Part 19 (1/2)
”Take it,” he advised. ”You need to talk to him, and it's not like you're going anywhere dangerous.”
”Right,” I said, not sure whether I should be annoyed with him for meddling or grateful for the excuse. I pressed ”answer” instead, bringing the phone to my ear as I started walking away from the others. If I was going to have this conversation, I was going to have it in ”my” room. ”Hi, Artie. What's up?”
”I hadn't heard from you in a few hours, and you're not online. You've got the Covenant in town, Verity's not answering her phone, I got worried, hey-presto, I'm calling you.” Artie's voice was a warm, familiar presence in my ear, conjuring images of afternoons spent lying on his bedroom floor arguing about whether Wolverine's claws could pierce Captain America's s.h.i.+eld. (They so could, a.s.suming Wolverine cared enough to try. And the fact that I know that is why Artie and I get along so well, and why Verity despairs of me ever going on a real date, with a non-virtual boy.) Those comfortable thoughts were followed by a chill sliding down my spine, chasing all the warmth away. Artie didn't know that Verity was missing. Uncle Mike knew, but apart from that, no one in the family had been notified. ”It's good to hear your voice,” I said, with utter sincerity, and closed my eyes as I walked up the stairs. Maybe if I looked at nothing, I wouldn't feel so bad about lying by omission. Maybe. Probably not, though.
I always tell people not to lie to the telepath. It sucks to realize that my rules don't swing both ways.
”Yours, too, Sars,” said Artie. He paused. ”Everything okay with you? You sound tense.”
”Covenant's in town, remember? We're bunking in an undisclosed location with what feels like half the cast of The Muppet Show, since Verity doesn't want any of us to wind up dead. And Uncle Mike is here, which means everything's been b.o.o.by-trapped.”
”I bet Antimony would love it there.”
I laughed at that, opening my eyes. I was at the top of the stairs by then; I needed to be able to see if I wanted to find my room. ”She'd be sawing holes in the floor so she could make actual pit traps, and we'd never get our security deposit back.”
”I said she'd love it, not that she'd be useful.” Artie sounded like he was buying my story, which helped me relax even more. ”Any chance you'll be back online tonight?”
”Well . . .” I glanced guiltily down at the slaughterhouse floor. Everyone seemed very busy getting ready for battle. Uncle Mike was deep in conversation with the mice on the table; Ryan was on the phone; Istas was relacing her boots. None of them appeared to have particularly noticed that I was gone. That didn't mean I was off the hook. ”No, I don't think so. We're doing a field thing, and Uncle Mike wants me to be there.”
”You're doing 'a field thing'? You hate field things.”
”That doesn't stop Very from making me do them every other weekend.”
”No, but you always complain about them, and you're not complaining now.” It's impossible to pick up thoughts through the phone, and for once, I was glad; the anxiety in Artie's voice was loud enough without any help from my telepathy. ”Why aren't you complaining, Sarah? Are you really okay?”
”I'm fine, Artie,” I said, and stepped into the barren little office that was, for the time being, my bedroom. I sank down onto the air mattress, sighing in time with the little hiss it made as I settled. ”I'm stressed, and I'm scared, and I'm afraid somebody's going to get hurt before this is over, but I'm fine. Honest. I'd really rather hear about how you are, if that's cool. I need to not think about things here for a little while.”
”Have you been to the comic book store yet this week?”
A smile tugged at my lips. ”No, I have not,” I said. ”Things have been a little too hectic around here for me to get down to Midtown Comics. Have I missed anything important?”
”Not important, necessarily, but definitely cool. See-” Artie began telling me about the latest developments in the Marvel and DC superhero universes, speaking with the enthusiastic shorthand of the true aficionado. That wasn't a problem for me. I've been reading comics for as long as I can remember; seeing faces drawn on paper helps me recognize them in real life, or at least helps me recognize the emotions they're trying to convey. The encyclopedic knowledge of mutants and superhumans is really just an unexpected bonus.
I curled up on the air mattress with one arm tucked beneath my head as a makes.h.i.+ft pillow while I listened to Artie talk. When he paused, I made the appropriate encouraging noises, getting him started again. In the comic books, the good guys might lose for an issue, but they always won by the end of the story arc, and death was never forever. I liked the comics. I couldn't live there, but for a little while, I could pretend.
Not for long enough. Someone knocked gently on my doorframe. I sat up, the phone still pressed against my ear. Uncle Mike was standing there, and I didn't need to be good at reading faces to understand how grim his was.
”It's time,” he said.
”Okay,” I whispered.
”Sarah?” asked Artie. ”What's up?”
”Nothing-Uncle Mike just needs me. It's time to go. Stay safe, okay? I'll call you soon.” If I was alive. If any of us were still alive.
”Okay, Sars. Miss you.”
”Miss you, too,” I said, and hung up the phone.
Fun facts about cuckoo biology: we can't bleed, not the way mammals do. But we can cry. I got up and followed Uncle Mike out of the room, and I cried the whole way.
Nineteen.
”You know what, honey? You're right. It's time to change my approach. Can you give me one of those nice concussion grenades?”
-Alice Healy The Freakshow, a highly specialized nightclub somewhere in Manhattan WE LEFT SUNIL and Rochak behind when the rest of us left the Nest. There was no way of knowing whether Verity had given up our location, and so Kitty was calling some of her relatives to come and take the Madhura away to someplace Verity didn't know. The brothers Madhura weren't happy about spending quality time with the city's bogeyman population, but they understood that it was the only way we could keep them safe, since taking them into battle with us would have been an even worse idea.
It was a good thing the Madhura weren't coming, since Uncle Mike's car was barely big enough as it was. I got the front seat-no one really wanted to snuggle up to the touch-activated telepath-while Istas, Ryan, and Dominic were crammed into the back. It would have been funny, if the situation hadn't been so dire. I couldn't stop thinking about how much Verity would have laughed if she'd seen her boyfriend wedged between two therianthropes like that. She probably would have taken a dozen pictures with her phone and threatened to use them for her Christmas cards.
Thinking about Verity's laughter helped me keep my s.h.i.+elds up, which kept me from picking up on the thoughts of the people around me. That was good. The vague dread filling the car was stomach-churning enough without adding any stronger signals. Being a telepath in a largely non-telepathic society means the onus of not reading people's minds is entirely on me. Almost no one maintains a decent mental s.h.i.+eld on purpose, and the ones who do it accidentally are rare enough to be a miracle.
At least Istas wasn't worried. Her emotional state was pure excitement, and a particularly b.l.o.o.d.y sort of antic.i.p.ation. It said something about the day I'd been having that this was rea.s.suring.
”We're here,” said Uncle Mike.
The backseat emptied like a clown car at the circus, everyone hurrying to be the first one out. Uncle Mike moved at a more leisurely pace, still efficient, but aware that no amount of hurry was going to make up for an a.s.sload of support and ammunition. I was somewhere in the middle, clearing the car while Uncle Mike was still setting the alarm. The other three were almost to the Freakshow doors. I hurried to catch up.
The ticket booth was empty when I got there, and the doors themselves were closed and locked. According to the posters advertising the Freakshow's virtues, the club should have been open, even if this wasn't anything like peak business hours. I guess when your friendly neighborhood cryptozoologist gets herself taken by her less friendly relations, staying closed starts looking like the better option.
”Now what?” demanded Dominic.
”Chill,” said Ryan. He knocked four times, paused, and knocked twice more. There was an answering knock from inside. Ryan knocked again.
”This code is stupid,” said Istas. ”We should simply allow whomever is manning the door to eat anyone unwelcome. People we do not want coming around would quickly cease.”
”Or they'd come back with tanks,” said Ryan. ”Strategic thinking means not eating your enemies all the time.”
”I hate strategic thinking,” grumbled Istas.
Kitty opened the door. I blinked.
She was wearing the modern equivalent of bogeyman cultural dress: dark gray leggings and a knee-length dress a few shades lighter, cut to accommodate the length and flexibility of her limbs. Her hair was loose around her face, accentuating the strangeness of seeing her like this. Kitty could never pa.s.s perfectly for human-very few types of cryptid can. A lot of the ones who come close, like Kitty, resent me for how easily I can move through the human world, even if they forget why they resent me the second I'm out of their sight. Still, she normally wore human clothing, and kept her hair neatly styled. The monster-under-the-bed look wasn't normal for her.
If she was wearing a bogeyman's array, she meant business.
”Come on in,” she said. ”Everybody's waiting.”
”Thank you again, Kitty,” said Uncle Mike, and stepped into the Freakshow. Ryan and Istas followed.
Dominic moved to do the same. Kitty stepped between him and the opening, setting her hand flat against his chest. She wasn't exerting nearly enough pressure to hold him in place, but he still stopped, looking at her gravely.
”This is your fault,” she said. ”I'm going to bet that you've already been threatened to within an inch of your worthless life, so I'm not going to bother. I'm just going to make you a promise. If the Price girl dies, that's sad, but she knew this job was dangerous when she took it. If a single cryptid who didn't choose to walk into this fight dies? Just one? I will be the monster in your closet for the rest of your life. If not me, then my cousins, and their cousins, until you've paid for your sins. Do I make myself clear?”
A bogeyman threatening a trained operative from the Covenant of St. George should have been funny. It wasn't, because I didn't have to be a telepath to know Kitty meant it. If Dominic failed, she was going to throw the weight of her entire species at destroying him.
I almost felt sorry for the man, but Dominic didn't waste time with anything as useless as self-pity. He just nodded, and said, ”I understand, and I accept your punishment as just.”