mice were relatively safe. Aeslin can vanish into a normal rodent population in less time than it takes to say “exterminator,” and Sarah would be the last person any representative of the Covenant tagged as outside the norm. Her camouflage was good enough to see her through anything short of a nuclear attack. Most of the city’s cryptids didn’t have that luxury.
The deserters didn’t worry me. That honor was reserved for the ones who’d simply disappeared. It seemed like more members of the city’s cryptid population went missing every day. It started small, with just a few outliers from the community, people no one really kept very close tabs on anyway. There are totally valid ecological reasons for the existence of ghouls, bug-a-boos, and wendigo. That doesn’t mean anybody sane wants them for neighbors. There was no way of getting an exact number on the missing, but I knew it was higher than I liked. The members of the various species that remained in town had been calling relatives and information brokers, but if anyone knew anything, they weren’t sharing it with me.
The few estimates I could get on the missing only covered the humanoid cryptids. Nobody knew how many animal cryptids were in Manhattan and, without a starting census, I couldn’t tell how many were gone. Everyone I talked to agreed that the numbers were dropping. Not encouraging, especially when I couldn’t give them any reassurance that things were going to be all right.
The impulse to blame all the disappearances on De Luca was strong. There was just one problem with that convenient answer to my problems: I’d only found a few bodies, all of them at roof level, and all of them obviously hostile cryptid “monsters,” like the ahool. I didn’t care how good a hunter the asshole was. If he was responsible for all the deaths, there would have been more bodies. He was still the closest thing I had to a lead.
Which brought me back to the rooftops, having bribed Candy to bring in two of her “sisters” to cover my shift for the night. I was hunting a hunter. The best place to do that is on the killing grounds.
All my life I’ve been dismissed as the dilettante daughter, the one who’d rather dance than deal with the realities of the family business. Alex graduated from high school two years ahead of his peers, got his degree in veterinary medicine, and took off for South America to spend a year hunting for dinosaurs—long story—before settling at the Columbus Zoo with his menagerie. Antimony was still living at home, but she was also taking classes at the local college, helping Mom with her hospice duties, and helping Dad with his research. Me, on the other hand? I went on national reality television. Way to forward the cryptid cause, Verity.
But here’s the thing: it
Image doesn’t change reality. Under the sequins, the flashy makeup jobs, and the designer shoes, I’m a Price. I know how to do my job. I just wish my job wouldn’t insist on getting done the night before a dance competition.
I’d been prowling the rooftops every night for weeks, and the only signs I’d seen of De Luca were the corpses in his wake. Dave insisted that his contacts didn’t know where Dominic was, but I wasn’t sure I trusted Dave. It’s never a good idea to take a bogeyman at his word when you’re not holding a gun to his head, and even then there’s a chance he’ll try to play you before you pull the trigger.
At least this time I was prepared for a fight. I was wearing a skintight gray bodysuit that rendered me virtually invisible when I stepped into the shadows, and the soles of my boots had been treated with one of Antimony’s weird science projects, giving me traction on practically any surface. They didn’t even leave footprints unless I was dumb enough to step in a puddle. My face was visible, my hair seeming almost white against the dark, but I wasn’t willing to wear a mask. It wasn’t pride or vanity; it was the desire to avoid having my head dive- bombed by confused gargoyles who thought I was competition intruding on their territory.
I was about ready to call it a night and get some sleep before registration opened in the morning when I heard faint footfalls behind me. I kept walking, refusing to let my tension show itself in my posture as I reviewed the last few minutes. I was certain I hadn’t passed any of the local cryptids. They would have made sure I saw them, since they know it’s never a good idea to surprise a Price when she’s on patrol. That meant whoever or whatever was behind me wasn’t something that respected my place in the city. Monster or member of the Covenant, I could take my pick.
Considering how frustrated and wound up I was after the past few weeks, I would have preferred the monster. A little good, old-fashioned bloodshed always cheers me up. Even so, I hoped it was De Luca, because we needed to settle this. I bent forward, like I was going to stretch out my hamstrings, and grabbed the pistols at my belt. I spun as I drew them, turning the motion into a smooth pirouette.
Dominic De Luca was ten feet behind me, a crossbow out and trained, dead center, on my chest.
I froze, guns still raised.
“I’m really not sure which of us would fire first,” he said, tone almost apologetic, “but I’m reasonably sure whichever of us didn’t would still have time to pull their trigger before the missile struck home.”
It took me a moment to puzzle my way through that sentence. Raising my eyebrows, I asked, “Are you saying that no matter who shoots, we probably both die?”
“Exactly,” he said, that same apologetic note in his voice. “Can I recommend we stand down, at least for the moment?”
I hesitated. Part of me was saying, “You can take him.” That part was thankfully drowned out by the rest of me, which was pointing out how pissed the rest of the family would be if I died like this. “Go down shooting” might as well be the family motto, but if it were, the second half would be “don’t go down stupid.” Raising my hands and turning my pistols so he could see what I was doing, I reengaged the safeties and slid the guns back into their holsters.
Dominic hesitated. I could almost read the conflict on his face. I was, after all, the granddaughter of Alice Healy and Thomas Price, two of the Covenant’s greatest traitors. If he pulled the trigger, he could probably kill me before I had time to draw again. He could go home a hero, secure in the knowledge that any door in the Covenant would be open to him. All he had to do was twitch his index finger, and the world was his. All he had to do was kill a woman who had already surrendered.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than a few seconds, he lowered his crossbow.
“Thank you,” he said.
“What took you so long?” I replied. “I’ve been looking for you for days. It’s not nice to keep a lady waiting.”
Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows, confusion replacing conflict. “Waiting? Looking for me? I thought this was just another unfortunate encounter. I knew you hadn’t left the city, but I’d rather hoped your rabble- rousing would keep you too busy to come back up here.”
“What do you mean, rabble-rousing? I was looking for you to find out what the hell you think you’re doing. I told you to go home.”
The confusion deepened. “What
I blinked. “Evacuate? Are you kidding? Sure, people are leaving, but it’s nothing like an evacuation.”
“The population here is nothing like what I was told to expect.”
A slow, disturbing certainty was creeping through my veins, bringing a whole host of new questions with it. “Hold on.”
He gave me a politely enquiring look. “Yes?”
“How many cryptids have you killed since the last time I saw you?”
“Not enough of them, and nothing that could speak.” He shook his head, frustration clear in the set of his jaw. “A few more of those giant bats. A vast reptile living beneath a dumpster. Beyond that, there’s been nothing.”
The rest of the ahool’s flock and a lindworm. That definitely didn’t match up with my list of the missing, and both species were nonsapient predators that fed on humans. “Right.” I reached up to pinch the bridge of my nose, fighting the near-irresistible urge to scream. “We need to talk. How do you feel about coffee?”
