Marcus walked back to open the large loading door, and I hopped down to join him. Unlike Emerald Station, this forgotten stop didn’t have a platform, which worked in our favor since the air sled hovered at a height only slightly lower than the freight car. We wouldn’t have to lift the heavy, dormant gargoyles far to get them loaded.
“The driver’s name is Gus,” Marcus said, his voice pitched low so only I could hear him. He had arranged for the sled driver to be waiting for us at the station, just as he’d arranged for the freight car to be hitched to the back of the first-class train. I opened my mouth to thank him again, but he continued without giving me a chance. “He’s not going to let us load the gargoyles until you pay him.”
“The FPD isn’t picking up this tab?” I asked, trying to keep the hope out of my voice.
“The FPD has a don’t-touch policy regarding Reaper’s Ridge. They’re not going to fund any portion of any harebrained expedition involving it.”
I clamped my mouth shut before I pointed out the flaw in his logic, since the FPD had already paid for our trip here. If he made me reimburse him for the train car and trip, I’d be in debt to him for the next five years. Besides, I recognized the verbal jab for what it was. Marcus wasn’t going to try to talk me out of going to Reaper’s Ridge, but it appeared he was done with making things easy.
I grabbed my bag and pulled out a neatly folded bundle of cash, then walked to the front of the sled where Gus was coiling thick bands of earth around twin stone anchors to hold the floating sled in place.
“Hi, I’m Mika,” I said.
“Yep.” Gus spat to the side.
“How much do I owe you?”
“This’ll do.” He swiped the cash from my hand and pocketed it without counting the bills.
“But . . . how much—”
“Oh, pardon me, ma’am. Did you want to shop around first?” He swept his arm toward the empty meadow and cackled, the dry sound turning into a wheezy cough.
I’d spent my life’s savings when I’d rescued Oliver and his siblings from Walter at the black magic auction, and Gus had just snatched up every last dollar I’d managed to save since then, including what I’d set aside to pay next month’s rent. Unless I sold a record-breaking amount of jewelry in the next week and a half, I was going to have to rely on the goodwill of my landlady to maintain a roof over my head. The thought set my teeth on edge.
I spun on a heel—
And came face-to-jowl with a giant dog’s head.
The cerberus huffed a soft bark, its foul breath washing over me and ruffling my hair. Its second head whined and the third sniffed my crotch.
“Whoa, back up,” I said, pushing the muzzle from my groin. The whining head licked the side of my face, its tongue as wide as my palm. “Ew!”
Gus guffawed, no help whatsoever.
Oliver coasted from the freight car’s roof to my side, and the cerberus backed up a few steps to watch him land, giving me a better look at the three-headed dog. She looked like a Polish hound, with the standard black saddle pattern over an otherwise rich brown coat, but that’s where the similarities ended. Aside from having two more heads than a normal dog—all three of them larger than mine—the cerberus was also as tall as a pony and twice as heavy, her body corded with muscles and ending in a whip-long tail that was doing its best to start a windstorm as she crouched to snuffle Oliver. She whined again, or one of her heads did; the other two panted with excitement.
Oliver reared up on his hind legs, which still didn’t quite put him at eye level with the cerberus when she stood up.
“Don’t be afra—” I started.
Oliver released a trill so high my ears barely registered it, but it made the cerberus go on point. Then the gargoyle rolled onto his back and wriggled his feet at the three-headed hound. She pounced, nipping at his rock body without actually touching him. I ducked the flail of her tail and ran to the far side of the sled. With a few spry steps, Gus joined me.
“Um,” I said.
“Never seen a gargoyle play before.”
“Is the cerberus playing?” I didn’t think her enormous teeth could harm Oliver, but I didn’t want to take a chance. I also didn’t want her to chip a tooth on Oliver. I couldn’t heal a cerberus, and I figured Gus would expect a monetary reimbursement I couldn’t afford if she was injured.
“Ginger’s gentle as a lamb,” Gus said. Ginger growled, three throats in harmony, and snapped her teeth in a fast chatter like bone castanets. Every hair on my body stood on end and I fought to ignore the primitive part of my brain insisting I needed to flee. Oliver wriggled in a circle, trying to imitate the cerberus’s eerie chatter. He sounded like a drowning turkey.
Gus watched them tussle for a moment longer before he barked a foreign word. The cerberus leapt to his side and planted her butt nearly on his foot. Gus patted each of her heads. Oliver shook dirt from his back and flapped his wings, giving me a goofy smile I could read far too clearly.
“Cerberi are not city animals,” I told him.
“A little help here,” Marcus said.
I turned back to the freight car. He’d already transferred two of the lighter gargoyles onto the sled by himself. I scurried to help him with the rest. Gus didn’t make a move to help, despite being far stronger than me with air. Sweat ran freely down my face and soaked into my shirt by the time we’d finished, and when Celeste retracted her magical boost, I slumped against the high side of the sled, feeling like I’d run a mile uphill. Marcus looked like he’d taken a stroll by the beach.