Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7)

“Saints preserve me from the living,” said Mary, rolling her eyes ceiling-ward. “All right. Since it seems like you’ve thought of everything, can you just promise me that you’ll be careful?”

“Nope,” I said. “When a Price promises to be careful, that’s when we get dead.”

“Speaking of dead,” said Rose. “It’s been fun seeing you again, Timmy. Good luck defeating the evil luck-sucker empire, but if this is routewitch doing, I’m not sticking around to find out what they’ll do to a girl like me.”

It was the sensible thing to do. Rose has been a hitchhiking ghost for so long that she’s crossed the continent dozens, if not hundreds, of times, and the spells she’d fuel would be terrifying. I smiled wanly.

“Thanks for coming, Aunt Rose,” I said.

“Anytime, squirt,” she said, and was gone, vanishing from the world as easily as she’d appeared.

Something wrapped around my ankle. I didn’t need to look down to know that it was Sam’s tail.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s fix this.”





Nineteen




“You don’t owe the world anything. That’s why you should try to make it better no matter what. A lack of obligation does not mean a lack of mercy.”

–Evelyn Baker

A shitty company apartment five miles outside of Lakeland, Florida, getting ready for a war

EXPLAINING THE SITUATION TO Fern and Megan had been easier than I’d expected. Maybe it was showing up with a fūri who couldn’t transform, or maybe it was the dead woman offering to draw flow charts. Mostly, I think, it was Cylia, who looked human and wasn’t human and hadn’t asked for anything they could measure or perceive.

I sat on the couch with my hands tucked between my knees, wondering how I could have been foolish enough to think I could get something for nothing—that a little training would be enough to stop the fire from consuming everything around me, and that all I’d have to pay for it would be my time. It had been a beautiful promise and a perfectly tailored trap, and I had walked into it with my eyes wide open.

The cushion beside me barely dented as Fern sat down. On the other side of the room, Cylia was taking a finger-scoop of good luck from Megan and wiping it on Sam, who bore it with furry, put-upon dignity.

“You okay?” asked Fern, bumping my shoulder with hers.

I wanted to tell her to be careful. I wanted to tell her that there was a hole in my heart pulling away the energy of the people around me. I didn’t. She already knew that—it had been a part of the explanation of the situation—and unlike Sam, she hadn’t had her luck ripped away. She was safe from me, as long as she was employed by Lowryland.

Instead, I ducked my head, offering her a weary smile, and said, “I’ve been better.”

“You don’t look like you’ve eaten in, oh, hours,” she said.

“Probably because I haven’t. Cylia gave us some lemonade.” I leaned back on the couch. Megan was wiping the spit off her forearm. Sam was flexing his hands, looking around the room like he was trying to decide where to go without risking bumping into me.

Having him here and not being able to touch him was almost worse than not having him here at all. Only almost. Being able to see him, to know that he was . . . well, not okay, but at least alive, at least breathing, that was better than anything as simple as physical contact.

“Lemonade isn’t food,” said Fern disapprovingly. “We could order pizza.”

“Pizza is food,” I agreed.

Fern took that as consent. She turned to the rest of the room. “Anybody up for pizza?” she called.

“Better make that two,” said Cylia. “Sam’s body is trying to rebuild luck and energy at the same time. He’s going to eat like a teenager.”

“I already eat like a teenager,” said Sam. “I’m a growing monkey.”

“Don’t grow too much more, or you’ll be morally obligated to climb the Empire State Building,” said Megan, looking him up and down.

He waved it off with a sweep of his hand. “Nah. I don’t like blondes.” The look he shot in my direction made it very clear that brunettes were another matter.

My cheeks reddened, but I held to my dignity, sitting up a little straighter and saying, “We need to figure out what we’re doing about this cabal, and about the luck thefts.”

“They don’t have a jink working for them, so you don’t need me,” said Cylia. “If you sneak me into the Park without expecting me to touch one of those tickets, I can try to rebalance the luck of anyone who’s been affected, but that’s about as far as I can go.”

“It’s better than nothing,” I said. “Thank you for being willing to help.”

“There’s some self-interest here,” she said. “If the Covenant ever heard there had been issues with inexplicably missing luck in Florida, they’d probably come for another purge. I couldn’t live with myself if I’d been in a position to prevent that, and had chosen to do nothing.”

I couldn’t stop a small, grim chuckle. “You’ve just described the motivation of everything my family has done in the last hundred years,” I said.

“Then I understand you a little better,” she said. Producing her phone from her pocket, she said, “I’ll go order the pizza,” and retreated into the hall.

Megan looked at me, expression calm, snakes hissing wildly all around her face.

“We must practically seem like statues to you,” I blurted.

She blinked, painted-on eyebrows rising, before she smiled in sudden understanding. “It was the source of a lot of early cultural confusion,” she admitted. “Our ‘hair’ always gives our feelings away, unless we cover it, and for a gorgon to cover their heads in private is a grave insult. We didn’t understand that humans could stand there with their heads uncovered, and tell us lies, and be believed.”

“That makes sense,” I said softly.

“I treated the wounded, after the parade collapsed. I held hands. I listened to people asking if we’d seen their children. I’m just a resident. I shouldn’t have been doing half the things I was doing, but the hospital was overwhelmed, and we had to take care of everyone. Whoever’s using you to boost their luck-theft, they’re killing people now. I’m in this until it’s over. You should know that.” Megan’s voice remained calm, and her snakes grew more and more agitated. “Whatever I can do, I’ll do.”

“Me, too,” said Fern.

“Me, three,” said Sam. He flexed his hands again, before scowling. “I still can’t change, but I feel like I’ll be able to soon. It itches.”

“Well, don’t touch me again until your luck’s grown back enough to protect you,” I said. He looked hurt. I shook my head. “We need you at your best. That means fast and sturdy and capable of blending into a crowd. Right now, you’re not blending anywhere outside of a comic book convention.”

“I’ve never been to one of those.”

“Then when all this is over, I’ll take you to one.”

“When all this is over . . .” He paused, looking at me seriously. “Are you gonna go home when this is over?”

I slumped into the couch. “I can’t.” Sam looked like he was going to protest. I raised my hand, cutting him off. “Not ‘I don’t want to,’ Sam, I can’t. The problem that has me running hasn’t gone away yet. I just ran into a different problem. Lowryland is being controlled by unethical human magic-users who’re harvesting luck from their guests because who the fuck knows why. Because they’re power-hungry assholes. But they’re not the Covenant. If we beat them, that doesn’t magically make the Covenant go away, and it doesn’t magically make it safe for me to go back to my family. It just means I find another place to run.”

“I always wanted to be a member of the A-Team,” said Sam philosophically.

I blinked at him. “What?”

“If you’re still running, I’m coming with you,” he said. “No offense, but this ‘I can do it on my own, just watch’ bullshit hasn’t worked out too well, so I figure it’s time we try a little ‘we have vigorous sex in every cheap motel between here and Maine’ bullshit. At least that’ll be more fun.”