Sarah began to drift through the brush, stepping lightly, somehow skirting the worst of the snags and tangles. I followed close behind, drawing my own gun and holding it in front of me. If we could do this without shooting anyone, that would be great. I wasn’t counting on things being remotely that easy.
We’re almost there, whispered Sarah’s voice. I opened my mouth to reply before I realized her words were in my head. She was talking in my head.
She hadn’t spoken in my head since her accident.
The situation was dire, and there were endangered kids somewhere up ahead, along with ten kidnappers we’d have to evade or defeat, and for a moment, none of that mattered, because I was smiling too hard to care. Sarah was talking in my head again. Sarah was getting better.
She stopped in the shadow of a large bush. Voices drifted from the other side, low but audible in the overall quiet of the forest.
“—telling you, we can’t go back.” The first voice was male, and agitated, like he’d finally realized the scope of what they’d done and didn’t like it. “Make no mistake; we kicked the wasp’s nest with this one. We need to be miles away from here.”
“Eggs, Carl. There are more eggs.” The second voice was female, quietly calculating and unruffled. The mastermind of the pair, clearly. “We couldn’t get them all last night, not with the brats to manage, but we can get them tonight. Do you have any idea what a gorgon’s egg goes for on the open market? Fuck, we have six offers in already, and that’s just on the nonviable ones.”
Dee put her hands over her mouth, eyes wide and horrified.
“We go back,” said the woman. “We go back, we get the rest of the eggs while the parents are looking for their kids, and then we never have to come back to Ohio. This funds us for years, Carl. We can’t turn our backs on that.”
The bush we were hiding behind extended in both directions, but there had to be a way around it. I pointed and nodded to Shelby, who nodded back and started moving. I beckoned for Dee to come closer, then held my hand out to Sarah in the classic “stop” position. Both of them nodded. Sarah stayed exactly where she was as Dee and I worked our way around the edge of the bush.
Sometimes people get the clever idea to carve picnic grounds into the local woods, encouraging “back to nature” tourism by serving up visitors as a buffet to the mosquitoes, ticks, and bears. This had clearly been one of those installations: the rotting remains of a creosote-soaked picnic table greeted us at the bush’s edge, half-consumed by the undergrowth. On the other side was a large, manmade clearing, into which our kidnappers had jammed three RVs, their windows covered in tin foil and their doors sealed with padlocks that would probably raise a few eyebrows if they got spotted by the highway patrol.
There were no gorgon children in evidence. There were, instead, five humans, all heavily armed and dressed in military surplus camo. Three were standing in a loose semicircle, including a woman with a long brown ponytail who I assumed was our aspiring egg thief. The other two were closer to the RVs, each with a large assault rifle slung over their backs. They hadn’t seen us yet. For one second, we had the element of surprise.
I motioned Dee toward the men with the big guns. She stepped out into the open.
“Hey!” she shouted.
All five kidnappers turned. The two closest to the RVs got an immediate eyeful of Dee’s gaze and froze, falling limply to the ground.
The gaze of a Pliny’s gorgon stuns but doesn’t petrify. Their venom does the petrification. If she didn’t bite them, they’d be fine. Honestly, though, I expected fangs to be in their future—and I wasn’t going to intervene. Protecting the cryptid world from humanity sometimes means looking the other way when protection involves killing in self-defense.
The other three kidnappers weren’t stunned, and they knew we were there now. I aimed my gun at them and shouted, “Freeze! Hands in the air, right fucking now!”
The two men complied. The woman laughed.
“Oh, please,” she said. “We have you outnumbered. I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish, monster boy, but this isn’t going to go your way. We’re in charge—”
She stopped mid-sentence, eyes going wide, as Shelby stepped up behind her and pressed the barrel of her gun to the back of the kidnapper’s neck.
“Howdy,” said Shelby. “I don’t think we’re that outnumbered.”
With five kidnappers unaccounted for, she was technically wrong, but from the look on the woman’s face, that didn’t much matter.
“Keys,” I said. “Now.”
“I don’t think you want to do that, friend,” said the woman. “Those little monsters are pretty riled up. They’re likely to strike first and consider their targets later.”
“Alex.” Dee’s voice was rich with horror. I risked a glance in her direction. She held up a small, curved object, her snakes writhing and hissing wildly, sometimes striking out at the air. I blinked, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Then I recognized it, and the fact that I didn’t immediately whip around and shoot the woman who’d been speaking was a testimony to the strength of my self-control.
“You pulled their fangs,” I said, voice soft and low.
“Only two of them,” she said. “Most of our buyers want the merchandise intact. Still, you have to show who’s in control.”
“True enough,” said Shelby flatly, and pulled back, striking the woman across the base of the skull with the butt of her gun. The woman yelped and staggered forward but didn’t fall. Shelby pouted. “Aw. That always works in the movies.”
“You crazy bi—” the woman began. Her words dissolved into a groan of pain when Shelby dug the muzzle of her gun into the back of her head again, right in the bruised spot.
“Language,” said Shelby primly. “I believe you were about to give him the key.”
“You’re making a mistake,” said one of the men. “Whatever these monsters are paying you, we can double it. Triple it, even.”
“Sorry, but I’m not in the mood to profit from the exploitation of children,” I said. “My mother would never forgive me.”
“Please,” said the other man—Carl. “We haven’t done anything yet.”
“You scared them, and you pulled their fangs, and you call us monsters?” Dee sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “Get the keys, Alex. I want to go home.”
“Wait,” said the woman. “Alex? Alex Price. What the fuck, man? I thought your people were on humanity’s side.”
“We’re conservationists,” I said. “The human race is currently of least concern. Now give me the keys, before I make you extinct.”
Glaring, she dug the keys out of her pocket and threw them on the ground. Before I could move toward them, Sarah stepped daintily around the bush, retrieved them, and walked toward Dee. All three kidnappers watched her go, looking confused.
“Do you see a woman or is it just me?” asked Carl.
“Sorry,” said Sarah. “I’m leaking a little.”
“It’s all right,” I said.
Sarah walked past Dee and stopped, tilting her head.
“Oh,” she said. “I found your other kidnappers.”
The woman laughed. Shelby hit her again, harder this time, and she fell. I trained my gun on one of the two remaining men, while Shelby switched her focus to the other. There was a click from behind me, as someone prepared to fire.
“I don’t know why you people thought this was a good idea, but I think you’re about to sing a different song,” said a man.
“Sure,” I said. “Dee?”
“I’m okay.”
“An adult female will fetch a pretty good price,” said the man. “For that, we’ll go ahead and kill you quick.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “How many of us are there? Right now, how many do you count?”
“Three,” said the man, and paused. “Three?”
“About what I thought.” Cuckoos are ambush predators. Psychic ambush predators. When
they don’t want to be seen—when they feel like they’re in danger—they aren’t seen, period. Even Sarah, with her bruised edges and her uncertainty, could manage the traditional cuckoo trick of disappearing in plain sight.
There was a sharp snapping sound from one of the RVs, like a padlock being opened. It was followed by the sound of a padlock dropping to the ground. A swarm of underage gorgons erupted from the RV, falling on the kidnappers like the wrath of Medusa herself. A few shots were fired, but they all happened as the men were falling, their guns pointed at the air.
I didn’t have much time to waste. I advanced on the two remaining kidnappers, both of whom looked like they were about to wet themselves, and demanded, “How did you know about this place? How?”
“Angie!” gasped Carl. “She grew up around here, she’d heard rumors, and then that cockatrice got caught down by Cleveland, and we started looking! Mister, I don’t know who you are, and I wouldn’t tell anyone if I did, please, you have to save us, please, we didn’t do anything, we didn’t—”
“You pulled their fangs,” I said softly and stepped to the side as the wave of immature gorgons descended.
It didn’t take long for things to be over. Not after that.
* * *
Ten strange statues and three empty RVs were left to rot in the clearing. Maybe someone would find them and scavenge them for parts before they’d been totally destroyed by the weather. Maybe not. Either way, the gorgons wanted nothing to do with them. Their use had tainted them, and only time would purify that taint.
I did stop long enough to retrieve my anti-telepathy charm from the bush where it was hanging. Those things are expensive. Then I rejoined the others, as we led the children and carried the unhatched eggs back where they belonged. Home.
The two children whose fangs had been pulled were among the older abductees. Both of them had lost their baby fangs the year before. The damage, now that it was done, was forever.
“We don’t need our fangs the way we used to,” said Dee, watching as Frank tried to console the weeping parents. As the community’s doctor, he was the only one who fully understood the medical consequences. “We don’t hunt for our food. We cook it in kitchens like civilized people. Live prey is a treat, and mostly reserved for our snakes.”
“I hear a ‘but’ there,” I said.
“But they’ll need to have their venom sacs expressed manually for the rest of their lives if they don’t want them to become engorged and infected. This could make it harder for them to marry outside the colony. Not many people want spouses who can’t defend themselves.” Dee shook her head. “I know, I know, it’s primitive and unfair and unreasonable, but we’re dying out. We can’t afford to take risks with our children.”
“I know.” Putting human values on cryptids is never fair. They have to live by the rules we set for them, however unintentionally, when we hunted them to the cusp of extinction. “The kidnappers are dead. Any buyers they might have had won’t know where the colony is, because that’s not how you keep your prices up. You can breathe, and shore up your defenses, and take care of your kids.”
“And for this, we thank you,” said Hannah.
I stiffened. “Okay, I don’t know how you snuck up on me, but I’m impressed.”
I turned. The community matriarch was standing behind me, an amused smile on her lips. It softened her. Made her look less terrifying.
“My apologies,” she said. “I wanted to express my appreciation for your efforts. They won’t be forgotten.”
“I know.” Shelby and Sarah were a short distance away, Shelby kneeling as she listened to a small child speak at length, Sarah watching. She didn’t seem to have been traumatized by the day’s events, thankfully. I suppose the proof would be in her nightmares, or the lack thereof. “I’m going to take my people and head home, if you don’t mind. It’s been a long day, and it’s going to get dark soon.”
“Of course,” said Hannah. “And if ever you need anything …”
“We didn’t come here looking for favors,” I said. “We came here because Dee asked, and because we were needed. Just, please, try to remember that we’re not your enemies. All right?”
Hannah nodded.
I waved to Dee and started for the car, motioning for Shelby and Sarah to follow. Shelby straightened, chucked the child on the chin, and trotted after me. Sarah came more slowly, but she came; that was really all that mattered.
“Well,” said Shelby, once she was seated in the front passenger seat, her belt fastened, and her weapons all safely concealed. “That went better than I’d been expecting. No one we cared about died.”
“Ten humans died,” said Sarah.
“Ten poachers died,” said Shelby. “Sometimes what you do matters more than who you are. Those people gave up their right to live as soon as they laid hands on a child.”
“This calls for a celebration,” I said, starting the car. “I’ll drop you off at home and go pick up the makings for a batch of mudslides. I can make yours with ketchup instead of chocolate sauce, Sarah.”
“Thank you, but Shelby can’t have any,” said Sarah.
I blinked. “What? Shelby can have whatever she wants.”
“Oh, damn.” Shelby closed her eyes and leaned her head back until it was resting against the seat. “I didn’t get my telepathy blocker back from Dee, did I?”
“No, you didn’t,” said Sarah. “I’m sorry.”
“Try to stay out of my head, will you, sweetheart? I need to talk to Alex when we get home, and I’d rather you didn’t muddy the waters on me.”
“Sorry,” said Sarah again, meekly.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
I squinted at her. “Shelby … ?”
“When we get home, Alex, all right? I just want to wait until we get home.”
“All right,” I said, and tried to focus on the road. It wasn’t easy. I understand secrets—they’re a necessary part of staying alive—but I don’t like them between members of my family, and Shelby was absolutely a member of my family. We weren’t married yet, but all that was going to do was make it legal. We were family in every way that counts.
Family. I paused, giving her a sidelong look as certain events of the last few days began taking on a whole new focus. Then I hit the gas a little harder. I wasn’t going to risk a speeding ticket, but I was going to get us home as fast as I could. We needed to talk.
The driveway was, once again, empty. I said a silent prayer of thanks to whatever was keeping my grandparents out of the house as I pulled in and killed the engine.
Sarah waited until we were inside before announcing, “I have a headache, and I need to cry. I’ll be in my room. Please don’t knock unless the house is on fire.” Then she climbed the stairs, not looking back.
Shelby glanced at me, twisting her hands anxiously in front of herself. “So,” she said.
“So,” I echoed. “Bedroom?”
“Please.”
We climbed the stairs together, shrouded in awkward silence. Shelby went in first. I followed, closed the door, and said, in a loud, clear voice, “I will allow one representative of the faith to remain, in silence, to hear what is said. I invoke the Holy Ritual of Mouse, Alice Loves You, But I Will Gladly Ward You From My Sleeping Quarters If You Try Me. Am I heard?”
“Heard and Obeyed!” squeaked several voices, from several corners of the room. The proclamation was followed by a skittering sound.
I counted silently to ten before turning my attention to Shelby, who was waiting patiently, if not happily. “Okay,” I said. “How long have you known you were pregnant?”
Shelby blinked. “I—” she began, and caught herself, shaking her head. “No. I won’t do that. How did you figure it out?”
“No coffee, no alcohol, you were sick earlier in the week, but I didn’t catch it, which means it was probably hormonal, and the way you shut Sarah down once you realized she’d been reading your mind. How long?”
“T
ook the test yesterday; suspected for about a week,” she said. “I was planning to tell you today, since we’re both home, but then, well …”
“Kidnapping took priority,” I said. “I’m kind of glad I didn’t know. I’m not sure I would have been quite so happy to have you around that many gorgons if I’d known that you were, well …”
I trailed off as Shelby glared at me.
“Alexander Healy, if you think for one second that my being pregnant means I’m going to let you bench me—” she began.
“Are you kidding?” I asked. “I was nearly born in the middle of a manticore breeding pit. I know better than to try to make you stay home. But I also know myself, and I’m going to have to swallow a lot of ‘please, don’t die’ reactions. Honestly, though, you wouldn’t be you if you weren’t demanding to come with me into the field, and since I fell in love with you, I’d rather you didn’t change. That doesn’t mean I won’t twitch.”
Shelby nodded, glare fading into open, earnest anxiousness. “I know we didn’t plan for this,” she said. “We’ve barely talked about it. I’m not even sure you want children.”
“Sweetheart.” I took a step toward her, offering my hands. After a moment’s hesitation, she took them. I smiled. “I want children. I want children with you. I want this child, with you, more than I can possibly say, especially since I think I’m about to run out of words. Also, I want to tell my parents the second you’re comfortable with it, because otherwise, they’re going to find out from the mice.”
“From the mice?” Shelby laughed. “How?”
“The mice have email,” I said darkly.
She stopped laughing. She kissed me instead, and that was about as perfect a conclusion to the day’s events as I could think of, so I kissed her back as the mice drummed in the distance, and everything was right with the world.
Price Family Field Guide to the Cryptids of North America
Updated and Expanded Edition
Aeslin mice (Apodemus sapiens). Sapient, rodentlike cryptids which present as near-identical to non-cryptid field mice. Aeslin mice crave religion, and will attach themselves to “divine figures” selected virtually at random when a new colony is created. They possess perfect recall; each colony maintains a detailed oral history going back to its inception. Origins unknown.
That Ain't Witchcraft (InCryptid #8) Page 41
