Page 54 of Spectacle

“There’s a man on the floor. He’s been hit on the head, and there’s a small pool of blood under his skull. It doesn’t seem to be life-threatening. Apart from that, it’s clear.”

Lila gasps. “Can you conjure me up a robe with wing slits?” she asks the god, who quickly does as she asks, holding it out to her. She strips and changes into her Celestian form before quickly shoving the robe on and gesturing for me to move out of the way to let her through. Instead, I lead the way just in case Zeydan’s creatures missed anything.

Lila kneels and activates her healing power. A bright light washes over the man whom I recognize as Connor. He groans and returns to consciousness as Lila heals the wound on the back of his head. “Easy,” she cautions him when his eyes blink open. “I healed you, but don’t get up too quickly.”

Zeydan puts her discarded clothes on a nearby desk and opens another door, then he disappears before returning with a wad of damp paper towels—that must be a bathroom. He passes it to Lila, who uses it to clean the blood off the back of Connor’s head. He just blinks at her as I tuck my gun into my waistband.

“You’re an angel,” he murmurs, and I can hear the awe in his voice.

I snort. “Hardly. She’s definitely more of a devil. All her husbands say so.”

He blinks and turns to look at me, recognition in his eyes. “Saxon. What are you doing here?” He stumbles as he tries to stand up, and Lila steadies him with a hand on his arm. Again, he looks at her with hearts in his eyes. “Who are you? Why are you here?” He hasn’t even looked away to notice the nine creatures who are sitting patiently to one side, and Zeydan has a knack of making himself appear inconsequential.

“William said there was a disturbance, and he couldn’t get a hold of you, so he sent us to investigate. This is Lila, their granddaughter and my wife. Lila, this is Connor, the head zookeeper for the sanctuary,” I introduce them.

She smiles at him, and he looks even more dazzled. Poor bastard, Lila really doesn’t know her own appeal, and with those giant wings and glowing aura, she really is spectacular.

“Hi.” She waves at him. “Did you happen to see who hit you? I’m assuming that’s what happened,” she asks him, gesturing at his head.

This works to get him back on track, and he frowns and shakes his head. “No. I had just finished my last rounds, and I was going to sit down and eat something when I was struck from behind.” He gestures to a container on the desk in front of a whole heap of monitors.

“Do you want to have a look around to see if anything was disturbed here before we walk through the zoo and check it out?” I suggest, and he agrees and disappears out into the foyer gift shop.

I step over to the monitors and study the video feeds. The ten screens continuously rotate through all the cameras in the park. Nothing stands out to me, but I haven’t been here in a while, so I wouldn’t know for sure.

“Why don’t you change back?” Zeydan suggests to Lila. “It’s too cold to wander around in that robe out there, despite your tolerance for the weather.” He nods to the snow-covered video feed, and she grimaces.

“What if we come across someone else who’s injured? I think I’ll just put my other clothes back on, and we can cut some space in the jacket for my wings. We should have brought Maxsim and Echo, they would have been good at tracking out there,” she muses thoughtfully.

“My creatures will be just as helpful,” he promises, not taking his eyes off her as she redresses. She doesn’t look away from him either. It’s like a weird game of naked chicken, and I can’t stop the chuckle that leaves my lips, but thankfully, Connor returns before they make me explain.

“Everything looks fine out there,” he tells us, and I gesture to the video feeds.

“I can’t see anything on the screen, but maybe you can take a closer look,” I say to him, and he sits down and his fingers fly across the console. He brings up a map of the sanctuary, and there are red lights flashing on two enclosures.

“Fuck. The steggy paddock has been breached, and what’s even worse, it looks like Htaed is also out.” He returns his attention to the cameras, programming the right ones to appear.

One shows a wide open gate that doesn’t look damaged, just like someone opened it. “That’s Htaed’s paddock. He and Viggy usually share one since they have been with the circus, but he’s been even more deranged since he returned to the sanctuary, so we had to separate him. I think his mind is broken, and I have no idea why.”

I exchange a glance with Lila. Allegedly, her cousins are supposed to have some kind of animal control power, which is why they got the job in the first place. What if they tried to control his mind and broke it instead? They aren’t very gentle with their techniques, and with a mind as primitive as a dino’s, it probably wouldn’t take much.

Connor changes the view, and we see a wide open space. I gape as we watch terrified mini steggies running from a crazed raptor. “Fuck, he’s in the steggy paddock. How did he even get in there?”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Lila

“Holy shit,” I mutter as we watch the live footage. Adorable miniature stegosauruses run around in a blind panic while Htaed chases them. Luckily for them, they are quite agile, so he hasn’t managed to kill any of them, which makes him even madder, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

Connor jumps up and hurries to a nearby cabinet, opening it and pulling out two big tranq guns. He passes one to me.

He pats his pockets and frowns. “Shit, my swipe key is gone. Whoever attacked me must have stolen it, but why?”

He starts to leave, but Zeydan pushes off the wall. “Wait. Is there a way to see if anyone else accessed those gates?” he asks.

“Sure, just let me run the employee logs.” Connor returns to the console, placing his gun down before bringing up another screen.

“What are you thinking?” I ask him, and he points at the park map.

---