Discount Armageddon

“We’re immune to our own venom,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Hi, Verity. I thought you weren’t on duty tonight.”

“I’m not. I’m here to see Candy—is she here?”

That got Carol’s attention. She turned to blink at me, even her hair standing at attention and directing all of its several hundred eyes in my direction. “Seriously? Is this one of those ‘if I tell you where to find her, you’ll walk out of here with her head in a bag’ situations? Because I don’t like Candy very much, but I’m still pretty sure I’m not allowed to sell her up the river.”

I rolled my eyes. “Gee, Carol, way to tell me what you really think of my loyalties. I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t even particularly want to call her nasty names. I just want to talk to her. So is she on duty or not?”

“Sorry. It’s just, well … if anyone around here could inspire you to homicide, it would be Candy, right?” Carol shrugged, looking sheepish. “Yes, she’s on duty. She should be taking her break soon, if you just wanted to wait here. You’re not exactly, um, what Dave would call ‘projecting a professional image’ right now.”

“You mean I don’t look like a Playboy Bunny? My poor heart breaks.” I walked over to perch on the edge of the dressing table, turning to peer at myself in the mirror. I was developing a pretty nice shiner around my right eye—I didn’t even remember getting hit there—and one of the only really visible scrapes ran down the same cheek. I looked like I’d been letting my boyfriend beat me up for fun. “You should’ve seen the other guy,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Never mind.” I hoisted myself up to perch on the makeup counter, careful to stay out of range of Carol’s hair. “So what’s been going on around here for the last couple of days? I am experiencing a drought of gossip, and demand the sweet rain of information.”

“Well,” said Carol, as she picked up her wig and resumed her efforts to stuff her hissing hair beneath it, “Kitty called from the road, and it turns out her boyfriend’s band isn’t doing quite as well as she expected, which I don’t think is surprising in the least, but she, of course, thought they’d be the next big thing. Anyway—”

I leaned back against the mirror, listening to Carol talk, careful to nod at the right places and make the correct exclamations of surprise when prompted. Bit by bit, she coaxed her snakes under the wig, settling them one row at a time, like a general trying to control the world’s most disobedient army. “You should get a beehive wig,” I said, without really thinking about it. “One of those huge bouffant hairstyles. Then you could just hollow out the center, so you wouldn’t have to squash your snakes when you put it on.”

Carol’s hands froze, eyes going wide and startled. “I never even thought of that!” she said. “Big hair is in again, isn’t it?”

“Not quite that big—” I protested, but it was too late; the seed was planted. Carol resumed stuffing snakes beneath her wig, smiling bright as sunshine.

“I’ll go to the wig shop after my shift. Thanks, Verity. You’re the best.”

“You’re, uh, welcome,” I said, unable to keep myself from thinking of those old urban legends about girls whose beehive hairdos turned out to be full of spiders, or earwigs, or other horrible things. How long before “and her hair was full of venomous snakes” joined the roster?

Oh, well. If you can’t actually be an urban legend in your own right, I guess inspiring one is just about as good.

“Slumming in the bestiary again, Price?” asked a snide voice from the doorway. I glanced over. Candice was standing just inside the room, arms crossed defensively across her chest, model-pretty features drawn into a scowl. Her shoulders were set like she expected a fight. Maybe she did. I had told her the Covenant was in town not all that long before, and now here I was with another bombshell.

I slid off the counter, keeping my body language as open and nonthreatening as I could manage. “Hey, Candy,” I said. “I actually came to talk to you, if you could give me a few minutes? It’s sort of important.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What could you possibly want to discuss with me?”

I glanced unobtrusively toward Carol, who was trying to look like she wasn’t watching this little drama in the mirror. “It’s sort of private. Would you mind coming up to the roof with me?”

“Why, so you can throw me off?” Candy demanded.

I bit the inside of my cheek and counted to ten before saying, very carefully, “I have no intention of throwing you off the roof, and if you’d rather we talk here, I’m perfectly willing. I just thought you might like to have the chance to decide whether or not to tell the Nest, rather than risking this getting into the rumor mill and reaching them some other way.”

Carol rolled her eyes. “Thanks for putting such trust in my discretion.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about.” I jerked a thumb toward the air vent. “You really think Dave doesn’t have this place bugged?”

“Good point.” Carol turned in her chair, half her snakes still exposed and snapping fiercely at the wig. “Candy, go up to the roof with her. If you’re not back down here in ten minutes, I’ll get Ryan and come looking for you. Promise.”

Candy still looked unsure. I sighed. “If you don’t think my information was worth your time, I’ll give you fifty dollars,” I said, picturing my groceries for the week growing wings and flying away. I could always make do with leftovers stolen from the kitchen at Dave’s. That was mostly what I’d been doing anyway.

“One hundred,” countered Candy.

“A hundred—Candy, I make the same amount of money you do! Less, even, since you get better tips.” She had an ice princess demeanor with a Playboy Bunny’s looks. I’m no slouch in the looks department, but my tendency to break fingers that “accidentally” touch my ass means I don’t tend to get the tables with the repeat customers.

“One hundred, or I don’t go with you,” said Candy, lifting her chin in an imperious gesture that telegraphed exactly how serious she was. Only the promise of money—all but irresistible to a dragon princess—was getting her to the rooftop, and fifty wasn’t going to cut it.

I sighed. “One hundred, if you think my information isn’t any good.”

“Deal,” said Candy, and unfolded her arms. Moving with quick efficiency, she untied her apron, placed it in her locker, and padlocked the whole thing, protecting her tips. She went through that ritual every time she took a break, and it had long since stopped being insulting; it was just another part of being who she was, a dragon princess surrounded by creatures that looked like her, but really belonged to another species altogether.

Sometimes I think evolution really didn’t do the totally human-form cryptids any favors. It’s so easy to forget that they aren’t like the rest of us—geeky, like Sarah or Artie, or maybe a little spaced-out, like Uncle Ted, but still essentially just folks—and start judging them by human standards. You can’t do that. It isn’t fair.

“Ten minutes,” said Candy sternly to Carol, and left the room, heading for the stairway to the roof.

Carol turned back to the mirror, her reflected lips mouthing the words “good luck” as she went back to stuffing snakes beneath her wig. I rolled my eyes beseechingly toward Heaven, and followed Candy out of the room.

* * *

Candy beat me to the roof by almost a minute—a minute I was sure she’d carefully deducted from my promised ten. She was more than ten feet from the door when I reached the top of the stairs. She raised her hand, saying sharply, “Stay there.”

I raised an eyebrow, letting the door swing shut behind me. “You mean, stay here by the door?” Candy nodded. “You know, it’s harder to keep secrets really secret when I have to shout them at you. Can you at least come a little bit closer?”

Candy narrowed her eyes. “How do I know you’re not planning to throw me off this roof?”

I bit back the urge to groan. “Because if I was going to kill you, I’d just shoot you, okay? Gravity is not my weapon of choice. Look, the deal’s off if you don’t come close enough for me to tell you what I came here to tell you. So you’ll have come up here for nothing.”

That, at least, got through to her. Candy took several grudging steps forward, until she was still out of arm’s reach, but at least close enough for me to talk to without shouting.

“Thank you,” I said. Forcing my body language to remain as nonthreatening as possible, I asked, “Candice, have you ever heard anything—anything at all—to indicate that the dragons aren’t really