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Chapters (79)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Praise for Destroy All Monsters
  77. Books by Sam J. Miller
  78. Back Ad
  79. About the Publisher

“Don’t be,” I said, and hugged him. He turned his face into my neck. I could feel his wet eyelids fluttering against my skin. He didn’t make a sound, but when he pulled away, my collar was damp.

Ten

Solomon

Down at the docks, seagulls and tiny harpies squabbled in the air overhead. A plesiosaur rose from the water, its head as big as me and full of long snake-sharp teeth. I leaped back, but I had nothing to fear from this one: it was muzzled and harnessed to a transport raft, bringing crates from a ship docked out in the river. It kept rising and rising until its neck extended two stories up, and I could see the armor plating on its side, painted with the complex circular glyphs of the Sea Peoples.

The Underbridge docks were busy, like they always were, with a hundred kinds of commerce, both legal and illegal, but right away I could see that something had changed. The volume level had been turned way down. The normal shouting and banging and crashing and stomping just—wasn’t. No racket of machines chugging in the background either. This could mean lots of things. Police crackdowns happened from time to time. War between smugglers. People also tended to be pretty somber, right after a big shipwreck or dockside accident, but I hadn’t heard about any of those things happening out here.

Out on the plains, I’ve read, all the dinosaurs go silent when a new one comes along. When they don’t know whether or not they should be afraid.

I had the sense there was a new dinosaur here in town, and I was pretty sure that dinosaur was the man I’d seen spray-painted on the bridge pillar.

Radha was hard at work—doing laundry for her neighbors was one of the many ways she made ends meet—but she’d told me Connor was being babysat at the Mammoth Narwhal, so that’s where I went.

My mind hadn’t been right, ever since leaving Ash. Seeing her smile had been magnificent, but it had also reminded me how far gone she was. How much we were up against. And spending time with my foster brother was the best way I knew how to make myself feel better.

A mammoth tusk and a narwhal horn hung in the window. Built on a floating platform, it was a shabby, glorious restaurant with good noodles, strong coffee, and cheap drinks. Sailors and merchants and dockhands all frequented it, alongside the folks who made their living illegally—smugglers, pickpockets, sex workers, drug dealers selling spiderwebbing or manticore scales or phoenix feathers.