The brief darkness cleared from Dominic’s eyes, and he nodded, saying crisply, “Proceed.”
“So you know, the military precision thing, really not nearly as effective when you’re starkers. Anyway, I told her about the lizard-men in the sewer and she flipped out, big-time. She says they’re called ‘servitors.’ They exist to serve the dragon—or, if the dragon isn’t in a position to be giving orders, say, because it’s still in the middle of nap hour, to serve whoever’s giving them the clearest instructions. They’re not very smart, but they take directions real well.”
Dominic frowned, a line appearing in the center of his forehead. I had to fight off the urge to lean over and kiss it away. Bad Verity. No Covenant hottie for you. “Why don’t we have any clear records on these ‘servitors’? You’d think we’d at least have something on them.” The unspoken “even if you don’t” hung between us for a moment before he turned his face away, looking faintly ashamed.
I cleared my throat to break the sudden tension, and asked, “What do your records say about the dragon princesses?”
“They’re inconsequential; as harmless as any cryptid can be. They look human, from the outside, although their anatomy reveals certain … inconsistencies … if examined in detail.” He didn’t look back at me as he spoke. He probably had a good idea of my reaction to the idea of cutting up something he’d just admitted was harmless to see how it worked. “They may have served as bait for the dragons, once. It was never conclusively proven, one way or the other.”
“And then there were no more dragons, and they just sort of vanished into the human population. You can’t hunt what you can’t find. They fell off the radar and stopped being a going concern,” I said, concluding his little history lesson.
Dominic nodded mutely.
“Okay, so here’s one of the pieces we’ve been missing all this time. The reason alchemists were always so damn hot to get their hands on dragon blood? It’s a natural mutagen. I mean, we’re talking some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-level crap here.” Dominic turned, giving me a blank look. I sighed. “Dragon blood alters human DNA if it’s ingested. That’s why people disappeared when they got too close to a dragon’s lair. If the dragon caught them, and if they were too much of a danger to release, it … changed them. That way it didn’t have to kill them, but they couldn’t go running off to tell the local villagers where the lair was.”
A look of slow horror swept over Dominic’s face, washing away all the regret and understanding—and yes, the affection—as it passed. “You’re saying that those creatures we fought … those creatures used to be men?”
“Yes, but the dragon’s still sleeping. I mean, the dragon’s not the one that’s doing this. Whatever fucked-up snake cult is trying to wake the dragon up—almost certainly a human snake cult, snake cults are pretty much always human, the assholes—they’re the ones feeding dragon blood to humans. They’re the ones creating servitors, and telling them where to go, what to do. The dragon’s just sleeping. It isn’t doing anything wrong.”
“Its existence is wrong,” Dominic spat, sliding out of the bed. I’d been too busy before to really appreciate the symmetry of his naked body, scars and all. He was gorgeous, possibly the most gorgeous man I’d ever had the pleasure of having my way with.
Pity he was turning out to be a total asshole.
I straightened, locking my shoulders like I was preparing to tango for my life, and glared at him. The power of my glare was somewhat diminished by the fact that I wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. Fortunately, I’ve had a lot of practice looking fierce while practically nude; this was just taking it to the championship level. “Its existence is the result of evolutionary pressures, the same as yours. Or do you want to start the argument against humanity? Because right now, you’re offering one hell of an example in the ‘negatives’ column.”
“You don’t understand what you’re talking about!”
If he’d wanted to make me mad, that was the way to do it. “Why? Because I didn’t have the benefit of all your precious Covenant training? Your resources? Your centuries of doing it all exactly the same way every time?”
“Yes!”
“Even when the way you’ve been doing it is wrong?” My voice peaked on the last word, nearly breaking.
Dominic looked at me impassively, somehow managing to look dignified, even though he was just as naked as I was. In that moment, I realized how different we really were. We could fight together, we could bleed together, but in the end, he would always be Covenant, raised to view anything that wasn’t human as a danger to be exterminated, while I…
I would always be a Price. Nothing I could ever do in my life, from ballroom dancing to poorly-considered trysts with cute Covenant men, was going to change that. His monsters were my family, and that was a chasm I didn’t think either of us was capable of bridging.
He must have seen the same reality reflected in my expression. Something that looked like regret flickered in his eyes before he turned his back on me, bending to begin gathering his discarded weaponry. “This was a mistake,” he said quietly. “This should not have happened.”
I was glad he was facing away from me. It kept him from seeing the way I flinched when his words struck home. “As long as we’re in agreement about that,” I said, keeping my shoulders locked and my chin lifted. All I had to do was pretend that it was another competition, another stupid cattle call where I had to keep that brave face turned toward the audience until the winners were announced. “Sometimes things can get a little confused after a big fight. You make decisions you didn’t actually intend to make, and then you can’t take them back.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” said Dominic, grabbing his trousers and pulling them roughly on before he turned to face me again. “I appreciate your assistance in obtaining more information regarding this threat, and apologize if I have misled you in any way.”
“Oh, is that what the boys are calling it these days?” I regretted the jeering tone of my words as soon as they were out of my mouth, but there was no way to call them back. Maybe it was better that way. It’s not like the women of my family can exactly be said to respond reasonably when men from the Covenant get involved, and it was becoming increasingly clear what the math of this situation really was: Dominic, or the dragon. My survival wasn’t really part of the primary equation, as Sarah would have said.
There was just no way all three of us were walking out of this alive.
Dominic yanked his shirt on, barely covering the holster buckled around his waist. “I believe we’re done here.”
“I believe you’re right.” I grabbed the sheet, wrapping it around myself with as much dignity as I could muster before marching to the bedroom door and wrenching it open. Dominic gave me a withering look and stalked out into the hall, only to be confronted with a sea of silent Aeslin mice watching him with black, unblinking oil-drop eyes. He stopped dead, staring back.
I stepped out of the bedroom behind him, and sighed. “Tell the mice you’re leaving now, Dominic. It’s the only way to make them go away.”
“How do I…?” He waved his hands helplessly.
The icy core of anger in my chest thawed a little. It was impossible to give serious thought to pitching him out the kitchen window when he was so clearly baffled by the mice. Still tempting, just less so. “They speak English. Tell them you’re leaving.”
“Ah.” He cleared his throat before addressing the rodent throng: “I will be going now. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“At least the man can be polite to my mice,” I muttered, pushing past him to the front door as the mice scampered back to their business, only the occasional cry of “Hail!” marking their retreat. I paused with my hand on the doorknob, a thought striking me. “By the way, I realize that Aeslin mice may not fit your high standards for what does or does not ‘deserve’ to live, but I swear, if you come back here, if you hurt them—”
“Insufferable woman,” said Domini
c, tiredly. “I won’t hurt your damned demon mice.” He put his hand over mine. For a brief instant, the contact made me forget how furious I was with him as sense memories of his body moving against mine threatened to overwhelm me. Then he clamped his fingers down, turning my hand and the knob at the same time, yanked the door open, and was gone, storming down the hallway while I stared after him.
After a moment, I realized I was standing in the apartment doorway wearing nothing but a sheet. Not exactly the sort of display I wanted to present to the neighbors I wasn’t supposed to have. I slammed the door, locking the deadbolt before spinning to press my back against the wood, like that was somehow going to be the final barricade to keep him out if he wanted to come storming back. He knew where I lived. A member of the Covenant knew where I lived. Worse, I’d just had sex with him, and now I was probably going to have to defend the last dragon in the world from him. I sank slowly into a sitting position, my knees pressing up against my chest.
“Look on the bright side, Verity,” I said sternly. “There is no possible way this night can get any worse.”
“LET THE CELEBRATION OF THE HOLY FEAST OF KISSING THE NEXT MAN WHO WALKS THROUGH THAT DOOR COMMENCE!” shouted the mice, with the utter glee that normally signaled the beginning of a multi-hour religious ritual.
I groaned, dropping my head forward so that my forehead rested against my knees. “My mistake,” I muttered. “It can always get worse.”
All around me, the mice exulted.
Seventeen
“We all make mistakes. Luckily for us, there are very few mistakes that can’t be solved with a suitable application of either lipstick or hand grenades.”
–Frances Brown
The penthouse of the Plaza Athenee, sometime around midnight
“THANKS AGAIN FOR LETTING ME STAY.” I sank a little deeper into the overstuffed couch, pulling my knees toward my chest. A chenille bedspread was wrapped around my shoulders, and Sarah had even managed to produce a pair of pajamas in my size. They were cute, if you liked blue silk with sushi prints. Given that Sarah is six inches taller than I am and rarely wears anything with a pattern, I wasn’t sure where they’d come from, and I didn’t want to ask. There was too good a chance that her reply would involve the room’s previous occupants, who might not have had the opportunity to pack their things before they were evicted.
Sometimes having a cuckoo for a cousin can be morally troubling. (To say nothing of having a cuckoo for a grandmother. Although Grandma Baker’s ability to get into anyplace she wanted just by walking through the front gates was pretty awesome when I was a kid and she took us all to Disney World. Mom says we don’t need to feel guilty about that, since the park still owes the family for handling that whole bug-a-boo problem they had back in the eighties.) At the moment, I was just glad to have someplace to go that didn’t involve a full-scale rodent bacchanal going on in the living room.
“It’s no problem,” said Sarah, walking back out of the penthouse kitchen with a pair of steaming mugs. “Here. Hot chocolate laced with brandy, just the way you like it.”
“And getting me drunk guarantees I won’t go running out and do something stupid, huh?” I wrapped my hands around the mug she handed me, breathing in the steam before taking a careful sip. She’d added the brandy with a generous hand. That, more than the temperature of the liquid, made it burn all the way down. “Oh, perfect.”
“I figured you needed it, after the day you’ve had.” Sarah settled into an armchair, curling her legs up under her body like a cat as she sipped from her own mug. I could smell its contents from where I sat, and hastened to take a larger gulp of my cocoa in order to cover up the scent. I like ketchup. I just don’t think of it as a beverage, especially not heated and mixed with orange juice. Cuckoo biology is not for the faint of heart. “Did he really show up at your apartment? How did he find out where you live?”
“I don’t know,” I said glumly, staring into the muddy depths of my hot chocolate. If it contained the secrets of the future, it wasn’t sharing them with me. “He’s Covenant. Maybe they have some sort of magical tracking device.”
“Or maybe he swiped your registration papers while he was invading the tango competition.” Sarah took another sip of her ketchup, wiping her mouth delicately with the back of her hand. “Either way, it’s not safe for you to go back there.”
“So where am I supposed to go? I can’t go back to Oregon until this whole dragon mess is sorted out.”
Sarah shrugged. “So come stay with me. It’s not like I don’t have the room.”
“That’s a sweet offer, but what about the mice? I couldn’t bring them here. I mean, even if you could convince the staff to ignore me, all it would take is one novice getting too enthusiastic and going on pilgrimage to the kitchen for cake, and then blammo. The hotel would call the Health Department so fast even you wouldn’t be able to stop them.”
“I know, but—”
“Plus, if I vanish, he could just come looking for me.”
“See, that could be amusing.” Sarah grinned a little. “He’ll never find you here. We could watch him and take bets on his progress.”
“You mean we could watch as he tracked down every cryptid he’s encountered since he got here, looking for someone who could tell him where I was. Plus, if he hasn’t told the Covenant about me yet, disappearing completely would be a surefire way to make him do it. He’d be sure I was going for reinforcements.”
“What makes you think he hasn’t told the Covenant about you?” asked Sarah, eyebrows rising. I glanced guiltily down into the recesses of my mug, and she gasped. “You didn’t. Oh, no, you did. You so totally did!”
I looked back up to find her staring fixedly in my direction, eyes bleached a shade or two lighter than their normal arctic blue. I glared. “Hey! What happened to telepathic ethics?”
“Please, like those apply when you did that with a boy from the Covenant? Verity, that’s disgusting!”
“Mmm … no, it wasn’t.” I couldn’t quite prevent myself from smiling at the memory. “God, with a body like that? There was no possible way for it to be disgusting. A terrible idea, sure, but disgusting, no way. You should have seen him, Sarah. I mean, the guy is gorgeous.”
“I did see him, remember? And our standards are a little bit different. You like the dark, brooding, on-the-wrong-side type, and I—”
“Like the geeky, frustrating, you-should-tell-him-already type. Yeah, I know.”
Sarah didn’t blush—her biology doesn’t allow for it—but she did shoot me a mortified look before clearing her throat and saying, “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to sleep with him again, for starters.” No matter how much I wanted to. “First step is going to be swinging by Gingerbread Pudding to let Piyusha know that Dominic’s decided to go off on his own. I’d rather she wasn’t standing in the line of fire if he decides to start small with the cleanup. After that, I should go to the Nest, warn the dragon princesses that there’s somebody—somebody else, I mean, beyond the snake cult that’s making its own little army of happy homicidal lizard-men—somebody else out to hurt the dragon. And then I should go to work.” I heaved a sigh, topping it with another mouthful of cocoa. “Dave isn’t going to give me the night off just because I’m having boy troubles.”
“Poor Verity,” said Sarah, not without sympathy. “No wonder you’re all stressed out. Why don’t you go ahead and take the bedroom? You need to get some rest.”
“What about you?”
“I have homework,” she said, glancing into her mug of ketchup. I glanced at the clock. It was twenty minutes past midnight, which made it twenty past nine on the West Coast. Prime Internet chat time, if you happened to be a comic geek like Cousin Artie, or, say, a lonely mathematician like Sarah.
I smothered a smile as I stood, leaving the chenille bedspread and taking the hot cocoa. “Okay. You enjoy your homework, and I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks again for letting me stay. I really
couldn’t handle another night of listening to the mice party down.”
“Hey, what else is family for?”
“So true.” I waited until I was halfway to the bedroom before calling back, casually, “Say ‘hi’ to Artie for me.”
“I will,” she replied thoughtlessly. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see her wince. “Verity!”
“Good night!” I chirped, and giggled all the way to bed.
Sarah was gone when I woke up in the morning. She’d left a note on the coffee table, written in her usual semi-comprehensible scrawl:
V—
Had to head for school or miss the start of the lecture session. Don’t like eavesdropping on the thoughts of the other students just because I was too lazy to get to class in time to take my own notes. Order anything you want from room service, it all goes on my bill anyway. Love you lots, and please try not to get yourself killed today. Your parents would never forgive me.
—S.
I rolled up one silk sleeve, scratching at my elbow as I considered her note. Room service sounded good. A hot shower, a chance to fix my hair, and breakfast at Gingerbread Pudding sounded even better. I could talk to Piyusha, give her a little heads-up on the situation, and score some gingerbread to bring home to the mice as a peace offering. They didn’t like it when I stayed out all night. Fortunately, their love was easily bought, and always for sale. And according to the clock, I had a little more than seven hours before I was expected at Dave’s Fish and Strips—enough time to eat a leisurely breakfast, talk to Piyusha, check in with Dad, and change into a clean uniform before I had to go to work.
“No rest for the wicked,” I said, and scribbled a quick “Gone out, thanks again, call you tonight” on the bottom of Sarah’s note before heading for the penthouse bathroom. I might not be willing to take advantage of her room service, but the chance to shower in a full-sized tub? Oh, Hell, yes.