Half-Off Ragnarok (InCryptid, #3)

by Seanan McGuire

He was a surprisingly organized and scholarly boy. Some people probably assumed that made him easy to clean up after. Those people had never dealt with a smart boy who liked nature enough to bring it home with him.

“If you find something you truly love, stick with it. There’s nothing else in this world that will make you half as happy. There’s nothing else that will make you half as miserable, either, but you can’t have one without the other.” —Alexander Healy

Being a Price might make me a cryptid ally, but at the end of the day, I was still a human. Humans have a long history of chopping the heads off of gorgons who are just trying to get by.

*snorts*

Grandma Angela is a cuckoo, a form of hyper-evolved parasitic wasp with annoyingly strong telepathic abilities. They look like pale, black-haired humans, for reasons that only nature can explain. Nature’s not talking, possibly because even nature realizes that giving perfect camouflage to apex predators is sort of a dick move.

Grandpa Martin is a little closer to human—or at least, he started out that way. He’s what we call a Revenant, a construct of formerly dead body parts that has been successfully reanimated through one highly unpleasant mechanism or another. In his case, it was your standard mad scientist bent on denying the laws of God and man in favor of obeying his own twisted muse. The result of that long-dead scientist’s tinkering was my grandfather, a six-and-a-half-foot–tall man who looks, charitably speaking, like he’s wrestled one too many bears in his day. He’s one of the nicest men I’ve ever met, maybe because he doesn’t feel like anything is worth getting too worked up over.

Grandpa Martin is a zombie. O_____O

“The trouble with the word ‘monster’ is that it’s very much in the eye of the beholder. Show me a monster, and I’ll show you a man who just didn’t know how to explain himself to you.” —Martin Baker

I paused to stroke the nose of the brass lion statue, murmuring a good morning, and turned toward the gate.

o.O

Lloyd was an older man, tan and thin as a sun-dried lizard, with a battered slouch hat pulled firmly down over his presumably bald pate. I’d never seen him without the hat, or without the thick-lensed glasses that gave his gaze a fishbowl quality that I knew all too well from my time in my high school science club.

Oooooor he's a gorgon. 🐍🐍🐍

I just as quickly let it go, and turned to help a little girl win an argument about whether or not boa constrictors swallowed their prey whole. (I, and science, said yes. Her mother, who was tired of dinnertime attempts to swallow broccoli without chewing, said no.)

Hahahaha.

Past experience told me “saying good-bye” could last upward of fifteen minutes if we kept going, and by that point, my escape would doubtless be blocked by some group of teenagers who wanted to know whether we ever used Crunchy to dispose of human bodies. (Answer: yes, but it was an emergency, and the guy really, really deserved it.)

As long as he deserved it . . .

Grandpa was a coroner for the City of Columbus. Dead bodies didn’t bother him, since he’d been one (or two, or three) himself at one point, and while he didn’t need replacement parts—all the ones he had were good for at least another forty years, barring accident or assault—others weren’t always so lucky.

By working where he did, he was able to keep the Revenants, ghouls, and other humanivores of the city from bothering the living population.

Humanivores . . . O_____O

Her only jewelry was a pair of opal stud earrings and some sort of pendant on a silver chain, currently hidden by the neckline of her dress.

She's either a Covenant plant or an Aussie version of a Price. Leaning towards Covenant plant, b/c NO LIKEY.

“This isn’t hot carob with a soy-based ‘whipped cream’ on top, is it? Because I’m afraid I’ll have to pour it on you if you say it is.” “Not that kind of healthy, I promise.” Grandma had no arteries to clog, and Grandpa regularly flushed his circulatory system with acids.

😱😱😱

If I die this way, Antimony is going to decorate my statue for the holidays for the rest of time. I could practically see myself turned to solid gray stone, standing on the front porch of the family home, with tinsel and Christmas lights wrapped around my neck.

Hahahaha.🎄🎅🏼🎁

“It’s zebras all the way down,” said Sarah agreeably, as she walked back to the table.

😂😩

“Yes, dear, it does seem unwise to stand here and calmly wait to be devoured by the ever-expanding maw of the netherworld. If you have a suggestion as to how better to handle the situation, I’m quite eager to hear it.” —Thomas Price

😕

Now, if you will excuse me, a dead woman is trying to convince me to drink something that comes in layers.” Dominic sniffed. “I expect to be carrying your sister back to the motel.” “Thanks for not adding the ‘again’ on that sentence,” I said dryly. “Love to Verity, ongoing tolerance to you.” I hung up.

*snickers*

“A basilisk will actually leave most of its prey unchanged, counting on suffocation to provide the killing blow.” “Why?” asked Shelby. “Crunchy outside, chewy inside,”

Ewwwww.

The chupacabra predates European colonization of the Americas, and we didn’t know they existed until about fifty years ago (as far as I know, the Covenant still thinks they’re just werewolves with a skin condition).

😂

wadjet

These wadjet are freaking me out. I get how McGuire made the leap--it makes sense after the dragons--but previously the only wadjet I'd been familiar with was the Egyptian snake goddess and wadjeti (also Eygptian), which are inscribed pieces of bone used in fortune telling. SO. Do these wadjet also have some kind of fortune-telling abilities? B/c that would be even freakier . . . o.O

“Chandi, I need you to listen to me very carefully.” I turned back to her. “Was the man at the front gate alive or dead when you came inside?” “He was dead. Now may I see Shami?”

Dammit. Can't be Lloyd if Lloyd is dead. Ughhhh.

The dead man—it’s not Lloyd.”

😈

“Swing by the Tim Horton’s on your way, then,” she said.

They have Tim Horton's in Ohio. Good to know.

“You really tried to hug a manticore? Alex, I never thought you had it in you.” “I was six,” I said, trying to recover my dignity as I put the Tim Horton’s bag down on the table. “It looked like a puppy crossed with a scorpion. Of course I wanted to hug it.”

Yes. Of course. 😂

“I have returned with company, and with donuts,” I informed them, after waiting for the cheers to die down. “I request a bargain.” “What bargain?” squeaked one of the mice, its identity obscured by the throng. “I will give you this bag of donuts,” I held up the Tim Horton’s bag, “the contents of which are a mystery even to me, if you will take it upstairs and stay there until such time as I give you leave or the evening meal arrives, whichever comes first.”

"Even to me," LOL.

“Those can’t be Aeslin mice,” Shelby said. “They’re extinct.”

*snorts*

Shelby blinked. Then she blinked again, and finally, looking somewhat nonplussed, she asked, “Is anyone in Ohio human?” “I am,” I said. “You’re a Price, you don’t count,” Shelby shot back.

😂😂😂

“You seem pretty relaxed about all of this.” “I’m from Australia. I see stranger than women with snakes for hair when I look out my bedroom window.” Shelby shrugged. “Besides, Alex trusts you, and I trust Alex, at least for the moment. So if I’ve already decided to trust you, I may as well focus on the natural marvel which you represent.” She broke into a broad grin. “Evolution is so cool.”

Fine fine, she's growing on me. 😒

“Every group has its fringe element. Ours thinks we should be self-sufficient, which means farming. They keep trying to cultivate things that can’t be petrified. That includes cockatrice. No, thank you.” “Is there one of those fringe groups around here?” Dee hesitated before nodding. “Yes. They live about a mile from the main community, where they won’t interfere with anyone else.”

Unspoken was the fact that out of all the cuckoos in the world, my ailing cousin included, Grandma was the least dangerous. She was a projective telepath, like the rest of her kind, but she didn’t receive. It was why she’d grown up with a normal code of ethics, rather than being overwritten by her mother’s sociopathic nature while she was still in the womb.

“Try to let go of the idea that humanity is the pinnacle of evolution. There are creatures in this world that can kill you with a look, people with wings, and mountains that walk. Humanity is amazing, but have a little perspective.” —Martin Baker

I know it's surly of me, but I've been spoiled by all the Fran and Jonathan prequel stories, so I'm starting to get frustrated that we know so little about the rest of the family. I'm gathering now that Alex, Verity, and Antimony's FATHER is the offspring of Alice and Thomas Price (I'd assumed it was their mother and that was how she'd somehow been adopted by a cuckoo and a REVENANT. B/c both parents in other dimensions), but we still know virtually nothing about Alice and Thomas (beyond that Thomas was a witch who disappeared into a hell portal and Alice has been trying to find him ever since--that would make an excellent installment, btw), and we know even less about Martin and Sophia(?) Baker. I think I remember Verity saying she had an uncle who chased apraxis wasps into a valley and came out with cuckoo for a wife, but am I the only one shocked (and horrified) that said uncle is a frickin' zombie?? Oh wait. Not an uncle. Grandfather. Who used to be three dead men. 😱😱😱

“There’s at least one romance writer who never goes to conventions, because she’s actually an eight-foot-tall grandfather.”

Hahahaha.

“There are a few carnivals still running traditional sideshows,

“Have you heard enough?” “I have,” said a mild female voice with a thick Saskatchewan accent. The curtain was pushed aside, and a female gorgon with skin the color of rattlesnake scales in the moonlight stepped into the main trailer. I couldn’t tell her subspecies on sight. Her snakes were long, falling all the way down to the middle of her back, and Frank’s head only came up to her collarbone, making her at least nine feet tall. She didn’t look old, but she felt it. I swallowed the urge to bow.

“Hello,” she said. “My name is Hannah. You are Jonathan’s boy, are you not?” I took her hand. Her skin was cool. “Jonathan was my great-grandfather,” I said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” “Great-grandfather? How time flies.”

At a hidden gorgon community in the middle of the Ohio woods, where no one is going to hear the cries for help

😂

“Nobody knows I’m here but Alex and his folks,” said Shelby cheerfully. I blinked at her. She shrugged. “No point in lying about it. I figure if I’m going to be eaten, I’ll get avenged when your people come riding in with their guns blazing. Although speaking of guns, this feels like a good time to point out that anybody trying to eat me had better be prepared for a face full of bullets. It’s not a very friendly thing to do, but neither is eating your company.”

Liking her more all the time. ☺️

“Her mother was a Pliny’s gorgon,” said Frank. “Her father was of Medusa’s breed.” I gaped at him. “Pliny’s gorgons are cross-fertile with greater gorgons?”

“I may have missed a few things,” I said. It was a little white lie: whatever I’d missed wasn’t in the house to be read. There are big holes in the information we got from Great-Grandpa Healy’s notes, and they can almost certainly be blamed on his daughter—my maternal grandmother—who burned a lot of his things after he died. In her defense, she had good reason. That doesn’t justify losing whatever knowledge she’d destroyed.

Wait . . . Alice burned Jonathan's notes after he died?? And she had "good reason"? Did Thomas find whatever spell he used that got him sucked into a hell dimension in Jonathan's notes? GAH. See?? NEED MORE INFORMATION. 😱😱😱

“Hannah’s status as a crossbreed has been debated many times, and is actually viewed as an asset, now,” said Dee. “She’s a bit more . . . potent . . . than the rest of us, and she does a very good job of guarding the community.” “And as she has no children of her own, she looks after all the children of the community with the fierceness of a mother defending her own clutch,” said Frank. There was something weary in his tone, which I thought was better left uninvestigated—at least for now.

“Quiet,” said Frank, looking back over his shoulder. “This is where we are quiet, and stealthy, and hope that we are not attacked. Yes?” We were approaching the woods. I frowned. “Your own people would attack us?” “I’d like to think not, but Frank’s right,” said Dee. “Strange things have been happening in this stretch of wood. The fringe farmers swear it isn’t them, and yet . . .” “Strange things like what?” “Men being bitten in two,” said Frank. “Is that strange enough for you?”

(Australia. The only continent designed with a difficulty rating of “ha ha fuck you no.”)

Yeah, not thinking I'll be visiting Australia any time soon . . .

Plant vegetable lambs and bring in some manticore for protection, start growing bird-fruit and get a few tailypo to come and hang around doing whatever it is that tailypo do . . .

Vegetable lambs?

“Some members of the community, though, felt like the leadership had rejected them by even implying that cohabitation was possible. They said we would never be free until we were able to exist entirely independent of human culture and human resources. They moved to the edge of our protected land and started their current farming projects.”

😂

“Ready,” said Dee. “Great. Let’s go hope that whatever’s been attacking people in your woods is a lindworm.” “And if it isn’t?” asked Frank. “Well, then we’ve just seasoned ourselves nicely to be something’s dinner.”

There should have been frickens singing in the trees.

The fricken advanced warning system just makes me sad now. 😕

There was a whoop, and Shelby was abruptly sitting on the lindworm’s back, straddling it like a cowgirl riding a bucking bronco at the rodeo.

Fine, he can keep Shelby.

“Alex?” said Shelby. “It’s dead. I’m in no danger.” The fact that it was dead said a lot about how far the petrifaction had spread. A bullet to the brain shouldn’t have been enough to kill a lindworm.