Page 7 of Magic for Nothing

It doesn’t hurt that her husband, Dominic, is ex-Covenant, and knows all the tricks his former fellows might use to invade the city. (Although it does raise the question of whether the Covenant still thinks he’s dead. My cousin Sarah, the telepathic super-wasp, once used her powers to make a Covenant field team think Verity was an imposter Dominic had trained because . . . reasons, and that they were both deceased. Well, now they knew Verity was the real thing, and also alive. Did they know the same about him? Were they going to be looking for him?)

“And?” I asked tightly.

“And the Freakshow burned down last night.”

I clapped a hand over my mouth, fighting the urge to gasp. The Freakshow was a bogeyman-owned burlesque club. Verity worked there for a while during her first stint in New York, and she’d talked a lot about the other employees when she came home. There were more than forty people working there, only a few of them human.

“No one was killed, although there were injuries,” said Elsie. “Istas—the waheela—smelled gasoline, and the owner was able to evacuate the patrons out the front and the employees through the basement. None of them were seen leaving the club, which will hopefully slow the Covenant when it comes to figuring out who survived.”

“We’re sure it was the Covenant?”

“Dominic said the burn pattern and flash marks matched the methods he was trained to use if he ever had to burn out a monster den. Then he apologized about eleven times for using the word ‘monster,’ which would have been adorable, but . . .”

“But you were trying to find out what was going on,” I said grimly. “So the Covenant’s in New York. Any idea how they got there without someone seeing them coming?”

“Manhattan isn’t the only port in the country, assuming they even landed in America—flying into Canada might be safer if they’re coming from Europe. Touch down in Toronto, switch identities, and head down to New York. There are so many routes. We were fools to think we could cover them all.”

Elsie sounded so resigned that I couldn’t say anything. I touched her shoulder lightly, trying to lend her my support. She smiled, sad and wry, and kept driving.

I settled in my seat, trying not to let my nervousness—or my anger—show. Mom kept saying a confrontation with the Covenant had been unavoidable all along: once they’d started taking interest in North America again, there was no way we’d be able to keep flying below their radar. And that was all well and good, but Verity didn’t need to out herself on video. She didn’t need to remind the Covenant that not only did a family descended from some of their greatest traitors still exist, but was likely to be actively working against them. Because as much as the human part of our family had to lose, the cryptid parts were in even greater danger.

As far as the Covenant is concerned, none of my cousins are people. They’re monsters, horrific abominations of nature, put on this planet solely to be exterminated by the human race. I’ve read all Grandpa Thomas’ books on the Covenant, and I’ve read Great-Great-Grandpa Alexander’s diaries, and there’s not much leeway where things that look human but technically aren’t human are concerned. They go back and forth on the topic of magic-users, shifting them from “human” to “monster” as needed, but Sarah, who bleeds clear, or Elsie, who can talk almost anyone into almost anything thanks to a dose of persuasive telepathy, would always be the enemy. There’s no room for them in the Covenant’s view of the natural world.

“They’re not going to come here,” I said.

“You think they don’t know how to get on a plane?” Her voice was bitter. Unsurprising, but still painful to hear. “We’re fucked. We’re well and truly fucked.”

“Maybe not.”

“Why, because you’ve got some genius idea to make everything better?” Elsie shook her head. “This is the real world. Verity screwed up, and now we get to pay for her mistakes.”

Normally, I would have been happy to start up a healthy session of complaining about my sister. Under the circumstances, silence seemed like a better reply, and we sat quietly as we made the hour-long drive out of the city, into the woods, and through them to the house.

Three

“Sometimes a change of scene means more than just going someplace new. Sometimes it means becoming somebody new at the same time. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not necessarily a good one, either.”

—Frances Brown

A small survivalist compound about an hour’s drive east of Portland, Oregon

THE DRIVEWAY WAS PACKED when Elsie pulled through the gate and up to the house. Mom and Dad were both home. Aunt Jane’s station wagon was parked at an angle, the bumper dangerously close to Mom’s herb garden. Elsie pulled in between the station wagon and Dad’s truck, killing the engine before letting her head fall forward against the wheel.

“I don’t want to go in there,” she said mournfully.

“Your brother’s probably already in there,” I said. “Is it really fair to leave Artie alone to deal with this shit-show?”

“He stole one of my Barbies when he was like, six, and I’ve been holding it against him ever since,” she said. “I’ll text and tell him all is forgiven if you don’t make me go in there.”

“Tempting, but no,” I said. “This is a family meeting. You’re part of the family, and that means you’re part of the family even when things are rotten. And it’s really not fair to leave Artie in there by himself, so let’s shortcut the part where I talk you into this and go inside.”

“I hate you,” said Elsie.

“I know,” I agreed amiably and got out of the car, pausing to retrieve my gym bag from the backseat. Elsie was being a brat, but that didn’t mean she deserved the sort of punishment that comes from leaving used derby gear in a hot car.

When my parents moved to Oregon, it was with an eye toward establishing a permanent home for our family—one that wouldn’t have the bad memories associated with our previous family home in Buckley, Michigan. One big enough to support us all, if necessary. They’d started by buying an oversized house originally built by a would-be lumber baron who’d decided he didn’t like living in the middle of a big creepy forest that environmental regulations kept him from cutting down. The house was positioned in the middle of a large patch of already-cleared land, and they’d been able to get the whole thing, if not for a song, then for a cover album of Journey’s greatest hits.

Their first move had been building a wall around the whole thing. Their second move had been building a large guesthouse in the back, and a smaller gatehouse in the front, and then to really start digging in. By this point, it’s been almost thirty years of constant innovation and improvement, and we could house thirty people for up to a month without anyone getting stabbed. It’ll be a few more generations before we have that many family members, but my parents think ahead.