“Not all the choices we have are good ones. Sometimes the best outcome you can hope for is the one where you’re still standing at the end.”
—Juniper Campbell
Walking back through the subway maintenance tunnels to the slaughterhouse, leaving the Covenant behind
GETTING EIGHT CHILDREN, SEVERAL of whom didn’t look even remotely human, from one side of Manhattan to the other was a herculean undertaking, one that wouldn’t have been possible if Istas hadn’t convinced the boys to submit to being carried in large dog carriers purchased from the nearest pet store after returning to her humanoid form.
“Yes, it is an insult to your dignity,” she had said, calm and reasonable even when she had no business being, “and yes, you will be within your rights to set them on fire when we have returned to the Nest. But until then, we will need to travel with you, and this is the safest option for everyone involved.”
None of the boys had mastered English yet, and their grumbles and mutters had been translated by their sisters, who seemed to find the whole situation more amusing than anything else.
Istas, who had recovered her clothing from the side tunnel where it had been hidden, had waited patiently until negotiations were concluded, and then gone to fetch the carriers.
Sarah would have told us if the information she got from Bell indicated more Covenant presence in this area, but we still chose to take the maintenance tunnels rather than the subway, preferring to remain at least somewhat out of sight. Five little boys in carriers meant one each for me, Dominic, Thomas, Ryan, and Istas. Cara had offered to carry one of them, but we needed her to keep hold of the girls, and so our motley little group proceeded onward, into the concrete embrace of the tunnels.
Dominic had needed to produce substantially more cash to get us through the door unseen this time, but it had worked, and so we moved on.
We walked in silence, and were roughly halfway back when the echoes around me shifted. I glanced to the side. Sarah was walking there, expression serene, looking as if she’d been with us all along.
“Everything good?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “They don’t remember anything about finding the dragons, or William’s existence, or us. None of them will be suitable for field work again, sadly. Margaret’s mind can’t take another revision on this scale, and so she’ll find herself becoming physically ill if she even thinks about another field assignment, to help make sure it won’t be necessary.”
“That’s a little . . . uh, that’s a little extreme, there, isn’t it?”
“No.” She turned wide blue eyes on me, blinking slowly. At least they weren’t glowing anymore. “Killing them would have been the other option. Giving them a few small aversions is nothing compared to ending their lives. And you didn’t have to see what they were planning for these children.” She shuddered. “They don’t remember those plans anymore, and they’ll never plan anything like that again, for children of any sort. I’m not sure they’ll even be able to eat meat unless they know the age of the animal before it reaches their plate. They will definitely be unable to eat eggs.”
She didn’t sound sorry about any of that. After thinking about it for a moment, I wasn’t sure she actually needed to be.
“Well, thank you. I didn’t want to have to kill them.”
Sarah shrugged. “I didn’t think you did.” She sighed, then said, “Someone will have to go and take care of the real field teams.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I admitted. “Rose told us the anima mundi and the Queen of the Routewitches wanted us to come to New York, because there was a problem here that needed us to deal with it. We helped you find them, but you already have people who can fight. You know the city better than we do.”
She was silent for a moment before she said, “You’re better at killing than Verity is.”
Her quiet admission didn’t even sting. It was too accurate for that. “I’d have to be,” I said. “I don’t ever want her to get as comfortable with it as I am.” There was a lot it was too late for me to do for my family. This, though . . . this wasn’t too late. This was something I could still do. “You know where they are?”
“I can’t track them. They still have anti-telepathy charms, and that keeps me out. But I know where they’re based.”
“Good enough.” I hesitated before putting a hand on her shoulder, touching only sweater, no skin. “Sweetheart, I don’t know what I missed, but you can read my mind. You know I love you.”
“I do,” she said, and smiled, small and shy and fleeting, before she glanced past me and her smile flickered out, replaced by renewed solemnity. “I’m making Grandpa nervous. I’m going to go walk with Dominic.”
She sped up, leaving the rest of us to watch her go. I glanced at Thomas. “Sarah makes you nervous?”
“I never expected to find you close to a cuckoo.”
“Oh, neither did I, believe me. I actually started a ruckus at Kevin’s wedding—tried to deck the mother of the bride. It wasn’t my finest hour.” I grimaced, shifting the carrier from one hand to the other. The boy inside hissed in indignation. “Angela’s great, though, and she was around for years before we acquired Sarah. Sarah’s a good kid, and we all love her dearly, even if I don’t really understand what’s up with her these days. I think that’s a story we’re going to need to get firsthand, from her if at all possible. I’ve never met a cuckoo who could bend space the way the Johrlac can.”
“Until, apparently, our adopted granddaughter.”
“What can I say? All our kids are high achievers.”
“You can say that you won’t decide on a plan that involves using yourself as bait ever again.”
I glanced at him. He was frowning, eyes fixed straight ahead, like he was afraid to even look at me. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You have to get used to the idea that I’m here, Alice. And I’m going to keep being here, no matter what happens, and as long as I’m here, I’m going to worry about you. I’m going to want what’s best for you. Being taken captive by the Covenant, with no backup? That’s not best for you. Yes, it worked out this time. Luck runs out. It ran out for your mother. It’s eventually going to run out for you.”
His invoking my mother hurt. Even after all this time, part of me hated her for going into the woods and not coming back out, leaving me alone with a father who refused to understand me and grandparents who couldn’t protect me from him.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said, voice small.
“I know. If you’d meant to scare me, I’d probably be more angry and less upset. I know you’ve been risking yourself alone for fifty years. Please. I know it’s going to be hard to adjust, but this isn’t the first time, and I . . . I can’t handle sitting back and watching you risk yourself like that.”
“I’m always going to run into danger.”
“I know.” He smiled a little, still looking straight ahead. “I knew who you were when I bargained with the crossroads for your life, and when I kissed you for the first time, and when I married you. I’m not expecting you to change. I just want you to take me with you when you go charging wildly ahead. Please.”
“I’ll do my best.”
This time, he did look at me, his smile wider now. “That’s all I can really ask.”
The end of the tunnel was approaching. Dominic opened the door and the rest of us filed out, back in the subway stop near the Nest. The transit officer who’d originally let us in was still there, and blinked when he saw how many additional people we’d acquired. Dominic slipped him several folded bills, and he stopped looking quite so interested in us. Money really does talk.
We made our way up to street level, still toting our carriers, looking like a weird cross between a school field trip and a dog-training class. At least nothing was on fire.
“Mary,” said Sarah lightly, once we were on the sidewalk. “We’re almost back.”
Mary didn’t appear. I wasn’t sure Sarah had been asking her to. With the sort of telepathic range Sarah had now, she was probably just addressing our resident ghost babysitter so it wouldn’t startle any of us when the Nest was waiting for our return.
Sure enough: Verity and Mary were outside the convenience store when we walked up, Mary holding Olivia against her hip. Olivia waved chubby fists and reached for Dominic as soon as she saw him, burbling away in the secret language of toddlers. He handed his carrier off to Verity before relieving Mary of his daughter, kissing Olivia on both cheeks before he looked to Verity and said, “It’s done. May we go inside?”
“We’ve been waiting,” she said, and stepped to the side, making space for the rest of us to pass.
We went in.
The dragons had been arguing for hours. No, it wasn’t our fault the Covenant had taken the children: Sarah’s accounting of what she’d seen in their minds verified that. No, the three agents we’d encountered so far wouldn’t remember any of the day’s events. They wouldn’t remember us, or where they’d been, or anything about the Nest. Yes, we’d been key in getting the children back—without me breaking the charms, Sarah wouldn’t have been able to find them, and now she knew what all the others currently in the city looked like. She wouldn’t be able to distinguish them in a crowd, since her visual processing didn’t work that way, but she could feed their images to Verity, and Verity could get some crime-scene sketches done.
Yes, we’d brought the boys back in carriers for their own safety, and yes, that particular insulting choice had been proposed by Istas, who wasn’t human and thus couldn’t be held against those of us who were. Around and around it went, as Sally, Thomas, and I watched, waiting to hear how quickly we were going to be expected to leave.
And the whole time, I was taking silent inventory of the weapons we had between the three of us, and what I could expect to steal from Verity’s armory. Every hour that passed gave Thomas more time to tap fully into this dimension’s pneuma, and left him better equipped to be a useful presence in combat. Sally . . . Sally was a bit of an unexplored area, since she’d never killed a human before, and I’d been hoping to wait a little longer before she had to start. Still, the kids were back, and seemingly none the worse for wear, which could only help our case.
Verity broke away from the argument, walking over to us. “I know it doesn’t look it, but they’re grateful, really,” she said. “What you did today meant a lot to them, and to me. You didn’t have to risk yourselves for people you don’t know.”
“Except that we kind of did, since that’s why we’re here,” I said. Rose and I were going to have to talk about that. She might work for the anima mundi now, but we didn’t, and I wasn’t signing up to play errand girl and wetwork specialist for the living spirit of the world. I wanted to stay home and remember who I was when I wasn’t running. That meant I needed time.
“I hate to ask you to do more . . .” She trailed off, looking quietly miserable.
“But you’re going to,” I said.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I knew this was how things were going to go as soon as Sarah got the locations of the other three teams. Do you need us to take out all three? Because that’s going to take a while, if you do.”
“No.” Her misery faded, replaced by an expression of grim determination. “Cara and Mary are going to take care of Liv while I head to Hoboken with Istas to take out the team there. Kitty’s the most familiar with the part of Brooklyn where the second team is; she’s heading over there with Ryan and Dominic. We were hoping you’d be willing to handle the third.”
I looked to Thomas and Sally, raising an eyebrow, and waited.
“Those Covenant assholes messed with kids,” said Sally. “That makes them worse than the crossroads, if you ask me. I’m in.”
“The fact that you already see little dragons as kids tells me you’re going to fit in with this family just fine,” said Verity, smiling.
“It’s best if we act quickly, before they realize something has happened to their absent trainees,” said Thomas. “I would prefer a few more days to recover from our trip, but needs must. Of course we’ll help.”
And like that, we were committed. One more fight, and we could go home.
“We should try to hit them all at once, to keep them from coordinating too much of a response,” I said. “And of course, we won’t know whether they’re there until we show up. They could be out running surveillance, or eating dinner, or having a meeting at one of the other safe houses. One of our teams could wind up facing all three of theirs.”
“I know,” admitted Verity. “Sarah will stay here to coordinate and keep tabs on everyone.”
Something suddenly made sense. I blinked. “That’s why you and Dominic are splitting up,” I said. “So there’s a family member with each team.”
Verity nodded. “Yeah. Sarah doesn’t project much anymore—too worried about melting someone’s brain by mistake—but Mary can move between family members quickly enough to be almost as good in a game of telephone.”
“Good,” I said. “Do we have time to grab something to eat?” The light spell I’d used back in the sewer hadn’t been enough to exhaust me, but my stomach was growling, and I had that sort of weightless feeling in my limbs that meant I needed to get food in me sooner than later.
“We probably don’t want to move until after three o’clock,” said Verity. “Between last call and dawn is the least populated you’ll ever see Manhattan.”
“So we’ve got a few hours?”
She nodded.
“Great.” I turned to Sally. “You’re finally going to get your pizza.”
Her smile was the brightest I’d ever seen her wear.
This time, the pizza made it back to the slaughterhouse, possibly because Verity had asked a few of the dragons to go rather than letting us out alone again. I had looked at her with some amusement when she announced her intention to essentially order dragon delivery, but now here we were, me, Thomas, and Sally, sitting around a folding card table in our shared room, paper plates of melted cheese and hot grease in front of us, while the mice sang the praises of garlic knots and devoured their own portion of the spoils with wild abandon.
Sally’s desire for pizza hadn’t been born of a small appetite: she had put away her first slice even before I could finish handing out napkins, and was well into her fourth. I eyed her warily across the table.
“If you make yourself sick, you can’t come with us to fight the Covenant field team,” I cautioned.
“Why would anybody fight, ever, when they live in a world where there’s pizza?” she asked, mouth full of pepperoni, cheese, and half-chewed dough.
“Fundamental disagreements about the nature of the world, generally,” said Thomas. “The Covenant believes that if they ever share the pizza, it will run out, and no one will get to have it anymore.”
Sally rolled her eyes and grabbed another garlic knot.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked, turning to me. “I’m not going to hover, but you were drugged and abducted, and then used one of your tattoos. I’m allowed to worry.”
“It was a minor one,” I assured him. To my own surprise, his concern was comforting rather than cloying. Maybe I was getting used to being someone people were concerned about.
“Is it always going to be like this?” asked Sally.
“Not usually,” I said. “This has been an exciting day, even by my standards.”
“Good.” She took another slice of pizza. “When we get home, I’m going to sleep for a week. I’ll wake up to eat, shower, and put on clean socks, and then it’s back to bed.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, and it did. It really did.
I had a slice of pizza in my hand and we all had the rest of our lives ahead of us, and maybe this was going to work out after all. This was a world I could live with.