Discount Armageddon: An Incryptid Novel (10 page)

“The Covenant’s decided Manhattan’s ripe for a purge. I think he’s the only one in town, at least so far, but there’s no guarantee things are going to stay that way. Before you say it, no, I’m not willing to be pulled out of here. I’m still in the middle of my survey, Sarah just got settled at her new hotel, and I promised Dave I’d give at least two weeks’ notice before I left.” I also had an Argentine tango competition in three weeks that could qualify me for Nationals, but he didn’t need to know that.

“I’m not intending to pull you out of there.”

I hesitated. “You’re not?”

“You’re already involved. I’m not going to pull you out just because a member of the Covenant is in town. I will, however, warn everyone that we may be needed for backup, and I’ll email you anything I can find in the records about the De Luca family, their methodology, and any previous Manhattan purges.”

“You’re the best Daddy ever.”

He chuckled. “Let’s see if you’re saying that when you’re getting swarmed by Covenant assassins and wanna-be conquistadors.”

“That’s when I’ll start saying you’re gunning for Father of the Year. Give Mom my love when she gets back from the Underworld.”

“She’d hurt me if I didn’t.”

We exchanged the standard pleasantries and I rang off, feeling considerably better. Sure, I was the one standing at what might be about to turn into ground zero, but if the Covenant took me out, the family would descend on New York in a heavily-armed, extremely irritated wave. None of that would make me any less dead, but it would make me feel better. Besides, if I died, I could be the first person in thirty years to figure out whether Grandpa Thomas is alive or not.

After testing to be sure my ankle was willing to bear my weight, I stood and made my way to the bedroom. Things would look better after a few hours of sleep. Things usually do.

I was on the verge of drifting off when I remembered my earlier determination to eat something healthy. Getting up would have been too much trouble. I rolled over, pulled the blankets over my head, and slipped into the comforting simplicity of sleep.

I opened my eyes to the sound of my alarm blaring a cheerful imitation of a fire siren. I rolled over to smack the snooze button, triggering an ecstatic cry of “Hail the renewed consciousness of the Arboreal Priestess!” from the Aeslin mice surrounding my bed. None of them were
on
the bed, a fact that I attributed less to politeness than to their admittedly stunted sense of self-preservation. Not even the Aeslin are dumb enough to get too close to someone who sleeps with as many guns as I do.

“The Arboreal Priestess isn’t awake enough for you to hail things,” I informed the congregation. They answered with muted cheers. Sitting up, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and glared at the time displayed on the clock. Nine-thirty in the morning. These double shifts were going to kill me if they went on for much longer.

“Oh, shit,” I said, remembering. “I trashed my uniform socks.”
That meant buying a new pair. Dave recommended we all keep backups, but since the socks seemed to get shredded as quickly as I bought them, buying extra just doubled my bill.

“Hail the purchase of the socks!” cried the mice, before dissolving into general rejoicing.

I had to smile. There’s very little that won’t inspire Aeslin mice to religious ecstasy, which is why we’ve kept them around for so long. Having a tiny church choir singing the praises of fixing the garbage disposal does a lot to keep things tolerable. Also, they’re too damn cute to kill, and ecological curiosity generally suppresses any homicidal urges that may get past the “awww” impulse. After living with them for seven generations, we have yet to figure out what Aeslin mice are
for
.

“Okay, guys,” I said, as I swung my feet around to the floor. “Why am I getting the morning congregation experience? Again, I know this isn’t a major holiday.”

“It is the sixth day of the Month of Do Not Put That in Your Mouth!” proclaimed one of the priests, sounding incredibly pleased about that fact.

It took me a moment to figure out what that meant. The Aeslin schedule their celebrations according to the standard human calendar, but maintain their own calendar for private use. How they keep the two straight is something I will never understand, especially since they celebrate approximately thirty-two months every year. (That really is an approximation. Several of the months are intermittent, and may skip a year or more before making a return engagement. Religious mice are weird.)

“You want cheese and cake, don’t you?” This was the right answer: the room erupted into cheers and jubilation.

I was going to need to get up sooner or later. Probably sooner, if I wanted to make it to work on time. I’m less inclined to take the rooftops when the sun is out—something about not wanting to cause a mob scene when people decide I’m a cat burglar or a masked vigilante—and I didn’t
trust my ankle yet. I would have needed to have two broken kneecaps and maybe a dislocated hip before I was willing to take a taxi. It was me and the two-foot express, and that would take time.

I stood, careful to keep myself centered on the bed so I’d fall on something soft if my ankle refused to hold me. There was a twinge of pain and some protests as the bandage scraped against the raw skin, but that was all. I could stand, I could walk, and I could probably even dance, as long as I didn’t expect to be up to competition standards. It was better than it could have been. “I’ll take it,” I said, aloud. The mice greeted what must have seemed like a total non sequitur with more cheering.

That’s the nice thing about Aeslin mice. You don’t have to make sense to keep them happy. You just have to let them worship you unconditionally, move into the attic (or the closet), and occasionally pester you for manna from Heaven. Which, them being physically mostly mouse and all, usually takes the form of dairy products and baked goods. It works out okay.

Once in the kitchen, I dished up plates of flourless chocolate cake, slices of cheese, and soda crackers, cutting a piece of cake for myself and leaning against the windowsill as I ate. The mice made a production number out of breakfast that Disney could have taken some tips from. The dance routine with the soda crackers was a particularly nice touch.

The mice vanished after they finished eating, scurrying off to do whatever it is that they do all day. For the most part, when they’re not underfoot or enacting weird religious tableaus on my counters, they go their way and I go mine. Things are less dangerous that way. I put my plate in the sink, stretched, and sighed. Time to go check my email and see what sort of apocalypse the Covenant was so generously providing me with.

I don’t
know how people accomplished anything in the days before email. When I logged into my account, I had three messages from Dad, one from Aunt Jane, and one from Sarah. Sarah wanted to confirm that we were on for dinner; I shot her a note saying I’d be there by eight, and warning her to stay out of dark alleys and subway tunnels. Not that Sarah’s the kind of cryptid who likes to hang around in the places monster hunters tend to frequent, but you can never be too careful.

Dad’s messages managed to be more useful and more worrisome at the same time. We had records of three confirmed Covenant “purges” in the Manhattan area, along with two in New Jersey and six more that weren’t verified but looked likely. They seemed to come through every fifty years or so, spend a summer slaughtering anything they could get their hands on, and then go home, serene in the knowledge that they were doing holy work.

I may sound prejudiced against the Covenant. That’s because I am. They’re a huge society with nigh-infinite resources and access to research materials I can only dream about. So what do they do with all that power and potential? They hunt innocent cryptids for the crime of having been born to a species that didn’t make it onto the “approved” list. There’d be hundreds of special interest groups dedicated to stomping them out if they were hunting panda bears and dolphins. Since they hunt bogeymen and basilisks, they’d probably get a medal if anyone knew that they existed.

Dad’s notes went on to say that the De Lucas were among the worst of a bad lot, since they actually bought the party line about the extermination of cryptids being the will of God. It’s hard to reason with someone who thinks he’s got a holy calling. Violence is sometimes the only answer, and I hate killing people. It’s messy, it’s inconvenient, and while body disposal is surprisingly easy when you know what you’re doing, it’s not a pleasant way to spend an evening. Apparently, most of the De Luca family had already ridden the party line to extinction,
since Dad had death records for a whole stack of De Lucas, including “Christabelle and Antonio De Luca” who were survived by their only son, Dominic. Poor guy must have been raised by the Covenant. That was just going to make him more annoying.

Aunt Jane’s letter was a sort of supplement to Dad’s information. He may be the family historian, but she’s the family nosy gossip columnist—a more useful function than you might guess. It helps that my Uncle Ted’s an incubus, which gives her a direct connection to the cryptid community. She’s an honorary succubus, and she gets on all the mailing lists.

According to Aunt Jane, asking her lists “Does anyone know what’s up in New York?” resulted in a positive deluge of information, all of it pointing back to one worrisome conclusion: nobody knew what was going on, and everybody thought it was going to be big, whatever it was. Which explained why the locals weren’t evacuating. Until they knew whether or not there was a problem, they wouldn’t want to risk losing their nesting spots, or deal with cell phone cancellation fees and forwarding their mail.

I printed the messages and stuffed them into my backpack before starting for the bathroom. It was time to get ready for my second shift in twenty-four hours. At least once I got there I could have a little word with my boss about why he hadn’t been clueing me in on gossip that might pertain to my chances of survival.

Wow, all this excitement and minimum wage, plus tips. Who says you can’t make a living in New York City?

Just arriving at Dave’s Fish and Strips, a club for discerning gentlemen

B
Y THE TIME I GOT TO DAVE’S
I was drenched in sweat, feeling put out and abused by the universe. I don’t know how walking at street level could do more damage to my admittedly low-maintenance haircut than running across the rooftops would have, but it managed. The gel I’d used to make myself look less like a startled cockatoo melted in the hot Manhattan air. At this point, my hairstyle was best described as “half spikes, half surprised mop.”

I stomped into the dressing room, stopped, and promptly upgraded my opinion on the unfairness of the universe. Candy was sitting in front of the mirror, putting the finishing touches on her makeup. She looked as dewy-eyed and fresh as a Miss America contestant getting ready for the swimsuit competition. Even the tawdry uniform Dave forced us to wear was elevated by contact with her skin, somehow becoming raiment fit for
a princess. And that’s exactly what it was, because she
was
a princess, cryptid royalty and, like any real princess, she didn’t need fur or jewels to let her intrinsic nobility shine through. Her flaxen hair was long, smooth, and perfect, just like her hourglass figure and fashion-model face. Nothing human should look that good. Which was a good thing, because Candy was a long way from human.