Discount Armageddon

“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 Dominic, 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