Discount Armageddon: An Incryptid Novel (6 page)

Dave glowered. I suppressed the urge to laugh, and glowered back.

A person running into Dave in a dark alley—or worse, finding him under their bed—would probably need years of therapy before they could convince themselves he’d never been there. He was close to seven feet tall and skeletally thin, with arms long enough to give him a faintly simian look. His hands were too big for his body, and all his fingers had at least one extra joint. (The longer fingers each had two.) Added to his gray “I’ve been dead for a week” complexion and the subtle wrongness of his face, it combined to form a picture that would give strong men nightmares.

Fortunately for me, I’m not a strong man, and one of my first babysitters was a bogeyman. Also, Dave’s garishly-patterned blue, purple, yellow, and magenta Hawaiian shirt did nothing to add to his overall air of menace. Maybe there’s a world where improbably colored parrots are considered frightening. This is not that world.

Dave was the first to look away. “You know I’d pay you more if you’d start dancing.”

“I’d also get myself disowned.”

“For dancing?” He managed to make the word sound innocent. No small feat coming from a man who looked like a basketball-playing corpse, especially not one who ran a strip club. “You know I’d let you do it under the name you used on television.”

“For dancing in a clothing-optional establishment where I’d
be expected to finish the dance in my birthday suit, yeah.” I shrugged. “Conservative parents. What can you do?”

Dave snorted. “If your family’s conservative, I’m the Easter Bunny.”

All desire to make light of the situation fled. “Don’t even joke about that,” I said, in a voice that had gone completely flat. “The Easter Bunny’s no laughing matter.”

“Sorry, sorry!” said Dave defensively. “I didn’t know you were that touchy.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know. Are we done?”

“Ah.” Dave pursed his lips. “Here’s the thing. That boy you decided to chop-and-drop—”

“I didn’t do any chopping!”

“—he and his friends are still here, and I’d rather avoid any more of a floor show than we’ve already had tonight. So I’m going to give their table to Marcy.”

“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all night.”

“And you’re going to go home.”

I paused, uncertain that I was hearing him correctly. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll pay you for the night, minus tips, of course. You can come back tomorrow.”

“You’re already understaffed, and I need the money,” I protested. “Candy’s out and Kitty’s on tour.”

“Won’t be the first time I’ve pulled Angel from behind the bar. Ryan can mix a Slaughtered Lamb as well as anybody else.”

“Slaughtered Lamb?” I asked, curious despite myself.

“Tomato juice, vodka, rum, tequila, and crushed mint. Unless you’re a ghoul. Then we leave out the tomato juice, replace it with—”

“Don’t want to know.” I raised my hands to cut him off. Dave stopped talking. “Right. You want to give me the night off for attacking customers. I’m going to stop arguing.”

“Good,” said Dave, and flicked off the lights. That was my cue to exit.

I stopped at the door, looking back over my shoulder. “This is because I won’t dance for you, isn’t it?”

“Good night, Verity,” Dave said.

Darkness escorted me the rest of the way out of the room.

I met Dave the night I stepped into his club looking for a part-time job, but he’d been aware of me for quite some time before that. Not because of my family, although that was probably a factor. Dave knew who I was because of
Dance or Die
.

My family’s been in hiding for four generations now, since my great-great-grandparents told the Covenant they were done exterminating innocent cryptids without regard for their place in a viable ecosystem. (According to the mice, Great-Great-Grandpa Alexander’s exact words were “You can take this unholy campaign and ram it up your bum sideways, you bloody miscarriage of a man!” Since the mice are morally incapable of changing anything they perceive as Holy Writ, and the Festival of Come On, Enid, We’re Getting Out Of Here Before These Bastards Make Us Kill Another Innocent Creature is one of the holiest of their many, many holy days, I’m pretty sure they’re quoting him correctly.) Being “in hiding” isn’t that bad … except for the part where it limits our available training methods.

Mom and Dad were firm on the topic of training: we could grow up to settle down and become accountants if that was what we really wanted, but we’d learn the family business before that happened. Most of the things that would love to brag about how they gutted a Price weren’t going to back off because their target said, “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t do that sort of thing, but I can balance your checkbook for you.”

Some stuff could be managed at home. I knew how to handle a firearm, lay a snare, and dress a wound by
the time I was five. I remember getting to elementary school and being amazed to discover that most children played sanitized versions of the games I knew; their idea of a good time seemed like a cat that had been declawed, all hiss and no interesting danger. What was the point of hide-and-seek if you weren’t allowed to dig pit traps or attack your opponents from behind? That was the first time I realized how different our home life was from everyone else’s. Everyone else wasn’t being taught to fight a war.

Our parents planned our education as carefully as they would have planned an invasion of France. To keep us interested, they let us decide how to specialize. My brother went for guns, more guns, bigger guns, and, also, guns. Antimony focused on traps, poisons, and keeping the fight as far from herself as possible. I learned to shoot, I learned to fight, and when the time came to pick what I wanted to devote myself to studying, I chose the thing I was most passionate about: ballroom dance.

I argued my case like a master. A surprisingly large number of fighting styles have a lot in common with dancing. Speed, flexibility, and the ability to kick higher than your own head are all things that come in handy when you’re fighting for your life. Most professional dancers live to dance, and that’s the sort of passion people in our position need to bring to their individual disciplines if they want to survive long enough to get really good at them.

We weren’t allowed to compete in any sport or activity the Covenant might be monitoring. Antimony got her black belt in karate, but was never allowed to go to any national events. Alex had to drop soccer when he got to college, on the off chance that he’d somehow make the news. And I, with my weird obsession with the Latin forms of ballroom dancing? With my urge to salsa and rumba and cha-cha my nights away? I was allowed to put on a red wig, get a false ID from our crazy cousin Artie, and audition for
Dance or Die
. And when the producers
said I had a slot in the top twenty, I was allowed to compete.

The format is familiar to everyone in the country who owns a TV not permanently turned to either PBS or porn: ten girls, ten guys, one massive cash prize. Every week two dancers get sent home, until the top four try to dance their way to victory without dancing themselves into heart failure. (My season was better than some; we only lost one contestant to health issues, and he was an idiot who stopped sleeping and gave himself pneumonia.) I didn’t win. I didn’t expect to. But I came in second.

Two of the show’s regular judges were cryptids, and so were three of the other competitors. My experiences with them, and the connections I managed to make within the Los Angeles cryptid community, were the final push I needed to get the consent for my studies in New York City. Of course Dave wanted me to dance for him. He could make some serious dough by putting my stage name on his roster of naked talent.

Competitive ballroom dance may have a reputation for skimpy dresses and sky-high heels, but at least sequins aren’t see-through. I’d been saying thanks but no thanks to Dave for months. I was there to work tables and make contacts, not sacrifice what little dignity I had left.

Of course, give me a few more months trying to pay for groceries on a cocktail waitress’ salary and tips, and that could change. All he really had to do was wait me out.

Carol was still in the dressing room with her wig in her hands when I returned. Her snakes hissed merrily, glad to be released from their confinement, as she stared morosely into the mirror.

“Hey, Carol,” I said, heading for my locker. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t
go back out there until I get my wig on, and I really need the tips,” she said, glancing back toward me. “I had to feed them last week.”

“Ouch.” I winced. Gorgon hair requires live feeding, and Carol had at least thirty individual snakes topping her head. They would have each demanded a pinky mouse of their own, possibly two or three in the case of the larger serpents. “Still no luck breeding your own?”

“I can’t wear my contacts all the time. I keep looking at them by mistake.”

“I can see where that would be a problem.” Untying my apron, I added, “I can call my mom if you want. She might have something you can use to sedate them without hurting them.”

“Could you?” Carol whirled to face me, clutching her wig to her breast and looking at me like I was the answer to all her prayers. “I didn’t want to ask, but…”

“It’s no big. Really.”

Here’s a fun fact: there are over nine hundred races of cryptids on the planet, and maybe eighty of those look roughly human, ranging from the Sasquatches and gorgons to dragon princesses and cuckoos. Here’s another fun fact: most of those races have only started coming into intentional contact with humans during the last hundred and fifty years, as our expansionistic tendencies brought us to them. Many have little to no idea of their own biology, and still practice a form of folk medicine that the human race abandoned centuries ago.

Which is where my mother comes in. Evelyn Price, formerly Evelyn Baker, is the closest thing to a cryptid physician most of them will ever meet. She’ll even make house calls if you can find her a teleport, and her rates are more than reasonable.

Carol burbled a series of thanks before she went back to trying to cram her snakes into the wig. I took her distraction as the opportunity it was and dug my weapons out of the locker. I always feel better with a knife, and better yet with a firearm or two. I was only carrying a
simple underarm holster, but that was fine; those are the easiest to hide. Pulling on a windbreaker, I shoved my street clothes into my emergency backpack and shrugged it on before scooting for the hall. I didn’t see the point in changing. After a mice-related kitchen incident, a boob-grab by an asshole, and a private talk with Dave, I was more than ready to get out on the rooftops. Running in a skirt may be a little bit indecent, but I don’t mind doing it as long as I’m not going to need to talk to any humans.

The night had matured while I was inside, ambient noise going from the mindless cheer of early evening to something deeper and more classical. A siren wailed in the distance; horns honked on the street below; a baby’s crying drifted out of an apartment window. It only needed a saxophone or maybe some feel-good easy listening music to make the stereotype complete.

I took several deep breaths of the night air, letting the tension slip out of my shoulders before backing up, putting my back against the rooftop door, and breaking into a run. If I couldn’t take my aggressions out on Dave’s customers, I’d do a quick circuit, head home, call Sarah, and go clubbing.

It’s always the best plans that fall through. I think the universe has some sort of law.