Half-Off Ragnarok: Book Three of InCryptid (4 page)

Thunderous applause greeted her announcement. I stood and hopped over the bench I’d been sitting on, heading for the nearest exit before I could get swept up in the crowd. They’d be thronging to the tiger enclosures, trying to get a good spot to gawk at the performers up close. I was doing something similar. I just had a different performer in mind.

The amphitheater was a stand-alone structure, but the green space where the tigers were displayed backed up on the main cat house, allowing the staff to discreetly move the animals back into their individual runs, and then on to their proper places. While the crowds formed around the outdoor enclosures, I slipped into the main building and made my way to the door marked “Staff Only.”

The hall on the other side combined industrial tile floors with glossy white walls. It shared certain traits with hospital halls, like the fact that it had obviously been designed to be cleaned with a power hose. There were even drains in the floor. A few interns passed me as I walked toward Shelby’s office. They waved. I nodded. We all went about our business.

The door to Shelby’s office was standing slightly ajar. I stopped outside, rapping my knuckles against the wood under her nameplate. “Can I come in?”

“That depends,” replied Shelby, yanking the door open and glaring at me. Her hair was out of its ponytail, falling to frame her face in disheveled waves. “Are you going to demand I talk like Crocodile Dundee to amuse the tourists?” Now that she was no longer on stage, her accent had faded, becoming more common and less cliché.

“I wasn’t planning to,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know I actually made it to the show today.”

“Really?” Shelby stepped back, making room for me to come into her office. It was the same size as mine, but contained what seemed like ten times as much stuff. I was constantly afraid of an avalanche when I came to visit. “Do you want a medal?”

“Not particularly.” I moved into the office. “I was doing the copperhead survey this morning in the swamp.”

“Mud and venomous snakes. Sounds like the ideal date.” There was a sharp edge to her words, and she still wasn’t smiling. I managed not to wince. Shelby was one of those people who looked miserable, almost funereal, when she wasn’t smiling. When she did, it seemed like she could outshine the sun.

She hadn’t been smiling much at me recently.

“I’m sorry I didn’t invite you,” I said. “I knew you had a show this afternoon.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” she said, after a pause that left me squirming. Finally, the corners of her mouth tipped upward, and she asked, “How’d you like it?”

I grinned. “I thought it was fantastic.”

“Good, because I thought we had some pacing issues during the conservation section,” she said, and began chattering rapidly about the structure of the tiger show, leaving me free to listen and enjoy being back in her good graces.

Shelby was possibly the most dangerous opponent I’d ever faced: brilliant, beautiful, and a biologist who knew how to wrestle a mountain lion without hurting either herself or the animal. She hit all my buttons at once. And she didn’t even know my real name, or anything else about my real life. That was part of why she was annoyed at me—I kept pulling away every time she got too close, and I was pretty sure she was getting tired of my crap.

Her talk about the tiger show was winding down. I watched her carefully, trying to decide what the appropriate next move would be. Shelby answered the question for me by crossing the room, leaning forward, and kissing me. I reacted without thinking, sliding my arms around her waist and kissing her back, pulling her against me until I could smell the faint wild traces of tiger on her skin.

When she pulled away, her smile had become something sweeter and darker, like cherry cola syrup. “Come on, Alex, what do you say? Take a girl to dinner after work?”

“I’d love to,” I said, allowing my honest regret to come through in my voice, “but I can’t. I have two school groups coming tomorrow, and I have a lot of work to do on the samples that I collected today. I’m really sorry.”

Shelby’s smile faded, replaced by a look of profound sorrow. The first few times I disappointed her, I thought I’d broken her heart. It took weeks before I realized that she was just one of those people who looked like the world was ending every time she was a little unhappy. “You and science have the best relationship. I’m not sure there’s really room in it for me.”

“Shelby—”

“You’ve canceled six dates on me, Alex, and that’s in the last month. I know we’re not official or anything, but a girl likes to know that the man she’s seeing actually wants to
see
her once in a while.”

“He does! I mean, I do! I’ve just been busy lately, that’s all.” My words sounded hollow even to my own ears. Maybe Shelby had a point. Maybe it wasn’t fair to either one of us for me to keep stringing her along like this. If I was just willing to admit that it was never going to work, I could save us both a lot of pain in the long run. (In the short run, however, I would be dealing with an angry Australian woman who had access to a large number of predatory cats for the rest of my tenure in Ohio.)

And I couldn’t do it. I
liked
Shelby. I liked feeling like there was someone in the world who didn’t give a damn about my family or our mission, and who just liked me for me. It would all fall apart eventually, but for now . . .

For now, I just wanted to enjoy it.

Shelby frowned. “You’re really sure you can’t come out with me tonight? There might be ice cream in it for you . . .”

“You have no idea how much I wish I could,” I said, shaking my head. “Can I maybe get a rain check?”

There was a brittle edge to her laughter as she said, “At this rate, we’d need a monsoon for you to pay back all the rain checks that you owe. Come on, Alex. Give me a date. I’m begging you here. Have mercy, and tell me when I’ll need my rain gear.”

I grimaced. It would take most of the night to dissect the frickens. The next night, I was supposed to be watching my cousin so that my grandparents could have
their
date night. But the night after that . . . “How’s the day after tomorrow?” I asked. “If you say it’s good, I promise you nothing will interfere. I’ll be all yours for the whole evening.”

“You know, I’m fairly sure I’ve heard that one before,” she said. “What can you offer to sweeten the deal?” Shelby stepped close enough to poke me in the chest. “Well?”

“Um . . . no biology homework?”

“Aw, and see, I was hoping for a bit of biology homework. The practical sort.” Shelby leaned up and kissed me, long and slow and with the kind of promise that made me truly regret the fact that I couldn’t go home with her immediately. She smiled again as she pulled away, a languid expression that she could almost have borrowed from the cats she cared for. “I’ll see you then. Don’t you dare be late. And now, you’ll be going. I need to change.”

She pushed me out of the office and into the hall, where I stood, gaping like an idiot, as she closed and locked the door behind me.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a flurry of school groups and the usual questions about the denizens of the reptile house, many of which were some variation on “can’t you make it be less boring?” Reptiles are fascinating things, but you have to be willing to spend a lot of time waiting for them to move.

The kids who passed through the reptile house would probably have been a lot more interested in my private research projects—frogs with feathers and winged lizards that could turn a man to stone. Hopefully, with a little luck and a little more time, we’d be able to bring things like the frickens and the basilisks into the protected valley of mainstream science before they went totally extinct in the hinterlands of cryptozoology.

I was in a rotten mood by the time we closed. I didn’t like abandoning Shelby and her interesting notions of biology homework just to spend another night alone with my microscope. I know I’ve already said that I sometimes envy my sisters, but nights like these are the ones where it gets hard to deal with. Verity chose a field of specialization that regularly brings her into contact with sapient cryptid species who could explain what they were and where they came from. I chose something that looks a lot like traditional biology. Just a little more likely to turn you to stone or melt you or mutate you if you’re not careful about what you’re doing.

Basically, I chose the specialization that means spending an awful lot of time alone. I drove along the tree-lined streets of Columbus and cursed myself for poor career choices, poor wardrobe choices, poor choices of pet . . . basically, if I could curse myself for it, I did. It made me feel a little bit better, paradoxically; after all, if I was doing absolutely everything wrong, I was at least consistent. That was something, right?

My grandparents live in one of Columbus’ older housing developments, a place the locals call “Bexley,” which was designed back when they still allowed multiple types of homes in every neighborhood. You have to pay close attention to realize that the same six frames repeat over and over again as you drive through the area. If you don’t, you could easily mistake their neighborhood for something that occurred organically, rather than being planned by some canny developers out to make a buck. Even if you weren’t paying close attention, though, you’d probably realize that there’s something a little bit . . . off . . . about my grandparents’ place. It’s the only three-story house on the block, for one, and the only house with a widow’s walk. But most of all, it’s the only house surrounded by an eight-foot fence with spikes on top.

My grandparents have been practicing “blending in with the neighbors” for a long time. Maybe someday, they’ll actually be good at it.

The gate was already open, in anticipation of my arrival. Grandma’s car was in its customary place by the door, and Grandpa’s car was parked behind it. I pulled up behind him.

“Home sweet home,” I said, turning off the engine. The porch light was already on as I walked up the pathway to the door. I smiled at that small gesture of hospitality, pulling my house keys out of my pocket.

I didn’t start my stay in Columbus by moving in with my grandparents. I originally had an apartment downtown, right in the heart of the city, where I’d be able to experience the nightlife and see the sights. Only after six months, I figured out that all the nightlife did was make it hard for me to sleep, and the only sights I was seeing were either through a microscope or out in the swamp, which was nowhere near where I was living. And then my cousin Sarah got seriously hurt saving Verity’s life, and it suddenly seemed like a really good idea for me to take my grandparents up on their offer of a place to stay. We’re family. We stick together.

“Grandma, Grandpa, I’m home!” I called, dropping my briefcase next to the coatrack and peeling off my light jacket. Not that I needed one for Ohio in the spring, but I grew up in Oregon; I feel naked without a coat. Crow appeared at the head of the stairs, croaking once in greeting before disappearing again, off on some obscure griffin business that didn’t involve coming down for scritches.

“Alex!” My grandfather emerged from the kitchen. He was grinning widely, and had a frilly apron that read “Kiss the Cook” struggling to remain tied around his waist. “You made it in time for dinner!”

I smiled. “That was the goal. I have a lot of work to do tonight, so I figured I should spend some quality time with my family.”

“Good,” said Grandpa. “I look forward to hearing about your day. Now come give your grandmother a kiss.” He motioned for me to follow him. Being an obedient grandson, I did as I was bid, and stepped into the warm, homey-smelling air of the kitchen. Sometimes it’s good to go where everybody knows your name . . . and your species.