“What the hell?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Sarah. Louder, she asked, “Um, sir? Do you think you could stand up, maybe, and stop being weird?”
“My lady Johrlac, if you allow me to take my brother and depart your hive, I swear, we will never darken your door again.” Sunil was talking almost too fast for me to understand him. It didn’t help that he was facing the floor. “I did not know. I am sorry. I did not realize.”
“What are you talking about, Sunil?” I asked. “Sarah’s my cousin. This isn’t her ‘hive,’ it’s our hiding place. If it belongs to anyone, it’s mine, since I’m the one renting the place from the dragons.”
He lifted his head enough to shoot me a deeply apologetic look. “I can’t save you. I’m so sorry.”
Right. “Okay, I think I see what’s going on here. You called her ‘lady Johrlac.’ That means you know what Sarah is, doesn’t it?” The Covenant of St. George never figured out that the cuckoos existed. That didn’t mean the other cryptids weren’t aware—and “Johrlac” was the proper name for her species.
Sunil’s apologetic look turned panicked. “You mean you know?”
“Johrlac,” said Sarah, sounding not only tired, but suddenly depressed. Discussion of her actual species tended to have that effect on her. “No one knows where we come from, no one knows how to send us back there, and most people don’t know how to kill us. Everybody calls us ‘cuckoos,’ because a thing can be less scary when you have an easy name to hang on it. We steal lives, and then we end them. Is that what you think I am?”
“Please, I meant no offense,” whispered Sunil.
Sarah closed her eyes. “Verity . . .”
I stepped closer to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Sunil, Sarah is my cousin. Not by birth, maybe, but by adoption. Voluntary adoption. My grandmother—her mother—is also a cuckoo. She raised my Mom. So my whole family is sort of resistant to the instinctive brainwashing. We like Sarah because she’s Sarah. We love her because she’s family. And she’s not going to hurt you. She’s here to hide from the Covenant, just like the rest of us.”
“I’ve always done my very best not to take advantage of the people around me,” said Sarah, opening her eyes and looking plaintively at Sunil. “It’s hard sometimes. You can’t even imagine how hard. But I swear, I’m not going to mess with your head.”
“This is . . .” Sunil frowned, finally straightening up. “I’ve never heard of a Johrlac deciding to live among others as one of them, and not as their master.”
“I do dishes, too,” said Sarah.
“Sunil!” Rochak reappeared from the direction of the kitchen, Mike tagging along behind him. Istas was nowhere to be seen, possibly because the kitchen now contained a great deal of unguarded gingerbread. I hoped that Mike had asked her to leave some for the rest of us. “Who’s this?”
“My cousin, Sarah,” I said, and braced for the explosion that was sure to follow.
It didn’t. Rochak stopped next to Sunil, looking speculatively at Sarah. Then he turned to me, and asked, “Your cousin is a Johrlac? How is that even biologically possible?”
“See, I’m a little more curious as to how you’re identifying her on sight, but yes, she is,” I said. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“No. I’m fully mature. She can’t get inside my head.” He put a hand on Sunil’s shoulder, turning back to Sarah. “If you hurt my brother, I will destroy you. Then I will find the rest of your hive, and destroy them as well.”
“I’m not going to hurt your brother, and I don’t have a hive,” said Sarah. “I just want this to be over before I miss too many classes.”
“Then we’re in agreement,” said Rochak.
I blinked. “Mature? What?”
“Madhura are immune to the lure of the Johrlac once we pass our third molt,” said Rochak. He nodded toward Sunil. “My brother has only passed his second.”
“Thanks for announcing that to the world, Rochak,” said Sunil, looking mortified.
“Don’t worry; the world has no idea what it means,” I said. “Uncle Mike, can you show them to an empty office? Not one of the ones to either side of Sarah, please, I think we’ll all feel better if we’re not stacking people on top of each other.” And maybe later, when all this was over, I could sit down with Rochak and grill him on exactly how the Madhura were able to resist the call of the cuckoo—something no other known species was able to do, except for possibly the Apraxis wasps, and those weren’t something we could sit down and talk to. Not unless we felt like being stung to death and used to feed the hive’s larvae.
“I’m on it,” said Mike. “If you two gentlemen would follow me, I’ll show you to your quarters—and to the bathroom, since you’re probably going to want that eventually.” He started toward the stairs. Sunil and Rochak followed him.
In a matter of seconds, Sarah and I were alone. I looked toward her. “You okay?” I asked.
She laughed unsteadily. “Oh, I’m dandy. This has been the best night. The Covenant of St. George has telepathy blockers on their people, so I won’t be able to hear them coming. I had to leave my hotel before I was ready, and I didn’t have time to finish my homework first. I’m going to miss class tomorrow, Artie’s freaking out and wants to fly to New York to panic at me in person, and now there are people who know what I am living in the same building as me.”
“I know what you are,” I protested. “I’ve always known.”
“You don’t look at me like that, Verity. You’ve never looked at me like that.”
I sighed. “Okay, fair. Look, you don’t have to stay here. You can go and stay with the dragons down in the sewers. You know William would be happy to have you.”
Sarah shook her head. “I can’t. Even if I was comfortable leaving you alone, which I’m not—”
“You don’t have to stay for my sake. I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t care if you think you can take care of yourself. I’m not leaving you,” Sarah repeated, more firmly. “But even if I was, there’s no Internet or cell service in the Nest. The dragons don’t consider it a priority. All their calls are made on an old landline the city put in for the municipal workers, and they’d slit their wrists before they paid for smart phones. If I drop off the grid like that, Artie will be on the next plane out of Portland, and I’m not going to be the reason he puts himself in danger. I can’t.”
“Right.” I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck with one hand. One day, those two are going to admit that they’re in love with each other. Until then, we’re all going to stay stuck in the middle of their not-a-relationship. “Well, then, I guess we’re all just going to have to cope.”
“Yeah,” agreed Sarah miserably. “We are.”
I got Sarah settled back in her room-slash-office, largely by promising to pick up some tomato juice the next time I had to go out of the Nest. Which was going to be soon; my feet were already starting to itch with the need to go, to run, to move. I’d been sitting still for hours—and being in the car while Uncle Mike drove us around New York didn’t count. It just made me feel even less like I was in control of the situation. Holing up and laying low might be the smart thing to do, but doing the smart thing has never been a Price family tradition. We’re more interested in running straight into the jaws of danger and daring it to bite down.
(There might be more of us among the living if danger weren’t so very willing to take us at our word and bite. That doesn’t change the fact that somebody has to do the job we do, and we’re uniquely qualified for it. We’ve been breeding to die this way for generations.)
The mice were still enjoying their celebration—or maybe they’d started a new one; it can be hard to tell with them. I peeked through the office window long enough to reassure myself that they weren’t about to set the place on fire or anything. Then I started moving again, heading for my
own makeshift bedroom. I needed to know what was going on out in my city, and that meant I needed to be out, not dealing with evacuating the resident cryptids or getting my relatives out of the line of fire.
First things first: I stripped off the clothes I’d been wearing to go see Sarah and changed into my usual night-running gear: a skintight gray bodysuit that would render me virtually invisible in the shadows, a belt that always made me feel a little bit like Batman, since he’s sort of the platonic ideal of “person running around in spandex with their weapons around their waist,” and a cotton hoodie only slightly darker than the bodysuit. With the hood pulled up to hide my hair and face, I could disappear on the rooftops, becoming part of the scenery.
Combat boots and a backpack full of ammo, replacement knives, and climbing gear completed my preparations. I was loaded for bear—literally—and if I was lucky, that would translate into being loaded for Healy. If I was really lucky, the question would never come up.
I went thumping back down the stairs to the ground floor of the slaughterhouse. There was no one there. I took that to mean that they were still where I’d left them and walked toward the kitchen, using the stroll as an excuse to test the weight of my backpack. It was a little heavier than I would have liked, but it was perfectly balanced, and in the end, that mattered more than a few extra pounds. It’s not how much you’re carrying; it’s what you do with it. And I was planning on unleashing a world of hurt on anyone who got in my way.
“Uncle Mike?” I stuck my head into the kitchen. Sunil and Rochak were at the stove, frying something that smelled like taffy while Istas looked on appreciatively. Uncle Mike was sitting at one of the card tables, sharpening his knives. From the assortment he had spread out in front of him, he’d been at it since he left me alone with Sarah, and was planning to be at it for quite a while longer.
“What is it, Very?” he asked, looking up. “Everything okay with Sarah?”
Sunil and Rochak stiffened at the question. Wow, I could already tell that we were entering a new era of fun times here in our hidey-hole. Good thing I was planning to get the hell out for a little while.
“She’s miserable, but she’ll cope,” I said, as casually as I could. “I guess being judged by her species makes her unhappy.”
“I am very sorry,” said Sunil, in a soft voice. “It was instinctive.”
I paused and took a breath before saying, “Just try to keep it cool until all this is over, please? My whole family vouches for Sarah. She’s one of us. And just like everyone else here, she’s stressed enough not to need an extra dose of feeling terrible about herself. She didn’t choose her species.” Any more than I chose to be born a Price, or Dominic chose to be born into the Covenant. We were all of us dealing with the hands we were dealt.
“We will treat her with as much kindness and respect as she treats us,” said Rochak.
“I can’t ask you for more than that.” I turned back to Uncle Mike. “Can you please help Sarah finish getting us on the Internet? I’d feel better if I could check my email, and Sarah’s a lot less likely to freak out if she can chat with Artie.”
“I’m on it.” Mike stood, leaving his knives on the table. “Heading out?”
I smiled a little. “What was your first clue?”
“Call it intuition. You’ll be careful out there?”
“As careful as I can be.”
“I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to.” I needed to move, or I was going to scream. “Keep an eye on things here. If anything goes wrong . . .”
“I’m here to make sure nothing goes wrong,” said Mike implacably. His tone was flat, the verbal equivalent of a brick wall suddenly appearing in my path. “Call if you need help, or if you’re going out of cell range for more than a few minutes. I want to be able to reach you if anything comes up here.”
“Deal. Istas, Mike’s in charge until I get back.” The irony of telling the woman who could probably bench-press a Buick to obey the human wasn’t lost on me.
It wasn’t lost on Istas, either. She raised one eyebrow, looking amused. Then she nodded, and agreed, “Yes. I will listen to the man I have just met when he is making judgments regarding my safety and the safety of my mate.”
“See, the sad thing is, I know you mean that.” It took me a while to learn to speak waheela. After being Istas’ coworker for a year, I had it pretty much down. (If it sounds sarcastic, it isn’t; if it involves a threat of physical violence, it’s sincere, but unless it comes with claws, it’s probably friendly. Like having a pet wolverine with rabies.)
Istas smiled. “Precisely. Enjoy your hunt for things to hurt. Save some carnage for the rest of us.”
“I will,” I said, and turned, walking back out into the main room. I paused by the table where we’d left Margaret’s weapons, picking up her telepathy-blocking charm and dropping it into one of the pockets of my backpack. If things were calm enough to allow for a few personal errands, I’d take it by the Freakshow. Bogeymen are some of the best information brokers and rumormongers in the world. Kitty might know how the thing worked, and better, how we could counter it. What’s the point of having a telepathic early warning system if you can’t use it?
The stairs beckoned me upward, but I forced myself to ignore them, walking instead to the door leading out to the small, enclosed courtyard. Much as I hated to start any journey on the ground, I didn’t want to risk attracting attention by taking the same path too many times. That meant starting from a different rooftop. I crossed the courtyard to the abandoned bodega, and from there, made my way out to the street.
New York is the city that never sleeps, but there are still neighborhoods that quiet down after a certain hour, losing the majority of their vibrancy and life in favor of stillness and the dark. Being popular with the tourists has done a lot to revitalize the Meatpacking District. That also means that it’s one of the areas that clears out quickly after midnight. A few well-dressed people on their way home from the bars lingered, but the streets were otherwise left to the homeless, the taxi drivers, the lost, and of course, the cryptids. I recognized them by the way they wore their hats, pulled low over their faces, and the quick anxiety of their steps. The Covenant had everyone on edge, most of all the people who inhabited this shadowy slice of the Big Apple.
I kept close to the buildings as I walked, looking for a good route upward. I found it about three blocks away from the Nest, at a corner that seemed to be in deeper shadow than most of the others, where the cornices of the building formed an almost perfect series of handholds. I glanced around once, making sure that no one was looking at me. Then I reached up, and started to climb.
There’s a security on the rooftops of a major city that I never feel anywhere else, a feeling like I could run forever if I had to. The city limits always loom, but no one can chase in a straight line across the slope of that much disparate architecture; there’s always a chance to double back and find another way. It would take an army to take me out when I’m that far above the street.
With no real idea of where I was going or what I was going to do when I got there, I took a long step backward, tensed, and ran.
Running helped to clear my head, allowing me to review the events of the night so far in a clearer, more rational light. Bad: Margaret Healy had seen me, and even if she didn’t know for sure who I was, she knew I was someone who wasn’t on her side. Not even an idiot could wake up facedown on the carpet of someone else’s hotel room, wrists and ankles taped together, and not realize that something was probably up. Good: even if she’d seen me, she didn’t know for sure who I was, or that I had anything to do with Dominic. She might be furious—she would be furious, if she was anything like every other member of our mutual family—but she wouldn’t know where to start looking for me.
Bad: Sarah’s cover had been blown, and Gingerbread Pudding was no longer safe. Good: I’d managed to get S
unil, Rochak, and Sarah all to safety before the Covenant could reach them, and under the circumstances, that was a victory. Better yet, the Freakshow was still secure. We had options. They might not be as diverse as I would have liked them to be, but at least they existed.
Bad: Dominic was with the Covenant, at least for the moment . . . and that was good at the same time, because he’d called to warn me about Sunil and Rochak, and there’d been no ambush waiting for me. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Margaret had just been at the Port Hope for the normal reasons, and he hadn’t betrayed us. When this was over . . . it wasn’t impossible to think that maybe when this was all over, he’d be standing with me, not against me. Covenant members had chosen to walk away from their duty before. I was living proof of that.
I was so lost in thought that I misjudged the drop as I leaped from one roof to another. I landed harder than I intended to. I caught myself with my hands before I could face-plant on the roof. The gesture cost me a lot of momentum, and rather than trying to get started again, I let myself skid to a stop, turning my feet to the side to increase my friction. Once the last of my inertia had bled off I straightened, looking around.
I was near the Freakshow, in one of those weird New York neighborhoods that mixes commercial and residential buildings in a patchwork of brownstone, concrete, and glass. I walked to the edge of the roof, looking down. There were a few people on the street, and the ubiquitous taxis slid endlessly by, but everything was silent, or as close to silent as New York ever gets. It was a real cinematic moment, the sort of thing that normally only exists in movies.
The sound of a gun being cocked somehow managed to fit right in. I stiffened. “Hello,” said Margaret from behind me, her sharp British accent somehow turning that single word into a threat. “I was wondering when you’d arrive.”
Then her gun caught me across the back of the head. I had just enough time to realize that I’d done something completely stupid—and that wasn’t like me, what the hell was I doing?—before I fell. The last thing I heard was the sound of my own body hitting the rooftop, a heavy, wet thud, like a sack of cement being dropped. Then there was nothing.