Seanan McGuire - Discount Armageddon

For Phil.

Let’s dance.

Cryptid, noun:

1. Any creature whose existence has been suggested but not proved scientifically. Term officially coined by cryptozoologist John E. Wall in 1983.

2. That thing that’s getting ready to eat your head.

3. See also “monster.”

Table of Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

A small survivalist compound about an hour’s drive east of Portland, Oregon

Sixteen years ago

VERITY DANCED CIRCLES around the living room, her amateurish pirouettes and unsteady leaps accompanied by cheers and exultations from the horde of Aeslin mice perched on the back of the couch. The cheering of the mice reached a fever pitch on the few occasions where she actually managed to get both feet off the ground and land again without falling. Her brother looked up from his book, snorting once before returning to his studies. At nine, Alexander considered himself above younger sisters and their tendency to act like complete idiots when given the slightest opportunity.

Evelyn Price leaned against the hallway arch with her youngest daughter balanced against her hip, watching Verity dance. A hand touched her shoulder. She sighed without looking around. “Kevin, I don’t know what we’re going to do about getting her to take her studies more seriously.”

“She’s six. I wasn’t taking my studies seriously at that age either.”

Evelyn laughed. “Should I ask the mice about that one, or would you like to admit that it’s a lie and save us all the sermon?”

“All I’m saying is that she’ll settle down if we give her a little time. I promise, Evie. She’ll come around.” Kevin Price stepped up next to his wife. Antimony reached her three-year-old arms up toward him. He plucked her from her mother’s hip, hoisting her up to his own shoulder. She giggled. “What did Very decide she wasn’t going to do this time?”

“Hide-and-seek,” said Evelyn.

Most children treated hide-and-seek as a game. This alien behavior never failed to shock and scandalize the Price children once they achieved school age and went marching off to the local elementary to be socialized. For them, hide-and-seek was a serious business, one that centered on finding likely routes of ambush and escape and learning how to cut them off. Alex had received his first concussion during a game of hide-and-seek. He was five at the time. Kevin wasn’t sure the boy had ever been so proud of himself before or since.

The thought of Verity refusing a hide-and-seek session was worrisome, especially since she’d always been better at it than her brother—a fact that made her want to “play” as often as possible. “What did she want to do instead?”

“She says she wants to dance,” Evelyn said, watching Verity whirl around the room like a tiny blonde dervish. “That’s all. Just dance.”

A nightclub in downtown Manhattan

Now

MUSIC PUMPED THROUGH THE CLUB’S SPEAKERS, distorted until it was barely more than a pounding bass line with a sprinkling of grace notes. It was perfect dance music, the kind that makes feet tap and thighs twitch with the need to get up and move . My own feet were tapping. I forced them to stop. There’d be time for that soon enough, but for the moment, waiting was still the name of the game.

I hate waiting.

Sarah had managed to acquire a half-circle booth that was empty except for us. It would have been impossible for anyone else. I’m not even sure she realized she was doing something impressive. I leaned sulkily back in my seat, trying to look casual as I sipped my nonalcoholic “Cosmopolitan”—club soda, grenadine, and a maraschino cherry for that finishing touch—and scanned the dance floor.

“So, Verity, tell me, are you looking for our nasty friend, or are you sizing up the competition?” Sarah’s tone was mild, but I could recognize the warning lurking underneath the question.

“Sorry,” I said, looking guiltily away from the floor.

“Aren’t you always?” Sarah was sitting in the center of the booth, partially so she could lounge nonchalantly against the burgundy vinyl cushions, and partially so she wouldn’t be in the way if I needed to move suddenly. Her choice of seating had the added bonus of keeping the crowd at a distance, since the full length of the table was between her and the rest of the club. Sarah doesn’t like being touched, something that’s generally viewed as a major loss by the male population of whatever city she’s in. She has classical black Irish coloring, with pale skin, thick black hair, and eyes that are an almost perfect ice blue. Add in her svelte figure and delicate features, and it’s no wonder she’s beating the boys off with a stick.

Not that most of them would know how to handle the revelation that she bleeds clear and doesn’t have a heartbeat, but hey, what’s a little inhumanity between friends? Sarah’s family, even if it’s through adoption. And there’s something to be said for bringing a telepath along when you’re hunting rogue cryptids through Manhattan’s hottest party spots. Without her, I would never have been able to get past the velvet rope.

She was still eyeing me. “My mind’s on the job,” I said defensively, plucking the cherry from my drink. “Really. I swear.”

“Uh-huh.” Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Do we have to have the ‘don’t lie to the telepath’ talk again? It won’t take long. I say ‘don’t lie to the telepath, it never works,’ you glare at me, and then you go find something you can hit.”

“Finding something I can hit is the plan.” I popped the cherry into my mouth as I glanced at the dance floor. Mmm, food coloring and sugar. “He’ll show. His patterns have been regular up to now, and this is the next stop on his circuit.”

“Well, I don’t know how much help I’m going to be. Ghoul minds are hard to tell from human minds under the best of circumstances. With this many drunk, horny people in one place, I’d be lucky to spot a serial killer, much less a ghoul.”

“If you do spot a serial killer, let me know. Sitting here is making my feet itch.” My shoes were doing worse than that, but that’s what I get for wearing five-inch heels. They have a practical application—it’s almost impossible for me to pull off a good salsa without heels on. That doesn’t make them comfortable. At least when I was dancing, I had something to distract me from the way they bent my arches.

Neither of us was dressed for comfort. Sarah was playing the bored celebutante, which necessitated that she wear the appropriate “uniform”: a skirt that could double as a belt, a backless silver handkerchief top, and knee-high leather boots. The temptation to snap a few pictures with my phone and mail them to our cousin Artie was almost impossible to resist. His head would probably explode.