Shadow Creatures

by Andrew Lane

  ‘I think I’ve put all the feeling I can manage in there,’ she said quietly. She looked at him. He didn’t look like a bad man, particularly. He looked like someone you might find behind a bar, or running a stall in a market. ‘Would you really hurt me?’ she asked tremulously.

  He grimaced, and shrugged. ‘I have my orders,’ he said. ‘If I do not follow orders, then it is me that gets hurt. Given a choice . . .’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘You’re only following orders.’

  ‘We have a saying in my country – “The fish eats the fly, the man eats the fish and the bear eats the man”. You, I think, are the fly, and I am not the bear.’

  ‘Which country is that?’ Tara tried again. The man just smiled, picked up the camera and the tripod, and left.

  Tara shivered, feeling a twisting sensation in the pit of her stomach. Hurt badly. That had been the phrase on the paper.

  She didn’t want to be hurt badly. She didn’t want to be hurt at all.

  But she didn’t want Gecko to have to work for a criminal gang either.

  She had been so stupid. This was all her fault!

  CHAPTER nine

  ‘Do you remember my friend Savannah Drummond?’ Natalie asked. Her heart was beating fast, but she kept a polite smile on her face. She kept telling herself, This is a business discussion; there’s no reason to panic, but these were career criminals they were dealing with.

  Tsai Chen inclined her head, but said nothing. It was obvious to Natalie that she didn’t recognize the name – it would be unusual if she did, unless Natalie’s friend Savannah actually had bought some exotic pet from Xi Lang – but she was too polite to say so, especially with a potential client standing just in front of her. And Savannah was careful enough of her own privacy that any enquiry from the Triads would hit a stone wall.

  ‘She had the cutest little set of meercats, the last time I saw her,’ Natalie continued. ‘I asked her where she got them, and she mentioned Mr Xi Lang. As I was passing through Hong Kong on a shopping trip, I thought I would pop in to see what other things you might have.’

  Tsai Chen didn’t make any gesture or movement, but the second suited man moved quietly away, presumably to check on their computer records. That left the larger man still standing there like a small but very threatening mountain.

  ‘And what kind of . . . items . . . were you interested in?’ Tsai Chen asked.

  ‘Something that nobody else has,’ Natalie replied. ‘A speciality item.’ She smiled her best, politest, whitest smile. ‘Meercats are so last year. I want something that will make my friends green with envy.’

  The first man came back with a tray containing a small teapot and two small cups. Tsai Chen carefully poured out two cups of honey-coloured tea, handed one to Natalie and then took the second one herself. Bodyguards don’t get refreshments, Natalie mentally observed.

  ‘Could I interest you in a dolphin?’ Tsai Chen asked calmly.

  ‘My local aquarium has seven dolphins,’ Natalie countered, just as calmly. She took a sip of her tea. It had a delicate floral taste. ‘Oh, how exquisite.’

  ‘Do they have Yangtze River dolphins? They are very rare. Almost extinct, in fact. In another few years you might have the only living Yangtze River dolphins in the world.’

  Natalie shrugged, doing her best to look bored. ‘Dolphins are dolphins,’ she said casually.

  ‘Then perhaps a rhinoceros?’

  Natalie tried not to look over at Rhino. ‘Where would I put it?’ she asked.

  ‘One of our customers drained their swimming pool and put a rhinoceros in there.’

  ‘Rather cramped, surely?’ Natalie said. ‘You would only have room for one, and it would get lonely.’

  ‘That depends on the size of your swimming pool.’ Tsai Chen’s tone of voice didn’t change, but Natalie could tell that she was becoming annoyed at Natalie’s vagueness. ‘Then let me ask a more general question: are you looking for something for the house, or for the garden?’

  Natalie threw her head back and laughed. ‘How quaint,’ she said. ‘A garden? No, we don’t have a garden; we have grounds. Extensive grounds.’

  ‘Then a pride of lions perhaps? Very good at keeping out intruders.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Tigers, then? White tigers?’

  Natalie raised an eyebrow, interested despite the undercurrent of panic that she was feeling. ‘Hmm. I don’t know anyone with white tigers, and they would go so well with my summer dresses.’ She thought for a moment, and then shook her head. ‘The problem is that I ride horses through the grounds, and I don’t think the tigers would get on with them.’

  ‘Have you ever ridden a zebra?’

  Natalie winced. ‘Stripes,’ she said, ‘are not in fashion this year.’

  The second suited man returned with a slip of paper in his hand. He whispered something into Tsai Chen’s ear. The Chinese girl turned back to Natalie with a slight frown of concern. ‘We do not appear to have dealt with a “Savannah Drummond”. Can you provide . . . more details?’

  ‘Well, she wouldn’t have dealt with you herself.’ Natalie didn’t miss a beat, but she could feel her heart rate increase, and a slight giddiness made her vision go blurry. ‘She has people for that kind of thing. I’m only here in person myself because I haven’t quite decided what I want, and I thought I would check your stock out. But you have shipped some meercats to America, haven’t you?’

  Tsai Chen consulted her piece of paper. ‘Yes . . .’ she said dubiously. ‘We have. Last year.’

  ‘Then that would be for Savannah!’ Natalie said, clapping her hands together and thinking, That was a lucky guess. ‘Glad we could sort that out. Now, what do you have that nobody else has?’

  The girl was obviously losing patience, but was too polite to show it. ‘Mammal, reptile, amphibian, bird, fish or insect?’

  ‘It sounds like a menu,’ Natalie responded, trying to inject a sarcastic tone into her voice. ‘Do I choose a sauce next?’

  The girl smiled tightly. ‘Actually, we do supply . . . exotic items . . . for very special restaurants around the world. But that is, I think, not what you want.’

  ‘A mammal, then. Something that doesn’t require a special diet, but will eat any leftovers. Something that will make people go “Ooh!”’ Natalie paused for a moment, remembering the advice that Rhino had given her earlier, back at the hotel. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, faking a sudden idea, ‘I remember when I was a kid, I used to have a pet rat. A white rat. It used to climb all over me, with its long whiskers tickling me. I remember when it died I cried for hours. Have you got anything like that – a rodent of some kind, only maybe, you know, bigger, like a dog, so it would live longer and I could take it for walks on a leash?’

  Tsai Chen cocked her head on one side. ‘A large rat?’ she repeated. ‘Are you sure that is what you want?’

  Natalie shrugged in a deliberately vague way. ‘I don’t know – I haven’t seen what you’ve got yet. Let’s take a look.’

  ‘It would be an unusual choice, even for us.’ She paused, thinking. ‘However, I believe we do have something like that in stock. Please to come this way.’

  She led them along the main aisle between the crates and cages. Rhino and Gecko glanced left and right as they walked, ostensibly keeping watch for threats as a bodyguard should, but Natalie assumed they were surreptitiously trying to make out what was in the crates and cages. She could see patches of fur or scaled skin through the gaps, and the occasional pair of eyes watching her warily. Once or twice she caught sight of a mouth full of sharp teeth, or a claw clutched at the edges of a bar or a wooden strut, but it was difficult to put together a picture of anything definitive from the jigsaw of snatched images. The trouble was that she felt her heart going out to all of the animals. They hadn’t asked to be there. This was not their natural habitat. She wanted to buy every one of them, just so she could set them free.

  Sounds of snuffling, growling, barking a
nd hissing grew louder as they approached each cage or crate, and faded as they moved away. At one point, just as they turned a corner into a narrower aisle, Natalie thought she heard a voice saying, softly, ‘Help me! Please God, help me!’ She twisted her head round, trying to determine where the voice came from, but the only thing she could see was a brightly coloured tropical bird, like an ornate parrot, sitting in a cage. She stared at it, and it stared back, but it didn’t say anything, and she wasn’t entirely sure that the voice had come from the direction of the bird. But, if it hadn’t, then who or what had said those words? Natalie’s skin began to prickle as she considered the only other possibility . . .

  She kept walking: it was the only thing she could do. But she kept listening for something behind her asking for help. She wondered whether Gecko and Rhino had heard it too.

  The door to Calum’s room opened, and a man in a white coat walked in. It wasn’t Dr Kircher. This man was excessively overweight, with a bald head and small, piggy eyes. He was carrying a tablet computer. He stopped in the doorway and assessed Calum for a few moments, then came further in. The door slowly swung shut behind him with a hiss, pushed by the hydraulic arm.

  ‘Mr Challenger, my name is Laurence.’

  ‘Is that a first name or a last name?’ Calum asked politely from the bed where he was sitting up.

  The man shifted uncomfortably. ‘Actually, it’s both,’ he said. ‘Formally, my name is Laurence T. Laurence. I’m a psychiatrist. I’ve been sent to evaluate you.’

  ‘Laurence T. Laurence? Whose bright idea was that? Your parents’?’

  ‘We’re not here to talk about me,’ Dr Laurence snapped. He pulled a chair from the wall and placed it by the side of the bed, then sat down.

  ‘What does the “T” stand for?’ Calum asked.

  ‘Do you mind if I call you Calum?’

  Calum couldn’t help but smile. ‘Do I have a choice?’

  Dr Laurence stared at Calum for a few moments, then made a note with a capacitive pen that he took from his pocket. It would work on the tablet’s touch-sensitive screen. His lips moved as he wrote, and Calum thought he was saying: Demonstrates aggressive responses.

  ‘Do you know why you are here?’ Dr Laurence asked.

  ‘I’ve been kidnapped,’ Calum said firmly, but politely.

  ‘Why do you believe that you have been kidnapped?’

  ‘Because I didn’t choose to come here, and I can’t leave.’

  Another note. This time, Calum thought that the doctor’s lips formed the words Firmly held persecution complex. ‘You know, don’t you,’ he said, ‘that you have an injury to your knee, and that you are paraplegic?’

  Calum nodded. ‘The knee injury can be treated at any hospital,’ he pointed out, ‘not just one that’s in a different country. And as for . . . as for the paraplegia – I have an apartment that has been modified to allow me to move around and live without any help.’

  ‘And where is this apartment?’

  ‘Back in England.’

  ‘Where you claim you come from?’

  Calum felt a sudden flash of anger. ‘Where I do come from.’ He paused. ‘Can’t you tell from my accent?’

  ‘This is America,’ Dr Laurence pointed out. ‘Every second person I meet has an accent of some kind.’ He made another note on the tablet PC. His lips moved slightly as he murmured Issues with national identity to himself. He consulted the clipboard again, turning a sheet back so that he could see something beneath. ‘How exactly were you kidnapped?’

  ‘I was sedated and put into an aircraft, then I was flown here.’

  ‘That seems a lot of effort to go to, just for one boy.’

  ‘Obviously I’m important,’ Calum pointed out, ‘otherwise Robledo Mountains Technology wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble.’

  Delusions of grandeur were the words mouthed by the doctor as he made more notes. He licked his lips. Calum wondered if he knew that he subvocalized when he was writing. ‘And how are you feeling now?’

  Calum shrugged. ‘Still slightly fuzzy from the sedative, and angry about what has happened to me, but otherwise fine.’

  ‘Good. Good.’ He paused. ‘Any hallucinations?’

  ‘How would I know?’ Calum asked reasonably.

  Dr Laurence frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I think I’m sitting here talking to you. If you’re really there, then I’m not hallucinating. If you’re not there, then I am hallucinating.’ He nodded towards the wall. ‘I think there’s a window there. The same thing applies to that. I have no idea if it’s really there at all. That’s also true about the blue giraffe standing over by the door.’

  Dr Laurence twisted round to look behind him, confused. ‘A blue giraffe, did you say?’

  Calum sighed. ‘I was joking about the giraffe. I just wanted to make a point that none of us actually know whether we’re hallucinating or not.’

  ‘So you can’t see a blue giraffe?’

  ‘No,’ Calum said heavily, ‘I can’t see a blue giraffe.’ He was beginning to realize Dr Laurence had no sense of humour.

  The doctor wrote another note on the tablet PC. Hallucinations, and denial of hallucinations his lips said noiselessly. ‘Thank you,’ he said, standing up. ‘I think I’ve got everything I need.’ He smiled tightly. ‘I’ll send a nurse in later with some tablets that will make you feel better.’

  ‘Great, thanks,’ Calum said.

  Dr Laurence stared at him for a long moment, obviously slightly perturbed at Calum’s challenging sarcasm, then he turned to leave.

  As soon as the door was slowly hissing shut behind him, Calum swung into action.

  He had already detached the ladder-like rails that ran along the sides of the bed, unscrewing them from their mountings. All the time that Dr Laurence had been in the room, the rails had been held up by the weight of the blankets. Now Calum pulled them out from underneath the blankets, used his arms to twist himself into a sitting position, then shuffled to the edge of the bed and manoeuvred the rails like crutches, allowing him to stand up.

  The door was halfway shut now.

  He rapidly swung himself towards the door, desperately hoping that Dr Laurence hadn’t forgotten anything and decided to come back.

  The door was nearly closed now.

  Leaning on the makeshift crutches, Calum reached forward with his right hand and inserted a strip of plastic between the door and the frame, just where the lock was. The plastic had been taken from the sign above his bed – the one that said Bed 1. It had adhesive on the back, and Calum made sure that he pressed that side against the door, over the tongue of the lock. The plastic stuck to the wood of the door and the metal of the lock, stopping the lock from clicking home.

  The door hissed shut, but the lock didn’t engage. Despite the fact that there was no handle on his side, Calum could now pull the door open any time he wanted. Even better, anybody coming in would probably not notice his modifications.

  All he had to do was to wait for nightfall, and then go exploring . . .

  Another turn into a third aisle, and Tsai Chen stopped in front of a large cage.

  ‘What about this?’ she asked. ‘Would this suit your . . . particular preferences?’

  Natalie stepped closer to the cage. Rhino and Gecko both crouched down to get a better look.

  The creature in the cage was buried underneath a large pile of straw. All Natalie could see was a whiskered nose poking out, but the nose itself was about the size of her fist. If this was a rat, then it was an amazing size.

  She stepped back and to one side, trying to work out if this was the same cage that they had all seen in the photograph Tara had discovered. The angle seemed to be the same, and the boxes on either side were very similar to the ones in the photo. It was only when Natalie saw the reference number stencilled in black on the side of the crate – 119078B – that she knew they were in the right place.

  ‘It’s not very active,’ she pointed out, trying to
put as much disappointment in her voice as possible. After all, when you were buying a new dress, or a new pair of shoes, you could get a better bargain if you sounded uncertain than if you sounded ecstatic.

  Tsai Chen picked a wooden stick up from the top of the cage and prodded the pile of straw through the bars. ‘It just needs some encouragement,’ she said. ‘It is very friendly, and a very affectionate animal.’

  The straw shivered, and then the creature inside lunged out, grabbing for the wooden stick with its long teeth.

  Natalie shivered, despite herself. It still looked like a rat. It was about the size of an Alsatian dog, with the rounded body, long tail and pointed head characteristic of rats. Its ears were large, corrugated and pink, like cauliflower leaves. It was covered in short brown hair, and its whiskers stuck out sideways from its snout, quivering. Its front teeth, now clamped on the stick, weren’t as sharp as she would have expected. They were more like chisels than knives, in shape and in size.

  Natalie saw Rhino glance at Gecko, checking his reaction. The boy seemed to be distracted by something on the floor behind him: he was bending over and looking at whatever it was. Fortunately Tsai Chen and her companions were all clustered around the cage, either looking at the giant creature or looking at Natalie to check her reaction. Rhino coughed quietly to attract Gecko’s attention.

  Natalie made an audible ‘Hmmm!’ sound to make Tsai Chen and her men look at her, rather than at Rhino and Gecko.

  Gecko looked up at Rhino, and then stood up, hiding something beneath his jacket. He looked into the cage and grimaced, then Natalie saw him glance at Rhino and shake his head. Whatever Gecko thought the creature was, it wasn’t a giant rat.

  ‘Is this more the kind of thing you were looking for?’ Tsai Chen asked.

  Natalie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but –’ she shrugged, gesturing at the cage – ‘this thing is a little too aggressive for my tastes. It wouldn’t go down well at cocktail parties, and I can’t see it taking well to a leash.’ She gestured to Rhino and Gecko to follow her. ‘Thank you for showing me your stock, but I think I’ll pass. Perhaps another time.’