Half-Off Ragnarok
Page 51

Shelby blinked. Then she blinked again, and finally, looking somewhat nonplussed, she asked, “Is anyone in Ohio human?”
“I am,” I said.
“You’re a Price, you don’t count,” Shelby shot back. She returned her attention to Dee, or rather, to Dee’s snakes. “They’re beautiful. Do they bite? Have they got minds of their own? Does this make you a gorgon, then, or is there another species that comes with snakes in place of hair? Do you have any hair? You draw your eyebrows on, and your eyelashes have always looked fake to me, so I suppose not . . .”
Now it was Dee’s turn to blink. “You seem pretty relaxed about all of this.”
“I’m from Australia. I see stranger than women with snakes for hair when I look out my bedroom window.” Shelby shrugged. “Besides, Alex trusts you, and I trust Alex, at least for the moment. So if I’ve already decided to trust you, I may as well focus on the natural marvel which you represent.” She broke into a broad grin. “Evolution is so cool.”
“That’s something I think we can all agree on,” I said, relaxing. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, can we please focus on the problem at hand? Three men are dead, and whoever—or whatever—killed them either is a Pliny’s gorgon, or is trying to implicate the local community in the deaths.”
“Whoever or whatever?” asked Shelby. “Don’t we already know the answer to that one?”
“If a Pliny’s gorgon is using a cockatrice to commit the murders, or is committing the murders on their own and somehow pinning it on a cockatrice, we’re looking for a who,” I said. “If it’s a cockatrice that’s somehow being covered up for, it’s a what. That’s going to change our hunting strategies dramatically.”
“Pliny’s gorgons don’t like cockatrice any more than anyone else does,” said Dee. “They’re spiteful, smelly things, and being immune to their glance doesn’t make us immune to being pecked and scratched.” She shook her head. “Every group has its fringe element. Ours thinks we should be self-sufficient, which means farming. They keep trying to cultivate things that can’t be petrified. That includes cockatrice. No, thank you.”
“Is there one of those fringe groups around here?”
Dee hesitated before nodding. “Yes. They live about a mile from the main community, where they won’t interfere with anyone else.”
“We need to see them.”
“Alex—”
“Three people are dead, Dee.” She flinched. I continued: “The police only know about two of them. There’s a chance it won’t make the national news if it stops now. It’ll be a blip on a few of the blogs that specialize in weird news, and it’ll go away. But if it continues, it’s going to get some media play, and the Covenant is going to notice. Do you want to risk that?”
Dee paled. “No, but . . .”
“We need to visit the community, Dee. You know that’s how this is going to end.”
There was a moment of silence before she nodded, slowly. “I suppose I did know that. I’d just been hoping there was, well . . . some other way.” She glanced to Grandma before she said, almost guiltily, “I’m sorry, Angela, but I can’t bring a cuckoo where we live. I know you’re, well . . . you . . . but I can’t.”
My grandmother, who could be stubborn sometimes, but who had lived her entire life with the reality of what she was, nodded. “I understand, Dee,” she said, with a small, almost regretful smile. “I never expected you to bring me along.” Unspoken was the fact that out of all the cuckoos in the world, my ailing cousin included, Grandma was the least dangerous. She was a projective telepath, like the rest of her kind, but she didn’t receive. It was why she’d grown up with a normal code of ethics, rather than being overwritten by her mother’s sociopathic nature while she was still in the womb.
“We’ll take two cars,” I said, pushing my coffee away as I stood.
Dee blinked. “What, now?”
Andrew, Mr. O’Malley, and the guard—I still needed to learn his name—weren’t getting any less dead while we sat around and talked. I nodded firmly. “Yes, now,” I said. “Before it’s too late for anyone else.”
“Oh, lovely,” said Shelby. “I’ve always enjoyed field trips.”
Fourteen
“Try to let go of the idea that humanity is the pinnacle of evolution. There are creatures in this world that can kill you with a look, people with wings, and mountains that walk. Humanity is amazing, but have a little perspective.”
—Martin Baker
Driving through the woods half an hour outside of Columbus, Ohio, struggling to remain positive about the situation
DEE HAD ALWAYS STRUCK me as a careful driver, someone who obeyed traffic laws and tried not to attract the attention of the police. What I hadn’t considered was that she might be different when stressed out and taking us to meet her family. Once we reached the woods, it was every man for himself: Dee hit the gas, and I was forced to violate several local and state ordinances if I wanted to keep up with her. (She’d been unwilling to give directions to the local gorgon enclave, saying we could follow her home if we insisted on coming for a visit. I was starting to wonder if that wasn’t because she thought she could lose us before we got anywhere near the rest of the colony.)
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I muttered, following Dee as she took a sharp turn across two lanes of freeway and down an exit with a name I couldn’t have pronounced if you paid me.
“Sorry?” asked Shelby.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. If I looked away for so much as a second, I was going to wind up slamming into a tree and killing us both. “I swear I thought she could drive.”
“Alex. Have you ever driven down the Great Ocean Highway?”
“Uh . . . which would be where, exactly?”
“It’s in Australia.”
Dee took another sharp turn, onto a narrow road I hadn’t seen through the trees until she was already heading down it. She hadn’t even used her blinker. I hauled hard on the wheel. The tires squealed as we changed direction and went rocketing after my runaway assistant.
When I was breathing normally again, I said, “Then, no, I haven’t. I’ve never been to Australia.”