He ran a hand across his chest. Even through the fabric of his shirt he could feel the three long ridges that ran across his chest, souvenir scars from the creature’s talons.

His mouth felt like straw. Scar-lip… alive.

But how? How had it survived the blaze on the water? How had it wound up on Long Island in a traveling freak show?

“Ooh, look at it, Fred!” said a woman behind Jack.

“Just a guy in a rubber suit,” replied a supremely confident male voice.

“But those claws—did you see the way they came out?”

“Simple hydraulics. Nothing to it.”

You go on believing that, Fred, Jack thought as he watched the creature where it crouched on its knees, its talons encircling the iron bars, its yellow eyes burning into Jack.

You know me too, don’t you.

It appeared to be trying to stand but its legs wouldn’t support it. Was it chained, or possibly maimed?

The ticket seller came by then, sans boater, revealing a shaven head. Up close like this Jack was struck by his cold eyes. He was carrying a blunt elephant gaff that he rapped against the bars.

“So you’re up, aye?” he said to the rakosh in a harsh voice. “Maybe you’ve finally learned your lesson.”

Jack noticed that for the first time since it had opened its eyes, the rakosh turned its glare from him; it refocused on the newcomer.

“Here he is, ladies and gentleman,” the ticket man cried, turning to the crowd. “Yessir, the one and only Sharkman! The only one of his kind! He’s exclusively on display here at Ozymandias Oddities. Tell your friends; tell your enemies. Yessir, you’ve never seen anything like him and never will anywhere else. Guaranteed.”

You’ve got that right, Jack thought.

The ticket man spotted Jack standing on the wrong side of the rope. “Here, you. Get back there. This thing’s dangerous! See those claws? One swipe and you’d be sliced up like a tomato by a Ginsu knife! We don’t want to see our customers get sliced up.” His eyes said otherwise as he none too gently prodded Jack with the pole. “Back now.”

Jack slipped back under the rope, never taking his eyes off Scar-lip. Now that it was up front in the light, he saw that the rakosh didn’t look well. Its skin was dull and relatively pale, nothing like the shiny deep cobalt he remembered from their last meeting. It looked thin, wasted.

The rakosh turned its attention from the ticket man and stared at Jack a moment longer, then dropped its gaze. Its talons retracted, slipping back inside the fingertips, the arms dropped to its sides, the shoulders drooped, then it turned and crawled back to the rear of the cage where it slumped again in the corner and hung its head.

Drugged. That had to be the answer. They had to tranquillize the rakosh to keep it manageable. Even so, it didn’t look too healthy. Maybe the iron bars were doing it—fire and iron, the only things that could hurt a rakosh.