Amid all of that demonic collection, Ryan only noticed some of the more gross exhibits, the rest passing in a haze of horror and disgust.
There were three-headed sheep and ten-legged pigs; a furless bear, endlessly pacing up and down a tiny, cramped enclosure, banging its head against the wall, leaving a trail of blood wherever it stepped; a vulture, raw-necked and crimson-eyed, with leathery scales instead of feathers; a flock of tiny, cheeping jays, with vicious, hooked claws lining the fore edges of their wings; a boar, with the longest tusks that Ryan had ever seen. Curved and needle-tipped, they were so heavy that the poor beast could hardly lift its head from the urine-sodden straw.
Many of the mutie creatures in Sharp’s zoo were in surprisingly poor condition, many of them galled and covered in scaly sores and raw ulcers.
“Why doesn’t the baron bother to have them cared for?” Ryan asked.
“You fancy going in to clean them out?” Joaquin answered his own question. ” ‘Course you wouldn’t. Sharpie uses prisoners now and again for it. Offers them life if they look after the collection. Trouble is, no matter how much care they take, the odds are stacked against them. On average, they don’t survive more than two or three days. Just look in that next cage, for instance.”
It was better than twenty feet across, half-filled with more of the fine white sand, its surface smooth and undisturbed. A few broken branches lay jumbled in the corner, but there was no sign of anything living.
“What is it?” Dean asked, keeping a healthy distance from the thick glass front.
“Watch.” A broad grin split the sec man’s face. “I’ll put in a couple of fine big rabbits.”
He vanished around the back and they saw a white-painted hatch slide open at the rear of the cage. Joaquin’s hand appeared, holding a couple of black-and-white rabbits by their floppy ears. He dropped them in. Both the animals seemed paralyzed with terror, their fur twitching.
The sergeant came back to join the others, looking in, seeing that the rabbits hadn’t moved at all, huddled together for comfort, watching the shining sand.
“Speed things up a little,” he said, rapping sharply on the glass with his knuckles.
“Dark night,” the Armorer whispered.
Ryan realized that his mouth was hanging open, and he closed it slowly.
Dean took a couple of steps back, hands going up in front of himself as if he feared for his life.
Doc half drew the rapier from its ebony sheath, his eyes widening in shock.
It had all been so quick.
The surface of the sand rippled, then, just for a fraction of a second, a funnel seemed to open below the rabbits, and they totally disappeared. Another faint disturbance of the sand, then all was completely still.
“What the fuck was that?” Ryan said.
Joaquin laughed out loud. “Truth is, we don’t know what it is. Wizened old guy arrived with it in a steel barrel, about a year ago. Told us how to build the cage and fill it with the sand. Went in himself and opened up the barrel. Fed it some rabbits and Sharpie fell in love with it. It’s one of his favorites. Calls it ‘Rupert.’ No idea why. Man took his jack and we never saw or heard of him again. Claimed he brought it all the way from Mexico, but we don’t know.”
“I think we’ve seen enough, thanks, Joaquin,” Ryan said. “Come on, Dean.”
“Aw, Dad, there’s more.”
“More of the same, son.”
Joaquin didn’t seem all that anxious to continue with his guided tour of the collection. The light in the long narrow building was dim, but it looked to Ryan that the sec man’s face was noticeably more pale than it had been.
“I would cast my vote for departing from this seventh circle of the inferno,” Doc stated. “And I would further propose that we do not hasten back here again. Not ever. May the Lord have mercy on the souls of these poor benighted creatures, cast into eternal darkness by the madness and ambition of mankind.”
“Hear, hear, Doc,” J.B. said.
They were standing next to a narrow glass tank that held dozens of small fish that seemed to be all jagged teeth and mouth. Ryan recognized them as being voracious piranhas.