I shook my head, clearing away the cobwebs, and lifted my phone again. This time, I dialed the Freakshow office. Kitty picked up, with a sultry, “You’ve reached the Freakshow, how may we fulfill your midway fantasies today?”
“Okay, you have got to stop answering the phone like that. You sound like you’re running a bordello, not a perfectly respectable titty bar.”
“Sometimes people can’t tell the difference, and it helps bring in business,” said Kitty, dropping the artificial seduction as quickly as she’d put it on. She was all business now. “What’s the news, Verity?”
“I won’t be coming to work tomorrow.”
“I didn’t expect you.”
“Neither will Istas.” Istas wasn’t aware of it yet, but with as many noncombatants as we now had at the Nest, either she or Ryan would need to be there at all times. It was a security measure. “She’s staying with me.”
“That’s fine. Let her know that she’ll be getting paid regardless, since you wouldn’t be keeping her away if you didn’t really need her. Anything else?”
“There are three Covenant operatives in town.” I sketched out their descriptions and provided their names, adding, “Dominic may be traveling with them. I think he’s still on our side, but it’s hard to be certain, and there’s evidence both ways. Watch for anybody seen in his company. He doesn’t know where I am, and we’re keeping it that way. The new Covenant folks have telepathy blockers that may work on other forms of psychic ability and confusion charms. Keep them away from the hidebehinds if you possibly can.”
“Honey, I’m keeping the Covenant of St. George away from everyone if I possibly can.”
“That’s a good approach. I’ll keep you posted to the best of my ability. Things are about to get pretty messy around here, and I’m not sure how much time I’m going to have.”
Kitty sighed. “Verity, you’ve done more than anyone could ask you to. This isn’t your fight.”
I looked around the perfectly domestic little apartment where, once, three siblings sat and dreamed of a new life, one that involved owning a dessert café of their very own. Below me, the two who survived would be shutting things down, getting ready to abandon their dream—even if temporarily—for the sake of their lives. They shouldn’t have had to do that. No one should have to do that.
Dreams mattered. I shook my head, even knowing that Kitty couldn’t see it. “No,” I said. “This has always been my fight. This is everyone’s fight.”
“Fine, then,” said Kitty. “What do we do now?”
I smiled into the darkness. It felt good. “We win.”
Fifteen
“I ain’t sorry. You got that? I have never regretted a single minute of my life, and I ain’t sorry.”
—Frances Brown
Back in the Meatpacking District (still nicer than it sounds), in an increasingly full converted warehouse
IT TOOK US almost two hours to get back to the Nest, thanks to Uncle Mike’s evasive driving techniques, which included a trip through the Lincoln Tunnel. I spent most of the drive watching the mirrors for signs of pursuit. They never came.
Sunil and Rochak goggled shamelessly as we entered the Nest. Each of them had a suitcase, and Rochak was dragging a cooler filled with gingerbread, cookies, and jars of assorted types of sugar in both liquid and granular forms. I’d never realized there were so many kinds of natural sweetener. Watching a Madhura pack his kitchen was definitely an education.
Istas was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, carefully stitching lace around the edge of one of her seemingly endless supply of parasols. She looked up as we approached, assessing us to see whether we presented any threat. The way her posture tensed told me she didn’t know what Sunil and Rochak were. I started walking just a little faster, putting myself between Istas and the others.
“Istas, this is Sunil and Rochak,” I said, indicating them each in turn. “They’re Madhura.”
Her expression—a mixture of wariness and blank incomprehension—didn’t change.
I tried again: “They’re cryptids, they’re harmless, and they brought cookies.”
“Why did you fail to open with the word ‘cookies’?” Istas set her sewing supplies aside and stood in a single fluid gesture. The smile she turned toward Sunil and Rochak contained a few too many teeth. “Baked goods are one of the primary accomplishments of civilization.”
“Along with . . . ?” prompted Uncle Mike. I couldn’t blame him. I’d been tempted to do the same thing.
“Waterproof mascara, conditioner, and bleach,” said Istas. She cocked her head to the side, still studying the two Madhura. “My name is Istas. I am a waheela. Do you know what a waheela is?”
“No,” said Sunil. He hesitated before adding, “Ma’am.” Always play nicely with the predators of the world—and whether or not he knew what Istas was, she was clearly a predator. Nothing else could hold so still while staring so intently.
“I am a therianthrope from the upper reaches of this continent,” Istas said, with perfect calm. “My people come from the ice and the snow and the tundra without end. I live here because I am considered a ‘human-lover,’ too soft and fond of people to be an effective hunter. Do you think I am soft?”
There was absolutely no good answer to that question. Sunil and Rochak shot me matching panicked looks. I sighed. “Istas, please play nicely. Sunil and Rochak are going to be staying with us while the Covenant is in town.”
“We bake,” said Sunil. “Constantly. And we share.”
“Hm.” Istas considered them. “I will extend my protection to you in exchange for cookies.”
“Deal,” said Rochak.
I rubbed my forehead with one hand. Between Istas and the mice, it was probably a good thing we were importing our own dedicated bakers. Probably. “Okay, guys. Any open office is available for you to use as a bedroom, and we’re going to get more inflatable mattresses. You’ve met Uncle Mike, and Ryan is—Istas, where’s Ryan?”
“He has gone to the Freakshow to collect some things, and to confirm that Kitty does not require our services.” Istas bent and picked up her parasol. Then she paused, sniffing the air. “I smell gingerbread.”
“Like I said, they brought cookies.” I gave Rochak a meaningful look.
I like smart people. He opened the cooler, grabbing one of the medium-sized bags of gingersnaps and tossing it to Istas. She caught it one-handed. It took her less than five seconds to open the bag, snatch out three cookies, and cram them into her mouth.
“Okay, that’s Istas taken care of, and you can meet Ryan when you get back. I should probably introduce you to the mice. That’ll go better if you’re willing to give up some more gingersnaps. That just leaves one more person. Hang on a second.” I cocked my head, “listening” for the telepathic static of Sarah’s presence. As soon as I started looking for it, I found it, lingering at the back of my mind like so much white noise. Sarah? I thought, as loudly as I could. Can you come to the main room for a minute? There’s someone I need you to meet.
I’ll be right there, she replied. I just need to get off the phone.
If she was on the phone, that meant she’d managed to reach Artie. That was a good thing. She’d be calmer after talking to him, and I didn’t want to introduce her to her new roommates while she was still all worked up about losing her hotel room. Sarah was funny about privacy. That telepath thing again. She liked putting space between herself and other minds, the more, the better. I made a mental note to tell Sunil and Rochak not to take the office directly next to hers.
They were frowning at me, looking confused, while Istas did her best to eat her way through the entire bag of cookies without pausing for air. I offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” I said. “My cousin is coming down to meet you. Her name’s Sarah. She’s a telepath, but she’s a very polite one, and she won’t poke around in your head without permission.”
Somehow, they didn’t look particularly reassured. Rochak put down his suit
case and coughed into his hand before indicating the cooler, and asking, “Is there someplace we can put all this? A cooler isn’t exactly ideal for long-term storage.”
“There’s a kitchen,” said Uncle Mike. “Come on, I’ll show you. There’s even some masking tape so we can label the stuff you don’t want anybody else touching.”
“Thank you,” said Rochak. He glanced to Sunil. “Will you be all right here with Verity?”
“If she were going to kill us, we’d be splattered all over the inside of the café by now, not standing in this godforsaken excuse for a refuge,” said Sunil. He sounded tired. “Go on. Make sure everything is put away. I’ll get us a room.”
“All right,” said Rochak, and followed Mike out of the room. Istas glanced between us and the cooler, and then went after the cooler, choosing the potential for more cookies over company. I couldn’t exactly say that I was surprised.
“So,” said Sunil.
“So,” I agreed. I spread a hand, indicating the slaughterhouse around us. “This is home for the duration. The dragons lived here for centuries without getting caught. It should work for us for a few weeks.”
“You really think this will be over in a few weeks?” asked Sunil dubiously.
“If it’s not, I think it’s unlikely to be my problem anymore, because I’ll be dead,” I said, and shrugged. “It’s a hazard of the job. When you decide to be the immovable object standing in front of the unstoppable force, you’d better pray that you’re right about being immovable, and they’re wrong about being unstoppable.”
“Otherwise, you’ll wind up like a bug on a windshield,” said Sarah. She sounded exhausted. I turned to see her coming down the stairs from the second floor walkway. Her hair was loose, and her feet were bare, but apart from that, she was dressed exactly as she’d been when I left to get the boys from Gingerbread Pudding. “I don’t want to be the one explaining that to your mother, you know.”
“So hopefully, you won’t be. Sarah, this is Sunil. Sunil, this is Sarah.”
“Hello,” said Sunil. His eyes were a little wide. Not unusual in men meeting my cousin for the first time—or in anyone meeting her for the first time. It’s not that she’s pretty, although she is. It’s that her cuckoo mojo goes to work with word one, trying to find a way into their heads. If Sarah wasn’t careful, she’d have him thinking that they’d been friends since childhood. Or that they were dating, or married, or who knows what else.
“Sarah . . .” I began.
She flinched a little. “Sorry. I relaxed while I was on the phone, and I just . . . sorry.” Her eyes flashed white as she clamped her shields down tighter. The telepathic static increased in volume at the same time, like keeping herself from changing the minds of people around her meant that it was harder for her to stay out of “sight.” That was good to know.
Sunil blinked and shook his head, like he was trying to clear away cobwebs. His expression changed, going from bedazzled curiosity to fear as he took a large step backward. Then he bowed deeply toward Sarah.
“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.
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