Work Text:
Leo glanced at the clock for the fifth time in as many minutes with a sigh. Still only 4:35, too early to close the store that served as cover for the Covenant of Saint George in this section of London. Rationally, he understood the importance of keeping up appearances and equally that his own assignment to this duty was a mild penance for going off to America on his own without permission. Emotionally, he was impatient. So many things were happening, so many of them clearly related to the Prices. He'd eat the entire contents of this shop if Antimony weren't involved in that incident in Iowa somehow. The--undoubtedly garbled--information they had managed to obtain from the event made it sound as though multiple cuckoos were involved as well, which was well and truly impossible.
Leo was proud of the work he did, happy to be part of the organization that protected humanity from the darkness. But sometimes he wondered what life would be like if he were born into a different family. An ordinary family that didn't fight or even know about the monsters in the dark. A family whose son might go out dancing and meet a tall, dark, and sarcastic woman...
Leo sighed and shook himself. Discipline, he thought. He glanced at the clock again. It was 4:40 pm. He returned his attention to the bookkeeping he had been half working on.
"Heya," a voice called. "Do you have the latest October Daye novel?"
Leo drew a breath to inform the clueless American tourist that this was a rare book store, not a Waterstones when he recognized the voice. He stood, fighting to keep his eyes open and his hopes under control.
"Antimony," he said, keeping his voice as calm as he could. "I see that you have finally decided to join us for real."
"Then you see something that's not there," Antimony said.
"Maybe you should get some medical advice about that," Sam added.
Leo didn't bother looking up. He knew where Sam was. No need to advertise that knowledge.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"She's here to help explain a few facts of life," a new voice called from behind Antimony. The voice came from a man who looked remarkably like Antimony, though perhaps a decade older.
Leo blinked. "Thomas Price?" he asked in confusion.
"Yes," Thomas said. "I am indeed Thomas Price."
"Quite the old home week, eh?" the short blond woman said from behind Leo. Leo maintained his position and showed no signs of fear or surprise, but his skin crawled as he recognized the voice of Alice Healy-Price, the most deadly human in five dimensions.
"If you're here to kill me--" he started.
"We are not," Antimony interrupted.
"As I said before, we're just here to explain a few things to you," Thomas said.
"Such as?" Leo asked, doing his best to sound confident and arrogant, but succeeding only in sounding peeved.
"Have you ever wondered how cryptids stay hidden?" Thomas asked. "Why no one has ever noticed them?"
Leo shrugged. "They live in hidden places," he said. "That does make them more difficult to find but protects--"
"Leo, dude," Antimony said. "We live in a world where people have explored the depths of the oceans, the interior of volcanoes, and the moons of Jupiter. Do you really think people won't look in Cincinnati? That a whole flipping suburb could hide for generations?"
"Well, clearly, yes," Leo said. It occurred to him that the Covenant had no record of a cryptid settlement in Ohio. It further occurred to him that it was unlikely that Antimony had let the fact of its existence drop accidentally. I'm dead, he thought. There's no way they'll let me live after this.A small part of him was impressed at the subtlety of Antimony's threat and wondered if he had--again--underestimated her.
Thomas appeared to be waiting for Leo to try another answer to his question.
"Lack of interest, then," Leo suggested.
"A friend of my brother's literally has spent his whole life studying the mating habits of newts," Antimony countered.
"Curiosity, the willingness to flip over all the rocks and poke in all the holes is the key evolutionary adaptation of humanity," Thomas added. "But on the issue of crytpids, there is a sudden and extreme lack of curiosity. Why might that be?"
Leo blinked in confusion. "Fine," he said. "I have no idea what you are getting at. Just tell me what you want and get it over with."
"Don't ask, don't tell," Antimony said.
"What does that mean?" Leo snapped.
"It means," Sam said, jumping down in front of Leo and turning human. "That no one wants to poke in that particular hole because everyone has something to hide."
"Margaret Healy once said that Sam was 'as human as they come,'" Antimony said.
"She was wrong," Leo murmured in confusion.
"No," Antimony replied. "She was right."
"But that would mean--"
"I think the lightbulb is coming on," Antimony said.
"A five watt bulb," Sam murmured under his breath. "That everyone is part cryptid," Leo finished.
"Very good!" Alice said, beaming. "Have a cookie." She handed Leo a chocolate chip cookie. He took it absently.
"DNA is a marvelous tool," Thomas said. "RNA and protein even moreso. Through, er, various means, I was able to obtain a number of interesting samples from various Covenant families. Strictly as examples, you understand. Covenant families are neither more nor less prone to having admixtures than any other lineage."
"What did you find?" Leo asked. Antimony thought he sounded like the first to die in a horror movie asking the person with the chainsaw and severe issues about their plans.
"The Healys, to give one example," Thomas said. "Have distinct Waheela heritage."
"Not really a surprise," Leo said, almost involuntarily.
Alice just smiled.
"The Carews have Lilu ancestry," Thomas continued. "Which might explain the, shall we say, persistence of their phenotype."
Antimony snorted.
"Impossible!" Leo scoffed.
"Says every strawskeptic," Sam replied.
"The Cunninghams, now, they are a particularly interesting case," Thomas said.
"There is nothing nonhuman about the Cunninghams," Leo snapped.
Antimony gave him a pitying look. Even more disturbingly, so did Sam.
"I fear you are in error there," Thomas said. "Though I am puzzled by this case. It really shouldn't have worked."
Alice shrugged. "And yet here we are," she said.
Leo didn't say anything.
"Many generations ago," Thomas continued. "An ancestor of yours, Leo, rescued a beautiful maiden from the clutches of a dragon. He was so taken with her that he married her. Contrary to common sense and everything we think we know about biology, the marriage was fertile. The Cunninghams--"
"Don't say it!" Leo cried, though he knew it was futile.
"The Cunninghams are part dragon," Thomas finished.