“Oh, fuck it,” I said, and strode into the blackness.
Finding the office door was a matter of finding the wall and feeling my way along. I kept a knife in one hand, groping along the wall next to the door for a light switch with the other. I kept waiting for Dave to grab me and yank me away from the safety of the walls, but it didn’t happen. My fingers found the switch, and the lights came on, leaving me first blinking and then staring at the scene in front of me.
“Verity! Do you—” Dominic rushed into the room with Ryan and Istas close behind him. All three of them stopped, joining me in staring at the ransacked office. The filing cabinets were open and empty, and Dave’s computer was missing from the desk.
“He’s gone,” I said. “The bastard pulled a runner.”
“Well, fuck,” said Ryan.
Epilogue
“All’s well that ends with only minor lacerations.”
THE SKELETAL TYRANNOSAURUS LOOMED OVER ME like something out of a horror movie, showing teeth longer than throwing knives and claws capable of gutting a human in less than a second. I looked thoughtfully up at it, wondering what it must have been like when it was ruler of the world. Did it think? Was the Tyrannosaurus one of the first intelligent cryptids, here and gone before the planet even thought of hairless apes?
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been bonding with the dinosaurs.” I gestured toward the skeleton. “Sort of makes you feel small, doesn’t it?”
Dominic gave me a look, half-amused, half-exasperated. “You remain the strangest woman I have ever met. How can this impress you, given what we’ve seen?”
“Hey, Bill’s a lot friendlier than this guy ever was.” William was also likely a lot happier, since he was now being pampered and cosseted by no fewer than forty-eight buxom representatives of the female of his species. Candy had taken over leadership of the Nest, thanks to her defeat of Betty and her early bond with William, who called her the sweetest of his “dearest ones.” She’d actually started smiling after that. It was a little creepy, but better than being scowled at all the time.
“True enough.” Folding his hands behind his back, Dominic joined me in contemplation of the Tyrannosaurus. Finally: “I take it things have continued well in my absence?”
“Pretty well, yeah. I’ve had a few auditions, nothing serious, and James has mostly forgiven me for letting him get stuffed into a closet. I had to promise him it would never happen again.”
Dominic grimaced. “It won’t. Not at my hands, anyway.”
“Good. As for work, Kitty’s running the club—Dave was her uncle, and he either left her the place or her boyfriend is a really good counterfeiter. Either way, she says we’re getting new uniforms, and that makes her okay by me.”
“Excellent. And your cousin?”
“She changed hotels again, and she’s added some physics courses. She seems happy. I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about most of the time. That’s always a good sign with Sarah. How was your trip?”
“It was … interesting.” Dominic glanced my way, measuring my expression. “My superiors were quite skeptical of my report at first, until I showed them a tail from one of the deceased servitors. They now believe that the disappearances were due to giant alligators in the sewer, which I fought alone. I made no mention of dragons or cultists … or of you. You remain a cryptid in your own right, so far as the Covenant is concerned.”
“And to think, once that would have been an insult coming from you. Are they keeping you in Manhattan?”
“For now. I take it you will also be remaining?”
“Are you kidding? My family has been waiting for this opportunity for longer than I’ve been alive.” They’d come back from the basilisk hunt the day after things got bad, and Antimony was still sulking about not getting to kill any snake cultists. Mom and Dad, on the other hand, had a seemingly inexhaustible font of questions, all of them centering on the dragons. Big surprise, that.
“I see.” He paused before saying, delicately, “My superiors wish me to continue my assessment of the need for a purge.”
“How are you leaning so far?”
Dominic’s smile was strained, but it was there. “This has been very educational so far. I look forward to seeing what else this city has to teach.”
“It’ll be an adventure.” I took a step closer to him, leaning up onto my toes, and kissed his cheek. “Call me.” Turning on my heel, I walked toward the museum exit, leaving Dominic standing alone beneath the skeleton of a prehistoric killer. The past isn’t the future. Dinosaurs can become dragons, and that meant there was hope for Dominic, if he wanted to take advantage of it. Either way, I needed to go home and call my father to let him know that Dominic kept his word—the Covenant still didn’t know we were alive, and we were free to continue as we were.
There are times when I really love my job.
Price Family Field Guide to the Cryptids of North America
