It was also trashed.
Room service dishes covered the dining area table, and fast food bags littered the area around the couch, which was almost entirely hidden under textbooks and sheets of notebook paper. The coffee table had been repurposed into a mini-computer lab, with three laptops all doing their weird computer things. A trail of discarded clothing marked the way to the bedroom, like Hansel’s bread crumbs if he’d been working with ladies’ undergarments instead of bread.
“What happened here?” asked Dominic, sounding faintly awed by the sheer scope of the mess.
“Sarah did.” It’s not that Sarah is a destructive person. She’s not, especially when measured against the standards of her species. She’s just distracted most of the time, and the sheer effort of staying focused tends to interfere with silly things like “laundry” and “cleaning up after herself.” Grandma Baker is the same way. Telepaths living in a non-telepathic society deal with a lot of white noise from the people around them, almost none of whom know how to construct a proper shield against mental invasion. The telepaths wind up easily distracted almost as a form of self-defense.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “This is the Sarah I’m not allowed to ‘hassle,’ correct?”
“Yup.”
“You still haven’t told me why I’d want to.”
“Because as a member of the Covenant of St. George, you consider yourself morally and ethically compelled to exterminate me for the sin of not having been present on the Ark. Although I think I could make a case for it being impossible to tell whether or not my species was there.” Sarah walked out of the bedroom as she spoke, offering a vague smile in our direction. “Hey, Very. Hey, Very’s friend from the Covenant. Should I be running for cover about now?”
“No, he’s promised to play nice.” I gestured to Sarah. “Dominic De Luca, meet my cousin, Sarah Zellaby. Sarah, meet Dominic. We’re looking for information, and I was hoping you could help.”
“Just what every cryptid girl wants. A Covenant member in her hotel room.” Sarah shrugged, heading for the kitchen. “I’ll do what I can. Come on. I think there are some chairs in here.”
I shrugged and followed. Dominic trailed after me, half-scowling as he studied Sarah, looking for a clue to her species. He wasn’t going to find one. I elbowed him lightly, saying, “Remember, no harassing my cousin or hunting the cryptids who help us with this thing.”
“You’re certainly putting a lot of faith in my good behavior,” he muttered.
“No, I’m putting a lot of faith in the fact that I have a lot of knives and you’re outnumbered,” I said. “Besides, you didn’t kill Piyusha. There’s no point in starting with Sarah. She’s a math geek.”
Sarah stuck her tongue out at me.
“But what
“The technical name for my species is ‘Johrlac,’ but more colloquially speaking, I’m a cuckoo.” Sarah swept the papers off the loveseat in the breakfast nook—my
Dominic had the good grace to look faintly embarrassed as he sat beside me on the loveseat, careful to keep his knee from touching mine. “I’m sorry, miss. I don’t believe I’ve encountered your species before.”
“Oh, you probably have,” said Sarah, with the small grimace that always accompanies her talking about the rest of the cuckoos. “You’re just lucky: you didn’t notice.”
Dominic gave her another appraising look. I’ll admit she wasn’t at her most threatening: she was wearing jeans with the knees worn through, a green T-shirt two sizes too big, and white ankle socks. Her thick black hair was gathered into a sloppy ponytail, and didn’t look like it had been brushed since the last time I’d seen her. As “big scary cryptids” go, she wasn’t even making the junior leagues. I could almost see him dismissing her as harmless. That was a mistake, although I wasn’t going to call him on it.
“I suppose I’ll take your word for it,” he said finally.
“Thanks,” said Sarah, and focused her attention on me. “What are you looking for, and why am I your girl?”
“Dominic thinks there’s a dragon somewhere under the city.”
Sarah stared at me.
“If he’s right, it’s probably asleep, since I haven’t heard any reports of Godzilla’s scary older brother rampaging through Central Park.”
Sarah continued to stare at me.
“We met a Madhura who said there have been disappearances in the local cryptid community. Like, actual ‘has anybody seen Mary’ disappearances, not just people moving out of town to avoid Happy Boy here.” I jerked a thumb toward Dominic, who scowled. “She said it’s all females, all unattached.”
“Implying all virgins, if you’re an archaic prick,” said Sarah, beginning to nod slowly. “Have you called Uncle Kevin?”
“Not yet—that’s my next stop. I wanted to see if you could do a scan for subterranean hostiles. See if we’re about to have the world’s biggest iguana come out and start eating people.”
“Scan?” said Dominic.
“I’m a telepath,” said Sarah, in a distracted, matter-of-fact tone. Ignoring the fact that it was now Dominic’s turn to stare, she continued, “You realize that in a city this size, you’re basically asking me to buy two first-class tickets on the Migraine Express, right?”
“I know. But if we’re going to go down there and check things out—”
“You’d like to know you won’t be eaten. Fine.” Sarah sighed, digging a cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans. Dominic continued to stare as she dialed a number, waited a few seconds, and said, “Hi, Professor Hines, this is Sarah. I just wanted to call and let you know that I ate some bad sushi, and I won’t be able to make it to tonight’s review session. I’m really sorry, and I’ll make sure to get Tanya’s notes before next week’s class.” She hung up. “There. I can now incapacitate myself for your pleasure.”
“She’s a
“And he catches up with the conversation.” I patted his knee. “Yes, she’s a telepath. Sarah reads minds. Don’t worry, she’s not reading yours.”
“It would be rude,” said Sarah. Putting her phone down, she began arranging herself carefully in the chair. “Telepathic ethics say you should never read a sentient creature’s mind without permission, provocation, or legitimate reason to fear for your life.”
“Telepaths have ethics?” Dominic’s eyes narrowed, tone and posture united to convey his disbelief.
“My mother and I do,” said Sarah, letting her head settle against the back of the chair. “We mostly got them from
“It’s a long story,” I said, cutting Dominic off before he could get started. “Anything you can find will be a big help, Sarah, really.”
“Got it,” she said, and went limp, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
Little exercises of telepathy—like scanning a crowded club for a known killer—can be difficult, but Sarah can still manage to carry on a conversation while she does them. It’s the big things that are dangerous. They take too much effort, and too much focus, to let her do anything else. A cuckoo in the middle of something big is essentially defenseless. That’s why I left my hand on Dominic’s knee, keeping him from getting up. He’d only promised to leave her alone under duress, and I didn’t want to risk it. I just wanted him to see a cryptid doing something to help us, rather than being something he needed to be afraid of.
Besides, it wasn’t like he’d ever find her again if she didn’t want him to.
Sarah’s breathing got shallower and shallower as she continued to stare at the ceiling, eyes wide and startled-seeming. She didn’t blink. After about thirty seconds, her irises began to glaze over, going from icy blue to a milky, cracked-ice white. Dominic stiffened.
“This is unnatural,” he hissed.
“For us, yes. For her, no.” I squeezed his knee, keeping my eyes on Sarah. “This is perfectly natural. It’s what she evolved to do.” It’s the reason she stays near one of the cousins at all times. So that if she ever goes back to her killer-cuckoo roots, there’s someone around who knows how to stop her.
“Still—”
