting on
them
. The king says we need more humans if we’re to keep the manimals in their place. But not many people come to Chicago anymore.”

“Where is the king?” Rafe asked.

“Off hunting, but he’ll be back soon enough,” Omar said as he joined us.

If the king bore even half the scars that Omar did from their encounter with a feral, then I was surprised he’d ever venture outside the compound again. “Were those the king’s trophies on the spikes outside the fence?” I asked as if impressed.