Midnight Blue-Light Special Part 25

"All right." She looked at me gravely. The edges of her irises went white, the lack of color spreading into the blue like frost-and just like that, the static buzz of "telepath nearby" returned, Sarah's presence once more making itself known to my mind. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it until I finally had it back again.

Then her thoughts came flooding in, hot on the heels of the static. There were no words: just an emotional slurry of images and feelings and panicked reactions. I staggered, eyes going wide. Grandma half-stood, and I gestured for her to sit back down as I braced myself and started trying to sort through what I was receiving. It wasn't easy.

"She's scared," I said finally. "She doesn't know how she did what she did, she doesn't know whether it's something she should have been able to do. She volunteered, but she didn't think it would be quite that easy, or quite that strong. So she's scared. And she's afraid that because it was easy, it's going to be something she wants to do again. Like this is something she'll just do now." But you won't, I thought fiercely. Sarah, do you hear me? You won't do anything like that unless you don't have any other choice, because you're one of the best people I know, and good people just don't do that kind of thing. So don't be scared of something that's never going to happen. That's just silly.

There was a brief pause in the overwhelming flood of guilt. I didn't know for sure whether that meant she'd heard me, but I still took it as a good sign.

"What else?" asked Grandma.

"She really did hurt herself. It was easy, but it was a strain at the same time, like those people who get hopped-up on adrenaline and throw cars around. She's afraid to be awake, because if she's awake, she might manipulate people just to avoid straining herself further."

Grandma nodded. "That's what I was afraid of. Well, we can keep her out long enough to get her home, where there's n.o.body she can do that to." Grandma didn't receive; Grandpa was a Revenant, and having died once, he was basically immune to telepathic influences. My Uncle Billy might have had more issues, but he wasn't living at home at the moment, and he could stay away while Sarah recovered.

"She's going to get better, right?" I bit my lip as I waited for her answer.

To my deep relief, Grandma nodded. "If she's projecting clearly enough that you can hear her, but not so strongly that she's knocking you unconscious, then yes, I think there's a very good chance that she's going to get better."

"Good." I looked sternly at Sarah's still, pale form. "You hear that? You're going to be fine. And if you're not, I'm going to kick your a.s.s." I mean that. Whether you can hear me or not, I mean it.

"You're a good cousin, Very-Very," said Grandma.

"I'm a terrible cousin who leads Sarah into the path of danger because I think she needs to get out more," I said. "I'm also a terrible granddaughter."

Grandma blinked. "Oh? How's that?"

"I'm going to let you be the one who tells Artie."

Much to my relief, she laughed. "Oh, you are a terrible granddaughter." She paused. "There is one thing you could do to make it up to me."

"Name it."

"Can you watch Sarah while I go and get myself something to eat? I haven't wanted to leave her unattended for long, but it seems to me that you have a pretty good handle on things."

I smiled. Grandma might not be a receptive telepath, but she knows how to read people, and she knew that I wanted some time with Sarah alone. "Take as long as you need," I said.

Grandma hugged me before she left the room. I took her seat next to Sarah's bed, reaching over to take Sarah's hand in mine. Her skin was cool, but no more than usual. Cuckoos run a little cold compared to humans.

"Hey, Sarah," I said, trying to mentally project the words as I said them. I wanted her to hear me with her ears, as well as with her mind. "I just wanted to say thank you. I mean, you saved my a.s.s back there. If you hadn't shown up when you did . . . well, this would be a really different scene, and I don't make nearly as good of a Sleeping Beauty as you do. Not that you're a Sleeping Beauty. More of a Snow White, with your coloring. Too bad Artie isn't here. He could kiss you awake. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Silence from Sarah. There was no change in the mix of thoughts and emotions rolling off of her.

I sighed. "I know you're feeling pretty rotten right now, but seriously, you found the best solution. You found the answer where everybody walked away. How many cuckoos would have done that? Most of them would have just reached for the matches and watched the whole thing burn. You did the right thing. You did the best thing. You did the thing that saved the most lives, and that's why I love you."

Silence from Sarah . . . but I thought, for just a second, that I felt her fingers tighten on mine.

I closed my eyes. "So Grandma says that you get to go back to Ohio for a little while. You like it there, right? You'll have all your books, and you can pick up your comics from the comic book store for the first time in like, a year. Lots of spandex drama for you to catch up on. Speaking of drama, you realize we're stuck with Dominic now, right? The Covenant won't be coming back for him . . ."

I talked until I ran out of words, and then I just sat there and held her hand, "listening" to the mixture of thoughts and images that came pouring off her. This, too, was a part of my life; remembering that everything costs, and sometimes, what it costs is more than we want to pay. But we pay anyway, because that's the right thing to do. Sarah would get better. She had to.

I was still sitting there, holding Sarah's hand, when Grandma came back into the room. She came and stood next to me, putting her hand on my shoulder, and the three of us stayed that way for quite some time.

Epilogue.

"Any ending where you're still standing on your own feet is a happy one."

-Alice Healy.

A semilegal sublet in Greenwich Village.

Three days later.

WITH THE COVENANT out of Manhattan, it was safe to return to my apartment . . . and with the apartment's actual owner returning from her year-long sabbatical at the end of the month, it was also time to start packing my things. It was time for me to go home.

Uncle Mike was already on the way back to Chicago. He'd taken Grandma Baker and Sarah with him when he left, promising to drop them in Columbus, where Grandma would be able to focus on nursing Sarah back to a reasonable facsimile of normal. Sarah was still asleep when they left. As far as I knew, Grandma was planning to keep her that way all the way home. I didn't question it. She knew better than I did what was safe for cuckoo biology.

Kitty had accepted my resignation with a minimum of argument once I explained that I was leaving the city. New York was too dangerous for me, at least for a little while. My parents and I were both right when we said that my time in Manhattan would determine my future. I was just wrong when I said that my future was going to be in ballroom dance. That was a good world. It was one that I enjoyed visiting, and would probably be a part of for the rest of my life. But it wasn't my world.

I was a Price. I was a cryptozoologist. I needed to accept that, with all the good things and bad things that it included, and that meant that I needed to focus on my training. If I was going to be a serious cryptozoologist, I needed to get better. I needed to make sure that I would never be caught flat-footed again. It was time to approach my real calling the way I had always approached dance: with total dedication, and my whole heart.

Well. Most of my heart, anyway. I could save a few bits out for special purposes.

The mice scurried around my feet, carrying small items and articles of my clothing to the appropriate boxes. The Sacred Ritual of Packing All the c.r.a.p was one that they knew well, and they were surprisingly good at not getting stepped on.

I was packing my collection of perfume bottles filled with holy water in sheets of eggcup foam when there was a knock at the front door. I straightened. I'd been waiting for that knock all day, but my hands still shook when I heard it. Slowly, I walked to the door, and called, "Who is it?"

"Let me in, you infuriating woman," said Dominic.

Smiling, I undid the locks and opened the door.

Dominic De Luca was standing in the hall, wearing his oh-so-cla.s.sic black duster, holding a paper sack of what smelled like fried chicken in one hand. He held it up. "I thought you might be hungry."

"Starving," I said, and stepped to the side. "Come in."

He did, stepping past me before turning to look in my direction. "Verity-"

"I would have called, but I didn't have your number." I closed and locked the door. "That's going to have to change, you know. You can't be the mysterious disappearing boy anymore if we're going to do this thing."

"Do what?" he asked. There was a hopeful note in his voice that told me I was doing the right thing. I'd already been almost sure, but it was still nice to hear it confirmed.

I turned to offer him a shrug and a smile. "I'm leaving for Oregon in the morning. Renting a U-Haul and everything, since I can't exactly s.h.i.+p the mice across the country via FedEx, and it would be nice to have a little time to just drive. I thought you might want to come with me. There's a lot more to America than New York, you know."

"You would want me to come with you?"

This was it, then: this was the moment of truth, for both of us. I reached out and carefully took the bag of chicken from his hand. He let it go without resistance, and didn't look in the least bit surprised when I chucked it into the kitchen. A river of mice followed the bag, cheering. I stepped closer to him, closing the distance between us.

"You said you loved me, before," I said. "Did you mean that?"

"With all my foolish heart," he said.

I put my arms around his shoulders, offering him a very small smile. "Then yes. I want you to come with me. I want you to come to Oregon; I want you to meet my family. You chose me over the Covenant of St. George, so I guess that means I need to show you that you did the right thing."

"Really?"

There was something I hadn't said to him yet, even though he'd said it to me. Realizing that I was doing this all out of order-who invites a guy to come meet their parents before they tell him whether they love him or not?-I leaned in close, and whispered, "I love you."

Dominic didn't say anything. He just tilted his head to close the distance between us and kissed me, hard and desperate. He was shaking. I hadn't realized it until that moment, but so was I. I clung to him, returning his kiss with all the force of my own fear behind it-the fear that I had lost him when the Covenant came and made him choose between us, the fear that I had lost everything when they took me. There was so much fear, but some things are stronger. Like love, and like the knowledge that sometimes, you can win.

The scorching-hot kisses don't hurt, either. Dominic wrapped his arms tight around my waist, literally lifting me off the ground as he started walking backward down the hall. I pulled my mouth away from his long enough to shout, belatedly, "Food for privacy! Food for privacy!"

The cheering of the mice accompanied us all the way into the bedroom, shutting off only when Dominic kicked the door shut behind us. We could finish packing in the morning and still be on the road by noon. There was a whole country out there for us to cross before we got to Oregon . . . and for once, I had a guy I wouldn't need to warn about my family. Maybe I'm naive, but if that's not a happy ending, then I don't know what is.

Price Family Field Guide to the Cryptids of North America.

Updated and Expanded Edition.

Aeslin mice (Apodemus sapiens). Sapient, rodentlike cryptids which present as nearly identical to noncryptid field mice. Aeslin mice crave religion, and will attach themselves to "divine figures" selected virtually at random when a new colony is created. They possess perfect recall; each colony maintains a detailed oral history going back to its inception. Origins unknown.

Basilisk (Procompsognathus basilisk). Venomous, feathered saurians approximately the size of a large chicken. This would be bad enough, but thanks to a quirk of evolution, the gaze of a basilisk causes petrification, turning living flesh to stone. Basilisks are not native to North America, but were imported as game animals. By idiots.

Bogeyman (Vestiarium sapiens). The thing in your closet is probably a very pleasant individual who simply has issues with direct sunlight. Probably. Bogeymen are close relatives of the human race; they just happen to be almost purely nocturnal, with excellent night vision, and a fondness for enclosed s.p.a.ces. They rarely grab the ankles of small children, unless it's funny.

Caladrius (Angelos dhalion). The Caladrius are some of the most skilled healers in or out of the cryptid world, which explains why they were hunted almost to extinction by people seeking miracle cures to incurable illnesses. They are attractive, white-winged humanoids, and are often mistaken for angels. The few Caladrius who have survived into the modern day often run secret hospitals for cryptids and their allies. We owe them our lives. Protect theirs.

Chupacabra (Chupacabra sapiens). True to folklore, chupacabra are bloodsuckers, with stomachs that do not handle solids well. They are also therianthrope shapes.h.i.+fters, capable of transforming themselves into human form, which explains why they have never been captured. When cornered, most chupacabra will a.s.sume their bipedal shape in self-defense.

Dragon (Draconem sapiens). Dragons are essentially winged, fire-breathing dinosaurs the size of Greyhound buses. At least, the males are. The females are attractive humanoids who can blend seamlessly in a crowd of supermodels. Capable of parthenogenetic reproduction, the females outnumber the males twenty to one, and can sustain their population for centuries without outside help. All dragons, male and female, require gold to live, and collect it constantly.

Ghoul (Herophilus sapiens). The ghoul is an obligate carnivore, incapable of digesting any but the simplest vegetable solids, and prefers humans because of their wide selection of dietary nutrients. Most ghouls are carrion eaters. Ghouls can be easily identified by their teeth, which will be shed and replaced repeatedly over the course of a lifetime.

Johrlac (Johrlac psychidolos). Colloquially known as "cuckoos," the Johrlac are telepathic hunters. They appear human, but are internally very different, being cold-blooded and possessing a decentralized circulatory system. This quirk of biology means they can be shot repeatedly in the chest without being killed. Extremely dangerous. All Johrlac are interested in mathematics, sometimes to the point of obsession. Origins unknown; possibly insect in nature.

Lamia (Python lamia). Semi-hominid cryptids with the upper bodies of humans and the lower bodies of snakes. Lamia are members of order synapsedia, the mammal-like reptiles, and are considered responsible for many of the "great snake" sightings of legend. The sightings not attributed to actual great snakes, that is.

Lesser gorgon (Gorgos euryale). One of three known subspecies of gorgon, the lesser gorgon's gaze causes short-term paralysis followed by death in anything under five pounds. The bite of the snakes atop their heads will cause paralysis followed by death in anything smaller than an elephant if not treated with the appropriate antivenin. Lesser gorgons tend to be very polite, especially to people who like snakes.

Madhura (h.o.m.o madhurata). Humanoid cryptids with an affinity for sugar in all forms. Vegetarian. Their presence slows the decay of organic matter, and is usually viewed as lucky by everyone except the local dentist. Madhura are very family-oriented, and are rarely found living on their own. Originally from the Indian subcontinent.

Manananggal (Tanggal geminus). If the manananggal is proof of anything, it is that Nature abhors a logical cla.s.sification system. We're reasonably sure the manananggal are mammals; everything else is anyone's guess. They're hermaphroditic and capable of splitting their upper and lower bodies, although they are a single ent.i.ty, and killing the lower half kills the upper half as well. They prefer fetal tissue, or the flesh of newborn infants. They are also venomous, as we have recently discovered. Do not engage if you can help it.

Oread (Nymphae silica). Humanoid cryptids with the approximate skin density of granite. Their actual biological composition is unknown, as no one has ever been able to successfully dissect one. Oreads are extremely strong, and can be dangerous when angered. They seem to have evolved independently across the globe; their common name is from the Greek.

Sasquatch (Gigantopithecus sesquac). These ma.s.sive native denizens of North America have learned to embrace depilatories and mail-order shoe catalogs. A surprising number make their living as Bigfoot hunters (Bigfeet and Sasquatches are close relatives, and enjoy tormenting each other). They are predominantly vegetarian, and enjoy Canadian television.

Tanuki (Nyctereutes sapiens). Therianthrope shapes.h.i.+fters from j.a.pan, the tanuki are critically endangered due to the efforts of the Covenant. Despite this, they remain friendly, helpful people, with a naturally gregarious nature which makes it virtually impossible for them to avoid human settlements. Tanuki possess three primary forms-human, racc.o.o.n dog, and big-a.s.s scary monster. Pray you never see the third form of the tanuki.

Tooth fairy (Pyske dentin). Tooth fairies are small-no taller than the length of a tall man's hand-and possess dual-lobed wings. Their dietary habits are unpleasant, and best left undiscussed. Do not leave unsupervised near children.

Wadjet (Naja wadjet). Once wors.h.i.+ped as G.o.ds, these sapient, highly-venomous cobras can reach seventeen feet in length when fully mature. They spend their lives in pair-bonds with human servants who enjoy extended lifespans thanks to the venom of the wadjet, and whose thumbs can come in extremely useful. Given recent discoveries about dragon biology, we are not discounting the possibility that these servants are another form of the wadjet themselves.

Waheela (Waheela sapiens). Therianthrope shapes.h.i.+fters from the upper portion of North America, the waheela are a solitary race, usually claiming large swaths of territory and defending it to the death from others of their species. Waheela mating season is best described with the term "bloodbath." Waheela transform into something that looks like a dire bear on steroids. They're usually not hostile, but it's best not to push it.

PLAYLIST:..

Here are a few songs to rock you through Verity's adventures.

"Superheroine"-Liz Nickrenz.

"Here It Goes Again"-OK Go "I Know Where You Sleep"-Emilie Autumn "He Said, She Said"-Maldroid.

"Pot Kettle Black"-Tilly & the Wall "The Cave"-Mumford & Sons.

"No Spill Blood"-Oingo Boingo "Ever Fallen In Love"-Peter Yorn.

"One Engine"-The Decemberists.

"Beautiful, Dirty, Rich"-Lady Gaga "Catwoman"-Shakespear's Sister "If Looks Could Kill"-Heart "Basket Case"-Green Day "Uninvited Guest"-Marillion "Fight Fire With Fire"-Kansas "Shootout at the Candy Shop"-Jess Klein "I Am the One Who Will Remember Everything"-Dar Williams "The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most"-Dashboard Confessionals "The Ghost in You"-Matthew Puckett "Sentimental Heart"-She & Him "Break In"-Halestorm "93 Maidens"-Rachael Sage "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie "- The Red Hot Chili Peppers "All the Stars in Texas"-Ludo "Stay Young, Go Dancing"-Death Cab for Cutie "Fairest of Them All"-Slaid Cleaves.

"And We'll Dance"-Thea Gilmore.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:.

So here we are again, as Midnight Blue-Light Special takes the floor, and Verity takes a well-earned break: the next two books will focus on her brother, Alex, as he deals with some problems of his own. Thank you all so much for reading, and for supporting this series so enthusiastically. Cheese and cake for everyone!

Betsy Tinney, to whom this book is dedicated, remains my ballroom pixie G.o.dmother, explaining all the nuances of dance culture. Phil Ames is still to blame for a surprising amount of this whole mess, while my webmaster, Chris Mangum, continues to tolerate my introducing cryptids into every single conversation we have.

As always, the machete squad provided proofreading and editorial services, doing everything in their power to make this book as good as it could possibly be. Kory Bing ill.u.s.trated my fantastic Field Guide to the Cryptids of North America, which you can visit at my website-I want a fricken of my very own. Tara O'Shea continued to design amazing wallpapers, icons, and internal dingbats for these books, helping to create a large, unified world. I couldn't be more thrilled.

My agent, Diana Fox, remains my personal superhero and one of my favorite human beings. My editor at DAW, Sheila Gilbert, looked at my first draft, saw what needed fixing, and made everything better. Huge thanks to everyone at DAW, and to my cover artist, Aly Fell, who continues to bring these people to life in an amazing new way.

Thanks to my Disney World girls-Amy, Brooke, Patty, Vixy, Rachel, and of course, Mom-and to Barfleet, for service above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks to Borderlands Books, for tolerating my large, often chaotic book events. And of course, thank you. I couldn't write these books without you.

Any errors in this book are my own. The errors that aren't here are the ones that all these people helped me fix. Thank you.