“And I told you that all that toxic energy materializes into a monster as soon as it makes contact with the air, with the world outside the magical’s body,” Alton continued, and I nodded again. “Well, over the past thousand years or so, we’ve found a way to harness that dark energy and put it to good use. By that time, we were already conducting controlled Purges, so we could immediately capture the monsters that emerged. One of our previous preceptors, from a different coven in France, discovered a way to draw energy from these creatures and fuel large-scale spells, such as these interdimensional pockets where we’ve built our covens. The power that these beasts hold is endless, and, if drawn moderately, it allows the creatures to naturally replenish and keep fueling our spells. Everything you see in this place, every atom, every particle of electrical current, every solid surface, and every leaf… it’s all materialized with the help of these monsters’ energy. We’ve been collecting them inside the Bestiary for a long time.”
I understood then that the sounds I’d been hearing didn’t belong to animals, but to monsters. The memory of the gargoyle I’d dealt with outside the casino flooded back, turning my blood to ice, as the Mason jar that Wade had stuffed it into finally made a lot more sense.
“How… How does this work?” I asked, staring at Alton.
“Think of the Bestiary as a giant battery that fuels all the covens around the world,” he said. “Some magicals are more powerful than others, and the monsters resulting from their Purges are proportionally bigger and deadlier. But they can all lose their material form once they’re stuck inside these proprietary glass boxes. Come along, let me show you.”
I followed him deeper into the Bestiary. He took a sharp left turn and stopped in front of a wall with about fifty glass boxes, each roughly the size of my head, with brass edges and small locks with symbols engraved around the keyholes. Each box was filled with puffs of black smoke, much like what the gargoyle had turned into the other night, prior to getting sucked into the Mason jar.
“These are small monsters, mostly the result of Purges from young witches and warlocks who’ve used a lot of magic over a short period of time,” Alton explained. “The more magic you use, and the more powerful you are, the bigger the monster and the more painful the Purge. Looking at you, I imagine you’ve never had a Purge yourself. You won’t need to worry about having one for another year or two. It’s usually in our early twenties that we start to let the toxic stuff out.”
“So, let me get this straight,” I murmured, unable to take my eyes off the puffs of smoke. “These are all monsters. Like the gargoyle?”
He nodded. “More or less, yes. They’re not as big or as dangerous as the creature you and Wade encountered, but they’re the result of the same process. The moment they first touch the air, these clouds of black smoke manifest into beasts. Shapes vary depending on the magical’s nature, but they all fall into a certain category—gargoyles, changelings, trolls, and goblins, mostly. Size-wise, it’s the gargoyles and trolls you want to be careful with. Changelings and goblins are just pesky and troublesome little turds.”
Alton gritted his teeth while referring to changelings and goblins, immediately pointing out a personal disdain for the creatures. I couldn’t stifle my grin. “I take it you don’t like them, huh?” I said.
“I’d burn them all to a crisp, if I could,” Alton said with mild amusement, “but we need their energy. You see, once we put them in these glass boxes, they lose their physical manifestation and return to their original smoky form, and that’s when their energy can be drawn into the central system of the Bestiary. It’s the stem, the core of this structure, and it processes it all into the power that our covens need, worldwide. It is truly one of our greatest accomplishments.”
“I can imagine,” I said, slowly tapping the glass on one of the boxes. The smoke reacted to my touch, swirling closer to my finger. I could almost see a crooked lizard head shaping up, when Alton put his hand on my shoulder and startled me. “Son of a—” I croaked.
“Sorry.” He chuckled, and the smoke lost its attempted shape, scattering around the box. “Let me show you the bigger ones.”
“Oh, yay, bigger monsters,” I replied sarcastically. “Because that’s how you convince me to move into this place. Tell me it’s filled with flesh-eating whatever.”
“I’ll be honest, 90 percent of what’s in here definitely wants to kill you—us, for that matter,” Alton replied. “But as magicals, we really try to avoid killing. Which is why the Bestiary was such a good idea. It gave us the opportunity to spare the lives of these creatures and help develop our societies at the same time.”
“You can’t go without them anymore, huh?”
“Not after a thousand years of progress, of building our covens and fueling them with this power. If the Bestiary were to fail, everything we’ve erected in these dimensional pockets will either cease to exist or, worse, it will burst out into the human world. Either way, it would be a disaster on a global scale. The loss of life would be cataclysmic.”
“What if you let the monsters out?” I asked, the worst-case scenarios popping into my head with alarming speed. This place made me feel so uncomfortable.
“Well, the same, really. Plus, a horde of supernatural monsters roaming freely through the human world.” Alton sighed. “Thing is, before we were able to capture them, some of these monsters were free. Some cultures clashed with them, and others worshipped them. These are strong beasts that, even in their glass boxes, retain their gruesome forms. Here.”
We stopped in front of a large glass box, about as big as my apartment, filled with dirt, grass, and jagged rocks. Just like the other boxes, this one was kept shut with an engraved lock. It looked worryingly small, compared to the size of the box itself, prompting me to frown as I pointed at it.
“How does that tiny thing keep the monster inside?” I asked.
“It’s a charmed lock.” A low, gruff voice made me turn my head to the right. I froze on the spot, watching a massive creature walk toward us. It was twice my height, with a man’s body—mostly, except for the talons and claws it had for feet, and the bright golden-and-white feathers covering its arms. Its head was that of a lion, with a thick mane and soft, amber eyes. The whiskers moved as it spoke. “It doesn’t need to be big. What matters is the symbol, the magic used to contain the beast.”
My heart started pumping fast, and I slowly moved backward, until Alton caught my arm and squeezed gently.
“Don’t be afraid. He won’t hurt you, Harley,” Alton said. “This is Tobe, the Beast Master.”
“Oh, the Beast Master,” I blurted. “Because that’s totally normal and makes all the sense in the world, that you would have a big-ass beast looking after a bestiary.”
Both Alton and Tobe chuckled, while I tried to adjust to this new reality without screaming and kicking. Alton was surprisingly strong, though, easily keeping me in place with just one hand. Tobe bowed before me, and it was then that I noticed his feathered arms were purely extensions to a pair of wings.
“Tobe here is 1,058 years old,” Alton explained, “and is the only monster with a conscience and cognitive abilities to ever come out of a Purge.”
“Oh, wow,” I breathed, unable to stop myself from staring at Tobe. His muscular mass was impressive, even beneath the layers of gray linen he’d fashioned into a toga. I was willing to bet he could crush a twenty-pound melon in one hand. Effortlessly.
“The witch that ejected me was one of the kindest, sweetest souls to ever roam this earth,” Tobe replied, sadness drawing a frown between his feline eyes. Despite his animal head, he was surprisingly expressive, especially through the raw tone of his low, masculine voice. “She was also one of the most powerful magicals. She was known as Selma, though very little is known about her origins today. After so many years, I can barely remember her.”
“Tobe here is a wonderful and welcome anomaly,” Alton said, “mainly because he is the only one that these monsters fear and listen to, perhaps because he too was born from a Purge. He’s not a magical per se, but he is the result of magical activity, and has some Chaos-related abilities. Tobe has been with us magicals since he was created, shortly after Selma died. She couldn’t bring herself to kill him, as was the custom at the time, because he was kind and, well, harmless, despite his impressive size.”
“Once Theodore Dumonde created the glass boxes and the idea of a Bestiary came to fruition, I found my calling,” Tobe added. “I’ve been the Beast Master ever since. I look after this place. As of recently, I’ve been getting additional support from the coven’s magicals.”
He frowned, then gazed into the giant glass box. Alton didn’t seem happy either, for some reason.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’ll explain later, in the Main Assembly Hall. But, in short, we’ve been having some issues with the Bestiary. Someone’s been sneaking in and letting monsters out, which is why I’ve added some extra security here, to help Tobe manage. He half-sleeps like a dolphin anyway, but I’m hoping the magicals assisting him will play their part in preventing further leaks.” Alton sighed.
“The gargoyle,” I said, thinking back to that fateful night at the casino. “Did it escape?”
“Yes. We mark all our beasts,” Tobe confirmed. “However, there are some still at large. Most are the result of unexpected Purges from magicals that have yet to be registered with a coven. A few I know personally to have been around for centuries, hiding from us, fearing capture. But we’ll get them sooner or later. We cannot let them roam free in the human world. Too many lives at risk—”
A heavy, spine-chilling hiss made me turn my head, slowly, to look inside the glass box. I yelped, then quickly covered my mouth as I watched a massive snake slither out from beneath a large rock. It wasn’t a regular serpent, though. Its body was unnaturally thick, at least three feet in diameter, and covered in bright golden-and-green scales, each the size of my palm. Its head was huge, with a rich collar made of white-and-fuchsia feathers, which extended along its spine, all the way to the tip of its tail.