Part 8 (2/2)

”That's concerned friend-ese for 'do I need to break this guy's legs for you,'” I said, just loud enough for Uncle Mike to hear me. Louder, I called, ”No, I'm good. I'll come back for introductions in a sec. Is Kitty in her office?” A few of the patrons looked our way, and then turned disinterestedly back to their drinks or their perusal of the bored-looking dancers on the main stage. I made a mental note to talk to Kitty about punching up the quality of our midday entertainment.

”I think so,” said Ryan, still watching Mike with suspicion.

I decided to cut this off before there could be some kind of ”emergency” that caused him to come charging in to Kitty's office while we were trying to explain what I needed from the dragons. I gestured for Mike to follow as I approached the bar. Once I was close enough that I no longer needed to raise my voice, I gestured to Mike, and said, ”Ryan, this is my Uncle Mike, who is not with the Covenant, but is here to help me keep us all from getting killed. Also, he made me a pot roast, and stood over me while I ate a sandwich.”

”An entire sandwich?” asked Ryan, who knew far too much about my occasionally spotty eating habits.

”Yup.” I looked toward Mike. ”Uncle Mike, this is Ryan, our bartender and bouncer. He's also Istas' boyfriend, which means he's either insane or preternaturally patient, and he makes a mean c.o.c.ktail.”

”We'll have to trade tips some time.” Mike extended his hand to Ryan, who took it, too surprised to do anything else. They shook. ”Nice establishment you've got here. Now if you'll excuse us, my niece and I have to see a bogeyman about a room.”

Carol gave another bone to her hair, which hissed happily and set about stripping off the last shreds of meat. ”Your family's coming to town?” she asked. ”Are things that serious?”

I realized that all the other waitresses were staring at me-and that none of them were human. I owed them the truth. ”Not yet,” I said. ”Uncle Mike's my only backup so far, because we don't know that I'm going to need any more than that. We just want to talk to Kitty about some tactical issues. I promise, n.o.body's going to start killing anybody else without me giving you a heads-up about things. Okay?”

Carol and the other waitresses looked dubious, but finally she nodded, and the others followed suit. The only ones who didn't look unhappy about the situation were the snakes that made up Carol's hair. They kept stripping the meat off of chicken bones, entirely oblivious to the danger that we were all in.

”Come on, Uncle Mike,” I said, and waved to Ryan before grabbing Mike's wrist and pulling him with me toward the door to the staff area. He'd stay if I let him, trying to put everyone at ease and get them all comfortable with the idea of his presence. That was just the kind of guy he was. It was part of what made him so good at his job, and why he and Lea could hold Chicago essentially on their own. The trouble was we didn't have time.

He knew it, too, because he let himself be pulled out of the main club and into the staff area. I was getting pretty tired of making this particular trek. Hopefully, I wouldn't have to do it too many more times. Somehow, I wasn't going to bank on that.

It felt like everyone who worked in the Freakshow was in the building, even the ones who weren't supposed to be on duty for hours. Some of them were carrying backpacks, coolers, and even camping gear. They were settling in for the long haul. I didn't see any dragons, but everyone else seemed to be present, from the near-human to the barely-there. It was like walking through one of George Lucas' fever dreams, only a little more coherent, and a lot less p.r.o.ne to head-tentacles.

”Was that a Pliny's gorgon?” muttered Mike, as we walked toward Kitty's office.

”Yup,” I said mildly. ”His name's Joe. Don't let him make you coffee.” I kept walking. (There are three major subspecies of gorgon. Representatives of two of them worked at the Freakshow. If Kitty ever hired a greater gorgon, she'd be able to declare some form of weird cryptid bingo and win absolutely nothing but the knowledge that she had a lot of venomous people on her staff.) Kitty was sitting at her desk with the door open when we reached her office. She didn't have her darks on, maybe because with this many people around, she would have just been turning them off every five seconds anyway. I knocked on the doorframe. She looked up, and blinked twice-first at the sight of me, and then at the sight of Uncle Mike. Unfamiliar humans weren't exactly what you'd call ”common” in the back halls of the Freakshow. ”Can I help you with something?” she asked. There was a wary note in her voice, and she didn't stand up. One of her out-of-sight hands was probably on the panic b.u.t.ton, ready to summon security if I looked even a little bit distressed.

Funny as that would have been, I liked all our bouncers too much to pit them against my uncle. ”Kitty, this is my Uncle Mike. He's in town to help with the Covenant situation. We need to ask you for a favor.”

Kitty blinked again. Then she stood, revealing the bright yellow robe she'd put on over her Super Grover pajamas, and walked to the office door to offer Mike her hand. He took it and shook, not flinching at the strange way her fingers bent. (Bogeymen have extra knuckles, the better to creep you right the h.e.l.l out when they grab your ankles in the dark. It makes shaking hands with them a little bit disturbing, since it feels like you're breaking fingers no matter how many times you adjust your grip.) ”Katherine Smith,” she said. ”You can call me 'Kitty,' everyone else does.”

”Michael Gucciard,” he responded. ”You can call me Mike. Thank you for having me here.”

She raised an eyebrow. ”I had a choice?”

Mike laughed, reclaiming his hand. ”Well, ma'am, technically I suppose you could tell me that my services were not required at this time and follow it up by asking me to get the h.e.l.l out of your city. But that might be a bad idea, given the rest of the situation. I don't think the Covenant of St. George is going to be that easy to get rid of.”

”If only,” said Kitty. She turned to me. ”What's the favor?”

”The Covenant knows where I live,” I said, not bothering with prevarication. ”I need to move someplace secure, where I won't be endangering anyone else-which means I can't stay here. Can you help me convince Candy to let me rent the old Nest for the duration?”

”What?” Kitty stared at me. ”This is your favor? You want me to help you negotiate with a dragon? Are you planning to sell a few kidneys to help finance this little plan?”

”I found them the first male they've seen in centuries. I'm hoping that will keep the interest rates down. As for the rest, that's where you come in. They'll give me a fairer deal if you're sitting in on the negotiations.”

Kitty snorted. ”Says you. I know bogeymen have a reputation for striking a hard bargain, but there's loan-sharking, and then there's whatever it is the dragons do.”

”You employ most of the dragons in the city. If they p.i.s.s you off enough, they don't get paid anymore. Besides which, if the Covenant catches me and starts putting me through information extraction, they might find out where the new Nest is. More importantly, they might find out about William.” I bared my teeth in something that bore very little resemblance to a smile. ”I think the dragons would really prefer that I not be that easy to catch, don't you?”

”Remind me never to play poker with you,” said Kitty. She turned and walked back to her desk, where she hit a b.u.t.ton on her phone. ”Daisy? It's Kitty. Can you please find Candy and send her to my office? Verity's here, and we need to talk about something.”

”Sure thing, Kitty,” said Daisy.

Kitty removed her finger from the phone. ”All done,” she said. ”Now we just have to wait.”

We didn't have to wait for long. Invoking my name and the phrase ”we need to talk” in the same sentence had obviously been enough to light a fire under Candy, because she came speed walking down the hall toward Kitty's office less than five minutes later. She was wearing street clothes, rather than her waitressing gear: yoga pants, an Old Navy tank top, and a pair of scuffed sneakers that were probably bought off the back of a truck somewhere in the Garment District. Dragons don't believe in spending money on things like brand name clothing. Not when they could be spending money on more important things, like gold.

Not that they need nice clothes to be devastatingly gorgeous. Whatever quirk of evolution decided that dragon females should look like human women really went all-out on their physical design: I've never seen a dragon who didn't look like a super model, although they tend to be a modern size ten to fourteen, which makes them a little less high fas.h.i.+on than they were fifty or five hundred years ago. Since dragons only want to attract human men long enough to empty their wallets, I'm not sure the dragons have noticed-or that they really care. Candy was characteristic for her species, with a curvy figure, long, naturally golden hair, enormous blue eyes, and the sort of roses-and-cream complexion that has launched a thousand cosmetic campaigns.

She was also, judging by the way her belly curved under her tank top, at least two months pregnant. ”That's why you've been keeping your corset on all the time lately, isn't it?” I asked, indicating her middle. ”You don't want it to interfere with your tips.”

Candy glared at me. From her, that was practically a warm welcome. ”Who is this?” she demanded, jabbing a finger at Mike. Then she turned her glare on Kitty. ”I'm not on duty yet. You have no right to claim my time.”

”I started paying you for today as soon as I called for you,” Kitty smoothly replied. ”And any time you spend talking to Verity is not coming out of your breaks or lunchtime. Talk long enough, you could get paid for hours of doing basically nothing. Don't you think that's worth coming on the clock a little early?”

”Normally, I would love to improve relations with the dragons by helping you get money for nothing and your kicks for free, but I don't have hours to do basically nothing,” I said, flas.h.i.+ng Kitty a grateful look. ”Candy, this is Michael Gucciard, my uncle. He's here from Chicago to help me deal with the Covenant while they're in town. We'd like to get them out of town before anybody gets hurt. I need your help.”

Candy eyed me suspiciously. ”What kind of help did you have in mind?”

”I want to rent the old Nest.”

Whatever answer Candy had been expecting, it wasn't that: her eyes widened, genuine shock showing through before her expression hardened again and she snapped, ”Absolutely not. It's out of the question.”

”Why?”

”What if the Covenant follows you there? Then what?”

”It's not connected to your new Nest in any way. There's not even a tunnel between the two of them. You're not going to move back there, not with William stuck under the city, and you're not going to find a way to move William while the Covenant is in town. Dominic knows where I live, Candy, and that means that the Covenant knows-I hope he won't tell them, but I can't be sure.” I looked at her earnestly. ”If you want me to be here to fight the Covenant for you, I need to be sure that they can't just stroll in and take me out. That means I need to be somewhere safe. Secure. Solid. I need the Nest.”

”It's ours,” she snapped.

”I don't want to buy it. I just want to rent it.”

”And you're going to rent it to her, Candy, for a reasonable amount,” said Kitty suddenly. We both turned to look at her. ”It's a large building, entirely uninhabited-say five thousand a month? Would that be acceptable to the both of you?”

”Well-” I began, doing a quick mental review of my finances. I was supposed to be self-sufficient while I was in New York, but this was the sort of thing where I could get money from my family if I needed it. The only question was how much, and how fast.

”It's fine,” said Mike.

I felt a flash of resentment. I should be grateful that he was helping with my plan, but this was my city, and I didn't need him taking over. I forced the resentment down just as quickly as it came. Pride is for people who can afford it.

”Good,” said Kitty. ”Candy? You're the Nest-mother. Is five thousand a month acceptable?”

Candy glowered. ”She can't stay forever,” she said.

”Six-month lease with an option to renew if the Covenant is still in town at the end of that period,” said Kitty.

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