Krakens and Lies (9 page)

“They have a communication device linked up in Blue's room,” Zoe explained.

“Does the basilisk's power work on the creatures?” Logan asked as he and Jasmin went after Zoe into the office. He scanned the bank of screens and shivered. “Are the griffins safe?”

“It only works on people-creatures, not animals,” Zoe said. “Although it can make the talking ones kind of sick and sleepy for a while by looking at them.”

“Oh, wow,” Jasmin breathed, leaning over Zoe's shoulder to study the screens. “No way. That is really a dragon.”

In the top left screen, Clawdius was sitting outside his
cave, frowning down at the Menagerie. Smoke spiraled up from his nostrils and he looked decidedly concerned. After a moment, he took a step backward, and then another, and then he backed all the way into his cave and vanished in the dark.

“I bet he knows Basil is loose,” Zoe said. “Thanks for the warning, Clawdius! Sheesh.”

“Dragons,” Jasmin said, shaking her head. “So unreliable.”

“That's what Blue always says!” Zoe said. “Oh, you're joking.”

Logan was searching each screen for anything that looked like a person-sized iguana. There wasn't a lot of movement in the Menagerie at the moment. The griffins were all inside their cave—maybe their parents could sense the danger, too. Inside the Aviary, the birds were fluttering around, but the basilisk probably wouldn't get in there. There was no sign of Mooncrusher by the ice garden, and nothing moved in the Dark Forest.

No sign of the basilisk anywhere.

“Wait,” he said, leaning forward. “Zoe, look. Is that—is one of the islands in the lake—it looks like it's
swimming
. That's not the kraken, is it?” He suddenly remembered his first day in the Menagerie, when he'd thought he'd seen one of the two islands move. He'd forgotten about that until now.

“No, it's just the zaratan,” she said distractedly.

“Oh,” Logan said.

Jasmin caught his eye and grinned. “Just the zaratan,” she said. “Obviously.”

“I should have guessed,” he said, smiling back.

“Me too,” she said. “I just had him over to tea, after all.”

“Are you guys being sarcastic?” Zoe asked, glancing over her shoulder at them.

“Not at all,” Jasmin said innocently. “Everyone knows what a zaratan is. I think we learned about them in between polynomials and semicolons.”

“Okay, smart aleck,” Zoe said. “It's a giant turtle, like,
really
giant, and it can live for about a thousand years. They're really good at acting like islands and staying inconspicuous.” She zoomed in on the shot of what looked like a mossy green island slowly perambulating across the lake. “Wait. Do you guys see what I see?”

Something long and gray was draped across the zaratan's shell.

“There he is,” Zoe yelped. “He's on top of the zaratan. Oh, man. The mermaids really are in danger. I hope Blue reached his dad.” She started biting her nails again. “Basilisks are good swimmers. He could slide off the zaratan and swim out through the river any minute. If he gets out into Xanadu—”

“Stop that,” Jasmin said, swatting Zoe's hand away from her mouth. “How do we get to it? Is there a boat?”

“There is,” Zoe said. “But we should wait for Marco. But do we have time to wait for Marco? What if Basil escapes
before he gets here? But we can't go out there by ourselves; it's way too dangerous. What would Abigail do?”

It took Logan a moment to realize that (a) Zoe was talking about his mom and (b) she wasn't asking him, she was talking to herself. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples furiously.

“Who's that?” Jasmin asked, pointing at one of the screens. “Is she a mermaid?”

With a sickening drop in his stomach, Logan saw Keiko sauntering out of the Dark Forest and along the path around the lake. She was wearing her white kimono. Her fox tail was out and swishing along proudly behind her.

“Wait,” Jasmin said. “Zoe, isn't that . . .”

“Keiko!” Zoe yelped. “I am the worst sister ever! I completely forgot about her!” She leaped up. “We have to go get her. With her fox hearing, she might even be able to hear Basil from where she is now.”

To her credit, Jasmin did not ask a million fox-related questions. She just raced after Zoe as Zoe hurtled into the living room and started grabbing earplugs for all of them.

“Jasmin, won't you please stay here?” Zoe asked.

“No way,” Jasmin said. “Can you remember the last time you were able to stop me from doing something?”

“Fine,” Zoe said. “Logan, what about you? You don't have to do anything this dangerous. I promise it's not in the Menagerie contract.” She shot him a smile that didn't at all hide how worried she was.

“You know perfectly well I'm coming with you,” he said, and felt that rush of warmth again at her grateful expression.

“Blue!” Zoe shouted up the stairs. “Basil is on the zaratan and might be near the mermaids and Keiko is down by the lake and we're going to rescue her so come with Marco as soon as he gets here, okay?”

“Okay,” Blue called back, as if Zoe had said “pork chops for dinner tonight.”

Zoe stuck the earplugs in her ears and slid open the glass doors. Outside it was chilly and a little windy. Logan could see ripples scudding across the lake, which reflected the overcast gray sky. It felt like the weather was saying, “Yes, now it is November, suck it up.”

Just like it had looked on the video screens, the Menagerie was eerily silent. No yelps of playful glee from the griffin enclosure; no splashing and catcalling from mermaids sunning themselves in the lake; no raucous squawking from the Aviary. A strange, skin-prickling aura of doom hung in the air.

Logan fitted the earplugs into his own ears and wondered if they would really work. They looked like they'd been lifted from some airplane overnight flight kit.

Jasmin stared around her with wide eyes as they hurried down the hill, going straight through the grass instead of following the path the golf cart usually took. She mimed
This place is huge!
at Zoe, and Zoe shrugged as if to say,
Eh, it's okay, but no secret passages like your house has
.

As they reached the lakeshore, Logan glanced out at the water and, with a shiver of horror, realized that the zaratan had vanished. Maybe it had figured out what was on top of it and submerged itself.

But that meant the basilisk was nowhere to be seen.

He reached to grab Zoe's sleeve, but just then she spotted Keiko coming toward them.

“Keiko!” she called, waving her arms frantically. “We have to get back to the house! Right now!” Logan was alarmed to realize he could hear her fairly clearly, although muffled somewhat by the earplugs.

Her adopted sister stopped on the path several feet away and frowned. “Is that Jasmin Sterling?” she shouted. She sounded like she was speaking through a voice distorter, but she was still audible. Logan hoped that a basilisk's hiss was much quieter than a truculent sixth grader.

“Keiko, the basilisk has escaped!” Zoe cried. “We have to get out of here!”

Keiko's eyebrows shot up, and then, very suddenly, she was gone. A beautiful glossy red fox sat in her place; she eyed them archly and then went scampering up the hill toward the house.

“Whoa. So,
that
was amazing,” Jasmin said, her voice reaching Logan as though she were miles away and underwater. “Is she a kitsune or a werefox?”

“You do read too much fantasy,” Zoe said with delight.
“And also I love you. Now we run back to safety.”

Jasmin nodded, grabbed Zoe's hand, and set off running. As Logan turned to follow them, he suddenly felt something coil around his ankle. Alarmed, he looked down and had a moment to realize that the
something
was a long dark-purple tentacle reaching out of the lake. And then he was yanked suddenly off his feet and dragged toward the water.

Logan's hands scrabbled in the pebbly sand, trying to grab onto something, but all he felt were grains of sand slipping through his fingers. A moment later, the kraken had dragged him all the way into the freezing water.

The lake closed over his head and Logan had a horrible memory of something like this happening one week earlier, when the kelpie had taken him underwater to drown him. But that time the kraken had mysteriously saved him. Why was it trying to kill him now?

He struggled, but the tentacle drew him calmly down until Logan was floating opposite a giant eye. The kraken stared at him for a long moment, and then it began making odd noises. Logan was starting to feel lightheaded, and the noises wouldn't have meant anything to him anyway. But he got the feeling the kraken was trying to tell him something.

Bubble. Squerk. Wheek. Fwelk. Bubble
.

Maybe it was trying to warn him the basilisk was loose. Maybe it was just saying hi.

Logan waved his hands at his face, trying to convey,
I'm sorry, but can we chat sometime when I'm not drowning?

The kraken let out a long stream of bubbles like a sigh, and then it released Logan's ankle.

Logan kicked and kicked his way back to the surface, bursting out into the air with a gasp. He could see Zoe and Jasmin running up the hill; they hadn't noticed yet that he wasn't behind them. Only a minute had passed. He paddled toward the shore, glancing around. Still no sign of the zaratan . . . or the basilisk.

He looked down at his clothes, wringing them out as he staggered onto the beach. He'd have to borrow something dry from Blue again. He twisted around to look back at the Reptile House across the lake. No sign of Matthew.

His foot hit some kind of enormous log and he tripped, falling forward to land on his face.

“Ow,” he groaned, rolling over and feeling his forehead to see if he was bleeding.

The enormous log lifted its scaly, greenish-gray head . . . and slowly turned it toward him.

Logan slammed his eyes shut.

The basilisk
.

It was RIGHT. THERE.

Don't look at it. Don't let it look you in the eye. Oh, please let the earplugs work. Maybe it'll go away without hissing. Don't open your eyes. Is this how I die? Mom isn't going to be pleased. I
don't even have a mirror or anything. If I survive, and when I find her, I will tell her this is why I need to go to Tracker training camp
.

He tried to inch backward, away from it. Maybe he could scuttle away before it made any noise.

But then a weighty claw slowly settled on Logan's knee and he froze. An eternity later, another claw came down on his stomach.

The basilisk was crawling on top of him.

Maybe it's just climbing over me
, Logan prayed.
On its way to somewhere else. Don't look. Don't look
.

The basilisk dragged itself up, one millimeter at a time. Logan could sense its head coming closer and closer to his face. The smell was overwhelming, worse than the jackalope milk, like a thousand crocodiles had just eaten a thousand rotting antelopes and were now breathing all over him.

Something flicked his nose lightly.

Don't look. Do not look
. The basilisk's eyes had to be directly over Logan's eyes now. It was staring down at him, waiting for him to give in, open them up, and die.

Something tickled his nose again, faintly rough and slightly damp.

The basilisk's tongue
, Logan guessed.

From far away, he thought he heard screaming.

And then he felt the basilisk lean forward so its tongue was touching his ear. It poked his ear for a minute, and then with a sudden flick, dislodged the earplug.

Logan tried to clamp his hands over his ears, but his arms were pinned by the basilisk's weight and it was too late, anyway.

“HIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.”

A
m I dead?
Logan wondered.
I assume I'm dead now. Is this what being dead feels like?
It didn't feel all that different. His clothes were still sticking wetly to his skin and the wind was still freezing him all over. And the basilisk still felt as heavy as a boulder on top of him.

“Hisssssss,”
the basilisk said irritably.
“HIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSS.”

Wait, there was something new. A burning heat suddenly seared through Logan's upper chest, like a small supernova going off right above his ribs. Was that from the basilisk?

The basilisk's front claws clamped over Logan's shoulders. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” a rooster crowed. “Cock-a-doodle-doo! COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOOOOOOOOO!” It was the most aggressively furious crow Logan had ever heard; it sounded less like “hey, morning's here” and more like “DIE, BASILISK!”

Just as he had that thought, the basilisk slumped forward. Its head landed on Logan's shoulder and its claws went limp. The giant lizard flopped down over him like a scaly blanket.