Discount Armageddon

Eleven

The sidewalk outside Gingerbread Pudding, a dessert café with good taste in servers

DOMINIC’S RESTRAINT SURPRISED ME; he waited until we couldn’t be seen from the café’s front window before grabbing my elbow and jerking me into the nearest alley. The maneuver was sudden enough to throw me temporarily off-balance, and I stumbled against him, giving him the leverage he needed to get hold of my upper arms. His fingers dug in hard enough to pin my arms to my sides, without quite holding hard enough to hurt me. I appreciated that. I wasn’t really in the mood to break his jaw.

“You presume too much, woman,” he hissed, eyes narrowed. “How dare you? That inhuman thing—”

“Her name is Piyusha,” I said. I made an effort to keep my tone level and reasoned. “She’s a Madhura. She has a human life span. She has no physical advantages. She’s not a predator. Since she’s an unmarried female, she’s probably living with her parents or siblings, and working in the café because the day-olds contain sufficient sugar to keep them all in good health. She’ll marry when she meets a male who smells right. Wherever they live, the whole neighborhood will benefit, because the milk won’t spoil, the bread won’t go stale … hell, living near a Madhura even retards tooth decay.”

His fingers loosened, a confused expression crossing his face. The confusion passed quickly, replaced by pure fury as he clamped down again, harder than before. “Witch!” he spat. “You’re trying to twist my mind with your propaganda.”

It was the confusion that did it.

When my family left the Covenant, they told us we were wrong, that we had no idea what we were doing—that we were traitors not only to “the cause,” but to the entire human race. There’s one thing I’ve never encountered, either in the accounts I’ve read of the departure or in the reenactments of the Aeslin mice: confusion. The members of the Covenant were absolutely convinced of their truth, every step of the way. But Dominic … he might not agree with me, he might never agree with me, but the confusion I sometimes saw in his face told me there was a chance. And if there was a chance, I was going to take it.

“Propaganda? What, you mean I’m trying to make you listen to reasonable arguments about why you shouldn’t go killing people in my city?” He was starting to cut off circulation to my arms. I squirmed. “Okay, how about this: let go of me, or I’ll knee you in the balls.”

Dominic let go.

I took a step back, smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of my shirt with the heels of my hands before crossing my arms and falling into a casual, hipshot position. Guys hate it when girls look at them like they don’t matter. Dominic appeared to be no different; he scowled at me even harder. “Look, I get that we’re on different teams most of the time, but we’ve agreed that having a dragon get loose in New York would be bad for everybody. You need to get it through your head that not every cryptid is actually evil. A lot of them serve important ecological functions.”

“Bull—”

“My great-great-grandparents left the Covenant because Dr. John Snow discovered the mechanism by which cholera was able to spread through England.”

The change of topics appeared to completely baffle him. That was reasonable; it was a bit of a non sequitur if you don’t know the family history, and I was betting the Covenant had never put Great-Great-Grandpa Healy’s actual reasons for leaving into the record. “What?”

“Cholera is a bacterial infection spread through polluted water.” I took a step toward him, arms still crossed. “It didn’t start getting bad until the 1800s, which a lot of people attribute to the increase in the population of the world’s cities. The worst outbreak anyone had ever seen occurred in 1832, when it killed a truly ridiculous number of people in London and Paris.” He was still looking baffled. I took mercy. “The last known unicorn in France was killed in 1831.”

That put Dominic on more familiar ground. “Unicorns are feral beasts. They kill—”

“I know the stats on unicorn kills.” One more step closed the distance between us. He didn’t grab me. I didn’t knee him. “Unicorns cleanse the water in the areas where they live. Cholera comes from tainted water. A unicorn in the wild will kill one, maybe two people a year. A cholera epidemic kills thousands. So, yeah, when John Snow’s findings were published, my family had some questions, and when we were told ‘it doesn’t matter, we’re doing God’s work,’ we left. Still think it’s propaganda?”

“I…” Dominic stopped. “They’re monsters.”

“Some of them are, sure. But by any objective measure, so are lions, and tigers, and bears. What do you think the sapient cryptids, like Piyusha’s family, think about you?”

There was a long pause before he said, “I don’t know.”

“That may be the first totally honest thing you’ve said to me.” I unfolded my arms, sticking out my hand. “Hi. My name’s Verity Price. I will forgive you for the rooftop snare and the dead ahools and the attitude problem if you’ll forgive me for kicking your ass if you try to hunt anybody who isn’t actively threatening my city. Deal?”

Looking faintly amused, Dominic took my hand and shook, twice. “Deal. Although I’m actually forgiving you for making the attempt. I’m not as certain of your success as you are.”

“That’s fair.” I reclaimed my hand, stepping back out of his personal space. “So you’re the guy with the record books. Is there anything in them about dragons having a thing for unmarried women?”

“Only in that a village in the process of trying to placate a dragon was likely to use virgins as the main course.” Dominic shook his head. “I don’t know whether that means they actually demanded them…”

“… or whether the village elders just figured nobody would miss a few virgins. Got it. I’ll ask my dad. He may know.” And then I’d ask the dragon princesses. I was willing to introduce Dominic to a few members of the cryptid community while we were getting the ball rolling, but if I brought him near the princesses, they’d disappear in a heartbeat. If there was actually a dragon in the city that would be the last thing we wanted. “In the meantime, we need more information.”

“I can contact my superiors and request that any information about the dragons not presently included in the primary records be sent for my review. It may take a few days.”

I gave him a sidelong look. “Won’t that make them suspicious?”

“Dragons are extinct, remember?”

“I swear, if you’re trying to pull a fast one and call down an air strike—”

“Would I have bothered informing you of my suspicions?” Dominic tucked his hands into his pockets, studying the alley wall. “I don’t want to trigger an assault unless I have to.”

“Why not? I thought that’s what you were trained for?”

“There are … complications.”

“Complications like what?”

He cast a sidelong glance in my direction. “How quickly can you get yourself, and everything you claim to be protecting, out of this city?”

That stopped me. Until that moment, I hadn’t really considered the fact that Dominic—annoying, overbearing Dominic, who’d spoiled my shot at Regionals—might actually be trying to help. I eyed him. “What’s in it for you?”

“I don’t get the Covenant spoiling my first solo mission.” Dominic shrugged. “They’re very big on initiative. They’re also very big on claiming credit. If it’s a dragon, I want to be the one who finds it, not the one who reports it and winds up with a footnote in the official records.”

“What about that whole ‘I don’t want to start as a failed dragon slayer’ thing?”

“I said I wanted to find it. I didn’t necessarily say I wanted to prod it with a sharp stick.”

I could have kissed him for that. “See, I’ll just be happy if I don’t get eaten.” I paused, considering, before asking, “Are you going to be cool about the fact that not all cryptids are the bad guys here?”

“For the moment, I’ll allow it.”

“Okay. Then I’ve got someone we should talk to.”

Dominic quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? And who’s that?”

“My cousin.”

The disapproving eyes of the concierge tracked us across the lobby of the Plaza Athenee, a five-star establishment whose suites cost more per night than I made in a month of waiting tables at Dave’s. It was the sort of place where they’d film movies, if the management didn’t consider Hollywood film crews too déclassé to trust near their marble floors. Even the air tasted like money, a delicate blend of expensive perfumes and unobtrusive all-natural cleaning products.

“What are we doing here?” hissed Dominic.

“I told you, we’re visiting my cousin.” I stopped in front of the elevators, smiling at the operator—yes, the real, live elevator operator—responsible for keeping the buttons from soiling our dainty fingertips. “Penthouse, please. Sarah’s expecting me.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. I didn’t call ahead, but once a cuckoo is telepathically attuned to someone, they can “hear” them coming a quarter of a mile away. I haven’t been able to sneak up on Sarah since I was eleven.

Dominic gave the lobby another mistrustful glance as the elevator operator pressed the button for the penthouse. “Your cousin is staying here?” he asked.

“You don’t have to sound so doubtful,” I said. The elevator doors opened. Tossing a smile to the operator, I grabbed Dominic’s arm and tugged him with me into the elevator, which was as lush and lavishly appointed as the lobby. The doors closed. I released his elbow. “She likes hotels.”

Dominic looked at me, stone-faced, and said nothing.

Even if his discomfort amused me, I could at least understand it; I used to feel grubby when I visited Sarah “at home,” no matter how nicely I dressed. Sample sale Prada and secondhand Alexander McQueen does not quite live up to the standards set by the sort of hotels she likes to take advantage of. Poor Dominic had to feel like he’d just been dropped into the middle of a Bond flick without having the time to get his tux out of storage.

Over time, I’ve learned that once Sarah has successfully “nested,” the hotel staff doesn’t really care how I look. I’m there to visit Sarah Zellaby, and that’s good enough for them. Besides, it’s not like Sarah makes any sort of effort with her appearance when I don’t force her into it. Ninety percent of her wardrobe is essentially shapeless, the sort of bulky sweaters and knee-length skirts that people tend to gravitate toward when they’re Velmas instead of Daphnes. No amount of telling Sarah to embrace her Daphne-ocity has managed to fix her fashion sense.

(Cuckoos are natural thieves. They want something, they take it. Sarah was raised to play nicely with the other children, so she doesn’t go for the normal cuckoo targets—bank accounts, houses, husbands, other things that can destroy your life. She restricts her nest snatching to hotel chains and big corporations, where she figures it’ll never be noticed and won’t really be hurting anyone. She’s basically right. She’s also basically proof that some forms of credit card fraud will never be stopped. But she always tips the bellboys and maids really well, and the people who remember her once she’s moved on are always sorry to see her go.)

The elevator slid upward with silent, well-oiled precision. I wouldn’t even have known we were moving, if not for the numbers above the door. “About Sarah…” I said.

“Yes?”

“She’s a cousin by adoption, but she’s still a cousin. So hassling her is hassling family, and we don’t tend to react very kindly.”

His eyebrows rose. “Is there a particular reason I’ll want to ‘hassle’ your cousin?”

“Just be cool.”

The elevator stopped with a ding, and the doors slid open to reveal the penthouse. I stepped out. Dominic followed half a beat behind.

If there’s ever been a race of cryptids that came close to justifying the Covenant’s “shoot on sight” attitude, it’s the Johrlac, colloquially known as “cuckoos.” They’re the perfect ambush predator, capable of blending into crowds anywhere in the world without leaving so much as a ripple to track them by. They look human on the outside, and their particular brand of telepathic camouflage means that even when you cut one open, if it’s still breathing, you’re still going to see what the cuckoo wants you to see, rather than whatever’s really there. They have clear blood, no hearts, and a decentralized circulatory system that looks like somebody’s drunken knitting project. There’s no way you should be able to mistake that for human … but people have been doing it for centuries, because the only ways to see a cuckoo clearly are for the cuckoo to decide you’re allowed, or for the cuckoo to die.

If cuckoos were just mimics, they wouldn’t be a problem. There are lots of cryptids that specialize in pretending to be human, and for the most part, they make pretty decent neighbors. But cuckoos are telepaths, cuckoos are predatory … and cuckoos are mean. The average cuckoo has no qualms about destroying a person’s life just because they want to, and given their natural Invasion of the Body Snatchers talents, they’re damn good at what they do.

The Covenant of St. George never confirmed the existence of the cuckoos. They suspected, sure, but how do you find something that’s wearing the perfect disguise?

You look for the holes.

Great-Great-Grandpa Healy started hunting for the cuckoos shortly after the family moved to North America. It was the Salem witch trials that set him off; there was something about how the behavior of certain key parties kept changing that just didn’t ring true. He dug. When he hit rock bottom, he reached for the jackhammer, and he kept digging. What he found was a pattern of replacements, sudden personality changes, and horrible atrocities that went back as far as he cared to go. That, and a marked lack of Apraxis wasps.

Nothing scares the Apraxis. They’re thirteen-inch-long parasitic wasps that band together to form a telepathic hive mind, and they were designed to be scary, not to be scared. Normally, when a hive gets settled, they stay and slaughter the locals until they get burned out or run out of locals, whichever comes first. Only sometimes, they run for the hills, usually just before one of the people the Apraxis were preying on goes apeshit and starts really messing things up. Great-Great-Grandpa started tracking Apraxis wasps, and—when he found a hive established in Colorado—he sent my great-grandfather to get the lay of the land. Great-Grandpa Healy came home with a fiancée, a police record, and proof that the cuckoos existed. So it was a good vacation.

I won’t be all dramatic and say the cuckoos are our family’s arch-nemesis or anything—for one thing, we’re related to at least two of them—but they’re definitely something we keep an eye on. Invisible telepaths who like to kill people for fun? Not helping the cryptid cause. Not helping one little bit.

The penthouse at the Plaza Athenee was palatial verging on outright ostentatious. The carpet was plush enough to complicate walking, and the wallpaper was gilded with genuine gold leaf. The upholstery on the couch and settee was a stark ivory white, the sort of thing that only stays clean if you have an army of maids steam cleaning it on an almost daily basis. There was even a crystal chandelier hanging in the foyer—because every hotel room needs a foyer.

It was also trashed.

Room service dishes covered the dining area table, and fast food bags littered the area around the couch, which was almost entirely hidden under textbooks and sheets of notebook paper. The coffee table had been repurposed into a mini-computer lab, with three laptops all doing their weird computer things. A trail of discarded clothing marked the way to the bedroom, like Hansel’s bread crumbs if he’d been working with ladies’ undergarments instead of bread.

“What happened here?” asked Dominic, sounding faintly awed by the sheer scope of the mess.

“Sarah did.” It’s not that Sarah is a destructive person. She’s not, especially when measured against the standards of her species. She’s just distracted most of the time, and the sheer effort of staying focused tends to interfere with silly things like “laundry” and “cleaning up after herself.” Grandma Baker is the same way. Telepaths living in a non-telepathic society deal with a lot of white noise from the people around them, almost none of whom know how to construct a proper shield against mental invasion. The telepaths wind up easily distracted almost as a form of self-defense.

Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “This is the Sarah I’m not allowed to ‘hassle,’ correct?”

“Yup.”

“You still haven’t told me why I’d want to.”

“Because as a member of the Covenant of St. George, you consider yourself morally and ethically compelled to exterminate me for the sin of not having been present on the Ark. Although I think I could make a case for it being impossible to tell whether or not my species was there.” Sarah walked out of the bedroom as she spoke, offering a vague smile in our direction. “Hey, Very. Hey, Very’s friend from the Covenant. Should I be running for cover about now?”

“No, he’s promised to play nice.” I gestured to Sarah. “Dominic De Luca, meet my cousin, Sarah Zellaby. Sarah, meet Dominic. We’re looking for information, and I was hoping you could help.”

“Just what every cryptid girl wants. A Covenant member in her hotel room.” Sarah shrugged, heading for the kitchen. “I’ll do what I can. Come on. I think there are some chairs in here.”

I shrugged and followed. Dominic trailed after me, half-scowling as he studied Sarah, looking for a clue to her species. He wasn’t going to find one. I elbowed him lightly, saying, “Remember, no harassing my cousin or hunting the cryptids who help us with this thing.”

“You’re certainly putting a lot of faith in my good behavior,” he muttered.

“No, I’m putting a lot of faith in the fact that I have a lot of knives and you’re outnumbered,” I said. “Besides, you didn’t kill Piyusha. There’s no point in starting with Sarah. She’s a math geek.”

Sarah stuck her tongue out at me.

“But what is she?” he demanded.

“The technical name for my species is ‘Johrlac,’ but more colloquially speaking, I’m a cuckoo.” Sarah swept the papers off the loveseat in the breakfast nook—my apartment doesn’t have a damn breakfast nook—before doing the same with the matching easy chair and dropping herself unceremoniously into it. “As Verity so kindly told you, I usually identify myself as a mathematician. Neither this nor my species gets me many dates.”

Dominic had the good grace to look faintly embarrassed as he sat beside me on the loveseat, careful to keep his knee from touching mine. “I’m sorry, miss. I don’t believe I’ve encountered your species before.”

“Oh, you probably have,” said Sarah, with the small grimace that always accompanies her talking about the rest of the cuckoos. “You’re just lucky: you didn’t notice.”

Dominic gave her another appraising look. I’ll admit she wasn’t at her most threatening: she was wearing jeans with the knees worn through, a green T-shirt two sizes too big, and white ankle socks. Her thick black hair was gathered into a sloppy ponytail, and didn’t look like it had been brushed since the last time I’d seen her. As “big scary cryptids” go, she wasn’t even making the junior leagues. I could almost see him dismissing her as harmless. That was a mistake, although I wasn’t going to call him on it.

“I suppose I’ll take your word for it,” he said finally.

“Thanks,” said Sarah, and focused her attention on me. “What are you looking for, and why am I your girl?”

“Dominic thinks there’s a dragon somewhere under the city.”

Sarah stared at me.

“If he’s right, it’s probably asleep, since I haven’t heard any reports of Godzilla’s scary older brother rampaging through Central Park.”

Sarah continued to stare at me.

“We met a Madhura who said there have been disappearances in the local cryptid community. Like, actual ‘has anybody seen Mary’ disappearances, not just people moving out of town to avoid Happy Boy here.” I jerked a thumb toward Dominic, who scowled. “She said it’s all females, all unattached.”

“Implying all virgins, if you’re an archaic prick,” said Sarah, beginning to nod slowly. “Have you called Uncle Kevin?”

“Not yet—that’s my next stop. I wanted to see if you could do a scan for subterranean hostiles. See if we’re about to have the world’s biggest iguana come out and start eating people.”

“Scan?” said Dominic.

“I’m a telepath,” said Sarah, in a distracted, matter-of-fact tone. Ignoring the fact that it was now Dominic’s turn to stare, she continued, “You realize that in a city this size, you’re basically asking me to buy two first-class tickets on the Migraine Express, right?”

“I know. But if we’re going to go down there and check things out—”

“You’d like to know you won’t be eaten. Fine.” Sarah sighed, digging a cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans. Dominic continued to stare as she dialed a number, waited a few seconds, and said, “Hi, Professor Hines, this is Sarah. I just wanted to call and let you know that I ate some bad sushi, and I won’t be able to make it to tonight’s review session. I’m really sorry, and I’ll make sure to get Tanya’s notes before next week’s class.” She hung up. “There. I can now incapacitate myself for your pleasure.”

“She’s a telepath?” demanded Dominic.

“And he catches up with the conversation.” I patted his knee. “Yes, she’s a telepath. Sarah reads minds. Don’t worry, she’s not reading yours.”

“It would be rude,” said Sarah. Putting her phone down, she began arranging herself carefully in the chair. “Telepathic ethics say you should never read a sentient creature’s mind without permission, provocation, or legitimate reason to fear for your life.”

“Telepaths have ethics?” Dominic’s eyes narrowed, tone and posture united to convey his disbelief.

“My mother and I do,” said Sarah, letting her head settle against the back of the chair. “We mostly got them from Babylon 5, but they still work.”

“It’s a long story,” I said, cutting Dominic off before he could get started. “Anything you can find will be a big help, Sarah, really.”

“Got it,” she said, and went limp, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

Little exercises of telepathy—like scanning a crowded club for a known killer—can be difficult, but Sarah can still manage to carry on a conversation while she does them. It’s the big things that are dangerous. They take too much effort, and too much focus, to let her do anything else. A cuckoo in the middle of something big is essentially defenseless. That’s why I left my hand on Dominic’s knee, keeping him from getting up. He’d only promised to leave her alone under duress, and I didn’t want to risk it. I just wanted him to see a cryptid doing something to help us, rather than being something he needed to be afraid of.

Besides, it wasn’t like he’d ever find her again if she didn’t want him to.

Sarah’s breathing got shallower and shallower as she continued to stare at the ceiling, eyes wide and startled-seeming. She didn’t blink. After about thirty seconds, her irises began to glaze over, going from icy blue to a milky, cracked-ice white. Dominic stiffened.

“This is unnatural,” he hissed.

“For us, yes. For her, no.” I squeezed his knee, keeping my eyes on Sarah. “This is perfectly natural. It’s what she evolved to do.” It’s the reason she stays near one of the cousins at all times. So that if she ever goes back to her killer-cuckoo roots, there’s someone around who knows how to stop her.

“Still—”

“There’s something there,” said Sarah, in a remote, utterly disconnected tone. Dominic stopped. “It’s big. It’s old. And it’s hungry.”

“Where is it, Sarah?” I asked, keeping my voice level. Most telepaths respond better when people don’t sound concerned by the fact that they’ve fallen into a fugue state. I don’t understand the psychology behind it, but I’m not the telepath.

“I don’t know. Close. There’s too much earth between here and there, and the subway system is in the way—I can’t see it clearly. But it’s big.” She hesitated. “Did I say it was big?”

“You did,” I said soothingly. “How big is big? Is it bigger than a bulldozer?”

“It thinks big thoughts. It dreams big dreams.” Sarah twitched. “It’s asleep. It’s been asleep for a long time. I think … I think it’s hibernating. Waiting for something to change before it wakes up again.”

“Is it a dragon?” demanded Dominic. I shot him a warning look. His attention was focused fully on Sarah, posture tight with a degree of tension that I recognized from my own mirror. He was itching for a fight.

“I don’t know,” said Sarah, a note of peevish irritation creeping into her voice. “What does a dragon think like? You tell me, and I’ll ask it.”

“She can’t really do that,” I said, before he could ask her. “Sarah, is there anything you can give us as a pointer? What direction do we need to go?”

“Down.” She blinked, the blue returning to her eyes as she sat up in the chair and looked at us gravely. “You need to go way, way down, Very. And you need to go now, because I think somebody’s trying to wake it up.”