Calculated Risks

by Seanan McGuire

  “Pretty cool, huh?” The nearest vendor was one I recognized from the smaller Portland cons, selling socks in a variety of nerd colorways. Blue-and-white stripes doesn’t mean “geek” the way a Storm Trooper outfit does, but anyone inside the community would easily identify it as a nod to the TARDIS.

  “This is ridiculous,” she declared, spreading her arms. “How is there so much? How are we supposed to find one person we don’t know how to identify when there’s so much?”

  “Age of the geek,” I said, and plunged in.

  * * *

  An hour later, I was starting to understand her point of view.

  Two hours later, I was starting to share it.

  Sirens can have any hair color found in humans, as well as green, blue, purple, and a variety of shocking oranges and yellows. Thanks to the rise of fashion colors and dyes that don’t damage the cuticle, humans can have all those hair colors, too, and while the eyelashes and eyebrows would betray someone whose natural hair color was aquamarine or electric orange or the like, getting close enough to check people’s nose hairs wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Still, we kept pushing onward, moving methodically through the space, stopping at every vendor to peer at their wares as a cover for seeking our siren.

  Two hours had been long enough to bring the skybridge into view. That was good. It was also long enough that some of the booths had started to rotate through their staff, letting people go on well-deserved breaks rather than forcing them to stay on duty forever. That was bad. If we walked this whole show floor only to miss our siren by five minutes, I was going to be . . .

  Well. I was going to be blissfully unaware. But if I ever found out, I was going to be pissed.

  “My feet hurt,” said Verity.

  “Not my problem.”

  “It will be if I get blisters and start bleeding.”

  “Cry me a river. The rest of us wore shoes that didn’t chew holes in our feet.”

  Verity huffed. I looked at her and shrugged.

  “I told you to wear comfortable footwear,” I said, and kept moving.

  Maybe I was hitting the point of petty and a little bit mean, but I was also exhausted, and she was the one who’d insisted on infiltrating my first real shot at field work. This wasn’t my fault. This wasn’t—

  The soft hum of “there is a telepath nearby” got suddenly louder, followed by the sound of Sarah’s mental voice declaring, Artie just tried to grab a girl, I think you need to get over here, accompanied by the image of one of the lane identification signs.

  I glanced at Verity. “Did you get that?”

  She nodded grimly.

  “Can you run in those shoes?”

  She nodded again.

  We started moving. Not quite at a run, which could have gotten us booted from the show floor by con security, but at a solid power walk. Verity’s heels announced our presence and somehow the sound, sharp and steady, was enough to clear us a reasonably wide path through the crowd. I guess there are benefits to being Ballroom Barbie after all. A few people turned to watch us as we passed, but most just seemed to assume that we were paid cosplayers with someplace to be, and let us go.

  The show floor, despite being huge, was clearly labeled, with each aisle marked by a hanging banner that told us exactly where we were. The number Sarah had flashed us was toward the back of the hall, and matched up with the direction of her ongoing telepathic signal. We rushed in that direction.

  What came into view was a large secondhand toy vendor, one who seemed devoted to the idea that they could replicate the cramped, claustrophobic vintage shop experience by creating a maze of wire shelves held together with zip ties. It looked like a surprisingly structurally sound place to buy thirdhand Transformers and restored My Little Ponies, and far less hygienic than eBay. Probably more expensive, too. Normally, I’m all about buying local when I can, but it’s hard to extend that philosophy to people who want to charge twenty dollars for a vintage Care Bear.

  Sarah was standing on the other side of the aisle, eyes blazing, holding onto Artie’s arm as he glared daggers at the booth. Good. We had our target, then, and that meant we were almost done with the work part of this trip.

  “Hey,” I greeted, once we were close enough not to need to shout. “What’s good?”

  Sarah nodded toward the booth. I followed the direction of the gesture. There were two staffers on duty, their vendor badges clearly distinguishing them from the largely disinterested day one shoppers. When you’re on a fixed budget, you wait until later in the weekend to spend it.

  One of the staffers was male, brown hair, brown beard. Being male didn’t mean he wasn’t our siren—it’s a gender-neutral term—but the beard did. Dyed beards are always obvious, and his was natural. The other was a young woman, maybe my age, with vibrantly turquoise hair.

  Jackpot.

  I waited until the two of them had some distance between them, then made my way over to the booth and positioned myself in front of her. She started to smile. “Hello, and welcome to Time’s Treasures,” she said, clearly a practiced sales pitch.

  “Hi,” I said cheerfully. “So hey, did you drown all those people on purpose, or are you still not very good at controlling yourself?”

  Subtle is for other people.

  The siren’s eyes went wide, even as her skin went pale and I heard the clack of Verity positioning herself behind me.

  Subtle is for other people, but even when faced with my specific brand of blunt-force trauma, some people still try to bluff. “I don’t know—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the siren.

  “Yes, you do,” said Sarah, joining Verity at my back.

  The siren looked at her and screamed.

  It was a panicked, piercing sound, and heads turned all around us. A few people started to move toward the booth. I leaned forward, smiling so as to show every tooth in my head. I have good teeth. Genetics plus early dental care plus fluoride in the water has left me with dentition designed to rip out throats.

  “Stop screaming and play it off as a laugh,” I said, voice low. “Yes, she’s a cuckoo. She’s with us. I think you’re one of the last people in this building who should be attracting attention right now, don’t you?”

  The siren stopped screaming. Her laugh was obviously forced, but it was better than nothing. The people who’d been approaching stopped, looking puzzled, before they shook their heads and turned away. So she hadn’t been startled enough by the sudden appearance of a cuckoo to avoid putting a hint of compulsion in her scream. I did wonder why I hadn’t heard it.

  My family has always been oddly resistant to compulsion, whether it be cuckoos rewriting the world or Lilu forcing attraction. That resistance was part of what originally attracted my Uncle Ted to my Aunt Jane, who was the first woman he’d met in a long time who didn’t throw herself at him, sighing, the moment he walked into a room. Sometimes, a little resistance can go a long way.

  “Who are you?” asked the siren, eyeing me.

  “My name is less important than why I’m here,” I replied. “You’ve been killing people at these shows. Did you do it on purpose?”

  “You should hear the things they say about girls like me.” She looked past me, presumably to Verity. “Girls like us. When they think we can’t hear them, they go to these dark, disgusting places, and they stay there.”

  “Being a creepy fucker doesn’t justify drowning someone. I kinda wish it did sometimes, but it doesn’t. Believe me, I can relate,” said Sarah. “The things people think about me make me want to wash until the skin comes off. That doesn’t mean I do it. And it doesn’t mean I drown anyone.”

  The siren looked at her with narrowed eyes, and then back to me. “You’re hanging out with a cuckoo and—and that’s your Lilu over there, isn’t it? And you don’t look even a little worried. You’re Prices, aren’t you?”

 
Sometimes name recognition is annoying. Verity took it in stride, sliding into the gap in the conversation with a blunt, “So what if we are? You’re hunting on our turf.”

  “I’m working,” snapped the siren. “Not all of us are lucky enough to be the cryptozoological equivalent of the Hiltons. Some of us have to hold down jobs, and I’d like you to let me do mine.”

  “Ours is getting you to stop drowning people. One way or another.” I managed to make that not sound entirely like a threat, even though it sort of was.

  The siren frowned at me. “Make them stop being gross.”

  “Being gross is not punishable with murder,” I said. Sirens aren’t sarcophages like ghouls, or even predators like waheela. She could live a long and happy life without killing anyone else.

  “Says you,” said the siren.

  “Not a good road to start down,” said Sarah. “Since some of us think murdering people is pretty gross.”

  Since the siren seemed to be deep in conversation with potential customers, her coworker only glanced at us occasionally, otherwise focusing on smiling and trying to attract people to the booth. She looked at him and sighed.

  “I can promise not to tell anyone to go and jump in the ocean today,” she said.

  “Great,” I said. “Meet us in the Hilton lobby at six.”

  She looked perplexed. I smiled and shrugged.

  “We’re having dinner.”

  * * *

  We crashed back into our hotel room like a very small, very tired invading army. I made straight for the couch, collapsing across it. Artie was right behind me. Verity paused to kick her shoes off and rub her poor, abused feet one-handed, looking annoyed.

  Only Sarah didn’t immediately collapse. She beamed, bouncing on her toes in excitement. “It worked!” she squeaked. “We played dowsing rod and we found the siren and no one bothered Artie, and it worked!”

  Artie lifted his head and shot her a weary smile. “It did. It definitely worked.”

  “And tomorrow, we can do it again! But longer!”

  Even I groaned at that, fumbling until I found a throw pillow to throw at her. It hit her in the chest, bouncing off harmlessly. Sarah blinked.

  “What did I say?”

  Verity staggered, barefoot, over to join us on the couch. “How is shopping this exhausting?” she demanded.

  “Nerds are hardcore,” said Artie, letting his head flop back against the pillows.

  Verity nudged me with her elbow. “You really think just talking to a siren will make her stop?”

  “We may have to push a little,” I admitted. “But if she’s been lashing out because she felt threatened by dudes being creepy, there are things that can be done. We can give her other options.”

  Verity nodded thoughtfully. If the siren wasn’t actively malicious, killing her wasn’t on the table; yes, she was a killer, but she was also a member of an endangered species. If we could make her stop, that was better than reducing the gene pool any more than it had already been reduced. It was terrible math, incredibly unkind to the families of the men she’d convinced to drown themselves.

  It was also a form of paying restitution to the sirens for all their own who had died at Covenant hands, and never threatened anyone. Sometimes there weren’t cheap or easy answers.

  “Verity.” I nudged her with my knee. “Very. You need to go put pants on before dinner.”

  She grunted and levered herself off the couch, staggering off toward her room.

  “And wear better shoes!” I called.

  She flipped me off and kept walking.

  “Come on, you two.” I poked Artie. “Let’s go deal with our siren. This way we can enjoy the next three days of the convention.”

  On the table, the mice cheered.

  Sarah hit me with a pillow.

  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.

  Basilisk (Procompsognathus basilisk). Venomous, feathered saurians approximately the size of a large chicken. This would be bad enough, but thanks to a quirk of evolution, the gaze of a basilisk causes petrification, turning living flesh to stone. Basilisks are not native to North America, but were imported as game animals. By idiots.

  Bogeyman (Vestiarium sapiens). The thing in your closet is probably a very pleasant individual who simply has issues with direct sunlight. Probably. Bogeymen are close relatives of the human race; they just happen to be almost purely nocturnal, with excellent night vision, and a fondness for enclosed spaces. They rarely grab the ankles of small children, unless it’s funny.

  Chupacabra (Chupacabra sapiens). True to folklore, chupacabra are blood-suckers, with stomachs that do not handle solids well. They are also therianthrope shapeshifters, capable of transforming themselves into human form, which explains why they have never been captured. When cornered, most chupacabra will assume their bipedal shape in self-defense. A surprising number of chupacabra are involved in ballroom dance.

  Dragon (Draconem sapiens). Dragons are essentially winged, fire-breathing dinosaurs the size of Greyhound buses. At least, the males are. The females are attractive humanoids who can blend seamlessly in a crowd of supermodels, and outnumber the males twenty to one. Females are capable of parthenogenic reproduction and can sustain their population for centuries without outside help. All dragons, male and female, require gold to live, and collect it constantly.

  Ghoul (Herophilus sapiens). The ghoul is an obligate carnivore, incapable of digesting any but the simplest vegetable solids, and prefers humans because of their wide selection of dietary nutrients. Most ghouls are carrion eaters. Ghouls can be easily identified by their teeth, which will be shed and replaced repeatedly over the course of a lifetime.

  Hidebehind (Aphanes apokryphos). We don’t really know much about the hidebehinds: no one’s ever seen them. They’re excellent illusionists, and we think they’re bipeds, which means they’re probably mammals. Probably.

  Jackalope (Parcervus antelope). Essentially large jackrabbits with antelope antlers, the jackalope is a staple of the American West, and stuffed examples can be found in junk shops and kitschy restaurants all across the country. Most of the taxidermy is fake. Some, however, is not. The jackalope was once extremely common, and has been shot, stuffed, and harried to near-extinction. They’re relatively harmless, and they taste great.

  Johrlac (Johrlac psychidolos). Colloquially known as “cuckoos,” the Johrlac are telepathic ambush predators. They appear human, but are internally very different, being cold-blooded and possessing a decentralized circulatory system. This quirk of biology means they can be shot repeatedly in the chest without being killed. Extremely dangerous. All Johrlac are interested in mathematics, sometimes to the point of obsession. Origins unknown; possibly insect in nature.

  Laidly worm (Draconem laidly). Very little is known about these close relatives of the dragons. They present similar but presumably not identical sexual dimorphism; no currently living males have been located.

  Lamia (Python lamia). Semi-hominid cryptids with the upper bodies of humans and the lower bodies of snakes. Lamia are members of order synapsedia, the mammal-like reptiles, and are considered responsible for many of the “great snake” sightings of legend. The sightings not attributed to actual great snakes, that is.

  Lesser gorgon (Gorgos euryale). One of three known subspecies of gorgon, the lesser gorgon’s gaze causes short-term paralysis followed by death in anything under five pounds. The bite of the snakes atop their heads will cause paralysis followed by death in
anything smaller than an elephant if not treated with the appropriate antivenin. Lesser gorgons tend to be very polite, especially to people who like snakes.

  Lilu (Lilu sapiens). Due to the striking dissimilarity of their abilities, male and female Lilu are often treated as two individual species: incubi and succubi. Incubi are empathic; succubi are persuasive telepaths. Both exude strong pheromones inspiring feelings of attraction and lust in the opposite sex. This can be a problem for incubi like our cousin Artie, who mostly wants to be left alone, or succubi like our cousin Elsie, who gets very tired of men hitting on her while she’s trying to flirt with their girlfriends.

  Madhura (Homo madhurata). Humanoid cryptids with an affinity for sugar in all forms. Vegetarian. Their presence slows the decay of organic matter, and is usually viewed as lucky by everyone except the local dentist. Madhura are very family-oriented, and are rarely found living on their own. Originally from the Indian subcontinent.

  Manananggal (Tanggal geminus). If the manananggal is proof of anything, it is that Nature abhors a logical classification system. We’re reasonably sure the manananggal are mammals; everything else is anyone’s guess. They’re hermaphroditic and capable of splitting their upper and lower bodies, although they are a single entity, and killing the lower half kills the upper half as well. They prefer fetal tissue, or the flesh of newborn infants. They are also venomous, as we have recently discovered. Do not engage if you can help it.

  Oread (Nymphae silica). Humanoid cryptids with the approximate skin density of granite. Their actual biological composition is unknown, as no one has ever been able to successfully dissect one. Oreads are extremely strong, and can be dangerous when angered. They seem to have evolved independently across the globe; their common name is from the Greek.

  Sasquatch (Gigantopithecus sesquac). These massive native denizens of North America have learned to embrace depilatories and mail-order shoe catalogs. A surprising number make their living as Bigfoot hunters (Bigfeet and Sasquatches are close relatives, and enjoy tormenting each other). They are predominantly vegetarian, and enjoy Canadian television.