Discount Armageddon

Four

The manager’s office of Dave’s Fish and Strips, a club for discerning gentlemen

DARKNESS FILLED THE OFFICE from side to side, solid enough to defy the standard laws of nature and trickle several inches out into the hall. I stopped in the doorway. “Dave? You know I won’t come in when you’ve got your darks on. Put on some damn sunglasses and turn on a light already.”

The manager’s dust-dry voice drifted out of the dark: “What, a Price afraid of a little darkness? What would your father say?” Every word dripped with sepulchral menace.

“My father would say that a Price who won’t walk into a bogeyman’s lair when he’s got his darks on is a Price who plans to live long enough to continue the family line.” I rolled my eyes. “You know the rules. I don’t kill your customers, you don’t try to bait me into your clutches, everybody walks away happy.”

“What do you call what just happened, hmm?”

“Sexual harassment.” I glared at the darkness. “Turn off the darks or let me go back to work. I’m not coming in there.”

A long-suffering sigh answered me, followed by Dave muttering, “You never let me have any fun.” The solid shadows clicked off as he flipped the switch controlling his darks, allowing light to filter into the office. I stayed in the hallway, waiting patiently. Dave grumbled and flipped another switch, turning on the lights.

“That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” I asked, and stepped inside.

The office was small and cluttered, and the low-watt bulbs that were all Dave was willing to use did little to disperse the natural shadows cast by packing too much stuff into not enough space. It was still substantially better than it had been with the darks turned on.

(Darks were invented by an enterprising witch who looked at all the bogeymen, ghouls, and bug-a-boos trying to live below the radar of the human population and saw a niche begging to be filled. The bulbs fit most standard sockets and run off electrical current like almost everything else that plugs into a wall. They’re also crushingly expensive. But they come in wattages from “twilight” to “deepest pit of eternal damnation,” and they work. That’s enough to make most self-proclaimed creatures of the night grit their teeth and deal with the price tag.)

“Spoken like a true day-dweller,” grumbled Dave. Leaning his elbows on the desk, he asked, “Why am I not firing you?”

“Because I’m the best cocktail waitress you’ve got, Kitty’s not available to take her shift back until that tragedy they call a band finishes crashing and burning, and all I did was drop him. He’d grabbed hold of just about anybody else like that and he’d have ended up dead or worse.”

“I’d be more inclined to be lenient if you’d agree to dance for me.”

“I’d be less inclined to stick a high heel up your ass if you’d stop asking,” I answered cheerfully. “Answer’s ‘no,’ Dave. What would my grandmother say?”

Dave paused. “She out of Hell this week?” he asked warily.

“Not until Solstice, but still. She wouldn’t understand.”

He relaxed. “She’d understand that you needed to save your job.”

“I think it’s a little more likely she’d understand that you can kill a bogeyman in a lot of different ways, and come riding in to avenge my honor.”

Dave glowered. I suppressed the urge to laugh, and glowered back.

A person running into Dave in a dark alley—or worse, finding him under their bed—would probably need years of therapy before they could convince themselves he’d never been there. He was close to seven feet tall and skeletally thin, with arms long enough to give him a faintly simian look. His hands were too big for his body, and all his fingers had at least one extra joint. (The longer fingers each had two.) Added to his gray “I’ve been dead for a week” complexion and the subtle wrongness of his face, it combined to form a picture that would give strong men nightmares.

Fortunately for me, I’m not a strong man, and one of my first babysitters was a bogeyman. Also, Dave’s garishly-patterned blue, purple, yellow, and magenta Hawaiian shirt did nothing to add to his overall air of menace. Maybe there’s a world where improbably colored parrots are considered frightening. This is not that world.

Dave was the first to look away. “You know I’d pay you more if you’d start dancing.”

“I’d also get myself disowned.”

“For dancing?” He managed to make the word sound innocent. No small feat coming from a man who looked like a basketball-playing corpse, especially not one who ran a strip club. “You know I’d let you do it under the name you used on television.”

“For dancing in a clothing-optional establishment where I’d be expected to finish the dance in my birthday suit, yeah.” I shrugged. “Conservative parents. What can you do?”

Dave snorted. “If your family’s conservative, I’m the Easter Bunny.”

All desire to make light of the situation fled. “Don’t even joke about that,” I said, in a voice that had gone completely flat. “The Easter Bunny’s no laughing matter.”

“Sorry, sorry!” said Dave defensively. “I didn’t know you were that touchy.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know. Are we done?”

“Ah.” Dave pursed his lips. “Here’s the thing. That boy you decided to chop-and-drop—”

“I didn’t do any chopping!”

“—he and his friends are still here, and I’d rather avoid any more of a floor show than we’ve already had tonight. So I’m going to give their table to Marcy.”

“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all night.”

“And you’re going to go home.”

I paused, uncertain that I was hearing him correctly. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll pay you for the night, minus tips, of course. You can come back tomorrow.”

“You’re already understaffed, and I need the money,” I protested. “Candy’s out and Kitty’s on tour.”

“Won’t be the first time I’ve pulled Angel from behind the bar. Ryan can mix a Slaughtered Lamb as well as anybody else.”

“Slaughtered Lamb?” I asked, curious despite myself.

“Tomato juice, vodka, rum, tequila, and crushed mint. Unless you’re a ghoul. Then we leave out the tomato juice, replace it with—”

“Don’t want to know.” I raised my hands to cut him off. Dave stopped talking. “Right. You want to give me the night off for attacking customers. I’m going to stop arguing.”

“Good,” said Dave, and flicked off the lights. That was my cue to exit.

I stopped at the door, looking back over my shoulder. “This is because I won’t dance for you, isn’t it?”

“Good night, Verity,” Dave said.

Darkness escorted me the rest of the way out of the room.

I met Dave the night I stepped into his club looking for a part-time job, but he’d been aware of me for quite some time before that. Not because of my family, although that was probably a factor. Dave knew who I was because of Dance or Die.

My family’s been in hiding for four generations now, since my great-great-grandparents told the Covenant they were done exterminating innocent cryptids without regard for their place in a viable ecosystem. (According to the mice, Great-Great-Grandpa Alexander’s exact words were “You can take this unholy campaign and ram it up your bum sideways, you bloody miscarriage of a man!” Since the mice are morally incapable of changing anything they perceive as Holy Writ, and the Festival of Come On, Enid, We’re Getting Out Of Here Before These Bastards Make Us Kill Another Innocent Creature is one of the holiest of their many, many holy days, I’m pretty sure they’re quoting him correctly.) Being “in hiding” isn’t that bad … except for the part where it limits our available training methods.

Mom and Dad were firm on the topic of training: we could grow up to settle down and become accountants if that was what we really wanted, but we’d learn the family business before that happened. Most of the things that would love to brag about how they gutted a Price weren’t going to back off because their target said, “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t do that sort of thing, but I can balance your checkbook for you.”

Some stuff could be managed at home. I knew how to handle a firearm, lay a snare, and dress a wound by the time I was five. I remember getting to elementary school and being amazed to discover that most children played sanitized versions of the games I knew; their idea of a good time seemed like a cat that had been declawed, all hiss and no interesting danger. What was the point of hide-and-seek if you weren’t allowed to dig pit traps or attack your opponents from behind? That was the first time I realized how different our home life was from everyone else’s. Everyone else wasn’t being taught to fight a war.

Our parents planned our education as carefully as they would have planned an invasion of France. To keep us interested, they let us decide how to specialize. My brother went for guns, more guns, bigger guns, and, also, guns. Antimony focused on traps, poisons, and keeping the fight as far from herself as possible. I learned to shoot, I learned to fight, and when the time came to pick what I wanted to devote myself to studying, I chose the thing I was most passionate about: ballroom dance.

I argued my case like a master. A surprisingly large number of fighting styles have a lot in common with dancing. Speed, flexibility, and the ability to kick higher than your own head are all things that come in handy when you’re fighting for your life. Most professional dancers live to dance, and that’s the sort of passion people in our position need to bring to their individual disciplines if they want to survive long enough to get really good at them.

We weren’t allowed to compete in any sport or activity the Covenant might be monitoring. Antimony got her black belt in karate, but was never allowed to go to any national events. Alex had to drop soccer when he got to college, on the off chance that he’d somehow make the news. And I, with my weird obsession with the Latin forms of ballroom dancing? With my urge to salsa and rumba and cha-cha my nights away? I was allowed to put on a red wig, get a false ID from our crazy cousin Artie, and audition for Dance or Die. And when the producers said I had a slot in the top twenty, I was allowed to compete.

The format is familiar to everyone in the country who owns a TV not permanently turned to either PBS or porn: ten girls, ten guys, one massive cash prize. Every week two dancers get sent home, until the top four try to dance their way to victory without dancing themselves into heart failure. (My season was better than some; we only lost one contestant to health issues, and he was an idiot who stopped sleeping and gave himself pneumonia.) I didn’t win. I didn’t expect to. But I came in second.

Two of the show’s regular judges were cryptids, and so were three of the other competitors. My experiences with them, and the connections I managed to make within the Los Angeles cryptid community, were the final push I needed to get the consent for my studies in New York City. Of course Dave wanted me to dance for him. He could make some serious dough by putting my stage name on his roster of naked talent.

Competitive ballroom dance may have a reputation for skimpy dresses and sky-high heels, but at least sequins aren’t see-through. I’d been saying thanks but no thanks to Dave for months. I was there to work tables and make contacts, not sacrifice what little dignity I had left.

Of course, give me a few more months trying to pay for groceries on a cocktail waitress’ salary and tips, and that could change. All he really had to do was wait me out.

Carol was still in the dressing room with her wig in her hands when I returned. Her snakes hissed merrily, glad to be released from their confinement, as she stared morosely into the mirror.

“Hey, Carol,” I said, heading for my locker. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t go back out there until I get my wig on, and I really need the tips,” she said, glancing back toward me. “I had to feed them last week.”

“Ouch.” I winced. Gorgon hair requires live feeding, and Carol had at least thirty individual snakes topping her head. They would have each demanded a pinky mouse of their own, possibly two or three in the case of the larger serpents. “Still no luck breeding your own?”

“I can’t wear my contacts all the time. I keep looking at them by mistake.”

“I can see where that would be a problem.” Untying my apron, I added, “I can call my mom if you want. She might have something you can use to sedate them without hurting them.”

“Could you?” Carol whirled to face me, clutching her wig to her breast and looking at me like I was the answer to all her prayers. “I didn’t want to ask, but…”

“It’s no big. Really.”

Here’s a fun fact: there are over nine hundred races of cryptids on the planet, and maybe eighty of those look roughly human, ranging from the Sasquatches and gorgons to dragon princesses and cuckoos. Here’s another fun fact: most of those races have only started coming into intentional contact with humans during the last hundred and fifty years, as our expansionistic tendencies brought us to them. Many have little to no idea of their own biology, and still practice a form of folk medicine that the human race abandoned centuries ago.

Which is where my mother comes in. Evelyn Price, formerly Evelyn Baker, is the closest thing to a cryptid physician most of them will ever meet. She’ll even make house calls if you can find her a teleport, and her rates are more than reasonable.

Carol burbled a series of thanks before she went back to trying to cram her snakes into the wig. I took her distraction as the opportunity it was and dug my weapons out of the locker. I always feel better with a knife, and better yet with a firearm or two. I was only carrying a simple underarm holster, but that was fine; those are the easiest to hide. Pulling on a windbreaker, I shoved my street clothes into my emergency backpack and shrugged it on before scooting for the hall. I didn’t see the point in changing. After a mice-related kitchen incident, a boob-grab by an asshole, and a private talk with Dave, I was more than ready to get out on the rooftops. Running in a skirt may be a little bit indecent, but I don’t mind doing it as long as I’m not going to need to talk to any humans.

The night had matured while I was inside, ambient noise going from the mindless cheer of early evening to something deeper and more classical. A siren wailed in the distance; horns honked on the street below; a baby’s crying drifted out of an apartment window. It only needed a saxophone or maybe some feel-good easy listening music to make the stereotype complete.

I took several deep breaths of the night air, letting the tension slip out of my shoulders before backing up, putting my back against the rooftop door, and breaking into a run. If I couldn’t take my aggressions out on Dave’s customers, I’d do a quick circuit, head home, call Sarah, and go clubbing.

It’s always the best plans that fall through. I think the universe has some sort of law.

Ever wonder why pigeons need to breed so fast when they’re living in an environment that’s entirely man-made, offering all the comforts and amenities a brainless ball of feathers and pestilence could desire? If you just look at the immediately visible evidence, they should outbreed the cities and cast us all into the depths of a Hitchcock remake.

What most people don’t realize—what most people don’t want to realize—is that the urban cryptid population does us the enormous favor of keeping the pigeon population at a reasonable size: they eat them. The larger your city, the more pigeons you’ll have, and the more cryptids they’ll attract. Nature works in mysterious ways. Sometimes those ways involve air-breathing flying manta rays camouflaged to blend in with concrete walls.

My first stop was the top floor of a high-rise six blocks from Dave’s, where the family of resident harpies offered to share their pigeon stew. They were trying to bribe me into agreeing to keep picking up their mail. The youngest daughter’s wings were coming in, making her unsuitable for interaction with the bulk of the city for at least six years and keeping the rest of the family housebound until she finished the dangerous stages of her molt. I agreed to the mail and begged off dinner. Without a bezoar to purify the stuff, I’d probably have managed to catch some new and interesting variety of plague.

Normally, my rounds would have kept me making social calls for the next several hours, but there had been reports of an ahool living somewhere on the rooftops in Midtown. Ahool are like giant bats with monkey heads and nasty claws. They’re also cooperative hunters who bring down prey by means of the bacteria swarming in their foul little mouths. An ahool takes a chunk out of a person and then waits for them to die. If the ahool isn’t hungry, it takes a chunk out anyway, just in case another ahool in the area wants a snack. If the reports were accurate, and the thing wasn’t found, we’d have a flock living in Manhattan before very long. That sort of thing would definitely get the attention of the Covenant.

Most of my nondance hours were devoted to serving, studying, and supporting the cryptid community. Sometimes the only way to serve them was to keep them from drawing too much attention to themselves, and, in the case of the nonintelligent predatory species, that could activate the second part of my job description. Not “cryptozoologist”: monster hunter. I’d try relocation first, and if that didn’t work…

I’d avoid more final solutions for as long as I could. That was the best that I could offer.

Free running takes a lot of attention, especially at night on unfamiliar ground. Free running while scanning the skies and likely hiding spots for giant carnivorous bats really leaves no room to watch for anything else. I’ve had years of training at spotting traps and deadfalls. I’ve even managed to beat Antimony a few times at games of hide-and-seek, and that’s damn near impossible. So nothing but distraction and simple carelessness can excuse my failing to see the snare before I jammed my foot straight into it.

The rope snapped taut, the loop closed around my ankle, and all I had time to think before the deadweight hit the side of my head and knocked me into unconsciousness was how much Alex was going to laugh at me for this one.

Then the weight came down, the snare whipped me into the air, and I wasn’t thinking of anything for a while.