Midnight Blue-Light Special (12 page)

Ten

“Bang bang. You’re dead.”

—Frances Brown

The Meatpacking District, which is nicer than it sounds, inside a converted warehouse (which is a more pleasant way of saying “slaughterhouse”)

T
HE HIDEBEHIND GLAMOUR
that had once hidden the true contents of the converted slaughterhouse that held the dragons’ Nest was gone. We had been able to see the true structure of the building from the minute we walked through the front door. (This had been more difficult than I expected it to be, since the dragons’ overpriced bodega was also gone, and that was the only easy ground floor entrance to the slaughterhouse courtyard. Luckily, Mike and I had both been picking locks since before we could tie our shoes, but it would have been nice to have a little warning.)

The power still worked—that made sense, since it wasn’t like the dragons had ever been paying for it in the first place—and after flipping a few dozen switches, we were able to get a good idea of what we were dealing with: a huge, two-story building with a ground floor that consisted almost entirely of one enormous room. The gold that used to fill the place was gone, taken by the dragons when they moved to their new home beneath the city. The patched-together carpet was still on the floor, but that was about it. There was no furniture, and whatever illusion the building might have possessed of being something other than a part of the industrial wasteland had departed with the dragons.

Stairs led to the offices on the second floor, which were arrayed all the way around the edges of the room. The layout was left over from the original slaughterhouse design, letting the occupants of those offices look out on the livestock waiting to be put to death below. Charming stuff, and the reason I was vaguely afraid of being haunted by the ghosts of hamburgers past while we were staying at the Nest. A waist-high rail ran along the walkway to keep people from plummeting to their deaths, presumably out of sorrow for the cows, sheep, and other victims of the slaughterhouse assembly line. There were enough offices that we could each have one as a bedroom, with another to use as an armory, and another for the mice. Even after all that, there were easily half a dozen offices standing empty, and we hadn’t even looked at the basement.

The mice were thrilled about having an entire office for their Barbie Nightmare House. It must have been an incredible step up after being confined in a single closet. They had started arranging raiding parties as soon as I put them down. All the raiding parties were armed with tiny spears, crossbows, and swords. There would be no rats left in the slaughterhouse by morning, and the mice would feast for days.

It can be easy to forget that Aeslin aren’t cute Disney cartoons come to life. They’re vicious fighters when they have to be, and they’ve survived in a world filled with bigger, meaner, better-armed creatures by being smart and absolutely ruthless. That’s something else they have in common with our family. Prices and Aeslin always,
always
shoot to kill.

“Verity!”

“Coming!” I stepped out of the office we’d given to the mice, walking to the rail and looking down. Ryan and Mike were on the main floor of the slaughterhouse, piling my meager possessions—mostly weapons and clothing—around the coolers and gear boxes Mike had brought with him from Chicago. “What’cha need?”

“Do you own a bed?” asked Mike. He somehow managed to shout without sounding like he was shouting. Probably a skill developed to make it easier to talk to sea monsters who didn’t feel like coming to shore, but didn’t want to be yelled at, either.

“Not here,” I said. I sat down on the walkway, squeezing through the gap between the bars intended to keep us from plummeting to our deaths. Then I turned, hooking my toes against the base of the rail, and leaned backward. This resulted in my dangling about eight feet off the floor. Mike and Ryan watched this process without comment. “I left my bed back in Portland.”

“Got it. We’re going to want to pick up some inflatables, maybe a bean bag chair or something. Things we can carry in without attracting attention.” Mike returned to surveying my belongings, for all the world like I wasn’t dangling from the walkway behind him. I leaned forward again, grabbed the lowest bar of the railing, and tucked my knees, bracing against the side of the walkway in a sort of horizontal squat before letting my feet drop. “I think we’ve got enough food to hold out for a few days—did you know there’s a full kitchen?”

“I guess they couldn’t replace that with gold,” I said, hand-walking my way over to the nearest of the support beams holding up the walkway. It was like the monkey bars on my elementary school playground, only without as many yard monitors waiting to tell me that it wasn’t ladylike to climb. “Thanks again for helping us get moved in, Ryan.”

“Yeah, about that—it wasn’t purely altruistic.” The therianthrope bartender moved toward me as he spoke, lacking Uncle Mike’s skill at shouting without shouting. “I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

“Name it.” I had reached the pillar. I grasped it firmly with my knees and let go of the rail, flipping so that I was facing toward the floor. With this accomplished, I began climbing carefully down.

“Istas and I were wondering if maybe—what the
hell
are you doing?”

“I’m going to assume that wasn’t your original question. What I’m doing is figuring out the tactical shape of the room. Most of the time, if I can’t shoot something in the first thirty seconds of dealing with it, my style of staying alive involves being able to go up as much as possible. So knowing what will and won’t support my weight is important.” It was also fun, and extremely relaxing. I needed to relax. This wasn’t going to end overnight.

“Oh. That’s weird, Very.”

“I know.”

“Anyway, Istas and I were wondering if we could come and stay here with you. You know, until all this is taken care of. Kitty says we can crash at the Freakshow if we want, but Istas really can’t do crowds twenty-four seven. I’m afraid she’d take somebody’s head off. And then she’d eat it, which would probably get her fired.”

“You want to crash with us?” I grabbed the pillar and flipped myself around again, landing with my feet neatly on the floor. Then I blinked at Ryan. “You realize that if the Covenant finds out about this place, it’s going to be open season.”

“I don’t think any place in this city is safe now that they’re here. I’d rather be unsafe with you than unsafe on my own, and I don’t want Istas eating one of the barmaids without a really good reason.”

I glanced toward Mike. He put his hands up, and said, “Ryan already said he was going to ask you. I told him it was your call.”

“But what do you think?” I asked. He’d acknowledged that this was my operation. I could be magnanimous.

Mike lowered his hands, looking serious. “I think we need all the muscle we can get, and I can cook for four as easy as I can cook for two.”

Given that Ryan and Istas were both therianthropes, I was pretty sure Mike was going to regret saying that. This wasn’t the time to point that out. I turned back to Ryan. “As long as you can be subtle about moving your stuff over here, you and Istas are both welcome to stay.”

Part of me wanted to add “and so is anybody else who wants to come.” The sensible part of me—the one that understood that this was about to become a war zone—stepped in, and didn’t let the words get out.

Ryan grinned, relief obvious. “I’ll go tell Istas. Thanks a lot, Very.”

“Don’t thank me until you’ve spent your first night trying to sleep through the mice,” I said—but I let him hug me when he stepped closer, and I hugged him back with equal fervor. There’s something to be said for keeping your friends around you when things get bad. It may not be good for their life expectancies, but it’s sure as hell easier on the heart.

My phone rang. I pulled away from Ryan, offering him one last smile, and dug the phone out of my pocket. The call was coming from a blocked number. “Hello?”

“Verity, it’s Sarah. You owe me. Do you understand how much you owe me? Does your tiny, fluff-filled little head have the capacity to comprehend the volume of ‘owe’ that you now bear on your skinny little shoulders?”

I laughed. “Artie found the address?”

“Artie found the address,” Sarah confirmed. “Artie then spent an hour grilling me about why I wanted to know. Do you have any idea how bad I am at lying to him?”

“You’re probably the only cuckoo in the world who can say ‘I’m a bad liar’ with a straight face, you know.” I sat down on top of an ammo box. “What did you tell him?”

“That you’d explain later. About twelve times. And then I told him that if he didn’t stop pushing, I was going to start crying, and then neither of us would get anything done. He’s really unhappy, Very.”

“I’m sorry. I really am. But you said he found the address?”

Sarah made a frustrated sound. “I’m texting it to you now. You were right—the credit card used for the rental is registered to an address downtown. It’s an apartment, though, about the size of yours. I don’t think Dominic’s going to be keeping the entire Covenant there.”

“No, but he may have left something that we can use to figure out where he’s gone.” I paused. “Speaking of which, don’t bother going by my apartment. We just finished moving my stuff out of there. I’m going to see if I can get the Internet working where I am now, and I have cell service.”

“Wait, ‘we’?” said Sarah, voice going suddenly suspicious. “Who’s with you?”

“Uncle Mike’s here from Chicago.” I had to hold the phone away from my ear to keep her delighted squeal from piercing my eardrum. “Sarah! Volume!”

“Sorry! Sorry sorry, but tell Uncle Mike I say hi, okay? I’d ask where you were, but you probably shouldn’t tell me over the phone, so I’ll just beg you to be at least a little bit careful, and try not to get killed.”

“I’ll do my best.” I briefly considered telling her to get out of the Port Hope, but decided against it. No one who wasn’t attuned to her would be able to remember where she was, and much as I hated to consider it, that included Dominic. She was safest if she didn’t move. “Stay inside tonight, okay?”

“Okay.” She sounded relieved.

That made two of us. We exchanged good-byes, and I hung up. The little yellow envelope that meant I had a text message appeared at the top of my screen two seconds later. I tapped it with my thumb, and it opened, displaying a midtown address. According to the clock, it was almost six. The sun would be setting soon. I straightened, slipping the phone into my pocket.

“Hey, Uncle Mike? I think I need to go out for a little while. Can you get things set up here?”

“Depends. Are you going to go do something stupid that your folks would want me to forbid you to do?”

“Nope. And it’s not like you can forbid me to do anything anyway.” I smiled winningly. “I’m just going to break into Dominic’s apartment and see if I can find anything to tell me where he’s keeping the Covenant while they’re in town.”

“Oh, is that all?” Mike waved a hand dismissively. “Pick up some eggs while you’re out. I’ll make omelets in the morning. Also, write down the address and leave it by the door. If you’re not back in an hour, I’ll go over to have a chat with your young man.” Any “chat” Uncle Mike described in those terms would probably involve a crowbar.

“Sure thing, Uncle Mike,” I said, and turned to head for the nearest stairway. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it my way, and that meant that step one was getting myself away from ground level.

The dragons had been living in the Meatpacking District for so long that their renovated slaughterhouse was surrounded on all sides by buildings whose tenants probably had no idea what was in that sealed-off courtyard. New York is an old enough city that it has more than its share of odd architectural quirks like that, little streets that lead to nowhere, little courtyards that technically aren’t accessible unless you know the secret steps to get you there. I stopped on the edge of the slaughterhouse roof, looking around me as I assessed my position.

This was my neighborhood now. I might never see the apartment I’d been illegally subletting again. The thought was oddly sobering. Even if I survived, my time in New York was almost up. The deal I’d made with my family was for a year. At the end of that, I was supposed to choose between cryptozoology and dancing. I had one month left in my original plan.