Games Creatures Play

  Carlotta lurched to her feet, demanding, “Who?”

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “Dammit, Thompson!” She grabbed me in a way that would have meant a personal foul on the track, her fingers digging into my shoulders. “I know you’re not a people person, but you can’t even tell me who’s hurt?”

  “I can’t tell you because there wasn’t a head!” I spoke more loudly than I’d intended to. Carlotta went white, letting go of my shoulders. Heads turned in our direction. I swallowed and said, “There’s no body. Just a leg. But it’s wearing a skate and fishnets, and the skate has black and purple laces.”

  “Oh, God.” Carlotta pushed past me, running for the edge of the bleachers.

  I turned to find Elsie staring at me, eyes wide and disapproving within their rings of glittery eye shadow and too-black kohl.

  “That’s your idea of sensitivity?” she said. “‘Oh, it’s just a leg’?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “You’re sick.” She stomped after her girlfriend. I stayed where I was, resisting the urge to strap my skates back on and head for the hills while I still could. I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. Whatever had killed that skater did it quickly, cleanly, and without being seen. Nothing human could have done it that well. And if our killer wasn’t human, that made it my problem.

  The panic was still isolated in patches throughout the warehouse, probably because a little screaming was par for the course at a big Roller Derby match, and most people still didn’t know what was going on. I scanned the crowd until I found the women I wanted—and thank the god or gods of your choosing, they were standing together. I bolted toward them, ignoring the muffled shouts of protest in my wake. What’s pissing a few folks off if it means saving a lot of lives?

  “Thompson?” said Elmira, blinking.

  “Hey, Final Girl,” said her companion. Cylia—better known on the track as Triskaidekaphilia—was the captain of the Rose Petals, one of the teams that was about to skate. She was a lithe blonde with blue streaks in her hair and cat hair liberally dusted across her pink and black uniform.

  “Hi, Elmira, hi, Cylia,” I said. “I need to talk to both of you before somebody pulls the fire alarm. Can we go somewhere?”

  Cylia frowned. “What’s going on?”

  The crowd around us was noisy and enthusiastic and paying no attention to us. I took a breath and said, “One of the members of the Concussion Stand is dead. I don’t know who, except that it isn’t Carlotta, because she was with Elsie when I found the remains. The blood was too fresh for this to be some sort of Criminal Minds body-dump shit, and the cuts I saw looked more like claw marks than knife wounds. Fern’s gone to alert the NSOs, at which point I’m assuming the warehouse will be evacuated—”

  As if on cue, the fire alarm blared through the warehouse, drawing exclamations of surprise and dismay from the people around us.

  “There we go,” I said. “Look, if this goes normally, the police are going to show up, they’ll search the place, declare it a crime scene, and close it for a few days while they try to find the rest of the missing girl. And maybe they will, I don’t know. Human killers are sort of outside my bailiwick.”

  “Are you saying you think this was an inhuman killer?” demanded Elmira.

  I gave Cylia a sidelong look, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. Elmira knew about the cryptids in our league—she called them “girls with diffabilities,” which was a cute little portmanteau way of saying “monsters I like”—but that didn’t mean she understood them. “Pretty sure, yeah,” I said. “I’m going to need you to keep the rest of the Slasher Chicks away from here, except for me and Fern. Cylia, can I get your phone number?”

  Elmira put a hand over her face. All around us, people were streaming toward the doors, still clutching their beers and bags. Pulling a fire alarm was a great way to empty the building, but I wasn’t worried about losing our killer. Anything with claws big enough to have made the marks on the dead girl’s leg would have ears to match, and was probably cowering in a closet or crawlspace by now, waiting for the noise to stop.

  “Thompson, are you planning to sneak back in here and bait a monster that’s already killed one person, rather than doing the sane, sensible thing and leaving this to the authorities?”

  “Sorry, but yeah,” I said, baring my teeth in an admittedly feral grin. “It’s just that in a situation like this one, I sort of am the authorities. But don’t worry. I promise we’ll try not to damage the track.”

  Elmira groaned.

  • • •

  More than half the league quietly melted into the shadows after the fire alarm rang. No one had smelled smoke inside, and the grapevine is strong within the derby community; within five minutes of the evacuation, everyone who hadn’t actually seen the leg behind the bleachers knew about it. Even those who wanted to stay and show their support were just as likely to excuse themselves. Princess Leya put it best when she slung her skates over her shoulder, shook her head, and said:

  “The Portland PD tries hard, but sometimes, you just gotta get the fuck out of Dodge before somebody asks to see your papers.”

  “I get that,” I said. I was lurking at the edge of the crowd, where I could do a quick fade into the trees if it looked like someone wanted to question me. Speak softly and keep your face out of the news reports, that’s the Price family way. “Can I call you when we’re going back in? I could use you.”

  Leya, who was a chupacabra in addition to being a damn fine jammer, nodded. “You’ve got my number. I want to find whatever did this to my girl and make it sorry it ever fucked with us.”

  “I’ll call soon,” I said.

  “Okay,” said Leya, and walked toward her car. I turned back to the crowd.

  The dead girl turned out to be Tanya Durham, better known as Holly Go Lightspeed, the newest Concussion Stand jammer. They’d identified her by the tattoo on her ankle. Knowing her name put her death into upsetting focus. Carlotta had been borderline hysterical when the identification was made, and was still more upset than I’d ever seen her. She was sitting in the smoking area, sobbing, with her team clustered around her like they could make it better through sheer proximity. I cringed when one of those girls broke from the pack, turning and stalking toward me.

  Elsie at least waited until she was close enough that she didn’t need to shout before demanding, “Well?”

  “Keep your voice down,” I said, glancing at the police. They were still occupied with interviewing our NSOs. I’d managed to keep myself from being identified as “the girl who found the leg”—which I technically wasn’t, I was just the first girl who’d been thinking clearly enough to alert the authorities—and I wanted it keep it that way.

  “Why, because the police might somehow psychically realize you could be fixing this shit, and instead you’re hanging out under these stupid, scabby trees, waiting for the noise to stop bothering your precious ears?” Elsie scowled. I had never seen her this angry, and not for the first time, I was glad her pheromones were weaker than her brother’s. The last thing I needed right now was to be manipulated into charging into danger. “Don’t you care that a girl is dead?”

  That stung. “I care as much as you do, Elsie, but what do you want me to do? Attracting attention won’t bring her back, and we made so much noise getting out of there that whatever killed her is either gone or hiding. I need to give it a chance to calm down and come back.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then I go in with Fern, and Cylia, and Leya, and we find whatever the fuck is in there, and we deal with it.”

  Elsie nodded. “Carlotta and I will be expecting your call.”

  “What?” I stared at her. “You can’t be serious. Elsie, Carlotta’s human, she can’t—”

  “You’re human too, and you don’t see me telling you that you can’t hunt whatever killed
Tanya,” Elsie countered. “Carlotta’s not stupid. She’s not going to rat anybody out.”

  “I can’t blow anyone’s cover, Elsie. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Here’s the thing. I got a sort of modified version of the family code, since I’m, you know, an abomination of nature and everything? And the version I got says I can tell my girlfriend when she’s surrounded by people who can help her when she’s hurting. This is the worst thing she’s ever experienced. I have to help. You have to help.” Elsie shook her head. “You can argue all you want, but if I find out you came back here without us, we’re done. I’m not going to stand by you if you won’t stand by me, and I thought derby was about teamwork and building a community. You’re not playing with the team right now, Annie. You’re playing like a Price. I expected better from you.”

  She turned and stalked back toward the smoking area. She didn’t look back at me. She didn’t look back at me once.

  • • •

  I got a ride home from Cylia; Elsie was staying at Carlotta’s, and neither of them wanted to talk to me. Since I wasn’t one of Holly’s teammates, and I hadn’t been seen speaking to her right before she disappeared, my name hadn’t come up for questioning. Thank God for that. I hadn’t been looking forward to running from the police.

  Cylia pulled off by the side of the road in the woods surrounding my family’s home. “Are you sure I can’t take you all the way?” she asked. “I’m not comfortable dropping you off in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I’m good,” I said, grabbing my duffel bag as I undid my seat belt and slid out of the car. “My parents aren’t big on unannounced company. I’d rather not cap the worst night ever by having a huge fight the minute I walk in the door, you know?”

  “I get that,” said Cylia. She cocked her head, eyeing me. “Still, you have to admit this is weird. Almost as weird as you being a human who hangs out with a succubus and doesn’t bat an eye at me being a jink. What’s your deal, Annie Thompson?”

  “My name says it all,” I said. “I’m the Final Girl.” I shut the car door before she could ask me any more questions. To my relief, she didn’t roll down the window. She just waved and pulled away from the shoulder. I stayed where I was and watched her taillights dwindle down the dark, wooded road.

  Cylia was going to press until her questions were answered: I knew that, just like I knew that since she was a cryptid, I could tell her who I was without fear of Covenant reprisal. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like this was the beginning of the end of my Roller Derby career. I’d been able to skate for as long as I had because when I was on the track I was Annie Thompson, and not Antimony Price.

  As I stepped into the woods to begin the hike to my house, I felt like I finally understood my big sister’s attachment to her dance alias. Sure, it was frivolous, and had gone on long past the point where it could be considered reasonable, but it was nice to be part of a community that didn’t expect anything from me. As long as Annie Thompson showed up for practice, everyone was happy with her, and no one was waiting for her to save the world. Antimony Price had rules. Antimony Price had expectations. Annie Thompson . . . all she had to do was skate.

  I took a break after I’d gone about a quarter mile, listening for indications that I was being followed. Silence greeted me, broken only by the distant hoot of one of the local owls. I started walking again, pulling my phone out of my pocket.

  Elsie isn’t my only cousin. She has a brother, Arthur, better known as “Artie.” Like Elsie, he’s a crossbreed, half human, half incubus. Unlike Elsie, he doesn’t leave the house very often. It was almost midnight. He still picked up on the second ring. “Annie? What gives?”

  “You didn’t know it was me,” I scolded. “I could have been a Covenant operative who’d taken this phone off Antimony’s broken body.”

  “True enough,” said Artie. “Since you’re not, what gives?”

  “One of the girls on the Concussion Stand was killed tonight.”

  Silence.

  “She skated in the match against the Slasher Chicks. Something killed her after she left the track.”

  “Uh, Annie?” Artie’s tone was hesitant, like he already knew he wouldn’t like my answer. “Why did you say something, and not someone?”

  “Because whatever killed her did it in a warehouse full of spectators without being seen, and got away with most of her body in a matter of seconds. If it hadn’t dropped a leg, we probably wouldn’t know she was gone.”

  “Okay, that’s disgusting. So what are we looking for?”

  “I don’t know. What could do something like this? You’re the one with the mad research skills, and I’m the one walking alone through the dark, creepy woods.”

  “Not to sound pessimistic, but ‘fast, stealthy, and capable of either eating or toting away most of a person’ doesn’t narrow down the list at all. If you said ‘it was invisible,’ that would be something. Is there any chance it was invisible?”

  “It could have been,” I said. “It could have just been really fast. We found the leg behind the bleachers, which were filled with people at the time.”

  “Then I’ve got nothing, because I’ve got too much to have anything. Find me more information and I can tell you what it might be.” Artie sounded frustrated. I couldn’t blame him, since I felt pretty frustrated. “When are you planning to go back to the warehouse?”

  “How do you know I’m planning to go back?”

  “I’ve met you.”

  I laughed a little. “The police are currently searching the place. I’ll watch the news to see if any of the officers mysteriously disappear, and if not, I figure they’ll clear out soon. I’ve already notified most of the cryptid girls in the league that I’m going to need them to help.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I was wondering—”

  “No, Annie.” He sounded sorry, but firm; there was no wiggle room in his refusal. “I know you need help, and I know you think I should get out more, but I’m just not in a good place for leaving home.”

  “Artie—”

  “I will do everything I can to help from where I am. I’ll do research, I’ll tell you what kinds of weapon to use and what kinds of weapon will be laughed at, and I’ll be a shoulder for you to cry on, but I’m not going to leave the house. I’m sorry.”

  I sighed. “I know, Artie. I know.” Artie had never been a social butterfly, but we used to be able to get him out of his room for things like conventions and trips to the comic book store. It helped that he’d been stupid in love with our adopted cousin, Sarah, since he was old enough to know girls were something he was allowed to be interested in. Sarah felt the same way about him, not that I could persuade either of them to believe it. She’d gone to New York with my sister Verity, supposedly to audit college math courses, but really to keep my brainless big sis out of trouble.

  She failed, and she got seriously hurt. She’d been staying with my grandmother since then, putting herself back together one piece at a time. Artie hadn’t spoken to her since the accident. He hadn’t left the house since then either. It was like he thought going outside would be giving up on her somehow, and the universe would know. It was a silly, superstitious way of thinking . . . but I couldn’t blame him. If staying inside made him feel like he’d get his Sarah back someday, I wouldn’t drag him out.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll pull out the field guides and scan the local Bigfoot hunter forums to see if anyone’s spotted anything strange in your neck of the woods.”

  “Thanks. Call any time if you find something—and I mean that. Sleep isn’t going to be a priority tonight.”

  “Are you going to ask your folks to join you?”

  That made me pause. Mom and Dad were cryptozoologists and hunters in their own right. Inviting them on the hunt would be the smart thing to do. It would also erase any chance I had of maintaining
my cover. Sure, “Annie Thompson” got involved in more weird shit than she had any right to, but she did it mostly by accident, and with all the best of intentions. Antimony Price would bring a lot of baggage to the table, and she wouldn’t really make anything better. Being a Price girl never did.

  “Only if I have to,” I said. “I’d rather take care of this on my own.”

  “I get that,” said Artie. “Just please, if you’re going to do that, can you take care of it without dying? I’d miss you if you were gone.”

  “Who would you talk to about the X-Men?”

  “Exactly,” said Artie.

  I smiled. “So speaking of the X-Men . . .”

  We talked about comics for the rest of my trip home. By the time I reached the front gates, I felt almost human again. That was a good thing, because I had a lot of research to do, and not much time to do it in.

  • • •

  The sound of my phone ringing six inches from my head woke me at the crack of—I peeled my face off the keyboard and peered at the computer clock. The crack of eleven o’clock in the morning. It was late enough that I couldn’t bring myself to yell at whoever was on the other end of the phone as I flipped it open and managed an exhausted, “Why shouldn’t I murder you?”

  “Because it’s either a manticore or a chimera.”

  Artie’s words were like a bucket of cold water on my addled senses. “Are you sure?” I asked, sitting up straight.

  “I got a friend in the Portland morgue to send me pictures of the dead girl’s leg, and the claw pattern could be either, but it’s not going to be anything smaller. Factor in the climate, the time of year, and some weird ‘I think I saw a lion’ posts on the Bigfoot boards, and those are your options.”

  I dug my knuckles into the side of my leg, hoping it would help me wake up. It didn’t. “Shit.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  Manticore are intelligent enough that they can make moral judgments, and they can be trained not to eat humans, although they don’t like having their diets restricted. Chimera aren’t so forgiving. They’ll eat whatever they can kill, and no one’s ever successfully domesticated one. There was a third option . . . “Any chance it’s a feral Sphinx?”