“No, he doesn’t, and you’re not going to tell him,” I said hurriedly. Dominic raised an eyebrow. I patted him on the arm. “You’re earning a lot of points tonight, but there are still some things I don’t think we should be sharing just yet.”
Dominic sighed. “Much as I’d like to argue, with my fellows coming to town, I’m afraid that Verity is correct. If they suspect that I’ve been . . . compromised . . . they have ways of getting me to reveal any information that they desire.”
“You know where the club is located,” noted Istas. “We should kill you to preserve that information.” She smiled. Somehow, that didn’t help.
“There will be no killing of my boyfriend,” I said firmly. “I’m not killing yours, you’re not allowed to kill mine.”
Istas considered this for a moment before allowing, “That seems fair.”
“If we could get back to the point here?” said Kitty. “I meant what I said. There are too many cryptids in this city for even the Covenant to kill. I will not run. I will not let them win. And the Freakshow will not be closing its doors.”
“Kitty—” I began.
“Boss—” Ryan began.
“Surely—” Dominic began.
“QUIET!” Kitty’s time as a wanna-be rock star served her well; when she shouted in an enclosed space, you knew damn well and good that somebody was shouting at you. “Everybody who doesn’t own this club, shut the hell up and listen to me. You,” she thrust a finger at Dominic, “had no trouble finding this place even before you started fooling around with Verity. You know why? Because my uncle wouldn’t know discretion if it bit him on the ass. He advertised too widely, and we got a reputation for having freaky girls. All I’ve done is build on that reputation.”
“Which is why you need to close for the duration,” said Dominic.
“Which is exactly why I don’t need to close for the duration,” said Kitty. “Too many people know we’re here. If we close, we might as well be putting up a big sign that says, ‘Oh, hey, that club that had the fake monsters? They were real monsters.’ We’ll become the all-you-can-kill cryptid buffet. But if we stay open . . .”
“Hiding in plain sight,” I said, finally grasping what she was trying to say. “I’m an idiot. You want to do exactly what I did on TV.”
Kitty tapped the side of her nose with one over-long finger. “At last, Miss Verity Price decides to join the party!”
“It’s been a long night.” Before I came to New York, I went to Los Angeles. Not to study the local cryptids: to appear on reality television. I was a contestant on the nation’s highest-rated dance competition show, Dance or Die, under the name “Valerie Pryor.” I put on a red wig and green contact lenses, and I cha-cha’d my way into America’s hearts. Far enough into their hearts to take second place anyway, and while that wasn’t as good as winning, it was pretty decent.
“May I have an invitation to this ‘party’ that you’re talking about?” asked Dominic.
“It’s important that you guys—the Covenant, I mean—continue thinking that my family died out two generations ago,” I said. “That’s why when you’ve seen me at dance competitions, I’ve been wearing a wig and using a fake name. It’s hiding in plain sight.”
“We slap some latex on the girls who look mostly human, and we give the girls who look too inhuman to pass a few weeks off,” said Kitty. “More importantly, we give people a place to run if they need to.”
“And if the Covenant comes looking for cryptids in a place where they have been known to gather?”
“They’ll find a bunch of humans in prosthetics and stage makeup.” Kitty looked at him calmly. “Bogeymen have a reputation. I’d have to be blind not to see that you expect me to cut and run because my uncle did. But the thing most people forget is that we run from your homes. We run from your places. We don’t run from our own. We stay.”
“Perhaps there will be the opportunity for carnage,” said Istas.
I sighed. “See, that’s what I was hoping to avoid. Carnage is bad for business.”
“My business,” said Kitty. “If they want to bring the carnage to us, let them. We’ll be ready.”
Judging by the looks on their faces—Istas anticipatory, Ryan grim, and Kitty just determined, like there was nothing in the world that could sway her—if the Covenant decided to come to the Freakshow, they were going to get a lot more than they had bargained for. I just hoped that the right people would be the ones standing at the end of it all.
Seven
“When everything else fails, smile big, shoot sharp, and remember that a lady never needs to say she’s sorry.”
—Frances Brown
A semilegal sublet in Greenwich Village, about twenty minutes later
EVEN DOMINIC had to admit that expecting me to take three taxis in one night was pushing things, especially when we were looking at the trip from the Freakshow back to my apartment. There was no one else I needed to warn immediately, and that meant that it was time for me to email the rest of the family with an update and maybe get myself some actual sleep for a change.
Besides, I needed some time to clear my head. Sarah said that Dominic was on the up-and-up, and I wanted to believe her—and him—enough that I was going along with it, for the moment, for as long as it didn’t mean taking him anywhere he’d never been before. But I needed to remember that he was the enemy, whether he wanted to be or not. I needed to be wary.
Once again, the enemy met me at my front door. “Security is just a joke to you, isn’t it?” I asked.
“This building’s security is a joke to anyone sufficiently determined to get inside,” he replied.
“I suppose your building’s security isn’t?” I asked lightly, as I dug my keys out of my pocket. Dominic didn’t answer, but his shoulders stiffened. I sighed. “You know, eventually, this whole ‘I am Batman, I can never reveal the location of my secret lair’ shtick is going to get real old. Oh, wait. It already did.” And it just made me worry more about his motives, which wasn’t helping.
“Verity, it’s . . . complicated. The Covenant . . . they would know if I had a woman in my residence. They would know she had been there the moment they crossed my threshold, no matter how little sign she left.” Dominic mustered a small smile. “Perhaps I could conceal some women, but you have a way of making your presence known even after you’ve left a place.”
“It’s not like they make you guys take an oath of celibacy. Personal experience aside, I have several ancestors who will testify to that.” I shoved open the apartment door, triggering cheers from the small cluster of mice waiting on the hallway table. I waited until Dominic and I were both inside before frowning at them and asking, “Okay, where’s the rest of the colony?”
“In attendance at the Catechism of the Patient Priestess!” announced one of the mice. The rest cheered again in punctuation. “We were selected to bear the great honor of welcoming you back to the domain when your travels ended.”
Having a live-in colony of Aeslin mice means never having to come home to a silent house. I paused, the true meaning of what the mouse was saying sinking in. “I have a new honor for you.”
“Yes, Priestess?” asked the mouse, whiskers quivering with excitement. I couldn’t tell whether it was male or female. It wasn’t relevant, and so I didn’t ask.
“I need you to stay here in the hall until the catechism is over, so you can tell the rest of the colony that there will be cheese and cake if—and only if—they do not enter the bedroom until I open the door. Do you understand?”
The mouse ran one paw over its ears in a thoughtful grooming behavior. Finally, it asked, “Is this a Now-Only Thing?”
For a heady moment I considered saying that no, do not bother me in the bedroom was now part of scripture. The trouble was that the mice would believe me, and would expect cheese and cake every time I went into my room
without being bothered. Aeslin mice are like normal mice in one regard: they’ll eat themselves into perfect spheres if you make enough food available to them. “One-time offer,” I said. “Leave me alone in the bedroom for now, get cheese and cake when I emerge.”
“It Shall Be Done,” intoned the mouse, with audible capital letters on every word. The rest of the mice erupted into cheers. I flashed them a quick salute before turning to throw the deadbolt on the door, grabbing Dominic by the wrist, and towing him ignominiously down the apartment’s short hall to the bedroom.
“What in the world—?” he asked.
“No talking now. Kissing is more important.” I let go of his wrist as I pushed him past me into the bedroom. Once we were both inside, I closed the bedroom door, and locked it for good measure. I didn’t bother turning on the light as I turned to face him. Let the moon shining through the window be light enough. This wasn’t a time when we needed to see each other clearly. “Kissing now.”
“And the Covenant?”
“Are they coming tonight?”
Dominic shook his head.
“We’ve told Sarah. We’ve told the gang at the Freakshow. I called my family before I came to Gingerbread Pudding. If the Covenant is really going to be keeping that close of an eye on you while they’re here, you’re not going to be stopping by for sexy naked fun times.” I unzipped my hoodie and shrugged it off, hanging it on the doorknob before starting to unbuckle my shoulder harness. “I am thus demanding my sexy naked fun times now, so that I’ll remember why I like you and don’t start endorsing an all-Covenant shoot on sight rule. Besides. I don’t want you getting ideas about that oath of chastity thing.”
I wanted to touch him one more time before I knew whether or not he was going to betray me. I wanted him to touch me one more time when I still believed that it was safe to trust him.
“Chastity would be easier than trying to understand you, but not nearly so much fun. I suppose I will yield in this case to your very solid argument.” Dominic watched me hang my shoulder harness on the hook next to the door. “Are you still armed?”
I smiled blithely. “Why don’t you come over here and find out?”
He came over there and found out.
My grandmother—Alice, the human one who spends most of her time in the Underworld, not Angela, the cuckoo one who spends most of her time in Ohio—always said that when I met the right kind of man for me, I’d know. He’d be the one who wouldn’t bat an eye at the fact that I usually had three or more knives in my pants. Instead, he’d start suggesting ways for me to carry even more knives, possibly while wearing less clothing. I always figured she was talking about some crazy ideal, the way dancers dream about big studios with high ceilings and low rents. Then I met Dominic and realized that no, she wasn’t fantasizing at all. She was telling me what it would be like to date a boy from the Covenant of St. George.
Dominic found and dispensed with the various holsters and straps holding my weapons in place in short order, either hanging them from the doorknob with my hoodie, tossing them onto the dresser or, as in the case of the collapsible baton in my sock, just throwing them onto the floor. I was too busy responding in kind to argue about the treatment of my things. Dominic didn’t usually carry a gun—silly boy—but he had more knives than I did, secured in even more interesting places. If we’d been having a competition, I’m not sure which one of us would have won.
Of course, once we’d finished stripping the obviously deadly toys away, we were down to our underwear, so I’d say that we both won. We stopped for a moment, hands briefly empty, and just looked at each other. Dominic was breathing hard already. The light coming through the open window was bright enough to let me see his expression, but not very much more. That was okay. I’ve always been good at picturing things with my fingers.
He took a breath, raising his hands like he wanted to ward me away. He didn’t lift them all the way. “Verity—”
“They could be here tomorrow. We could be back to being enemies tomorrow. They’re not here tonight. Let’s have tonight.” I stepped closer, to where he could either pull me close or push me away. “We’ve earned it, don’t you think?”
Dominic didn’t answer. Instead, he reached out and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close, and kissed me hard. My lips would be bruised in the morning. I didn’t mind, because I was giving back as good as I was getting, and we were already halfway tangled together when we fell sideways onto the bed.
Dominic’s fingers ran through my hair and down to the nape of my neck, where he took hold, gripping firmly enough to keep me where I was. I made a soft noise in the back of my throat and bent to bite his shoulder. He pulled me closer still, and after that, words and meanings and consequences didn’t matter to either one of us. Let the purge come tomorrow. We would have tonight, and while I won’t pretend that one night is ever enough, it was still more than some people ever get.
Sunlight came in through the open window, shining into my eyes and pulling me out of the dream that I’d been having. I groaned, rolling over and pressing my face against Dominic’s chest. He laughed sleepily.
“If you don’t get up, who will protect all the cryptids of your fair city from the big, bad men who are on their way?”
“Don’t know,” I mumbled, without lifting my head. “Don’t care. Somebody else can do it. Lemme ’lone, I’m sleeping.”
“No, you were sleeping. Now you’re denying the morning.” He leaned down to kiss the top of my head. “That never works. Better men than I have died trying.”
I sighed and squirmed around to prop my chin against his chest, looking up at him sulkily. Dominic smiled.
“Good morning, Verity.”
“What’s good about it?” Even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. What was good about it was that I was waking up—always a bonus in my line of work—in a bed that was toasty warm, thanks to the addition of another body. The mice hadn’t come to bother us. We’d actually been able to get a decent night’s sleep . . . once we finally fell asleep, anyway, which took quite a while. All in all, this definitely qualified as a good morning.
“Everything,” said Dominic, echoing my thoughts in a single word. Then he grinned. “Your hair is sticking in all directions like an electrocuted hedgehog’s quills. It’s endearing. You should wear it like this more often.”
“Mmm. Get out of my apartment,” I said.
“No,” said Dominic, and sat up, sending me rolling half off of him. He caught me at the last moment, pulling me up into a kiss. Pulling back, he added, “I don’t have any trousers on.”
“Okay, fair. You don’t have a shirt, either. Or boxers.” I let my hand slide down the length of his torso, proving my statement with a light touch of my fingertips. “You’d get arrested for indecent exposure for sure if you went out there the way you’re not dressed right now.”
“Infuriating woman,” said Dominic. This time there was no “almost” about it; the words were fond, even affectionate. Then he sobered, and said, “Verity. I have to ask you something.”
“I don’t know where your pants wound up last night, but I can help you look,” I said. Then I paused. “That’s not what you were going to ask, is it?”
“Truly, your grasp of the obvious remains monumental in its scope.” Dominic sat up a little straighter, dislodging my hand in the process.
I blinked and sat up, clutching the sheets around myself like some sort of soap opera heroine covering herself from the camera. I realized a moment later how stupid that was, and I let the sheets fall. There was nothing about me that Dominic hadn’t seen. Not even the scars that my tango costumes normally hid from the rest of the world. My scars are nothing on my father’s, or my grandmother’s—life in the field is hard on a body, and it gets harder the longer it goes on—but they’re mine, and I usually make love in the dark to keep people from seeing them. Not Dominic.
He had scars of his own to share.
He watched me as I pulled away, a strange seriousness in his dark eyes. “You said something last night,” he said.
“I said a lot of things last night,” I replied. “Which thing in specific was the problem?”
“It wasn’t a problem, exactly. I just . . .” He paused, and sighed, muttering, “I am so much better at this with women who aren’t you,” before he asked, in a more normal tone, “Verity, what are we to one another?”
“Uh . . . what?” That wasn’t a question I’d been expecting. Not from him, not now, and possibly not ever. “What do you mean?”
“You, me . . . this.” He waved a hand, encompassing the room, the weapons scattered on the floor, our mutual nudity. “Are we lovers? Are we in a relationship? What are we? The tanuki called me your boyfriend. You didn’t deny him. You even used the term yourself.”
“He has a name, you know. It’s Ryan.”
“I know. You’re avoiding the question.”
“I know.” I sighed and ran the fingers of my right hand through my bed-messed hair, using the gesture to buy myself a few seconds to think. “Jeez, Dominic. Most guys start the day by asking the girl if she wants breakfast. Not if they’re dating.”
Dominic smiled a little. “I am not ‘most guys.’ No more than you are most girls. You are a fabulous, insane, infuriating creature, and I have never felt that normal was a requirement for this . . . whatever it is. Still. I’d like to know.”
“Is this about those vow of chastity jokes? Because I really didn’t mean them.”
“Verity.” Dominic reached out and took hold of my chin, resting his thumb in the hollow just below my lip. “Most of the young knights in my generation have taken lovers as soon as they arrived in a new city. Others hire prostitutes to fulfill their carnal needs. All of them know that one day, they will return to the Covenant and be married to a member of a good Covenant family, to have children of good breeding to join in the cause.”