Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7)

It is a sad truth of humanity’s casual dominion over the planet that most humans wouldn’t believe they shared the world with another intelligent species if you shoved it in their faces. (Something that has happened, more than once, since the Covenant brought the population of most sapient cryptid species to a point where they could be dismissed as fables. For every devout Bigfoot seeker who gets a show on the SyFy Channel, there are thirty who talk laughingly about that prank their buddy Chuck tried to pull, even though Chuck has sworn since it happened that he wasn’t anywhere near the woods that day. Humans believe what humans want to believe, and mostly what humans want to believe is that their dominion over the Earth will never be challenged. Certainly not by people with snakes instead of hair who can paralyze with a glance, or people who can control their density the way humans control their breathing.) Fern flying into the air wouldn’t necessarily alert the tabloids, but it would mean fishing her out of whatever tree, decorative banner, or ride fa?ade she managed to get snagged on this time.

Better, for me, was Fern’s relative ignorance of Fairyland. Elm and Aspen do their meet-and-greets in Chapter and Verse, on the other side of the Park. That’s where Lowry’s designers crammed the movies that didn’t fit with the dark poeticism of Fairyland, the pastel brilliance of Candyland, the caverns of Deep-Down, or the towering spires of Metropolis. The theming of each area was precisely calibrated to create as immersive an environment as possible, which meant most people only ever managed to memorize the zones where they spent the most time.

I hit the next corner with all the speed I could muster, turning right and striking off down a twisting little path through a series of equally twisting little trees. During the day, this area was consistently full of children, chasing the “sprites” generated by lights hidden among the branches. It was like watching a supersized version of a bunch of kittens playing with laser pointers, and as long as a few cast members were on hand to keep them from climbing, it was a good, harmless way for the kids to burn off a certain amount of nervous energy. There was something like that in every zone, and I personally thought that Fairyland had the best one, if only because ours didn’t involve water.

The bricks lit up under the pressure from my skates, leaving a sparkling trail behind me that winked out a few seconds later. If we’d been playing hide-and-seek, this would have been a disastrous choice. Since we were playing tag, and more, I knew Fern was cutting a straight line toward the Midsummer Night’s Scream, I kept going, emerging from the twisty little lane right next to the coaster.

Fern, finding herself skating toward me, squeaked and threw her arms out in front of her to ward off a collision. She clearly increased her density at the same time, because she lost speed for no apparent reason. As sometimes happened, the sudden change in momentum took her balance with it, and she toppled over, landing in one of the flowerbeds with a second, somewhat more muffled squeak.

There was nothing muffled about the scream that followed. It was high and piercing, the sort of good, clean sound that cuts through eardrums like a scalpel.

“Fern!” I skated toward where she had fallen as fast as I could, images of injury dancing unbidden in my mind. What if she had broken her arm? What if she had landed on a sprinkler and somehow impaled herself? What if—

“Run!” She popped up, waving her arms in a semaphore of repulsion, like she thought she could physically ward me away. I slowed down, too puzzled to continue skating forward with the same force, but I didn’t brake, allowing the momentum I’d already gathered to keep me moving closer.

Close enough that I could see the oddly shaped splotch on the right side of her shirt, just below her collarbone. Close enough to see that it was blood. I gasped, the sound going from horror to relief as I realized there was no corresponding hole: she’d fallen into something that was already there, she hadn’t hurt herself. Cold terror followed on the heels of relief. If it wasn’t her blood . . .

“Annie, please, you have to go,” pleaded Fern.

I didn’t listen. I started my legs moving again, skating closer until I saw the pallid curve of limbs behind Fern, the arc of a broken neck, and worst of all, the beaded drops of arterial spray painting the flowers. This time, when I stopped, I actually managed to brake, freezing myself in place. My eyes were so wide they hurt, and it felt like there was a rock in my throat, preventing me from either speaking or swallowing.

“He’s dead,” said Fern miserably. “I screamed. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have screamed, but you have to go, Annie, you have to go—”

The reality of what she was saying slammed into me with all the force of the ground closing in after a bad fall. Someone was dead, murdered on Lowry property, and the way the body had been discovered meant Security was on the way. And I was right next to the crime scene. Me, with my paper-thin alias that had never been intended to stand up to more than casual scrutiny, currently hiding from an organization with the power to reach across continents.

Lowryland was enough of a psychic bruise on the landscape to scramble any attempts to scry for me or track me down telepathically. My picture being taken in conjunction with a murder victim wouldn’t have any such protections. It would go into a computer, and someone, somewhere, would find it and use it against me. The Covenant knew my face. They had my fingerprints, thanks to the amount of time I’d spent on their home ground, and they had samples of my blood. If I was spotted here, they would find me.

“I have to go,” I said, through numb lips.

“Yeah,” said Fern. “Get Megan to drive you home. Go.”

I turned, feeling like a coward, and skated back for the twisting little path through the trees as fast as I could go, while behind me, my friend stood alone and covered in someone else’s blood, waiting for Security to arrive.





Five




“People will tell you death is just the beginning. They’re sort of right, but they’re mostly wrong. Death is an ending. Whether a new start comes after, it doesn’t change the fact that something had to stop.”

–Mary Dunlavy

A shitty company apartment five miles outside of Lakeland, Florida, waiting for the sky to fall

MEGAN SAT ON THE threadbare couch, watching me pace through the smoked lenses of her glasses. She looked as worried and weary as I felt. So did her “hair.” It writhed around her shoulders and snapped at the air, never keeping still.

“Are you going to do that all night?” she asked.

“If I have to,” I replied, hit the wall, and turned to walk the other way across the room, which seemed too large and too small at the same time, like a coat that didn’t fit properly.

Megan had still been outside the ice cream shop when I’d come racing back down the path. Her first clue that something was wrong had been Fern’s scream, but her second clue had been my silence. When Fern and I skated through the Park, we were never silent. We laughed, we shrieked, we traded insults when we were close enough to do it without calling down the wrath of Security, but we never held our tongues. It was a safety precaution. By making noise, we made sure anyone else in the area knew where we were, and we avoided collisions. For me to come skating silently out of the dark was a bad sign. For me to grab her arm and whisper, “Run,” was a disastrous one.

So she’d run, and I’d skated ahead of her, and together, we’d managed to make it out of the Park without anyone putting two and two together and wondering why one girl on skates had stumbled over a body while the other got away clean. From there, it had been a short hop back to the apartment, and the dubious comfort of worrying about Fern.

I glanced at my phone, plugged in and charging on the kitchen counter. There had been no incoming texts or calls since leaving the property. It had been hours.

“Seriously, you’re making me anxious.”

“Then we can both be anxious,” I said, but I stopped walking and stood in the middle of the living room, back so straight my spine ached, vibrating slightly, like a taut bowstring. Megan’s gaze turned wary. Humans and gorgons are both predators, but humans are hunters and gorgons are trappers. Even coming from such similar backgrounds, we were so different, and we were always going to be.

Silence spread between us, filling the air until it seemed to drip down the walls. I held my tongue as long as I could, and when I couldn’t anymore, I blurted, “I should move out.”

“What?” Megan frowned, one sketched-on eyebrow rising. “Why?”