"Should I be?"
"Oh, yes." Flames danced in his eyes. "I've lived a long time and I've never met a Nether creature who didn't cower at my presence."
"You've never met an asanbosam."
He frowned in consideration. "Too true. And I admit to being impressed so far, despite your lowly birth. Powerful and candid, but reckless as well. Wouldn't you agree?"
I didn't answer.
"A deal with a jinn," he said. "A dangerous thing, to be sure. What you fail to realize is that I've met your obeah men before." He smiled. "Don't worry. They didn't betray you. We merely bargained over turf. They did their jobs without realizing who they were dealing with."
The jinn raised an open palm and a ball of fire burst into being. "You know, the human protections don't apply to you. I could incinerate you with a flick of my wrist."
I showed my teeth. He could try. "Get on with it," I said. "Speak plainly or fight."
"In a rush to die, I see," he said with a chuckle. "But it doesn't have to be that way. I could use someone with your talents."
"Nobody uses me."
"What about the Nigerian?"
"I work for Namadi Obazuaye."
Now the jinn laughed outright. "A weak-minded man. A charming smile and good business sense, perhaps, but no formidable talent to speak of. And here you are. An asanbosam. Once lurking in the trees of the Third World, feeding on the desolate and the lost. Desperately looking for a permanent escape from the dark pits that bore you. That's why you're here, is it not?"
I worked my jaw. This one had a silver tongue. I considered slicing it off and eating it first.
"Tell me, Tunji Malu," he started, "do you know the difference between deceit and delusion?"
My breath stopped. I narrowed my eyes slowly. "How did--"
"It's a simple question," he said plainly. "Deceit and delusion. Have you ever thought about the difference?"
"You were there," I said, a statement not a question, but incredulous nonetheless. "In the attic."
The jinn vanished in a blink and appeared on the other side of me. "I am made of fire and air, Nether one. I am everywhere."
I snorted. "Then why didn't you stop me? Why didn't you save your mage?"
The jinn grinned hungrily. "Where would be the fun in that?"
I blinked and took a hesitant step away. When I realized I was showing weakness, I stopped.
"Deceit and delusion, Tunji. Are you deluding yourself? That you serve this man. That you aren't clawing out from your cesspit and trying to reach heights your brothers never dreamed of. Or were you merely employing deceit? Telling Namadi you were his loyal servant while hitching on his coattails, keeping your true identity and intentions hidden."
"This was a job interview," I concluded.
"Perceptive, again."
The threatening ball of flame in his palm winked out. The jinn slipped his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall, abandoning any pretense that I could kill him. In truth, I wasn't so sure I could. But he was giving me an opening.
"I'll triple your salary," he said, closing the deal. "Plus bonuses for special jobs. I have other people in place, but Miami's a surprising city. A gateway into this country, loose and wild and corrupt in all the best ways. But also a tough nut to crack. I could use someone with your skill set to speed along my influence."
I relaxed my posture and held my blades loose. As he spoke I moved closer.
"You'll keep your current job, too," he said. "An influential businessman like Namadi is a good one to have under hand. You made a wise choice there. And we'll launder my money through him, of course. Keep those details from him, and do it without a percentage. You'll earn plenty through other means, including what the fool will continue to pay you as his bodyguard. Is that understood?"
I waited a beat. "You're serious."
"Deadly. I have big plans for this city. You could be a part of them."
I licked my lips and wondered if his big plans had included the dead mageling downstairs. Then again, her death had been her own fault.
The jinn stepped forward and offered me an outstretched hand. "What will it be, Tunji? Death or glory?"
He waited for my reply, a statue of unwavering resolve. I considered his hard eyes carefully. He was different from Namadi. More shrewd, more dangerous. Wasn't that the game I was playing?
I worked my jaw again. Considered Pim still smoldering downstairs. Then I recalled the long, endless tunnels of the Nether. The wide-open nothingness of Africa. I recounted how far I'd already come, and foresaw how much further I could still go.
It was all within reach. I just had to take it.
I clasped his hand into mine. "We have a deal."
Delusion. That was one problem I didn't have.
BALANCE
SEANAN McGUIRE
When monsters and men are one and the same, it's up to the cryptozoologists to keep the peace, and keep humanity from understanding that we are not alone. Most of the cryptids in the InCryptid universe are perfectly lovely people. But then there are the cuckoos--telepathic ambush predators who will steal everything you are, and laugh while your world falls apart around you. They live for math. They live for malice. In "Balance," we see that these two things are not always at odds . . .
* * *
"Please. For the sake of humanity, watch for the absences. Watch for the holes. Know the threat is real, and guard against it with your life."
--ALEXANDER HEALY
* * *
A small outdoor cafe in Burbank, California
Now
The server waited for me to take my first sip of pink-tinged tea, every line of his trim cater-waiter body vibrating with the need to know that I was satisfied, that he hadn't somehow managed to disappoint the most important person in the industry. He was hoping for his big break, and when he looked at me, he saw his name in lights.
Fool. Still, for the moment, a useful fool, and eliding a corpse is almost always more trouble than it's worth. I took the sip.
"Tangy," I said, and felt him swell with pride. "But a bit under-seasoned, don't you think? Really, I expected better from a place with this sort of reputation."
His shoulders sagged. Humans are so senselessly demonstrative, like they're afraid their emotions will lose all meaning if not painted constantly on a billboard. Noisy, nasty things.
"I am so sorry," he babbled. He began to reach for the tea, then froze, apparently realizing that taking it would mean snatching the cup out of my hands. "I'll remove it from your bill immediately. Honestly, I don't know what happened--"
"Bring me a glass of V8," I said. The cafe didn't sell the stuff, but the bodega across the street did, and I knew my eager attendant would make an unauthorized jaunt to get me what I asked for.
"Right away," he said, and turned and fled before I could change my mind about losing my temper. Mammalian fool.
I leaned back in my seat, considering the minds around me. They were all mammalian, hot and swift and teeming with untidy hormones. Most were human. A chupacabra actress held court at the table one over from mine, talking about making the transition between telenovelas and American drama.
It would be a small, easy thing to twist the part of her mind that allowed her to regulate her shape. How many of her fawning sycophants would stay in her company if she turned inside out and revealed herself as the glorious monster that she was? The screaming would be amusing, if nothing else--the chaos would be delicious.
But I would never get my V8. More, in this age of cell phones and cameras everywhere, the footage might attract the sort of people I didn't want to deal with. Monster-hunters are tedious at the best of times. Drama queens and ambulance chasers, the lot of them, driven by the fear that perhaps humans aren't at the top of the food chain after all.
As if they ever were. I sipped my tea, sighing with transitory contentment. It would have been difficult not to enjoy the delicate interplay of jasmine and tomato puree mixed with honey. It wasn't a
blend a cafe catering to a human clientele would ever think to put on a menu, but menus have little meaning for me. Truly, it was a lovely afternoon.
Maybe the V8 would be overkill. The tea was improving as it had time to fully mature. Jasmine is like that. I stood, taking my teacup with me.
My server was running back across the street, my requested beverage in hand. There was a truck heading his way, slowing to let the pedestrian pass. The driver was close enough for me to taste his thoughts, the slow, murky consideration of the world around him. One more boring man, living a boring life in a boring world, never making headlines, never doing anything worth remembering.
I could fix that.
The driver slammed his foot down on the gas, barreling forward fast enough to catch the unwary waiter square across the ribs. He went flying, V8 shooting out of his hand and smacking into the windshield. The truck continued onward before turning sharply and plowing into the front of the cafe. The chupacabra was fast enough to get up and out of the way before her table was driven through the window and into the dining room. Her companions were . . . less fortunate.
Humming to myself, still sipping my tea, I walked away. There must be something to do in a town like this on such a beautiful day. All I had to do was find it.
What possessed evolution to make something in such a practical form with no functional defenses, I may never know. Humans are fascinating creatures. They look like cuckoos: two arms, two legs, moderate sexual dimorphism. They have more variation in their appearance, but that only makes sense, as they have no other way of distinguishing one another. They can't read minds or feel thoughts like we do; they lack the true understanding of their peers that every cuckoo is born with.
Perhaps that's why they gather in such dismayingly large hives. Put a million cuckoos in one place and you'd get a riot the likes of which this world has never seen. We can't abide each other, save under very specific circumstances, when the need is greater than the desire to be left alone. Humans, though, they pile themselves up like locusts devouring a field, until their bodies are the greater part of their environment, and when they close the doors to their homes, they think themselves alone.
Humans are bees. Cuckoos are wasps. Even in this backward dimension where evolution clearly went wrong, bees exist to feed the wasps who move among them. They feed us in whatever way they can, and we show them the mercy of remaining solitary creatures. If we gathered in swarms like they do, we would destroy them inside of a season.
I walked. I sipped my tea. A man pulled a knife in the shadow of a parking garage, intending to take the purse of a young woman with two small children. He stabbed himself in the throat instead. His intended victims screamed in terrible harmony as I walked on.
The youngest of them would never recover. I could taste the shape of her trauma knitting together, one loop at a time. It would be a beautiful equation when it was finished, as long as no one interfered. I was nearly out of range of their minds, yet still close enough to reach out, tinker, and suggest. I'm no cuckoo queen, to completely modify memories. Pleasant as the power would be, it comes with a fate I have no interest in coveting.
Still, if I can't take a memory away, I can tone it down, wear off its edges, make it seem less important when set against the complicated mathematics of a life. The woman and her older child would forget this day more quickly than they would have believed possible, while the youngest would dwell on it, wrap herself around it, become it, until the stress of carrying that burden exploded in some fascinating new way.
I would be a hundred miles away by the time her equation reached its inevitable, explosive end. That was fine. Part of the fun of surrendering a piece of territory is in leaving presents for whoever takes control of it after me. Let the next cuckoo contend with whatever delicious atrocity this child grew up to commit. I would read about it in the papers, and have a pleasant memory to brighten a dull afternoon.
Still humming to myself and sipping my tea, I walked on.
The effort of altering their memories had been enough to leave me weary. I paused to look around and consider my options. Burbank is a lovely town for shopping, snacking, and playing with people, but its hotels tend toward the lower end of the scale, and most of the truly interesting people spend all their time behind gated walls protected by tedious security systems. Damned electronic eyes don't yield properly to psychic pressure.
There was a woman walking toward me on the sidewalk, her car keys in one hand and a Starbucks latte in the other, her thoughts filled with vague errands and emptiness. She would do. I waited for her to reach me, fell into step beside her, and smiled sweetly.
"There you are," I said. "I've been waiting ages."
There was a pause while her perception of reality adjusted to the changes I was feeding it. I felt her relax, and knew from the shape of her thoughts that she was smiling back, sheepishly, as if she had let someone terribly important down.
"Sorry, Eliza," she said. "The line at the Starbucks was awful, and you know how I get when I don't have my coffee."
"Next time, why don't we drive someplace less crowded, rather than waiting?"
"What a good idea." She unlocked her car, a mid-range BMW, unremarkable for the neighborhood but nice enough for me to feel confident in my choice. I hate the conditions some humans live in. Squalor is one thing, but there's no reason to wallow in it. "Do you want to drive?"
Clearly she thought I was the dominant half of this friendship. That was good: sometimes people write themselves into the role of my protector or keeper, and those can be difficult to get away from. I allowed my smile to turn gracious, following the cues from her mental response to get the shape of it exactly right. Our acquaintance was still new enough that I needed to be careful if I wanted it to deepen properly.
"Now, Barb, you know I don't drive when the sun's up," I said. "My eyes, you know. You go ahead."
Her cheeks reddened. "I'm sorry. We'll go straight home."
"Thank you," I said, and got into the car, balancing my teacup on my knee as I closed my eyes and settled deep into the buttery leather seat. Yes. This was definitely an improvement.
Barb chattered idly as she drove, and I didn't interrupt or try to stop her. She was contradicting herself almost constantly, first pointing out a landmark and then recounting a story about a time she and I had gone there together and done some festive thing or other. I paid her little attention, letting her work through all the snarls of our "relationship" without input from me.
This is what it is to be a cuckoo: people who look at me will always see what they want to see, what they need to see in order to be drawn to protect me. I can shape the flavor of their response, turning it familial or fawning, but for the most part, I don't bother. The human mind is elastic and impressionable. I've found that if I simply hurl myself into their psyches and embed myself there, they'll heal around me, finding the most stable formation to support my needs.
People who don't appreciate the simple elegance of what we do call us parasites, say that the way we reshape the world is outside the natural order of things. They're wrong, of course. We're as natural as anything else the universe has to offer. It's not our fault that we're more effective predators than anything else on this world.
Humans, especially, don't like to remember that their world isn't the only one around.
Barb pulled into the driveway of a pleasant two-story house: not as palatial as some I had commandeered, but sufficient for an afternoon. I smiled at her as I got out of the car.
"I'm so glad you could drive me home."
Her thoughts roiled, confusion kicking up the silt at the bottom of her mind. That was important. She had settled into the framework of our relationship all by herself, and now it was time for me to quash anything that would contradict it. I mentally reached out and pressed down on the parts of her that wanted to object, to rebel. It took only a few seconds for her thoughts to settle, her face going blank enough that even I could see the lack of animation.
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Humans and their faces. If they could share their emotions silently, like civilized people, they wouldn't need so many expressions.
"Of course, Eliza," she said. "You know I'd do anything for a friend."
"I know," I said, and held out my hand. "My keys, please?"
She tossed them to me without objection.
The walkway was clean and well maintained. Barb trailed behind me like a puppy eager for approval, and I allowed it. If nothing else, having her around would mean not needing to search for anything, and unless I wanted to order her to drive off the nearest available cliff--not out of the question if she got annoying enough--I could have her chauffeur me around for a few days while she "slept over" with the friend she thought I was.
The door opened on an airy foyer with a domed ceiling that must have been hell to cool during the height of the summer, given humans' narrow range of comfortable temperatures. Truly, it's a miracle they were able to survive long enough to develop central air. They should have died off long before their technology progressed to such a point, leaving the world to a dominant species capable of enjoying it properly.
Still, the windows were thick enough to keep the place nicely insulated, and the curtains I'd seen from the outside had looked heavy. Light-blocking. That meant I'd have all the things a modern cuckoo needs to sleep peacefully. "I think I'll lie down for a little while," I said. "Feel free to make yourself at home until I wake up."
Barb nodded, thoughts turning painfully grateful, as if this weren't her house and I hadn't just taken it over as easily as plucking an apple from a tree. That's another problem with humans: they bounce back so quickly that sometimes they scar over damage that any other thinking species would have been able to eventually route around and recover from.
If my ancestors had been looking for the perfect prey, they couldn't have done better than humanity. They'll love us all the way to their own graves, and if they leave ghosts when they go, they'll keep on loving us forever. We win. Every time, we win.
Barb's bedroom was on the second floor. I walked a circuit around it, considering the size of the bed--queen--the lack of pictures of family members or pets, even the stuffed bunny on the pillow. Excellent. She'd been a casual acquisition, the minion equivalent of grabbing takeout when it was too late to get a proper dinner, but it seemed like she might be something worth keeping for a little longer than I'd originally planned.