“Goddamn kids,” muttered Uncle Mike. Then he stepped away from Dominic, moving out of the other man’s personal space. “Okay, Covenant boy. Tell us what you know.”
“Margaret Healy loves her duty and hates your branch of the family in equal measure,” said Dominic, apparently counting both myself and Uncle Mike as official members of the Price-Healy clan for purposes of this debriefing. It made sense. Even if we weren’t related by blood, we were tainted by the ideology that led her actual relatives astray. “I was honestly surprised to see her with the review team. The last time we spoke, she was still barred from activities in North America.”
“Why?” asked Ryan.
“Margaret never believed that the Michigan incident had truly eliminated all survivors of the family on this continent. She wanted to investigate in person. Our superiors felt this was a personal vendetta with no immediate benefit to the Covenant.”
“You mean they were worried she might be right, and that she might set off a war,” said Uncle Mike.
Dominic nodded. “I think that was a factor in their decision, yes. If she was wrong, she would be wasting her time and the Covenant’s resources on a wild goose chase. If she was right, and she was unable to eliminate or capture all hostiles in her first attack, she could very easily have caused the remaining members of the family to turn their efforts against the Covenant.”
“But there are like, eight of them,” said Ryan. His thoughts were confused, chasing each other around his head like puppies chasing their tails. “I don’t know how many, since Very was always pretty cagey about that, but I know they all live in the same house when they’re at home.”
“If there’s one thing you should know about the Prices, it’s that odds rarely work the way they should once the family decides to get involved.” Dominic smiled. “The Covenant had them outnumbered ten to one in Buckley, and they survived. Margaret could easily have triggered a chain reaction no one was prepared for.”
“Maybe she just did that anyway,” said Uncle Mike. “Verity dies, I can guarantee you that the Covenant of St. George isn’t going to like what comes next.”
“Sir, while I respect the destructive power of your family more than you may believe, I can guarantee you in turn that if Verity dies, the Covenant will regret their actions long before any of her relations can get here.”
“We get it,” I said. “If Verity dies, everybody’s sorry. You know who’s probably going to be sorriest? Verity. If this Margaret person wasn’t allowed to be in North America, why is she here now?”
“I was told that it was a test for her, to see whether she could focus on the mission at the exclusion of her personal vendettas,” said Dominic. A sudden wave of regret, blame, and self-loathing rushed off him like it was trying to fill the entire room. It took everything I had to stay where I was. None of the others were telepathic, but they shouldn’t have needed to be. He was practically screaming his pain. “Please forgive me. I believed them.”
“There was no reason for you not to,” said Uncle Mike. From his tone, I could tell that he’d picked up on the same emotional weather I had. I relaxed a little. “Whatever lies the Covenant may have told you about the cryptids, they raised you. They trained you. Did they ever lie to you about anything but dogma before?”
“I don’t know,” said Dominic.
“I hate the Covenant as much as anybody, but I’m willing to bet they didn’t, because truth is the best way to guarantee obedience. The more lies you’re told, the harder it gets to keep the stories straight. When your bosses told you Margaret was here to test her obedience, you had absolutely no reason to think that they were lying to you. You got me? You warned Verity as soon as you had the chance. You did everything you could.”
“I didn’t do enough.”
Istas yawned more widely than a strictly human jaw would have been able to support. There was an audible cracking noise as the bones shifted to accommodate the gesture. Dominic went very still, and I had the brief impression from his thoughts that he had managed, temporarily, to forget that humans were the minority in this room.
“This is dull,” Istas announced. “Are we going to stand here and debate blame while Verity is slaughtered? Vengeance carnage is often satisfying, but it takes longer to perform properly than the kind which does not require a death to begin.”
“That’s my girl,” said Ryan. “A delicate flower.”
Istas snorted.
Dominic took a breath, seeming to center himself. “Margaret Healy hates Verity’s bloodline for daring to leave the Covenant,” he said, returning to his original conversational thread. Smart boy. “She didn’t accompany the investigative team because they thought her hatred might have dimmed.”
“They sent her here because somebody suspected you’d been compromised, didn’t they?” asked Uncle Mike. He sounded almost gentle. Dominic’s obvious distress was getting to him. It was definitely getting to me; it was rolling off him in waves, making the air seem thick and heavy. Some emotions are harder to handle than others.
“Yes.” Dominic looked from me to Uncle Mike. “I don’t know how. I don’t know what I did, or didn’t do, or said, or didn’t say. I was so careful . . .”
“Kiddo, they’ve got charms and telepathy barriers on these people. They’re loaded for metaphysical bear. For all we know, they’ve got a witch or something back at headquarters who did some remote viewing on you when you didn’t even realize you were being watched. That would explain why they were able to drop Margaret at Sarah’s hotel. But just because they got suspicious, that doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.” Beyond joining their goddamn cult in the first place.
I try not to eavesdrop on other people’s minds most of the time; it makes me feel a little sleazy, like I’m living down to their expectations of my species. Still, that thought was loud enough that there was no way I could miss it. “Uncle Mike, he didn’t join,” I said. “He was born into the Covenant, the same way all of us were born into our lives. Please don’t take that out on him. Not right now.”
Uncle Mike flinched a little, glancing in my direction. There was a brief flicker of apology in his emotional state. Then he focused back on Dominic, and said, “What matters now is that you’re here with us, not there with them, and you’re going to help us get her back. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re on the up and up, we’re cool, you and me.”
A small throat was cleared from the center of the folding table, audible only because it was timed to come at the exact end of Uncle Mike’s statement. I turned to see one of the Aeslin mice standing there, waiting to be noticed. It was the one Verity referred to as the Head Priest. He was wearing a sequin-spangled cape that used to be part of one of her dance costumes, and his whiskers were as white as if they’d been baby powdered. They hadn’t been. This was a very old mouse. Two other mice, younger, wearing unspangled capes, crouched a foot away from him. They must have been sent to assist him on what would be, to a mouse, a very dangerous journey.
“I come to speak the Will of the Colony,” announced the mouse priest.
“Hello, mouse,” said Istas calmly, looking entirely unsurprised by the sudden intrusion of talking rodents on the conversation.
“Hello, carnivore,” said the mouse priest. He turned and bowed to Uncle Mike and Dominic. “Hail to the High Priest of Goddammit Eat Something Already, and to the God of Hard Choices in Dark Places.”
Ryan blinked. “What?”
“It’s a mouse thing, just roll with it, you’ll be happier that way,” I advised. “Hail,” I added, to the mouse.
He sat up a little straighter, wrapping his pink thread of a tail around his feet, and adjusted his grip on the carved pencil he was using as a staff. “The Colony has discussed the disappearance of the Arboreal Priestess,” he said. “We have further discussed the words of the Priestess before she was Taken from us, and have decided that we will Abide by
her Wisdom.”
“What?” I asked.
Uncle Mike blinked. “Are you sure?” he asked the mouse.
The mouse priest nodded, the squirrel skull perched atop his head making it look like he was going to topple over. “We have served in this capacity before. We will serve in this capacity again. We are at your disposal.”
“Before Verity left, she talked about using the mice as spies,” said Ryan. “She even said that they were pretty good at it. Being mice means they can get into a lot of small spaces.”
“We do not wish to leave our Priestess in the grip of the false Priestess who has taken her,” said the mouse priest. “We understand that it will be dangerous. We do not mind the risk.”
“None of us do,” added Ryan. “Verity’s not my family, but she’s my friend. Whatever has to be done, I’m going to do it.”
Dominic nodded. “Then perhaps there is a chance after all. But we need to move, and we need to move quickly.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” asked Uncle Mike. “Let’s get started.”
We all stopped interrupting Dominic after that—even the mice were quiet—as we allowed him to get down to the business of properly explaining what he knew. According to Dominic, Margaret had been working on her own when she set the trap that eventually snared Verity: the anti-telepathy charm we took off her unconscious body was laced with a compulsion spell that forced Verity right back into her nasty little clutches. It was a neat trick. I might even have been impressed by it, if it hadn’t been so likely to get Verity killed.
Dominic only knew that Verity had been taken because he’d been with one of the other Covenant agents—Peter Brandt—when Margaret called and asked for backup. Peter had gone without him, and Dominic had followed at what he guessed would be a safe distance. “Thanks to Verity and her maddening insistence on taking the rooftops whenever possible, I had a whole set of routes open to me that they barely realized existed. I was not seen.”
Privately, I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t interrupt. We were out of time for interruptions.
There are times when I wonder how humans get anything done. Talking is so slow compared to the speed of thought. I could have told everyone everything Dominic knew in a few seconds, if I’d been attuned to them all and willing to risk bruising their brains a little bit. And then I realize that thinking like that just proves that I’ll always be a cuckoo, no matter how hard I try not to be, and I have to force myself back into the slow, comforting safety of speech.
“Where’s Verity being held?” asked Uncle Mike.
“An old warehouse that the Covenant purchased during the last purge. Much like this locale,” Dominic indicated the Nest, “it has been in private hands for so long that most have ceased viewing it as a building. It has become a part of the landscape.”
“Well, then, I guess we’re landscapers,” said Uncle Mike. “We’re going to need some muscle for this.”
Slowly, Ryan smiled. “I think I can help you with that.”
Istas looked up at him, her thoughts turning quizzical. Then she smiled as well. “Oh, lovely,” she said. “I do so enjoy spending time with my coworkers in a social setting.”
Ryan was on the phone with Kitty, explaining why he needed to borrow half her staff for a potentially deadly mission, when my own phone started ringing. Phones are tricky. They have no minds for me to read, which makes them a good exercise in telling what people mean from nothing but tone. That also makes them frustrating as hell, and a bad idea when I’m already stressed. I pulled it out of my pocket, checking the display to see who was calling. I was about to press “ignore” when Uncle Mike’s hand landed on my shoulder.
“Take it,” he advised. “You need to talk to him, and it’s not like you’re going anywhere dangerous.”
“Right,” I said, not sure whether I should be annoyed with him for meddling or grateful for the excuse. I pressed “answer” instead, bringing the phone to my ear as I started walking away from the others. If I was going to have this conversation, I was going to have it in “my” room. “Hi, Artie. What’s up?”
“I hadn’t heard from you in a few hours, and you’re not online. You’ve got the Covenant in town, Verity’s not answering her phone, I got worried, hey-presto, I’m calling you.” Artie’s voice was a warm, familiar presence in my ear, conjuring images of afternoons spent lying on his bedroom floor arguing about whether Wolverine’s claws could pierce Captain America’s shield. (They so could, assuming Wolverine cared enough to try. And the fact that I know that is why Artie and I get along so well, and why Verity despairs of me ever going on a real date, with a non-virtual boy.)
Those comfortable thoughts were followed by a chill sliding down my spine, chasing all the warmth away. Artie didn’t know that Verity was missing. Uncle Mike knew, but apart from that, no one in the family had been notified. “It’s good to hear your voice,” I said, with utter sincerity, and closed my eyes as I walked up the stairs. Maybe if I looked at nothing, I wouldn’t feel so bad about lying by omission. Maybe. Probably not, though.
I always tell people not to lie to the telepath. It sucks to realize that my rules don’t swing both ways.
“Yours, too, Sars,” said Artie. He paused. “Everything okay with you? You sound tense.”
“Covenant’s in town, remember? We’re bunking in an undisclosed location with what feels like half the cast of The Muppet Show, since Verity doesn’t want any of us to wind up dead. And Uncle Mike is here, which means everything’s been booby-trapped.”
“I bet Antimony would love it there.”
I laughed at that, opening my eyes. I was at the top of the stairs by then; I needed to be able to see if I wanted to find my room. “She’d be sawing holes in the floor so she could make actual pit traps, and we’d never get our security deposit back.”
“I said she’d love it, not that she’d be useful.” Artie sounded like he was buying my story, which helped me relax even more. “Any chance you’ll be back online tonight?”
“Well . . .” I glanced guiltily down at the slaughterhouse floor. Everyone seemed very busy getting ready for battle. Uncle Mike was deep in conversation with the mice on the table; Ryan was on the phone; Istas was relacing her boots. None of them appeared to have particularly noticed that I was gone. That didn’t mean I was off the hook. “No, I don’t think so. We’re doing a field thing, and Uncle Mike wants me to be there.”
“You’re doing ‘a field thing’? You hate field things.”
“That doesn’t stop Very from making me do them every other weekend.”
“No, but you always complain about them, and you’re not complaining now.” It’s impossible to pick up thoughts through the phone, and for once, I was glad; the anxiety in Artie’s voice was loud enough without any help from my telepathy. “Why aren’t you complaining, Sarah? Are you really okay?”
“I’m fine, Artie,” I said, and stepped into the barren little office that was, for the time being, my bedroom. I sank down onto the air mattress, sighing in time with the little hiss it made as I settled. “I’m stressed, and I’m scared, and I’m afraid somebody’s going to get hurt before this is over, but I’m fine. Honest. I’d really rather hear about how you are, if that’s cool. I need to not think about things here for a little while.”
“Have you been to the comic book store yet this week?”
A smile tugged at my lips. “No, I have not,” I said. “Things have been a little too hectic around here for me to get down to Midtown Comics. Have I missed anything important?”
“Not important, necessarily, but definitely cool. See—” Artie began telling me about the latest developments in the Marvel and DC superhero universes, speaking with the enthusiastic shorthand of the true aficionado. That wasn’t a problem for me. I’ve been reading comics for as long as I can remember; seeing faces drawn on paper helps me recognize them in real life, or at
least helps me recognize the emotions they’re trying to convey. The encyclopedic knowledge of mutants and superhumans is really just an unexpected bonus.
I curled up on the air mattress with one arm tucked beneath my head as a makeshift pillow while I listened to Artie talk. When he paused, I made the appropriate encouraging noises, getting him started again. In the comic books, the good guys might lose for an issue, but they always won by the end of the story arc, and death was never forever. I liked the comics. I couldn’t live there, but for a little while, I could pretend.
Not for long enough. Someone knocked gently on my doorframe. I sat up, the phone still pressed against my ear. Uncle Mike was standing there, and I didn’t need to be good at reading faces to understand how grim his was.
“It’s time,” he said.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“Sarah?” asked Artie. “What’s up?”
“Nothing—Uncle Mike just needs me. It’s time to go. Stay safe, okay? I’ll call you soon.” If I was alive. If any of us were still alive.
“Okay, Sars. Miss you.”
“Miss you, too,” I said, and hung up the phone.
Fun facts about cuckoo biology: we can’t bleed, not the way mammals do. But we can cry. I got up and followed Uncle Mike out of the room, and I cried the whole way.
Nineteen
“You know what, honey? You’re right. It’s time to change my approach. Can you give me one of those nice concussion grenades?”
—Alice Healy
The Freakshow, a highly specialized nightclub somewhere in Manhattan
WE LEFT SUNIL and Rochak behind when the rest of us left the Nest. There was no way of knowing whether Verity had given up our location, and so Kitty was calling some of her relatives to come and take the Madhura away to someplace Verity didn’t know. The brothers Madhura weren’t happy about spending quality time with the city’s bogeyman population, but they understood that it was the only way we could keep them safe, since taking them into battle with us would have been an even worse idea.