Krakens and Lies (27 page)

“Of course I am,” said Logan's mom. “I wasn't exactly captured by wendigos, was I? And it's Abigail, you goober.”

Matthew grinned. “Yes, boss.”

As Zoe, then Jasmin, then Logan, then Logan's dad squashed into the second row of seats, they heard a thump from the back of the van.

“What was that?” Jasmin asked, her eyes wide.

“Part of the plan to get the pearl back,” Logan said. “I hope. We just need to catch your mom alone.”

“Aren't you meeting her back at your house?” Zoe asked. She glanced at her watch. “At three thirty, right? It's one o'clock now.”

“Will your dad be there, too?” Logan asked.

“Let me check.” Jasmin took out her phone and flipped to the calendar. “It looks like he's booked all afternoon, although it just says ‘Meeting.' That's informative, Dad.”

“Okay,” Logan said. He leaned forward to Matthew. “Can we go to the Sterlings' house, then?”

“Sure,” Matthew said.

“And can we stop for lunch on the way?” Abigail asked from the front seat, where she was sitting between Matthew and Zoe's mom. “I am STARVING. And so sick of microwave burritos and PB and J, you have no idea.”

The little dragon on her lap chirped vigorously as if he agreed.

“I don't care what it is, as long as it's french fries and a cheeseburger,” Abigail added.

“QRRRRURP!” the dragon concurred.

“And we should drop you off at school,” Zoe said to Jasmin. “You can tell them you were helping your dad in the morning, and then go home after school like normal.”

“But what are you going to do?” Jasmin asked Logan.

As they drove back to Xanadu, Logan explained his plan. At the end he added, “So I don't think we all need to go in. Me and Nira and maybe one other person?”

“No, no,” Zoe said.

“Absolutely not,” said Mr. Wilde.

“ME!” cried Abigail, all at the same time.

“They don't know you or your dad are involved,” Zoe argued. “You shouldn't show your faces if you don't have to. But Mom and I are obviously a part of it. It should be us.”

“And me,” Abigail said firmly. “Absolutely definitely me. I have some things to say.”

So that argument took up the rest of the drive, but by the time they'd dropped Jasmin at school, everyone had agreed. It was Abigail, Zoe's mom, and Zoe who hopped out of the van in the Sterlings' driveway. Zoe looked up at the imposing mansion and felt a weird thrill of fear.

“We'll be right outside,” Matthew said, leaning out the window. “Call us if anything goes wrong.”

“Be careful,” said Logan's dad.

“Careful is my middle name,” said Abigail. “No, wait. It's the other one. The opposite of that.” She winked at Zoe, then turned and passed the dragon to Logan. Xiang flicked his tail, inspected Logan's fingers carefully, and then curled up in Logan's lap and closed his eyes. “Take care of him till I get back. Jackson, stop
worrying
.”

Zoe's mom glanced up and down the street to make sure it was deserted, then opened the rear doors of the van. Nira, the beautiful white griffin, lifted her head. The van was still full of pillows from transporting Pelly, and she was sprawled across them with her wings spread. She clacked her eagle beak at them.

Are we here?
she said.
Do we have to be? That was the longest nap I've been able to have in months. Oh, hello, Abigail, nice to see you.

“Hi, Nira,” Abigail said. “Let's get you inside fast.”

The griffin stretched her wings and legs and then hopped down from the van. She paced over to the Sterlings' garden wall, flew up to the top, and vanished inside.

“Now us,” said Abigail, closing the van doors. She led the way around to a more sheltered spot—the same tree that Zoe had used to climb into Jasmin's garden more than once. Zoe
could hear her mom muttering soft curses at the branches as they scrambled up, then over to the wall, and then dropped down on the other side.

“We should fix the Buddha first,” Zoe remembered. She looked at her watch. Nearly two thirty. Mrs. Sterling might come back before Jasmin was due home. They'd better hurry.

Nira was prowling around the garden, sniffing the pool suspiciously. It felt like a hallucination, seeing one of the Menagerie's creatures
here
, in the Sterlings' yard in broad daylight.

Zoe and her mom shoved the Buddha into place while Abigail got the rake and smoothed out the sand to hide their footprints. They went in through the kitchen door and Zoe put the three flashlights back in the drawer where Mrs. Sterling always neatly stored flashlights, matches, candles, and takeout menus for the only two restaurants in Xanadu whose food she was willing to eat.

Shiny place,
Nira observed, her voice echoing in Zoe's head.
Cold and glittery. Full of secrets and lies and whispers. I can see why Sage was interested, and then frightened of it.

The littlest griffin cub had chosen this place to look for treasure, which was why Zoe and Logan had had to sneak in to find and rescue her. “Oh,” Zoe said, turning to her mother. “I wonder if Sage was drawn here because she could feel the power of the pearl. Maybe she somehow knew the most
valuable treasure in Xanadu was here.”

Probably,
Nira said complacently.
I do have very precocious cubs.

“Should we wait in here?” Abigail asked, turning slowly to take in the gleaming cherrywood and silver.

“No, in case Jasmin comes back first. She needs to be able to say she had no idea we were here,” Zoe pointed out.

“Upstairs, then,” said Zoe's mom, and Zoe nodded.

Goose bumps prickled along her skin as they climbed the wide marble staircase to the upper balcony. The house was so still and perfect and chilly, like an abandoned museum with all its exhibits still intact.
This is breaking and entering
, she thought.
But then we could accuse
them
of kidnapping. Who would the police believe, though? And we're the ones with the biggest secret to keep. We're the ones who can't afford a public spectacle
.

She pressed her fingers together and then shook them out, taking deep breaths.

The master bedroom was on the same side of the house as Jasmin's bedroom; on either side of the doorway sat a jade frog with glittering diamond eyes. They slipped inside, into a room with wall-to-wall dark-gray carpet and black dressers. The king-sized bed was perfectly made as if it had been ironed into crisp even lines, with a light-purple-and-silver comforter and several of those small pointless matching pillows that Zoe had seen in magazines but never understood.

Nira's claws sank into the carpet. She turned in a small circle, then sat down facing the door and curled her lion tail around her claws. Her white fur was normally spattered with the various messes her cubs had made that day, but she must have cleaned herself up for this, because she glowed like a marble statue that utterly belonged in this room.

“Maybe they're vampires,” Abigail said, glancing around. “I mean, do they actually sleep in here? Have they ever even been in this room? It's horrifyingly neat.” She pulled open a door and found a huge walk-in closet. “Holy cats, it's all color-coordinated. And
who
needs
this many shoes
?” She crouched and picked up a pair of strappy red sandals with a heel as long as Zoe's pointer finger. “No,” she said, waving them at Zoe. “Just no.”

“It'd be so much easier if they
were
vampires,” Zoe's mom sighed. “Then we could report them to SNAMHP and leave them to sort it out.”

Zoe sat down on the bed and pulled out her phone. Abigail came and peeked over her shoulder as Zoe scrolled through photos.

“There's a nice one of Logan in here,” Zoe said to her. “He'd been playing with the griffins and looks all funny and happy.”

“I'm so glad you guys are friends,” Abigail said. “Wait—go back. What was that?”

Zoe slipped her thumb across the screen. A picture of a
foreign-looking word popped up, and it took her a minute to remember it was the photo Jasmin had sent her, from one of the papers in her dad's office. K-N-O-H in Russian-looking letters.

Abigail tilted her head, frowning at it. “Zoe,” she said, “why do you have a picture of the Russian word for ‘clone' on your phone?”

Before she could answer, her phone buzzed with an incoming text. “Oh, Logan says they just saw Mrs. Sterling go by. She'll be here any second.” Zoe leaped to her feet, feeling like every inch of her skin was trying to jump off her.

What are we doing? What are we doing? This is so dangerous. . . 
.

“I'm going to sit right here,” Abigail said, plunking herself down on the edge of the bed. She studied the perfect bedspread for a moment, then knocked a few of the pillows to the floor. “Yeah, take that,” she said.

Zoe stationed herself behind the bedroom door, and her mom stepped into the master bathroom. Nira stayed where she was, magnificent and regal, as if she were in a throne room awaiting her supplicants.

A few long, awful minutes passed. And then, suddenly, Zoe heard the front door below them open and close, followed by the jingling of keys as Mrs. Sterling set her purse down on the table in the hall. The sound of heels clopped across the floor and began coming up the stairs toward them.

Zoe could barely breathe. Across the room, Abigail caught her eye and made a face like,
Look scarier!
But Zoe couldn't get her facial muscles to obey her. They seemed very intent on staying within the lines of
terrified
.

Footsteps at the top of the staircase.

Closer.

Closer . . .

Mrs. Sterling stepped into the room. Her eyes were trained down on her iPhone. She tapped out something, then looked up, spotted Nira and Abigail, and froze.

“Hello,” Abigail said pleasantly.

This was the most terrifying part. They had never, ever taken a mythical creature outside the walls and showed it to someone before. But as Logan had pointed out, if they didn't have to worry about secrecy, then something as tall as a grizzly bear and nine thousand times as scary could perhaps be useful in this situation.

Mrs. Sterling's eyes were fixed on Nira, and there was an awful gleam in them, as though she were calculating how much money she could make off her. Slowly, carefully, she started to lift up her iPhone.

“I wouldn't do that,” Zoe's mom said, stepping out of the bathroom and snagging the phone from Mrs. Sterling's hand. “Flash photography sends her into a violent rage.”

Doesn't look delicious,
Nira grumped, ad-libbing.
I thought you said she'd be my best meal in weeks.

Mrs. Sterling blanched, but before she could take a step back, Zoe closed the door and planted herself in front of it with her arms crossed.

“We're here to talk,” she said.

“But if we
have
to feed our hungry griffin while we're here,” Abigail said, “then that just means one less thing on our to-do list. I bet one of your ears would make a good snack.”

Mrs. Sterling's hands jumped to her ears. “What are you doing in here?” she managed at last, shrilly. “You broke into my house! I could call the police!”

“True, but I don't think you want to,” said Zoe's mom.

“Nira could
definitely
eat you before they got here,” said Abigail.

The griffin clacked her beak menacingly. She looked as if she'd swelled up to twice her size, somehow, all outraged feathers and wickedly sharp talons.

“You wouldn't—you wouldn't actually—” Mrs. Sterling said.

“We're here for the pearl,” said Abigail. She pointed to the gleaming chain around Mrs. Sterling's neck, where a pearl the size of a grape glowed softly in a gold-and-silver setting. “Hand it over and we'll go. Hand it over right now, and we'll even let you keep all your fingers.”

But I love fingers,
Nira said plaintively.
Can't I have just a little one? Maybe a thumb? Those don't look important.

Zoe had to steel her face to look stern. Nira would never in a million years eat any part of a human, but she was acting the part of slightly unhinged deadly griffin to perfection.

Mrs. Sterling's face went blank, as though she was calculating something rapidly behind those sharp brown eyes. After a moment, she reached up and began to undo the clasp.

“All right,” she said. “Let's all be reasonable here. Perhaps we can work out a deal.”

“I think we just did,” Abigail said calmly. She stood up and lifted the necklace out of Mrs. Sterling's hands, looking tall and imposing and fearless. “Xiang's pearl in exchange for your fingers. Seems fair to me, what do you think?” she asked Zoe's mom.

“We know what you're hiding,” Mrs. Sterling said, smoothing her burgundy suit. “We just want a piece of it.”

Oh, certainly, why not. Like I just want a piece of you,
Nira said, swishing her tail.
Which would you suggest? A foot? Your nose? I do like noses, very squishy.

“It is not fair to hide what you're hiding!” Mrs. Sterling protested, stepping hurriedly back until she bumped into the wall. Her dark hair was starting to escape its neat helmet shape.

“Shouldn't we ink her?” Zoe asked. “While we have a chance?”

Her mom shook her head. “It won't do any good if her
husband immediately reminds her of everything, and we don't want her to end up like Miss Sameera.”
Resistant to kraken ink
, Zoe translated in her head. “We have to do them together.”

“It's not going to work,” Mrs. Sterling hissed. “You can't keep a secret like that forever.”

“We've made it over a hundred years so far,” Zoe's mom said, bristling. “I don't think a couple of selfish millionaires are going to bring us down now.” She started for the door. “We're done here.”