Krakens and Lies (2 page)

Logan's mom would never have worn any of that. She wore her wedding band on one hand, a black-and-silver ring on the other, and that was usually it, apart from her charm bracelet. Jewelry would have gotten in the way of wrestling chimeras or whatever she had to do in her secret Tracker job.

“Jasmin says you're leaving already?” Mrs. Sterling said to Blue. He nodded, and she made a little fake sad face with her mouth. “What a shame. I hope we get to see you again . . . soon.”

As an exhibit in your theme park?
Logan wondered. She must know Blue was one of the merfolk, if the Sterlings knew everything else. She probably knew about Keiko being a kitsune, too. He felt a sudden flare of anger. Blue and Keiko weren't specimens; they were his
friends
. Well, Keiko was more like the unpredictably grouchy younger sister of a friend, but still. He'd do anything to protect her, or Blue, or the Menagerie.

“Come on,” Logan said, taking Blue's arm and dragging him away. He could feel Mrs. Sterling's eyes on his back as they left the kitchen, as if she were thinking,
I know where you're going. And it will be mine soon
.

I
n the main entrance hall, Logan and Blue found Jasmin sitting on the stairs with her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees, staring sadly into space. Her mermaid tail was a green, glittery waterfall flopping over her feet, and her hair was a dark curtain around her thin shoulders.

Blue hesitated, glanced at Logan, and then went over to sit on the stair beside her. He gently put one hand on Jasmin's back.

“I'm sorry we can't stay,” he said. “I'm sure it'll be an awesome party.”

“Of course,” she said, mustering a smile. “All my parties
are awesome. You're so missing out.” She looked into his eyes for a minute, then turned away, wrapping her arms around her legs.

Blue tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, leaned over, and quickly kissed her cheek. “See you Monday,” he mumbled, jumping up and practically running for the door.

Keiko was already outside, so Logan was the only one who saw the radiantly hopeful expression spread across Jasmin's face. He waved good-bye to her and followed Blue out.

“Don't say anything,” Blue warned him as they walked down the long driveway, past the eerie glowing jack-o'-lanterns. Logan hadn't noticed it on his way in, but now half the carvings made him think of mythical creatures. Was that one an octopus, or a kraken? That one could be an ordinary ghost . . . or the yeti the Sterlings were planning to imprison and exploit. And that one was definitely a dragon. Its orange eyes seemed to be glowering malevolently at him.

“I'm not saying anything,” Logan said. “Jasmin seems . . . kind of okay once you get to know her.”

“Yeah,” Blue said, kicking the gravel. “She's not really like how she acts at school now. It was always great hanging out with her, before . . . everything with Jonathan. I don't get it, Logan. How do the Sterlings know about the Menagerie?”

“Agent Dantes said some people have stronger resistance to kraken ink, didn't she?” Logan pointed out. “Maybe Ruby didn't give them enough.”

“Or maybe she didn't give it to them at all,” Blue said grimly.

“Wow,” Logan said. “And then lied and told everyone that she did? That would be
so
unfair to Zoe.”

“Tell me about it,” Blue said. “Zoe dosed Jasmin and stopped speaking to her, to protect the Menagerie. It was pretty much the worst thing she ever had to do. And if it was for nothing—if Ruby didn't even dose the other Sterlings—”

“Then we should feed her to a . . . a . . . what's the most dangerous mythical creature?” Logan asked.

“Yeah!” Blue said. “We should feed her to a pyrosalamander!”

The tiny fire-eating lizards weren't quite what Logan had had in mind. He'd been thinking something larger and toothier.

“You're the one doing my math homework for the next month,” Keiko informed Blue as they caught up to her at the bottom of the driveway. “As for you—how's your Spanish?” she added to Logan.

“Keiko, when you hear why we had to leave, you'll understand,” Blue said. “You're in danger, too.”

She tossed her head. “In danger of being
lame
,” she muttered. “Leaving a Jasmin Sterling party before nine. My followers are not going to believe this.” She growled at a passing group of trick-or-treaters and a tiny pirate shrieked and hid behind his mom.

Soon they turned up the drive to Zoe's house, and Logan breathed a sigh of relief. The sprawling colonial-style house looked just the same as when they'd left it, although Zoe was no longer staring mournfully out the front window. An enormous wall stretched in either direction, abutting the sides of the building and hiding the Menagerie from view. Everything seemed quiet.

“Oh, look at that,” Keiko said snidely. “Still standing. I was expecting
at least
a smoldering pile of rubble, given all the
extreme panic-stricken urgency
and everything
.”

“How do you guys keep people from asking what's inside those walls?” Logan asked Blue. “The Sterlings must drive by this place every day—but they can't be the only people who've ever been curious about all the land hidden back there.”

“It's the thing,” Blue said vaguely.

“The thing?” Logan asked.

Blue scrunched up his face. “We have a—well, you know.”

Logan blinked at him. “No, I don't. How would I know? What are you talking about?”

Blue waved his hands. “The . . . thing.”

“Blue! WHAT thing?”

“The whatchamacallit that makes you not think about it so that—hey, your wig is falling off.” Blue didn't seem to notice that he'd shifted topics midsentence.

Logan reached up and pulled off his werewolf wig, rubbing his head. If he understood Blue's evasive weirdness
right, it sounded like there was some kind of device that could block anyone from noticing it, and its power worked on the whole—

The front door flew open. A vampire in a long, slinky red dress stood framed in the doorway, flashing her fangs at them.

“HAPPY HALLO—oh, it's you,” she said.

“Don't let any real vampires see you dressed like that,” Blue said, frowning at her. “Those fangs are just insultingly wrong. And why are your arms all sparkly? Are you a vampire or a pixie?”

“I'm not dressed as a
real
vampire.” Zoe's sister Ruby sniffed, rearranging her black wig. “I'm dressed as a
Twilight
vampire.”

“Oh, much better,” Blue said. “Nothing makes a real vampire more likely to bite you than bringing up those books. There's a safety tip for you,” he said to Logan.

“Okay, thanks,” Logan said, following him into the house as Ruby sashayed off up the stairs.

A furry head with two enormous, flapping ears poked around the corner.

“EEEEEHHHH-WEEEEIIIIHHHH-NUUUU!!!” The woolly mammoth trumpeted in excitement and bounded into the hall.

“Ew, no, get off!” Keiko shrieked as Captain Fuzzbutt tried to pat her with his trunk. “Don't you dare touch me, you
overgrown hairy elephant!” She swatted him away and the mammoth turned happily to Logan, stretching out his trunk. Logan stepped forward and gave it the fist bump the mammoth was looking for.

Zoe appeared behind the Captain. “Why are you guys back so early? Is Jasmin all right?” She narrowed her eyes at Blue.

“
They
made me leave,” Keiko said huffily. “Apparently it's the end of the world. Can't you tell? Now I have to go wash mammoth drool out of my hair, so—”

“Wait, Keiko,” Blue said. “You should hear this, too. Zoe, where are your parents?”

“In the kitchen,” she said, twisting her hands together anxiously. “What's wrong?”

Logan pulled out his phone as they went after Blue into the kitchen. Mrs. Kahn was reading from a cookbook while Zoe's dad shaped a mound of lumpy oatmeal dough into giant dog biscuits. Two of the hellhounds sat below them, slavering rivulets of drool all over their paws. The room smelled like pumpkin bread, and cello music played softly on the stereo in the corner. Logan could see Zoe's older brother, Matthew, doing homework at the large table in the next room.

They all looked so peaceful. Logan wished he didn't have to be the one to tell them that their troubles weren't over after all. It was only yesterday that the Menagerie had escaped being shut down by SNAPA, the SuperNatural Animal
Protection Agency. Logan and Zoe had found and returned Pelly, the abducted goose who laid golden eggs, and they'd rescued Scratch, one of their dragons, from being exterminated for Pelly's supposed murder. He'd hoped that maybe they'd all have a minute to relax—and perhaps even think about trying to find his mom.

But that wasn't happening tonight. He opened the photo of the map and held it out to Zoe.

“We found this in Mr. Sterling's study,” he said.

Zoe stared at it for a long moment, and then passed it to her mom, blinking away tears. Captain Fuzzbutt crowded up beside her and wrapped his trunk around her arm. She turned to bury her face in his fur.

Mrs. Kahn took one look at the picture, gasped, and covered her mouth with one hand.

“The Sterlings know about the Menagerie,” Zoe said in a choked voice.

“That's impossible,” Mr. Kahn said, taking the phone from his wife. He zoomed in to the picture and studied it, running one hand through his hair so it stood up in horrified tufts. “A theme park,” he said. “This must be why Mr. Sterling has been buying up so much nearby land. But how—why—”

Keiko snatched the phone and scowled at it. “Oh REALLY. ‘Kitsune Pavilion'? I've got a better idea: how about a ‘Sterling Pavilion' featuring the stuffed heads of all the Sterlings I'm going to hunt down and disembowel?”

“Let me see,” Matthew said, leaning over the pass-through. Logan took the phone from Keiko and handed it to him. “Holy chupacabras.” Zoe's brother whistled softly. “This is a major kraken ink situation. Right? Like, we might need SNAPA for cleanup. And a massive dose for the whole family, obviously. I hereby volunteer to hold down Jonathan.”

“I don't understand.” Mrs. Kahn's voice faltered. “Ruby—Ruby said—”

“RUBY!” Zoe's dad bellowed. “RUBY, GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!”

“Ooooh,” Keiko said, hopping up to sit on the counter. “
Now
this is going to get fun.”

“I knew Jonathan was a weasel,” Matthew said vehemently. “I knew Ruby was wrong; I
knew
he would tell his parents. He's always trying to impress his dad by doing stupid things like going out for sports when he hates them. I bet he was taking that jackalope to show Mr. Sterling. I bet they've been planning to expose the Menagerie for months.”

“We're getting to the bottom of this,” said Mr. Kahn. “RUBY!”

“WHAAAAAAAT,” said Ruby, flouncing into the kitchen. She threw herself into a chair and started picking through the candy in the Halloween bowl. “You don't have to
shout
at me. Ew, who got all this candy corn? Tell me there's
something
chocolate in here.”

“Ruby,” Mrs. Kahn said in a dangerously quiet voice.

Zoe's sister looked up and finally noticed their expressions. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Oh no. What's wrong? What's Zoe done now?”

“ME??!!” Zoe yelled.

“Ruby,” said Mr. Kahn. “Did you lie to us about dosing Jonathan and his parents with kraken ink?”

“What? No!” Ruby cried—a little too quickly, Logan thought. Her eyes darted sideways and she stood up, flinging the dark hair of her wig back over her shoulders. “How could you even
ask
me that? You know what a huge
sacrifice
I made! I gave up what might be my only chance at true
love
! I may be emotionally scarred for
life
!”

“You definitely gave them all kraken ink?” Mrs. Kahn said. “All three of them?”

“Of course I did,” Ruby said, putting her hands on her hips. “This is an outrage! I can't believe you don't BELIEVE me!”

Her parents stared at her for a long moment and she stared back with her chin lifted defiantly.

“Matthew,” Mr. Kahn said. “Go get the qilin.”

Ruby and Zoe both gasped. Matthew dropped Logan's phone on the counter and bolted out the sliding doors into the dark night.

Logan hadn't thought of that, but it was smart. The qilin—a kind of Chinese unicorn—could determine a person's guilt or innocence. This one, Kiri, had been a part of Scratch's trial and was set to be sent back to Camp Underpaw on Sunday.
Her horn would turn yellow for innocence or blue if the person was guilty.

“You would use a qilin on me?” Ruby demanded, waving her hands dramatically. “How
could
you? Where is the trust? Where is the faith? I am your
daughter
. I refuse to stand here and let you interrogate me like some common dragon!”