Wesley wipes a hand across his eyes. "Ellie, go call the police. This . . . you can't." He pushes himself farther into the corner and draws his knees up against his chest. The cinder-block wall is cold against his back, the concrete floor rough against his b.u.t.tocks. "Please. They killed him!"

"Now"-Jeanette pats her little girl on the cheek-"I want you to be good. You're a queen now. You're special. You'll make lovely babies."

"I know, right!" Ellie bounces up and down on the tips of her black stiletto heels, then unties the cord on her dressing gown and lets the whole thing fall to the ground. She's wearing a red-and-black basque with stockings, garters, and a thong. Her pale skin fluoresces under the spotlights, arms goose-pimpling, all the hair standing up as if she's glowing. Red dots of acne speckle her sunken chest. Dressing her up like a '70s p.o.r.n star doesn't make her any more mature. She's still just a sixteen-year-old kid. Barbie does Dallas.

It's so absurd it has to be a joke.

Ellie wobbles forward on her high heels and twists her fingers through the bars of his cage. "Don't worry, Mum and Dad didn't want to rush things. Said I had to wait till I'm sixteen before they had me covered." She drops her voice to a whisper. "You're my first."

Oh G.o.d. He wraps his arms around himself, trembling. "Ellie, listen to me: you have to call the police . . ."

"I'm so glad it's you and not Max. You've got much nicer hair." She looks over her shoulder at her smiling mother. "Do I get to name him?"

"Of course you do, dear. What about . . . oh, I don't know . . . something fiery? Something red?"

Ellie nods. "Scarlet."

"They killed a man!"

"You can't call him 'Scarlet,' darling. Scarlet's a girl's name."

"Oh . . ."

"You have to give him a boy's name."

"Listen to me: they killed him. They dragged him out and battered his head in with a hammer!"

"Then I'll call him . . . Weasley! Like Ron. He's got red hair too."

"THEY f.u.c.kING KILLED A MAN!" Wesley jabs a finger at what's left of Max. "He's right there. LOOK AT HIM!"

Jeanette sniffs, bringing her chin up. "I don't think you're in any position to complain about something like that, Weasley, do you?"

"WHAT THE h.e.l.l IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"

She takes a key from her pocket and unlocks the door to the cage. "I'm not the one with two dead bodies in the boot of my car, now am I?"

Wesley takes a step toward her . . . then stops.

George walks out of the shadows, shaking his head, the shotgun in his hands.

Wesley retreats to the corner of his cage again.

Ellie totters in, giggling. "How many positions do you want to do? I've been looking it up on the Internet: there's loads." She claps her hands as her mother locks the cage behind her. Then stands there and stares at him. "Well?"

Maybe he didn't kill b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh after all. Maybe Hugh got the better of him, and right now Wesley's lying on the floor of Natalie's house, bleeding out, and this is all a death-rattle hallucination.

The cage blurs, and he scrubs a hand across his eyes. It comes away wet.

Ellie points at the waist-high hatch in the back wall of the cage. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"I can't . . ."

She smiles down at him, then adjusts the back strap of her thong. Her voice is soft and soothing. "It's okay, Weasley, it'll be fine. Trust me." She slides the hatch open, then reaches for his hand.

"They killed him . . ."

"Max wasn't a pet, Weasley. He was a breeding stud. If he can't get the queens pregnant anymore, what are they supposed to do?"

Wesley blinks at her. "What?"

"Come on, come inside with me. We don't want anything to happen to you, do we?" Then she bends over and squeezes through the hatch.

Oh, that's just brilliant. That's just spec-f.u.c.king-tacular. They battered Max's head in with a hammer because he couldn't get it up anymore. The back of Wesley's skull makes a dull thunking noise as he bangs it against the cinder-block wall. They're going to kill him.

"Weeeeeeeasley . . ." Ellie's hand emerges from the hatchway, index finger beckoning. "I'm waiting for you."

They're going to drag him out into the snow and bash his brains in.

Unless he can get out of here.

He stands. Glances back over his shoulder at the courtyard. But Jeanette's gone. The only one left is Max, lying flat on his back in the snow. Click-the security light dies, plunging Max's corpse into darkness. The only sound is the soft patter of snowflakes on the cage's plastic roof.

Wesley takes a deep breath, ducks down, and crawls through the hatchway.

Inside is a crudely finished room just big enough for a double bed, a small wooden cabinet with a lamp on it, and a small stack of Stephen King paperbacks-the spines cracked and broken. Rough wood lines three of the walls, but the fourth is covered in floor-to-ceiling blue velvet curtains. A low-energy bulb swings from the end of a short length of cord. Heat sears out of an electric heater, mounted high above the open hatch.

The air reeks of mildew and stale s.e.x and desperation.

Ellie's kneeling on the bed, her legs tucked under her, smiling. "Oh, Weasley, we're going to make such beautiful babies!" She pats the bedspread. "You want to make out a bit first? I'm a really good kisser."

Wesley slides across to her. "You have to help me get out of here."

She runs a fingertip along the top edge of her basque. "I saw this one p.o.r.no where the man does it with, like, three women at once. Do you think you could do that? I bet you could."

He grabs her wrist. "Will you listen to me? Your mother and father are sick. They need help."

She shuffles closer. "I bet you could satisfy a hundred women."

"I have to get out of here!"

"I bet you could go all-"

"Stop it! They're not well; they're . . . I don't know, psychotic or something."

A little wrinkle appears between Ellie's eyebrows. Her bottom lip pokes out. "It's me, isn't it? You don't think I'm s.e.xy."

"Get me the key. You can do that, can't you? The key in your father's cardigan?"

"I can be s.e.xier! I can! I know stuff off the Internet. Like b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs." She grabs for his shrunken p.e.n.i.s.

"No!" He jerks one leg in front of the other, hiding it, then shoves her away. "Get off me!"

She scrambles back onto her knees again and stares at him, lips pressed tightly together, odd-colored eyes flaring. "They'll kill you." She bares her teeth. "They'll cut you open and skin you like a rabbit."

Silence. Then a clunk and the blue velvet curtains judder open.

Instead of wood, or cinder block, the wall's made of thick wire mesh-like the part.i.tions of the cages-with a corridor on the other side. On the far side, rows of cat pens. One big dirty-colored beast with huge brown paws and a matching lion's mane sits on a wooden platform, smirking at him. On the near side, George and Jeanette are seated in a pair of folding chairs. Staring into the room. At the naked man and their daughter.

George tamps the tobacco down in his pipe. "Is there a problem?"

Ellie glowers at Wesley. "He won't cover me. Says I'm not s.e.xy enough for him!"

Jeanette wags a finger at him. "Honestly, Weasley, that's not very nice, is it? Say you're sorry."

"You're out of your minds, the lot of you!"

"Nonsense, it's perfectly sensible. Ellie's heterochromia's genetic-that's why we paid so much for her. Your babies will have lovely red hair, with one gorgeous blue eye and a beautiful green one. Oh, they're going to win so many prizes."

"There aren't going to be any babies!"

"Now, now . . ." George stands. "It's just first night nerves. I was the same with Jeanette."

He scuffs down the corridor, out of sight, then back again-wheeling a trolley with an old-fashioned portable television on it. The kind with a built-in video recorder. "Sometimes a gentleman just needs a little something to kick-start his motor."

"I demand you call the police. Right now."

"This was one of Max's favorites." George unwinds the TV cord and plugs it into the wall opposite the cage. Then he fiddles with the remote control until a crackling picture fills the screen. The colors are washed out, flickering with static from multiple viewings: it's Max, rutting on top of a woman with curly golden-blond hair. He's hammering away, but it's like she's dead. No movement, just rocking back and forward in time to his thrusts. Blank eyes staring at the camera. It's been shot from the corridor-the wire mesh clearly visible in the picture. The only sound track is Max's grunts and the squeak of the bed.

She's not one of the women in the cages outside.

A cold lump settles into Wesley's stomach. Spreads its tendrils down through his bowels and legs. Shriveling everything.

George sits down again, patting through the pockets of his cardigan until a box of matches turns up. He lights his pipe, suckling on it until his head is wreathed in smoke. "In your own time."

"No. This is . . . it's ridiculous. I can't. She's too young."

"Nonsense, Wesley my boy, she's perfect. Trust me, they're like rabbits at that age."

Jeanette jabs him with her elbow. "Don't be crude. And his stable name's Weasley."

"Really?" A shrug. "Takes all sorts."

Wesley tears his eyes away from the screen. "This isn't happening . . ." He's at Natalie's house, bleeding out on the garage floor. Or he's crashed the car getting away from the burning house. Or he's having a stroke. A brain tumor. Anything other than this. He backs away from the bed. "It's a joke. A wind-up. Right?"

George charges out of his seat and slams a fist against the wire mesh, hard enough to make the whole thing rattle. "Get on with it!" His face is flushed, eyes dark.

Wesley flinches. "Don't you get it? I'm not going to sleep with your daughter."

"Daddy . . . ?" Ellie shuffles forward on the bed. "Maybe it'd help if you and Mummy weren't watching? Maybe Weasley gets nervous?"

"You know how this works." George's nostrils flare. "If we can't see him, we can't tell if he's doing the business." Then he crashes his palm into the mesh again, glaring at Wesley. "Now get your backside in that bed and do your b.l.o.o.d.y duty!"

Jeanette tugs at his sleeve. "Maybe he's impotent."

"Impotent?" George's face darkens. "Then he's no b.l.o.o.d.y good to us, is he?"

Ellie clutches her hands together, like she's praying. "You've got to give him a chance! Pleeeeeeeease? I know he can do it. It's just, you know, been a long day and the dead bodies in the boot and Angelina shouting at him and what happened to Max . . . We could try again tomorrow morning! I know I can get him all excited if you give him another chance." She pouts. "Pretty please?"

George doesn't move.

His wife walks over and strokes him on the shoulder. "Patience, George. Patience."

He takes a few deep breaths, then steps back from the mesh and nods. "I see. Right. Yes. We'll call it a night then. Try again in the morning." He reaches out and switches off the portable TV. "And if he still can't get it up, we'll just have to get ourselves another stud."

Another stud . . . Max taking a Mint Imperial from Jeanette's hand. Nuzzling her palm. Lying in the snow with his head bashed in. Replaced.

Wesley shudders.

"Right, Ellie: out of there. And take the blanket with you. Weasley doesn't deserve bedding." He folds up his chair and tucks it under his arm, then scowls at Wesley. "You'd b.l.o.o.d.y well better perform next time."

LIGHT FLOODS IN through the open hatch.

Wesley sits up, blinks. . . . Must have fallen asleep, though G.o.d knows how.

He crawls toward the hatch, pins and needles jarring through his feet like he's stamping on a hairbrush. He looks out through the pen and into the glare of the security lights, gouging his eyes. He holds up a hand, blotting it out. Squinting till his eyes can adjust.

It's snowing again, flakes floating down like broken gossamer threads under the lights.

Outside the cage, a fox slinks along the path toward him, mouth open, chocolate-brown socks digging into the snow. It stops. Stares at him.

A few seconds . . . then darkness as the security lights click off again.

Wesley waits, looking out into the night. There's not a single sound. Then a little m.u.f.fled squeak breaks the silence. Then it's quiet again.

The heater mounted to the roof is cold and dark. Either someone's switched it off to punish him, or it's on a timer.

He's about to duck back inside, where it's at least a little warmer, when the lights come on again.

The fox stands with two paws on Max's chest, head tilted to one side. It sniffs him. Licks what's left of his face. Then bares its teeth and grabs hold of something. Starts tugging.

A shudder ripples across Wesley's back . . . He swallows and looks away.

He's not the only one woken by the security light-Boo's up too. Jeanette's pride and joy is just visible through the bars, crouched on top of her toilet seat. She lifts something to her lips and bites down. Rips her head from side to side. Chews. Whatever she's eating, it's bigger than her fist-a long, pink tail dangling from her bloodstained hands. Twitching. His stomach lurches.

He looks back at the fox. Its scarlet-flecked snout jerks sideways as it gnaws away at his predecessor.

Oh G.o.d . . . Wesley makes it to the toilet just in time, flinging up the lid and heaving venison ca.s.serole into the bowl. Each retch is a punch in the stomach, filling his nose with the bitter stench of stomach acid. And then the gagging fades. Stops. One last lurch . . . Then he rests his head against the seat, spittle dripping from his open mouth. He breathes. Spits. Fumbles for the flush and washes it all away. Cups his hand in the stream of water gushing out of the rim, using it to wash his mouth out.