Free Discount Armageddon: An Incryptid Novel by Seanan McGuire Page A

Elevate it to explosive new heights, possibly, but improve, no.
    “I’m good for right now, but I really need to talk to Dad.”
    “But—”
    “Dad.”
    “Oh,
fine
,” said Antimony, pouring every ounce of scorn she could muster into the word. Putting a hand over the receiver, she shouted, “Dad! It’s your other daughter!”
    There was a clunk as my father picked up the extension. “Thank you, Annie. You can hang up now.”
    “But I want to know why she’s calling.”
    “I’ll brief you later. Hang up now.” He went silent. An old trick: he was waiting for the sound of Antimony hanging up her end of the line. After a few seconds, a click signaled her doing exactly that, and he said, sounding only a little concerned, “Now what’s this about, Very?”
    “What makes you think I’m not calling to bask in the loving warmth of my family?” Silence greeted the question. I laughed, more from exhaustion than anything else, and said, “Okay, you win. Dad, do we know anything about a ‘De Luca’ family?”
    “Covenant, Spanish branch, joined up about three hundred years after the Healys,” he said, without hesitation. One advantage to having a history nut for a father: if it’s ever encroached on the supernatural world, he probably knows its pedigree. “The last recorded encounter with a member of the family was your great-grandmother, Fran, when she met Jacinta De Luca during a routine sweep of the naga breeding grounds outside Albuquerque. Jacinta was in the process of destroying several nests when—”
    “Dad?”
    “—she was located, and requests that she—”
    “
Dad
!”
    “—stop were met with—what?”
    One disadvantage to having a history nut for a father: sometimes it’s hard to keep him focused on what’s actually going on. “That’s not the last recorded encounter.”
    “What do you mean?” I could practically hear him frowning. “It’s in her diary, and since there’s no mention in any of the volumes since then—”
    “The last recorded encounter happened about a half an hour ago, on a rooftop in Manhattan, between Verity Price and Dominic De Luca.”
    Silence.
    “Hewas setting rooftop snares on my route. He may still be setting snares, although if he’s smart, he’s gone home to lick his wounds and write ‘here be dragons’ on his subway map. He killed an ahool! In
my
city! It wasn’t doing anything wrong! I mean, eventually, sure, but it hadn’t been given the chance!”
    More silence.
    “I didn’t kill him.”
    “Well, thank God for that. Did he ID you?”
    “Afraid so,” I said, leaning farther back on the couch. “I lost my temper. It’s hard to remember to play the innocent bystander when you’re hanging by one ankle a couple hundred feet above street level.”
    “Did he tell you what he was doing there?”
    “The Covenant’s decided Manhattan’s ripe for a purge. I think he’s the only one in town, at least so far, but there’s no guarantee things are going to stay that way. Before you say it, no, I’m not willing to be pulled out of here. I’m still in the middle of my survey, Sarah just got settled at her new hotel, and I promised Dave I’d give at least two weeks’ notice before I left.” I also had an Argentine tango competition in three weeks that could qualify me for Nationals, but he didn’t need to know that.
    “I’m not intending to pull you out of there.”
    I hesitated. “You’re not?”
    “You’re already involved. I’m not going to pull you out just because a member of the Covenant is in town. I will, however, warn everyone that we may be needed for backup, and I’ll email you anything I can find in the records about the De Luca family, their methodology, and any previous Manhattan purges.”
    “You’re the best Daddy ever.”
    He chuckled. “Let’s see if you’re saying that when you’re getting swarmed by Covenant assassins and wanna-be conquistadors.”
    “That’s when I’ll start saying you’re gunning for