Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7)

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Meaning what, exactly?” he asked, in a dangerous tone.

“Hobo,” said Fern.

“Uh, have you met her?” Sam pointed to me. “Hobo is precisely her type. Especially since last time I checked, she was running away from everyone in the world who cared about what happened to her. Dating someone like me just means she’s sticking with her theme.”

Listening to the two of them avoid using my name was already getting old. “Sam, Fern knew me before I went undercover. Fern, Sam knows my real name, remember?”

“Wait, you told her about me?” Sam looked obscurely pleased.

“You were serious about that?” asked Fern.

“I was.” I looked between the two of them. Normally, I’m against revealing cryptids, even to each other. That sort of thing is private. Normally, they’re not both standing in my living room, eyeing each other with anger and mistrust. This was my fault. I needed to fix it. “He also knows what I do for a living. I mean he understands.”

That was about as broadly as I was willing to hint. Fern’s eyes narrowed, studying Sam with a new intensity. Sam took a half-step back.

“Is she going to turn inside out and start waving weird tendrils of flesh at me?” he asked.

“What?” I said. “No. Fern’s not . . . I don’t think I know of anything that does that. Have you seen something that does that? Where?” I shook my head. “No, don’t tell me. We’re getting off-topic.”

“Annie, is your boyfriend human?” Fern’s tone was icy. “I think you should have to tell me if he isn’t.”

This was escalating quickly. I glanced at Sam. He nodded. Looking back to Fern, I said, with some relief, “No. He’s not.”

“I didn’t think so.” Fern returned her attention to Sam. “He stands wrong for a human.”

“I do not,” said Sam. “I stand perfectly fine.”

“You don’t,” said Fern. “But that’s okay. I don’t stand right either. I’m a sylph.”

“I thought you might be.” Sam smiled—a quick, relieved expression. “We had a couple of sylphs with the carnival when I was a kid. When they did the flying silks, nobody could even come close.”

“So if we’re all done glaring at each other, can we get back to me figuring out how pissed I am?” I asked. “Sam, what are you doing here?”

“Mary found me.” He didn’t even have the grace to look contrite. “She said you were in trouble. I came running.”

“Mary?” asked Fern. “Your dead aunt really went looking for your hobo boyfriend because a parade fell on people? Because I thought she was kidding.”

“She knows about Mary?” asked Sam. “Wait—a parade fell on people? How does that even happen?”

His questions, while valid, were more than I felt like answering right now. I was tired, and I wanted to go to bed and sleep for a year, and I wanted to throw myself into his arms and enjoy the feeling of having someone I could hold onto, someone who wouldn’t push me away, no matter how much I encouraged them to. I couldn’t do either of those things. I rubbed my face instead.

“Mary told you I needed you,” I said wearily.

Sam nodded. “She said things were getting really weird for you, and she wanted someone on the ground who was allowed to help and was faster than you are. I think it helps that I’m not, you know, actually one of your relatives.”

“Family can’t come here,” I agreed. “Blood. Too easy to trace.”

“I’m here.” Fern sounded hurt. “I’ll help you if you need me.”

“But I’m still faster than you are.” Sam stepped out of his flip-flops.

I knew what came next, and so I watched Fern instead of Sam as he transformed, marking the way her jaw tightened and her eyes went wide. Her shoulders seemed to lift a few inches higher, signaling a decrease in her personal density. That was an instinctive flight response in sylphs. As it wasn’t followed by screaming, jumping into the air, or running away, I guessed it was probably okay.

I looked back to Sam. He was recognizably the same person, only . . . not . . . at the same time. His hair had shifted from black to a dark brown ticked with blond undertones, while also spreading down his cheeks in what would have been sideburns, if they hadn’t been so clearly made of fur. His features were broader, more simian in some ways, and entirely alien in others, and his arms were longer, fingers resting slightly below his knees rather than at mid-thigh. The biggest changes were his feet, which now looked more like a second pair of hands, and his tail, which was long and curved behind him in what I had come to recognize as a relaxed position. All of him looked more relaxed this way. Maintaining his human-esque form was a matter of effort and concentration, and he was only truly comfortable when he could stop and be himself.

“You’re a fūri,” said Fern, in a tone that couldn’t make up its mind between wonder and irritation. It would have been impressive, if she hadn’t been directing it at Sam. “Why didn’t you say you were a fūri? I thought you were extinct!”

“I get that a lot.” Sam rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I didn’t say it because it’s not the sort of thing I go around saying to the lady at the Starbucks, you know? But I really am faster than you. I’m faster than just about anyone.”

“Are you faster than I can take off my glasses?”

The voice was Megan’s. All of us turned. She was at the mouth of the hall, her wig in her hand, the snakes covering her head rising into silent strike positions, their eyes fixed on Sam. Her other hand rested on the arm of her glasses, ready to whip them off.

I sighed. I couldn’t help myself. “Please,” I said. “Please, can we all just accept that we’re friends here, or at least not enemies, and stop threatening each other? This is starting to feel like a bad comedy routine.”

“Whoa,” said Sam. “Gorgon.”

“Pliny’s gorgon,” said Megan. I could have used her voice to chill my drink. “I live here. Who are you?”

“Megan, this is my boyfriend, Sam Taylor,” I said. “He’s a fūri, which is a kind of yōkai. Sam, this is Megan, my other roommate. She’s a resident at the local hospital. Megan, please don’t paralyze Sam. Sam, please don’t get paralyzed.”

“What, I don’t even get to fight back in this scenario?”

“She can look at you faster than you can throw something at her.” That’s what makes gorgons, of all types, so dangerous. I rubbed my face again. “Can we talk about all this after we’ve had some sleep? My head is spinning.”

“Is he staying the night?” asked Megan.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” I looked at Sam. “Are you?”

“Only if you want me to,” he said, and smiled uncertainly.

“He’s staying.” I turned back to my roommates. “Please. Sleep, relax, and know that I absolutely vouch for him. I trust him with my life.”

“That’s good, because you’re trusting him with ours,” said Megan.

She turned and walked back down the hall to her room. Fern followed, pausing to pat my arm and lean toward me.

“He’s cute,” she whispered, sotto voce, and was gone, leaving me and Sam alone.

I looked at him. He looked at me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he answered. His tail, which sometimes seemed to have a mind of its own, wrapped itself around his left leg, pulling tight in clear anxiety. He looked down at it and scowled. “Sometimes I wonder why I don’t keep this thing put away.”

“Because it would be uncomfortable for no good reason,” I said, and took a step toward him. The urge to touch him again, to reassure myself that he was really here, really real, was almost overwhelming. I was angry, yes, but not at him. All my anger was reserved for Mary. When I looked at Sam, all I felt was . . .

Was relief. I was so relieved to have him here that I could have cried.