Imaginary Numbers (InCryptid, Band 9) - Softcover

Buch 9 von 15: InCryptid

McGuire, Seanan

 
9780756413781: Imaginary Numbers (InCryptid, Band 9)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0756413788 ISBN 13: 9780756413781
Verlag: DAW, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

The ninth book in the fast-paced InCryptid urban fantasy series returns to the mishaps of the Price family, eccentric cryptozoologists who safeguard the world of magical creatures living in secret among humans.

Sarah Zellaby has always been in an interesting position. Adopted into the Price family at a young age, she's never been able to escape the biological reality of her origins: she's a cuckoo, a telepathic ambush predator closer akin to a parasitic wasp than a human being. Friend, cousin, mathematician; it's never been enough to dispel the fear that one day, nature will win out over nurture, and everything will change.

Maybe that time has finally come.

After spending the last several years recuperating in Ohio with her adoptive parents, Sarah is ready to return to the world--and most importantly, to her cousin Artie, with whom she has been head-over-heels in love since childhood. But there are cuckoos everywhere, and when the question of her own survival is weighed against the survival of her family, Sarah's choices all add up to one inescapable conclusion.

This is war. Cuckoo vs. Price, human vs. cryptid...and not all of them are going to walk away.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Seanan McGuire is a Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award-winning author. The October Daye novels are her first urban fantasy series, and the InCryptid novels are her second series, both of which have put her on the New York Times bestseller list and the Hugo ballot. She is the first person to be nominated for five Hugo Awards in a single year.

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One

"There's no such thing as 'normal.' Whoever came up with that idea was probably selling something nobody wanted to buy."



-Jane Harrington-Price



Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, outside security



Now



You don't have to do this." Angela held me by the shoulders, keeping her eyes locked on mine, like she could somehow overcome her own inability to receive projected thoughts and understand exactly what I was thinking. "No one's going to think less of you if you need more time to heal. You know that."



"Mom, I'm fine." I put my left hand over hers, squeezing firmly, hoping the skin-on-skin connection would let her at least pick up some of my certainty. She might get my anxiety in the bargain, but she knew I was anxious. Everyone knew I was anxious. "I've had years. I need to do this. I can't hide in my room forever."



"You're still recovering. What happened to you-"



"Is part of why I need to get back out there. You don't know what happened to me. I don't know what happened to me. Evie has a better chance of helping me find a doctor who understands my situation than anyone we've got in Ohio."



Uncertainty rolled off her in a wave. I forced myself not to flinch.



Evie is my oldest sibling, adopted by Mom and Dad when she was just a baby. She's also my only human sibling, which sort of makes her the white sheep of the family. Mom and I are both Johrlac, colloquially known as cuckoos: telepathic ambush predators who ruin lives for fun. Dad's a Revenant, assembled from somewhere between four and six human corpses-we're honestly not sure. And my brother Drew is a bogeyman. Our family reunions are awesome.



Being the only human in a cryptid family got Evie interested in cryptid biology and medicine long before I entered the picture. She's not a doctor, more of a combat medic and herbalist, but it seems like she always knows a guy who knows a guy. None of her assorted guys had been able to help me when I got hurt. That didn't mean she might not be able to find someone who understood the theory, and who could help make sure it would never happen again.



Mom took her right hand off my shoulder, running her thumb across my cheek. "I wish you'd let me come with you to Oregon. Or at least let me tell Evie you're coming so she can meet you at the airport."



"Both of those things sort of go against the point of what I'm trying to do here." I mustered up a wavering smile. Mom's better at reading facial expressions than I am. She has to be. Without telepathy to lean on, she'd had no choice but to learn. "I promise that I will call you as soon as I touch down in Portland. I have to do this. If I can't, if I start to panic, I'll come right home."



"Try not to do it by diverting an entire plane, all right? People notice that sort of thing."



My smile strengthened. I took a step back, reaching up to adjust the strap of my backpack. "I promise that I won't bring an entire plane home with me."



"All right. All right." Impulsively, she reached out and placed her hands against the sides of my face, pulling me closer in order to kiss my forehead. "You are my beloved girl, and I am so proud of you. You know that, right?"



"You never let me forget." I hugged her, quick as I could, and turned away, heading for the security line. I could feel her watching me go, the sweet, familiar edge of her anxiety, of her hope for me. It used to be more bitter than it is now, tinged with the unwanted belief that I was never going to be anything but a cuckoo, never anything but a parasitic predator waiting for the chance to break free of all these silly morals and rules that she worked so hard to teach me. But I fought the world and my nature both, and I won, and now when she looks at me, it's only fear for me, never fear of me.



I didn't realize how much it ached to have my mother-adoptive or not-living in fear of me until the day it stopped. The day when I realized I could do anything I wanted, because I didn't have to be afraid of myself.



I walked and Angela watched until I turned the corner and she was gone, leaving me surrounded by the press of bodies and the low, constant roar of the minds inside them. I took a deep breath and checked the straps of my backpack again. This was where the test began. This was where I would find out whether I was actually recovered, and not just in recovery.



My name is Sarah Zellaby, and my ancestors came from a different dimension.



It's the only way to explain my biology. Earth contains more complicated organisms and bionomies than most people realize. For everything we think we know, every rule of nature we think is unbreakable, there are a hundred things we don't understand yet, a hundred exceptions to that unbreakable rule. There are cold-blooded mammals and hot-blooded fish, butterflies that drink blood and tears and snakes that give birth to live young. And then there's me.



According to my Uncle Kevin, who finds my species endlessly fascinating, I'm more closely related to wasps than I am to primates, despite my internal skeletal system and mammary glands. I look externally human. I can move through a crowd without attracting any attention that a human woman wouldn't attract. Technically, I'm a mammal-I have three small bones in my inner ear, I have hair, and I have the potential to lactate. Not that I'm ever intending to have children. That would require spending time with a male of my own species, and I'd rather spend time with the wasps we apparently evolved from. Because see, that's how you get a Johrlac. You start with telepathic wasps-not a great plan-and then you put them through millennia of evolutionary pressures that somehow force them to become more and more like what people think of when they say the word "human." You give them internal skeletons and flat faces with squared-off teeth and the right jaw structure for vocal communication. You give them complex hands and the ability to feed their offspring from their own bodies. Century after century after century of if/then decisions that add up to something like me.



We are not of this Earth. We're not the only outsiders living here-the Madhura also came from outside, probably from a world a lot like the one where the cuckoos originated. The Apraxis wasps, too. Basically, any kind of insect that tells the square/cube law to go piss up a rope stands a decent chance of having come through a dimensional rift at one point or another. Sorry, Earth. Didn't mean to crash your party.



A man in TSA blue bumped into me. I took a step back as he whirled around, radiating both irritation and a smug, bullying sort of satisfaction. He liked the power of his job, the ability to make travelers scared of him and what he could do to their carefully laid plans. Unpleasant fellow. There are unpleasant fellows everywhere-unpleasant women, too-but there's a certain kind of bully who tends to be drawn to positions of authority. Security guards and police and, yes, TSA agents.



He'd do.



I looked at him pleadingly. His face went slack. I'm not good at reading human facial expressions, not even after a lifetime spent living among and beside them, but there are a few I've learned to reliably spot. This one was what Verity liked to call the "I put a spell on you" look, and the fact that he was wearing it meant things were working the way they were supposed to.



"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to get lost."



His entire psychic profile changed, bullying and irritation melting into solicitous relief. "You know Mom told me to watch out for you," he said, and took my arm in a proprietary way. There was nothing romantic or...

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Verlag
DAW
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0756413788
ISBN 13 
9780756413781
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
448
Kontakt zum Hersteller
DAW
https://www.aeuln.top/

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Muttenz
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