Page 70 of Backpacking through Bedlam

I turned my attention on the dragon who’d spoken. “Look. I don’t think the yong are working with the Covenant, but I think the Covenant saw them create a potentially serious diversion by snatching someone who’d come out of your shop, and so they moved while they thought there was a chance the people here might be distracted. They may have used the yong to serve their own ends. That doesn’t make the yong traitors to the rest of the cryptid world.”

“I’m sure you’re unsurprised to hear that I agree with Alice,” said Thomas. “In this case, it’s not because of her tactical analysis of the situation, but because of my own experiences with my former employers. They’ll have changed some of their tactics in the last fifty years, absolutely, but they won’t have changed them enough to voluntarily work with any sort of dragon, whatever their origins. All of your myriad breeds are ranked among their greatest monsters.”

Mary stepped through the door behind us, tapping Verity on the shoulder and murmuring something in her ear. Verity paled as she nodded, then turned to follow Mary out of the room. Oh, that probably wasn’t good. Anything that couldn’t be discussed in front of the people who seemed to be our hosts . . . not great. I kept my eyes on the dragons, standing in steady support of Thomas.

Several of the dragons looked around when they heard Verity pull the door shut behind her. I snapped my fingers.

“Hey,” I said. “We’re the problem in front of you. We’re the ones you’re debating whether or not to trust. I’m assuming that if you come down on the wrong side of things, we get tossed out of here?”

Awkward silence answered me, telling me I was right. I snorted.

“You know how human kids are afraid of finding a bogeyman in their closet? Well, the Covenant of St. George is afraid of finding us in their closet. You don’t want us to leave. You want us to get your people back.”

“Do you think you can?” asked one of the dragons.

“I think we stand a better chance than almost anybody else you might call,” I said. “And I think you can’t be the ones who do it, because that would just put more of you in danger. You need humans. You need people the Covenant might hesitate to shoot. I hate to put it that way, but you know it’s true.”

The dragons turned to each other, muttering too low for me to hear for several seconds before they turned and looked levelly back at us. They weren’t a hive mind. I knew they weren’t a hive mind. In that moment, they managed to seem unified enough that they might as well have been.

“Fine,” said the dragon who’d been speaking before. “We’ll let you stay for now, but only because your granddaughter vouches for you, and you can do less damage where we can keep an eye on you. But you will be watched.”

“Guessing that means we can’t go out for another pizza, huh?” I asked.

The dragons ignored me as they filed out of the room, leaving the three humans alone.

Three humans, and one overwhelmingly loud psychic hum. I looked around as Thomas was turning to Sally.

“Taken?” he asked, voice low and dangerous.

There was a chair shoved into one corner where no chair belonged, too far from the table to be useful.

“I didn’t see them,” said Sally.

“I thought I taught you better than to be caught unawares.”

“For a desolate desert environment, sure, but not here on Earth!”

“You’ll need lessons in urban self-defense, then. Noted.”

“And it was fine. Mary and Alice found me, and the yong didn’t hurt me. I don’t think they wanted to hurt me. They seemed . . . sad, mostly, like they were missing something they couldn’t get back.”

I moved closer to the chair, fighting the sudden urge to look away from it.

“Alice?” Thomas’s voice was sharp with curiosity. “What are you looking at?”

“Well, unless I’m completely out of practice, which I’m pretty sure I’m not, I’m looking at one of our granddaughters who you have yet to meet,” I said, making an effort to keep my voice as gentle as I could. “Sarah, would you like to stop screening yourself and meet your grandfather? He’s been gone for a long time, but I bet he’d be really happy to meet you, wouldn’t you, Thomas?”

“Sarah—oh, the Johrlac.”

“Yes. Sarah.” I kept watching the chair. “She’s Kevin’s wife’s adopted sister, but age-wise, she’s always been part of the grandchild swarm, and she’s a granddaughter as far as I’m concerned. She’s ours, and I love her very much.”

“Um, boss?” Sally sounded dubious. “Alice is talking to the air.”

“Yes.”

“Why is Alice talking to the air?”

“Because I think Sarah is a little too overwhelmed to want to be beheld right now,” I said, and sighed. “Sweetheart, I don’t know why you’re hiding—or when you got strong enough to hide this well, honestly, this is some grade-A hiding, I’m very impressed—but you can come out, I promise. No one here is going to be angry with you. I’ve missed you. A lot.”