Discount Armageddon: An Incryptid Novel by Seanan McGuire Read Free Book Online

got to college, on the off chance that he’d somehow make the news. And I, with my weird obsession with the Latin forms of ballroom dancing? With my urge to salsa and rumba and cha-cha my nights away? I was allowed to put on a red wig, get a false ID from our crazy cousin Artie, and audition for
Dance or Die
. And when the producerssaid I had a slot in the top twenty, I was allowed to compete.
    The format is familiar to everyone in the country who owns a TV not permanently turned to either PBS or porn: ten girls, ten guys, one massive cash prize. Every week two dancers get sent home, until the top four try to dance their way to victory without dancing themselves into heart failure. (My season was better than some; we only lost one contestant to health issues, and he was an idiot who stopped sleeping and gave himself pneumonia.) I didn’t win. I didn’t expect to. But I came in second.
    Two of the show’s regular judges were cryptids, and so were three of the other competitors. My experiences with them, and the connections I managed to make within the Los Angeles cryptid community, were the final push I needed to get the consent for my studies in New York City. Of course Dave wanted me to dance for him. He could make some serious dough by putting my stage name on his roster of naked talent.
    Competitive ballroom dance may have a reputation for skimpy dresses and sky-high heels, but at least sequins aren’t see-through. I’d been saying thanks but no thanks to Dave for months. I was there to work tables and make contacts, not sacrifice what little dignity I had left.
    Of course, give me a few more months trying to pay for groceries on a cocktail waitress’ salary and tips, and that could change. All he really had to do was wait me out.

    Carol was still in the dressing room with her wig in her hands when I returned. Her snakes hissed merrily, glad to be released from their confinement, as she stared morosely into the mirror.
    “Hey, Carol,” I said, heading for my locker. “What’s wrong?”
    “I can’tgo back out there until I get my wig on, and I really need the tips,” she said, glancing back toward me. “I had to feed them last week.”
    “Ouch.” I winced. Gorgon hair requires live feeding, and Carol had at least thirty individual snakes topping her head. They would have each demanded a pinky mouse of their own, possibly two or three in the case of the larger serpents. “Still no luck breeding your own?”
    “I can’t wear my contacts all the time. I keep looking at them by mistake.”
    “I can see where that would be a problem.” Untying my apron, I added, “I can call my mom if you want. She might have something you can use to sedate them without hurting them.”
    “Could you?” Carol whirled to face me, clutching her wig to her breast and looking at me like I was the answer to all her prayers. “I didn’t want to ask, but…”
    “It’s no big. Really.”
    Here’s a fun fact: there are over nine hundred races of cryptids on the planet, and maybe eighty of those look roughly human, ranging from the Sasquatches and gorgons to dragon princesses and cuckoos. Here’s another fun fact: most of those races have only started coming into intentional contact with humans during the last hundred and fifty years, as our expansionistic tendencies brought us to them. Many have little to no idea of their own biology, and still practice a form of folk medicine that the human race abandoned centuries ago.
    Which is where my mother comes in. Evelyn Price, formerly Evelyn Baker, is the closest thing to a cryptid physician most of them will ever meet. She’ll even make house calls if you can find her a teleport, and her rates are more than reasonable.
    Carol burbled a series of thanks before she went back to trying to cram her snakes into the wig. I took her distraction as the opportunity it was and dug my weapons out of the locker. I always feel better with a knife, and better yet with a firearm or two. I was