prepared. I jumped, taking a quick step backward and almost falling over my own feet in the process.
Dave smirked slowly. “Is that guilty conscience making you uneasy? Ashamed that someone finally found the purchase price for a Price?”
“Fuck you,” I said flatly. “Are you done being a dick? I need to talk to you, and unless you fired me while I wasn’t looking, I have the right to demand my manager’s attention.”
“Why in the world would I fire you when you’re such a source of amusement?” Dave’s face vanished back into the shadows. A few seconds later the darks clicked off, filling the tiny office with dusty light. Dave was seated behind his desk, looking for all the world like he hadn’t moved in days. His sunglasses were even in place. “Come in, Verity. Tell me what’s so important that you had to leave the floor in the middle of your shift.”
“Carol’s been attacked.”
It was hard to tell if Dave’s expression changed at all. His tone certainly didn’t. “Is that why she didn’t come in this evening? I was wondering. Was it a mugging, or a home invasion?”
“Home invasion by snake cult, actually, and she’s fine, thanks so much for asking.” I slapped a hand down flat on his desk. “Cryptid girls have been disappearing all over this city—”
“I know.”
“—and I know you know about it, because you … wait, what did you say?”
“I said I know. Given that you just accused me of exactly that, I don’t understand quite why you look so surprised.” Dave settled back in his chair. “Whatever’s been going on hasn’t been involving my staff, so I haven’t really seen the need to concern myself with it.”
“Did you not once think that I might have wanted to know?”
“Did you not once think that I might believe you were behind it?”
I stopped, gaping at him. “You’re not serious.”
“True enough, I’m not, but you should see the look on your face right now.” Dave shook his head. “You don’t pay me for information, Verity. You could have come to me at any point and offered an exchange. Money, gossip, you dancing on my stage, I would have taken any of those. You never offered, and so neither did I.”
“You knew I was looking into the disappearances.”
“Yes, and I also knew that you were laying traps for the Covenant boy, but you didn’t feel the need to keep me updated on your progress, now, did you?” Scowling now, Dave leaned forward and drummed his simian fingers against the desk. “You can’t go through life expecting something for nothing, whether or not you believe that you’re on the ‘right side.’ The right side is the one that pays for the tools it needs.”
The urge to punch him in the nose warred with the urge to punch myself. I knew he was a bogeyman when I took the job, and much as I hated to think it, he was at least partially right. The first question any bogeyman asks when you ask him for help is “What’s in it for me?”
“Fine,” I said, after taking a deep breath. “You want to trade information?”
“Why, my dear Verity,” he said, scowl turning into an expression of predatory anticipation. “I was starting to think you’d never ask.”
Trading information with a bogeyman is difficult under the best of circumstances. Since gossip is their primary currency, they’ll not only try to get as much as possible while giving as little as they can get away with, they’ll leave things out. Little things, like the number of wendigo reported in a neighborhood or the exact species of the basilisks in question. It’s the little things that can get you killed.
Explaining how I was so sure there was a dragon under the city without telling him about Sarah was difficult, but not impossible. People mostly ignore the existence of cuckoos even when leaving them out of something causes it to stop making any actual sense. I just said I’d been “reasonably suspicious” after talking to Piyusha, and that I’d been able to find a write-up on the Sleestaks in one of Dad’s bestiaries. I didn’t tell him about the mutagenic properties of dragon blood, or that the servitors were originally humans. That was a piece of information that might be valuable, but was also dangerous; there were cryptids who would happily spike the city water supply and live off bottled water for a year if it meant turning the entire human population into lizards. As a part of the human population, I didn’t feel it was my job to encourage that sort of thing.
I told him about finding Piyusha’s body, and how the symbols confirmed that there was a snake cult trying to wake the dragon. After a momentary pause, I continued with an explanation of what had happened at Candy’s. I left out everything I’d learned about the actual relationship between the dragon princesses and the dragons. It was a valuable piece of information. It was something everyone had been wondering for centuries. And it was none of his goddamn business.
When I finished, Dave looked at me thoughtfully, and asked, “You took pictures of the symbols on her body?”
“I did. I’ve been able to translate a few of them, and I mailed all the pictures to my family for further translation. I should know what kind of ritual they’re trying to perform by tomorrow.” How many cryptid girls was that going to be too late for? The thought was enough to turn my stomach, but there was no way to avoid it.
“I don’t suppose you brought me copies.”
“I didn’t know it was your birthday.”
“Ah, well; perhaps later.” Dave drummed his fingers against the desk again. “I knew about the snake cult. They’re largely human businessmen, with a few more gullible cryptids thrown in to make them seem more legitimate. I wasn’t aware that their interests involved feeding my cocktail waitresses to a sleeping dragon. It seems like a rather frivolous waste of a cocktail waitress.”
“I’m sure the cocktail waitresses would agree.” Shaking him to get him to tell me what I needed to know would be satisfying, but it wouldn’t help as much as I wanted it to. “What else do you know about the cult?”
“That they weren’t trying to summon a snake god, despite being a snake cult, which struck me as odd when I first heard it. I assure you, this is the first time the word ‘dragon’ has come up in conjunction with their activities. Are you truly
“Dave, do you honestly think I’d be claiming something the size of Metallica’s tour bus was under the city if I wasn’t
“I don’t know.” Catching the sudden darkness in my eyes, Dave raised his hands, palms out, and protested, “I don’t! If I knew, I’d tell you. You’ve got enough credit, and hell, you think I want these people chopping up the staff? Kitty’s going to be back from her tour any day now. I let my sister’s kid get sliced and diced, I’m a dead man walking—and that doesn’t get into the cost of training replacements for all my girls. I honestly don’t know, Verity.”
I could argue with him, or I could let it go. At the end of the day, arguing with him was just going to make him less likely to do what I was about to ask. “Fine. But since I just gave you a whole bunch of really good information, and you’re not giving me anything I didn’t already know, I get to ask you for a favor.”
Dave’s brief-lived smile faded, replaced by a wounded pout. “Confirmation wasn’t good enough for you?”
“Not this time. I need you to close down for the night, and stay closed until we’ve managed to stop this snake cult. It shouldn’t take long. We’re closing in on the dragon’s location, and now that I have copies of their runes, Dad should hopefully be able to tell me something useful about the rituals they’re likely to be using to conceal themselves.”
“What the hell do you want me to do that for?”
“Until you do, everyone here is basically just walking around with a giant target painted on top of the tacky uniform!” I pointed toward the door. “They already went after Carol. What’s going to stop them from following the rest of the girls home? I need time to stop this, Dave, and I need to do it without being constantly worried that my coworkers are about to become Sacrifice McNuggets.”
“Fine,” said Dave, looking disgusted. “I’ll close for the night, and we can discuss whether I’ll be staying closed for the rest of the week. The week! No longer than that. I have a business to run here, and I’m not going to go bankrupt because of some stupid snake cult.”
“Thanks, Dave.” I flashed a quick smile in his direction. “Do you want me to help you clear the club?”
“I’ll just have somebody pull the fire alarm. That’ll clear things out fast enough, and it’s better than giving people a reason to talk shit about the health inspector closing us down.” Dave adjusted his sunglasses. “Now get out of here and go save the world, will you? All this talking with no nudity is giving me a headache.”
