Page 25 of Aftermarket Afterlife

“Thank you,” said Kevin. “All right: you all know what we know now. The Covenant got a new strike team into Manhattan and destroyed the aboveground Nest. New safehouses will need to be established, and until we find out where they got their information, we’ll have to be very, very careful. For the moment, assume anyone not on this call may have been compromised unless you have strong reasons to believe otherwise.”

General nods and murmurs greeted this declaration. No one looked happy about it. Everyone had a friend or relative who couldn’t be present, and the desire to trust them was as strong as it had ever been. It was, sadly, still understandable.

“Does anyone have any questions? If not, thank you all for your time, and please, be careful out there.”

Before anyone could sign off, someone screamed. I searched the monitor, trying to determine which of the smaller screens the sound had come from. Everyone was yelling, leaning closer to their cameras, trying to see what was going on. Someone else screamed, and the square for the Campbell Family Circus was briefly outlined in white, marking them as the dominant speakers.

The carnival elders were scrambling to their feet, the only ones not looking at their screen. Instead, they had turned to look toward the tent wall as more screams erupted in the distance.

Jane leaned closer.

“Where are you right now?” she asked.

The elders, yelling and pointing, didn’t reply to her question.

“Dammit,where are you?” she demanded. “We can’t send help if we don’t know where you are!”

Another scream from outside, and one of the carnival elders whipped around, apparently grabbing the laptop they had been using to connect to us. “Boise!” he yelled, desperately.

Something hit the top of their tent. We saw it bulge inward. Then there was a flash of light, and their window was gone, replaced by nothingness for a bare second before the other windows expanded to fill the space it had occupied.

Alice was already on her feet. So was Antimony.

So was Jane.

“What are you doing?” asked Kevin.

“Boise’s about six hours away by car,” said Jane. “I’m going to get our people.”

Sam rose. “Looks like we’re having a road trip.”

“Apple?” Antimony looked to the screen. “Any chance of an assist?”

“My routewitches are not a rideshare service,” said Apple. She looked as distressed and off-balance as the rest of us. Looking away from the camera, she addressed someone we couldn’t see. “Do we have anyone?”

There must have been an answer, because she nodded as she looked back to the camera. “Bon can be in your area in twenty minutes. She’s out gathering distance on one of the new passenger vans, so she’s making loops around the country. Her vehicle seats five, if you don’t mind being a little cozy.”

“We don’t,” said Alice, before Jane could object. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“You did us a solid in New York,” said Apple. “Just don’t get too used to it.”

“I think we can now safely say that there’s more than one Covenant team operative,” said Mike. “Everyone stay alert and mind your twenty. We’re going to stay put for right now, help the Carmichael shore up against possible attack, and see if we can make contact with our local Nest.”

“I’ll be reaching out to the Nests who have been in contact with us since my awakening, to see if any are prepared to take custody of my sons,” said William. “Negotiations are still ongoing, but our survival counts for more than a fair contract. Any of them who are safe and ready will find themselves approved.”

For a human to speak so casually of selling his children—some younger than Olivia—to strangers would have been a horrifying violation of social norms. For William, the last known adult male dragon, it was a necessary concession to the situation his species was in. Female dragons could reproduce parthenogenically, for centuries if needed, but couldn’t have male offspring without a male getting involved. When the Covenant had hunted the great male dragons to their supposed extinction, they had rendered the species all-female and frozen.

Finding William asleep under Manhattan changed everything, where the dragons were concerned. He took half the dragons in the Manhattan Nest as his wives, and they began bearing male children. The other Nests were understandably interested in those boys, and as dragons only got larger as they aged, it was in their best interests to transport them early so they could grow up in what would become their territories. The adult females would raise the infant males to eventually become husbands to their daughters, and the species would endure.

There are a lot of human social rules that don’t translate well to intelligent but nonhuman people. This was one of them.

Since dragons biologically need gold for good health and strong children, it made sense that part of the negotiation for the boys was based around payment. Money could be turned into gold, and gold would mean more baby boys were born. Everyone benefitted. The species would have some nasty genetic bottlenecking to deal with if we didn’t find another adult male, but for the moment, they had a degree of hope they hadn’t possessed in a very long time.

“I’m on the bogeymen,” said Drew. “I’ll call when I have something.”

“We’re going to be handling cleanup here,” said Verity. “Mary, tell Livvy we love her and we’ll see her soon.”

“I will,” I said.

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