Free Discount Armageddon: An Incryptid Novel by Seanan McGuire

insists he’s alive, and my mother raised me never to contradict anyone who regularly carries grenades).
    It’s always been assumed that my siblings and I will settle in the Pacific Northwest. It’s not empty nest syndrome: it’s practicality. We’ve lost a lot of family members since Alexander and Enid Healy decided to move to America, and none of their tombstones say things like “died peacefully in her sleep” or “lived a good long life.” If we don’t stick close to home, we don’t
make
it home.
    And people at school used to wonder why I laughed when they tried to tell me how weird their families were.

    “Can I help you?” That was all. No hello, no “this is the Price residence, Antimony speaking,” nothing that might encourage the person on the other end of the phone to keep talking. My baby sister wasn’t being rude; that’s how we were taught to handle unexpected callers. There was always the chance that cold call might be someone from the Covenant. Paranoia as a family tradition: it’s not a good one, but it’s ours, and we’re fond of it.
    Sarah once asked why we didn’t just change our surname and go all the way into hiding, rather than screwing around with unlisted phone numbers and keeping our heads down. Sarah’s a cryptid, and the concept of not letting the bastards win wasn’t something I could explain to her. She understood hiding. What she didn’t understand was being willing to be found, as long as it was on your own turf and your own terms.
    “Hey, Timmy. Is Mom there?”
    “Don’t call me Timmy,” said Antimony, the words carrying the distinct stamp of reflex. “Mom’s not home.”
    “Not home where? Will she be back soon?”
    “Uh, no.” Antimony is three years younger than I am, but what she lacks in age, she constantly makes up for in insulting my intelligence. “Did you miss the part where there’s a big planetary alignment going on? This week is going to be one of the only times of the year where there’s half a chance in hell of getting into, y’know,
Hell
.”
    I groaned. “Mom’s spelunking the Underworld with Grandma, isn’t she?”
    “Mom’s spelunking the Underworld with Grandma,” Antimony confirmed.
    “Crap.”
    The dimensions align between six and fifteen times a year, depending on the position of the stars, whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow, and lots of other mystical crap I’ve never bothered trying to understand. When that happens, there’s an even chance my grandmother will show up demanding ammunition, additional grenades, and a shower. Thanks to the time dilation thathappens in most of the layers of the Underworld, she looks like she’s about my age, which gets a little weirder every year, and means she’ll probably still be making these little visits when the house belongs to
my
grandchildren.
    My mother’s unique skills can come in handy in the various layers of the Underworld, and they’re most required when attempting to navigate the Netherworld, a confusingly named subdevelopment that Grandma Alice is convinced borders on the Christian version of Hell. She’s been trying to find her way into
that
dimension for the past twenty years. There is no cellular network that extends beyond the first three levels of the Underworld. Mom would be out of touch until she got back.
    At least Grandma’s field trips were usually entertaining. But it always took weeks to get the smell of sulfur out of my hair.
    “Well, if Mom’s in the Underworld, can I talk to Dad?”
    Antimony paused. “Verity? What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. Is Dad there?”
    “Do you need me to come out there? I can be on the next plane.”
    The image of Antimony in Manhattan was enough to bring me stuttering to a horrified stop. She considers pit traps and high explosives the appropriate solution to almost every problem. There was no scenario I could envision where putting her in contact with the Covenant would improve the situation.