“Pliny’s gorgons don’t like cockatrice any more than anyone else does,” said Dee. “They’re spiteful, smelly things, and being immune to their glance doesn’t make us immune to being pecked and scratched.” She shook her head. “Every group has its fringe element. Ours thinks we should be self-sufficient, which means farming. They keep trying to cultivate things that can’t be petrified. That includes cockatrice. No, thank you.”
“Is there one of those fringe groups around here?”
Dee hesitated before nodding. “Yes. They live about a mile from the main community, where they won’t interfere with anyone else.”
“We need to see them.”
“Alex—”
“Three people are dead, Dee.” She flinched. I continued: “The police only know about two of them. There’s a chance it won’t make the national news if it stops now. It’ll be a blip on a few of the blogs that specialize in weird news, and it’ll go away. But if it continues, it’s going to get some media play, and the Covenant is going to notice. Do you want to risk that?”
Dee paled. “No, but . . .”
“We need to visit the community, Dee. You know that’s how this is going to end.”
There was a moment of silence before she nodded, slowly. “I suppose I did know that. I’d just been hoping there was, well . . . some other way.” She glanced to Grandma before she said, almost guiltily, “I’m sorry, Angela, but I can’t bring a cuckoo where we live. I know you’re, well . . . you . . . but I can’t.”
My grandmother, who could be stubborn sometimes, but who had lived her entire life with the reality of what she was, nodded. “I understand, Dee,” she said, with a small, almost regretful smile. “I never expected you to bring me along.” Unspoken was the fact that out of all the cuckoos in the world, my ailing cousin included, Grandma was the least dangerous. She was a projective telepath, like the rest of her kind, but she didn’t receive. It was why she’d grown up with a normal code of ethics, rather than being overwritten by her mother’s sociopathic nature while she was still in the womb.
“We’ll take two cars,” I said, pushing my coffee away as I stood.
Dee blinked. “What, now?”
Andrew, Mr. O’Malley, and the guard—I still needed to learn his name—weren’t getting any less dead while we sat around and talked. I nodded firmly. “Yes, now,” I said. “Before it’s too late for anyone else.”
“Oh, lovely,” said Shelby. “I’ve always enjoyed field trips.”
Fourteen
“Try to let go of the idea that humanity is the pinnacle of evolution. There are creatures in this world that can kill you with a look, people with wings, and mountains that walk. Humanity is amazing, but have a little perspective.”
—Martin Baker
Driving through the woods half an hour outside of Columbus, Ohio, struggling to remain positive about the situation
DEE HAD ALWAYS STRUCK me as a careful driver, someone who obeyed traffic laws and tried not to attract the attention of the police. What I hadn’t considered was that she might be different when stressed out and taking us to meet her family. Once we reached the woods, it was every man for himself: Dee hit the gas, and I was forced to violate several local and state ordinances if I wanted to keep up with her. (She’d been unwilling to give directions to the local gorgon enclave, saying we could follow her home if we insisted on coming for a visit. I was starting to wonder if that wasn’t because she thought she could lose us before we got anywhere near the rest of the colony.)
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I muttered, following Dee as she took a sharp turn across two lanes of freeway and down an exit with a name I couldn’t have pronounced if you paid me.
“Sorry?” asked Shelby.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. If I looked away for so much as a second, I was going to wind up slamming into a tree and killing us both. “I swear I thought she could drive.”
“Alex. Have you ever driven down the Great Ocean Highway?”
“Uh . . . which would be where, exactly?”
“It’s in Australia.”
Dee took another sharp turn, onto a narrow road I hadn’t seen through the trees until she was already heading down it. She hadn’t even used her blinker. I hauled hard on the wheel. The tires squealed as we changed direction and went rocketing after my runaway assistant.
When I was breathing normally again, I said, “Then, no, I haven’t. I’ve never been to Australia.”
“Oh, we’ll need to fix that,” said Shelby, with a degree of joy that would have been disturbing if I hadn’t been focusing so intently on keeping Dee in sight. Maybe that was a life lesson in disguise: when there’s any chance your girlfriend is going to exhibit an unnatural amount of glee over something that seems perfectly mundane, take her on a high-speed car chase. It’ll take the edge off. Then she sobered. “Didn’t expect you to call me today.”
“Shelby, is this really—”
“You made me have a relationship talk while we were hunting monsters, I think this is fair. Thought we were probably finished after last night.”
“I needed your help.”
“Is that all we are now? People who help each other?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’d like to be more, maybe. But I can’t afford to be distracted right now. And then there’s the whole thing where your introduction to my grandparents involved waving a gun at their adopted daughter, so . . . yeah. I recommend not pulling out any more firearms unless there’s a really excellent reason.”
“I suppose ‘being a Johrlac’ isn’t an excellent reason, right?” Shelby’s tone was unsteadily wry, like she was trying to make a joke but wasn’t quite sure how appropriate it was or how it was going to be received.
I sighed, still focusing on the road, where Dee was doing her best to set speed records. “No, it’s not. They’re my family, Shelby. If we want this to work out, knowing what we both know now, you’re going to need to learn to be okay with that. They’re not the Johrlac who came to your country and hurt the people that you cared about. They’ve been here this whole time, not hurting anybody.”
“Are we, then?” asked Shelby.
“Are we what?”
“Are we going to try and get this to work out?” Shelby twisted in her seat to face me.
I was silent for a moment. “Do you want to?” I finally asked. I knew it was unfair of me, but I needed to know.
“It’s different, now that we don’t have to hide anything. But . . . I don’t know if I would have gotten involved with you if I’d known you were a cryptozoologist.”
“Ah, but if you had, I wouldn’t have needed to make nearly as many excuses.” I shook my head. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we need a dating service.”
“How would you keep the Covenant from signing up?”
“That is why we’re never going to have a dating service.” I laughed. It felt good. So did Shelby. That felt better.
And then Dee turned again, this time into what looked like a wall of solid green. There was no opening there: nothing but undifferentiated trees and the broken, rocky ground between them.
Illusions happen. Whispering a quick prayer to anyone who might be listening, I followed her, tensing myself against a crash that never came. Instead, the turn ended with us driving onto a smooth, gently curving private road. Dee was just ahead, and she’d slowed down enough that I had to slam on the brakes to keep from rear-ending her. Apparently, we no longer needed to drive like maniacs to avoid being followed.