Lillene

Enjoy!

Rosemont’s Specialty Pets and Tamed Monsters was not what Serenity expected when he asked Janice to take him to a pet store. He expected a PetSmart, but rather than a large store in a strip mall, this was a large building without any others around it; behind the building, Serenity could see fenced-in fields and a few other buildings. 

The doors to the other buildings seemed large and looked like they rolled up instead of opening to the sides, like they were for heavy equipment or trucks, but there was no raised loading dock. The concrete pathways leading up to them were as wide as the doors, but even the largest ones weren’t big enough for even a normal-sized car. A golf cart seemed about as large as would fit through that particular door. 

Serenity could smell demons the moment he got out of the SUV. It wasn’t as strong as the smell around Mornmot, but that wasn’t much of a surprise; Mornmot was absolutely covered in demons. It wasn’t stronger than the smell on A’Atla when Apollyon somehow transported a demon onto the ship, but it was far more varied. There was also no sense of Night Fire in the area.

Serenity wished that were reassuring. There hadn’t been Night Fire at any of the other times he’d seen demons recently, either; the only connection he had between Night Fire and demons were two incidents on A’Atla.

Serenity shoved that worry to the back of his mind and headed towards the clearly labeled store. The parking lot was large but nearly empty, so it wasn’t very far.

The inside of Rosemont’s was loud. Bird calls combined with predatory snarls, mocking laughter, and a sort of low, contented rumble to create a cacophony that made Serenity stop just inside the door to figure it out. Almost immediately, the noise level seemed to drop as the closest creatures noticed him and went silent, followed quickly by some of the animals a bit farther away.

The place reeked of demons. Serenity guessed that those were the ones that went silent; the ones making noise were probably just animals.

There was a large selection of animals off to Serenity’s left. A few of them were in open-air cages, but most of the smaller ones were behind glass, though Serenity noticed that even the glass cages were open at the top. There were two sections; the one near the front of the store was labeled Pets while the farther section was labeled Tamed Monsters. 

Off to the right, Serenity saw pet food, cages, toys, and even a small section labeled veterinary supplies. It made sense that a store that sold pets and monsters would also sell the things you needed to keep them, but that section wasn’t very interesting right now.

Most of the creatures in the pet section were ones he recognized, at least by type. He might not be able to identify what that brightly-colored fish was, but he could at least tell it was a fish. Similarly, the four spotted cats, an adult and three kittens, had to be exotics but they were still house cats. The other cats seemed more normal, other than the one that was nearly as long as Serenity was tall; that one looked like a monster, but Serenity didn’t get the feeling of a monster core, so it was just an animal. The fact that the giant cat was contentedly licking his balls as Serenity watched reinforced the feeling that it was an animal rather than a monster. Serenity could recognize some of the dog breeds and he was pretty sure that the small brown mammal was a ferret, but the lizards, birds, fish, and rabbits were not animals Serenity had that much familiarity with as pets.

There were quite a few alilu in the section, along with a number of other creatures Serenity probably wouldn’t have recognized as demons without the ability to smell them. They resembled Earth creatures closely enough that while he couldn’t identify what they were, he also couldn’t immediately have picked them out as anything other than exotics. 

Right now, there was one huge difference between the demons and the other animals: all of the demons were silent as they watched Serenity. Some of the ordinary animals also watched him, but it wasn’t quite the same. It made them easy to pick out from the otherwise similar animals.

The alilu wasn’t the most numerous demon in the pet section; indeed, it seemed to be the third most common, with ten alilus in their enclosure. The most common was a catlike creature called a batetsi, with sixteen batetsis. Fourteen erubis gave the feline batetsi some competition. They were grouped with the dogs, even though they looked more like striped foxes to Serenity.

“Are you here for a pickup?” The question came from behind him. A young woman dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a pin-on badge that said Hi! My name is Sharon stood there with a professional smile. 

“A pickup?” Serenity repeated after her. “No, I didn’t call ahead or anything.”

Sharon nodded. “Well, when you’re in the market for a new companion, please remember that we recommend calling ahead for all of the large combat-trained monsters. Are you looking for something specific? This section doesn’t have much for a tamer who wants a companion to take into dungeons, but these animals do make great pets.”

“Why do you think I’m a tamer?” Serenity tilted his head to the side, a little puzzled. He could understand why she thought he delved, but he wasn’t a tamer.

“The way the animals reacted,” Sharon said with a gesture at the batetsis. “They’re feeling a Tamer skill. I’m not sure which one, but I’ve seen that happen with a few other Tamers. They didn’t seem to know which one either.”

Serenity started to tell her that he wasn’t a Tamer at all, but paused when he realized that she probably wouldn’t believe him unless he explained the reaction another way. There was no way he was going to say that he was a demon and so were all of the “animals” that reacted to him; that was a terrible idea. The word demon had far too many negative connotations.

Wait. Was it possible that the other Tamers she mentioned were actually causing the same reaction for a similar reason? If they were touched by Night Fire like the summoner Serenity met on A’Atla, he could see demons reacting to it if they’d encountered a Night Fire-related demon before. Summoning demons ahead of time then having Tamers bond them would also mean you needed relatively few people capable of proper summoning; it might be another way to get more demons out into the world.

This wasn’t the location that the summoner he encountered on A’Atla picked up his beasts, Serenity knew that much. He’d have to ask Aide if he wanted the exact location, but it wasn’t in New York. That didn’t mean there weren’t other people planted by Apollyon who were here, however. In fact, it made sense that there would be if Apollyon had enough of an interest in the area to use it for a giant ritual spell. After all, he might need people to do things for him.

Serenity wondered just how much control he had over the people he infected with his Night Fire. Was it enough to pass along the information necessary to create a new ley line nexus? Was that not a good way to actually catch Apollyon?

Serenity shook his head. He was getting ahead of himself again. “I actually want to talk to someone about your supplier. Do you get your alilus, batetsis, and erubis from the same supplier?”

Sharon shook her head. “I don’t know, I’m not on that side of things. They’re all raised humanely; that’s one of Mr. Rosemont’s requirements before he adds a new exotic animal. He doesn’t accept pets captured from the wild, either.”

Serenity doubted she knew any better, but he also doubted that “Mr. Rosemont” would claim anything other than humane origins regardless of what they actually were and whether or not he’d actually investigated. It wouldn’t be good for business. “Then can I meet with Mr. Rosemont? I’m sure he can help me out.”

Sharon frowned but answered, “He’s out back working with some of the newer monsters. They’re not taking to the taming as well as he’d like, so he’s putting in some extra time with them. He told me not to go back there since I wouldn’t be safe, but since you’re a tamer…” She shrugged. “If you go back outside then head towards the larger barn, you’ll see the signs about dangerous animals. He’s somewhere past that barn.”

Serenity had her point out the particular building she meant, then set off to find Mr. Rosemont. 

The first sign that he was headed in the right direction was the DANGER: WILD ANIMALS MAY BE LOOSE sign he found on the fence that started at the back of the barn Sharon pointed him at. She hadn’t mentioned the fence, but she probably didn’t think about it. It didn’t take Serenity long to find a gate, since the sign was actually on the gate.

The fence was a solid six feet tall, with barbed wire near the ground and at one-foot intervals. The top line had a strand of what had to be conductive wire run a few inches above and inside the barbed wire, probably to discourage jumping and keep taller creatures from testing the barbed wire. It was almost certainly electrified, though Serenity suspected it wasn’t designed to give more than a painful jolt. You wouldn’t want to kill the animals you were trying to sell, after all. 

The gate was a single solid piece with metal slats and diagonal reinforcing bars. It looked far sturdier than the barbed wire fence. It was latched, rather than locked, with a large piece of metal that Serenity could simply move to the side. He opened it just far enough to fit through, went through the gate, then closed it.

There was no real path on the other side of the gate, just the concrete that completed the walkway around the building. Serenity didn’t see any sign of anyone or anything actually in the fenced area, so he took a close look at the ground near the barn. There were some obvious deep score marks that looked fairly recent; in the absence of any other clues, Serenity followed them where they led into the large open area. 

It was even larger than he’d suspected from the road; this had to be on new land. There was no way this much unbuilt land existed in New York City otherwise. As it was, Serenity was shocked that so much was dedicated to animal training inside the city; it would have made a lot more sense to train animals (or tame monsters) elsewhere, then move them into the city when it was time to sell them. 

The only reason Serenity could think that made this make sense was if the ownership was questionable. New land had that issue sometimes since it wasn’t on any previous map; Serenity knew that was happening all across the US. Serenity had also heard that city zoning laws could also cause issues, since it was effectively unzoned land, but that was really all he knew on the subject. That was what lawyers were for.

Noise coming from ahead told Serenity made him hurry to catch up to it. He crested a slight rise in the land and found that he was closer to the source of the noise than he’d thought. A demon that resembled a spiky lioness with a shattered gray-and-black coat snarled at a man holding a wand then swung her head towards Serenity and went still.

Lillene

0 alilus taken home so far. Let’s see if it stays that way.