Page 21 of Moon Tamed

“I’ve named him Doom Bird, but yes.”

“I’ll warn your mother we’re imposing tonight. One of the turkeys didn’t survive transit, and Calden is preparing it now. I’ll tell her we’re bringing an extra person along. Leita, bump up the work on the Patten contribution to the hunt practice. Coraline, if the peacock will follow you, he can stay in your office today. Call me if there are any issues.”

Long after he left, I stood still, struggling to comprehend what he meant by turkeys and questioning everything about my morning. “Turkeys?”

“Earth sent a major wildlife shipment via portal this morning. Stonecreek and Waypoint received twenty-five thousand animals each. We received thirty thousand. To say the least, it’s a mess. The entire faction was called in early to try to get the animals settled.”

My eyes widened, and I sucked in a breath. “Thirty thousand animals?”

“Fortunately for us, ten thousand of ours are songbirds ready for release. We opened those crates and let the survivors go after putting out food and water enough for all of them. We only lost a few, and honestly, we fed those to the cats.”

I stared at the mouse on my foot, wondering if it had come from Earth. Afraid of the answer, I asked, “Cats?”

“We received a few large cats for our menageries.”

What was going on? Why was Earth sending so many animals at one time? “Is this normal?”

“No, it’s not. Not really.” Leita heaved a sigh and went to work putting out fresh nectar for the hummingbirds, who followed her in a cloud of beating, iridescent wings. “It’s probably an evacuation situation.”

I winced. When disaster struck Earth, Earth’s governments attempted to evacuate at-risk wildlife in a mass exodus. As our world closely matched Earth’s conditions, they often risked portal hopping as many animals out as possible. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Taking two of the birds is already a huge help. Know anyone who wants rabbit?”

“As a pet or for the freezer?”

“Freezer.”

“Me. I want rabbit.”

Leita chuckled. “Let’s just say hunting season is open outside of the city, and there are no limits until five thousand rabbits are reported as claimed. We let loose a lot of nasty rabbits, and we need to make sure they’re culled to an acceptable number.”

How nice for me and my sling. “What breed?”

“Earth meat rabbits. They’re big, they’re mean, and they’ll make a mess of things if we don’t get enough of them eliminated. And they breed fast.”

“Even better.” I bent over, wrinkled my nose, and picked the dead mouse up by its tail, using it to lure Doom Bird to my office. The peacock, with his tail still fanned, followed me. All I could do was hope my parents would one day forgive me for the chaos I would be bringing to their home.

Once upon a time, Doom Bird must have been someone’s pet. The peacock wanted nothing more than to sit on my lap and nap, which complicated my day. On his quest to drive me insane, he issued sad cries when I left. If I failed to return within twenty minutes, he heralded in the apocalypse, alerting everyone on the floor I was the worst bird caretaker to have existed in the history of mankind. His attempts to scream the world to an early end brought Calden to my office.

I remained outside beyond the peacock’s reach, glaring at the door.

The dead mouse was still in there, as I hadn’t been able to get it away from him.

“What’s wrong with the peacock?”

“Nothing’s wrong with him. He wants attention, and I left to do errands around the floor. I mean, maybe he got tired of his dead mouse toy, which is possible.”

“Ah. You got the peacock that found and killed a mouse this morning.” Calden peeked into my office.

Doom Bird spotted him, jumped onto my desk, fanned his feathers, and continued to scream.

“I believe he’s proposing to you.” As the bird had discovered us, I opened the office, discovered he’d spread bits of dead mouse all over the floor, and heaved a sigh. “Where can I find a broom, a mop, and enough disinfectant to remove dead mouse from the floor?”

“I’ll get it for you if you can contain the beast.”

“Thanks.”

While Calden headed off to get cleaning supplies, I went into the office to discover my keyboard had come to a brutal end, its keys scattered everywhere. Somehow, the peacock had managed to crack the plastic in half, adding to the general destruction. The monitor and tower had escaped the bird’s fury at being contained, as had my purse.

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