Discount Armageddon: An Incryptid Novel (28 page)

“Your apartment is full of talking rodents,” he said, like this was somehow going to be a surprise to me.

“Yes,” I said.

“Your apartment is full of talking rodents, and you just kissed me again.”

It seemed safest to keep agreeing with him. “Yes.”

Dominic nodded slowly. “All right. You mentioned a … Holy Feast of some sort? Was that the motivation behind…?”

“
Yes. I mean, no. I mean … chicken?” I held up the bag, forcing a smile that probably looked more like the painted grin of a crazy clown. “Come on. Kitchen’s this way.”

Of course, my kitchen was so small that there was no chance we could sit down. Even eating standing up at the counters wouldn’t work, unless we wanted to eat with our backs to one another. Somehow, I didn’t think that was going to reduce the tension between us.

The living room was out, unless I wanted to risk getting chicken grease all over my costume rack. The bathroom might work, if one of us sat on the edge of the shower stall, and the other sat on—no, the bathroom was out. That really left only one option, and given the Holy Feast we’d just been celebrating—given how much I’d really
enjoyed
the celebration—I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

Dominic stopped in the kitchen doorway, looking first at the tiny room, and then at me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. I opened a cabinet, producing a pair of plates, and offered him another overly-strained smile. “This may sound a little weird, but I think we’re going to have to eat in the bedroom. That’s the only place in this apartment with enough space for us both to actually sit down and eat.”

“Is that so?” Dominic raised an eyebrow, looking very marginally amused. “Are you sure this is not the second stage of your rodent-inspired ‘Holy Feast’?”

“Yes.” I nodded so vigorously it felt like my head was at risk of coming off. “That’s a different celebration.”

Dominic blinked. “You are very, very strange,” he said, after a long pause. He reached out to take the plates from me and then stepped back out of the kitchen doorway, allowing me to lead the way to the bedroom. I scanned constantly as we walked, looking for anything that would cause me to die of embarrassment. So far, I wasn’t seeing anything. There was a quiver of arrows leaning against the hallway wall—no big deal—and I’d
left a hand ax out on my dresser. Sloppy, but still not a problem. I was more worried about the important things, like dirty underpants left out on the floor.

The fates were with me; all my delicates were safely out of view in the laundry hamper. I breathed a sigh of relief, setting the sack of greasy goodness on the edge of the bed. Having the blankets dry cleaned would cost a lot less than doing the same for my costume rack. I sat down on one side of the sack of chicken, motioning for Dominic to sit down on the other side. Safely distanced by calories and cholesterol, Dominic sat, passing me a plate as he did. I smiled wanly.

“So, dinner,” I said, leaning over to open the sack. “That was very sweet of you.”

“It seemed like the least I could do, given the circumstances.” Dominic reached into the fried chicken bag, pulling out a container of mashed potatoes and setting it delicately on the bed. “I wasn’t sure what the appropriate ‘I’m sorry I took you into the sewers without proper preparation and got you beaten up by lizard-men’ gift was.”

“Brass ammunition or an anti-incubus charm,” I said automatically. Then I paused. “Er…”

“You really are the
strangest
woman I have ever met.” Dominic sounded almost admiring. “Now, will you please explain the talking rodents, and how their religious observations led to you accosting me in your front hallway? I’m still trying to decide whether or not to feel taken advantage of.”

“They’re Aeslin mice.” I pulled the chicken bucket out of the bag, selecting a breast and a thigh before offering it to him. “Religious observations are sort of what they do.”

“I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never actually encountered them before.” Dominic glanced speculatively toward the door back to the hall. “They’re cryptids, aren’t they? Of a somewhat more diminutive variety than those we generally find ourselves opposing?”

“I
try to avoid opposing cryptids of any size, but yes, they’re a type of cryptid. A very religious-minded type of cryptid. They’ve been living with my family for generations—since before we left the Covenant.” I started peeling the skin delicately off my chicken. “One of my multiple-great-grandmothers found them, and she just couldn’t bring herself to kill them, so she brought them home.”

“Maybe that was part of what made it so easy for your family to leave,” said Dominic. I shot him a speculative look. He shrugged. “They had already deviated from the laws.”

“Maybe so, but … it still wasn’t easy.” I looked down at my chicken. It was easier than looking at him. “I’ve read the diaries. We all have. It was a big decision, both times that it happened. For my great-great-grandparents, and then again for my grandfather. I mean, it was
hard
on them. They were turning their backs on everything they’d ever known, because they’d decided there was something that mattered more than doing what they’d been taught to do. Hell, what they’d been
raised
to do. This wasn’t a choice they made on a whim. This was everything to them.”

Dominic’s hand touched my knee almost tentatively. I raised my head, looking at him warily. He met my eyes, expression grave, and said, “I understand loyalties being called into question. I may not fully understand the choices they’ve made, but … I understand what could have inspired those choices.”

“Hey. Baby steps.” I smiled a little, and took a bite of chicken. It tasted amazing, possibly because I hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days, and combat burns a
lot
of calories. Lucky for me, Dominic was in a similar state, or the speed with which I inhaled both pieces on my plate might have convinced him that I was some sort of cryptid. Never a good conviction to inspire in a Covenant member, unless you feel like having an ash-wood stake driven through your chest.

“I
always wondered what had caused your ancestors to throw their lives away like that,” said Dominic, attention apparently going to his chicken. He didn’t look at me as he continued, “It seemed a particularly arrogant means of committing suicide.”

I didn’t say anything. I just waited.

“The teachings of the Covenant are what allowed mankind to survive, once, when competition for resources was stiffer—when sometimes we
were
the resources in question. Without the willingness to kill, we could never have lived long enough to develop the capacity for mercy.”

“That’s probably true,” I allowed. “I think we have that capacity now, though.”

“Do we?” Dominic looked at me. “Sometimes I wonder.”

“Maybe wondering is enough.”

“Maybe so.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes after that, broken only when I asked him to pass a biscuit. Finally, Dominic set his plate (with its associated chicken-bone graveyard) aside, touching my knee with the fingers of one hand. He was less tentative this time.

“You kissed me once to prove a point,” he said. “Then you kissed me again to honor a rodent religious ritual.”

“It was the only way to make them stop celebrating,” I protested.

“Indeed.” Looking at me thoughtfully, he asked, “What would it take to get you to kiss me a third time, do you think?”

My heart didn’t literally stop, but for a moment, it sure as hell felt like it had. I coughed a little, getting my cardiac rhythm back on track, and managed to say, “Well, I guess you kissing me once might be a decent way to start.”

“And after that?”

“Well, after that, I’d say the odds of my kissing you again would go way, way up.” Suddenly, the brown paper sack didn’t
seem like nearly enough of a barrier between us. In medieval times, unmarried couples had to sleep with a sword between them to make sure they wouldn’t get up to any funny business. About half of me wished I’d followed their example. The other half was joining the mice in cheering wildly. I gasped. “Oh, God, the mice!”

“What—?” Dominic stared after me, bewildered, as I grabbed the sack, jumped to my feet, and ran to the bedroom door.

“Bedroom privileges have been revoked for the remainder of the evening!” I shouted, chucking the chicken bag into the middle of the hallway, where it was immediately besieged on all sides by tiny, furry bodies. “I invoke the Sacred Law of Food for Privacy! Feast, and leave me alone!”

I slammed the door just in time to mute the cheering. Turning back to Dominic, I asked, “So, what were we talking about again?”

“I believe we had just reached the point of deciding that it was my move,” he said, and stood, taking two long steps forward to my position. Cupping his hands around the sides of my face, he tilted my head up toward him, bent forward, and kissed me soundly.

The mouse-free bedroom of a semilegal sublet in Greenwich Village

I
F
I’
D THOUGHT
D
OMINIC’S
kisses in the alley were urgent, they were nothing compared to the five-alarm fire motivating him now. He kissed me like all the oxygen was running out of the room, and the only way for either of us to survive was to learn how to manage on a single person’s breath. I wasn’t worried about him hurting me—with my training, that sort of concern is generally oriented in the other direction—but the knowledge that he was one of the few men I’d ever met who
could
take me in a fight was enough to make my knees go weak. I matched his five-alarm fire with one of my own, feeling the answering tension in his wrists as he tugged me closer to him.

When he dropped his hands from my face and pulled his own face away, it was like he’d just announced that they were canceling Christmas. My eyes, which I didn’t
remember closing, flew open, and I gave him a disappointed look, asking, “Did I do something wrong?”

“Did you—God, woman.” He laughed, mumbling something in Italian. It sounded like it was directed at himself, so I decided not to take offense; I just kept making puppy-dog eyes at him, waiting for him to tell me what was wrong. “You are the most insane, insufferable, infuriating excuse for a female that I have ever met.”

“Well, yeah,” I said, blinking. “You knew that before you brought me chicken. Are you mad that I gave your chicken to the mice? Do I need to get more chicken before you’ll start kissing me again? Because I can go and buy more chicken if you’ll just promise to wait he—” He cut my protests off with another kiss. I’ve never much cared for being interrupted, but if all the interruptions were going to be of this caliber, I could probably learn to live with it.

Since Dominic’s hands weren’t setting the terms of our dance anymore, I stepped closer, leaving no space for air between us as I pressed myself against his chest. His arms went around my waist, reeling me in, and I gladly let my heels leave the floor. This kiss wasn’t as urgent. It didn’t need to be. It went on and on, until I began to wonder if it was possible to spontaneously combust just from kissing.

Dominic turned his head abruptly to the side, but didn’t let me go. “This is … I shouldn’t be…”

“Oh, you should.” I nodded vigorously, sliding my hands down the planes of his shoulders, feeling the interplay of the muscles there. He was muscled almost like a dancer, all long, hard sinew and corded strength. A lifetime of training to fight for your life will do wonders for the physique. “You really, really should. It’s actually recommended for solo Covenant agents on their first trip to North America. See the sights, stalk the locals, sleep with a Price girl.”

“You infuriating creature,” he breathed, somehow turning the words into something verging on an
endearment. He turned back to face me, letting me see the barely-restrained hunger in his dark brown eyes. He was looking at me the way the mice look at cake on a feasting day; like devouring me wouldn’t just be a pleasure, it would be a holy ritual. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

“I do,” I said, and leaned forward to place a kiss on his chin before he had the chance to pull away. “I am an adult, and you are an adult, and I am doing my damnedest to seduce you right now, or to convince you that it’s worth the trouble of seducing me. Dealer’s choice. Just don’t tease me.”

He barked a short, sharp laugh. “Tease
you
? Me, tease
you
? I’m not the one who runs across this city’s rooftops wearing a skirt barely deserving of the name, or fights like it was some sort of ballet routine.”

“My grand jeté kills ’em back on the farm,” I said solemnly. Then he was kissing me again, arms pulling me into his chest until there really wasn’t any room between us, not for hesitation, not for
anything
. The pressure of my thigh holster digging into my skin was just a delicious reminder of how close we really were, how close I was to feeling his body moving naked against mine, and, oh, God, if the Covenant taught all their field agents to kiss like this, it was a wonder they ever made it from the bedroom to the battlefield in the first place.