Discount Armageddon: An Incryptid Novel (20 page)

“Scan?” said Dominic.

“I’m a telepath,” said Sarah, in a distracted, matter-of-fact tone. Ignoring the fact that it was now Dominic’s turn to stare, she continued, “You realize that in a city this size, you’re basically asking me to buy two first-class tickets on the Migraine Express, right?”

“I know. But if we’re going to go down there and check things out—”

“You’d like to know you won’t be eaten. Fine.” Sarah sighed, digging a cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans. Dominic continued to stare as she dialed a
number, waited a few seconds, and said, “Hi, Professor Hines, this is Sarah. I just wanted to call and let you know that I ate some bad sushi, and I won’t be able to make it to tonight’s review session. I’m really sorry, and I’ll make sure to get Tanya’s notes before next week’s class.” She hung up. “There. I can now incapacitate myself for your pleasure.”

“She’s a
telepath
?” demanded Dominic.

“And he catches up with the conversation.” I patted his knee. “Yes, she’s a telepath. Sarah reads minds. Don’t worry, she’s not reading yours.”

“It would be rude,” said Sarah. Putting her phone down, she began arranging herself carefully in the chair. “Telepathic ethics say you should never read a sentient creature’s mind without permission, provocation, or legitimate reason to fear for your life.”

“Telepaths have ethics?” Dominic’s eyes narrowed, tone and posture united to convey his disbelief.

“My mother and I do,” said Sarah, letting her head settle against the back of the chair. “We mostly got them from
Babylon 5
, but they still work.”

“It’s a long story,” I said, cutting Dominic off before he could get started. “Anything you can find will be a big help, Sarah, really.”

“Got it,” she said, and went limp, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

Little exercises of telepathy—like scanning a crowded club for a known killer—can be difficult, but Sarah can still manage to carry on a conversation while she does them. It’s the big things that are dangerous. They take too much effort, and too much focus, to let her do anything else. A cuckoo in the middle of something big is essentially defenseless. That’s why I left my hand on Dominic’s knee, keeping him from getting up. He’d only promised to leave her alone under duress, and I didn’t want to risk it. I just wanted him to see a cryptid doing something to help us, rather than being something he needed to be afraid of.

Besides, it wasn’t like he’d ever find her again if she didn’t want him to.

Sarah’s breathing got shallower and shallower as she continued to stare at the ceiling, eyes wide and startled-seeming. She didn’t blink. After about thirty seconds, her irises began to glaze over, going from icy blue to a milky, cracked-ice white. Dominic stiffened.

“This is unnatural,” he hissed.

“For us, yes. For her, no.” I squeezed his knee, keeping my eyes on Sarah. “This is perfectly natural. It’s what she evolved to do.” It’s the reason she stays near one of the cousins at all times. So that if she ever goes back to her killer-cuckoo roots, there’s someone around who knows how to stop her.

“Still—”

“There’s something there,” said Sarah, in a remote, utterly disconnected tone. Dominic stopped. “It’s big. It’s old. And it’s hungry.”

“Where is it, Sarah?” I asked, keeping my voice level. Most telepaths respond better when people don’t sound concerned by the fact that they’ve fallen into a fugue state. I don’t understand the psychology behind it, but I’m not the telepath.

“I don’t know. Close. There’s too much earth between here and there, and the subway system is in the way—I can’t see it clearly. But it’s big.” She hesitated. “Did I say it was big?”

“You did,” I said soothingly. “How big is big? Is it bigger than a bulldozer?”

“It thinks big thoughts. It dreams big dreams.” Sarah twitched. “It’s asleep. It’s been asleep for a long time. I think … I think it’s hibernating. Waiting for something to change before it wakes up again.”

“Is it a dragon?” demanded Dominic. I shot him a warning look. His attention was focused fully on Sarah,
posture tight with a degree of tension that I recognized from my own mirror. He was itching for a fight.

“I don’t know,” said Sarah, a note of peevish irritation creeping into her voice. “What does a dragon think like? You tell me, and I’ll ask it.”

“She can’t really do that,” I said, before he could ask her. “Sarah, is there anything you can give us as a pointer? What direction do we need to go?”

“Down.” She blinked, the blue returning to her eyes as she sat up in the chair and looked at us gravely. “You need to go way, way down, Very. And you need to go now, because I think somebody’s trying to wake it up.”

Central Park, a block and a half away from the Plaza Athenee, preparing to do something stupid

T
HE FIRST OUT-OF-THE-WAY MANHOLE COVER
we could find was located on the edge of Central Park, about a block and a half away from the hotel. It was mostly hidden in the middle of one of those little seating areas that spring up around the city like mushrooms after a hard rain. The few people who did walk by pretty much ignored us. “I love big city life,” I said quietly.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Dominic had removed his duster and shirt before taking the crowbar Sarah somehow managed to wheedle out of the hotel manager—when a cuckoo gets involved, it’s better not to ask exactly how they accomplish things—and setting to work. Sarah was back at the hotel, gulping Tylenol and keeping a telepathic “eye” on the area. She’d let us know if she saw trouble coming.

In the meanwhile, I was absorbed with the all-important task of checking my weapons, including the emergency throwing knives and smoke grenades I’d
retrieved from Sarah’s closet. Well, that, and watching the way the muscles of Dominic’s back moved every time he strained to get a better degree of leverage on the manhole cover. Sure, he was Covenant, and I might have to kill him before everything was said and done, but the man had the sort of physique professional athletes would kill for. In his case, he probably had. All the training in the world won’t take the place of knowing that your performance on the field literally means the difference between life and death. So what if he was a dead man walking? He wasn’t dead yet, and the way he was carbonizing my hormones reminded me, graphically, that neither was I.

Dominic glanced up, as if he could feel my eyes on him, and scowled. “You could help, you know,” he said sourly.

“There’s only one crowbar, and I’m busy making sure we get back from the lizard hunt in one piece.” I slotted another throwing knife into its holster. “Don’t worry. It’ll be my turn to sweat soon enough.”

Muttering something in a language that sounded suspiciously like Latin, Dominic shook his head and went back to work.

You
do
realize you’re broadcasting, right?
asked Sarah, implied laughter coloring her mental “voice.”

I nearly stabbed myself in the leg. The first time she pulled that trick, I actually did—cuckoos mature into projective telepaths in their teens, riding what Antimony and Sarah call “the X-Men effect.” (My sister and my cousin: both enormous nerds.) Before that, she’d been strictly limited to feelings and vague impressions that were to actual sentences as interpretive dance is to the Viennese waltz.

Shut up and get out of my head,
I shot back. I’m not a telepath, but that hasn’t stopped me from learning how to communicate with them, if only out of self-defense.

So are you going to jump his bones? I ask purely out of academic interest, and because if you’re taking brooding,
dark, and inappropriate home with you, I’m not auditing any classes near your apartment for a week.

“God, Sarah,” I muttered. Dominic glanced sharply in my direction, and I offered him a quick, reality-show-perfect smile. He shook his head again, looking baffled as well as disgusted, and bent back to his work.
Don’t you have anything better to do?

Not until you get back. Safely, please.

I’ll do my best,
I replied, approvingly. Dominic was shoving the manhole cover off to one side, releasing an unpleasant gust of sewer smell. I wrinkled my nose.
Looks like we’re ready to head down the rabbit hole. Thanks for all your help.

Call me when you get back above ground.
The soft background static of an active telepathic connection cut off as Sarah turned her attention elsewhere, leaving me alone with a half-naked member of the Covenant of St. George, an open manhole cover, and a plan consisting mostly of “look for something to hit.”

“One subterranean tour of the island of Manhattan, coming right up,” I said, sheathing my last knife before sliding off the dumpster I’d been perching on. I trotted over to help Dominic get ready to descend into the darkness. The things I do to keep potentially extinct monsters from eating the human race, I swear.

The New York City subway system is a large part of the reason for the city’s massive cryptid population. Many species of cryptid prefer to live in darkness—hence the popularity of creepy old houses, supposedly haunted forests, and complex cave systems. When those aren’t available, a sufficiently large and complicated subway system will suit most cryptids just fine. As an added bonus, city subways tend to come with water and power systems that can be tapped with relative ease, allowing city cryptids to live in comfort, yet not miss out on their
modern conveniences. A surprisingly large number of bugbears really enjoy their daytime talk shows.

Because of the city cryptids’ tendency to retreat underground when given the opportunity, I never go anywhere without a light, bug spray, and a water bottle in whatever bag I happen to be carrying. Just in case.

The manhole opened to reveal a rusty metal ladder bolted into the concrete and pointing straight down into the sewer system. Dominic insisted on taking the lead, presumably so he’d have the first opportunity to fight off anything that felt like attacking us. I didn’t object. If he wanted to feed himself to the monsters, it would both keep them from eating me and solve that nagging question of whether or not to kill him. Two birds, one stone.

By bracing my feet against one side of the narrow tunnel and my shoulders against the other, I was able—barely—to get sufficient leverage to let me pull the manhole cover back into place. Most of the light died once the opening was sealed, leaving only a few narrow beams to illuminate our descent.

“In a sewer, in the dark, with a Covenant member,” I muttered. “Can this day
get
any better?”

The ladder ended after about fifteen feet, when my questing foot hit a chilly layer of half-congealed water. Grimacing, I dropped off the ladder, letting water soak through my socks, and pulled the cave light out of my bag, clipping it to my belt before saying, “Close your eyes. I’m going to turn the light on.”

“What?” asked Dominic.

I flipped on the cave light—a miniature halogen designed for deep spelunking and hunting basilisks in the woods on moonless nights. Dominic’s pained yelp told me he hadn’t listened. “I warned you,” I said, and turned to survey our surroundings.