—Enid Healy
Downtown Manhattan, approaching the Port Hope Hotel
WE ATE HALF A PLATE of gingerbread and drank all the cocoa before coming to the conclusion that our next stop, tactically speaking, was Sarah’s place. She was family, which meant she had to be warned about what was coming. Beyond that, she was the fastest way for us to tell the dragons about the situation.
No one—and I mean no one, my family included—hates the Covenant of St. George like the dragons do. William is the last known male of their species, largely because of the Covenant’s fondness for dragon slaying. When they heard that a purge was coming, they were going to freak out. My family used to belong to the Covenant a long time ago, and the dragons have never quite forgiven us for that. If they got the news from me, things could turn ugly.
Sarah, on the other hand, is a cryptid, which makes her automatically more trustworthy than a human. It doesn’t hurt that everybody wants to trust a cuckoo, right up until the cuckoo stabs them in the back, steals their wallet, and runs away to Acapulco with their life savings. She’d have a better chance of explaining what was going on than I would . . . and sending her to explain things to the dragons would put her safely underground, in William’s nest, where I wouldn’t have to worry about her for a little while.
In deference to Dominic’s dislike of falling—and my own desire to finish eating my gingerbread, which was just as good as the sign on the door had promised it would be—I allowed him to flag down a taxi on the corner in front of Gingerbread Pudding. After checking my phone to be sure that I hadn’t forgotten where Sarah was staying, I gave the driver the address for the Port Hope Hotel and settled in my seat, ignoring my dislike of New York taxis in favor of enjoying my Madhura-concocted treats.
We were about halfway there when Dominic raised his head, gave me a bewildered look, and asked, “Where are we going again?”
“To see my cousin Sarah.” He still had some gingerbread left. I leaned over, snatching the last bite from his fingers before he could object. “She just changed hotels last week; that’s why you can’t remember where we’re going. Don’t worry about it.”
Dominic’s bewilderment lasted a few more seconds before it cleared away, replaced first by understanding, and then by an irritated scowl. “I hate the way she does that.”
“I know. But she doesn’t mean to, so you should really just shrug it off and wait until she stops hitting you so hard.” Given sufficient exposure to Sarah, he’d develop more resistance to her passive defenses, even as she got better at reading his mind. It’s a trade-off, and one that most of the family has been more than happy to make, since it means we don’t literally forget that she’s in the house when we can’t see her.
Dominic didn’t say anything. He just kept scowling.
To be honest, I understood his irritation. Camouflage is the cuckoo’s primary weapon; they become a part of their surroundings, disappearing from casual view by fitting in so perfectly that it’s impossible to think of them as unusual. Sarah’s periodic disappearing acts were the result of instinct telling her not to stay in one place long enough to get caught—that, and hotel security systems refusing to be telepathically influenced into ignoring the fact that she was essentially a squatter. Unfortunately, the amount of telepathic static kicked up by a cuckoo in the process of changing nests has a tendency to make even allies forget what’s going on, which is why I made sure to keep her latest hotel address in my phone memos.
(I encrypted the addresses, naturally, using a code key that requires intimate knowledge of the Argentine tango to break. Paranoia is a way of life when they’re genuinely out to get you.)
My Grandma Angela—also a cuckoo, in addition to being both Sarah and Mom’s adopted mother—says Sarah’s relocations make us forget where she is because normal cuckoos don’t have any allies. They just have enemies who happen to not be trying to kill them at that particular moment. So periodically disappearing from absolutely everybody’s radar is the only way most ordinary cuckoos survive long enough to ruin the lives of everyone around them. Sarah may eventually be able to stop that from happening, but it’s going to take years of practice. Luckily, she doesn’t have any natural predators or catch human diseases, so unless she walks in front of a bus, she’s going to live a long, long time. Cuckoos are lucky that way.
They’re a charming species, the cuckoos. Except for the two that I’m technically related to, they’re the only cryptid race I can think of that should really be shot on sight—assuming you’d know one when you saw one, which is questionable. As it stands, they’re the only race that has absolutely no good ecological reason to exist. They’re not true apex predators and they’re not true parasites. They practice brood parasitism, but they usually do it in empty nests, so it’s not even like they’re reducing the human population (something that does occasionally need to be considered, no matter how distasteful I may find the idea).
Near as anyone can tell, the cuckoos don’t serve an otherwise unfilled purpose in any ecosystem. They just kill, and destroy, and break things for the pleasure of seeing the shards come raining down. Oh, and they do algebra. For fun. Their universal fascination with higher mathematics may be the least human thing about them.
The taxi let us off in front of the Port Hope Hotel. Dominic paid the cabbie—tipping generously, I was pleased to note—before turning to join me in studying the building. It was modest by Sarah’s usual four-star standards, although it wasn’t run-down by any means. For a moment, I couldn’t imagine what she was doing here. Then I spotted a sign in the hotel window, and had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing.
Dominic frowned at me. “What is it?”
“Sarah has finally returned to the Mothership,” I said, pointing to the sign. He followed my finger, and then, to my surprise, Dominic De Luca laughed out loud.
Visit the Manhattan Museum of Mathematics! cajoled the sign. Only four blocks away on East 26th Street. Math can be fun!
“I wonder if they have souvenir postcards,” Dominic said.
“I wonder if she left them any after she hit the gift shop,” I countered. He laughed again. This time I joined him, and together we walked into the light of the hotel’s lobby.
The telepathic static signaling Sarah’s presence hit as soon as we were inside. To my surprise, it was coming from the other side of the lobby. I turned to see her waving cheerfully from the hotel’s restaurant, one of those modern things where the tables also serve as the restaurant wall. It’s supposed to seem homey and welcoming. I think it’s a good way to cut down on the amount of cover in a firefight. My standards are perhaps not those of the people who build hotels.
Sarah was dressed in her going-to-school best—a bulky brown sweater that did absolutely nothing for her porcelain-pale complexion, and a calf-length green skirt that looked like she’d stolen it from one of the Brady Bunch kids—and her long black hair was tied into a ponytail. She had a glass of something that looked like over-thick cherry soda in the hand that wasn’t busy waving.
It’s ketchup and tonic water, she informed me blithely, about a half-second after my eyes hit her glass. Delicious and a good preventative against malaria.
“Sarah, you don’t have blood as most mammals understand it. Why would you need to worry about malaria?” Dominic shot me a startled glance, and I realized that I’d spoken aloud. Dammit. “Stupid telepaths,” I mumbled, chagrined.
Sorry!
No, you’re not, I thought back at her, starting across the lobby toward the restaurant.
No, I’m not, Sarah agreed. She stood as we came closer, putting her ketchup soda down on the table. “What are you guys doing here? Are you hungry? They make a really fabulous lasagna here. The kitchen’s technically closed, but if I asked—”
“Can we go up to your room? It’s sort of important, and I’d rather not talk about it down here.”
Sarah blinked, expression going momentarily confused. Then she nodded. “Sure. I was pretty much don
e here anyway.” She picked up her soda and stepped around the table, passing over the line between the restaurant’s carpet and the lobby’s hardwood floor.
She didn’t leave any money on the table as she toasted the hostess on duty with her glass and started toward the elevator. If I’d tried that, I would have wound up with an irritated hostess chasing me down for a signature. Sarah just got a blissful smile and an enthusiastic wave, like she was the Queen of England or something.
“Stupid telepaths,” I said again, and followed Sarah.
* * *
As always, Sarah was staying in the nicest suite in the hotel, although this one was, at least, only slightly larger than my apartment. She’d been there for three days. It was already a disaster zone that would have made my mother clutch her head and weep for the future of our family.
Dominic looked around the room, frowning for a moment before he said, as delicately as he could, “You might do well by allowing the maids access to your room.”
“Oh, they were just here this morning,” said Sarah guilelessly. She looked at Dominic, improbably blue eyes wide, and asked, “Don’t you think they did a good job?”
Dominic sputtered. Sarah giggled, hiding it behind her hand.
“Sarah, don’t toy with the Covenant boy,” I said sternly. “He and I have both had a long night, and it’s not going to get any better from here.”
“What’s going on?” Sarah took a sip of her tomato soda, frowning at me. “You’re reading awfully serious.”
Cuckoos don’t really have telepathic ethics, unless you count “loot first, then burn” as an ethical approach to reading someone else’s mind. Grandma Angela got past this by encouraging Sarah to watch every episode, ever, of Star Trek: the Next Generation and Babylon 5. Sarah went on to augment her education with lots of comic books and classic science fiction. End result, a very polite psychic geek who won’t invade your brain without permission. Most of the time.
I took a breath, trying to figure out how to word what I needed to tell her. Then I looked helplessly at Dominic. He frowned, squared his shoulders, and turned to Sarah.
“Please read my mind,” he said. “It will be the simplest way to convince you both of the urgency of this situation and my role in it. In this one instance, I give you my consent.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “Uh.” The Covenant of St. George specializes in hating cryptids, and Dominic was still a member of the Covenant, no matter how relaxed he was becoming about associating with “monsters” like my cousin. Him giving her permission to read his mind was huge, and she had no idea how to deal with it. Finally, she went with the easy option: “Okay. Um, just clear your mind of everything but what you want me to see, and try not to think about Verity naked, okay?”
Dominic reddened. I smirked. Telling people not to think about nudity is the best way to make sure they think about nudity. That was intentional. If you’re busy trying frantically not to picture someone’s tits, you’re not thinking about keeping the telepath out of your head. Sarah says it’s a good way to get around a person’s natural defenses.
Sarah’s eyes began to glow white. The brightness rapidly increased, until her pupils and irises had been completely obscured. Then her eyes widened again, mouth falling open in a horrified “oh.” “They’re coming here?” she demanded, in a voice that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a whisper or a squeak, and wound up demonstrating the attributes of both.
“Yes,” said Dominic gravely.
“They—you—how can you let them do these things?” The glow in Sarah’s eyes went off as she broke contact with Dominic’s mind. Her entire body seemed to shudder, and she took a long step backward, away from him. “You know what they’re coming here to do. I know you know. I saw it.”
“And you also know that I did not invite them, and that I am here to help.” Dominic sighed deeply. “Believe me, Sarah, I was raised to want nothing more than to be able to join my brethren in cleansing this city without remorse. Part of me still wants to be sure in my mission, confident in the righteousness of the Covenant’s purpose. But I can’t. I can’t be that man anymore.”
“This is why they call you people dangerous, you know,” Sarah said, looking at me. “He’s telling the truth.” She paused, gaze swinging back to Dominic. “That’s really why you wanted me to go into your head, isn’t it? So I could tell Very that you were being sincere when you said you wanted to help us not wind up dead.”
“I told her myself; I doubt that she fully believed me,” said Dominic calmly. “This seemed the simplest way to answer everyone’s questions.”
“You let a cryptid poke around inside your head, so I’d believe that you wanted to be a good guy?” I asked. “Wow. You really have learned a lot.”
“That, or you truly are the foul, corrupting beast that my elders would make you out to be.” Somehow, Dominic managed to make that sound like an endearment. He looked toward Sarah. “We need your help.”
“I know. I picked that up, too. You seriously want me to go into the Nest and tell the dragons that the Covenant is en route? I mean, that’s how you think I should be spending my night? I have class in the morning, you know.”
I smiled a little. “You mean you have a chat date with Artie in a few hours. Can’t you reschedule?”
Sarah didn’t blush—she’s not physiologically capable of blushing, since she doesn’t have hemoglobin in her blood—but she did wrinkle her nose and scowl at me before relenting and saying, “I’ll email him. Can we not tell him there’s supposed to be a purge coming? I don’t want to freak him out.”
“You know he’s going to find out from Dad, and then he’s going to be pissed that you didn’t tell him yourself.”
“I know. But I’d rather he be pissed at me later, when this is over, than panicking at me now, when I have other things to worry about.” Sarah sighed. “I guess I’m going to miss class too, huh?”
“Depends. Do you think the dragons will finish freaking out in time for you to get a decent night’s sleep? It’s only eleven-thirty.”
Sarah gave me a withering look. She didn’t say anything aloud, but in my head I heard, Dominic is really worried about you. Me, too, a little bit, but mostly you. I think you should be cautious.
Why? I asked. Do you think he’s going to hand me to the Covenant?
No. But I think there’s a pretty good chance that he’ll drug your drink and you’ll wake up on a Greyhound bus bound for somewhere in the Midwest. He doesn’t want you to get hurt.
On a scale of one to ten . . .
If he’s not playing straight, he’s got shields I can’t break past without a lot of effort. For right now, I’m assuming he’s telling us the truth.
The subject of our furtive mental discussion was looking at us with weary annoyance. “I can tell when you’re discussing me telepathically, you know,” he said. “Despite my never having sought to develop this particular skill, I’ve learned to recognize the signs.”
“We’re educational,” I said blithely. “Sarah’s afraid you’re going to drug me and dump me on a bus to get me out of town.”
“I’ll admit, the thought did cross my—” Dominic stopped and scowled. “I do not appreciate the violation of my privacy.”
“You invited me in,” Sarah countered. “I can’t help what I see while I’m in there. I wasn’t snooping, but the image of getting Verity the hell out of Dodge was pretty prominent in your thoughts.”
“And I’m not in the mood to play the fainting flower and get shipped off,” I said. “We all clear on that point?”
Dominic sighed. “Sadly, yes.”
“Good. Sarah, can you please get to the dragons tonight? Let them know the Covenant is coming, and we don’t know anything more than that, but that they have my word that we’ll do everything we possibly can to keep William safe.” Female dragons are the ultimate pragmatists. William’s wives would be perfectly happy to die if that was what it took for him to survive the purge. I guess that’s o
ne of the perks that comes with being the last known male of your species.
“Just let me email Artie and I’ll head right down.”
“That works. As soon as you’re done at the Nest, I want you to head for the airport and catch the next plane home.” Sarah wouldn’t need a ticket. That was one more bonus of being a cuckoo. She could waltz past security without showing ID, and the airline would mysteriously find her an unclaimed First Class seat.
“No,” said Sarah calmly.
I blinked. “No? What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no. The Covenant isn’t going to find me. You need me, Verity. I’m the ultimate spy. Dominic was thinking it, even though he was trying not to, because he didn’t want to upset you. You need me to stay here and help. I’ll do it, because if I let you get killed, your mother’s going to be so mad.” Sarah looked at me calmly. “You can argue if you want, but I’ll just change hotels and not tell you where I am.”
“I hate you sometimes,” I said.
“I know.”
I sighed. “But also I love you. I do appreciate this, Sarah.”
Sarah smiled. “I know that, too.”
“Dominic and I are going back to the Freakshow. I need to tell the staff we’re about to have issues and make sure everyone knows what to do when the Covenant comes to town.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I echoed, and moved to hug her before heading toward the door. “Don’t be a hero, Sarah.”
She laughed at that. “I’m the last person in the world you need to worry about there. I’ll call if I hear anything.”
The convenient thing about having a telepath in the family: she never runs out of batteries, and she doesn’t depend on the cell towers for service. “Gotcha. Good luck down there.”
“Miss Zellaby,” said Dominic, with a small nod. Then he turned, and followed me to the door, out to the hall, and into the elevator.
“That went surprisingly well,” I said.
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