Discount Armageddon

Twenty-one

Drinking the world’s most expensive milkshakes, the kitchen of a semilegal sublet in Greenwich Village, soon to be late for work

THE PERFECT RECIPE FOR GOLD MILKSHAKES turns out to be two tablespoons of gold dust to two scoops of vanilla ice cream, a cup of vanilla soy milk, and either a sizable quantity of Hershey’s Syrup (if you’re a reasonably normal human being) or a quarter-cup of leftover chunky Prego with mushrooms (if you’re a cuckoo). Sarah was kind enough to let me make the human-style milkshakes first, since past experience has taught us that preparing one of her milkshakes leaves the blender looking like the site of a particularly nasty massacre. This time was no different. I could probably have achieved a very similar effect by blending a human hand, provided it was wearing a watch or a wedding ring, or maybe just a lot of glitter.

Dominic watched me pour Sarah’s milkshake, clearly unsure as to whether he should be fascinated or utterly appalled. He settled for a combination of the two, demanding, “Why did you put spaghetti sauce into your cousin’s drink?”

“Because I like it that way,” said Sarah, taking the glass. “You have your chemical stimulants and I have mine, monkey.”

“Monkey?” echoed Dominic, now sounding more puzzled than anything else.

“Not actually a mammal,” said Sarah. She sipped her tomato-based milkshake before adding, “We’re pretty sure cuckoos evolved from some sort of really big bug.”

“Thanksgiving dinner with my family is awesome,” I deadpanned. “Now drink your gold before somebody comes along and mutates you into a twisted parody of humanity.” The milkshake tasted basically normal, if I was willing to ignore the gritty residue it left at the back of my throat. I’m willing to ignore a lot in the interest of avoiding mutation.

Dominic sipped his own shake, grimaced, and took a larger swallow. “Are you sure this will protect us?”

“Nope. But the dragon princesses said it would, and I don’t have a good reason to think they’re lying. Besides, they gave me the gold. Getting them to part with gold is sort of like getting Sarah to part with her laptop—it only happens under extreme duress, and it’s something they’d really prefer to avoid if at all possible.”

“I’m not that addicted to the Internet,” said Sarah frostily.

“Sure you are. It’s like telepathy you don’t have to feel bad for using. Also you don’t have to worry about stumbling over any sexual fetishes unless you’re checking somebody’s browser history, and I figure once was enough to teach you that lesson.”

Dominic choked on his milkshake.

“I hate you.” Sarah sipped her shake, expression mild.

“I know.” I finished my own milkshake, putting the cup in the sink before I began digging in the junk drawer for plastic baggies. “I’m going to give you each a scoop of gold dust for later. I’d say wait about six hours and then swallow it. Mix it with something if you need to, but make sure it stays in your system.”

“Are we even sure this stuff is going to work for me?” Sarah held up her glass. “It’s tasty and all. I just don’t want to take it away from the two of you if you’re going to actually need it.”

“Better safe than sorry.” I started tipping gold dust into baggies, trying to distribute it in roughly equal portions. “We don’t know that it’ll work for you—we don’t even know if dragon blood can mutate you the way it does humans, given your biology—but I’d rather not take the risk. The last thing we need is a snake cult with a cuckoo-lizard-hybrid doing its bidding. The servitors are problematic enough without adding telepathy.”

“I’m afraid I would have to kill you at that point,” said Dominic. He sounded apologetic, which was a bit of a surprise. I would’ve expected him to be happy about an excuse to kill a cryptid, even if the cryptid in question was a member of my family.

“It’s okay, I get that,” said Sarah.

“Touching as the threats of mayhem are, Dominic and I really do need to go and talk to Piyusha’s family. What are your plans for the rest of today, Sarah?” I handed her a baggie of gold dust.

She tucked the baggie into her pocket, replying, “I’m going to hang out here, if it’s okay with you. I promised the maid service I’d give them a few hours to clean my room before I locked them out again, and I’d like to catch up with the mice.”

“That’s cool.” I handed Dominic his baggie. He promptly made it disappear into his coat. “Can you do me a favor before you go?”

“What’s that?”

“Take Dominic on a Starbucks run? I’d kill for an iced coffee.”

Sarah glanced from my empty milkshake glass to the blood spiking up my hair. You need a chance to shower? she asked, as she said, out loud, “Your usual order is good?”

“Yes, exactly,” I said.

“No problem. Come on, Covenant boy.” She grabbed a startled-looking Dominic’s elbow, tugging him toward the apartment door. “You can buy me a scone.”

“Are you going to insist on covering it with ketchup?” he asked, glancing back at me with a question in his eyes. I nodded reassuringly. Either he was starting to trust me, or he could guess my real motives, because he didn’t fight her as she guided him out of the kitchen.

“Don’t be ridiculous; ketchup doesn’t go on scones.” Sarah stepped out into the hall, still pulling Dominic along. “Curry goes on maple scones, and steak sauce goes on blueberry scones.”

“What about chocolate scones?”

The closing door cut Sarah off mid-”Ew.” I smiled slightly, shaking my head, and turned to sprint for the bathroom. If I was going to tell Piyusha’s family that I hadn’t been fast enough to save her, I was at least going to do them the courtesy of doing it while not covered head to toe in gore.

Going by the clock, I was going to need to head straight to work after visiting Piyusha’s brothers. Dave would probably let me get away with working a half-shift, given the whole “dragon under the city and snake cult killing people” situation, but if I didn’t pick up some tips, I wasn’t going to be paying the power bill. Protecting the human race should really come with a per diem, I swear.

At least knowing that I’d be changing into my work uniform soon made it easy to get dressed, since I didn’t need to worry about looking good, just looking street-legal. By the time Sarah and Dominic made it back upstairs—both of them holding iced coffees, and Sarah gnawing on a sticky-looking maple scone—I was in the front room, emailing copies of the pictures to Auntie Jane and Antimony. I was wearing clean jeans, a dark gray tank top, and a pair of broken-in running shoes that would allow me to take my usual overland route to work without needing to worry about adding blisters to my existing collection. A little heavy-duty foundation was enough to hide most of my bruises, including the ones forming around my neck. Always an important consideration before a dance competition, or a night of cocktail waitressing. Covering the shiner would take more work, and I’d do that later.

“Here,” said Sarah, thrusting the iced coffee she was holding at me. “Dominic insisted on buying it for you, so you can thank him.”

“She was intending to walk out without paying!”

Sarah shrugged. “I left a tip.”

“Let’s not have the ethics of shoplifting coffee fight right now, okay, guys? Thanks for the coffee, Dominic. Sarah, the apartment’s yours until I get back. Don’t let the mice watch anything on Showtime or Animal Planet, feel free to eat anything you find in the kitchen and, if you’re going to be playing with the computer, keep an eye on my inbox, okay?”

“I’ll call if you get anything that looks important.”

“I’ll keep my phone on vibrate.” I grabbed my backpack as I stood, slinging its reassuring weight over my shoulder. I was carrying a few dozen more weapons than I usually found necessary for casual city running, but with a snake cult making things complicated, I couldn’t really be blamed for a little paranoia.

Dominic gave me a sidelong, half-amused look, commenting, “You’re clanking.”

“Damn straight.” I waved to Sarah, who was already sitting down at the computer, and left the apartment without looking back.

Once again, Dominic insisted on taking a taxi, and once again, it just wasn’t worth the trouble of fighting him. Besides, he probably had some sort of an expense account (thus explaining why I wasn’t getting a per diem; the Covenant had all the ready cash). If the Covenant wanted to pay to move me around Manhattan, that was their problem, not mine.

Gingerbread Pudding was still closed. That made sense. If it was a family-owned business, they weren’t going to open the doors until they knew what had happened to Piyusha. The researcher in me wanted to ask what their funereal observances were like, and whether they’d be willing to let me attend. The part of me that actually cares about being a decent person promptly punched my inner researcher in the jaw and stuffed her in a closet at the back of my head, to be retrieved later.

Dominic looked at the darkened storefront, frowning. “Are you sure they’ll be here?”

“If you’d just sent a total stranger into the sewers to find your missing sister, would you run off before she came back with news?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I also wouldn’t send a stranger into the sewers to find my sister alone.”

“Do you even have a sister?” I knocked on the window next to the door, peering into the gloom. I didn’t see any movement. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. “You know way too much about my family, and I don’t know anything at all about yours.”

“No. No siblings. No family of any kind.” He continued watching the storefront, expression not changing. “I was an only child.”

“That must have been nice. Nobody stealing your stuff while you slept, or setting snares on your bedroom floor, or digging pit traps in the front yard.”

“Your siblings did all that?”

“My sister is special.” That was putting things as mildly—and nicely—as possible. I knocked again, squinting into the dark. “I really thought they’d be here.”

“Perhaps you could leave them a note?” I gave him a sharp look. Dominic winced. “Perhaps not. I’m really not sure of the etiquette here.”

“Do you know what the etiquette would be if they were human?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, assume that when Ms. Manners says ‘human,’ she really means ‘sentient,’ and run from there. It translates pretty well to everything but dining, dating, and divorce.”

Dominic eyed me oddly. “Divorce?”

“Oh, yeah. Like when nue split up, the male generally gets sacrificed by the female and fed to the relatives to avoid creating bad blood between the two sides of the family.” I shrugged. “People are weird.”

“It will never cease to amaze me that you say these things in places where anyone could overhear you. What’s to stop the populace from decrying you as a witch and rising against you?”

“I don’t know. A couple hundred years of social evolution, combined with a general failure to believe in anything that doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry? Except most cryptids have Wikipedia entries these days, so that’s maybe not such a good measuring stick. You know, most of the edits on the Sasquatch entry are actually made by Sasquatch? They think it’s hysterical watching the human editors argue about whether or not to let one of their corrections stand.”

“That’s something else that will never cease to amaze me. Your wealth of useless knowledge.”

“Everybody needs a hobby.” I knocked a third time. “I’m getting a little worried. The snake cult’s only been taking girls before this, but if the dragon isn’t waking up, they may have decided to mix it up a little. See if maybe the problem is that they’re offering him the wrong kind of snack food.”

“Should we break in?”

“Maybe.” Something finally moved in the darkened shop. I exhaled. “Okay, good, maybe not. Please be nice to them, okay?”

“I shall do my best.”

Footsteps became audible as Rochak approached, undoing the deadbolt before opening the door. He looked worse than I felt. “You came back.” It was almost an accusation.

“I told you I would.” I gestured to Dominic. “This is Dominic De Luca. He was with me when I met your sister.” I didn’t offer Rochak’s name. If he wanted to identify himself to a member of the Covenant, that was his choice, not mine.

At the moment, he didn’t seem to be leaning in that particular direction. He stared at me like I’d just announced that I was standing on his doorstep with Jack the Ripper in tow, and demanded, in a low hiss, “And you brought him back? Are you trying to get us killed?”

“If I may,” interjected Dominic, “I already know the location of your business, having been here once before, and I accompanied Miss Price with no intention of either harming you or notifying my associates of your presence. You have my word that I intend you no harm.”

“See? He comes in peace.” I looked at Rochak gravely. “May we please come in? I can guarantee Mr. De Luca’s good behavior.”

“It’s true,” said Dominic. “She’ll shoot me if I misbehave.”

“With pleasure,” I added.

“I wouldn’t want to miss that,” said Rochak, and stepped backward. “Please, come inside. Sunil is upstairs.”

Even with the lights off and the customers gone, Gingerbread Pudding smelled of sugar and honey and the sharp sweetness of candied ginger. Rochak didn’t speak as he led us through the kitchen and past the employee break room to a set of stairs behind a door marked “Employees Only.” His silence wasn’t a surprise. He had to know what my showing up without Piyusha meant, and if he wanted to wait to hear for sure until we were in the presence of his brother, that was his decision. I try never to tell others how to grieve.

The stairs ended in an airy, well-lit hallway. Jars of honey sat on low shelves with candles burning beneath them, covered by mesh lids to keep out any errant flies. The heat was enough to spread the sugary sweetness through the air like incense, until the whole place smelled like the home of Willy Wonka’s trendy older sister. The décor was a blend of traditional Indian and modern American, and the walls were covered with photographs of people who were clearly family. Pots of honeysuckle and live sugarcane lined the windowsills, all clearly thriving.

Dominic stuck close to my side, expression growing deeply uncomfortable as he looked around the upstairs hall. His training had probably prepared him for caves, dank lairs, and horror movie kitchens with bloodstains on the walls. Unless the Covenant had changed a lot more than he was letting on, it hadn’t prepared him for polished hardwood floors and lumpy modeling clay “vases” of the type I recognized from Antimony’s kindergarten year (before she moved on to homemade shrapnel grenades).

The room at the end of the hall seemed designed to serve as a combination kitchen and dining area, and was larger than the living room at my sublet. Sunil was at the stove, sautéing something in what smelled like more honey. He looked up when we entered. Seeing the look on Rochak’s face, his own face fell, expression fading by inches from mere worry into something utterly empty of emotion.

“Piyusha’s dead, isn’t she?” he asked.

Unable to find the words to answer him, I nodded.

“What happened? Where is she?” His voice was even blanker than his expression, as flat as day-old soda.

“She’s still underground where I found her,” I said, once I could force myself to speak. It was hard to make myself look at him, rather than staring off at some point in the distance—some point that wouldn’t look at me with accusing eyes. “I found her shortly after I went down. I’m … I’m sorry.”

“You just left her there?” asked Rochak incredulously. “You found our sister, and then you just left her? What kind of a monster are you?”

“Rochak, be nice,” said Sunil.

“Why? So they won’t kill us, too?” Rochak glared, hands balling into fists as he looked from me to Dominic and back again. “How dare you leave her behind?”

“I left her behind because I thought you’d like to know what happened to her, instead of sitting here forever wondering if she was going to come home.” I shook my head. “The people that took your sister, they’re … they’re not good people, and she wasn’t the first.”

“We knew that,” snapped Rochak.

“Well, they apparently knew that somebody might come looking for her, because they left guards with her body.” The two Madhura were silent. “Have either of you ever heard the dragon princesses mention something called a ‘servitor’?”

“I … I don’t believe so,” said Sunil, a note of caution creeping into the emptiness of his voice. Rochak glanced at him with clear alarm. Sunil didn’t acknowledge the look as he continued, slowly, “The term isn’t familiar.”

“Your brother seems to recognize it.” I focused on Rochak. “What do you know?”

“Nothing! I—nothing.” Rochak looked away. “It’s not right to leave her down there. We need to recover her. See that she has a proper burial.”

“Which will be easier if we know what’s going to try to eat us when we go down to bring her back for you,” I said. “What do you know?”

“I—”

“It wasn’t the dragon princesses,” said Sunil. All three of us turned in his direction, Rochak looking relieved by his brother’s decision to speak up. “There were some men here about a week ago. Human men. Piyusha waited on their table; she said they were very dismissive of her service, called her a ‘servitor.’ At the time, we thought it was just general unpleasantness. I told her to pay it no heed. People have been casually nasty ever since we moved here.”

“From India?” asked Dominic.

Sunil looked at him like he was an idiot. “From San Jose. Do we sound like we’re from India?”

Dominic glanced in my direction, clearly startled. Apparently, the idea of cryptids being natural-born citizens of a country their species didn’t originate in had never crossed his mind. “I see,” he said.

I kept my attention focused on Sunil. “What did these men look like? And if they were just men, why so worried?”

“Like businessmen. They were middle-aged, they wore suits. They ordered gingerbread, but didn’t eat it. As for my concern … they were here. They knew to come here, and we had no idea that we should be stopping them.” He frowned slowly. “They were servitors?”

“No. But I think they may be controlling the servitors.” If the men knew enough about cryptids to be trying to wake a dragon, they’d probably know how to identify the more common humanoid species. You can tell a Madhura by the sweet smell they use to mark their territory … or, if they’re confusing their territory markers by working in a dessert café, by the taste of their baking. Relief washed over me. “They scouted out your sister a long time before Dominic and I showed up here.”

“Wait.” Sunil raised a hand. “This is the man from the Covenant?”

“She brought him with her, and vouched for his behavior,” said Rochak.

“No harm will come from my hand to anyone in this house.” Dominic’s statement was as abrupt as it was unexpected. I jerked my head around, openly gaping at him. He met my eyes without flinching. “I have made no reports of your existence to the Covenant, and no such reports will be made. I am truly, deeply sorry for your loss. Your sister was a lovely woman. She deserved better.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. “So, uh,” I said, trying to get my equilibrium back. “I’ll go back down and try to get your sister’s body from the servitors just as soon as I can. Please don’t try to recover her on your own. It’s not safe.”

Just when I thought Dominic couldn’t surprise me further, he managed it. “I’ll bring her back here,” he said. Now all three of us were staring at him. Looking faintly abashed, he said, “It is the least I can do for all the trouble that we have caused you.”

Sunil was the first to recover. “That’s very kind,” he said. “Please don’t feel the need to put yourself out on our account. Your offer is very generous, but my family’s means are small. We can’t afford to pay our debt to you.”

“You misunderstand,” said Dominic gravely. “This is my attempt to begin paying the Covenant’s debt to you.”

There wasn’t anything to say after that. We just stared.

Sunil and Rochak escorted us from the café with a speed that would have been insulting, if they hadn’t just lost a sibling and if I weren’t traveling in the company of a man from the Covenant. They pressed sacks of fresh-baked gingerbread into our hands before closing the door behind us. The characteristic snap of the deadbolt clicking home made it plain that we weren’t going to be invited back inside any time soon.

I shifted my gingerbread to my left hand and grabbed Dominic’s elbow with my right, tugging him down the sidewalk to the alleyway behind the Chinese deli where I’d first caught Piyusha’s scent. It wasn’t a pleasant place to have a conversation, but that was sort of the point; it was disgusting enough to verge on private. There hadn’t even been any homeless people there before, probably because they had a better class of alleys to hang around in.

Perhaps sensing my intent, Dominic allowed himself to be pulled along, shifting his own gingerbread to his off hand in order to make it easier for me. Once we were halfway down the alleyway—far enough from the street on either side that we weren’t likely to be stumbled over—I let go and turned to face him, saying, “Pardon my French, but what the hell was that?”

He raised his eyebrows. “What the hell was what, exactly? There’s been a great deal of ‘that’ today for you to be asking about, and it would be easier to explain if I knew which specific part you meant.”

“The part where you just offered to help a cryptid family.” And promised them, in so many words, that he wouldn’t tell the Covenant about them. That was the part that was really giving me a headache.

“Is it so difficult to believe that I might have had a change of heart?” he asked quietly.

“After all that training you’ve been bragging about since you snared me? Yeah, it sort of is. It’s like watching a classical ballroom dancer start clogging. You can see it, but that doesn’t mean you can actually believe it.”

“I … I’m sorry.” The expression in his dark eyes made him look like the world’s biggest, most heavily-armed puppy. “It’s true that my training has been focused primarily on the more dangerous aspects of the cryptid world—”

“Exactly my point.”

“—and I doubt I’ll ever share your passion for preserving them without question or restraint, but Verity, I’m not blind. These people…” He hesitated, clearly at a loss for words before he continued, “These people are people. Those men were hurt by the death of their sister. When your cousin made me take her to get your coffee, she didn’t remember to pay, but she remembered to tip, she smiled and was pleasant to the barista, she was trying. I’m not certain what these people are. It’s become increasingly difficult to view them as monsters.”

I blinked, twice, before doing something I’d expected never to do again. Stepping forward, I leaned up onto the toes of my sneakers, and kissed him. Dominic slipped his arm around my waist, providing the stability he needed to lean into me without toppling over. The alley around us smelled terrible. Rats rustled in the garbage lining the walls, and the scum on the pavement made the sewers look like a pleasant vacation spot. It was still one of the best kisses of my life, and when Dominic pulled away, it left me gasping.

“What was that for?” he asked, taking his arm from around my waist.

I smiled a little. “Having a learning curve.”

“Your family still betrayed our sacred order.”

“I can live with that.”

“The servitors are still horrific perversions of nature.”

“I can live with that, too. We’ll have to agree to disagree on the dragon, but hey. Maybe the two of you will get along.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” said Dominic slowly.

“I guess we’ll find out.” I looked up, gauging the time by the narrow strip of sky visible between the buildings. “We’re going to need to do our body recovery fast, or I’m going to be late for work.”

“Your place of employment, is it … I mean, is that where you…” He gestured vaguely in the air, indicating either an impractically short skirt or the sudden uncontrollable need to make jazz hands.

“Yeah, that’s where I got the uniform I was wearing the night you caught me.” I shrugged. “It’s a strip club—and no,” I added, seeing his semi-stricken expression, “I don’t strip. I’m generally a no-nudity zone.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Really.”

“Unless the mice have a ritual that demands I get naked, really.” His smile vanished, replaced by almost comic uncertainty. Even given the gravity of our overall situation, I had to laugh. “God, Dominic, I was kidding. The mice don’t dictate my state of undress. The uniform is how all the cocktail waitresses have to dress. It helps us keep our tips up, and you’d be amazed by how many weapons I can fit under that skimpy little outfit.”

“I look forward to performing a census, but you needn’t worry about timeliness. I can retrieve Piyusha on my own.”

I blinked. “Are you sure? There were a lot more servitors down there with her.”

“I’m sure. You go and do what must be done. I’ll return Piyusha to her family, and then—where should I meet you?”

“I’m not sure what time I’ll be able to get out of my shift; feel free to just head back to the apartment. Sarah will either ignore you completely or kick your ass at chess, and either way, she’ll be happy to keep you busy until I get home.” I thrust my bag of gingerbread at him. “Take this with you. To the apartment, not into the sewers, if you can help it. The fastest way to the hearts of my mice is through their tiny, overactive stomachs.”

“I’ll take it to your apartment before I descend,” he said. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”

“I’m a Price girl, remember? We’re like the antithesis of damsels in distress. Besides, I’m spending the evening at a strip club, waiting on drunk businessmen and frat boys who don’t know how to pick a watering hole.” I flashed a smile. “I’ll not only be perfectly safe, I may get paid for breaking a few fingers.”

“Good,” he said, and kissed me again. It was a gesture that was becoming pleasantly familiar. He was getting seriously better at it, too. I’d be happy to help him get a lot more practice. “I intend to hold you to that.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I said flippantly. “I’m the bad thing that happens to other people.”

Sometimes I think the universe listens for lines like that one, so that it can punish the people who use them. At that particular moment in time, standing in a smelly, deserted alley with a hot Covenant boy and two bags full of the world’s best gingerbread, I found it difficult to care.

That was my first mistake.