Discount Armageddon
Page 22

I was getting annoyed at the people who turned tail and ran, even though I couldn’t blame them for doing it. I was a cryptid sympathizer, after all, not a cryptid, and that meant I had a lot less to lose. Even Sarah and the mice were relatively safe. Aeslin can vanish into a normal rodent population in less time than it takes to say “exterminator,” and Sarah would be the last person any representative of the Covenant tagged as outside the norm. Her camouflage was good enough to see her through anything short of a nuclear attack. Most of the city’s cryptids didn’t have that luxury.
The deserters didn’t worry me. That honor was reserved for the ones who’d simply disappeared. It seemed like more members of the city’s cryptid population went missing every day. It started small, with just a few outliers from the community, people no one really kept very close tabs on anyway. There are totally valid ecological reasons for the existence of ghouls, bug-a-boos, and wendigo. That doesn’t mean anybody sane wants them for neighbors. There was no way of getting an exact number on the missing, but I knew it was higher than I liked. The members of the various species that remained in town had been calling relatives and information brokers, but if anyone knew anything, they weren’t sharing it with me.
The few estimates I could get on the missing only covered the humanoid cryptids. Nobody knew how many animal cryptids were in Manhattan and, without a starting census, I couldn’t tell how many were gone. Everyone I talked to agreed that the numbers were dropping. Not encouraging, especially when I couldn’t give them any reassurance that things were going to be all right.
The impulse to blame all the disappearances on De Luca was strong. There was just one problem with that convenient answer to my problems: I’d only found a few bodies, all of them at roof level, and all of them obviously hostile cryptid “monsters,” like the ahool. I didn’t care how good a hunter the asshole was. If he was responsible for all the deaths, there would have been more bodies. He was still the closest thing I had to a lead.
Which brought me back to the rooftops, having bribed Candy to bring in two of her “sisters” to cover my shift for the night. I was hunting a hunter. The best place to do that is on the killing grounds.
All my life I’ve been dismissed as the dilettante daughter, the one who’d rather dance than deal with the realities of the family business. Alex graduated from high school two years ahead of his peers, got his degree in veterinary medicine, and took off for South America to spend a year hunting for dinosaurs—long story—before settling at the Columbus Zoo with his menagerie. Antimony was still living at home, but she was also taking classes at the local college, helping Mom with her hospice duties, and helping Dad with his research. Me, on the other hand? I went on national reality television. Way to forward the cryptid cause, Verity.
But here’s the thing: it was the best way to forward the cryptid cause. My specialization is in the humanoid cryptids, and by making a spectacle of myself, I also made myself seem harmless. The Prices belonged to the Covenant for too long to be totally accepted overnight. Once the cryptids who actually watched TV found out who I was—and more specifically, found out that I’d gone undercover to be on a reality show—they started dismissing the idea that I might be a threat. They spread the word through the rest of the community. It turned out people were a lot more likely to trust me when my silhouette made them think of foxtrots and waltzes, not serious collateral damage. Image is everything.
Image doesn’t change reality. Under the sequins, the flashy makeup jobs, and the designer shoes, I’m a Price. I know how to do my job. I just wish my job wouldn’t insist on getting done the night before a dance competition.
I’d been prowling the rooftops every night for weeks, and the only signs I’d seen of De Luca were the corpses in his wake. Dave insisted that his contacts didn’t know where Dominic was, but I wasn’t sure I trusted Dave. It’s never a good idea to take a bogeyman at his word when you’re not holding a gun to his head, and even then there’s a chance he’ll try to play you before you pull the trigger.
At least this time I was prepared for a fight. I was wearing a skintight gray bodysuit that rendered me virtually invisible when I stepped into the shadows, and the soles of my boots had been treated with one of Antimony’s weird science projects, giving me traction on practically any surface. They didn’t even leave footprints unless I was dumb enough to step in a puddle. My face was visible, my hair seeming almost white against the dark, but I wasn’t willing to wear a mask. It wasn’t pride or vanity; it was the desire to avoid having my head dive-bombed by confused gargoyles who thought I was competition intruding on their territory.
I was about ready to call it a night and get some sleep before registration opened in the morning when I heard faint footfalls behind me. I kept walking, refusing to let my tension show itself in my posture as I reviewed the last few minutes. I was certain I hadn’t passed any of the local cryptids. They would have made sure I saw them, since they know it’s never a good idea to surprise a Price when she’s on patrol. That meant whoever or whatever was behind me wasn’t something that respected my place in the city. Monster or member of the Covenant, I could take my pick.
Considering how frustrated and wound up I was after the past few weeks, I would have preferred the monster. A little good, old-fashioned bloodshed always cheers me up. Even so, I hoped it was De Luca, because we needed to settle this. I bent forward, like I was going to stretch out my hamstrings, and grabbed the pistols at my belt. I spun as I drew them, turning the motion into a smooth pirouette.
Dominic De Luca was ten feet behind me, a crossbow out and trained, dead center, on my chest.
I froze, guns still raised.
“I’m really not sure which of us would fire first,” he said, tone almost apologetic, “but I’m reasonably sure whichever of us didn’t would still have time to pull their trigger before the missile struck home.”
It took me a moment to puzzle my way through that sentence. Raising my eyebrows, I asked, “Are you saying that no matter who shoots, we probably both die?”
“Exactly,” he said, that same apologetic note in his voice. “Can I recommend we stand down, at least for the moment?”
I hesitated. Part of me was saying, “You can take him.” That part was thankfully drowned out by the rest of me, which was pointing out how pissed the rest of the family would be if I died like this. “Go down shooting” might as well be the family motto, but if it were, the second half would be “don’t go down stupid.” Raising my hands and turning my pistols so he could see what I was doing, I reengaged the safeties and slid the guns back into their holsters.