The taxi let us off in front of the Port Hope Hotel. Dominic paid the cabbie—tipping generously, I was pleased to note—before turning to join me in studying the building. It was modest by Sarah’s usual four-star standards, although it wasn’t run-down by any means. For a moment, I couldn’t imagine what she was doing here. Then I spotted a sign in the hotel window, and had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing.
Dominic frowned at me. “What is it?”
“Sarah has finally returned to the Mothership,” I said, pointing to the sign. He followed my finger, and then, to my surprise, Dominic De Luca laughed out loud.
Visit the Manhattan Museum of Mathematics!cajoled the sign . Only four blocks away on East 26th Street. Math can be fun!
“I wonder if they have souvenir postcards,” Dominic said.
“I wonder if she left them any after she hit the gift shop,” I countered. He laughed again. This time I joined him, and together we walked into the light of the hotel’s lobby.
The telepathic static signaling Sarah’s presence hit as soon as we were inside. To my surprise, it was coming from the other side of the lobby. I turned to see her waving cheerfully from the hotel’s restaurant, one of those modern things where the tables also serve as the restaurant wall. It’s supposed to seem homey and welcoming. I think it’s a good way to cut down on the amount of cover in a firefight. My standards are perhaps not those of the people who build hotels.
Sarah was dressed in her going-to-school best—a bulky brown sweater that did absolutely nothing for her porcelain-pale complexion, and a calf-length green skirt that looked like she’d stolen it from one of the Brady Bunch kids—and her long black hair was tied into a ponytail. She had a glass of something that looked like over-thick cherry soda in the hand that wasn’t busy waving.
It’s ketchup and tonic water,she informed me blithely, about a half-second after my eyes hit her glass. Delicious and a good preventative against malaria.
“Sarah, you don’t have blood as most mammals understand it. Why would you need to worry about malaria?” Dominic shot me a startled glance, and I realized that I’d spoken aloud. Dammit. “Stupid telepaths,” I mumbled, chagrined.
Sorry!
No, you’re not,I thought back at her, starting across the lobby toward the restaurant.
No, I’m not,Sarah agreed. She stood as we came closer, putting her ketchup soda down on the table. “What are you guys doing here? Are you hungry? They make a really fabulous lasagna here. The kitchen’s technically closed, but if I asked—”
“Can we go up to your room? It’s sort of important, and I’d rather not talk about it down here.”
Sarah blinked, expression going momentarily confused. Then she nodded. “Sure. I was pretty much done here anyway.” She picked up her soda and stepped around the table, passing over the line between the restaurant’s carpet and the lobby’s hardwood floor.
She didn’t leave any money on the table as she toasted the hostess on duty with her glass and started toward the elevator. If I’d tried that, I would have wound up with an irritated hostess chasing me down for a signature. Sarah just got a blissful smile and an enthusiastic wave, like she was the Queen of England or something.
“Stupid telepaths,” I said again, and followed Sarah.
As always, Sarah was staying in the nicest suite in the hotel, although this one was, at least, only slightly larger than my apartment. She’d been there for three days. It was already a disaster zone that would have made my mother clutch her head and weep for the future of our family.
Dominic looked around the room, frowning for a moment before he said, as delicately as he could, “You might do well by allowing the maids access to your room.”
“Oh, they were just here this morning,” said Sarah guilelessly. She looked at Dominic, improbably blue eyes wide, and asked, “Don’t you think they did a good job?”
Dominic sputtered. Sarah giggled, hiding it behind her hand.
“Sarah, don’t toy with the Covenant boy,” I said sternly. “He and I have both had a long night, and it’s not going to get any better from here.”
“What’s going on?” Sarah took a sip of her tomato soda, frowning at me. “You’re reading awfully serious.”
Cuckoos don’t really have telepathic ethics, unless you count “loot first, thenburn” as an ethical approach to reading someone else’s mind. Grandma Angela got past this by encouraging Sarah to watch every episode, ever, of Star Trek: the Next Generationand Babylon 5. Sarah went on to augment her education with lots of comic books and classic science fiction. End result, a very polite psychic geek who won’t invade your brain without permission. Most of the time.
I took a breath, trying to figure out how to word what I needed to tell her. Then I looked helplessly at Dominic. He frowned, squared his shoulders, and turned to Sarah.
“Please read my mind,” he said. “It will be the simplest way to convince you both of the urgency of this situation and my role in it. In this one instance, I give you my consent.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “Uh.” The Covenant of St. George specializes in hating cryptids, and Dominic was still a member of the Covenant, no matter how relaxed he was becoming about associating with “monsters” like my cousin. Him giving her permission to read his mind was huge, and she had no idea how to deal with it. Finally, she went with the easy option: “Okay. Um, just clear your mind of everything but what you want me to see, and try not to think about Verity naked, okay?”
Dominic reddened. I smirked. Telling people not to think about nudity is the best way to make surethey think about nudity. That was intentional. If you’re busy trying frantically not to picture someone’s tits, you’re not thinking about keeping the telepath out of your head. Sarah says it’s a good way to get around a person’s natural defenses.
Sarah’s eyes began to glow white. The brightness rapidly increased, until her pupils and irises had been completely obscured. Then her eyes widened again, mouth falling open in a horrified “oh.” “They’re coming here?” she demanded, in a voice that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a whisper or a squeak, and wound up demonstrating the attributes of both.
“Yes,” said Dominic gravely.
“They—you—how can you let them do these things?” The glow in Sarah’s eyes went off as she broke contact with Dominic’s mind. Her entire body seemed to shudder, and she took a long step backward, away from him. “You know what they’re coming here to do. I know you know. I sawit.”
“And you also know that I did not invite them, and that I am here to help.” Dominic sighed deeply. “Believe me, Sarah, I was raised to want nothing more than to be able to join my brethren in cleansing this city without remorse. Part of me still wants to be sure in my mission, confident in the righteousness of the Covenant’s purpose. But I can’t. I can’t be that man anymore.”
“This is why they call you people dangerous, you know,” Sarah said, looking at me. “He’s telling the truth.” She paused, gaze swinging back to Dominic. “That’s really why you wanted me to go into your head, isn’t it? So I could tell Very that you were being sincere when you said you wanted to help us not wind up dead.”
“I told her myself; I doubt that she fully believed me,” said Dominic calmly. “This seemed the simplest way to answer everyone’s questions.”
“You let a cryptid poke around inside your head, so I’d believe that you wanted to be a good guy?” I asked. “Wow. You really have learned a lot.”