Discount Armageddon i-1

by Seanan McGuire

  The fates were with me; all my delicates were safely out of view in the laundry hamper. I breathed a sigh of relief, setting the sack of greasy goodness on the edge of the bed. Having the blankets dry cleaned would cost a lot less than doing the same for my costume rack. I sat down on one side of the sack of chicken, motioning for Dominic to sit down on the other side. Safely distanced by calories and cholesterol, Dominic sat, passing me a plate as he did. I smiled wanly.

  “So, dinner,” I said, leaning over to open the sack. “That was very sweet of you.”

  “It seemed like the least I could do, given the circumstances.” Dominic reached into the fried chicken bag, pulling out a container of mashed potatoes and setting it delicately on the bed. “I wasn’t sure what the appropriate ‘I’m sorry I took you into the sewers without proper preparation and got you beaten up by lizard-men’ gift was.”

  “Brass ammunition or an anti-incubus charm,” I said automatically. Then I paused. “Er…”

  “You really are the strangest woman I have ever met.” Dominic sounded almost admiring. “Now, will you please explain the talking rodents, and how their religious observations led to you accosting me in your front hallway? I’m still trying to decide whether or not to feel taken advantage of.”

  “They’re Aeslin mice.” I pulled the chicken bucket out of the bag, selecting a breast and a thigh before offering it to him. “Religious observations are sort of what they do.”

  “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never actually encountered them before.” Dominic glanced speculatively toward the door back to the hall. “They’re cryptids, aren’t they? Of a somewhat more diminutive variety than those we generally find ourselves opposing?”

  “I try to avoid opposing cryptids of any size, but yes, they’re a type of cryptid. A very religious-minded type of cryptid. They’ve been living with my family for generations—since before we left the Covenant.” I started peeling the skin delicately off my chicken. “One of my multiple-great-grandmothers found them, and she just couldn’t bring herself to kill them, so she brought them home.”

  “Maybe that was part of what made it so easy for your family to leave,” said Dominic. I shot him a speculative look. He shrugged. “They had already deviated from the laws.”

  “Maybe so, but … it still wasn’t easy.” I looked down at my chicken. It was easier than looking at him. “I’ve read the diaries. We all have. It was a big decision, both times that it happened. For my great-great-grandparents, and then again for my grandfather. I mean, it was hard on them. They were turning their backs on everything they’d ever known, because they’d decided there was something that mattered more than doing what they’d been taught to do. Hell, what they’d been raised to do. This wasn’t a choice they made on a whim. This was everything to them.”

  Dominic’s hand touched my knee almost tentatively. I raised my head, looking at him warily. He met my eyes, expression grave, and said, “I understand loyalties being called into question. I may not fully understand the choices they’ve made, but … I understand what could have inspired those choices.”

  “Hey. Baby steps.” I smiled a little, and took a bite of chicken. It tasted amazing, possibly because I hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days, and combat burns a lot of calories. Lucky for me, Dominic was in a similar state, or the speed with which I inhaled both pieces on my plate might have convinced him that I was some sort of cryptid. Never a good conviction to inspire in a Covenant member, unless you feel like having an ash-wood stake driven through your chest.

  “I always wondered what had caused your ancestors to throw their lives away like that,” said Dominic, attention apparently going to his chicken. He didn’t look at me as he continued, “It seemed a particularly arrogant means of committing suicide.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just waited.

  “The teachings of the Covenant are what allowed mankind to survive, once, when competition for resources was stiffer—when sometimes we were the resources in question. Without the willingness to kill, we could never have lived long enough to develop the capacity for mercy.”

  “That’s probably true,” I allowed. “I think we have that capacity now, though.”

  “Do we?” Dominic looked at me. “Sometimes I wonder.”

  “Maybe wondering is enough.”

  “Maybe so.”

  We ate in silence for a few minutes after that, broken only when I asked him to pass a biscuit. Finally, Dominic set his plate (with its associated chicken-bone graveyard) aside, touching my knee with the fingers of one hand. He was less tentative this time.

  “You kissed me once to prove a point,” he said. “Then you kissed me again to honor a rodent religious ritual.”

  “It was the only way to make them stop celebrating,” I protested.

  “Indeed.” Looking at me thoughtfully, he asked, “What would it take to get you to kiss me a third time, do you think?”

  My heart didn’t literally stop, but for a moment, it sure as hell felt like it had. I coughed a little, getting my cardiac rhythm back on track, and managed to say, “Well, I guess you kissing me once might be a decent way to start.”

  “And after that?”

  “Well, after that, I’d say the odds of my kissing you again would go way, way up.” Suddenly, the brown paper sack didn’t seem like nearly enough of a barrier between us. In medieval times, unmarried couples had to sleep with a sword between them to make sure they wouldn’t get up to any funny business. About half of me wished I’d followed their example. The other half was joining the mice in cheering wildly. I gasped. “Oh, God, the mice!”

  “What—?” Dominic stared after me, bewildered, as I grabbed the sack, jumped to my feet, and ran to the bedroom door.

  “Bedroom privileges have been revoked for the remainder of the evening!” I shouted, chucking the chicken bag into the middle of the hallway, where it was immediately besieged on all sides by tiny, furry bodies. “I invoke the Sacred Law of Food for Privacy! Feast, and leave me alone!”

  I slammed the door just in time to mute the cheering. Turning back to Dominic, I asked, “So, what were we talking about again?”

  “I believe we had just reached the point of deciding that it was my move,” he said, and stood, taking two long steps forward to my position. Cupping his hands around the sides of my face, he tilted my head up toward him, bent forward, and kissed me soundly.

  Sixteen

  “Something about those Covenant boys—mmm. Maybe it’s the trousers. Takes a certain class of man to carry off trousers cut to hide that many weapons, and I always find myself lost in thoughts of getting those trousers off them.”

  –Enid Healy

  The mouse-free bedroom of a semilegal sublet in Greenwich Village

  IF I’D THOUGHT DOMINIC’S kisses in the alley were urgent, they were nothing compared to the five-alarm fire motivating him now. He kissed me like all the oxygen was running out of the room, and the only way for either of us to survive was to learn how to manage on a single person’s breath. I wasn’t worried about him hurting me—with my training, that sort of concern is generally oriented in the other direction—but the knowledge that he was one of the few men I’d ever met who could take me in a fight was enough to make my knees go weak. I matched his five-alarm fire with one of my own, feeling the answering tension in his wrists as he tugged me closer to him.

  When he dropped his hands from my face and pulled his own face away, it was like he’d just announced that they were canceling Christmas. My eyes, which I didn’t remember closing, flew open, and I gave him a disappointed look, asking, “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Did you—God, woman.” He laughed, mumbling something in Italian. It sounded like it was directed at himself, so I decided not to take offense; I just kept making puppy-dog eyes at him, waiting for him to tell me what was wrong. “You are the most insane, insufferable, infuriating excuse for a female that I have ever met.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, blinking. “You
knew that before you brought me chicken. Are you mad that I gave your chicken to the mice? Do I need to get more chicken before you’ll start kissing me again? Because I can go and buy more chicken if you’ll just promise to wait he—” He cut my protests off with another kiss. I’ve never much cared for being interrupted, but if all the interruptions were going to be of this caliber, I could probably learn to live with it.

  Since Dominic’s hands weren’t setting the terms of our dance anymore, I stepped closer, leaving no space for air between us as I pressed myself against his chest. His arms went around my waist, reeling me in, and I gladly let my heels leave the floor. This kiss wasn’t as urgent. It didn’t need to be. It went on and on, until I began to wonder if it was possible to spontaneously combust just from kissing.

  Dominic turned his head abruptly to the side, but didn’t let me go. “This is … I shouldn’t be…”

  “Oh, you should.” I nodded vigorously, sliding my hands down the planes of his shoulders, feeling the interplay of the muscles there. He was muscled almost like a dancer, all long, hard sinew and corded strength. A lifetime of training to fight for your life will do wonders for the physique. “You really, really should. It’s actually recommended for solo Covenant agents on their first trip to North America. See the sights, stalk the locals, sleep with a Price girl.”

  “You infuriating creature,” he breathed, somehow turning the words into something verging on an endearment. He turned back to face me, letting me see the barely-restrained hunger in his dark brown eyes. He was looking at me the way the mice look at cake on a feasting day; like devouring me wouldn’t just be a pleasure, it would be a holy ritual. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

  “I do,” I said, and leaned forward to place a kiss on his chin before he had the chance to pull away. “I am an adult, and you are an adult, and I am doing my damnedest to seduce you right now, or to convince you that it’s worth the trouble of seducing me. Dealer’s choice. Just don’t tease me.”

  He barked a short, sharp laugh. “Tease you? Me, tease you? I’m not the one who runs across this city’s rooftops wearing a skirt barely deserving of the name, or fights like it was some sort of ballet routine.”

  “My grand jeté kills ’em back on the farm,” I said solemnly. Then he was kissing me again, arms pulling me into his chest until there really wasn’t any room between us, not for hesitation, not for anything. The pressure of my thigh holster digging into my skin was just a delicious reminder of how close we really were, how close I was to feeling his body moving naked against mine, and, oh, God, if the Covenant taught all their field agents to kiss like this, it was a wonder they ever made it from the bedroom to the battlefield in the first place.

  Dominic gave a small growl of frustration as he realized that he couldn’t possibly get me any closer to him. Not changing his grip on my waist at all, he lifted me off the ground, turning toward the bed. A lifetime spent learning how to negotiate difficult lifts with a partner made my next motion automatic, as I brought my legs up and wrapped them around his waist, eking out another half inch of closeness even as he was turning us toward the bed. Through the haze of rising hormones and distractingly searing kisses, the small part of my brain that was still on duty managed to identify two throwing knives and a strapped-on vial of what was probably more holy water. That just made me kiss him with more fervency. There’s nothing in this world sexier than a man who comes prepared.

  Rather than attempt to loosen my limpet-like hold, Dominic sat down on the bed’s edge, hands starting to explore the unfamiliar territory of my body. It only took him a moment to get my shirt worked loose from the waistband of my jeans, and then his fingers were underneath it, running up my sides and sending shivers through my entire body. I broke off our kiss and unclasped my arms from his shoulders long enough for him to pull my shirt off over my head. Then I leaned back and watched him, waiting. He’d already seen me mostly naked, after the tango competition he so rudely disrupted. But this, here, with me wrapped tight around him and his breath coming in short, hard gasps … this was different. I knew his body wanted this as badly as mine did; even if he’d wanted to lie, my position, settled firmly in his lap, would have made that impossible. I just wanted him to have one last chance to change his mind.

  Eyes solemn, Dominic touched my collarbone with the tips of his fingers, watching as my back arched involuntarily. His eyes remained on my face as his fingers glided down, over the top of my left breast, along the shallow divide of my breastbone to my stomach. They brushed across my navel, finally coming to rest at the waistband of my jeans.

  “I am assuming,” he said, words tight, like he was almost out of breath, “that this is you giving me one last opportunity to come to my senses?”

  I didn’t trust myself to speak. I just nodded, my hands still lowered, trying not to move too much. In his position—in my position—that wouldn’t have been fair.

  Dominic smiled, the expression lighting up his entire face. “You foolish creature,” he breathed. “I have gone well past the point of such an easy escape.” And then his arms were around me again, and my arms around him, and we were falling, but that didn’t matter: the bed was there to catch us as our hands began the fevered, frantic removal of clothing, weaponry, and barriers. We were on different sides of this war. One of us might have to die before this ended. But in that moment, with him whispering in Italian in my ear and my every nerve on fire, there were no more boundaries between us.

  * * *

  The intoxicatingly mingled scents of sex and sweat perfumed the bedroom air, making me want to fight an army, dance a tango, and take a long nap, not necessarily in that order. Clothing and weapons littered the floor around the bed, making it look like we’d already fought an army. If we had, I wasn’t entirely sure which one of us had won.

  Dominic lay on his back, breath still a little uneven. I was stretched out at a slight diagonal, so that I could pillow my head against his chest while still dangling my feet off the edge of the bed. Rotating my ankles while I reclined helped to keep them from stiffening up, especially after the day I’d had. I’d have to rewrap them before I left the apartment again.

  Lizard-men, rooftop marathons, overemotional dragon princesses, and to cap it all off, sheet-scorching sex with a member of the Covenant of St. George. This was going to be a fun one to try writing up for the family record. Maybe I could file it under “diplomatic relations” or something…

  “So,” I said finally. “Did you come over for a reason? Beyond the delivery of dinner and ravishment?”

  “Insufferable,” said Dominic. This sounded even more like an endearment than “infuriating” had. “I was coming to let you know that I checked what records I can access without drawing too much attention, and there was nothing definitive on the nature of the creatures that attacked us. Rumors and legends of manlike reptiles, but nothing coherent.”

  “Oh, Hells!” I sat bolt upright, heedless of the fact that I was clothed in nothing but the sheet—and, by the time I finished sitting up, not even that. “I got so wrapped up in the Holy Feast and the chicken dinner and the … well, and everything, I didn’t get around to telling you. I know what they were. Are. I know what the things that attacked us in the sewer are, and there are going to be more of them if we don’t find out who’s messing with the dragon.”

  Dominic pushed himself onto his elbows, eyeing me with a mixture of surprise and irritation. “You didn’t think to say this before? What are they? Why are there going to be more? Are they breeding down there?”

  “I was distracted! You’re extremely distracting.” The sight of him shirtless in my borrowed bed was enough to start distracting me all over again. The desire to throw myself at him and beg him to have his way with me a few more times before we had to worry about the dragon wasn’t really a surprise, but it was definitely inconvenient. “Anyway, I spoke to a representative from the local Nest of dragon princesses.” Catching the shift in his expression, I hastened to add
, “She wasn’t aware that there was even a chance that there might be a living dragon around here. She was honestly surprised when I brought it up, and I don’t think she’s a good enough actress to fake something like that. I’m a performer. We know how to judge our own kind.”

  The brief darkness cleared from Dominic’s eyes, and he nodded, saying crisply, “Proceed.”

  “So you know, the military precision thing, really not nearly as effective when you’re starkers. Anyway, I told her about the lizard-men in the sewer and she flipped out, big-time. She says they’re called ‘servitors.’ They exist to serve the dragon—or, if the dragon isn’t in a position to be giving orders, say, because it’s still in the middle of nap hour, to serve whoever’s giving them the clearest instructions. They’re not very smart, but they take directions real well.”

  Dominic frowned, a line appearing in the center of his forehead. I had to fight off the urge to lean over and kiss it away. Bad Verity. No Covenant hottie for you. “Why don’t we have any clear records on these ‘servitors’? You’d think we’d at least have something on them.” The unspoken “even if you don’t” hung between us for a moment before he turned his face away, looking faintly ashamed.

  I cleared my throat to break the sudden tension, and asked, “What do your records say about the dragon princesses?”

  “They’re inconsequential; as harmless as any cryptid can be. They look human, from the outside, although their anatomy reveals certain … inconsistencies … if examined in detail.” He didn’t look back at me as he spoke. He probably had a good idea of my reaction to the idea of cutting up something he’d just admitted was harmless to see how it worked. “They may have served as bait for the dragons, once. It was never conclusively proven, one way or the other.”