The light gleamed off the scales of a long, slender column that stretched from the water to some unseen higher point. Mouth suddenly dry, I played the light upward, confirming that a) the column was a neck, and b) the neck belonged to something carnivorous in the long-necked plesiosaur family.

“Oh,” I said. “Well. Will you look at that?”

Like the frogs, the plesiosaur seemed fascinated by my light. Unlike the frogs, the plesiosaur had a head at least two feet long, and a mouth that bristled with sharp, flesh-ripping teeth. I’d been a lot happier when it was just frogs.

“That is a dinosaur,” said Dominic. “I . . . I admit, I was not expecting a dinosaur.”

“Technically it’s not a dinosaur, it’s a plesiosaur,” I said. “I think. Probably. I don’t feel like getting closer so I can find out, do you?” Plesiosaurs, and things like them, are the purview of my brother Alex, who likes reptiles and amphibians and other creatures he can’t reasonably have a conversation with. Unfortunately, Alex was in Ohio, and had not accompanied us on the night’s adventure. I’m the urban cryptid girl. My job involves talking to things that can talk back, and as far as I knew, plesiosaurs didn’t fall under that umbrella.

Maybe I was being hasty. I cleared my throat, pasted on my most reasonable-looking smile, and called, “Hello, the plesiosaur! Would you like to have a nice chat about what you’re doing in our reservoir?”

My name is Verity Price; I’m a cryptozoologist. That means that sometimes my life includes shouting at extinct genera of reptiles. My life is weird.

The plesiosaur cocked its head, looking for all the world like an enormous iguana. For a moment, I thought maybe this was going to work out for the best. The plesiosaur would reveal a heretofore unsuspected intelligence, and explain in small, pleasant words how it had wound up in the Portland reservoir, and how I could get it out before the authorities noticed.

Then the plesiosaur opened its mouth, made a horrifying keening noise, and darted toward us, moving fast enough to constitute a clear and present danger. I yelped, jumping out of the way. Dominic was a dark blur against the bushes as he raced for safety. The plesiosaur’s jaws snapped shut where I’d been standing only a moment before.

“Not friendly,” I said, in case Dominic had somehow managed to miss the memo.

“Oh really? Whatever gave you that idea?”

“There’s no need for sarcasm,” I called. In the distance, Dominic snorted.

The plesiosaur pulled back for another strike. I braced myself to jump again. The thing couldn’t stay in the reservoir, that was for sure, and I didn’t want to leave when there was a chance it might eat a jogger or something, but I wasn’t ready to kill it, either. There’d been no reports of it hurting anyone. There hadn’t even been any conclusive sightings, prior to me and my flashlight. It was just an innocent prehistoric reptile, doing what came naturally for innocent prehistoric reptiles.

The head snapped forward again. I jumped backward this time, using my momentum to turn the motion into a handspring. It was showy and pointless, but a girl’s got to stay in practice somehow, and besides, it wasn’t like we were in a lot of danger as long as we didn’t hold still. The plesiosaur was cranky and snappy, but it couldn’t leave the water. Well. I didn’t think it could leave the water. It probably couldn’t leave the water.

I decided to stay a little farther back from the water.

“Is there a plan? Or are you just going to keep jumping about like a startled cat?” Dominic’s voice came from behind me. He must have gotten through the bushes and worked his way around to avoid the plesiosaur.

“Those bushes are like half blackberry bramble,” I said.

“I’m aware,” said Dominic.

“I have a plan,” I said, tensing as the plesiosaur pulled back. “I’m going to wear it out, and when it submerges, I’m going to find out who thought it was okay to store their giant lizard in the city reservoir, and we’re going to have a little talk.”

“There will still be a plesiosaur in the reservoir,” said Dominic.

Sometimes he was so practical it made me want to scream. “That’s why God invented U-Haul rentals,” I said. The plesiosaur lunged. I leaped. From the blackberry bushes, Dominic swore. I allowed myself to smile. He was learning the dangers of questioning me.

Not that he had much left to learn. Dominic and I met in New York, where I’d been spending a year working as a professional ballroom dancer and he was doing the prep work for a purge by the Covenant of St. George. Naturally, we hit it off right away. He hit me with a snare, and then I hit him with my stunning wit and cheerful willingness to shoot him until he stopped squirming. It wasn’t your classic Hollywood meet-cute—more of a standoff with the cryptid population of Manhattan hanging in the balance—but we’d been able to make things work. Mostly because he was a nice guy, under all that Covenant brainwashing, and he had the common sense to find me mad cute, which meant he was also a smart guy.