Ch 1

CH 1
    Amanda awoke in the midst of her menagerie. Bud, the small Norwegian Blue parrot, already awake and pacing the headboard, peering down at her with every turn. He made little grumbling noises and clicked his tongue as he turned to the glaring sunshine at the window and then gave her his most significant look.
    Beside her on the pillow, wrapped contentedly in the sprawl of Amanda's dark hair, Owl opened a lazy eye, glared up at the bird and turned her head, closing her eyes again. The cat was never outright unfriendly to the bird, but she certainly didn't appreciate his morning tirades.
    As Amanda stirred, the bird squawked and jumped up onto the bed post. He cocked his head and peered stolidly down at her, his enormous beak lending him the air of an incredulous banker. "Good morning, Bruce," he said solemnly then cackled. He tucked his head down and began the business of unruffled his feathers. Bud had an affinity for Monty Python, tending to speak mostly in phrases from the 1970s British sketch show. He laughed at everything except the "pet shop sketch" that featured a deceased Norwegian Blue. Amanda often saw his little back arch and his feathers raise when John Cleese used the cabinetry to show the pet shop owner exactly how deceased the bird really was.
    While her snoring boxer, John, remained sprawled across her feet, she felt her two ball pythons unball themselves from the warmth of her sides and slither upwards, tickling her ribs and sliding over the soft insides of her arms. Their heads emerged simultaneously from the sheet and tested the air, making sure the sun was doing a proper job of warming the room. Amanda smiled down at their tiny faces. "Morning Otto. Morning Cody." They kissed her chin with their minuscule forked tongues before Cody slithered over her neck to join his compadre on the side of the bed. The two coiled contentedly together and watched her with wide obsidian eyes, waiting for her to finish waking up.
    Owl stretched nonchalantly and sidled over to nuzzle her face before side stepping the snakes and jumping off the bed.
Amanda had to kick John lightly to stir signs of life in him, and the big boxer looked to the side of the bed to be sure the pythons were out of the way before standing, stretching and slumping back down beside her, his square head cushioned on her now- outstretched arm. She lightly scratched his ears and listened to Bud's litany of "morning, Bruce" as he greeted each of his flat mates in turn.
    It was a miracle to Amanda most days that such a random collection of animals managed to survive living together but all five of her pets actually seemed to like each other. She'd often come home to find all five of them on or around the couch, actually snuggling as they watched Animal Planet on the screen of the small TV she kept on in the apartment when she was gone.
    "Speaking of couches," she said as she scratched behind the lazy dog's ears. His eyebrows twitched inquisitively as he opened his eyes to peer at her. "Yes, yes, I know, you weren't speaking of couches. I was. Or I was dreaming I was. I had this dream about this beautiful hound's-tooth couch." John harrumphed and closed his eyes again. Her hand continued a slow movement on his head. "You'd look quite handsome on that couch."
    "Bruce is hungry." Bud's blue head popped into her line of sight. He'd resumed pacing the headboard. "So's Bruce, Bruce, Bruce and Bruce."
    "Oh, and what's for breakfast, Bud?" Amanda smiled up at the bird and stretched her long arm over her head to ruffle the delicate feathers at his breast.
    He stopped pacing and, cocking his head, stared her down. "Spam!" He cackled at his own wit and resumed his pacing.
*
    Amanda's morning commute consisted of a thirty-minute walk to her clinic in the Avenues.  Despite the crowded, stinking streets and throngs of humanity, Amanda loved the stroll.  It gave her the chance to check the progress of the spring leaves and the fall foliage.
    In the summer, always paused to lean against the stout trunk of one particularly health Birch and commune for a moment.  In the shade of the strong tree, she always felt a little closer to home, away from the crowded streets of New York City.  Outside the grounds of the orphanage where she'd grown up, there had been trees of every age and description.  She swore, one day, she would be surrounded by trees again and be able to see the sunlight streaming through leaves of green, gold and red without the intercession of concrete and glass. She even missed the stark blackness of winter branches against faded skies.
    Amanda sighed and pushed away from the trunk. She patted it before starting back down the broad sidewalk, keeping close to the curb and out of the flow of opposing foot traffic. It was early spring and she saw people in the crowd wearing items ranging from rain slicks to short and tank tops. There was, of course, the ever-present string of suits, black grey and blue, the men toting briefcases and shoulder bags, intent on their own importance. 
    The spring sun felt good on Amanda's bare forearms, warming the fabric of her scrub top against her skin. She always tried to keep out of the flow of traffic in the morning  so that she could absorb what sun penetrated the concrete valley between the buildings.  During her evening walk home, the sun was usually either obliterated by the buildings lining the avenue or obscured by heavy clouds signaling New York spring rains. So she spent what time she could on mornings like this lingering in the sunshine. 
    The Birch was not very far from her clinic, about two city blocks, so Amanda didn't have much longer to enjoy the sun's kiss.  Her clinic, situated in a large space between an exotic pet shop and an upscale barber shop, was a hectic environment.  Amanda often didn't even have time to take a lunch, swamped as she was with the basic woes of domestic pets and the more intimidating problems associated with the exotic animals she also cared for. Usually her lunch was absorbed in trying to find foster care or homes for the stranger beasts that rich owners no longer cared for and dumped at her doorstep. 
    Last week, she'd walked into the back room of the clinic to find half of her staff desperately trying to catch a gaggle of tarantulas while the other staff stood out in the hallway, adamantly refusing to come in and help.  While she didn't normally deal with spiders, she'd had no choice but to find a place for them- their owner, neglectful enough to let them multiply out of the control, had left them on the doorstep of the clinic in a poorly- designed box and a note which read "I'm done with these."  The pet-shop owner next door had been kind enough to take them off her hands, once they were all caught as she hoped they had been.  She just knew that one day soon she would open a drawer to find a tangle of the  big fuzzy spiders staring indignantly up at her, sitting on big clutches of eggs.
    The door to the clinic stood open and from the outside, she could see something was happening within. The big picture window in the front, meant to bring in sunshine and allow a view of the world, more often than not probably scared off her potential customers, because it gave a clear view of exactly the types of beasties she often found herself caring for.  Lions and tigers and baby bears. Oh my.
    A small crowd had gathered in the middle of the room. Amanda could see glimpses of a large metal cage between their bodies but not its inhabitant. Lily, Amanda's young receptionist, stood wringing her hands, apparently frustrated.  She saw Amanda cross the threshold and rushed up.
    "I tried to tell them to back off from the cage but no one's listening to me, and someone's going to get bit." Lily's wide brown eyes looked on the verge of tears and her hands kept flying up to her hair, combing it back out of her face, though not a single strand was actually out of place.
    Amanda put a calming hand on the woman's shoulder. "Lily,” she said as quietly as she could, “what's in the cage?"
"It's a huge lizard, Doctor Hadden. It looks-" she glanced over at the loud swarm around the cage before looking back and lowering her voice. "It looks like a Komodo Dragon, but you'd know better than me."
    Amanda's eyes widened and she flew toward the cage, pushing bodies out of her way as she went.  One teenage girl  had a finger thrust knuckle-deep into the mesh, trying to touch the creature's scaly back.  It took enormous self-control for Amanda to reach over and delicately extract the digit from the cage and not simply tear her hand away, likely taking the finger off in the process.
    "Do you have a death wish?" she asked the shocked teen.  Blue eyes widened at the word death before the girl struck a defiant pose, arms crossed over the glittery chest of a too-tight tank-top.
    "No. It's just a lizard." She glanced down at the cage, but now she stepped about two feet back. "A friggin' giant lizard, but just a lizard."
    Amanda laid a gentle hand on the top of the cage.  The lizard, threatened by the crowd around it and the ongoing noise, was popping her neck and arching her back, flecks of dangerous saliva escaping through the wire mesh. "This is not just a lizard." Amanda's voice was near a hiss. "This is a Komodo Dragon. Do you know anything at all about Komodo Dragons?"
    The blue eyes flicked to the cage uncertainly. The posture of defiance had slumped a little. "A dragon?" Amanda could see her shake herself and straighten a little. "That's just stupid, lady. Dragons are dead." The straight back slumped almost imperceptibly. The voice was a little smaller, a little less sure now. "Aren't they?" Her right hand crept to cradle the knuckle she'd had in the cage, wondering if she'd almost lost it.
    Amanda cast her baleful gaze around to the spectators.  "Komodo dragons," she began and lightly patted the cage again, "are not dragons in the fictional sense. They don't breathe fire. They don't eat young maidens. Unless-" her attention returned to the girl "those young maidens go sticking their fingers into cages and aggravating them.  Komodo Dragons bite their prey, occasionally taking fingers or other body parts. Then the fun begins.  As you're running away, the dragon's saliva is invading your system, insinuating itself in your bloodstream." Amanda could see eyes widening around her, bodies putting some distance between themselves and the cage.  She was getting through to the girl, and to the others in the crowd. "The farther and faster you run, the quicker the dragon's saliva kills you.  It's full of bacteria, fifty different varieties of bacteria, which will kill a small animal in less than a couple of hours.  For a Water Buffalo, it usually takes a couple of days.  For humans, about twenty-four hours."
    Amanda gazed down at the scaly back.  She felt the forked tongue touch her hand, testing for threat, and quickly withdrew her arm. "The whole time your body is slowly failing, organs and tissues dying, and there's usually nothing that can be done about it. By the time antibiotics would work on the bacteria, you'd likely already be dead. Meanwhile, our scaly friend here has been stalking you, waiting for you to die so that she can have a nice peaceful meal without any screaming or kicking."  Amanda looked back up at the girl. "So, you see, this is not just a friggin' giant  lizard.  Didn't you mom ever teach you not to stick your fingers into the cages of critters you know nothing about?"
    The girl's face was now a ghastly white. Rather than answer, she spun on her stylish spring sandals and stalked out of the office. Amanda turned her gaze on the rest of the crowd as she reached up and pulled her hair into a tight but sloppy bun.  "Now, if you don't have any business with my office, you don't have any business here.  If you do have business here, you're welcome to stay, just don't try to play with the friggin' giant lizard.  Lily?" she looked over her shoulder for the assistant.  Lily stepped back out from behind the counter and, giving the cage a wide berth, approached Amanda.
    "Yes, Dr. Hadden?"
    Amanda managed to keep her voice low. "Who brought that thing in here?"
    Lily blanched a little. In six years working with Amanda she had never heard the doctor call any animal, no matter how dangerous, a thing. She pointed past Amanda's shoulder to the young man who was stepping deeper into the tall foliage in the corner of the office.  The crowd had moved away from the cage, some sneaking out the door, others had sunk into seats and were still staring with wide eyes and a kind of sick adoration at the huge cage in the center of the room. While Amanda strode across the room to the man in the corner, Lily took her position behind the desk and stared intently at the nothing on the blank screen, pretending to be absorbed in her computer.
    "I wouldn't hide in those trees if I were you, young man," Amanda said. "We had a box full of tarantulas escape last week and I'm not certain we found them all.  Spiders love trees." She saw him run a quick hand over his shoulders and hair as he stepped out of the tangle of leaves.
    He looked up and she could see a little fear in his blue eyes.  Whether he was scared of the spiders, his pet, or her she didn't care. She was just happy to see it there. "Ma'am, I-"
    "Shh." Amanda put up a hand to stop him. "I don't care. Please accompany me to my office."
If his face could have blanched any whiter, she knew it would.  Even through her anger she could see what an attractive face it was. Cherubic features under unruly dark curls. Before she could linger too long on the color of his eyes, she turned on her heel and strode to the door separating the waiting room from the business end of the office.  She could hear his halting stride behind her.  Amanda hoped he thought she was going to turn him in.  If he didn't have a good excuse, an excellent excuse, she just might.
    Her office was in the back of the building, a small space meant just for her and her paperwork. The only decoration consisted of some animal posters tacked to the walls and a small, scorched photograph in an elaborate silver frame. The rest of the office was purely utilitarian; metal desk, ancient but comfortable desk chair, a chipped oak bookshelf stuffed with veterinary manuals, and a couple of folding metal chairs she kept for convenience's sake, in case they needed more seating in the waiting room.  They never did.
    She grabbed a metal chair and popped it open with a shake, directing the angel-faced man into it with a silent gesture. She closed the door and stepped around the desk, trying to calm her breathing and slow her heart. No matter how tough she tried to be, it just wasn't every day that she came to work to find one of the world's most dangerous predators in her waiting room.  Most days, if there were a dangerous animal, at least people had the good sense to stay clear of a grown tiger.
    "Now," she said, folding her tall frame down into the low chair, "why did you bring a dragon in here? More than that, why do you have a dragon at all?  They're a protected species." She spoke the last two words with exaggerated care, as if speaking to a three- year-old.
    "Ma'am, I-" she held up a hand again and his mouth snapped shut.
    "And don't Ma'am me. I'm a doctor and deserve the respect accorded a doctor, not your mother." Amanda folded her hands on the desk, knuckles bunched tight.
    "Sorry, Doctor." He looked at her to make sure he'd done it right. She nodded.
    "I actually found him. Loose in my building.  He was wandering the halls." He stopped, as if realizing how ludicrous his story sounded.
    Amanda was incredulous. "First of all, it's a she. Second, I don't believe you. You're trying to tell me that creature was wandering the hall like a lost puppy? Was she wagging her tail and begging for scraps? Or did she just find a couple of small children to eat whole?" Amanda's hands clenched tighter.  She was not a violent person, and was rarely tempted by the specter of a good fight, but right now she wanted to punch his pretty blue eyes out.
    "Please, Doctor-" he stopped, unsure what her last name was.
    "Hadden."
    "Please, Doctor Hadden, I'm telling the truth, and as far as I know, no one was bit.  But she was just hanging out outside my door when I opened it. Then she came inside. I didn't know what to do so I called the humane society and the pound. They all told me to bring her here. They said they didn't deal with lizards, but you did." His eyes were guileless, and Amanda almost wanted to believe him. Almost
    "Did you happen to mention it was a Komodo Dragon?"
    "No." He looked down at his own hands, now twisting in his lap. "I didn't know until you-" he looked up and then sheepishly back down. "I didn't know until you told the crowd out there. I just thought it was, well, a friggin giant lizard."
    "And you just happened to have a cage big enough for her?"
    He looked straight into her eyes. "As a matter of fact, I did. I used to have a St. Bernard-"
    "Before the lizard ate it?"
    "No!" His eyes widened. "My girlfriend- well, never mind. It's really none of your business what happened to the dog. I'd been using the cage as a night stand because I didn't want to get rid of it in case I ever had another dog and needed to keep him indoors sometimes. At any rate, I had the cage, and I wasn't sure what she ate, so I threw an apple, and some lettuce and a half a pound of steak in, and she went crawling in after it."
    "And it never tried to attack you?" Amanda felt her own eyes widening.
    "Nope, not even once." He smiled a little crooked smile and she could see his teeth were as pretty as his eyes. "When I was on the phone with the pound, she pulled a pillow off the couch and killed it, but otherwise she was perfectly well-behaved."
    She could feel herself relaxing. Though the story was odd, she couldn't see the lie behind it, or why he would.  And surely, if he lived with the monster, he would have known it's nature. He'd seemed as honestly shocked as the rest of the crowd.
    "You know I'm going to have to verify your story with the pound and humane society.  About the phone calls, I mean."
He nodded solemnly. "I know. I hope you do, so you'll know I'm telling the truth. I wouldn't have brought her here if I'd known how dangerous she was." His smile bloomed again. "I would probably be standing on my toilet with the bathroom door locked, screaming for the neighbors to call in the Army if I had known."
    Amanda felt herself smiling with him, and had to concentrate to tug the corners of her mouth back down into an unforgiving frown. "Go wait in the waiting room." She stood and opened the door. "And tell Lily I will be out in a minute." She reached out and grabbed his shoulder as he passed. "And keep the spectators away from the cage.  You brought her here, so that's your responsibility, not Lily's."
    "Yes Ma'a-" Amanda shot him a warning glare. "Yes, Doctor Hadden." He gave her a sunny smile and nearly ran for the waiting room, glad no doubt that she hadn't called out Homeland Security or, worse yet, PETA on him.