by Logan Jacobs
“A zoo?” I coughed embarrassingly. “What kind of a thief hits up a zoo?”
“The kind that wants rare mythical animals,” Ariette explained.
“And thanks to my brilliant algorithm,” Kalista called out as she smacked the keyboard with a flourish of her hand, “we have facial recognition on the fake Amy Watkins! It looks like this woman is a serial animal kidnapper if that’s even a thing.”
A grainy black-and-white picture came up. The imposter Amy peeked out from under a hooded sweatshirt and looked extremely suspicious. The time stamp read twelve a.m.
“So she has struck again,” Maaren grumbled into her coffee as she lifted the mug and gulped down a bunch of the brown liquid. “Couldn’t she have decided to pull this heist in the middle of the afternoon, or something?”
“Kal, do we know who she really is yet?” I asked the dwarf as she swiveled around in her chair.
“That would be a negative.” She sighed. “We don’t have any fingerprints or identifying evidence on her, and facial recognition in the database doesn’t bring anything up. She would appear to be just a regular old citizen.”
“A regular citizen who steals exotic baby animals,” Ariette muttered. “A baby griffin, to be exact. This one was very much alive and not in an egg when it was taken, though, which makes me wonder...”
“If this woman has access to magical abilities?” Maaren responded knowingly. “My guess is she must have some sort of mystical way of containing that thing. Even as babies, griffins can be violent and extremely dangerous when threatened.”
“Well, I’ve never seen a griffin,” I said with a smile. “And now that I’m up, I kind of fancy a trip to the zoo. How about we go check it out?”
“Sounds good,” Ariette said as Maaren tried to shake herself awake.
“More coffee first,” Maaren grumbled. “Or maybe I can just stay here…”
“Brew some in the car,” Ariette replied as she hauled Maaren toward the door. “We have to go, and you’re coming with.”
“Go get ‘em, team,” Danira called out after us with a yawn. “Let me know what you find.”
I glanced over my shoulder in time to see the commander collapse back in a chair, tilt her head back, and close her eyes.
A few minutes later we were in the Van of Death and on our way to the zoo. Maaren miraculously managed to brew a pot of drip coffee despite Kalista’s harrowing driving skills. It seemed as if she was adjusting to the group nicely. The hunter shoved a paper to-go cup full of steaming caffeine into my hands right as we pulled to a stop outside of the zoo.
The night outside was nearly pitch black, save for the light from the street lamps, and the van had parked in a roundabout driveway in front of a line of ticket booths and security stands with those ugly metal detectors. A huge security gate was lifted about halfway up in front of the entry area, and it left just enough room between the door and the ground for someone to duck under and get inside. Just behind it, I could see the tips of the chain links fences that held the enclosures.
There was a little courtyard-like area, complete with a grassy playground where peacocks and dodo birds wandered about aimlessly or slept curled together. It never ceased to amaze me how the combination of Fae magic and human science managed to do the unthinkable, like bringing an extinct bird back to life. As long as they didn’t try to raise dinosaurs from the dead, I was good with it. I was pretty sure there was an ancient human movie where some scientists did that, and a bunch of people were killed. That was the last thing we needed right now.
I’d never been to the Jefferson City Zoo before. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing the old Milton wanted to spend his paycheck on, and it wasn’t like my foster home took us on field trips when I was a kid. I generally opted to spend my money on food and rent, but what I saw when I stepped out of the van made me realize what I’d missed out on.
Huge, bright green bushes lined the sidewalk in front of the ticket booths, and they had been trimmed into the shape of unicorns, giraffes, lions, and griffins. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, the unicorn bush in front of me shuddered, shook, and spun around on its tiny plot of dirt. My mouth went slack jawed as its bushy mouth turned and whinnied at me, and then it froze back into a new position. Then, down the line of bushes, each one of the animal shapes came alive to shake and stir and shift positions. I watched each one in utter amazement.
A rumpled man in a wrinkled suit approached us as soon as we hopped out of the van. He rushed up to us as if we were there to stop the apocalypse, and he instantly reached his hand out to give each of us a vigorous shake. When he reached Maaren, she pulled back and stuffed her face back into her coffee instead.
“Thank you, so much,” he inhaled sharply, “for coming so quickly.” He finished off with another sharp inhale, and then simply stood there and waited.
The man had floppy white hair that covered his forehead and deep-set purple bags under his eyes. The suit he wore looked like it had probably been plucked from a laundry basket in the dark, as it was full of sharp, crisscrossed wrinkles. His face was slightly yellowed and gaunt, and he seemed to be perpetually out of breath. To top it all off, he was a mouth breather.
“You’re welcome,” Ariette responded gently. “Are you in charge here?”
“In charge?” he questioned and then blew out a huge puff of air through his mouth. “Oh, uh, yes, I suppose I am. In charge, I mean. I’m Victor Fogel.”
“What do you mean by ‘suppose’?” Kalista questioned. The dwarf didn’t wait for an answer, though, as she wandered over to look at the security at the ticket booths.
“Well, you see,” Victor said, and then he pulled in another gasp of air through his mouth, “Don Tan was head of the zoo. But then just yesterday, the strangest thing happened.”
“What?” I asked curiously. “Did he quit?”
“Nope,” the man huffed. “The fella just up and died on us!”
Victor’s face seemed to be frozen in a permanent state of shock, and he paused again to suck in a few breaths through his mouth. I get the feeling he was more flustered by his new duties than he was about poor Don’s death.
“Heart attack, you know,” Victor continued through a breath, “nasty thing. Don was my direct superior, so I suppose I am in charge now. Jackson called me because he didn’t know who else to call.”
Victor shrugged and swallowed another huge breath. He pursed his thin lips and looked quickly from me to Ariette to Maaren. Ariette cocked her head and gave Victor a once over, and he almost shriveled away under her gaze. I couldn’t blame him. I’d been on the receiving end of that look once, and it was pretty terrifying.
“Did you open the security gate when you got here, or did you find it already lifted when you got here?” Kalista called out as she wandered back over to us.
Victor didn’t respond for a moment. Instead, he stared off into space, and then he suddenly jerked alive and swallowed another gulp of air before he spoke.
“It was like that,” he replied. “Isn’t that weird? It’s almost like somebody broke in!” The man gave a small, nervous half-laugh, but his joke instantly died on his tongue when he saw our unamused expressions. He self-consciously cleared his own throat to try to play off the awkward moment.
“Can we see the security tapes?” I requested.
“Yes, yes, of course.” Victor puffed out some air loudly before he spun around. “Follow me please.”
His breath was the loudest thing I could hear as we walked. It reminded me of the sound someone makes when they imitate a donkey. Hee-haw, hee-haw.
The zoo was eerily silent, even with all the animals. It was like they knew one of their friends had been snatched in the dead of the night.
We wound our way past zebras and unicorns, then past the chimeras and giraffes. One cage held a cockatrice in it, and I was slightly entranced as I watched the part rooster, part giant lizard creature sleep. Naturally, there was a shimmering pair of rune-encrusted goggles over its eyes to
make sure it couldn’t accidentally kill somebody with its death gaze.
I had never seen so many interesting creatures all at once, and I was nearly in awe at the whole experience. I silently promised myself one day very soon, I would be back here to just enjoy the zoo and not search for some crazy murderous thief, and not just because they offered pegasus rides.
We came upon a tiny hut planted toward the back of the zoo, in the safari area, against the wooden fence that surrounded the entire grounds. It was painted a deep tan color, and the roof looked like it was supposed to be made of straw. Inside the hut was a small room, with a few employee lockers, a computer with a security feed on it, a mini fridge, and one very stressed out and frazzled night guard.
“This is--” Victor inhaled sharply as he sat down in a folding chair, “Jackson Seffer. He is our night guard.”
“Hi.” The chubby guard gave us all a small wave. He was completely bald, and his head was shiny from the sweat that beaded against his brow. The gray t-shirt he wore was dark around his armpits, and his brown eyes looked wide and scared.
“Do you have a video feed from the time of the robbery?” Kalista said as she barreled forward and planted herself in front of the lone computer. She gave it a disapproving look. “Yeesh, this thing is outdated by like, fifteen years.”
“We’re a zoo,” Victor half weezed, half sighed. “Be glad it’s only off by fifteen years.”
“Yeah, we’ve got the footage,” Jackson replied in a small voice. “But you can’t really see anything useful.”
“Okay then,” the dwarf said as she rubbed at her brow. “Show me what you do have, and Kal will work her magic.”
“So we’re referring to ourselves in the third person now?” I asked playfully. “Milton like.”
“Third person,” Ariette corrected. “Not Tarzan.”
Jackson nodded, walked over to the computer, and immediately pulled up video feed from the front of the zoo. For a second, we watched the peacocks and dodos wander around, and the security gate could be seen very clearly. It was completely down.
Then, a moving truck pulled into the roundabout off in the distance. The details were too small for us to make out clearly, but a black figure hopped from the passenger seat, followed by the person in the driver’s seat. As the figures approached the security gate cautiously, we got the glimpse of the imposter Amy, just like the photo Kalista had showed us back at the guild. The other figure was completely shrouded by a hood.
She crept up to the far end of the security gate where it touched the wall. Her lips began to move silently, and the gate raised itself up about halfway. Imposter Amy then dashed underneath the gate and made a beeline to the left while her accomplice ran to the right.
Jackson switched the camera around, and we could see the griffin enclosure. The mother griffin was fast asleep while her baby played around. Then, the hooded figure appeared inside the enclosure. It dashed over to the frolicking baby, snatched him up precariously in their arms, and dashed out of the enclosure.
Jackson flipped back to the camera in the main concourse, and the peacocks and dodo wandered around in fast motion before the dark figure appeared again. The person ran with the baby griffin in their arms, slid underneath the open gate, and then leapt into the back of the moving van before it took off down the street with a screech. Strangely enough, there was no sign of Imposter Amy.
“Where’s the other thief?” I demanded. “Are they still in the park?” I turned around, ready to dash out the door and find Amy, before Jackson stopped me.
“No, that’s the other mystery,” Jackson said darkly. He flipped to a camera placed outside of the giraffe enclosure. Imposter Amy dashed up to the enclosure and then looked around until her eyes landed on the camera. She looked straight at us before she disappeared into thin air.
“I think I need more coffee,” Maaren muttered and rubbed her eyes. “I could have sworn I just saw that woman disappear.”
“That’s right,” Jackson said as he flipped through the screens of the other cameras in the zoo. “She never appears again. She literally vanished into thin air.”
Ariette spun around in anger and took a deep breath to compose herself. It was beginning to feel like we were chasing a ghost.
“How could she just disappear like that?” the elf asked as she looked at us for answers, but no one had any. “I’ve never heard of a Fae who could disappear like that.”
“I want to see the enclosure,” Maaren spoke up from behind me. “Mother griffins are notorious for protecting their young. I want to know how these people managed to take that mother’s baby without getting themselves killed or at least seriously maimed.”
“Right,” Victor replied through a gasp. “Of course. I’ll take you there. You know, it’s such bad timing, really. We had just started training him for the air show, you know. He just turned six months old today, and soon he would be able to carry riders. It’s especially terrible since it's almost time to retire his mother.”
“Isn’t he a little young to be ridden?” I questioned. It seemed crazy to ride a six-month-old that was still small enough to be carried out in someone’s arms.
“Griffins have a unique growth pattern and double in size pretty much every month after the sixth month. They’re usually full grown by nine or ten months,” Maaren explained as Victor huffed air out. “They’re meant to be ridden by Fae. The hunters always start riding them around seven or eight months, just so they get a feel for what it’s like. But they have a purpose. They’re not meant to just be entertainment in some show.”
Victor ignored the dark way Maaren glared at him and instead pointed up ahead to a sign that read “griffin” with an arrow pointing to our right.
The griffin enclosure was just outside of the safari-themed area. The entire thing was encased in glass with a steel roof, assumedly so the griffins couldn’t fly off. Ariette tensed beside me as we approached it.
“You okay?” I asked her, and the elf nodded slowly.
“I’m just not a fan of the idea of a zoo,” she whispered so Victor couldn’t hear. “Griffins are meant to fly around, not spend their lives encased in glass. Then there’s the whole issue of where to draw the line between ‘animal’ and ‘civilized creature.’ There are plenty of people out there who would claim the Fae deserve to be put in a cage.”
I tilted my head for a moment as I considered her point. It did seem cruel for the majestic creature to lose its flight and freedom.
But then again, Ariette didn’t seem to mind nearly as much that Hasen kept the dragon locked up in the dungeons of the guild. It seemed an odd concept, to be okay with locking up one creature and not another, but I didn’t say anything. The last time I’d pointed out how cruel the dragon’s imprisonment was, Ariette had just about bit my head off.
When we approached the glass, Maaren instantly peered in, and then we all stared down into it like a fishbowl. The enclosure was as big as a football field, and the ground had be dug out or packed together to create the effects of hills and valleys. There was an assortment of bright green trees and bushes, and a small pond lay in the center. The mother griffin was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s the mom?” I asked as I scanned the enclosure.
“She’s been hiding in the trees ever since she realized her baby was gone,” Victor replied shakily.
“I want to go in there,” Maaren demanded.
“Her handler isn’t here.” Victor turned to her in shock. “So, I don’t know if that’s--”
“Look, the thief got in there somehow and managed to get that baby out without being mangled,” Maaren responded gruffly. “I want to re-trace her footsteps.”
“Um,” Victor puffed out a long breath, “okay then. Suit yourself. There’s only one way to get into the enclosure. It’s right over here.”
He motioned to a small elevator door to the far right end of the glass. When we approached, I could see the little box next to it had been broken open, so the wires were expo
sed.
“They hotwired our security system,” he explained as he pressed the call button. “The button is locked until a zoo employee types in the code, but if you know how to rewire the system…”
“You can call up the elevator without a code,” Kalista finished as the elevator doors dinged open. “That’s actually pretty ingenious.”
We all clamored inside, and then we slowly descended through a glass tube into the bowels of the enclosure.
When the elevator dinged open, we stood in a small steel room with a door in front of us. Victor looked at it and gulped.
“I’ll just let you go on then,” he said with forced calmness.
Kalista’s eyes went wide, and the dwarf seemed to be much shakier than usual.
“I’d prefer it if you guys waited here,” Maaren said gently.
“But what if you need backup or something?” I asked the hunter. Her green eyes just looked at me like I’d told a joke.
“Guys.” She turned, put her hands on her hips, and spoke to all three of us. “I’m a hunter for a reason. I’ve dealt with griffins before. Don’t worry. You just have to know how to calm them.”
The hunter turned and opened the door, and we watched through a window as she crept out into the enclosure. For a long moment, she just stood there and took it all in. And then, to all of our surprise, she let out a high-pitched caw, like a bird does as it wheels through the air.
“Uh, did you know she could do that?” Kalista muttered, halfway between being shocked and being impressed.
“Not a single clue,” I replied. The muscles in my face were loose, and I realized my mouth was open like a fish. Quickly, I snapped it shut and waited. My heart pounded in my chest as I watched Maaren in the middle of the grass, but she looked completely sure and unafraid.
The sound of beating wings filled the air, and then the griffin flew out from a gaggle of trees on the other side of the enclosure and landed directly in front of Maaren. The creature let out a loud call of its own as its back paws slammed into the ground. It bucked up for just a moment before its two front claws landed on the earth and kicked up a flurry of dirt and grass.